PHOTO GALLERY: NORTH BRITISH RAILWAY
Cardrona
OPENED: 1895 CLOSED: 1962
Click or tap the images for enlarged views
Apart from the large contract for the West Highland Extension line (see Banavie), opened in 1901, the Railway Signal Company achieved little work with the North British Railway, or any other Scottish railway company come to that.
John Hinson, c1980
Cardrona was one of the four known examples on the line, and is the only one to survive. It was in a pretty perilous state when I photographed it, but fortunately it has since been restored, along with the adjacent station building.
With a quarter of a century’s undergrowth obscuring so much, some explanation is needed. It is a standard Railway Signal Company signal box (trust me!), in single-storey form designed to be at ground level – but here it is mounted at platform level. Literally level with the far end of the signal box is the start of the platform ramp and at the end of that was the level crossing the cabin was responsible for.
The box, which was never other than a gate-keepers cabin in status, was provided with a Stevens & Sons Glasgow-type Dwarf frame, specifically of the “push-down” type according to the records – which I assume indicates the rodding drives downwards to ground level rather than outwards horizontally which is usually necessary when this type of frame is used at ground level.
The entire line closed in 1962.