Text 1: The lights that never sleep, by Carys Vale

An original contemporary newspaper feature.

At 5.45 p.m., Mara Evans takes over the signal room at Northbridge Junction. She works four twelve-hour night shifts each week, from six in the evening until six the following morning. Before the previous operator leaves, Mara checks the logbook and walks along the platform to make sure every signal is working.

For much of the night she sits alone in a warm room at the edge of the town. A panel of coloured lights shows where trains are on the line, but Mara cannot simply watch it passively. She must compare each movement with the timetable and act immediately if a driver reports a problem. During a winter storm, a fallen branch blocked one track. Mara stopped the next train, called the maintenance team and kept talking to the driver until the line was clear.

The job requires concentration rather than strength. Mara passed examinations on the route and the signalling equipment before she was allowed to work alone. She has memorised the junctions and keeps a large route map beside her desk. A phone and a kettle are her only company on most nights, although she enjoys knowing that her decisions help hundreds of passengers reach home safely.

The quiet can be deceptive. A normal hour may contain nothing more dramatic than a change of lights, followed by several trains arriving together. When that happens, there is no time to leave the room or wonder whether somebody else has noticed. Mara says the responsibility is tiring, but she would miss the feeling of being the person who keeps the railway moving.

Text 2: The man in the signal box, by A Correspondent

An original magazine feature written in a nineteenth-century voice; a period simulation, not an archival document.

In this feature, published in 1892, the writer describes the working life of a railway signalman.

At four o'clock in the morning, before the first light has reached the fields, the signalman climbs the narrow stairs to his box. He may remain there until six in the evening, and a busy day can keep him longer. His post stands above the rails, where the smoke of passing engines enters through the open windows and settles upon the levers.

He has a timetable pinned to the wall and a bell for every approaching train. At each summons he must attend to the correct signal and move the proper lever, for an error may send two trains towards the same stretch of line. The work is lonely, but it cannot be neglected for a meal or a conversation. Many signalmen eat at the small table beside the levers and keep their coats close by when winter winds blow through the box.

The company gives a new man instruction, yet experience is his chief teacher. He must learn the order of the trains, the names of the sidings and the habits of the junction. One afternoon, when a goods train failed to move, the signalman climbed down into the rain to discover a broken coupling and held back the following train until help arrived.

Few travellers know his name. They see a clear signal and continue their journey, unaware of the long watch that made it possible. I have found the men proud of their trust, though the hours are heavy and the post offers little company beyond the bell, the timetable and the passing engines.

Explain briefly what the working lives of the signal operators were like, using information from both texts.

Make clear which text you are referring to.