Kings Coss Passenger Loco

[sandwhich]

Can anybody remember the passenger loco yard at Kings Cross, aka "the swamp", used by steam until about 1961 then changed to diesel use. In the days when most train movements were loco hauled and there were freight and parcels workings the place could become a mad house to work in. The track was bad and contaminated with oil deposits, there was a joke doing the rounds at the time that they could not find any oil in the North Sea it was all in the pass loco. Derailments were regular and the track was reballasted a number of times. After 1976 with electrification and the coming of High Speed Trains its use declined until final closure in 1979 and any remaining locomotives were serviced at Clarence Yard. Never a dull moment in that place.

[JeffB]

Hi Sandwhich. I worked at Kings Cross from 58 to 68 and spent many hours in the passenger loco yard, but never heard it called 'the swamp'. The only oil was on the two refueling roads at the side of the office, ie the Glass House next to the main lines out of the station. I can only remember one derailment while I was there, and that was because someone let go off a spring point before the engine had cleared it. As for reballesting, I cant remember ever seeing it been done.

[thesignalman]

By the time I worked at Kings Cross in 1971 the Top Shed was no longer there and any maintenance not done at the Passenger Loco was done at Clarence Yard.

The building JeffB refers to was always referred to in the box as the "Elephant House" and only had one road as far as I remember. The spring points held over by a lever gave access to it, and normally lay towards the outlet onto the Down Slow. I, too, only remember one derailment occurring there when a fireman let go prematurely.

John

[Mickey]

I remember it well back in the early/mid 1970s

[manna]

G'Day Gents

I spent plenty of time on engine movements, at the passenger loco, when a loco pulled into the pass loco, they would stop at the wooden board walk, and the crew would 'screw' the loco down ('cos of the gradient) and leave the loco there, there was usually two drivers and a secondman booked on 'EM', the foreman would work out where the loco would need to be, to be fueled, and what duty it would be used on, he would then tell one of us where it was to go, IE to the 'shed'. But before we could move that loco we might have to move two locos out of the fuel shed onto the 'slip' (hope your still with me) so we'd go over and move those two locos, one at a time, then we could put that one away.

Then we would get a phone call from the fitters that the locos on the 'Pit' were finished, (that road was beside the shed) they could be shunted both together off of the 'pit' onto the 'slip' or the 'wall', there was also room for two locos on the 'ash pit', or if a loco wasn't needed for a while, we could use the 'Coal rd' (where the oil wagons sat) easy eh !

I only ever heard it called 'the passenger loco' or Kings Cross loco, wracking my brain to remember a derailment, I think a class 31 dropped a wheel on the deck once, don't remember much in the way of ballast either!

Oil ! plenty of that all over the place, always kept well away from locos, just after they'd been fueled, when they stopped for the first time a couple of gallons used to come out to the overflow nothing worse than spending a whole shift with your pants dripping wet with diesel All that spilt diesel made the rails and sleepers very slippery if it was raining, more than one collision, was due to that, it happened to me

manna

[Mickey]

If you was rostered 'Engine Movements' you would spend the time sitting in the Foreman's lobby.

[strang steel]

Well, it was fun to watch as a spotter on the platform end. There seemed always to be something moving around, and I could have watched all day even though there was little chance of copping anything.

Things went downhill slowly from 1976, as the inner suburbans were diverted to Moorgate and HSTs began to infiltrate on the main line.

I remember a brief visit around 1980, when I was so depressed at the changes from 5 years earlier with much of the area out of use, that I beat a hasty retreat and dont think that I went back again for about 15 years.

[Mickey]

The spotter's on no.10 platform would be watching every move going on in the yard.

[Andy W]

The building at the top of the embankment was the NCL (formerly ER) road motor workshop at Battlebridge Road. Their messroom faced the railway, if I recall correctly.

In my time at the Cross (mid 70's to late 80's) it used to do all the BR and NCL vans and lorries with cars being done in St Pancras Way, by another NCL workshop that used to be run by the LMR. The metal chimney at the north end of B/Bridge used to cause us amusement because as it rotted NCL put scaffolding round it. Eventually it parted company in the middle with only the scaffolding holding the two separate parts in place!

The two best walking routes to B/Bridge Road were either across the pass loco and up the embankment or if you are coming via the milk dock up the wooden steps into Culross and past the C&W supervisors office and out the front door - you were right opposite the road entrance to the NCL.

If you went up the embankment you could turn right and go past the afore mentioned chimney and then there was a gate in the fence line onto the road that was bang opposite the entrance to the Goods Yard. A very handy cut through but unfortunately this was also used by professional women at night so you had to be careful what you were treading in!

The pass loco had a waste oil tanker allocated to it - ADB 999024 and this used to get filled up with waste or neat diesel and sent to the various carriage sidings all around the patch to fill up the static boiler fuel tanks. It also used to do the Spanner Boiler for the static steam lines at KX station. This boiler was situated in East Side under the stairs on platform 1 and you took the tanker down platform 1 and there was a fuel line from the south end. One day in November 1977 Bill Haywood, an ODM fitter in his very late 50's climbed on top of the tank to open the top hatch to vent it and caught the 25kv across his back. It earthed through his foot and blew him off the tank, platform side. He survived, a little bit burned, but came back to work a few months later, albeit as a storeman as it had affected his breathing. He was a very very lucky man and joined the 25kv club of which there were not many members.

