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One of the last outposts of traditional semaphore signalling has heard its death knell today. Siemens Rail Automation has been awarded a £40 million contract by Network Rail to renew life-expired signalling equipment from Leamington Spa to Heyford. This will see the signals & signalboxes at Banbury North & South replaced by Siemens’ Trackguard Westlock computer-based interlocking. The modernization will mean improved headways between Banbury and Aynho Junction, as well as a rationalised layout at Banbury Station to improve operational flexibility and minimise on-going maintenance requirements.
The project is expected to take 22 months.
Banbury has long been an oasis of former GWR lower quadrant semaphore signals, although some were converted to upper quadrant by BR. Some of the signals were still illuminated by paraffin lamps, a practice dating back to the dawn of the railways. Here’s a selection of pictures showing what will disappear:
http://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/p638949268/h5af7f476#h5af7f476
http://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/p638949268/h5af7f44c#h5af7f44c
http://paulbigland.zenfolio.com/p5959592/h53571a28#h53571a28
Paul Bigland 
The two boxes at Banbury come under the local MOM David Vinsen who was the Junior Railman when I started at Barnstaple in 1979. Very conscientious about polished brass and black leaded grates, lever clothes and polished lino you could see your face in. In East Anglia we lost the Paraffin lamps last year and the semaphores are due to go next year… the last of the fumes still linger in the early morning mist while waiting for the gate man to close the gates by hand…
An evocative image ‘bitternline’. I wonder how many places are left that still use paraffin lamps to illuminate signals? The old ways are disappearing at an accelerating rate. Banbury was the last time I saw & got chance to photograph checking the lamps, yet in my youth it was something I took for granted & never even thought of. Do any other readers know of locations where this still happens?