Totley Tunnel East Signal Box
Totley Tunnel East Signal Box, looking towards the tunnel
This well-known local landmark is the last survivor of four railway signal boxes in the Dore area. There are plans afoot to extend its life after closure. It sits on the Hope Valley line between Grove Road and Totley Brook Road.
As the railway around Dore changed during the 1960s, the signal boxes at Dore Station, Dore West Junction and Dore South Junction closed and were demolished. There was no longer a need for them as Dore station had become unstaffed, main line services ceased to call there and the layout of lines and points was simplified. Bear in mind that Dore and Totley station once had four platforms. There was also a five track carriage siding to the north of the station which was used to store carriages for extra trains at peak periods: this area has now been totally reclaimed by nature.
Incidentally, if you stand on the footbridge by the signal box and look towards Sheffield you will see three “countdown markers” with red diagonal stripes at 100 metre intervals. These are to show train drivers the distance before the stop signal before they enter the stretch of curved single line by Poynton Wood through Dore and Totley station.
Totley Tunnel East Signal Box from the footbridge
Totley Tunnel East box in railway terms is a Midland Railway Type 2B signal box. It was built in 1893 and has twelve signal and point levers mounted in a cast iron "tumbler" locking frame. Levers are painted in red, yellow, black and white to show their particular function. The black-painted frame stands out from the floor and makes the levers easier for the signaller to pull. This was especially so in the old days when pulling a lever meant getting many heavy yards of signal wire or metal point rodding to work properly to move the signal or points correctly. In extremes of hot and cold weather signal wires expanded and contracted so they had to be adjusted either to slacken or tighten them.
The "tumbler" part of the description refers to the mechanical equipment which ensures that levers, points and signals controlled from the box are "locked" until they are released. This makes certain that conflicting rain movements are impossible and that trains are spaced apart, don't meet head-on or end up on the wrong line. It also ensures that when the signal boxes on either side ask if a train can be allowed through, once permission is given the locks are released so that the levers work. They also have to be pulled in a particular order. Any old order won't do and traditionally signallers always used a duster to grasp the shiny steel handles of the levers. There was always pride taken in the cleanliness of the box and its equipment and there was usually a smell of black lead, floor polish and metal polish in the air.
In the days of old, the box relied on an impressive range of polished wood and brass block signal instruments with dials and block bells which rang with codes to describe particlular trains. The instruments and bells were mounted on the "block shelf". The block shelf still exists but now it holds more modern electronic equipment and an illuminated diagram showing the position of trains on the lines controlled from the box. These are between Grindleford through Totley Tunnel beyond Dore and Totley station and round the Dore curve through the short Dore Tunnel to join the main line to Chesterfield and beyond.
Wherever you are on the railway, the lines are usually described as the "Up" and "Down" lines. In our case, the "Down" direction is towards Manchester and the "Up" direction is towards "Sheffield". The single line through Dore Tunnel is both "Up" and "Down"!
Signalling today's railway is being revolutionised with the introduction of about a dozen Rail Operating Centres (ROCs) which will in time signal all of Britain's railways. Signal boxes started to be used in the 1860s and by 1900 there were 13,000 of them. By 1978 there were 2,400 and the figure fell to 800 in 2013, of which 500 are so-called "mechanical" boxes like ours.
Totley Tunnel East is expected to close within the next eight years as a result of the improvements and re-signalling of the Hope Valley line. Our signals will then be controlled from Derby and those on the Grindleford side of the tunnel from Manchester. At this point the box will become redundant and in normal circumstances would be stripped and demolished.
It is not a listed building so there is no pressure to retain it. It does, though, feature in an English Heritage booklet about railway signal boxes where it is pictured before and after renovation. Also, there is considerable community interest in Dore and Totley to negotiate with Network Rail to keep the box as a beneficial community resource. The Friends of Dore and Totley Station (FODATS) have already approached Network Rail to log their interest in a new future for our signal box. Let's hope there's enough local "leverage" to make it happen.
If you support this aim and wish to be kept in touch with progress then please contact FODATS: Dawn Biram at dawn.biram@btinternet.com or phone 235 6907, or Mike Peart at m.peart1@gmail.com or phone on 236 8100.
Mike Peart
Bradway Bugle
Spring 2015