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|  Woodlesford signal box in the 1960s. Note the footbridge for the gnomes,
a facility not afforded for full size passengers until 2010!
During the first years of railway operation through Woodlesford individual points and signals were operated either by the stationmaster or by railway policemen, whose role was derived from the civil police introduced by Sir Robert Peel. Hence the name "bobby" for a signalman which is still used today. For a time they were also called pointsmen. Until the telegraph was introduced trains ran on a "time interval" system with stationmasters instructed not to let one train follow another until a certain number of minutes had passed.
An 1870s plan of the brewery shows an octagonal structure next to the Down line and this could have been a signal tower for signalling trains coming from the Methley direction. These towers were known to exist on some railways but none of them have survived and there are few photographs.
Woodlesford's first signal box, or cabin, was opened in about 1872, although even after its installation it would have only housed block telegraph instruments and the points and signals would have still been operated individually. Cabins of a similar design have been identified all across the Midland Railway system.
The cabin was a square wooden structure and when it was redundant it was moved into the station yard to become a messroom for the staff, and at some point given the nickname - "The Bug Hutch" - presumably because it was home to a large number of "creepy crawly" insects! It survived in that role until the station building was demolished in 1970.
It was replaced by the Midland Railway on 23 April 1899 with a larger and more modern signal box at the end of the Up platform overlooking Bridge 238 and Aberford Road. With small alterations it remained largely the same until it was closed in January 1972. With its distinctive window panes and rooftop finials, it was also made of wood and built from standardised panels and parts which were fabricated at a railway factory in Derby.
Its main feature was a frame housing levers for the points and signals which were "interlocked" to
prevent the signalmen from making dangerous and conflicting train
movements.
The box had 26 levers, although not all of them were in use. Initially it would have been painted in the Midland colours of red and white which would have quickly been dulled by the smoke from passing engines. In later years it was given the blue and white colour scheme of the North Eastern Region of British Railways.
The drawings below, showing various stages in the layout of the running lines, signals and sidings at Woodlesford, are taken from official Board of Trade plans which the engineers had to have signed off whenever they made any major alterations.
Marked on the first sketch are circles denoting small turntables which were used for switching wagons and were orginally installed because of the constricted size of the station yard. They were replaced by points in 1892. The siding connection to Bentley's brewery was introducd in 1872.
The sketches also show the connection to Water Haigh colliery which was installed in 1909 before the pit started production. Marked in red on the first sketch is a "facing" crossover and signal from the Up line into the colliery branch which was never installed. It was Midland Railway practice to avoid "facing" points as they were more dangerous than "trailing" points and their safe operation slowed down traffic.
A change to the Midland Railway rulebook, as published in the Weekly Notices, 1913.
(National Railway Museum collection.)
However the lack of a "facing" crossover made it more complicated to run trains into the pit branch and in May 1913, a change in the rules was sanctioned. As long as there was a guard in his van at the rear, trains of empty wagons could be propelled, or pushed, backwards by engines running "wrong" line from Waterloo sidings a mile to the north, a practice which continued until the station, and the pit, closed in 1970.
The third sketch shows the final layout after the colliery branch had been removed in August 1971 and before the box was decommissioned on 25 January1972. All that remained in that final year was a single "trailing" crossover between the two lines, and that too is now long gone with all of the colour light signals in the area operated by a large signalling centre at Leeds City station.
Early layout including Water Haigh branch installed in 1909.
 1950s and early 1960s diagram.
1971, just before closure of the box.
Sketches and research provided by John Whitaker who worked in British Railways Signal and Telegraph department at Leeds for 18 years.  Some of Woodlesford signal box's window frames saved for posterity as part of a local outhouse. | |
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