Now who remembers the open day, at Noel Park goods yard, around about 1959,ish that was the only time I was legally in Noel Park goods yard???? I can remember 'Mallard' I got to walk through the corridor tender like hundreds of others! I also remember the J52 and the C12, wish that had been preserved as well and you could have a ride on the steam crane for 3d, ( up, round and down), but what else was there, was there a class 40????
manna
Ah yes, I remember it well!
I didn't even know Noel Park had a goods yard until that event. It must have been on a much lower level than the running tracks because Noel Park station itself was built next to the bridge over Wood Green High Road. Shunting that goods yard must have been quite interesting if the approach was on a steep gradient. The yard would have been mainly used for local house coal traffic I reckon, every North London house in those days had coal fires for heating. That was what caused the fog which prevented me from seeing the last Ivatt Atlantic.
Palmers Green also had a small goods yard with 3 or 4 sidings, it was on the up side south of the station, so I suppose the goods trains used to come in from the Hertford direction and reverse into the goods yard. I remember watching Hornsey J6's shunting at PG, 64233 and 64256 were the usual ones but there were others which I don't recall.
Anyway back to the Noel Park event. I still have the official programme and here's the cover of it:img541.jpg
As to the locos present, yes Mallard was there and the programme also lists a J52 ( I think it was 68846), a C12 (that was 67352, quite a shock to see one of this class back in London after many years), a 9F 2-10-0 (can't remember which one), a Type 4 D200 class (Hornsey had a few when they were new), a 350-hp shunter (can't remember which one) and D5300 (Sulzer Type 2. Plus a DMU and several coaches, wagons and small exhibits.
I thought you might like to see this picture:D5300NoelParkEx130958.jpg
Just found this site researching the Noel Park Goods Depot display. I think the lad alongside D5300 was me!! I would have been 13 and in my second year at Grammar school. Looks like my school uniform (first year of long trousers!).
Thanks for the memory. I was also a Hornsey spotter so more memories in due course...
Now who remembers the open day, at Noel Park goods yard, around about 1959,ish that was the only time I was legally in Noel Park goods yard???? I can remember 'Mallard' I got to walk through the corridor tender like hundreds of others! I also remember the J52 and the C12, wish that had been preserved as well and you could have a ride on the steam crane for 3d, ( up, round and down), but what else was there, was there a class 40????
manna
Ah yes, I remember it well!
I didn't even know Noel Park had a goods yard until that event. It must have been on a much lower level than the running tracks because Noel Park station itself was built next to the bridge over Wood Green High Road. Shunting that goods yard must have been quite interesting if the approach was on a steep gradient. The yard would have been mainly used for local house coal traffic I reckon, every North London house in those days had coal fires for heating. That was what caused the fog which prevented me from seeing the last Ivatt Atlantic.
Palmers Green also had a small goods yard with 3 or 4 sidings, it was on the up side south of the station, so I suppose the goods trains used to come in from the Hertford direction and reverse into the goods yard. I remember watching Hornsey J6's shunting at PG, 64233 and 64256 were the usual ones but there were others which I don't recall.
Anyway back to the Noel Park event. I still have the official programme and here's the cover of it:img541.jpg
As to the locos present, yes Mallard was there and the programme also lists a J52 ( I think it was 68846), a C12 (that was 67352, quite a shock to see one of this class back in London after many years), a 9F 2-10-0 (can't remember which one), a Type 4 D200 class (Hornsey had a few when they were new), a 350-hp shunter (can't remember which one) and D5300 (Sulzer Type 2. Plus a DMU and several coaches, wagons and small exhibits.
I thought you might like to see this picture:D5300NoelParkEx130958.jpg
Just found this site researching the Noel Park Goods Depot display. I think the lad alongside D5300 was me!! I would have been 13 and in my second year at Grammar school. Looks like my school uniform (first year of long trousers!).
Thanks for the memory. I was also a Hornsey spotter so more memories in due course...
G'Day Gents
Sorry for the late reply, only just noticed I've had a reply, been a few years since I've had one. Glad it was of use and the Memories it brought back.
Now, a good few years ago, I put up a picture of the Please explain I received for banging two engines together at Harringay holding sidings, seeing it was almost dark and not having a camera with me, no way to prove the amount of damaged to the locos, until Facebook came to the rescue, a picture surfaced of one of the engines involved, taken at the the time, either at Doncaster or Finsbury Park.
That 'crunch up' happened in July 1975 according to the 'please explain' letter and I was still at Kings Cross loco as a secondman at the time although it was nothing to do with me but it rings a vague bell?.
