MANY Railway Magazine readers will have a fondness for the railways of Cornwall, whether as residents of the area or as visitors on holiday and other such trips. And what a marvel they are, with the main line threading its way from Plymouth the Penzance through stunning scenery, over impressive viaducts, climbing testing gradients, and having traditional branch line connections of the kind that have long since vanished from other parts of the country.
A large part of the appeal are the county’s traditional signalboxes and their associated GWR lower quadrant semaphore signals. What a pleasure to spend a few hours on the platform at say Par, for example, and listen to the sound of bells and levers coming from the ’box, the ‘zing’ of the signal wires being pulled, the ‘thunk’ of a signal arm dropping to the ‘off ’ position, and the expectation of what might be coming down the track.
Sadly, however, a large part of that charm has now been swept away as the manual ’boxes at Lostwithiel, Par and Truro have been closed, and their semaphores replaced by colour lights controlled from a panel at Exeter ( for more, see the excellent article by Network Rail signaller Craig Munday on page 36).