Bishopton Lane signal box. Photograph courtesy of Dave Summerfield 
Picture Stockton Archive
A Pictorial History of Stockton-on-Tees
Bishopton Lane signal box. Photograph courtesy of Dave Summerfield
I think it would be correct to say my Father, Joseph Kidd, would leave Bishopton Lane Box about 1914 to enlist with the East Riding Yeomanry. He had been learning to become a signalman having been a lamp boy with the NER. His pal Freddie Moiser BEM, became Chief Inspector of Signals for the NER after serving with my Father in the Yeomanry in Eygpt untill 1918. My Dad never returned to the railway and went to work for Rogers Engineers and then The Synthetic of Ammonia works at Billingham in 1922. He retirerd from ICI in 1951. I dont know what he would think of things today!
As a relief signalman I know that if the platforms through Stockton were busy we sometimes put trains that did not require to stop via the back road which used to exit at stockton bank cabin, this could be such a movement.
I can”t open up the pic but what I can see is an unusual movement as the engine (V1or V3 tank engine?)is hauling coaches designed for suburban use into the goods sorting yards. The Theastre signal on the left will show which road it is heading into. Those with better equipment than mine may be able to dcipher it.Other comments would be welcome regards this train movement. The signal cabin is a ex-NER Northern Division built in 1892 and opened in 1893. The lever frame was still the original when it closed.