Memories

[Flamingo]

G'Day Gents.
Hq1, I only remember a couple of baby deltic's roaring around the KX area,I do have a couple of photos of them after withdrawl at Finsbury Pk, pity I never got to ride in one.I'll see if I can find them,also I never managed to get into the engineers sidings at Hitchin.

Flamingo, I know the exact spot you were standing on, I use to stand there between the booking hall and the bridge, watching the little J52's pulling the coaches out of Bounds Green sidings then pushing them back in again, another spot that I used at Wood Green was on the Ally Pally side of the station, there was a long wing wall attached to the station exit we use to climb up behind the phone box and sit on the top of the wall next to a large GNR gas lamp, had a wonderful view of the trains as they rounded the curve through Hornsey station and down the long straight to Wood Green.Have a wonderful memory of seeing 'The Tetrarch' tearing through Wood Green station between the two footbridges from this high vantage point.
I would loved to have seen a C1 atlantic at Wood Green but the last one was withdrawn 5 weeks before I was born, so there was a good chance that 62822 was being cut up at Doncaster while I was being born?? Why was'n't St Pancras hostpital called Kings Cross hostpital. I've been told my mother had to walk to the hostpital from Hornsey because of the snow.
manna

In October 1963 I took a picture from where I should have stood to see the last C1 come through 13 years earlier:

The last B12, 61572, passing through Wood Green on a special in October 1963

. The position I was actually in is out of shot high up on the left looking down on the outer face of the up island platform.

60060 The Tetrarch also brings back memories, it was the engine that hauled me from KX to York when I went to Scotland for the first time in July 1958. The train was the 10.10, a reliable 52A Gateshead working though usually an A4. From York to Edinburgh we had 60085 Sir Hugo of 52B Heaton. Was he also known as the celebrated Wicked Sir Hugo? While in Scotland on that holiday I had haulage by the ultra-rare 60101 Cicero which is believed to have NEVER visited the London end of the GN main line during BR times.

There were of course 2 other stations in the Wood Green area: one was Palace Gates

An L1 arriving at Palace Gates in July 1962 with a train from North Woolwich

and the other was Noel Park&Wood Green

Noel Park & Wood Green, also on the line serving Palace Gates. Seen here on the last day of service, 5 January 1963. That snow lasted for 2 months!

[manna]

G'Day Gents
Thanks Flamingo for the photo's of the stations of Wood Green, I reckon someone could write a pretty good book about the three stations in Wood Green + Hornsey, some thing I noticed in the background of 61572, the old 'concrete' retaining wall, that disapeared in the 60's, theres more concrete retaining walls at New Southgate, what I was thiking was that those retaining walls were built during the widening of the 1890's, thats a very early railway use of concrete, just thinking out loud !!
Here's one for 'Hitchin' Signed on one Sunday morning for an enginneers train, travelled out on a staff train about 2am, we had to releave another crew, near Hadley Wood, the driver of the staff train slowed down just after Barnet and kept a look out for our train, through Hadley Wood tunnel then station all dark and deserted through Hadley Wood north tunnel, nothing! past Ganwick, through Potters Bar, Nothing?? so the driver of the staff train stopped at the north end of Potters Bar tunnel and let us out, so bardic's at the ready, we climbed up the small bank, and into Potters Bar tunnel ( the new one,we were running wrong line ) there we were at 2.30am walking through this pitch black tunnel looking for a train?? well we walked all the way through then back round the Ganwick curve and into Hadley Wood north tunnel and into the station, better walking now, ahh! there's our train, sitting in Hadley Wood south tunnel ??climbed ontothe loco to be greeted by 'Were the bloody hell have you bin,s'pose to have bin 'ere an hour ago' ( old misery guts ) after a short explaination, he and his mate wandered off to Barnet station to catch the staff train back to the 'Cross', us, we had a nice sit for a while and a bite to eat, before we had to move up ( PW men were drilling holes in the roof of the tunnel for the OHL) A long walk in the dark!!
Flamingo, Palace gates, nice picture, use to shunt there after the station was demolished, there was a Charringtons coal depot there, we use to pick up a 08 and a shunter at Bounds Green and shunt around in the yard to get over to Palace Gates, the platforms were still there, but the tracks were full of hopper wagons that we had to swop over with the empties, that usually took a couple of hours then it was over to the Rowntrees sidings by Wood Green tunnel mouth, that took another hour or so, but we often came away with a box of sweets, then it was back to Bounds Green for a bit more shunting, then pass back to KX, I picked up a brass door handle on the floor there once, was told it belonged to a ' Midland' grounded coach that had been burnt a couple of years before,(still have it)
Went to Holloway carriage siding one day, we got off the loco to talk to the yard foreman about something, he had this small hut in the middle of the yard, well we went in the door to be met by another door, but this door was, fantastic!! highly polished(spotless) mahogany with polished brass door handle, but, the top half of this door was glass, not any old glass, but acld etched (frosted) glass with GNR etched into the center, I could'n't belive it, I just stood there,this beautiful door was in this grubby old hut in the middle of railway yard, I've often wondered what happened to that beautiful door, when they shut the yard.???
manna

