Murthly Station Signal Box
Date 1 July 1992
Event ID 903178
Category Management
Type Site Management
Permalink http://canmore.org.uk/event/903178
1898 for the Highland Railway (relocated from Inverness to Murthly, 1919). 2-storey, rectangular-plan, timber signal box on brick plinth with plank and strip weatherboard cladding and projecting bracketed porch to S. Ornamental barge boards, spear finials and droppers, and eaves edging. Slate roof. Cast-iron ogee-shaped guttering. Projecting porch similarly detailed. Integral store to N of similar construction with single-pitch roof. 4 windows to trackside with 9-pane glazing to sliding timber frames, curving at frame head; returning to 2 further windows at each gable end (boarded, 2013). INTERIOR: 16 lever Mackenzie and Holland frame.
Signal boxes are a distinctive and increasingly rare building type that make a significant contribution to Scotland's diverse industrial heritage. Of more than 2000 signal boxes built across Scotland by 1948, around 150 currently survive (2013) with all pre-1948 mechanical boxes still in operation on the public network due to become obsolete by 2021. The signal box at Murthly (relocated from Inverness in 1919) is a particularly distinctive variation of the standard McKenzie and Holland Type 3 signal box, modified by the Highland Railway to their own designs. The various refinements to the Type 3 include the addition of ornamental barge boarding, ogee guttering and curved window frames, distinguishing it from the more standard Highland boxes. Four boxes to this specification were built for the line running through Inverness in 1898 with the other three (at Rose Street, Welsh's Bridge and Ness Viaduct) now gone. The porch was formerly accessed by a straight timber forestair to the gable end which has been removed to deter unauthorised access and the windows are boarded (2013). (Historic Scotland)
