Signalling Centre & Swindon Panel Tours

To comply with current guidelines, our volunteers are offering guided tours to individual groups on selected Steam Days as this is the safest way we can allow access at present.  

Tours of The Signalling Centre are currently scheduled on Sunday 11 and Saturdays 17 and 31 October

You can find out how the basic signalling apparatus of the early railways, evolved into the mechanical signalboxes, such as Radstock North Box and Frome Mineral Junction Cabin, on our Branch Line, and then into electrically operated systems, powerboxes and ultimately computer controlled signalling centres. The Signalling Centre offers hands-on opportunities to try some of this equipment out for yourself. 

During your visit you can:

• See some of the very basic apparatus in use when the GWR opened in 1835 and find out more about the broad gauge era signalling equipment elsewhere at Didcot Railway Centre
• Experience the job of the signalman in an 1875 mechanical signalbox. Pull the levers and watch the semaphore signals respond. Operate the block instruments to pass a train to an adjacent signalbox
• Look at the equipment from the GWR modernisation of 1935 at Bristol Temple Meads. Watch the trains move across the original signalbox diagram - and control a few of the trains yourself if you wish!
• See how today's signaller views the railway through a computer screen

There's also a chance to get hands on and control trains on a virtual Great Western main line using the restored ‘Swindon Panel’. The equipment was installed in the 1960s to replace the steam age signalling in use until then and has been saved and restored by members of the Swindon Panel Society.  They will be pleased to show you how to control the trains on a 40-mile stretch of the Great Western main line and let you have a go!

As well as the Signalling Centre, there are two restored signalboxes, from Frome Mineral Junction and Radstock North, at the Centre. These help control the trains on the Branch Line and are occasionally open for visitors.

A Timeline of the Major Signalling Exhibits at Didcot Railway Centre

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