[hq1hitchin]

There was also an old GC coach - one of those big jobs with the elliptical roof - in Hornsey CS used as staff accomodation in those days but I cannot recall what became of it. Doubt it was preserved, more likely burnt. Of a more manageable size was a chair in Hornsey Up Goods box which undoubtedly had come out of a Gresley buffet car, it was in chromed metal. Very art deco, I thought and I expect that got dumped when the box closed in the mid 1970s. You mention staff trains, Manna, another thing lost forever. Not advertised but sometimes used by non railway staff, like the van that used to ply between KX and Liverpool St on nights, in the dead hours when the Underground wasn't running. It carried as many postmen as it did railwaymen and the only time I used it, was driven by a KX train driver instead of the normal van driver, so don't know what was going on there! A final thought on staff trains, I remember one Sunday morning when, instead of the normal Cravens DMU, a Class 31 diesel was used for an up staff train. When it left Wood Green there were, if I recall rightly, about 15 people on board. Never heard anybody moan, though

[manna]

G'Day Gents
Hi Hitchin,
I do remember the staff van KX to Liverpool ST, I caught it more tlmes than I could count,the usual driver was a west indian fellow, nice enough ,but he did like to put his foot down!! I'm sure the he had that van on two wheels more than once, The van use to run from KX at 1am 3am 4am and 5am (a long wait if you just missed the 1am van) and left Liv. St at 12-30am 1-30am 2-30am up till 5-30am, I fell asleep standing up once at Liv St waiting for the van.
I did pick up a old mirror at Hornsey MPD in 1972, when it was still used as a stabling point for loco's, what caught my eye was the LNER at the bottom, so I wrapped it in newspaper and took it home, when I got it home I had a good look at it , there was about 10 layers of paint, so I stripped it back slowly, it was BR blue, BR green, black, brown, (Pullman?) black,then apple green, blue, then green and blue a couple more times, then finally varnished teak, I still have it, it's hanging on the wall in my model railway room.
Do they still run the newspaper trains from Liverpool St to Southend Victoria and Shoeburyness?? ( I use to live in 'Sarfend' in the 70's )
manna

[manna]

