Yes, it is a very grey area between Signal Box and ground frame huts. No real problems when it comes to accepting the stand in the rain version as a ground frame, but with the rest it can be a fag paper's thickness of difference. One writer argued that Douglas was a signal cabin and St John's a ground frame on the basis that St John's did not have a telephone (neither did Douglas before 1925), and was not permanently manned, but that applied to many of the Highland Railways' cabins, as did the fact that the single line staff was in the hands of the stationmaster.
Both Manx cabins were singularly interesting, but St John's was probably the more interesting cabin in that it was early (1879/80) with a stone base, a gabled roof, and a relatively small glazed area. I cannot remember how the locking room was accessed though. It was little changed with the original 10 lever Stevens frame serving until the end - 1968. The signals were a mix of slotted posts recycled from the original 1873 station, and Stevens' single spectacle semaphores. Points and signals were interlocked, as it protected the running junction between the Douglas-Peel, and St John's to Ramsey lines, but there were no FPLs. I only saw it once, and by then the scrap men had had the frame, but the rest of the box was intact. St John's "points' box" controlled the east end of St John's, whilst the west end was controlled by a ramshackle collection of levers grouped by the crossing keeper's hut. The only IMR specialty that was missing at that end being the Lindley windless. In later days the west end had slot detectors so you could not pull off the approach signals (home and distant really don't work in this context) if the points were reversed. In later years, another Highland feature was standard - the stationmaster-cum-signalman bicycling between the east and west ends to signal trains through!
Douglas has a Dutton and Co. box of 1892, which is disused but intact. This box has a brick base, and a superstructure that resembles that erected between Dublin and Dundalk for the GNR(I) about the same time. It still retains its original a drink handle frame of 36 levers, of which 30 were in used back in the day. The other equipment was a couple of repeaters for the Peel and Castletown distants, and two phones of 1925 vintage, one for the Peel line omnibus circuit and the other for the South Line circuit. Like Ireland, the distant levers are still green. The normal distant/home/starter division only really applies at Douglas. Elsewhere it is probably more accurate to refer to approach signals on the old IMR sections, as they were usually too far back to be homes, and homes on the ex-Manx Northern, though some of the LC signals were set back. Signal levers are grouped by the station building, but the points are on local handle levers, and are locked by slot detectors when the approach signal is pulled off. Even today IMR signalling is very much in a 1870s time warp, and that even goes for the motor worked semaphores at Douglas which are not true starters. Ironically, the approach signal at Douglas is a colour light, but should be read like an 1870s semaphore!
Back to the S&CT. Skebawn will probably end up with a hut which the directors of the S&CT have dubbed Skebawn Signal Cabin, whilst Curranhilty Jct may well get a small RSCo box like Tooban Jct. on the Swilly, and I may just be whimsical enough to label it "Curranhilty Jct, G.F."
![:D](./images/smilies/icon_biggrin.gif)
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Cheers,
Peter in Va.
Traffic Pattern? What pattern? Spuds out; grain in, but cattle, sheep and passengers are a lot less predictable.