Wrexham, Mold & Connah's Quay Railway

Opened: 1885

Closed: 1982

Location code: E54/22

Caergwrle station and signal box have had a few different names over the years, starting as Bridge End, then becoming Caergwrle Castle, and finally (after other station serving the town was closed) just plain Caergwrle.

The signalling on this section of line was provided in 1885 by the Railway Signal Company, and this box depicts their standard design, although the windows appear to have been renewed. The design is a direct descendant of the Gloucester Wagon Company's boxes - compare with Savernake High Level.

The duck, however, is not a standard feature!

Inside the box was a standard Railway Signal Company frame of 20 levers, most of which had become spare over the years. Mounted on the block shelf are two BR standard block instruments (one of which is nearly out of view) with a closing switch of LNW design between them.

The signals have been cleared for a Down train, and draped over the levers is the cloth the signalman uses to protect the well-polished lever handles.

Although the Down direction is generally away from London, the Great Central (who absorbed the MSL and WMCQ) policy was that Down was the direction away from Cleethorpes. Caergwrle was a long, long way from Cleethorpes, though.

The GC became part of the London & North Eastern Railway, which in turn fell, initially, to the Eastern Region of British Railways. However, the box has been so thoroughly "Midlandised" in later years that there is nothing in this interior view to identify its origins.

In later years the box functioned as little more than an intermediate block post, and upon the cessation of the heavy iron ore trains to and from Dee Marsh the box was no longer required, closing in 1982.