G'Day Gents
One day I was booked on spare at the unusual time of 9am,as soon as I had booked on the timekeeper told me to wait there, so I did, in a few moments the foreman came out of his office with a driver and said 'go with this driver to Finsbury Park, you have to relive another crew' OK , and off we went, we were met at Finsbury Park by a station supervisor, who told use to wait on the slow line platform, within 5 mins, we saw a class 31 pulling to our platform with one coach and one freightliner wagon with two containers on, the moment it stopped a big fellow jumped out of the coach and approched us, and this is what he said--'This is my train' looking at my driver, who just nodded at him to continue,' You will NOT stop at a red light, but you will Pass it at a reduced speed, and stop at the next signalbox, do you understand'- we both nodded and said yes, 'right you can go when you get the signal' OK we said, and got on the engine, I looked back as I was getting on the loco, there was another big fellow backing up the first guy, but this guy had a machine gun??????? I thought to myself ' what the hells going on??well we got our green light, straight out onto the mainline, It do'n't take class 31 long to get to top speed with only 2 on, and by Wood Green we were doing 90mph, but there was police everywhere, every bridge, every platform, at every tunnel mouth, every level crossing and IN every signal box, it turned out that we were working a bullion train, it was transporting millions and millions of pounds of new notes and coins from the Bank of England to the Bank of Scotland, it was the best run I ever had to Doncaster, the only scare was when a pidgon hit the drivers windscreen, we both ducked??
Another night we had to travel passenger to Doncaster and bring a freightliner back to Finsbury Park, everything was going well, the freightliner was on time, but a very cold night but clear,she rolled in on time stopping on the up main, so we had to jump down to get to our train,as we were swopping crews the other driver said ' she's a cold un! ' we climbed up to be greeted by a class 47 with a red hot cab, we took off our coats and hung them up, got settled and gave a 'toot' the signal went green and the driver gave it some power,we soon got up to speed, but it did'n't take long to feel a cooling in the cab, By Retford we both had our coats back on, but it just kept getting colder, just before Grantham we went into fog, it just got thicker and thicker, hardly saw Peterborough, we were both sitting there hunched up hands in pockets trying to keep warm, about Huntingdon I lent forward to wipe the windscreen, on touching the glass I realise that the window was coated with ice?? I switched on the demister, within a couple of mins the window was clear and we could see for miles, there was no fog it was just our breath that got on the windows,the icy weather did the rest. when we got to New Southgate they put us on the goods road, because our relief was'n't at Finsbury Park, sat there for nearly an hour, the cab warmed up when we were standing still.
manna

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Here's a couple of photo's, The one's at or near Wood Green tunnel were taken from a 08 in Roundtrees sidings, ( handy working on the railway sometimes ) manna

[manna]

And

[manna]

And

[manna]

And finally (sorry but they only want to download one at a time )

[manna]

G'Day Gents.
Sorry about the photo's I posted yesterday, thought they were better quality than that!!
Kings Cross had quite a few Freightliner jobs for a large passenger depot, these are some that stick in my mind. Signed on 4am travelled out to Finsbury Pk, use to wait in a small waiting room with about 5 or 6 other crews, every so often the phone would ring and whoever picked up the phone would call out a train number, eg 4A45 etc that crew would go out onto the platform to relieve the incoming crew,you get the picture,most of the trains were for Stratford, with the odd one for Willesden, well we got to go to Willesden, but to get there you have to go onto the North London line, and the first place you can run round is Kingsland, or as we called it Dalston Junc, well we got there at about 0530, the guard use to unhook us then ride with us,to the other end of the train, after we had changed ends we started to run past our train when we all noticed something pouring off our train, it was shooting about 8 feet, onto the other track, as we got closer we could see it was coming out of a barrel, FREE BEER?????--- McEwens export, pouring all over the track, the top had blown off and hence free beer, the driver hit the brakes so quick we nearly ended up with whiplash, in seconds the teacan was empty, I only use to take cordial to work, that got dumped as well, the guard grabbed his bag and pulled out this enormous mug, and leaning out of the cab window, we filled everything we could, including ourselves, by the time we had filled everything the beer stream was starting to wane, so off we went over the points, dolly off, back onto the train, guard hooks up, brake test and away, on the way back from Willesden we had to stop three times, for a leak??? it was daylight by then??
Another night the guard told us that we were carrying a complete hospital for Western Australia, I mean everything that could be used in a hospital.
On another trip to Willesden we were stopped just outside the yard, so I got off the engine to call the signalman, seeing that it was very foggy, I did this straight away, the phone was 30 feet away and the running rails are very close, so I walked in front of our engine till I got to the phone, I then stepped into the six foot to reach the phone, which was only 18 inches high, I'm talking to the signalman when the rails started to sing, within a few seconds this electric loco and coaches, screamed past only inches away, doing what seemed like a 100mph, to me that was a bit to close.??
There was also an evening turn were you took a 47 to Stratford FLT to pick up a 'liner' and take it to Finsbury Pk were another crew would take over, well we picked up the 'liner' ok and were on our way back, when between Hackney Wick and Dalston Junc we went under a bridge when there was an almighty bang on the roof, so we stopped to investigate, some bugger had dropped a large paving slab onto the cab roof and squashed the little round air vent flat, another evening with the same train,same bridge, we had a motorbike frame, with wheels dropped just in front of us, it jammed on the coupling hook and knocked the brake pipe handles to open, so we stopped pretty quick, it took us age's with the guards help to get it off, (luckly no damage) then we got stopped at Dalston Junc box, wanted to know why we took about 25mins to clear the section ( normally 5 mins)
manna

