Second Saturday · 10.00–16.00
The box sits between the Down Main and Hollowgate Lane, and it is at its best on a wet Saturday when the quarry train is due and the bell has just gone three–one. You are welcome to stand at the frame and ask why you cannot pull number eight.
Enquire about a visitThe box holds twelve people comfortably and eight if anyone wants to work the frame, so the paid sessions are small on purpose rather than to make them feel exclusive.
No booking. Come up, stand at the frame, watch the duty signalman work the branch train and the two quarry trips. The train register is open on the desk and you are welcome to read it.
Every month except January, when the stove is out and the fitter has the tray apart.
Free · donations welcome
You work the box: block bells to Thrushmoor Bank and Calderfoot, the register, the full sequence for a Down train, a branch move, and the crossing. You will be refused by the locking at least twice, which is the part everyone remembers.
Saturdays and Wednesdays, morning or afternoon. Minimum age fourteen.
£45 a head · four people maximum
A full day for volunteers, new signalling staff and modellers who want to know why their layout is not really interlocked. Morning: tappets, bars, dogs, and how a locking table is drawn. Afternoon: proving one against this frame.
Six dates a year, ten places. Lunch at the Waggon and Horses is included and is not optional.
£120 · next dates on enquiry
Weekday mornings by arrangement, for groups up to twenty-four working in two halves — one at the frame, one in the lamp room with the signal arms and the tablet instruments.
We have done thirty-one school visits and have yet to lose anyone down the stairs.
£180 a group · two hours
The box is on the north side of the crossing. There is no car park as such; there is a hard standing for nine cars on the old coal drop, and the lane is narrow, so please do not leave anything on the verge where the quarry lorries turn.
Steps to the operating floor are original, steep and twenty-three in number. The lamp room and the ground-floor display are level from the hard standing, and the duty team are glad to bring the tablet instruments down for anyone who would rather not climb.
A volunteer reads these on Tuesday and Saturday evenings and answers by email. Sessions are held for you for seven days once we have written back.
The box costs about £14,000 a year to keep standing and working. Open days and sessions cover roughly half of that; the rest is members, donations and the occasional overhaul contract.
Ask about membership