March 2014 found Students of Carr Junior School, York, helping the museum celebrate a world record – when the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway School of Signalling display was officially named as the world’s oldest working model railway.

Volunteer Peter M Webster, helping Carr students signal trains

Built in 1912, the model was used until 1995 to train railway workers in the rules and regulations of railway signalling. Since 2003 it has been restored to working order by a team of dedicated volunteers and today it’s still doing what it was designed to do, teach people how to signal trains.

The story began in 1910, when the Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway established a ‘School of Signalling’ on the upper floor of its headquarters in Manchester Victoria Station. The school enrolled 100 students who, as now, attended in their own…