Westinghouse Brake & Saxby Signal Co. Ltd. miniature power lever frames and their signal boxes

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Westinghouse Signal Limited Chippenham England lever frame badge or emblem

The Westinghouse Brake & Signal Company Ltd miniature power lever frames

Above: The interior of Clapham Junction 'A' signal box, this was a Westinghouse 'L' frame installation, the day shots were taken on 21st June 1988, the night shots on 6th March 1989. These are reproduced by kind permission of © David A Ingham - more details about Clapham Junction 'A' signal box is contained in 'Style 'L' lever frame Installed by WBS' Contents menu box.

Predecessors and background Westinghouse predecessors included Evans O'Donnell Limited and Saxby and Farmer. Saxby and Farmer was started by John Saxby and John Stinson Farmer in the mid-19th century to manufacture railway signaling equipment. In 1920, Saxby and Farmer and Evans O'Donnell formed Westinghouse Brake & Saxby Signal Company Ltd.

The Westinghouse Brake & Signal Company Ltd was created in 1935 when the Westinghouse Brake & Saxby Signal Company Ltd, dropped the 'Saxby' from their title. For most of the 20th century, it manufactured railway air braking and signaling equipment in the engineering works in Chippenham, Wiltshire, England and Melbourne, Australia. The company's main factory was located immediately north of Chippenham railway station

Successors Westinghouse Brake and Signal Company Ltd formed part of BTR plc in the 1980's who acquired it from the Hawker Siddeley group in 1982. In 1999, BTR merged with Siebe to form Invensys. Invensys quickly split the company into Westinghouse Signals Ltd and Westinghouse Brakes Ltd, Westinghouse is deemed to be the largest signaling design and control engineering company within the UK. Westinghouse Signals Ltd is now Westinghouse Rail Systems part of Invensys Rail which in turn is a division of Invensys plc

Navigating the web site
Style Contents menu lists frame types by signal box in menu on the left. Miscellaneous signal boxes of interest lists 11 other Non Westinghouse power lever frame signal boxes. Miscellaneous other information contains signals, relays, track circuits etc. Updatelog (above) lists latest updates as they happen.

John Hinson's signal box web site comes highly recommended, located at www.signalbox.org

The Signalling Record Society web site is also recommended for research, located at www.s-r-s.org.uk

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Introduction

This web site provides information on signal boxes that used Westinghouse miniature power lever frames.

British Railways, London Transport, and their predecessors all used these lever frames, as well as overseas railway companies from 1910 - 1980. A few are still in use.

British Railways mostly preferred the all electric Style 'L' miniature lever frames, whilst London Transport preferred the electro mechanical Style 'N' miniature lever frames version

Historical information on signal boxes that used the earlier Style 'B' & 'K' frames is available, these frames were an important development of the Style 'L' & 'N' frames. Later frame development is also covered in the Style 'M2' & 'V' frames as used by London Transport.

Acknowledgements
I would like to record my thanks to John Tilly, David Inghams, John Cready, Henry Davidson, Graham Floyd, & John Francis, Neil Brady and Owen Smithers for all their help and allowing use of their photographs.

I would recommend John Francis book, 'Westinghouse - The style 'L' Power frame' by JD Francis ISBN 09514636 first published in 1989, and still available from John. I would also like to thank John Francis for permission to use material from his book and encouragement in producing this information.

Photographs copyright remains with the person who took them, you should contact them if you wish to use their pictures. If no contact address is given on the page, please contact the webmaster in the first instance.