SALVAGE plans to ensure the legacy of a piece of Banbury's heritage are taking shape before the Banbury North Signal Box is finally taken apart.

A total of 3,000 visitors were shown around the building over eight weeks before it is dismantled by Network Rail in the coming weeks as part of rail network upgrades.

But the signal box's unprecedented popularity has led to a last-minute deal thrashed out by local campaigners, Network Rail, Siemens and various heritage partners.

If all goes to plan a treasure-trove of materials and equipment from the site will be turned over to campaigners to be used in projects elsewhere.

Rob Kinchin-Smith, a spokesman for the campaign to save the site and chair of Banbury Civic Society, said: "The plan is that the Banbury North recovery project becomes the template for a new national Network Rail strategy for the recovery of heritage signalling materials for heritage use."

Among the items to be spared from demolition are the entire lever frame and interlocking, relays, an illuminated diagram, Great Western Railway shelves and cupboards, windows, doors, the internal toilet and lobby and anything else 'useful' that survives demolition, including structural woodwork.

The material will be used for the restoration of the Princes Risborough North Box in Buckinghamshire as well as a planned replica of Banbury North.

Because of the 'live' rail environment all dismantling work will be carried out by a Siemens engineering team, with the project paid for entirely by Network Rail including the purchase of shipping and storage containers. Heritage partners will need to make up the cost of transport, crates and racking.

Mr Kinchin-Smith added: "After a lifetime of keeping our trains safe and generating so much interest and goodwill, it will be a great shame to look at the empty space where Banbury North Box used to be.

"The recovery project nevertheless offers the promise that Banbury North will live on, not just in its physical parts but in a legacy of changed thinking about how redundant railway assets can continue to have an active role."