Oil trains?

[Mickey]

I remember seeing the Hertford East tank workings (to Printars Tar works on Mead Lane) and it was usually a class 33 working. This would be the 1970's just prior to the closure of Printars. The class 73s worked to Hertford on SR driver's route learning specials, propelling the inspector's coach to Hertford.
I don't recall 73s on anything else.

I actually saw that train QTTReprinter and I nearly mentioned that I did earlier on this topic. Yes a southern region class 33 hauling a rake of short wheel base tank wagons from Hertford East through Ware (the next station along from Hertford East) this would have been back in the early 1970s. I thought someone said it was bound for Fawley when it was mentioned before on here a decade ago.

[Mickey]

Not a oil train but while on the Hertford East branch back around 1969/70 I once stood on Ware station looking towards the St Margaret's direction and in a double-road Up siding a train of grey mineral wagons were standing with a brake van at the rear of the mineral wagons facing the station direction. I think the mineral wagons may have been full of coke or coal but more probably coke I would say?. Ware goods yard/depot was still around the back of Ware station at the same time.

I recall seeing two separate ground disc signals opposite each other of the LNER type where the coke wagons and brake van were standing on one of the siding roads that is why I said that two siding roads existed on the St Margaret's side of Ware station because I recall seeing the two separate 'white back plates' of the two 'disc signals' that were seen on the ground near the train of mineral wagons and brake van.

[rockinjohn]

Hi Mickey&all apart from having traffic for Buntingford,the sidings @ Ware served a Maltings,(alongside the River Lea) this finally closing in 1994,& always had an" 03" parked there, shunting the coke wagons,not sure if their was any "outbound"goods,suppose in steam days a J68/69 would have covered the job.

[Mickey]

That Ware goods depot around the back of Ware station was quite large maybe as many as eight roads that fanned out into a covered goods depot. I still have relatives in Ware and often visited the town during the late 1960s (the first time during 1964) but the last time I visited the town in 2008 the old Ware goods depot I believe was long gone closed and the land had modern residential housing built on it.

[Mickey]

Back on the oil trains...

On reflection some of those heavily laden LARGE OIL TANK trains may have been some of the heaviest trains running on the country's railways?.

[rockinjohn]

Ware actually had a Y11 tank (petrol) up to the mid '50's replaced by an 0-4-0 diesel shunter,only time I visited it actually got out the car rather than passed thru,was an 03 maybe a stand in,the two regular N7's that worked the branch were sub-shedded @ Buntingford N7 69633 the one I remember most & both had special water fillers on the tanks/boiler? for this reason,apart from the maltings maybe their was a large Mill their also?,long time ago for recollections. jj

[Mickey]

Off topic...

Picking up on jjs last post and digging deep into the old memory bank makes me recall a couple of vague visits with my parents to West Mill in east Hertfordshire which had a railway station a single platform and a set of level crossing gates on the single line Buntingford branch during 1964 and to a quaint old English tea shop near to the station that did tea and cream cakes and that was alright but the main interest for me wasn't the tea shop but West Mill railway station and level crossing gates that were nearby. According to Wikipedia the Buntingford branch closed in 1965 so when we visited West Mill I believe it was possibly during the summer of 1964 but I don't recall seeing any trains at all although it may well have been on two different Sundays and quite possibly no Sunday passenger service ran?.

[WTTReprinter]

Ware actually had a Y11 tank (petrol) up to the mid '50's replaced by an 0-4-0 diesel shunter,only time I visited it actually got out the car rather than passed thru,was an 03 maybe a stand in,the two regular N7's that worked the branch were sub-shedded @ Buntingford N7 69633 the one I remember most & both had special water fillers on the tanks/boiler? for this reason,apart from the maltings maybe their was a large Mill their also?,long time ago for recollections. jj

The two Buntingford N7s 69633/4 had valves to raise water overnight from a well into the water tank at Buntingford. This is mentioned in Yeadons, where there is a photo of '33. I'm not aware of anything else different about them.

According to Wikipedia the Buntingford branch closed in 1965 so when we visited West Mill I believe it was possibly during the summer of 1964 but I don't recall seeing any trains at all although it may well have been on two different Sundays and quite possibly no Sunday passenger service ran?

Mickey. The Sunday service was withdrawn some years before closure. Even in the steam era, there were only two or three Sunday trains. My 1953 WTTs show this whereas my 1963 WTT shows nothing for Sunday.

[rockinjohn]

69633/34 remembered their were two(2) fitted for the water supply @ Buntingford hose pipe filled (think J15's on the goods never need a top up & the replacment BTH 1's never did!)@least one of the two had to be available for the branch,'79 was a visitor, a Hertford East class member I expect,never saw "34"(on the branch) until a fellow railway fan mentioned,that it was a rare London area sighting when we saw it @ the "street",working on a down train maybe ex. works repair (30A), on the surburban side,if on a Hertford train unusual, that was usually the domain of the L1's. Think Widford my favourite station,& knew a "mill"figured some where in the recall maybe "West Mill" always thought the river/town/03 parked/camel track road out would make a nice model railway cameo&if only that line had been preserved &run for/by the Londoners all those years ago.