Oh dear the locos solebar is well and truly bent downwards and damaged along with the no.2 end cab which looks like it's a right off!.
I am fairly certain that 31 403 was a regular around the London area out of Kings Cross during the early/mid 1970s but I'm not sure about 31 212 although thinking about it again I think I remember seeing it around at that time?.
Original start date of 2010 on the LNER forum and previously posted 4500+ posts.
I would imagine 31212 was an Old Oak loco in the mid-1970s. Looking at my old spotting notes from that period I saw it at Langley, and again at Reading in 1976; then at High Wycombe in 1978.
However, those places did see oil trains from Ripple Lane/Dagenham Dock area which were usually double headed 31s, and it could have been a wandering Stratford loco.
From a personal view point the trouble with the TOPs re-numbering of 1973-74 is I never knew what the old 55?? or 56?? series numbers were with regards to the Brush type 2s?. Now if it had been (D)5601 that from memory was a local type 2 seen around the Kings Cross during the late 1960s & 1970s.
Going back to manna's picture that must have been a 'hell of a shunt' to do that sort of damage?. Anyway one afternoon when I was a secondman at Stratford loco back in 1979 myself and my driver were shunting the Ilford Milk depot sidings along side the GE main line just east of Ilford station and we had a Brush type 2 (class 31) that afternoon and I was doing the driving and during a propelling move with around 10-15 short wheel based milk tanks we had a 'heavy shunt' into a stationary vehicle and stopped very abruptly!!. Anyway there couldn't have been any damage done as we carried on and shortly afterwards we left the Ilford Milk depot siding with a train of milk tanks for Clapham Junction and I think my driver still let me do the driving that afternoon?.
Original start date of 2010 on the LNER forum and previously posted 4500+ posts.
SS, you go right ahead, post what you want, it's a Memory thread, which is exactly what you posted, it was 45 years ago
I rolled into a dead end siding with the 31 (not sure which one I was on) at no more than 10 MPH, but when you hit another 100 ton plus roadblock.........well.
This is for all the ex Kings Cross locomen during the early/mid 1970s.
What was the names of all the loco foremen?. The best known was probably Greggy a bald headed guy in his mid/late 40s who was usually seen wearing a long dark blue dust coat who according to what someone wrote on here 10 years ago emigrated to Australia 40+ years ago. Another foreman was a tall bloke who wore glasses and who had thick bushy eyebrows and I assume was in his mid/late 40s and who again always wore a long dark blue dust coat and who didn't appear to talk much to anyone at the signing on point or in the train crews mess room and another foreman had dark hair who was possibly in his 40s and was always to be seen in the Kings Cross BRSA club with his 'other half' when off duty I mite add.
Original start date of 2010 on the LNER forum and previously posted 4500+ posts.
I have this project for school where I want to collect a bunch of railway stories from loads of people, write them down word for word in an anthology of sorts, and preserve them for future generations. Those types of stories are invaluable parts of railway history, I think.
I was wondering if I could use a couple of your stories for this project. They are truly amazing stories, and I think people would really enjoy them.
hi mickey/manna & others remember I told you I saw a brush with headcode @ one end only after a crash had to be D55XX upto D5540 or less?.think @ 30A, jj
tradewinds wrote: ↑Wed May 12, 2021 4:49 am
Good evening Manna,
I have this project for school where I want to collect a bunch of railway stories from loads of people, write them down word for word in an anthology of sorts, and preserve them for future generations. Those types of stories are invaluable parts of railway history, I think.
I was wondering if I could use a couple of your stories for this project. They are truly amazing stories, and I think people would really enjoy them.
Thank you for your time,
Tradewinds
G'Day Tradewinds.
By all means use them, just credit them to 'Manna c/o LNER Encyclopedia'. Thanks.
One of my favourite memories is from the 6th October 1981. It was the dying days of the Deltics, a Sunday and I still lived in Sunderland. There were diversions on via Leamside and I reckoned I had time to walk the disused line to Penshaw in time for a northbound diverted ECML train which had a chance of being Deltic hauled. It was a foggy morning and as as I neared Penshaw North Junction I could faintly hear a Deltic roar in the distance so I hurried to get in position. There must have been a speed restriction on and I saw the familiar shape loom out of the mist like a ghost. It was none other than my own machine, 55007 Pinza, all nice and clean. She passed me then slid round the curve onto the Victoria viaduct and vanished into the fog.
and you could have a ride on the steam crane for 3d, ( up, round and down), but what else was there, was there a class 40????
