Perranwell Station and Signalbox Chris Osment

23/11/2014

Can anybody help? Chris who has passed on this wonderful picture of the station and the box at Perranwell asks if anybody can date it. From the track diagrams of R. A. Cooke Volume 10 we know that the loop was closed and the signalbox taken out of use w.e.f. 18th April 1966. If you can date it more precisely Chris would be most grateful. Anyway, here is a smashing view of the station down platform and that very unique signalbox.

Perranwell station down platform and signal box. Copyright Chris Osment.

A closer view of the signalbox which sat astride a siding behind the platform. Copyright Chris Osment

3 Comments

Brian Pibworth link

24/11/2014 01:19:26 am

There's a similar pic in "Western Steam In Devon & Cornwall" by Michael Welch, with the same closure date. I use Perranwell from time to time and have wondered about the old pump located at the Truro end of the platform. Was it for the station or to serve the cottages above? In any event it would make an attractive addition to a model layout of a similar branch station.

Chris Osment link

27/11/2014 11:34:54 am

I am grateful to Roy for his info re the demolition of the SB in Sep 1966, I had not realised that it had been removed so quickly after closure. I know that the picture was taken on a 'summer holiday' in the Falmouth area, so it must have been in August or the latter half of July that year - but the year was the important fact.

'Overline' SBs were not unknown in the UK, but off-hand I can't recall another GWR example, at least not from the 20th Century - there might perhaps have been some long-vanished oddities pre-1900. I'd be interested to see a picture of the Carne Point box - any of them. Carne Point seems to have had an affinity with Wales - its second box went there (to Tonmawr jcn) and its 3rd box came from there (ex Cornelly).

ROY HART

28/11/2014 12:58:47 am

Carne Point boxes had a long and interesting history: CP1 was a GW type 5, on the up (landward) side. CP2 came along in 1920 along with a very ambitious new layout (scissors crossovers, signal gantries, route indicators etc). The box was on the up side, some way east of CP1. The box was type 27, 45 levers or thereabouts with the whole structure mou nted on steel girders. I think that the installation accompanied a big investment in new jetties; however, something was not right and the whole lot was pulled out in 1925 and replaced with a simple wooden ground-level box operating one point connection. This, the last box, was replaced by a ground frame in 1954.

Perranwell Station and Signalbox Chris Osment

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