Signalling Centre Project Launch
Jim Summers explains how MoSR are setting the road for success with the launch of our new project.
Around the site at Bo’ness and along the operating railway, we have more signals and their associated apparatus than most of us perhaps realise. Try counting one day. We are lucky to have this evidence of the Signal & Telecommunications Engineers’ craft.
What is not so obvious is the good fortune we have in the quantity of documents and instruments which have been donated to us. Until recently, we have been unable to display and – importantly – explain these as much as we would like.
The nucleus of these treasures is the Forbes Alexander collection of drawings, photographs, and individual histories of individual signal boxes. These regularly attract researchers to our Archive collection, and digitising is now in hand to make them more widely available, thanks to a financial support from Dr. Neil Dickson. Not accessible so far is the truly unique and extensive collection of signalling and telegraph instruments being donated by John Young. We do not believe any other museum has such riches, or such an enthusiastic group of signalling experts to care for them.
Revealing collections and stories through our new Signalling Centre of Knowledge
We have therefore decided that a unique Centre of Signalling Knowledge should be created at Bo’ness. It was launched on Saturday, 5th October at the Scottish Railway History Conference, during which, incidentally, delegates were treated to a special preview of recently acquired photographic collections newly arrived in our archives.
At this stage, it would be too early to reveal any detailed plans, but you will hear more in the coming months, as we set the road and put Bo’ness on the map as the UK’s Centre of Signalling Knowledge.