Cefn Cribwr SIgnal Box

CEFN CRIBWR SIGNAL BOX

The History & stories
This was an investigation that we had on the cards for a long while... The signal box is a place we had been quite a few times before and the history and stories associated with it are well known in the area... The activity is said to be centred around the death of a railway worker by the name of WALTER CURL it is said that he fell from a maintenance ladder and broke his neck and died whilst on duty there.


The signal box became an active signal control room in 1898 at the junction between the newly opened Port Talbot line (PTR) and the older Porthcawl Branch. By about 1910, the industrial area immediately to the north of the signal box had passed it's heyday. The Cefn Ironworks closed in 1901, Cefn Slip Colliery which opened c. 1860 would close in 1912.
The Porthcawl Branch had disappeared by 1974 but the PTR and Box still remains.  It has more recently been restored to it's former working glory by a local group who are eager to keep the original items associated with the signal box and the working railway line as intact as possible.

The investigation

The signal box is a two storey building and quite a small space so we began our investigation downstairs where the pullies and controls for changing the railway signals would have been. We set up our 'X' camera at the back of the room and placed two motion detectors across the entrance and then went upstairs....

The feeling in the upstairs room was definitely calmer than that downstairs, where I felt a sense of urgency and bustle. We began taking EMF recordings and instantly started getting some strange readings at the back of the room, some on response to the questions we were asking.... We tried communicating with Walter Curl and asked various questions about his work and how he died.   The readings had continued and we began a EVP session. On reviewing the digital recordings no audible voices were captured, although we did both hear a very strange gasping sound coming from just at the door upstairs but was not captured on our digital recorder.

The night was relatively quiet overall, I would say that if Walter Curl's spirit lives on in Cefn signal box and if he continues to work the signals and lines, that maybe we just visited on his day off! Although like I always say 

"The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence"

Pay the Station box a visit - you may just get to speak to Walter himself - Happy investigating

Hyper Smash