OLD PLYMOUTH . UK
www.oldplymouth.uk
 

©  Brian Moseley, Plymouth
Webpage created: April 06, 2018
Webpage updated: April 06, 2018

        

RAILWAYS IN OLD PLYMOUTH  |  BRANCH LINE, LAIRA JUNCTION TO SUTTON HARBOUR AND NORTH QUAY (SDR/GWR/BRWR)

SUTTON ROAD LEVEL CROSSING SIGNAL BOX (GWR/BRWR)

The late Larry Crosier tells us that a box named North Quay Signal Box appeared in the working time table for 1884 but he correctly points out North Quay belonged to the Sutton Harbour Improvement Board who are unlikely to have owned or run the Box.  It is assumed that the reference actually refers to the Sutton Road Level Crossing Box, which gave access to North Quay.

The Box was was apparently ordered by the Great Western Railway Company in 1912 and appears on the Ordnance Survey map surveyed in that year and published in 1914.

It measured just 12 feet 4 inches square and contained four levers and a wheel to open and close the crossing gates across Sutton Road.  It controlled two Home signals, either side of the Gates, and a Down Starting Signal at the entrance to North Quay, which was interlocked with a similar one controlled by the London and South Western Railway's Sutton Road Level Crossing Signal Box.  The signalling regulations stated that 'When a Great Western engine enters upon the Wharf lines, the Great Western signal arm must be kept at "All right" until the engine returns, and in like manner when a Southern Railway engine enters upon the Wharf lines, the Southern Railway Signal must be kept at "All right" until the engine returns'.

It was never a block post.

Sutton Road Level Crossing Signal Box was officially closed on or as from May 6th 1956.

  With grateful acknowledgement to the late Mr Laurence 'Larry' William Crosier (1929-2010) of the Great Western Railway Company (1943-1947);
British Railways (1948-c1994); the Plymouth Railway Circle, the Lee Moor Tramway Preservation Society, and the Signalling Record Society.