B.R.(ER) 1970s diesel days

[Mickey]

"jj ye talk like a old time railwayman."

Meanwhile back on the GN later...

[Mickey]

A nice little job at 'the Cross' for drivers & secondmen during 1974 was a 5 link job and the train was 9B69 (I even recall the headcode) one of the rare diagrams that you would sign on at a 'decent time' around 8:00am instead of around midnight or around 4:30-5:30am like many of those jobs required having to do. The train was made up of box vans, mineral wagons, bogie bolster flat wagons and x2 brake vans at either end of the train. The loco was always a blue livered Brush type 2 (class 31).

The train departed from Kings Cross Goods yard around 9:30-9:45am and was bound for Temple Mills in east London and only ran during the weekdays only. After departing Five Arch shunting frame cabin the train would slowly draw passed Goods And Mineral Junction box and it's associated track & points work then underneath the tall North London line bridge in Belle Isle and onwards into the Copenhagen Goods line tunnel emerging at the far end of the tunnel climbing the 'Holloway bank' passing Holloway South Down box and then Holloway North Down box on the Down Goods line towards Finsbury Park No.2 box. Upon arrival at Finsbury Park on the Down Goods line 9B69 would then run/round between Finsbury Park No.3 & Finsbury Park No.2 s/boxes hence the two brake vans. Once the running round the train was completed the train would then depart passing Ashburton Grove box & Finsbury Park No.1 box on the Down Goods line and then headed towards the North London line through Canonbury tunnel and Canonbury Junction and then it went via and passed Western Junction, Eastern Junction, Victoria Park, Lea Junction, High Meads Junction, Temple Mills East box & Manor yard Temple Mills arriving around an hour after leaving Kings Cross Goods yard.

The return working retraced it's inward bound route departing Temple Mills Manor yard around midday passing Temple Mills East box, High Meads Junction, Lea Junction, Victoria Park, Eastern Junction, Western Junction, Canonbury Junction, Finsbury Park No.1 box, Ashburton Grove box arriving at Finsbury Park around 12:45pm where the train would again run/round between Finsbury Park No.3 & Finsbury Park No.2 s/boxes. After running around it's train at Finsbury Park the train would depart and pass Ashburton Grove box and climbed the 'creep up' to the top at on the 'Holloway bank' then it continued down passing Holloway South Up box then over the flyover and through Copenhagen goods line tunnel emerging into Belle Isle passing underneath the tall North London line bridge and over the associated track & points work outside Goods And Mineral Junction box arriving at Five Arch shunting frame cabin around 1:00pm

This particular train 'came off the road one day' in the early 1970s when it was running round between Finsbury Park No.3 & Finsbury Park No.2 s/boxes causing some disruption for a couple of days on the Down Goods lines via Finsbury Park No.2.

[rockinjohn]

Hi Mickey &all, I must have been just around 10yrs old when riding my Blue Raleigh Bike with white mudguards, would be autumn '57& a nice warm evening, riding down York Way, just by Maiden Lane Goods depot before the Freightliner depot had arrived,I heard a strange high pitched whistling unable to see or find the scource, I travelled on to the potato shed wall @ Kings X goods yard & peered over never seeing much but a Blk 350, the MPD to far away,then on to the circuit the Cross/St Pancras, lastly Euston, holding on to my bike, theft & a smack always prevalant in those areas &times, when the "Irish Mail"Brit backed down # noted it was time to ride home in twilight hours, riding like mad back up York Way(past the whistling) across Cally Rd &on to the Grove,So it bugged me, I got the old maybe the new? slam door EMU from Highbury &Islington to Camden Rd, soon after one evening &passing Maiden Lane saw it! an EE type 1 doing very little work(their pilot) just whistling away, brand new &shiny,now irrespetive of what folks say that NLL line didnt have that many goods trains in the daylight hours, possibly night hours were different, no matter how many Jinties or Ivatt 4Mt's that 1D(devons rd) had allocated!having spent quite a few fruitless hours spotting @ Dalston Junc. not long after D201 whistled its shiny way up the "creep"& it was the beginning of the end, the modernisation plan had started not long before.jj

[Mickey]

That York Way depot was I believe the first Freightliner depot in London jj. A signal box named York Way was close to the Freightliner depot and I assume controlled the connections in & out of the depot with the no.1 lines anyway I visited that box not long after it closed around 1973 on a dark evening and that box must have had the best views over central London ever being as it was perched up high on the North London line.

