The apparatus on the end of the platform is the rear of a banner-repeater signal which in this case indicated the aspect of the 3-aspect colour-light starting signal at the Country end of Woking station.
In effect these types of signals repeated the indication of the following signal where the driver's view of it was restricted due to track cuvature or bridge abutment, and displayed either a horizontal black bar on a white background signal at Danger or a 45 degrees black bar on a white background signal Clear one yellow or green. One can only assume this was a Saturday or Sunday for so many train spotters to be on the station platforms.
Phil James The spotting stories on this website certainly stir the old grey cells and rekindle happy memories. I was born and brought up in Coventry and have a vague memory of writing down engine numbers to amuse myself on a long train journey to Cornwall when I was five years-old. A couple of years later, in the mid s, my parents took me to visit relatives in Luton.
The adults decided to go shopping in Hitchin, and on the basis that I would probably be a pain walking around shops, I was allowed to go and stand on the end of the platform at the station under strict instructions regarding my behaviour. After a few minutes Class A4 Seagull came racing through with the distinctive chime whistle going like crazy and I was hooked.
On the subject of A4s, about ten years ago I was travelling through Crewe and Union of South Africa was there on a special and I was able to 'cop' my last of the class. Can I claim a record for the fifty years it took? You could almost guarantee that when you turned up somewhere you had just missed a rare engine.
