The team at Epping Ongar Railway were delighted to welcome their “new” signalbox for Ongar, another step towards the exciting re-opening of the Essex branch.
The top half of the signalbox was lifted from its site at Managapps Farm Railway Museum in Burnham on Crouch and transported through Chelmsford to Ongar, with the operations arranged by the experts in ADT Group, and undertaken by Emerson Crane Hire.
The signalbox is an original Great Eastern building, built in the 1880’s, and originally signaled steam trains at Spellbrook. Following resignalling of the West Anglia line in late 2003, Stewart Webster helped save the box and moved it to safety at the railway museum at Burnham.
The team at Epping Ongar were delighted to be taking custody of this historic building, and will be installing it at the end of the Ongar platform, to replace the identical structure which was demolished by London Transport in the 1980’s.
Simon Hanney, General Manager of the Epping Ongar Railway, comments: “It was a very tense and exciting day, as it was carefully lifted and transported through Essex. The whole team are thrilled we are able to re-use the box for signaling our heritage trains, and as an identical match to the original, I suspect many of our visitors may never realize the exciting journey it has made to get to Ongar”.
Simon Hanney, General Manager; simonh@eorailway.co.uk
Railway Switchboard: 01277 365200