Mr. R. M. Noblston's Experiences as Railway Signalman:
What the Duties We Services: The Wrexham Stare His family in Shanghai have wel et atom Bie Rosen cee Nine undertook. the does University College,!
of a signalman during the general strike recently. He and several others in the same College volunteered to drives horses and carts, but, as thousands had signed on for thi work, the Dean of the Engineering Faculty saw the Manager of the Great Western Railway and secured them jobs as signalman after they had compressed six months' training into three days.
Extracts from the letter follow:—My last letter left me in a G. W.
train to Chester, after which a long gap, wherein' the aforesaid train, which to you must have been ill" travelling till further "news stopped its progress, could have reached that other grent cheese market, the moon. This letter will explain' the gap in my correspondence. As I've said, my last letter eft me in the' Chester train scheduled to arrive at 6 o'clock. It ame a trifle late; in fact we didn't arrive till 8.10. We there reported to the Station Master, but he didn't seem to be overjoyed to see us; in fact he seemed a bit dubious of our! (we were six) identity. Anyhow, we were shown up to the office, where rooms were booked for us, and where we were asked to meet the Divisional Superintendent at 10 the next morning. Our lodgings were at the Westminster Hotel, an excellent "place to live in, Pine grub, numerous baths, tons of hot water, airy rooms, and talk about seather beds, when' you got into one you thought' you'd sink to the oer? We lived on the fat of the land, even to ten at 7 in the mornin At 10 next day, which was Sunday, we daly rolled up at the office, but the "Super" hadn't turned up, 20 clerk gave us permission to give the Station the once-over to wile away, signal box at the end. We climbed stairs and crept in through! a window to be floored by the sight of 176 levers. When we came down there was a deuce of a hub-bub; the signalman, who was absent at the time. when we broke into his box, got the wind up, thought we were, Bolshies and what not. He brought us up to one of the Divisional Staff, who was quite pleasant about it, Dut at 11 the "Super" turned up and cursed us for entering a box without permission, especially "in time of trouble. We grinned and tried to Took pleasant, but it wasn't much good "arguing with a Divisional Superintendent in charge of the G.
in the Chester or Northern Division, comprising the counties of Chester, Shropshire, a part of Warwickshire and Staffordshire and a chunk of North Wales, quite a hefty area, After M—, the "Super," had cursed us, he cooled' off and was a Dit pleasanter. He outlined oar duties, told us where to go, and introduced us to a Mr. R——, a tock telegraph and railway signal-expert, who was to accompany some of us. He then gave us permission to shunt off and see the town.
The Monday morning saw vs bound in the 9 a.m. for Wrexham, vere our box was cationed. To Inthe same bax with me were ate Sher allege chap by sane an Indian of Bombay and Cambridge,! and Mr. R——, who was there to! tive te hapd' on the box was an SSsemuiy important onthe mort important inthe whole division, "We! toot te our duties ike a. ext Sake Gur section "consisted of 8 main up and down branch, two treading sidings branch fect chad ad's level sromsng, ite weal the whole worked by some! ips coal sumper, bt neve tess!
working of out box wae vital to! the Northern Division and the pro. signalman was quite a highly-paid worker, getting as much as £4 for an eight-hour day week.
T shall not go into the theory and practice of railway signalman, for HET ventured-so to do my stock of letter-paper would run short exe had. finished. Suffice it that the possibility of causing a collision by Inismanagement of signals, points or level crossings, is remote, as the levers are interlocked with each other. One could delay a train but not smash. it, The level-crossing gates were worked by a wheel within the box, but one could not pull up the signals to let a train through till the gates had been swung to, making the line clear for the train, and locked.
The first few days our duties were slight, as we were occasionally divert a hand by Mr. R—and the trains were few—but ten the first day. Traffic increased and by the end of cour tenure of office we had as much as 50 trains (including shunting), our day's work, Our day's wor's, by the way, was usually anywhere from 11 to'I2 hours. You may be sure we felt pretty fagged crawling home from the box, and this was one, in fact, the main reason, why is comparatively modern and is uninteresting. There is very little to distinguish it from any other town, but for its parish church and the huge square lower used in medieval times as a beacon of the marche: the place is dull and drab. 2 people of Wrexham are like all border peoples, a mixture of races on both sides of the march. They are bigger and fairer than the Welsh but have their characteristics and speak the language, What the good people of Wrexham excel in seems to be staring. Word had gone round that we were two Varsity students come down to work the box, and could not walk down a lane' without having all heads turned in our direction, The North Wales. mah does not give a passing glance but stops in his tracks and stares hard highly flattering but in many case: inconvenient and embarrassing.
Even in our box we were not left unattended, for outside was posted a lange picket of strikers whose duties seemed to consist solely in Joafing. They were all railwaymen avery exitieal ind they viewed our operations with, They were quite decent and not at all vowely, but they amused themselves with good humoured banter, We performed our duties so well that they had very little: to chaff us on that score, As the Shanghai papers must have told, the strike ended suddenly on Wednesday after ten days' existence, went out with alacrity, 'a problem to get them laymen in particular were reluctant to return to work on the terms which the companies formulated. We were therefore kept in our box for another two days till the railway strike was settled, when Wrexham had a local strike of its own.
A station-master, a po n of trust, had struck and the hai &N.E, R, refused to take him bad the local tinion therefore went bang, but this mushroom strike was soon, squashed. Our duties ended on Saturday and at 6.90 that day we passed our last train, We returned to Chester and put up at the Westminister Hotel, which seemed to us perfectly luxurious after our digs of the previous week. The next morning ut 10 we met M—, who thanked us and invited us toa dinner to be held at. the Grosvenor Hotel, Chester's posh hotel, at 1.90 that day. At 1.80 we duly tolled up at the Grosvenor Hotel and were surprised to find, what we expected to be a small lunch for 12, a small banquet for 20, After dinner we rolled into. room to hear speeches, in which of course we were buttered up.
The next beastly thing was settling. or rather re-settling, down to work. The exams. have been postponed a fortnight, but the i terruption to our work has been good three weeks. After the past fortnight's excitement and more or ess unacademic and outdoor life, everybody has found difficulty in getting down to tache, but we are doing. our best, under great difficulties though, for the last week's weather has been glorious and the and the fields has extremely strong.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.