The LNER Encyclopedia

G'Day Gents
I got myself sidelined on my own thread! but what the heck, I have seen a pic of one of them BTH type 1's at Mill Hill, I was wondering if any other 1st Gen Diesels ever managed to make it to Edgware??
I'm pretty sure Edgware closed to passenger traffic late 1939 and to freight in the 62-64 time frame, so I'm hoping that at least ONE person from North London bothered to take a grainy picture of the old station, with a unusual loco in the yard, pretty please, beg grovel, ow, my skinned knees.!!
These are the best pics I could find.
manna


You know it's summer in South Australia when you brand yourself with the seat belt

Sorry this reply is so tardy, but a question - were steam locomotives ever allowed across wagon turntables? I thought that these were cast iron and I can imagine what the weight of a locomotive would do to them. I thought that wagons were pulled on and off with a capstan, and indeed turned the same way. The powered capstans were augmented with fixed bollards that enabled the rope pulls to change direction. Can anybody on forum speak from experience on this. There were an awful lot of wagon turntables in the potato warehouse at "The Cross" and I am pretty sure that steam locomotives would never have been allowed inside. All those sacks hanging out to dry would present an enormous fire risk.

Chaz

Chaz there are various ways of moving vehicles around and off wagon turntables, as you mentioned by a capstan. There is also the use of the Mk1 shunting horse and also by brute force and leverage.
From my memory the Tweed Dock wagon turntable was on the "mainline" and small Tank Engines and diesel shunters would have passed over it on the way round to the fuel terminal bearing in mind that the biggest loco would be a J77.

G'Day Gents
Seeing that leadplug worked at Hornsey, here's one for leadplug, My grandad worked for the council in the 30's&40's and told me a story as a kid that one day during the war a bomb was dropped on the road outside Hornsey shed, just where a milkman and his horse were standing, there was very little left of either but there was a very large hole that needed filling in, (this is where grandad comes in) but he and the others had to wait while the dairy owners hunted around for the few quid that the milkie was carrying, what annoyed my grandad was they thought more about that couple of quid than the dead milkie (grandad served at Jutland), did it cause any damage to Hornsey shed??
manna

[quote="52D"]Chaz there are various ways of moving vehicles around and off wagon turntables, as you mentioned by a capstan. There is also the use of the Mk1 shunting horse and also by brute force and leverage.
From my memory the Tweed Dock wagon turntable was on the "mainline" and small Tank Engines and diesel shunters would have passed over it on the way round to the fuel terminal bearing in mind that the biggest loco would be a J77.[/quote

I've been looking for information on wagon turntables for some time, in particular was there a standard diameter? As far as I can tell from the proportions either side of the lines, they appear to be 12 feet diameter, but can anyone confirm this?

The L&Y had bogie wagons which could be turned, one bogie at a time, on their turntables, thus being moved around the goods depot, but what about others?

L&Y Man

I thought i had posted some pics of wagon turntables but when i checked the thread the pics were of traversers although some tables were shown on a map.
I imagine you are about right with a dia of 12 foot i cant quite recall the size of the one at Tweed dock but surely someone on here will enlighten us soon. I am thinking of modelling one.

Hi manna,
No, Hornsey shed was unscathed, it was a top quality piece of building.
I remember the sad incident re the milkcart. It was a V2 rocket that fell, the Luftwaffe had more or less stopped coming over by then.

Hi Chaz,
Trains working into Farringdon Depot definately ran over the wagon turntables. The experience was unforgettable, one wondered what would happen next!
Probably a case of a vintage loco design suiting a vintage track layout.
I can't comment on procedures in other GN locations.
Has anyone a track diagram of Farringdon Depot? I don't seem to have one

OK, that answers my query. I imagine only running across would be possible - the wagon turntables were far too small to turn any but the smallest locos - maybe an industrial 0-4-0ST - something like a Peckett - would fit, but it would be quite a job with so much weight to move.

Chaz

G'Day Gents
Thanks for that lead_plug, always remembered grandads story but could never find repairs on Hornsey shed walls, from my personnal point of view, I always thought Hornsey was a forgotten shed, very few good pictures, but there was a pretty good view from the footbridge, after steam had gone it was used as a diesel stabling point for a few years, then semi-derelict for a while before being refurbished for a EMU workshop,it might be forgotten but it's still with us, Anybody have the full history of Hornsey shed and dates on it's rebuild, as the building of today is not a GNR building from the 1880's, is it???
manna

As far as I know, structural damage to Hornsey Loco was confined to
(1) The guv'nors washroom partly destroyed by a rampant P1.
(2) The air-raid shelter blast wall destroyed by the P1 during re-railing.
(3) Repeat of (1) by a Green Arrow shortly after the wall had been repaired.
(4) I have somewhere a photo of the old coaling stage with a wagon protruding from a shattered North wall.
Seems like some of us were a bit careless or over-enthusiastic.

The only history of the Depot that I have seen is that contained in the ILP book "GNR Engine Sheds" by Griffiths and Hooper, it contains a detailed plan that I like to drool over. A bonus is the description of the 2 road loco depot at Wood Green (Waterworks Sidings site) which was closed following Hornsey's opening in 1899.
Lacking the 'glamour' of Top Shed's main line expresses, Hornsey did not attract much of an enthusiast following, but must have earned it's keep in the days of the coal traffic.

Thanks for your reply. Subsequently, I have found a photo of a "mixed gauge" (broad/standard) wagon turntable in The Railway Magazine of September & October 1948 which was then still in situ at the coalyard of Messrs Sully & Co at Bridgewater, Somerset. Unfortunately, it shows only about a third of the turntable, so it is well-nigh impossible to discern its diameter. Mixed gauge working must have been very interesting, although I do know that it was against the rules to have different gauge wagons in the same train.

L&Y Man

G'Day Gents
Here's a good one, a J50 on it's way to Farringdon depot or Blackfriars,notice no condensing gear! but the pic was taken at an unusual location, I'm thinking from the back of a train!!! nice clean engine.
manna

Yes Manna, a nice one of the more "modern" South London workings. That lamp code also applied to Battersea or Feltham (if the J 50's went that far)
Someone certainly had a go with the oily rags, pity they missed out the front of the tanks.
I certainly hope that this unusual shot was not taken from the rear of a train, because the next Up (an N2) is already in view through t' bridge 'ole!
This is too up-to-date for me, I miss the condensers and the vacuum brake.

Nice one, manna.

As the 'unusual location' is not named, is it posed as a genuine question, being unknown to you ; or you do know, but it's a 'guess the location' quiz for the rest of us ?

In case it's the latter, I'll say no more at present.......