RAILWAY COMPANIES & CONTRACTORS

A "Who's Who?" of railway signalling

Here is a list of all British railway companies that are known to have installed mechanical signalling on their lines, together with a guide to the contractor's designs of box and frame used.

Also included is a standardised list of abbreviations for identifying each company - these abbreviations are used elsewhere on this site.

Dates of absorption by other companies are shown in the right-hand column, together with hyper-links to the entry on this page for that company.

It is emphasised that the reference to designs does not necessarily indicate that the boxes and frames were actually built by the contractor themselves - in some cases they were built to the contractor's design by the railway company, or even by another contractor if specified by the company.

Many railways built boxes to their own designs, and a few built their own lever frames, this is indicated by the word "own" in the appropriate column.

Finally, below the main table is a list of railway contractors, with abbreviations and absorption dates, laid out in similar style.

Railway companies that were absorbed prior to the provision of signalling are not listed, nor are jointly operated lines unless a distinct signal box policy existed.