Signals at Worcester

There is still a colourful collection of semaphores at Worcester, with mechanical signalboxes at each corner of its triangular layout. As I have a lot of photos here, I have included a hyperlinked diagram of the city centre area and have split this gallery into separate pages for each of the signalboxes:

Henwick and Foregate St station area
Shrub Hill,
Tunnel Jct, and
Norton Jct - where the chord to Abbotswood Jct diverges from the Cotswold line.

I've also produced a short video clip of the signals in action with a train from Bristol being held outside Shrub Hill until an up HST clears the platform.

The northern end of Shrub Hill station, with a three-way splitting bracket signal controlling departures from the down platform and a signal with an old-style mechanical route indicator for trains reversing out of the up platform. The latter has been cleared for a train departing in the Birmingham direction.

The line to the left singles and goes to Foregate Street station and Hereford. The main line, curving round to the right, continues towards Droitwich Spa via Tunnel Junction. A further line, which forms the third side of the triangle, runs from Tunnel Jct towards Foregate Street. This also singles near the site of the former Rainbow Hill Junction. Since the latter's abolition in 1973, this line runs parallel to the single line from Shrub Hill all the way through Foregate Street and across the river bridge to Henwick, where these two lines combine into the double-track route towards Malvern.

The approach to Henwick from Malvern, showing the junction signal.

The junction signal at Tunnel Junction for trains arriving from Droitwich. The signal for the main line to Shrub Hill has been pulled off for an approaching train; the right-hand arm leads to the up Droitwich line to Foregate St and Henwick.

At Norton Junction a chord round to the ex-Midland Railway Birmingham and Gloucester line (right) diverges from the Cotswold line (towards Evesham, left).

For those not familar with the layout, here is a diagram of the city centre area, which I hope will help put the photos into some context. Just click on a signal, signalbox or other item to jump to the corresponding photo...

I have deliberately excluded various technical details to prevent the diagram getting overcomplicated. I have, however, included signal numbers where I know them - these are the codes in black on small white plates you can see in some of the photos. The blue numbers are those of the other main arms on the same brackets.

I've also created an experimental Google Earth dataset showing these signals' locations - apologies for the fairly basic symbology. This can also be loaded into Google Maps.

A great description of the Worcester signalling is now available in former signalman Matthew Morgan's great book The Worcester Patch.

More information about the 1973 rationalisation can be found on the Railways in Worcestershire site run by the Malvern Industrial & Archaeology Circle.