A LISTED signal box next to a district rail station can be dismantled and rebuilt over the Pennines after ambitious plans were approved.

Network Rail revealed their plans to carefully dismantle the signal box just outside Keighley Station transport it to Irlam Station in Salford and reconstruct it, before turning it into a "museum of signalling."

A partnership between a number of groups in the Irlam area has been working to restore Irlam Station to its former glory, and has already installed a number of heritage attractions to the station. They have been granted planning permission by Salford Council to install a Midland Railway Box on the site to "demonstrate signalling techniques" to visitors.

Now Bradford Council has granted planning permission for the structure to be removed from Keighley.

Planning officers at Bradford Council said: "The removal of the signal box will take it from its original historic location and, indeed, out of Bradford Council's administrative area. However, the agent presents strong arguments that this has to be weighed against the opportunity to secure beneficial re-use of the redundant structure in a working railway environment.

"In support, the national Railway Heritage Trust also makes the point that in its present location the signal box is stranded between an operational railway (the Keighley and Worth Valley railway's link to Network Rail), and a Network Rail maintenance depot. This means that it is impossible to find any use for the building, as it is inaccessible without entering onto a fenced operational railway compound.

"As a result of disuse, the building is gradually deteriorating and, as a building with no function, the box will not feature high in the priorities of maintenance spending by Network Rail.

"Failure to take this opportunity will result in the box remaining in situ and remain an unused and deteriorating asset. In its present site, prospects for re-use are admittedly very limited."

Built to control the junction between the main line and the Oxenhope (Worth Valley) branch line, the Midland Railway Box was built in 1884. It was moved 19 metres to its current location in 1995.

A similar signal box, located at the Keighley and Worth Valley Station track, was refurbished and brought back into use in 2016.

The Irlam Station project is a partnership between the Hamilton Davies Trust, Salford Council, Transport for Greater Manchester, Network Rail, Northern Rail, Irlam and Cadishead History Society and Friends of Irlam Station.