A signal box on the iconic Settle to Carlisle trainline is celebrating 125 years since its completion.

It’s not often that you can be hands-on with a symbol of a rapidly disappearing analogue world - a world of levers, pulleys, wires and bells. But that’s what happens at the Armathwaite signal box.

Whilst most of our rail network operates signals and points regionally, using electro-mechanical systems, there isn’t a screen or flashing light in sight at Armathwaite.

When it was operational it was a case of pulling a hefty lever to move a physical stop or go signal, a design no different in many ways to our 18th century navy using semaphore signals.   

Most of the original portable artefacts were removed when the box was decommissioned.

John Johnson has been a regular visitor host for 22 years and can be found most Sundays between 10am and 4pm, regaling stories of the characters who operated the box until it’s closure in 1983. But this is no heritage railway, it’s a fully operational line.

John Johnson in the signal boxJohn Johnson in the signal box (Image: FSCR) Part of the attraction of Armathwaite is that you can stand in the box as normal timetabled trains flash-by.

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John is part of a small team who give their time voluntarily. Katherine Tuck is also a volunteer guide and ensures the conservation of the signal box.  

On July 16 The Friends of the Settle-Carlisle Line (FoSCL), are organising a celebratory guided 7-mile circular walk with an ascent of Coombs wood next to the banks of the river Eden.

This free event starts at 10.45am from adjacent Armathwaite station to return for 2.30pm.