Wrawby Junction is a busy

railway junction A junction, in the context of rail transport, is a place at which two or more rail routes converge or diverge. This implies a physical connection between the tracks of the two routes (assuming they are of the same gauge), provided by ''points'' ( ...

located a short distance west of

Barnetby Barnetby le Wold is a village and civil parish in North Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England, located between Brigg and Immingham. The village is also near Barton-upon-Humber. The population of the parish in the 2001 census was 1,593. This incr ...

North Lincolnshire North Lincolnshire is a unitary authority area in Lincolnshire, England, with a population of 167,446 in the 2011 census. The borough includes the towns of Scunthorpe, Brigg, Haxey, Crowle, Epworth, Bottesford, Kirton in Lindsey and Barton ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and controls the confluence of the

Network Rail Network Rail Limited is the owner (via its subsidiary Network Rail Infrastructure Limited, which was known as Railtrack plc before 2002) and infrastructure manager of most of the railway network in Great Britain. Network Rail is an "arm's leng ...

routes from

Lincoln Lincoln most commonly refers to: * Abraham Lincoln (1809–1865), the sixteenth president of the United States * Lincoln, England, cathedral city and county town of Lincolnshire, England * Lincoln, Nebraska, the capital of Nebraska, U.S. * Lincoln ...

Retford Retford (), also known as East Retford, is a market town in the Bassetlaw District in Nottinghamshire, England, and one of the oldest English market towns having been granted its first charter in 1105. It lies on the River Idle and the Chesterfie ...

and

Scunthorpe Scunthorpe () is an industrial town and unparished area in the unitary authority of North Lincolnshire in Lincolnshire, England of which it is the main administrative centre. Scunthorpe had an estimated total population of 82,334 in 2016. A pre ...

towards

Immingham Immingham is a town, civil parish and ward in the North East Lincolnshire unitary authority of England. It is situated on the south-west bank of the Humber Estuary, and is north-west from Grimsby. The region was relatively unpopulated and un ...

and

Cleethorpes Cleethorpes () is a seaside town on the estuary of the Humber in North East Lincolnshire, England with a population of 38,372 in 2020. It has been permanently occupied since the 6th century, with fishing as its original industry, then develo ...

. The junction was controlled by a large

signal box In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

of part-brick, part-wooden, construction and is now controlled from

York Rail Operating Centre York Rail Operating Centre (also known as York ROC) is a Rail operating centre (ROC) located at the south western end of railway station in York, England. The site is one of twelve that will control all signalling across the mainland of the Uni ...

(ROC).

History

Although the railway has served the area since 1848, the present construction is of late-

Great Central Railway The Great Central Railway in England was formed when the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway changed its name in 1897, anticipating the opening in 1899 of its London Extension. On 1 January 1923, the company was grouped into the ...

design. Apart from the part-brick construction, Wrawby Junction is of similar design to its companion signal boxes at Barnetby East and Barnetby West. All signal boxes were built about 1916 when the section of route between

Wrawby Wrawby is a village in North Lincolnshire, England. It lies east of Brigg and close to Humberside Airport, on the A18. The 2001 Census recorded a village population of 1,293, in around 600 homes, which increased to 1,469 at the 2011 census. W ...

and

Brocklesby __NOTOC__ Brocklesby is a village and civil parish in the West Lindsey district of Lincolnshire, England. It is situated south from Habrough, south-west from Immingham, and is located close to the border of both North Lincolnshire and North ...

was quadrupled to cope with the growing amount of freight traffic heading for the docks at

and

Grimsby Grimsby or Great Grimsby is a port town and the administrative centre of North East Lincolnshire, Lincolnshire, England. Grimsby adjoins the town of Cleethorpes directly to the south-east forming a conurbation. Grimsby is north-east of Linco ...

. As well as controlling this busy complex of routes, Wrawby Junction was also responsible for controlling the entrance to the once-busy railway sidings at

, and the locomotive depot. When built, the lever frame consisted of 132 levers, whilst later, 5 more levers were added at the left hand end (A,to E inclusive). Wrawby Junction was the largest manual signal box in the world to be worked by a lone signaller. Most other large signal boxes require two or more signallers. Wrawby Junction signal box is a grade II listed building, and closed on Christmas Eve 2015, control of the area being transferred to York Rail Operating Centre.

Accidents

Wrawby Junction has been the site of two fatal accidents : * On 17 October 1898, 8 people were killed when a passenger train collided with a derailed goods train. * On 9 December 1983, one passenger was killed when a goods train collided with a passenger train.

Wrawby Junction today

Modern-day Wrawby Junction is still quite a complex location, although changing traffic patterns have resulted in significant rationalisation of the layout. Once noted for its impressive semaphore signal arrays, the whole area is now controlled by colour-light signals. The locomotive depot no longer exists, although the eagle-eyed observer will still notice the old

turntable A phonograph, in its later forms also called a gramophone (as a trademark since 1887, as a generic name in the UK since 1910) or since the 1940s called a record player, or more recently a turntable, is a device for the mechanical and analogu ...

pit between the

and

routes. The sidings see little use, trains may be either recessed or run-round in the Down Reception lines. Additionally, Colas Rail locomotives can be found stabled in what is left of the goods yard sidings. Wrawby Junction signal box closed in December 2015 as part of the re-signalling of the line between Scunthorpe and Cleethorpes.

References

External links

Photo collection at Wrawby JunctionPhoto collection at Wrawby Junction

Modern photo of the signal box
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