North Eastern Railway Signalling Diagrams Dearness Valley Branch (eBook)

Description

The Dearness Valley Railway Company was incorporated by Act of Parliament in 1855. The railway was intended principally to serve collieries exploiting the Durham Coalfield. By the time the line opened for goods and mineral traffic in 1858, it had been incorporated into the North Eastern Railway. Passenger trains, to Durham, ran from 1877. In due course, the NER’s Dearness Valley Branch was renamed the Waterhouses Branch.

John Midcalf has redrawn large numbers of signal diagrams from NER, Board of Trade and other sources. To test the market for a niche product, and to make information more widely available, NERA has published this eBook containing all of John’s signalling diagrams for the branch,  covering the period from 1877 (when the first block signals were put up) until final closure in 1964.

For a line just under six miles in length there was a surprising variety of signalling, double- and single-track sections, two passenger stations and several colliery connections.
In this 58-page eBook readers will find not only signalling diagrams of all the locations on the branch, but also photographs, extracts from official documents, and even a diagram of the telegraph circuits. Not a signalling enthusiast?  There is still much of interest to be found about this short branch line, which may be traversed today as the Deerness Valley Railway Path.