[hq1hitchin]

Keep 'em coming, Manna - I'm sure our paths have crossed before somewhere on the KX district. One subject on which I jokingly once said I was going to write a book was 'Railway Canteens of London', all those on the stations gone now, I think, every one of them. Remember Harry Tarrs at the end of Platform 1 at K? I never used that one but did use the grandly titled 'Kings Cross Dining Club (1943)' which was upstrairs in the East Side Offices.

[manna]

G'Day Gents
Hitchin, I remember the canteen on the end of platform one, personnally I never used it, but it was a great favorite with the shunters and platform staff at KX, do you remember that KX station use to always have two loco's wandering around KX with the headcodes 1S or 2S at both ends, well they were 'one shunt' and 'two shunt' they would add an extra van to a train or take one off, stuff like that, they would spend a lot of time lurking in the milk dock, or up by the tunnel mouth, it was ok if you had a class 31 on the night shift,they warm and pretty comfy,because there was a 2 hour break between 1am and the first mail about 3.30 am, one could get one's head down? this night we had a 08, very uncomfy! and cold+ they had left us sitting at the end of a platform somewhere 1 to 6 but near the canteen?we had some old newspapers so they got pinned up at the windows, oven switched on high, but have you ever tried to sleep on a small round stool, no chance! so I put paper on the floor then my overcoat then me with my jacket over me and my bag as a pillow, and off into the to the land of nod I went! to be rudely woken from a very sound sleep by the shunter opening the door to tell us the first mail had arrived, the only trouble was my Head was next to the DOOR!!! Well he got my attention????????
manna

[manna]

G'Day Gents
A big depot like Kings Cross, has some glamorous jobs like lodge jobs Leeds, and stuff like that, but in the lower links, the bread and butter jobs, like ECS, local loco hauled stuff to Hertford and Welwyn GC, little local freights to Temple Mills, but they had there moments as you have read, here's a few more. Driver on a DMU comes out of Ponsbourne tunnel, slowing down for a stop at Bayford, about 6-6.30 am, hits a deer in the deep cutting just outside the tunnel, and carries on to Hertford, changes ends, leaves Hertford about 7.20 am, leaves Bayford and pulls slowly forward, to where the deer lays dead on the side of the track, stops the train gets out picks up the deer walks it back to the brake van and throws it in ( remember this is in the morning peak ) and carries on to Kings Cross, where he walks back to the brakevan picks up the deer again and throwing it over his shoulders walks down the platform (11 or 12) to his car, not a word was said to him by anyone ??
One of the perks of working ECS was you could often walk through the empty train and pick up books or newspapers etc that were left behind, one day my driver had checked out an over night train, he came flying back to the engine with something wrapped in newspaper, it was a monster Salmon about 4 feet long, found it under a bunk in a sleeper, next thing you know he's gone again, the Guard come's wandering up 'all ready to go are we!' 'Naw sorry mate waitin' for me driver' 'Bugger' wanted to get away early today' 'He won't be long' with that I see my driver come dashing across the trunking and under the box and up onto the loco, I explained that the guard wanted to get away, soon as that signal come off we were away, we must have been in Hornsey CS in 15 mins, we had a happy guard?? Crazy thing was my driver had walked the same way To his car, again no one said a word?
Have found all sorts of things on trains, cameras, suitcase's, coats etc
Had some ECS from Moorgate one day, and had to take it to Finsbury Park CS, once there, (via Hornsey flyover) we had to push our train half way to Harringay on a siding with a pit, it was there so that a fitter could get underneath and check the brakes, a loco crew were required to put the brakes on and off, the driver said to me to go and take a walk, see you at 1200 (it was only 0930 ) so I went for a walk up the old branch to Highgate, through the tunnels, a very interesting morning.
manna

[manna]

