Restoration - page 5 Princes Risborough North Signal Box

2020 Internally, we built a much improved kitchen area and continued painting and polishing everything that didn’t move (and even things that did!). Signal box levers have always been painted as far up as the handle, but the handle itself is bare metal, which of course over years of disuse have rusted over. Each and every lever will benefit from a rigorous rub down with brass wire brush to bring back its shine. Checking the timberwork revealed more rot so the work of cutting out the damaged and rotten section and carefully crafting in replacement new wood continues. With much of the timber over 110 years old, it is likely to be an ongoing process. Now the box is in operational use again, we turned our thoughts to communications. In the not too distant future we want to be able to better communicate with the signal box at the other end of our railway line - Chinnor. At present we use radio but we strive to be authentic. To cater for real world communications we also had a standard phone line installed and had broadband activated at the same time. Our 1904 signal box is now on the internet! Taking advantage of the unseasonably good weather late in the year we have been working outside at the rear of the signal box installing additional cranks and pulleys needed for additional points and signals, shown here still in red primer. 2020 was the year that Covid-19 brought the railway (and the world!) to a virtual standstill. It hit all leisure venues hard and our railway was no exception. We were able to run limited steam train services for a few weeks over summer when the lockdown was eased, but it has decimated our income and consequently slowed progress. We did manage to squeeze in one public Open Day at the box during the year and were pleasantly surprised at how many people came to see us.