[Mickey]

Mickey. The Sunday service was withdrawn some years before closure. Even in the steam era, there were only two or three Sunday trains. My 1953 WTTs show this whereas my 1963 WTT shows nothing for Sunday.

Yeah thanks WTTReprinter most of the country's branch line passenger services finished during the 1950s although branch lines that still had goods trains running over them they usually lasted a few years longer after the passenger service had finished before finally closing. In Wikipedia it says the Buntingford branch closed in 1965 but in a Middleton Press book about branch lines around Hertfordshire it states the Buntingford branch closed in 1964.

[WTTReprinter]

Mickey. The Sunday service was withdrawn some years before closure. Even in the steam era, there were only two or three Sunday trains. My 1953 WTTs show this whereas my 1963 WTT shows nothing for Sunday.

Yeah thanks WTTReprinter most of the country's branch line passenger services finished during the 1950s although branch lines that still had goods trains running over them they usually lasted a few years longer after the passenger service had finished before finally closing. In Wikipedia it says the Buntingford branch closed in 1965 but in a Middleton Press book about branch lines around Hertfordshire it states the Buntingford branch closed in 1964.

Mickey, the branch closed to passengers in '64, lasting only a year as goods only before total closure.

[Mickey]

Mickey, the branch closed to passengers in '64, lasting only a year as goods only before total closure.

Thanks again WTTReprinter. I vaguely remember visiting West Mill twice the first time must have been in 1964 and maybe again a year later in 1965 as well?. The single track railway line was still laid in during both visits and a set of level crossing gates were open across the minor country road for road traffic at this point and closed against the railway just beyond the station which they were on both occasions that I visited West Mill which I believe would have both been on Sundays?.

My relatives moved to Ware around 1963-64 and I vaguely remember standing on Ware station platform looking at the road level crossing barriers and the 1960 built signal box just beyond the level crossing barriers and I am pretty sure that was in 1964 so the box would have only been open about 4 years by then.

[Mickey]

Where would a oil train be heading for north of Hitchin down the main line during 1972-73?. I vaguely recall the Arlesey signalman south of Biggleswade back then asking the whereabouts of this train via the s/n telegraph instrument when I was a 'tele lad' at WGC box 1972-74.

After thinking about it again the oil train above may have been a train of LARGE OIL TANKS which occasionally ran and would usually stand on the Down goods line at Digswell between Welwyn Garden City station & Welwyn viaduct before carrying on it's journey northwards because I recall the Arlesey signalman asking Welwyn North on the s/n telegraph instrument the whereabouts of this train on two or three occasions back then.

[rockinjohn]

Hi Mickey have replied&asked instead of in the "temple mills help"post on here,maybe the only postion for me would have been as the "fat controller",but one thing that always intrigued me about yourself &others, was your own transition from signalling to traction,was redundancy offered?,of course you didnt accept moving to traction, but what other avenues were offered to yourself &other signalling grades @ the time(if any) would control have been an option/offered for you or others like yourself in that postion thrust on you.

[Mickey]

Hi Mickey have replied&asked instead of in the "temple mills help"post on here,maybe the only postion for me would have been as the "fat controller",but one thing that always intrigued me about yourself &others, was your own transition from signalling to traction,was redundancy offered?,of course you didnt accept moving to traction, but what other avenues were offered to yourself &other signalling grades @ the time(if any) would control have been an option/offered for you or others like yourself in that postion thrust on you.

Basically jj after being at Welwyn Garden City box as a telegraph lad since the summer of 1972 I was informed at the start of 1974 that my position as a telegraph lad at the box was to be abolished so I applied for and got the 'lads job' at Finsbury Park No.6 but I never went to that box because I changed my mind after a couple of ex-school friends of mine who had come on the railway a year after myself as secondmen at Kings Cross during 1973 told me that it was a good job in the loco so I thought I would transfer into the loco myself at Kings Cross which I did in April 1974. At that time the early 1970s it was a 'time of transition' on the Kings Cross area with signal boxes closing and the commencement of the GN Electrification work during 1973 and the re-signalling projects on going along the line between Kings Cross to Sandy and the Hertford loop.

A few years later during 1979 I was a secondman for about eight months at Stratford in east London and it was ok but not as good as being at Kings Cross and I had done a secondman's job before at Kings Cross 5 years earlier so it was nothing new to me (except for the areas covered by Stratford as opposed to Kings Cross) so I transferred back into the signalling grade at the beginning of 1980 which meant going through the Ilford signalling school (I went to Ilford school previously back in 1972 to learn the s/n telegraph instrument) and then after 6 weeks in the signalling school I went to my first box at Victoria Park in Hackney in east London and after nearly 42 years I am still in the signalling grade.

Railway signalling has changed quite a lot over the last 50+ years and in some ways it isn't the same job as it was back in the 1960s and early 1970s due to many changes in signalling and on the railways in general which includes the abolition of B.R. and the privatisation of the countries railways during the mid/late 1990s and the introduction of many new working methods and loads of new people coming on the railways over the last 20-30 years as well. For me the 'great days' of railway signalling finished 50+ years ago on the Kings Cross area and NOTHING since has come close to those days and never will end of story...