G'Day Gents
I've always had a soft spot for Ferme Park (Hornsey) yard, as a kid, we would often walk, or if we had a couple of pennys, take the train to Hornsey, where we would stand on the station, watching the trains go by(till we got kicked out) or went up onto the large open topped footbridge that went across a far bit of the yard, and always offered a wonderful view of said yard, we would always try and climb up and sit on the parapet, with our legs hanging over the edge (and a 25ft drop under them) waiting for a steam loco to go underneath, no wonder our knees were always dirty, from this vantage point we could see everything, we loved to see the up express's come through Wood Green and along the long straight, with the waterworks and Ally Pally in the background, then you would hear a screaming whistle behind you, just in time to turn round to see a V2 disappearing behind the station buildings for a few seconds before coming back into view only to be hidden again behind the up express, hauled by an A4, probably Lord Faringdon (again) Never did get the number of that V2?? a yard that always seemed to have a million wagons in it and was always topped up by the endless WD hauled coal trains clanking under you, Fast forward 15 years, a huge empty yard, miles of rusty track,no steamers to watch,but I worked in the area, we hauled our empty coaches through part of it, shunted loco's over the flyover, stabled engine's in Hornsey shed, but now I'd heard a couple of stories about it.
The first one go'es back to the very early days of the GNR, and before Ferme Park was built, if you look at the lay of the land you will notice that much of the yard is on an embankment and part in a cutting (Harringay end), There was just after leaving Hornsey station in the up direction a viaduct so I was told, by an old driver. I took this story with a bucket of salt, until I was reading about the New River, which runs alongside Ferme Park, that once upon a time it use to flow into a lake in Hornsey, which the GNR had built a viaduct over?? (OLD DRIVERS STORY COMING BACK TO ME) and that the river was diverted to it's present course because the railway wanted to build a marshalling yard for there coal traffic, hairs now standing up on the back of my neck!!! delving deeper into the story, there was a bit stating that the viaduct was still there, though buried, and that there was inspection plates around the area of the viaduct to allow for a visual inspection.??? Thats as much as I know, but if anyone knows anything else, good or bad, let us know.Please!!!
The other story is totally different,someone had the bright idea of relabelling a whiskey wagon, now whiskey had been coming through Ferme Park for years without a problem, but a couple of shunters had thought of putting the whiskey wagon on to the cripple siding and sending on an empty wagon, which is what happened, and in there own sweet time they emptied the whiskey wagon, well, as you can imagine the reciever was a bit miffed about the empty wagon, so they called the law, who also called in Customs&Excise (all that lovely tax that was due)in around about way, they worked it out that it must be of Ferme Parks doing? so they raided the place, shut the whole yard down, they were finding whiskey everywhere, in drains, in toilet cisterns, waterbuts, up chimneys etc etc and slowly everything went back to normal! but there's a post script to this story, in the 70's when they were bulldozing everything to make it into a new electric depot, the contractors kept digging up bottles of 20 year old whiskey, lucky s***.
manna

[Flamingo]

Great stories about Hornsey Bridge, a place I too spent many many hours on in the late 1950s along with crowds of other spotters. There were usually at least a dozen of us, often more. Without knowing each other Manna and I might well have both been there at the same time. Saw my last A4 from that footbridge - Number Two on the 10.10 Glasgow, it was on a Saturday in either late July or early August 1957. I'd been waiting weeks if not months for it.

An older gent called Ernie Middleton often used to do the rounds of the local stations, calling in at Harringay, Hornsey Bridge. Wood Green etc. seeking recruits to go on the weekend shed bashing coach tours that he organised. On days when he didn't go himself one of his minions took charge of recruiting and leading the groups. Nowadays such an activity would probably be regarded as a potential menace to kids. But in those days he usually had no trouble filling a coach. I never went on one but I did go round Swindon Works with one of his groups.

Your whiskey wagon story reminds me of the film Whisky Galore in which during the war a ship is wrecked in the Hebrides and the local islanders salvage the cargo and stash it away for future use. But whiskey spelled like that with an 'e' denotes Irish whiskey. In Ferme Park Yard it would more likely have been the Scotch variety with no 'e' - both sorts taste good though.