After four years and eight months BR contacted Gertrude and invited her to return to Monk Bretton box. She began there in April 1951, this time under the NE Region of BR. She made her way there and back from her home in Cudworth by foot or public transport. Although only 5ft 3 Gertrude could swing on the levers 'as good as any man and better than some men', recalled her husband, Fred. One day in February 1955 Gertrude went to investigate why smoke was issuing from a paraffin store next to her signalbox, and saw that there was a blazing inferno inside. She said, 'I saw flames and shouted to a gang of platelayers. I tried to fix up a stirrup-pump but it wouldn't fit the tap'.

Alarmed that her wooden signalbox might catch fire, she tried to remove a 40-gallon drum of paraffin single-handedly, but it was too much for one person. Calling to some contractors' men she organised them into a chain of buckets by providing the receptacles and directing the men to the tap in her signalbox. After making sure that they were doing what she required, she phoned Barnsley fire brigade before helping 57-year-old Ganger Cyril Race to remove two heavy drums, containing 25 and 40 gallons of paraffin, to a safe distance to that they would not catch fire. She then telephoned for a railway engine to be brought to the scene and asked the engine crew to spray water straight onto the fire. She then poured water down the sides of her signalbox as a precaution.

'But for Mrs. Richardson', said the Railway Gazette, 'the signalbox might have been completely destroyed'. A fire brigade officer remarked that 'Mrs. Richardson was the heroine of the whole affair.' Mr W. Shelton, shunter at Monk Bretton, wrote a poem about the incident, which included the lines:

British Railways a more gallant crew never had
They worked with skill and with speed.
Encouraged by Gertie, the girl with the flag
Who was proving herself fit to lead.