Cransley Signal Works · Ludlow
The frame Work we take Workshop Job book Survey

Cransley Signal Works, Temeside Yard, Ludlow, Shropshire SY8

Mechanical signalling engineers · est. 1994

The frame says no.

We overhaul mechanical signalling for railways that still work theirs — lever frames, tappet locking, semaphore arms, block instruments, gate gear.

Below is Cransley Junction, eighteen levers, locked exactly as it leaves our shop. Try to signal a train onto a road that is not set. The frame will stop you and tell you which lever is holding it.

Work the frame Request a survey

Cransley Junction · 18 levers · tappet locking · 1897

Cransley Junction

18-lever tappet frame · 1897 · overhauled here, 2024

Frame normal

Track diagram of Cransley Junction A double-track through station with a down loop, a goods yard off the up main, and a level crossing at the country end. Signal arms, ground discs, point ends and gates move with the levers below. B4368 LOOP PLATFORM DOWN PLATFORM UP PLATFORM DOWN MAIN UP MAIN GOODS YARD DOWN LOOP GATES 16·17 1 2 3 7 6 13 14 15 10 12 5·4 8 11

Three movements to set. Order matters; the locking will insist on it.

  1. 09:18 down stopper — accept into the loopNot set
  2. Send it forward from the loop to the sectionNot set
  3. Yard pilot — off the up main into the yardNot set

The lever frame

Pull a lever. Plate colours are the standard: red stop signal, yellow distant, black points, blue facing point lock, brown gate gear, white spare.

Select a lever to read its plate.

Train register

Cransley Junction · sheet 41

TimeNo.Entry

    Block instrument

    Cransley — Bircher · down line

    Block indicator, currently showing line blocked BLOCKED LINE CLEAR TRAIN ON

    3–1 offered and accepted before a stopping passenger train is given the section.

    Schedule of works

    What comes through the door

    1. 01

      Frame overhaul

      Strip to the quadrant plate. Catch rods, catch blocks, handles, bearings. We re-bush rather than re-line where the casting allows it, and we return the frame with the same maker's plate it arrived with.

      6–16 weeks
    2. 02

      Tappet locking

      New tappets cut to a locking table we draw with you and test on the bench before it goes near a box. If the table is wrong the frame will be wrong, quietly, for thirty years. We prove every lock both ways.

      Bench-proved
    3. 03

      Semaphore arms & spectacles

      Arm blades in steel or fibre to your railway's pattern, spectacle plates re-glazed with proper signal glass, lamp cases re-tinned. Paint to a matched sample, not to a chart.

      Arms from stock
    4. 04

      Block instruments

      Needle instruments, plungers, bells and repeaters. Coils rewound, contacts dressed, cases re-polished. We return them calibrated against the shop standard and bell-tested on the circuit you will actually run.

      By arrangement
    5. 05

      Gate & barrier gear

      Wheel-worked gates, stay bars, wicket locks, gate stops. Barrier machines where a railway has gone that way. The gate is the part the public touches, so it is the part we test hardest.

      Site work
    6. 06

      Survey & testing

      A day in the box, a locking table on paper, a written report on what is worn, what is wrong and what will fail first. Many railways stop here, fix two things themselves, and call us back in a decade.

      One day, fixed fee

    A frame that can be forced is not an interlocking. It is furniture.

    Works standing order No. 1, pinned inside the shop door since 1994

    Job book

    Frames that have been on our floor

    Signalling work completed by Cransley Signal Works
    BoxLineFrameLeversWorkYear
    Cransley JunctionTeme ValleyTappet, 189718Full overhaul, new locking2024
    Bircher HaltTeme ValleyGround frame4Re-bush, gate stops2024
    Aldhelm RoadMarches Light RlyTappet, 191126Locking table redrawn2023
    Nantwood SidingsMarches Light RlyTumbler, 188912Frame rescue, re-erection2023
    Peverel WharfSevernmouth DockTappet, 192331Discs, arms, block shelf2022
    HollowgateClee Hill SteamTappet, 190420Overhaul and gate gear2022
    Thornbury EastVale & CoastTappet, 193044Survey, partial re-lock2021
    Warleigh FordVale & CoastGround frame5New frame to old pattern2021
    91 Frames on the floor Since the shop opened in 1994. Four of them twice, which we do not mind saying.
    2 Times the old table was right And we were wrong. Both are written up and pinned in the drawing office.
    0 Test sheets signed unearned We will come back on a Tuesday in February rather than sign one.

    Survey request

    Tell us what the frame is doing

    Most boxes ring us because a lever has gone heavy, a lock has started to slip, or an inspector has asked a question nobody in the ringing chamber can answer. Any of those is a good reason.

    Works
    Temeside Yard, Ludlow, Shropshire SY8
    Telephone
    01584 555 0147
    Shop hours
    Mon–Thu 07:30–16:30, Fri to 13:00
    Site work
    England & Wales, and we have crossed the water twice

    No obligation. We will tell you if it is a half-day job you can do yourselves.