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New Page: Palace Gates to Seven Sisters

Posted: Sun Jan 31, 2016 5:48 pm
by richard
Thank you to Richard Matz for the new article about the Palace Gates to Seven Sisters line, in the GER section:

http://www.lner.info/co/GER/palacegates/index.php

Re: New Page: Palace Gates to Seven Sisters

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 2:51 pm
by 52D
A good read.

Re: New Page: Palace Gates to Seven Sisters

Posted: Mon Feb 01, 2016 9:18 pm
by chiggers
an excellent article Richard. As a small boy in the 40's I would watch the run around operation from the park end, fascinating stuff.
Later it passed behind St; Pauls school between park rd and station rd. god help any of us who dared to look around to see it pass.
A good caning was the result! I regret never having travelled on it! I wonder if anyone ever made a full video of the route?
regards chiggers

Re: New Page: Palace Gates to Seven Sisters

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 3:09 am
by Palace Gates
Thanks chiggers. I don't think there is specific video footage of the Palace Gates line (and believe me, I have searched!) but this clip includes footage of an iconic N7 0-6-2 Tank Engine (S'truth, I love this engine!) and a J15 0-6-0 Goods loco (both now preserved & running in East Anglia) that would have worked the line. There's also testimony from a grand ole fella, Richard Hardy, who worked the Jazz Service in general from Liverpool Street

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9f-QWLHm7k

If you do Facebook, there is a great page called 'The Jazz' that is full of pictures and anecdotes from men who also worked the line

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1403742 ... 8/?fref=ts

Your old school is still there, though!

Kind Regards

Richard Matz

Re: New Page: Palace Gates to Seven Sisters

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 12:54 pm
by Mickey
Palace Gates wrote:I don't think there is specific video footage of the Palace Gates line (and believe me, I have searched!)
I can't access the youtube film footage so it mite be the same film that i am thinking about but there was a video out called Great Eastern Suburban (i think it was called that i can't remember exactly now??) that i bought from the Ian Alan shop at Waterloo about 10-12 years ago which was part of the TVP (Transport Video Publishing) range of railway videos/dvds that featured a steam hauled run from North Woolwich to Palace Gates in the mid/late 1950s and was shot by a amateur cameraman at various locations along the whole route from North Woolwich to Palace Gates with 'dubbed on' sound added later on also i have a vague memory that this film was in colour as well?.

I looked on the TVP website and i can't find this video so i presume it has been deleted?.


Mickey

Re: New Page: Palace Gates to Seven Sisters

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 2:56 pm
by Palace Gates
Thanks for the heads-up, Mickey. I think I've found the dvd you mentioned and have ordered a copy:

By Steam To The Eastern Counties Dvd: Steam On The Great Northern & Great Eastern Main Lines & East Anglia in 1950-1960s

The cover includes the same shot of the N7 that I've used to head my article and it's a snip at £12.95

Re: New Page: Palace Gates to Seven Sisters

Posted: Tue Feb 02, 2016 3:41 pm
by Mickey
Palace Gates wrote:Thanks for the heads-up, Mickey. I think I've found the dvd you mentioned and have ordered a copy:

By Steam To The Eastern Counties Dvd: Steam On The Great Northern & Great Eastern Main Lines & East Anglia in 1950-1960s

The cover includes the same shot of the N7 that I've used to head my article and it's a snip at £12.95
They may well have changed the title of the dvd because i'm fairly certain the video cassette that i had was called Great Eastern Suburban although you are correct about the front cover picture it was of the same N7 tank taken at Palace Gates (the picture was provided by Colour Rail pictures) also the journey is a 'disjointed journey' and isn't one long continuous piece of film from North Woolwich to Palace Gates it's been shot at various locations along the route like at Lea Bridge & South Tottenham stations and i presume the bloke who originally shot the film must have took all day to film it getting in and out of different trains and hanging around at several stations along the route for the next train?.

Mickey

Re: New Page: Palace Gates to Seven Sisters

Posted: Thu Feb 04, 2016 6:42 pm
by chiggers
Thank you for the you tube lead Richard. enjoyable. Happy days, long gone!
regards Chiggers

Re: New Page: Palace Gates to Seven Sisters

Posted: Fri Feb 05, 2016 9:40 pm
by Mickey
I have wondered several times over the last year why the GER never sort 'running powers' over the GNR beyond Palace Gates station to Enfield Chase station?. From memory i don't think the Hertford Loop extended beyond Enfield Chase until 1910?.

