In March 1955, we moved to Eastcote, Middlesex. I think it was during 1955 that I accepted a post as signalman class one at Marylebone Passenger Box, and I remember having to go to an office in Kings Cross station, London and North Eastern Railway (LNER), about this job. It was very busy at Marylebone especially during the peak periods, morning and evening, and the arrival and departure of the passenger trains involved the running round by the stream engines. The lever frame was, I think, an old Great Central Railway (GCR) or LNER lever frame which I found was becoming very heavy to work. At some weekends we had excursion trains called Starlight Specials which ran late in the evenings. During the week The Master Cutler express went from Marylebone to Sheffield and which I think was usually hauled by a Green Arrow V.2 class, 2-6-2, LNER locomotive. There was another signalbox, in which I never worked, called Marylebone Goods which was just at the entrance to the tunnel, and this box worked the points from and to what was Marylebone goods yard. There were four running lines between the Passenger Box, near the station, and the Goods Box. The tunnel is the St John's Wood tunnel (sometimes called Lords tunnel) and is just under one mile long; the shorter tunnel which immediately follows and is about one third of a mile long is called Hampstead tunnel.
I often had to be on duty for twelve hour days or twelve hour nights until engineering work had been completed. Some of the running lines had to be closed leaving one line to be used for trains in either direction. In order to avoid any mishap a pilotman, who wore a red armlet marked 'Pilotman', was appointed and had to accompany every train that ran on the single line in either direction. The exception was when a train was to be followed by one or more trains in the same direction, in which case the pilotman had personally to order each train to proceed and had to ride upon the engine of the last train. I always enjoyed the work when appointed as pilotman as I was required to ride on the footplate with the engine driver and fireman. I travelled on different types of locomotives from the different regions, on freight trains as well as passenger trains or as running light. I remember an occasion when I was pilotman between Marylebone and a crossover road worked from a small signalbox near Finchley Road underground station, just where the lines from Marylebone come out of the tunnels, near Canfield Place. The small signalbox was only opened for special circumstances such as engineering work with single line working. I had to pilot an engine running light, one of those 4-6-0 Black Five locomotives, if I remember rightly, a London Midland type. The driver gave me permission to sit at the driver's seat and operate the throttle lever which controls the speed, until we came out of the tunnels.
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