Level CrossingsRunning across the Vale of York, the line had to cross many roads and tracks resulting in no fewer than 22 level crossings in the 22˝ miles between York and Market Weighton. Right from the start these crossings, which a century later were to play a major part in the line's downfall, were the source of considerable expense and danger. Many had gates, which opened out on to the road and with no protection left the track open to animals and trespassers. Horses were frequently run down and killed at Market Weighton and in 1851 a train killed a John Nicholson after he fell asleep on the Selby line with his ass and cart. The coroner criticised the level crossing arrangements and the YNMR agreed to investigate. It decided that in future gates should be kept shut across the road and opened on request, and to install a simple signal to warn of approaching trains. Consisting of a board on a swivel post, which faced the railway when the line was clear, and a lamp for use after dark, it actually survived at some crossings right up to closure in 1965. The practice of leaving gates open to the road returned, though by the early 1960's cattle guards had been installed to prevent animals straying on to the track. The above suggests
that the early laws on level crossings were not stricktly ahered to. There were five in the vicinity of Warthill Station and three in the parish. In the Parish were Malton Road Gates on the current A64, Crossland Lane Gates on the current Barr Lane and at the station itself. Just outside the parish on North Road, just off the Malton Road, were the North Road Gates and on Common Road to Warthill were Warthill Gates. There were one/two? railway cottages at each of the four non-station crossings for use of the gatekeepers. When there were children at Malton Road or North Lane Gates they came to school at Stockton. Part of the Station Master's work outside the station was going to inspect the Crossland Lane Gates and Warthill Gates level crossings. He was not provided with transport for doing this and so depending on the period if he couldn't afford a horse, car or bicycle he had to walk. CrosslandsLane Gates Barr Lane was not all that active in 1920/30s, and even into the 1950s was just a couple of wheel tracks with grass growing in between and was used mainly as a footpath. As there were no buses in Stockton you had to go to the Malton Road to get one. The railway crossing was always manned because of the school children. The villagers didn't use the trains all that much but they were regular and you could set your watch by them. The railway crossing gates were always closed to the road and if you wanted to go through you had to attract the keeper, by sounding your car horn. The keeper who at one time was a woman (or keeper's wife) would come out and opened the gate and let you through. 1851-
81 Gate Keepers Lodge George Wolstenholme 1940-50s? George
Clark and gatekeeper Will Thorpe Malton Road Gates & North Lane Gates North Lane crossing was not as quiet as the Crossland Lane Gates but the Malton Road Gates where the railway crossed over the road A64 were very busy. In 1938 or 1939 they built a bridge over the railway and did away with the Malton Road Gates. Building the bridge caused long queues of traffic to build up. Queen Mary, King George V's wife, was diverted through Stockton on the Forest along with all the other traffic, which was so bad that there was often queuing in the village; the queue this day gave the villagers a opportunity to get a good long view of her. 1867 Malton Gate John
Richmond Railway Labourer 1940-50s Mr & Mrs Tom Hall Crossing Keeper
Four heavy 15' gates operated by a wheel in the signal box 1939- 1945 - Herbert Stones some times would close the gates up to 5 minutes before he should have done. At the time there were also a lot of sand storms, the comer of the field near to Hazelbush would pile up to about two feet deep in sand, so it was his little joke to make people and cars wait. Herbert was a big man, and quite a character on the cricket field, he was the only man who hit a cricket ball for six into Swann's pond right over the road and into the pond. he. He lived in the village although he had once lived in the staff cottage owned by the Collinsons. 1939 - 1945 - Bill Clark Modernisation Level Crossings at the end of WWII had been unchanged for many years. Their heavy wooden gates operated from adjacent signal or crossing box, or pushed across by hand closed the road for several minutes, which caused disruption to road users. However post war plans were focused on modernising the signalling systems and the introduction of automatic train control. These thoughts were not new, in 1927 Frank Horler had presented a paper to the Institution of Railway Signal Engineers on level crossings in which he proposed an experiment using lifting barriers rather than conventional gates. It wasn't until 1945 that the Division General Manager of the LNER (North Eastern Area) put this proposal the Ministry for approval, which was given in April 1946 and included in Section 72 of the LNER Act 1947. When thoughts turned to unstaffed automatically operated level crossings it was found that the British public liked their gates and referred to the barriers as 'Continental Crossings' as if they were somehow immoral. To help educate the public and show how safe these crossings could be the first of these barriers were