Journal 58 — Summer 2015

Table of Contents

  • Some Notes On Ravenstone Wood Junction / By Robin Cullup
  • The Hazel Grove Chord / By John Gough
  • Mail On The Midland Railway And Its Constituents, 1840–1875: Part 1 / By John Soer
  • Foreigners
  • Query Corner
  • Comments on Items in Previous Journals
  • Front cover

    Front cover

    This view of the signal box at Ravenstone Wood Junction was taken by John Evans on 29th March 1966 from the down side of the box. It shows the steps, the window to the locking room and, through the widows, the twenty levers inside the box, all in remarkably good condition some two years after the box had closed on 27th July 1964.

    Several Train Registers from this box have survived, and four of them were recently bought by two of our members. The information from these four is the basis of the article by Robin Cullup that we publish in this issue. We are very fortunate that a few of these routine and mundane documents have been rescued by far-sighted individuals, for they show part of how the railway was actually operated then, sometimes conforming to, and sometimes diverging from, official plans.

    [Courtesy of John Evans]

  • Rear cover

    Rear cover

    How different it was then!

    Our back cover reproduces a letter, dated 27th February 1911, from the General Manager’s Department to a Mr. Rigbye, of Carlisle, in reply to Mr. Rigbye’s enquiry concerning the Midland Railway’s coat of arms. Not only is this letter carefully composed, but it is signed personally by the General Manager himself, W. Guy Granet. I would be extremely surprised if such a simple enquiry to one of our top FTSE companies received a reply at all, let alone one that had enough attention from the Chief Executive as to have a personal signature.

    Mr. Rigbye was persistent. The Study Centre also contains a companion letter from the General Manager’s Department replying to his questions concerning the coats of arms of the Dore & Chinley section of the MR (RFBMCT No. 21311; 5th February 1914). In addition,there is one from the Manager’s Office at Fenchurch Street concerning Rigbye’s query about the London, Tilbury & Southend Railway (RFBMCT No. 21309; 26th February 1914), and another from the Manager’s Office, Belfast, in reply to a similar question about the Northern Counties Committee (RFBMCT No. 21310; 6th February 1914).

    [Roy F. Burrows Midland Collection Trust, No. 21308: Midland Railway Study Centre]