Maidstone East signal box

Maidstone East signal box was opened by British Railways on 8th April 1962 . It was built to the British Railways Southern Region Type 18 design and was fitted with a 47 lever with its Westinghouse Brake & Signal Co. Ltd. Style 'L' Power Lever Frame. It was located 46 yards west of the original Maidstone East signal box it replaced.

This box is still open {February 2009}; the frame still controls station area.
(This one and Liverpool Lime Street are the last two 'L' style lever frames working on Network Rail.)

Views of Maidstone East brick built signalbox above by kind permission of © David A Ingham seen here on the 7th March 1989.

The frame is a Westinghouse Style 'L' Power Frame which is all electrically locked. The frame was formed of 4 x 12 way section which making a total of 47 levers, {4x12}-1 = 47 levers, as the last “lever” space is unavailable. 12 of these levers worked the points, 25 signal levers operated the coloured light signals, there were two special levers and 8 spare levers when the frame was supplied and installed. This made the working lever total of 39.

The Westinghouse Brake & Signal Co. Ltd lever frame, with its indicators behind the levers, the 4 glass roundels showed the signal aspect, being Red, Yellow, Green reading from bottom to top. The top indicator behind the signal lever is the "F" light and this became lit when the lever was normal, all points in the route correctly detected and all relevant track circuits clear. You could pull the lever at any time provided that the locking was correct but the signal would not clear unless the "F" light was lit before the lever was pulled.

The train describers are built into the NX Panel Emergency bell plungers are provided next to adjacent signal boxes, again built into the NX Panel. Panel 1 was added on December 18th 1983 to control Borough Green to Maidstone East. Pictures by kind permission of © David A Ingham on the 7th March 1989.

Pictured above is a closeup detail of part of the frame showing the Sykes full bock instrument to Bearsted Station, which in this case release lever 26 the advance starting signal at Maidstone East. This was taken before the NX panel was added.

Maidstone East miniature lever frames still needed block instruments for working with adjacent semaphore signal boxes. To achieve this new miniature Sykes instruments were installed into the 'console' panelling. The tablets and treadles of these instruments did not drop with the 'Thud' of their normal counterparts, and were therefore referred to as the 'Silent Sykes' block instruments.

A ML Engineering entrance-exit panel was installed in 1983 to replace West Malling and Wrotham signal boxes, was extended on 14th April 1984 to replace Bearsted and Hollingbourne, and was further extended on 28th April 1984 to replace Lenham and Charing signal boxes. It is still operational with Network Rail. Picture by kind permission of © David A Ingham on the 7th March 1989.

The last picture is a sideways on picture of the lever frame; picture by kind permission of © David A Ingham on the 7th March 1989.

Adjacent boxes
To the West,
Barming signal box (2m 548yds away) was the adjacent signal box until 25/04/1982 when
West Malling signal box (5m 304yds away) became the adjacent signal box.
On 16/12/1983 West Malling was closed and Victoria Signalling Centre became the adjacent signal box.

To the East,
Bearsted signal box (2m 1306yds away) was the adjacent signal box
until
14/04/1984 when Bearsted was closed and Lenham signal box (9m 339yds away) became the adjacent signal box.
On 28/04/1984 Lenham was closed and Hothfield (15m 1539yds away) became the adjacent signal box.
On 16/02/1985 Hothfield was closed and Ashford signal box (19m 861yds) became the adjacent signal box.

Ashford signal box was closed (I think on 10/12/1995, but I am not quite sure) and Ashford Integrated Electric Control Centre became the adjacent signal box.

Boxes Replaced
“Boxes displaced” by the original L frame was only the previous Maidstone East mechanical box, 39 levers. (This scheme arose to turn the middle siding into a running loop, but adjacent boxes were not closed for another 20 years or so.)

The serial number of this frame was L157 , but the frame is in fact the one used in the temporary box at Cannon Street in 1957, which was part of the WW2 contingency stock. It was refurbished at WBSCo and hence given a new serial number. (The last serial number!)