Railway families celebrate 'strong bonds' between signallers as Peterborough Power Signal Box closes

Peterborough’s Power Signal Box has closed after more than half a century of operation.

Signallers began directing trains from the box in the 1970s but this will now be done from York’s remote operating centre in anticipation of a new, digital system.

The closure, in the last week of August, has prompted fond memories of the box from the families of former rail workers.

Julie Watkins remembers visiting her Dad, Dennys Watkins, at work in the box, saying that “even today, signal boxes evoke good memories of my childhood”.

Mr Watkins was one of the first people to work in it when it opened in 1972, she continued, and formed a “strong bond” with the eleven other men who worked signal box shifts.

The way signalling works has remained largely unchanged since then: workers in the box set routes for trains passing through a particular area, ensuring they’re a safe distance apart and heading to the correct station, using train timetables and a panel, pictured, to communicate.

Smaller signalling boxes were, though, replaced by the larger ‘Power Box’ in the late '70s, located near Peterborough Railway Station.

Towards the beginning of his career, Mr Watkins worked at some of the smaller boxes, such as those at Werrington Junction, Fletton Junction and Eastfield before transferring to the central Peterborough box, Ms Watkins said.

She remembers that, shortly after the transfer, her father was “commended along with colleagues for quick action when runaway wagons threatened to cause an accident”.

She also recalls a prank her father and his father, a fellow signalman, would play on her grandmother with their knowledge of Morse Code, which those in the profession were required to learn to communicate with between boxes.

“My Dad would regularly visit his parents for a cup of tea with them,” she said.

“Dad and Grandad were in the habit of communicating with each other in Morse Code using teaspoons and the edge of the cup. It infuriated my grandmother as she didn't understand what they were discussing between themselves!”

Sadly, Mr Watkins died in 1981, aged 51, of cancer, just a week after he was presented with a long-service award for 37 years at the railway.

“On the day of Dad's funeral, the trains were kept running by the minimum staffing possible of three – the other seven were at my Dad's funeral,” Ms Watkins said.

Mr Wakins joined the railway industry aged 14 as a ‘box boy’ at the Crescent Junction signal box before becoming a fully qualified signalman.

Alongside his brother Bill, he was a fourth generation rail worker with his father working at the signal boxes in New England and living in one of the Great Northern Railway cottages which were eventually demolished to make way for Bourges Boulevard.

His grandfather, Jacob Cliffe, was a steam train fireman, Ms Watkins says, while his great-grandfather was a railway labourer in Peterborough in the mid-1800s.

Mr Watkins only ever left the business to complete National Service with the Royal Navy, remaining a railway man for the rest of his life.

Lasting friendships between signallers have persisted at Peterborough’s Power Signal Box.

Its final operations manager, Gavin Radford, said that “there’s always been a family atmosphere working in the power box.”

“We know each other on a personal level. In all the 50 years, people have always referred to this as being a happy place to work.”

The final trains passed through Peterborough’s Power Signal Box between Saturday, 26th and Monday, 28th of August.

The new digital system, part of the £1bn East Coast Digital Programme, is expected to be completed in 2025.