operated from an adjacent signal box. Section 40 of the British Transport Commission Act of 1954 legalised the substitution of barriers for gates although still operated by an attendant. It wasn't until 1957 when the Minister authorised in clause 66 of the BTC's annual Bill 'barriers ...........and automatic and other devices' that the way was opened up for the use of automatic half barriers. Warthill Signal Box Warthill Signal Box is a type NE S1a design that appears to date from around 1873, but as yet the method of signalling before this period is not known. Currently the date of building, frame design, frame date and number of levers is not known but from the details of other similar S1a signal boxes, Grosmont and New Bridge on the NYMR and Kirkham Abbey, our box was probably built between 1873 to 1876 and had a McKenzie and Holland lever frame. It is most likely that McKenzie and Holland built the frame etc. for the box as they were the favoured manufacturer in this area. The York to Beverly was resignalled in 1890 by RSCo. The conventional crossing gates were worked by a wheel. In addition to the level crossing, the box controlled the yard and released Warthill Road crossing, further along the line to Market Weighton. At some stage the frame was replaced - whether before or upon installation of the barriers is not known. Prior to this new frame, there had been a 16 lever Railway Signal Co. frame of 1890, plus wheel, at the front (window side) of the building; the new 20-lever frame and gate wheel was placed at the back. Block post sections were to Earswick and to Stamford Bridge in 1960. The original staircase to the box was at the road end to allow quick access to operate the crossing gates. They were still at that endduring the 1930s. It is beleived they were moved to the station end due to the installation of the new frame around the time the barrier was installed, Warthill Station Gates Warthill was chosen to run the first trial of a manually operated barrier because it was close to the York HQ offices, the existing gates were difficult to maintain and were in need of renewal anyway. The road crossed the railway at an angle of 30 degrees from the normal and the crossing was protected by ‘distant’ and ‘home’ signals. In 1952 there was an average of 20 trains and 100 vehicles per day over it. During 1952 the North Eastern Region substituted experimental lifting barriers for gates at the public road crossing at Warthill station. These barriers were intended to reduce the heavy maintenance costs of mechanically operated gates and two 30-ft. barriers, considerably reduced the number of connections, replaced the four 15-ft. gates. This was the first such installation in the UK. The 'official' opening date was Tuesday 23rd September 1952. They attracted attention from the railway press (and the Railway Inspectorate - see MT29 files at the Kew Archives). Each 30ft barrier consisted of a steel tube, 12 in. in diameter at one end tapering to 5 in. in diameter at the other and pivoted on phosphor bronze-lined plummer blocks carried on welded steel pedestals so that the centre line of the barrier was approximately 4 ft. above road level. The butt end of each barrier had a 1,500 lb. weight which slightly over-counterbalanced them so that they would rise to an angle of 45 degrees if disconnected. They’re positioning was such that if a road vehicle should run into them and bend them towards the railway, a train would trail pass them. Suspended from each barrier was a curtain consisting of light alloy rods pivoted at the top and linked at their lower ends so that when the barrier was down the gap between road and barrier was filled in, and, as the barrier was raised, the curtain folds inward so as not to obstruct the passage of road traffic. The barriers were painted white and the curtain black and white. Reflectors were placed at 2ft intervals along the barrier arms. A special catch, controlled from a lever in the signal box, detected and locked the barriers in the horizontal position, ensuring that they were secured before the railway signals protecting the crossing could be cleared. The barriers were operated through a rack-and-pinion mechanism via channel rodding with the connections being suitably guarded, by a conventional 3 ft. 4 in. diameter 'Quadruple Purchase' geared wheel in the signal box. To counteract the effects of wind pressure they worked in opposite directions, the effort required to move the barriers comparing favourably with that of working a normal four-gate layout. A 3 ft. diameter" Stop" board with 9 in. white letters, illuminated at night, was placed on each side of the crossing facing road traffic and controlled by a lever in the signal box. This lever rotated the " Stop" boards through 90 deg. so that they face road traffic when the barriers were about to be lowered and show their edges to road traffic after the barriers had been raised. Mounted on the posts just below the" Stop" boards were twin electric lamps, one which exhibited a red light to road traffic when the barriers were down and was extinguished by movement of the" Stop" board lever when the barriers had been raised. Before the barriers could be lowered the" Stop" board lever had to be replaced and this action provided a 110-volt feed through a relay impulse unit to the twin lamps giving flashing red indication to road traffic while the barriers were being lowered. When the