PLANS by rail bosses to do away with the lone signalman guarding a solitary box along the East Coast line could be up to 15 years away.

Railtrack said a computer-controlled system, to be introduced over eight years, will remove the threat of human error along a 400-mile line between London and Glasgow, replacing 24 boxes with three control centres.

Signalmen will be retained only on minor routes, and at some level crossings, under the £500 million project.

The new control centres will be able to monitor every train, its speed, position, performance and proximity to other trains.

But it could be some years before the signal changes along the fast section of the West Coast main line are transferred to the East Coast, a spokesman for Railtrack said today.

"As technology marches along this will happen in other parts of the country, but it will be over the next five, 10 or 15 years," he said.

As revealed in the Evening Press last year, a signalman was given a formal warning after allegedly laughing off an emergency call as a hoax when a pony got its hoof stuck at a North Yorkshire crossing.

Teenager Martha Hammond, of Huttons Ambo, near Malton, was riding her pony Barney across the York to Scarborough railway line, at Scampston, near Rillington, when the drama unfolded.

The line has eight-manned signal boxes and two manned crossings, as well as one intergrated electronic control centre, based in York.

Barney's hoof became trapped, so she used the emergency phone to summon help. But her frantic cries for help were allegedly laughed off as a hoax.

It took farmers using a tractor and chains to finally free 15-year-old Barney, although the signal man had slowed the trains down.

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