Mind you if they had done so the Junction at Bounds Green (box) would have had to be remodelled especially for trains travelling on the Down line from Palace Gates onto the Down Enfield line between Bounds Green (box) and west of Bowes Park station.

I presume the GER didn't think it was worth there while running trains beyond there own station at Palace Gates because the total mileage from Kings Cross to Enfield Chase station is 9 miles and the mileage at Bounds Green (box) is about 6 miles from Kings Cross so if the GER sort 'running powers' over the GNR beyond Palace Gates station through Bounds Green Junction on the GNR to Enfield Chase station it was approximately a 4 miles run from Palace Gates station to Enfield Chase station until 1898 where the line terminated and from 1910 the Hertford branch was extended northwards from Enfield Chase station to Cuffley station at 13 miles from Kings Cross where again it terminated.


Mickey

Re: New Page: Palace Gates to Seven Sisters

Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 3:30 pm
by Palace Gates
Mickey - I suspect that the GNR had the Enfield Chase route well covered whilst the GER were too preoccupied with their intense and successful Jazz services from Liverpool Street to Enfield Town. There was a far greater urban population density along the latter line as well. I travelled up to Enfield Chase from Bowes Park on business earlier this week. I noted the spacious & predominantly middle-class Edwardian nature/history of the surrounding suburbs along the Enfield Chase line and was reminded of an old saying that highlighted the historical differences between neighbouring Bowes Park and Wood Green:
Bowes Park is Wood Green with its Sunday clothes on. Wood Green is the original Jack Jones; Bowes Park is Jack Jones ‘come into a bit o’ splosh’
I think this saying is partly true of the relationship between the two pre-grouping railway companies as well, particularly in relation to their respective suburban lines in the area. The poorer GER deliberately courted the working classes with cheap early morning fares. Its lines transformed Tottenham from rural village idyll to urban conurbation by the end of the 19th Century, as well as shifting the gravity of population in Wood Green further south to Noel Park. Not without opposition though! In 1869, the Tottenham and Edmonton Advertiser played down the demand for workmen’s fares fearing that ‘they would only encourage a large body of people who could not fail to add to poverty and mortality and an increase in the local rates’. Along with the poor, Nimbyism is always with us it seems!

By 1899, the 2d (old pence!) early morning workmen’s return fares from Enfield Town to Liverpool Street were amongst the cheapest in the country to the point where the GER faced a legal challenge to extend them on more and later trains. The London Reform Union’s court action was concerned with the numbers of ‘artizans, mechanics, and daily labourers, both male and female’ forced to loiter for long periods early morning in London before their hours of employment commenced. I think there was a Victorian undercurrent of concern for public order and morality involved here as well.

In its defence, the GER provided statistics showing that (over all its suburban services in east and north-east London) it ran 104 trains a day over 522 miles carrying an impressive 6,935,887 people per annum on workmen’s fares. Only the Metropolitan Railway exceeded this figure. However, the Company lost the case and were ordered to provide five additional trains with workmen’s fares between 7am - 8am on Enfield and Walthamstow services.

Re: New Page: Palace Gates to Seven Sisters

Posted: Sat Feb 06, 2016 7:19 pm
by Mickey
Palace Gates wrote:Mickey - I suspect that the GNR had the Enfield Chase route well covered whilst the GER were too preoccupied with their intense and successful Jazz services from Liverpool Street to Enfield Town.
Yes i would say you are correct as far as the GER was concerned it wouldn't be worth there while obtaining 'running powers' to run 'there trains' northwards beyond Palace Gates station over the GNR to Enfield Chase in 1898 or to Cuffley in 1910 or to Hertford North in 1918 and as you point out they had there own terminal station at Enfield Town (and at Hertford East at the end of the Broxbourne branch as well).

Mickey

Re: New Page: Palace Gates to Seven Sisters

Posted: Mon Feb 08, 2016 4:00 pm
by StevieG
Aware of not wanting to incur Administrator/Moderator wroth by prolonging this item with historical info. when it is in "LNER News", I will try to keep this post short.

