Final signal bridge gantry set to move in £60m scheme

AN iconic signal bridge gantry, the last of its type in Britain, is to be pensioned off – to a platform on the North Yorkshire Moors Railway.

Scarborough Council's planning committee has given the green light to relocate the Grade II listed structure at Falsgrave to pave the way for the 60m modernisation of the signalling system on the approach to Scarborough railway station.

Dating back to 1911, it is the last cross-track semaphore signal gantry in use on Britain's mainline railways. After being restored in workshops on the preserved railway, it will be restored and modified to work at Grosmont station. Once put back up again the gantry – shortened by 5.6m – will be retained in operational use at the northern end of Grosmont Station, near Pickering.

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Coun David Billing, a railway enthusiast as well as planning committee member, said: "I have spent many hours sat on the wall at Westborough with a notebook in my hand so I am slightly nostalgic about the gantry but this does seem a solution which is probably the best."

The structure has become a casualty of a scheme by Network Rail, designed to provide a more modern, efficient and reliable signal system for the Falsgrave area. The 60m improvements include the replacement of the existing semaphore signalling with colour light signals, together with new points and tracks.

Council officials found that while the gantry itself can no longer be climbed, because of the poor state of the access ladder and timber walkway, the structural ironwork has stood the test of time.