St Albans South Signal Box - an Introduction and opening dates in 2010

May I introduce you to this relatively new preserved railway heritage site, now entering it's second year of regular public opening.

In late 1979 this Midland Railway box of 1892 finished signalling trains as the new West Hampstead power box took over this part of the 'Midland Main Line' preparatory to electrification of the line to Bedford.

Almost immediately listed Grade 2 by English Heritage at the request of the local authority, the box became somewhat unloved and by 2003 was in a parlous state:




The state of the box caused local resident some concern, and in January 2003 a Building Preservation Trust was set up to try and restore the box. In March 2006 a lease was signed with Network Rail for 25 years and work got under way in consultation with various bodies.

The subsequent work included professional underpinning of the rotten main posts and external redecoration, the construction of a new staircase and the general restoration of the exterior to its 1950s appearance:


Inside a new toilet was formed on the ground floor (the 1960s one at first floor level having fortuitously been blown down without damage to box or railway in a Dec 2007 storm) and redecoration undertaken by trust members on both floors.

So in 2006 six months after the Trust had signed the lease, the first floor looked like this:


The glass from the broken windows had been swept up but no other work undertaken. The frame is a 1906 Midland 'Tumber' frame of 44 levers by the way.

By mid-2009 the 1st floor was somewhat smarter:

as I hope you will agree!

A small simulator enables us to demonstrate a train passing through St Albans on the Up Slow line; a larger simulator is currently under construction.

During 2009 we had over 2000 visitors to the box - the feasibility study before restoration thought we'd do well to have 500 a year!

Opening in 2010
We are open from 2-5pm on the Second and Fourth Sundays of each month from April to September inclusive. That is April 11th and 25th, May 9th and 23rd, June 13th and 27th, July 11th and 25th, August 8th and 22nd, September 26th.

In addition we are open on March 14th, October 10th, November 14th and December 12th, also from 2-5pm.

On September 11th/12th (National Heritage Open Days) there is extended opening 10am-4pm, with additional attractions to the signalling demonstrations and small museum.

Light refreshments available all Open Days.

Location: Ridgmont Road, St Albans, off Victoria Street, about 200 yards from the Platform 4 exit of St Albans City Station. Parking immediately by the box is free when we're open, but there may be a charge in the main station carpark just up the road. Postcode is AL1 3AJ.

Entry is FREE - donations always welcomed!

See our website www.sigbox.co.uk for the latest information on opening days, a location map and information on the possibility of party visits.

John Webb
(Publicity Officer, St Albans Signal Box Preservation Trust)

 

Wow what a transformation. My congratulations and respect at all the hard work of the group. What a lovely looking box it now is.

 

Also, it's a bonus that it remains on its original site so that visitors can appreciate the layout (and the changes).

 

That does look good will be on my list of places to visit. Nice to see the attention to detail like the reinstatement of the ground floor windows, well done.

 

It's a very asymmetrical looking box, was it extended at some time?

 

We orginally understood that the right-hand end had been an extension sometime in the relatively recent past - possibly early 1950s - for a replacement frame. But we now have photographic evidence that the box has been its current length since at least the late 1920s. The existing tumbler frame dates from around 1906. So perhaps the building was enlarged then because the frame was expected to be larger than it turned out to be? (The frame was installed when the goods lines were converted into slow lines and extra signalling was installed for the handling of passenger trains.) The extension was useful for BR - the train announcer and train recorder was put at a desk at that end of the box where they had a good view of the station.

And thanks to all for your compliments. I am usually there on Open Days, so do mention your connection with this forum if you visit us.

 

From the MML it looks excellent - nice to see support from organisations such as the HLF.

 

The HLF, Railway Heritage Trust, the Architectural Heritage Fund and some more minor 'players' were involved - there's no way we could have had the work done without their financial assistance to the tune of over £100,000. The HLF required matching funding, mostly by costing the volunteers' working time - we achieved that in under two years.

Regards,
John Webb

 

Some pictures of the ground floor or 'locking room' (although it never contained the locking!).
October 2006, soon after we got into the box:


By September 2007 we had removed most of the down-rods, weights, cranks and pulleys to store and made a useful meeting area:

In this picture we were open to the public for the first time for 'Heritage Open Days' - not much on display except a model railway, track diagram and our first block instrument.



By late 2008 we had the new toilet downstairs. A partition had been erected to separate the meeting area from the one remaining bay of down-rods, just visible on the left.

 

A bit of an update - not much visibly changed as it's mostly 'behind the scenes' and not very photogenic. The Trustees of the Preservation Trust have drawn up a list of things to do, which takes up 3 A4 pages, so we're not finished yet!

We went 'outside the box' this weekend to attend the 'Retro-Herts Day' at the County Archives at Hertford. We had a good position just inside the entrance and literally caught people's eye as they came through the door:

The colour-light signal was put through the usual sequence of changes with a 'solid-state' controller - in keeping with the day's theme this was constructed from Meccano to operate microswitches

Round the other side we had a 'slide-show' of the box before, during and after the restoration as well as the second of two block-bells:

Just visible in the background is part of the stand of the Hoddesdon Model Railway and Engineering Society.
We disposed of 150 of our leaflets to the visitors - as some of these were families we reckon we spoke to over 300 people in total - another 100 leaflets were taken by a member of the Buntingford Railway and Local History Society who will pass them on to his members and others in Buntingford.

So we'll probably do other exhibitions but without the banner signal which is very heavy!

John Webb
(Publicity Officer for the Signal Box Trust)

 

Wow looking very good. I do like these signal box restorations.

 

Just a reminder that we are open 2-5pm on Sunday 13th June and again on 27th June.

Regards,
John Webb