Prior to 1979 that North London line was a funny old bit of railway especially east of Western Junction s/box on the double-track section to & from Stratford as it was basically a freight only line until 1979 when B.R. instigated a x2 car Cravens DMU passenger service between North Woolwich-Stratford low level-Hackney Central-Highbury & Islington and Camden Road anyway prior to the passenger service in 1979 I travelled the route on a number of occasions when I was a secondman at Kings Cross during 1974-75. The route east of Western Junction was bit of a lonely stretch of railway although a old North London railway gas lit s/box named Eastern Junction (a similar structure to Western Junction s/box) was located at the disused and lifted eastern end of the old 'Dalston triangle' situated next door to a scrap yard and it's primary purpose was to shorten the block section between Eastern Junction s/box and Victoria Park s/box and also for running around freight trains between Eastern Junction & Western Junction s/boxes of which a small number of freight trains coming off the GN from Finsbury Park at Canonbury Junction then travelled down towards Western Junction and then stopped between Western Junction & Eastern Junction to run/round before heading westwards towards the London Midland region at Willesden via Camden road & Primrose Hill. East of Eastern Junction s/box the railway ran in a cutting for some distance and passed under several bridges before the cutting fell away near Graham road and then passed under the GE suburban lines near Hackney Downs. Before 1979 the old derelict Hackney Central station was passed through then the railway was carried on a long brick viaduct as far as the old derelict Homerton station before the railway gradient fell and then curved to the right and passed the old Hackney Wick Goods yard on the left-hand side which had around 8-10 roads and shortly afterwards approached Victoria Park s/box which was the junction towards either Old Ford and Devons road and terminating at Poplar docks or taking the left-hand route at Victoria Park to pass over the river Lea on a bridge that had a permanent 10 mph speed restriction over it and continuing onwards several hundred yards to reach Lea Junction at Stratford.

1.Eastern Junction s/box closed around 1977 I believe?.

2.Victoria Park s/box was my first box as a signalman in 1980-81.

[Mickey]

When I was a secondman I think it was when I was at Stratford we was running round a freightliner between Eastern Junction & Western Junction one rainy day maybe in 1979 because I have a feeling that Eastern Junction s/box had been abolished by then and a x2 lever stirrup lever ground frame had been provided to work the main to main crossover formerly worked by Eastern Junction s/box that was operated by the train guard and released by Western Junction s/box anyway when the guard who was changing ends with the trains tail lamp came up to the loco a class 47 and says to the driver "Bring a mug or your empty tea can and follow me" so the driver and myself got down off the loco and down onto the ballast and walked back a few container lengths and found that a broken seal on a metal beer keg of Double-Diamond beer had burst and was spraying out a steady stream of beer!. As a confirmed tea drinker I preferred a nice mug of tea instead myself.

From vague memory those run/round moves at Western Junction were performed this way after Eastern Junction s/box was abolished in 1977. The train would arrive on the Up Poplar line and stop at Eastern Junction and the guard who was riding in the back cab of the loco would then get down off the loco and 'go between' and uncouple the loco from the train and then he would get out from underneath the train and go over to the Eastern Junction ground frame while the loco was drawing forward of the main to main crossover and stop the loco crew would then change ends on the loco and the guard would be at the ground frame asking the Western Junction signalman for the release for the Eastern Junction ground frame to cross the loco over. After he had obtained the ground frame release the guard would pull the release lever and the points lever over to the reverse and cross over the loco over from the Up Poplar line onto the Down Poplar line where it would stop once it had crossed over onto the Down Poplar line. The guard would then put the ground frame back (both levers back in the frame) and the Western Junction signalman would then regain control over the ground frame again. The guard by this time would have put a spare tail lamp on the rear of what was now the rear of the train which was still standing on the Up Poplar line and then he would have climbed back up into the cab of the loco and then rode through to Western Junction s/box about 300-400 yards away where the loco would have stopped to set the guard down on the ballast then after the loco had drawn forward over the no.1 line crossover the guard would have then crossed the Down Poplar line and to the rear of the train (which now became the front of the train) and taken the old tail lamp off the rear vehicle of the train and waited for the loco to have been crossed over off the Down Poplar/No.1 lines crossing and set back onto the train where it would have been coupled up by the guard 'going between' the loco and train which was standing outside Western Junction s/box and after coupling up a brake test would have been carried out by the driver and with the guard back on the loco in the back cab a blast on the locos horn would have signified to the Western Junction signal man that the train was ready to depart.

[thesignalman]

Your memory isn't as vague as you think, Mickey.

I remember that run-round move from when I was a Relief Signalman at Broad Street. The last regular one was the Kelloggs from Marshmoor to Willesden (4M44) but the opposite direction took another route (Harringay Curve, probably). There were also occasional stock moves and general crud movements but 4M44 was the regular latterly.

Best regards,

John

[Mickey]

Thanks for your confirmation John always very much appreciated.

After I returned to the signalling grade at the beginning of 1980 and spent time at several boxes around the North London lines I eventually went as a resident signalman at Western Junction between March-July 1987 when the box still had it's North London Railway stirrup lever frame also I was at the box but working it 'on the relief' when it received a new NX panel later in 1987 anyway by the time that I was at Western Junction during 1987 'running round' freight trains had ceased also the former x2 lever ground frame at Eastern Junction for crossing over locos had also been abolished.

[rockinjohn]

Hi Mickey and all, I enjoy modern traction cab rides, not the fuzzy variety, but must admit the routes would in some cases have been better in earlier times,Now one came up on YOUTUBE today 04/06/21(my birthday!) that was of great intrest to me &maybe many others too, was a daily brick train, possibly the return working from BOW to BIGGLESWADE via the GE/NLL/Canonbury Curve & on to the Hertford Loop,if you haven't viewed it enjoy.jj