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View Full Version : Archived: Tyne Yard Signal Tower, Gateshead – April ‘09



wolfism
16-05-2009, 08:17 PM
Basically a grand-daddy version of the Perth New Yard signal box which I had a look at about three years ago, before it was demolished. Tyne Marshalling Yard was one of the largest railway yards in the country, and this building was its signal box, which opened in April 1963. It’s a piece of brutalist architecture which, once again is why I wanted to visit it … with concrete floor slabs and frame, clad in a pukey-coloured facing brick. I particularly like the concrete balconies, with the concrete “eyebrows” cantilevering out over the verandah windows of the control room.

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Lower down the building are two floors of electro-mechanical switches in old-fashioned racks – state of the art in the early 1960’s, and at least some of it made by Westinghouse as far as I could tell. Very dark = no worthwhile photos, as I’m still persevering with using available light whenever I can. But if you imagine a couple of big dark rooms full of rusty racks, you’re there. The revelation comes when you reach the top floor, having annoyed many flying rats in the process, and squeeze into the actual control room. This signal box controlled the yard and much of the nearby mainline: split into two sides, north and south, each with their own control desk consisting of a giant “mimic panel” with a track diagram laid out. It doesn’t represent anything like Tyne Yard’s layout now, as many of the “roads” (sidings) were lifted in the 1980’s, when the signal box fell out of use, as a decline in the railborne freight meant the yard was drastically reduced.

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Similarily, electrification and re-signalling of the nearby East Coast mainline in the 1980s meant that this huge signal box was surplus to requirments, and was left to rot after it closed in May 1991… Since then, the roof has failed in a big way, and much of the top floor is open to the sky. As a result, the sage-green metal panels of the control desks have moss growing on them, fertilised no doubt by all the pigeon crap.

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