Picture of the Day 12 October 2024

The picture (link below) shows the final shift change at Henley-in-Arden signal box, almost 14 years to the day before the bulldozers moved in.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/190687851@N02/53547761696/in/photolist-2pzQgYC

Starting in around 2006, I set out on a personal project to professionally photograph signal boxes that were in danger of closure along with the signallers that worked them. There was no intent from Network Rail to carry out such a socially important project, so if I didn’t do it, who would? Yes, occasionally, Network Rail would release a press picture of a signaller working a soon to close box, but these were invariably posed and about as realistic as a catalogue pose. The corporate caption was also usually just as cheesy – having been sanitised via the PR machine. My pictures, by comparison, were candid and signallers spoke openly about the job, without their words having been processed by the PR filter.

One such signal box was Henley-in-Arden and its two resident signallers Niasha Nugent and Bob McMaster. The 57 lever, although only eight remained in use upon its closure, signal box dated from 1907 and was a lovely box in a lovely location. The signallers took great pride in its appearance right up to the final shift on 22 October 2010 – the box closing that evening.

As with almost all the signal boxes I photographed during the period, I was allowed to visit anytime I wished – signallers always making me welcome, showing gratitude that they had not been forgotten and illustrating to me just how important it is to recognise the importance of rail staff, many who remain out of sight of the public.

Throughout 2010 I made numerous visits to all the boxes (Shirley, Henley-in-Arden and Bearley Junction) on the North Warwickshire route – photographing all the signallers at work, along with the lever frames, block instruments and signalling diagrams etc. The end result was thousands of professionally made candid photographs and unsanitised staff stories, something that wouldn't exist had it been left up to Network Rail.

Arriving at Henley-in-Arden on the morning of 22 October 2010, the day it was to close, it was a strange feeling knowing that it would be the final time I climbed the steps and opened the door. Niasha Nugent was on the early turn – when she worked the late turn, Niasha would often bring her dog to work. At 14.00 Bob McMaster appeared, ready to work the final turn and close the signal box door for the final time before the Network Rail recovery gang moved in to strip the box of any useful spares. As the sun set over the fields that were visible from the box, I turned to Bob and said “It’s incredible to think that within a few days, someone will put a JCB grabber through the roof above us and that all this will be gone forever.” After the signal box closed Bob transferred to Lichfield Trent Valley Junction signal box and has since retired.

That premonition came to pass exactly one week later. On the morning of 29 October a grabber swung into action, ripping the roof off and reducing the box to a pile of bricks, ending 103 years of Henley-in-Arden signal box and its semaphores. Looking at Henley-in-Arden station today, one would never know that the signal box ever existed – all trace of it being wiped from the face of the earth. It does, however, live on in the thousands of photographs I made.

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