Station Artefacts from a Bygone Age

We are indebted to the late Mike Sharman for allowing us to photograph a number of pieces from his collection of railway artefacts which were once used on the station at Meldreth.

Amongst the photographs below can be seen:

A Guard’s Lamp from Meldreth Station

A hand held guard’s lamp from Meldreth Station dating from before 1923.  The lamp is a three aspect lamp, i.e. it has three colours, red for STOP, green for GO and clear for use as an ordinary lamp.  Some guard’s lamps were four aspect including yellow to indicate fog.  The guard would twist the top of the lamp to bring the appropriate coloured filter in front of the lamp.  The lamp filter lenses can be seen in one of the photos below.  The lamp was powered by paraffin.

A Signal Lamp from Meldreth Station

The paraffin-oil powered lamp consisted of two parts, the internal lamp which fitted inside the outer casing. The lamp would then have been placed on a bracket behind the spectacle of the mechanical signal and would shine through to give the appropriate indication to the train driver. i.e. Red for STOP or Green for GO.   The lamp possibly dates from before 1892.

The green lens on the signal was actually coloured blue so that the yellow paraffin flame burning behind the spectacle would shine green.

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