The Newcastle signal box was opened on Sunday 9 February 1936 and replaced two signal boxes: Brown St which was located approximately halfway between Civic and Newcastle and Newcastle Box located at the end of Platform 1 of Newcastle Station.
Upon its closure on 26 December 2014 Newcastle Signal Box was operational for 78 years, 10 months and 18 days or 28,811 days.
The 'then' photo isn't a very old photograph of the signal box, but it was the only one I could find for a comparison. At least it still had the rail lines and overhead wires, whereas the 'now' signal box looks rather forlorn with no purpose left in life but to act as a museum piece of times gone by.
This series of then and now photos were taken last month when out with our walking group on a tour of Newcastle.
This is to be the last of my 'then and now' photos for the time being and the next stop on our walk was to the Clarendon Hotel for lunch. I will show the inside of the Clarendon tomorrow.
Very interesting comparison lovely perspective and detail in both Babs, such a shame you have lost the railway, as for the not so old and new, time is relative, yesterday was old today is new, lol:)
Unfortunately there are a lot of these signal boxes in our area, it's a shame it couldn't be changed into a dwelling? My daughter lived in an old station platform building for a lot of years, it was called Porters Lodge!
I agree - it looks rather pointless with no tracks or overhead cables. Otherwise it hasn't changed a bit and I expect it is much better that it remains than not. I liked your series Babs.
Even though the actual building looks the same, it looks so different without the wires and tracks.
I stayed in the Clarendon hotel last year when I came to Newcastle for a conference
My the building hasn't changed much over the years. I think it would be a cool place to have some sort of interesting shop. Maybe someone will come up with a great idea to repurpose it. This has been a fun series.
Wow, the immediate surroundings have changed, quite considerably, but the building itself looks the same - from the outside.. it matters not that the 'older' version is not exceedingly old.. it is older than the other one.. love that you used the same perspective.. Do hope that some person(s) can take it on and bring some life to it..
@golftragic Not a shop in there. The building is still fenced off so no idea what they are going to do with it. All the equipment is still inside though, so maybe it will be opened to the public one day.
You won't believe this but here, on the other side of the World, we have a remarkably similar one to this. It's about thirty miles from here and is still in use with regular trains and controls a working gate system for road traffic. It's nowhere near as well decorated though, which is a pity.
I stayed in the Clarendon hotel last year when I came to Newcastle for a conference