Highams Park Signal Box now a Cafe

[Dave Cockle]

The above former signal box which was subsequently downgraded to a gate box and closed under the West Anglia Route Modernisation has just been reopened as a Cafe.

Quite surprising considering how close the box is to the running lines and 25KV. Persistence by a strong residents' Association has paid off and red tape cut through.

See laboite.co.uk

[Mickey]

Hi Dave. I once came across a young bloke many years ago who told me he worked at Highams Park box but I can't remember for certain at this point in time when this was although thinking about it again it may have been when I was a secondman at Stratford loco in East London in 1979?.

The link below gives a run down of the history of Highams Park box and it's subsequent conversion into a café?.

www.highamsparkforum.co.uk/signalbox.html

Mickey

[WTTReprinter]

I worked it a few times in the early 80's when I was on the relief. (Maximum travel - I was based at Bishop's Stortford!)
It'd be weird seeing it as a cafe now!
The article doesn't show clearly; are they using the locking room or the operating area (or both) for the cafe?

[Dave Cockle]

You certainly get a good view from the signal box. Back in the 1990's a relief signalman who was on nights, covering one of the crossing keepers who was on leave, noticed some arcing coming from beneath the canopy on the up platform in the small hours of the morning. He left the box and observed a makeshift canvas screen had been placed round the ticket machine. Thieves were cutting into the machine with an oxyacetylene torch to steal the cash. He ran back up to the box and made a 999 call to the police. The thieves scarpered when the police arrived leaving their gear behind. The police noticed a van parked in the station car park which had some tools and a cylinder in the back. They kept the van under observation and later in the afternoon when a man came to collect the van he was arrested. The whole gang subsequently got hauled in and charged with stealing cash from ticket machines at several stations in North London. Top marks for the alert Relief Signalman Peter Collingwood.