AN INTERESTING DAY AT HORBURY JN SIGNAL BOX
I spent an interesting Sunday at Horbury Jn. Signalbox, in BR days, helping to test the signalling alterations when the line was dequadrified between there and Healey Mills (West end.)

The scheme also removed the side of the triangular junction between HM west end, and Crigglestone on the Barnsley line. This had latterly been used for moving coal from Woolley Colliery rapid loading bunker - an expensive development that closed long before the bulk of the Yorkshire coalfield.

The redundant side of the triangle was severed at the Healey Mills end, but left as a dead end siding, connected only at Crigglestone. The signalbox at the latter junction was left switched out for through running between Barnsley & Wakefield. In this form, the short stretch of former triangle continued for some while in its more secretive role, as an overnight bolthole for the Royal Train. Crigglestone Jn signalbox was opened as required for this, but the dead ending required stabled trains to be "topped and tailed" with two locomotives.

HM still controls that part of the transpennine route between Thornhill and Heaton Lodge junctions (inclusive). Huddersfield resignalling created an opportunity to transfer this section away from Healey Mills control, but this occasionally-mooted change never happened.

Further work was found for Healey Mills in 1998? when the mothballed Bradley curve was reinstated, as part of a WYPTE scheme to bring back a Huddersfield to Halifax passenger service. Bradley Junction was part of Heaton Lodge Jn. remote interlocking. By then, I was working for Railtrack as a Design & Construction Engineer (Signalling) and Huddersfield to Halifax was one of my projects. We had to commission a Layout Risk study, which resulted in facing traps and a Sand drag being fitted at Bradley Jn.

I escorted the HMRI Inspecting Officer round parts of the completed scheme, including Healey Mills signalbox. This was to demonstrate the abominable state of the control panel, which by then had numerous paper overlays. I'm delighted to learn that Network Rail have been allowed by the SRA, to progress the renewal of the panel, and the equally clapped-out relay interlocking.

Source: by Paul Hepworth, Signal Engineer, York.