However, we now gather there are plans to improve one of the surviving structures of the Victorian era by repainting and installing new windows in the signal box on Bigby High Road which controls the A1084 level crossing.
There have been suggestions over some years that the rail company that owns it is looking to remove the box in Brigg and control trains from the huge signalling centre in York, as now happens at Barnetby and Wrawby Junction.
So the suggestion that cash is to be spent on the cabin in Brigg is a shade surprising but welcome for those of us with an interest in railway heritage.
Although some signal boxes have listed building status, including those at Appleby and Wrawby, ours does not.
It was constructed by the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway on its east-west main line - we think in the 1880s.
■ Brigg signal box picture kindly supplied by Paul Johnson, Brigg rail line campaigner.
Old signal box today, windmill of tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteBrigg fails to sell its history; it does not exploit its historic past.
ReplyDeleteFor example, sign-posts indicate it's the home of Brigg Fair...all well and good, but Brigg Fair is moribund. In reality, it has been replaced by the travellers horse event, which is not the same.
Even any mention of the Brigg Fair seems to give misinformation and suggests that Fairs started in the early C12th when King John's Pipe Rolls (essentially tax records) offers info that Fairs and markets were common in Brigg, at least 25 years earlier...a generation after the Battle of Hastings.
There's little about town to highlight that the town was a Bronze Age settlement- what info is available about the Civil War skirmish in the Market Place, or Briggs association with the Gunpowder Plot?
Brigg is a small town with a disproportionate amount of historical events and associations.
Yet no-one wants to exploit them - even the known Bronze Age trackway over the Ancholme Valley - something on par to the trackway of Flagg Fen in Norfolk.
Now we have the opportunity to save a structure that could become an interesting structures of the future...thd signal box and the associated symaphone signals on the railway lines.
Could the box be dismantled and rebuilt on the grassy area of the Angel car-park? Barnetby/Brawny Junction is already a great magnet for rail spotters...folks travel miles to visit Barnett, which is said to be one of the best sites for train spotting.
Let's create the idea that Brigg is willing and able to promote its own ancient and modern history......in lieu of suggesting that the only history that Brigg has is a now non-existent fair and some connection to Delius....the town has much more and potentially a massive compendium of significant historical direct associations....
The box is not closing x
DeleteThis is not true it's not having new windows it's having a lick of paint inside and a new door and the new door is only because of healthy and safety issues .. I'm trying to get the outside sorted but this is unlikely to happen in the near future as the box is to close to the line and requires the lines to have full possessions which is an expensive task all round .. it is however having the starlets painted but only because that can be done without any disruption to the running line .... I can confirm though that the box is not closing or being resignalled from york it's staying open until at least 2029
ReplyDeleteInteresting....it was officially indicated that it was to close in the near future...when the old, nearby semaphore signals were replaced by modern lights.
ReplyDelete#Sam, can you say in what capacity your info can verified, as it contradicts much of the info that was published some years ago, ta.
Kingfisher Engineering reported in Jan 16 the eventual closure of local SB's and the remote signalling from a control centre in York.
ReplyDeleteIn 2013, Brigg TC debated the imminent closure of Brigg Signal Box following official comments from rail companies....it was proposed to close in 2016.....somebody called Stuff commented on Brigg Blog that the date had been deferred to 2019.
So what us the truth?
In addition, National Rail were inviting interested parties to make bids to purchase local SBs.
ReplyDelete#Sam....can you say in what official capacity you are making these claims, please. It would be very useful to know. Thanks.
ReplyDeleteyes ken I can ... I am the resident signaller at Brigg SB and I was due to be relocated to a new position but I am now staying as the box is staying
ReplyDeletecheers Sam
(one happy signaller )
it was put back to 2019 that is correct Ken ....but now has been put back to 2029 in line with KLS Northorpe and Central
ReplyDelete