The pay is twenty five sous per day and he signalman is obliged to be there from day light till dark, at present from half past three till half past eight ; there are only two of them and for every minute a signal is left without being answered they pay five sous: this is a part of the branch which communicates with Strasburg and a message arrives there from Paris in six minutes it is here in four.

Her grandfather Colin Wall was a classical pianist, her father Derek worked as a railway signalman and then as a schoolteacher at Hatfield Woodhouse Primary School, eventually going on to become a headmaster.

If the local passenger train from Carlisle to Beattock was due to be shunted at Quintinshill then the signalmen at Gretna would advise whichever was working the early shift of this and the day signalman would hitch a ride on the local train to Quintinshill, thus saving himself the walk from Gretna.

Secondly the signalman at Quintinshill should have placed a signal lever collar over the relevant signal lever to stop himself from clearing the signal and allowing another train to proceed from Kirkpatrick.

Likewise, at the Winwick rail crash of 1934, an overworked signalman forgot about a train in his section, and was misled by a junior.

At the time, the train driver was not aware of the event until he was told about it by the signalman on the train's return journey at Fortitude Valley station ( formerly Brunswick Street ).

In 1947 his cartoons came to life on the stage of the Globe Theatre, London, in " Between the Lines ", a scene for Laurier Lister's revue Twopence Coloured, with Max Adrian as an eccentric signalman at Friars Fidgeting Signal Box.

The level crossing at that site is supervised by the signalman at the panel, but that at Sands Road, just outside Paignton station, is operated locally by the train crew.

On 19 September 1986, the signalman at Colwich saw that the 17: 00 express train from London Euston to Manchester was approaching the junction at roughly the same time as the 17: 20 express from Liverpool to Euston.

The signalman at Longforgan signal box stated that he put the mechanical starting signal correctly back to Danger behind the Dundee train.

It passed the Starting signal which, as far as the signalman could see, was still at Danger.

It was caused when a busy signalman ( Sutton ) forgot about a pair of light engines waiting at his down ( northbound ) starting signal to return to their shed at Carlisle.

Although the signalman naturally bore the chief blame for the accident, the drivers of the light engines were also at fault for failing to carry out Rule 55 which was designed to remind signalmen in this situation.

The signalman had not been alerted by this, probably because driving rain was being blown against the windows of the signalbox, making it hard to hear sounds outside, and because other engines were moving around the station and yard at the same time, so that the signalman would not have attached any particular significance to a train whistle.

* Thirsk rail crash ( 1892 )-an overtired and ill signalman dozed off and forgot about a train waiting at his signals.

* December 24 – The Hawes Junction train disaster in Cumbria, England, occurs when a busy signalman forgets about a pair of bank engines waiting at his starting signal and he then allows two trains into the one block section.

During the General Strike of 1926, Lord Monkswell worked as a signalman at Marylebone Railway Station.

Boyce was educated at the University of Manitoba, and served as a signalman in the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve from 1941 to 1945.

In 1821 Norwich Duff, a young British Naval officer, visiting Clermont-en-Argonne, walked up to the telegraph station there and engaged the signalman in conversation.

They were still waiting there when the signalman set the road for the down Scotch express.

The immediate cause of the accident was that the signalman forgot that he had moved the two light engines to the down line, waiting there to proceed to Carlisle.

The weather was misty, but there was not a sufficiently thick fog for the signalman at Charfield to employ fog signalmen.

This practice also ensures that, in case of a fault in the signalling system, an incapacitated signalman, or the unexpected entry of a train, that a train will never be shown an erroneous " clear " signal.

The tokens had to be handed to the driver of every train by the signalman, and in the case of express trains, this meant slowing to walking pace to secure the handover.

This accident also involved the LB & SCR signalman and was later judged to be partly the result of signalling error and poor communication, as well as the SER driver.

Cab radios, linking driver and signalman, were recommended and to begin installing public address system on existing trains that were not expected to be withdrawn within five years.

This allowed the signal box to be closed, the trains now being controlled by the signalman at until 1999 when this too was closed and control transferred to Colchester.

The driver, Sita Ram, was killed in the crash, so his testimony will never be known, but the schools of thought on the cause of the crash are that either the driver did not see or did not pay attention to the signal, or that the signalman in Samlaya failed to produce the signal, or finally that the wiring from the box to the signal was faulty, thus mislaying the message.

Regulations specified that only the stationmaster or signalman were to work the tablet machines, but it was common for both to be occupied with duties away from the station buildings, and it became accepted practice for any member of the station staff to work them.

The inquiry recommended that tablet machines be placed in the signal box under the sole control of the signalman, and also that starting signals ( which gave engines authority to leave the station ) be interlocked with the tablet machines so that they could not be cleared until the correct tablet machine was locked.

There was a mast at the highest point on the hill, and it would be the job of a signalman to keep an eye out for ships approaching the city.

After interviewing all the staff involved ( train crew, signalman and station master ) concluded that the fault lay with the driver ( which he readily admitted ) who had passed the signal at danger.

The raised design of most signal boxes ( which gave rise to the term " tower " in North America ) also provided the signalman with a good view of the railway under his control.

the signalman was charged with causing their deaths.

The action of the signalman in giving the freight train precedence over the HST with the faulty AWS has been criticised.

The accident would have been prevented if track circuits had been installed to detect the presence of a train ( or in this case the light engines ) on the main lines, and interlocking with the signals would have prevented them being cleared by the signalman.

However, between moving the two light engines onto the down line and accepting the express, the signalman had to deal with two up goods trains and several up light engines, movements which would require all his concentration to avoid delay, and make it easy to forget about the down line.

Where a signal box communicates with more than one other box ( in either direction along the line, and possibly along a branch line too ), each bell would have a different tone, so that the signalman could tell them apart by ear.

A signalman travelled with the daily train from Galashiels south and return to operate the still open boxes and operate levers for sidings etc.

the signalman was charged with causing their deaths.

The level crossing gates are manually operated by the signalman, and semaphore signalling is still in operation along with an original telegraph system.