I once saw a box diagram of Bounds Green box on 'the GN' apparently showing its layout when at its fullest extent.
This included the single "Connecting Line" between Bounds Green [from points in the Spur - Bounds Green Carr. Sdgs. line north of the box, but 'in series' with the Bounds Green C.S.- Up ('Hertford') line and Up-to-Down crossovers (with all relevant point ends fitted with facing point locks {FPL} ), and close to the Bounds Green Road road-over-rail bridge] and Palace Gates box and station, with several FPL-equipped ground frames en route for point connections to sidings on either side [including to part/s of Bounds Green Carr. Sdgs.], with the single line protected against 'runaway'/unauthorised movements at these six-or-more connections, not by trap points, but instead by derailers (I think the diagram showed two release levers in the box for these GFs; and I think an Acceptance Lever for Down trains from Palace Gates).
In this form the Connecting Line was evidently available for through 'GE'/'GN' moves in either direction, certainly for goods traffic, and ostensibly, passenger trains also (I've a sneaky feeling that I once upon a time have read of an excursion or two to/from Southend passing this way) : Also the Bounds Green Up line to Connecting Line Second Home signal had a full-size arm at the time, as would befit use of the line for through running movements.
Unfortunately I don't think I've ever seen a diagram showing the signalling details of the Palace Gates end for this period.

I don't know, but would not be surprised if this Connecting Line was upgraded to the above form for through movements as a WWII route flexibility measure.

Re: New Page: Palace Gates to Seven Sisters

Posted: Tue Feb 09, 2016 8:31 am
by Mickey
Interesting previous post Stevie.

For a fairly small box Bounds Green sure seemed to have a lot of points, signals & ground disc signals controlled from it although prior to 1974 i rarely ever went around the Hertford branch much if hardly ever (i preferred to stay on the main line) although i believe once can remember passing Palmers Green box on a Down train when it was still there but thats about the only time and as for Bounds Green box i only ever usually glanced at it from riding on passing trains on the main line through Wood Green.

When i did get around the Bounds Green & Bowes Park area circa 1974/75 there was a 'reversing siding' for ECS going back into Bounds Green shops/sidings or heading south Up through Wood Green station to Hornsey carriage sidings located between the 'wide space' between the Up & Down Enfield lines east of Bowes Park station which i believe is still there to day and by 1974/75 there had been some minor signalling alterations at the box with TCB (Track Circuit Block) working with Gordon Hill (box) and maybe a few minor signalling alterations outside the box as well that included the operation of the reversing line east of Bowes Park station.


Mickey

Re: New Page: Palace Gates to Seven Sisters

Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2016 2:53 am
by Palace Gates
In London’s Local Railways, 2nd Edition (1999), Alan A. Jackson records that a GN/GE link north of Palace Gates had been authorised in the LNER Act 1924 but that authority lapsed in 1929 before any work had started. However, in January 1930 a single line connection was made between the Palace Gates yard sidings and the new Bounds Green carriage depot running off the Hertford line. This carried some East Coast excursions from the former GN suburban stations during the summer of 1939, and then coal trains during WWII from 1941. These coalers had to be shunted and split at Palace Gates to run through to Temple Mills (Stratford) on the old GE branch (pulled by two F7s or a single J39). This proved awkward via the sidings, so a full through line was authorised.

Single –tracked and signalled for two-way working, the link was controlled from the Palace Gates and Bounds Green boxes by direction levers with associated track circuits, and came into full use from 09/07/1944. Four freight trains ran each way daily loaded southbound from New England (Peterborough), empty on return, but they were still limited to 50 wagons by the gradients and curvatures on the former GE lines. Occasional summer excursions from former GN stations to Southend and Clacton resumed in 1953 and, in 1959, Cambridge – Liverpool Street trains ran briefly through Palace Gates, Hatfield North & Royston during engineering works at Broxbourne Junction.

This later LNER connecting line fully locked up and fit for passenger train use is shown in a box diagram at the bottom of this post from RMweb:

http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index. ... nnections/

Re: New Page: Palace Gates to Seven Sisters

Posted: Wed Feb 10, 2016 8:00 am
by Mickey
That track diagram of Bounds Green (box) is one of R.Ps. who's a regular on the forum and i must say that track diagram was very interesting in fact i didn't realise that Bounds Green (box) had such an interesting track layout to be honest.

Thanks.

Mickey