Calling at Derby…
FIFTY-five new signals, nine new gantries, 56 miles of signalling cable, 79 sets of points, 150,000 tonnes of ballast, 240 engineering trains, roughly 10 miles of track relaid in a new configuration, and all in 79 days: that is the statistical summation of the recent Derby Resignalling Project. But it is more the human angle I have considered in this article, and so would probably add a few disrupted nights of sleep to that list, as I live at the north end of operations and received the brunt of many sonorous Class 66 warning horns as they passed through the possession.
The project’s two main phases were July 22 to September 2 (South/ West) and September 2 to October 7 (North). For those involved in delivering the changes, it was a nerve-racking few weeks – and some dedicated people had even been