barriers were down the final movement of the catch lever that locked the barriers also cut out the relay impulse unit, and the flashing indication was replaced by a steady red light in the right hand lamp at each side of the crossing. When the" Stop" board was moved to face road traffic a 24-v. d.c. supply fed a red warning lamp fixed to the centre of each barrier and also the floodlights which illuminated the" Stop" boards during the hours of darkness. These lights were displayed during the whole period of operation of the barriers and were extinguished only when the " Stop" boards had been turned away from road traffic after the barriers had been raised. The main power may have been by batteries, trickle-charged from the mains, rather than directly from the mains, with the backup by a hand-crank generator, often nicknamed the "hurdy-gurdy" (it had similarities) as these were standard methods for other outdoor railway electrical installations at the time. A standby power system (presumably batteries) would have been available in the event of the main power system's failure. Cattle grids flanking the roadway prevented animals from straying from the crossing on to the railway. (Something that couldn't happen with the previous swing-gate type of crossings). Wicket gates were retained for the use of pedestrians. The whole area of the crossing was floodlit by means of 300-watt lamps. Note that the barriers were hinged at the offside, which would have obstructed traffic already crossing as the barriers started to descend, and also there doesn't appear to be any stop lines for the traffic. The high-up red circular STOP discs being rotated 90 degrees are a railway classic; Brunel did his first railway signals in the 1840s exactly the same. Inevitably it was difficult to get them to stay turned edge-on when clear, especially in high winds (Brunel punched slots round the perimeter of his to let the wind through, which the designers 100 years later appear to have overlooked). Perhaps this is why they were removed before 1957. It is believed that the warning lights were built using standard signalling parts available at the time as the red signal heads look like SGE lens and other parts, the sun hoods and the style of supporting post etc, look like elements of railway signals from the time. The installation was over engineered and in the light of practical experience modifications were suggested by the MoT&CA in December 1954 which were introduced at Warthill in 1959, after certain requirements for manned controlled barriers were relaxed in 1957 by the MoT&CA. These included twin red road flashing lights in each direction, with black backing boards, a single red fixed red light on each barrier and a circular group of reflectors placed on a red target in the centre of each boom. The flashing lights were operated by alternately heating and cooling mercury in a U shaped glass tube. This caused the mercury to rise and fall which in turn made and broke the electrical circuit to the lights. The tube was mounted on a wooden board attached to the front centre brick pillar inside the signalbox. The original flood lighting was replaced by two 100-watt distributing reflectors. Of course if you had asked any of the station staff at the time the real reason why Warthill was chosen for this experiment they would have explained to you it was because Herbert Stones kept forgetting about the last train of the day. The introduction of the barrier attracted attention from the railway press and it also understood that Stockton appeared on BBC Television news at the time. In addition to the level crossing, the signal box controlled the yard and released Warthill Road crossing, further along the line to Market Weighton. Level Crossings in General. After the Warthill installation there were a number of level crossing experiments in the 1950s as the railway tried to move away from traditional crossings, the first automatic one with half-width barriers followed shortly afterwards. The modern technique with full barriers (as opposed to the automatic half barriers) is indeed to have two independent barriers for half the road each, the nearside ones close first and then the offside ones close after any possibly trapped vehicles can be seen to be clear. The possibility is that in the 1950s the railway engineers were not too well-versed in road traffic techniques and just designed a solution with the equipment spread round the four corners of the crossing. On the old mechanical level crossing gates operated by hand wheel and cable from the signal box, all four gates tended to swing closed together as well so it was probably not seen as an issue. Most of the crossing experiments gave more than a passing nod to the USA, where the automatic flashing lights and bells had been developed by Union Switch & Signal (and later others) from the 1920s onwards, including the well-known semi-mechanical wig-wag type, once they got outdoor battery-powered installations to work effectively (electric light signals on the railway instead of the traditional mechanical semaphore type were coming along at the same time). Flashing red lights at level crossings did not have an amber stage until well into the 1970s (nor indeed did their American or Continental prototypes). The SABRE (The Society for All British Road Enthusiasts) forum - discussed the level crossing in 2007 and some of their comments are included above. |