Signalling
The Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway was one of the most densely trafficked and heavily worked of the pre-grouping companies.
Each year the system handled around 27million tonnes of goods traffic and carried 93 million passengers. A glance at a map of the railway will reveal its complex
nature, with many stations, junctions and goods yards serving the industrial heartlands of Lancashire and Yorkshire.
Its 600 route miles were controlled by 733 signal boxes and 138 ground frames. In the early days the L&YR used signalling contractors like most other companies.
These included Smith and Yardley and a signal box built by this contractor can still be seen at Milner Royd Junction near Halifax.
The pioneering firm of Saxby and Farmer supplied a great deal of equipment to the L&YR, including several different designs of signal box.
Other contractors used included the Gloucester Wagon Company and the Railway Signal Company (RSC), an organisation set up beside the company’s lines at
Fazackerley, near Liverpool, in 1880. This company produced standard designs of signalling equipment, including signal boxes, which were subsequently adopted by the L&YR itself when it set up its own signalling department at Horwich Works in
1886.
