When Haslemere Signal Box closed in the early hours of 25 October 2025 and control of the Portsmouth Direct Line was migrated to a Regional Operating Centre at Basingstoke, it became the latest example of a process that has seen control of our railway network progressively migrated to around a dozen large regional control rooms. Local railway enthusiast and author Gareth David looks back over the changes to our railways that he has photographed and written about over the past decade.