Network Rail has treated a former signaller to a tour of York Rail Operating Centre (ROC) to celebrate his 99th birthday.

Bob Abbott started working in the railway industry during the Second World War, and worked for the railway for nearly fifty years before completing his last shift just before York Integrated Electronic Control Centre opened in 1989.

The Control Centre was the predecessor of the Rail Operating Centre. The ROC is a modern facility which is taking control of sections of the East Coast Main Line as its digitalisation programme progresses.

Bob, together with his son Ron and daughter-in-law Sarah, saw the difference in working practices from his working days to the modern era.

He talked with ROC staff, and was surprised with a phone call from an old friend. Bob enjoyed birthday cake in the ROC’s gold command room.

Network Rail presented Bob with a goody bag of rail items, which included ties and pin badges.

Bob began his railway career at the age of 15, working as a number taker and messenger boy at Ferryhill, County Durham, in 1941. After a year, he began working as a book lad at Ferryhill’s No3 signal box.

Bob became a signalman in 1943, and his first signal box was Wingate, near Ferryhill. He tried to join the RAF that year, but had to remain in his job as it was a ‘reserved occupation’, considered vital for the war effort.

In the 1950s, Bob began work as a relief signalman at Durham, and worked at more than twenty signal boxes over the next fifteen years.

By the end of the 1960s, fewer signal boxes were operating in the Durham area, so less work was available, and Bob and his family moved to York. He became a relief signalman covering York Yard North and South, Thirsk, Skelton, Tollerton, Selby and other locations. For the last eleven years of his career, Bob worked in York power box. He retired in 1989 after 49 years’ service.

Bob worked the last shift as the railway control function transferred to York Integrated Electronic Control Centre, which operated until 2018, when new York ROC opened. The year after the ROC opened, it took over the functions of the King’s Cross signal box.

Bob got his first job from his Uncle Harry, a locomotive fireman at Ferryhill. Bob’s son Ron has recently retired after working in the railway industry for five decades. Bob’s daughter-in-law Sarah also worked in the rail industry, and his 19-year-old granddaughter Amelia started a project manager apprenticeship at PlanBEE Rail in 2024.

“My dad took me down the mine when I was about 14 and asked if I wanted to work there. I said ‘No way’ and made the right choice to pick the railway!

“Seeing how signalling is done nowadays was interesting – but mind-blowing! I wouldn’t know where to start – but they did offer me some Saturday shifts!”

Bob Abbott