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When journeying northwards along the East Coast Main Line, you leave former Great Northern railway metals just north of Doncaster and find yourself in North Eastern Railway territory. In just a few miles you fly past this box - if you blink you will miss it.

Balne box is built to the North Eastern Region's final mechanical box design, used for new cabins built between 1957 and 1967. Comparison with Low Gates demonstrates how many features were adopted from the earlier flat-roofed type.

Balne was once a wayside station with small goods yard, but these are long gone. The box survives solely to control the adjacent level crossing. It is no longer a full block-post of course, but retains five levers of its frame to act as a crossing-keepers cabin.

All photographs copyright © John Hinson unless otherwise stated