ADB 999024 for years afterwards carried a mark on the tank where it had earthed through Bills foot and of course that ended rail deliveries to the station as well as making sure M&EE staff got proper 25kv training. After that a road tanker came down the cab road to fill the tank directly. Nowadays, of course, ADB 999024 could go down the cab road! The Spanner at KX (SB 4545 or 4549 - I can't remember which now) was a larger industrial version of the type fitted into the locos.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Hi Micky, you could get two loco's off of the 'pit' onto the slip together but I think only one at a time out of the shed.

It was amazing how congested the passenger loco used to get, there was a Rugby final in the early 70's (Hull Kingston Rovers ??) train after train arrived at the Cross, some loco's were sent out to Finsbury Park, for refueling the rest were scattered about the station, IE, the Milk dock platforms 14 and 15, the EM drivers were taking the fueled locos out of the pass loco, while I was moving the locos in the pass loco, every class of E.R. loco arrived that day even pairs of 31's, a very satisfying day,


manna

[StevieG]

" .... The building JeffB refers to was always referred to in the box as the "Elephant House" and only had one road as far as I remember. The spring points held over by a lever gave access to it, and normally lay towards the outlet onto the Down Slow. I, too, only remember one derailment occurring there when a fireman let go prematurely.

John "

I haven't yet found a sketch drawing I have somewhere of "passenger loco"s track layout, and I'm not familiar with which part of it was called 'The slip' (was it the road leading from most of the yard, to the buffer stop, as used by locos just before leaving the depot?), but to get from the rest of the loco to 'the elephant house' shed you had to come along/down that road onto the stops, change the handpoints then draw forward into the shed.
I reckon those handpoints intersected the nearest switch of the signal box-worked No.230 points from the 'elephant house' road out onto 'E' route/Down Slow which were a little in advance of the handpoints ; thus the whole could be regarded as 3-way points of a sort.
I don't remember any actual spring points there but what I do remember I'm sure, is that those handpoints were fitted with a facing point lock bolt, operated by a 'one-way' hand(spring)points-type (straight) lever, which had to be held by the fireman/second man/driver's assistant while the loco was moved over the handpoints in the facing direction on either route : So I'm pretty sure outgoing locos (after 'ringing out' what they were for to the signalman?), waited until the yellow outlet disc was cleared (No.231 : Later made a more usual red-type and clear-able towards the 'elephant house' when control was moved from the old box to the switch panel in the present PSB building), then the FPL bolt hand-lever had to be held over while the loco drew forward, just cleared the facing handpoints, and stopped again, then the fireman let go the lever and went forward to rejoin his driver in the cab, and then the loco moved off to the Down Slow, Main 2, or Main 1, according to whichever of the three routes it was signalled to on signal 216(disc [normally used for loco shunts] )/220(main sig.), with the 'S', 'M2' or 'M1' route indication above.

As far as I'm aware, fitment of this sort of FPL arrangement on handpoints was very unusual, and I have always wondered if its existence resulted from trying to prevent recurrence of derailment(/s?) (the one referred to in previous posts?) having occurred on these handpoints, caused by the switches shifting slightly under moving locos.

[Mickey]

Deleted

[sandwhich]

I certainly have stirred some memories about the passenger loco, digging into the deep recesses of my mind I can remember four derailments, a rubbish wagon, an oil tank and two locomotives, parts of the loco yard were definately reballisted, thus the name of "the swamp". Can anybody remember a couple of round buffer beams from Class 47 diesels lying near the outlet signal, on two occasions two 47s doing a shunt (and I witnessed one of them) would get locked buffered and pull away, they laid on the ballast until the track was lifted after closure.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Stevie G, the 'slip' was the road next to the pit, I'm pretty sure you could get 3 or 4 locos in there, you could also run and engine 'forward' on the 'pit' road, bit of extra parking, I'll have to draw up the passenger loco.

I think you'll find they were the cl 47 buffers I knocked off, when the 47 I was backing out of the 'pit' rd onto the stops, picked it's wheels up and slid into another 47, at the breathtaking speed of 2mph, it gave the spotters something to talk about as it was Saturday afternoon and the end of the platform was packed, both engines had to go to Finsbury Park, for New buffers, Sidrod Sid, told me they were coming out of my wages !! plus we were short of locos that day, that would have been the summer of '75.

manna

[sandwhich]

Yes Sunday mornings were fairly quiet in the pass loco then during the late afternoon it started to liven up a bit.
One other incident, and a very serious one at that, was when an oil tank was being unloaded into the main fuel tanks and the pipe came adrift and it was impossible to shut the outlet from the rail tank with thousands of gallons of fuel running away with some getting into the Regents Canal, needless to say that Camden Council were not best pleased about it. It was found that the there was a fault with the outlet pipe on the wagon and the foreman in the loco told me that the oil company took full responsibilty for not detecting this beforehand. This incident happened in the early 1970s.
Can anybody remember the turntable which remained for some years after the end of steam, it was eventually removed with the various "roads" extended to make more room, although it could still be chaotic at times.
As already mentioned by others when the loco got a bit full the milk dock would be used to stable engines and also the then Platforms 14 & 15 at weekends when not so many engines were needed.