Although having a somewhat tenuous link with this thread, in that the
East London line joined the GER near Liverpool Street, and was for many years administered by
London Transport as part of the Metropolitan Line, I nevertheless wondered if the accompanying photocopy of a photograph of
East London Junction might be of interest.
I know it is of poor quality, but I have scanned it anyway, to include here on the basis of 'a poor image is better than none'. I think someone at Liv.St. gave me this photocopy in around 2000, but I've no idea of its source or the date of the original, except that it obviously predates the '1949' resignalling, when
East London Junction came under the control of the then new Liverpool Street power signal box.
The location is where the
East London line diverged from the GE main line just west of the former's Shoreditch station, and the large 'flyover' skew bridge No.19 which carried the approach lines for Bishopsgate Goods over the main line's six-tracks near the bottom of 'Bethnal Green bank'.
The view is to the
east from between the Up Local and the Down Through* lines, looking across to the Through* lines on the right and with the double, Throughs*/E.L. lines junction, with the signal box being set into the retaining wall almost opposite the fixed diamond crossing in the Up Through, and
east of the junction points.
* - [ from introduction of Ilford Flyover and the 1949-ish Liv.St.-Shenfield electrification and resignalling, the Local lines here became today's "Main" lines, and the Throughs became the Down and Up "Electric" lines.]
The prominent overbridge is Brick Lane, with, beyond it, over the E.L.lines, the bridge structure for Shoreditch E.L. line station, with the station's platform/canopies just discernible in the right background. Abutting the Shoreditch station bridge, the bulk mostly visible to the left through the Local lines bridge opening, is that of the abutments to the previously-mentioned overbridge No.19 which also ran above Brick Lane.
There is another photo of this area, on p.38 of the 1991 book "Great Eastern In Town & Country, (vol.) Two"; by Chris Hawkins, from Irwell Press.
That photo was taken from a little further west, hard by the retaining wall beside the Up Through (possibly from the E. end of Bishopsgate Low Level platform), and prominently features E.L.Jn's pair of Down Through lower quadrant L/H-bracketed home signals for the junction, springing from the brickwork of, or standing in a recess of, the up side retaining wall; their red arm fronts apparently only relieved by white lettering ; 'T' (Through) on the left (high) arm, 'EL' (
East London) on the (lower) right.
For several years until his retirement not that long ago, I worked with someone who had been a Stratford fireman, and he remembered firing on goods trains to the Southern Region which used this route, around the mid-1950s I would think, and probably running Temple Mills-Hither Green. As
East London Jn. faced west, these ran via Liverpool Street station, apparently being shunt-released to run-round there, and thus a return trip would pass E.L.Jn. four times.