PHOTO GALLERY: NORTH EASTERN RAILWAY
Goswick
OPENED: 1901 (?) CLOSED: 1982
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Goswick, situated on the East Coast main line in Northumberland, demonstrates the gabled-roof variety of North Eastern Railway’s Northern Division signal box architecture. Apart from the roof, there is little difference between here and the box illustrated at Milton, although to the eye they look so different. Indeed, if the suggested opening date of 1901 is correct, it may actually be that the box is actually a rebuild of an earlier, hipped-roof example.
John Hinson, 1978
In its time, the box had controlled a typical main line wayside station, with a decent-sized goods yard, but both the station and yard are long gone. It also controlled the north end of a short section of four-tracking through to Beal – these additional goods lines were (as usual in NER parlance) known as Independent lines. The Up Flying Scotsman came to spectacular grief here one Sunday in 1947 whilst being turned into the Up Independent line owing to engineering work.
The MoT’s report, which can be viewed at the Railways Archive web site (link opens in new tab/window), describes the box as “roomy and well arranged and contains a frame of 23 working levers and a gate wheel; the signalman standing at the frame faces the traffic” and the view as “uninterrupted for 1,456 yards to the overbridge, and is scarcely less good from the position in the centre of the box where the signalman was sitting on a chair as he watched the Up express approach”.
The original frame was replaced in 1960 by one of 26 levers, although taking into account the closer lever spacing (4″) of the McKenzie & Holland No.17 type, the physical size would have been less.
Several boxes survived into the 1980s on the main line between Newcastle and Berwick. Although the signalling had long been updated to Track Circuit Block with multiple aspect signalling, signal boxes were retained at level crossings and other key locations. Automation and remote control of the crossings saw the end of these boxes, and Goswick closed on 24th March 1982.