Memories

[manna]

G'Day Gents
G'Day Flamingo, I agree that there is a great possibility, that I stood or sat on the bridge with you and maybe Hitchin as well!!
Sorry about the spelling of whiskey, oopps whisky, sometimes get a mental bloke !!

I used to like the smell in the old GN booking office's, that lovely smell of coal smoke, even smelled of coal smoke years after the last steam loco had gone through.

Do you remember the old 'waterworks sidings' at Hornsey, I fly shunted some coaches in there in the early 70's, before they built the toilet emptying 'thingy' in it's place.

Here's a poor photo of the old Coronation Shed, to be going on with,
manna

[Flamingo]

G'Day Gents
I've always had a soft spot for Ferme Park (Hornsey) 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, manna

That parapet was very narrow, just the edge of an angle iron from what I remember. I never dared sit on it because there was certainly a long drop below. This is not one of my best pictures as I let the train come too close, it's nearly-new 92148 about to pass beneath the footbridge (which caused the blur at the bottom of the picture) as it enters Ferme Park up yard with one of the long coal trains. In the background this shows what Manna and others would have seen as those up exs approached Hornsey.

[hq1hitchin]

G'Day Gents

Here's a poor photo of the old Coronation Shed, to be going on with,
manna

Alleged to be a bit of secondhand kit brought south from the NE section. Known as the Coronation Shed as that's where the streamliner set was maintained and cleaned ('shone like a motor car, hand washed in Lux soap flakes') but in our day more used for storing stock but still occasionally used for special cleaning jobs, like launch specials, in those far off days when we built ships on Tyneside. 1L09, if I recall right, was the 0920 KX -Leeds/Bradford. Ran through a set of points here on the Up Goods while I was acting as pilotman on Single Line Working. The signalman at Wood Gn 4 had to buy it but, bless him, Tunnelmouth found it highly amusing!

[manna]

G'Day Gents
Flamingo,Like the photo, I looked in the background, still lot's of wooden wagons, the old gasworks, could even make out the 'Gaumont' cinema and the Barrett's sweet factory?? wonderful memories, I was bought up on the Noel Park estate, and many was the night that I laid in bed just listerning to the express's and the clanking of coupling rods, probably WD's
I always thought the top of the footbridge, was quite wide, may be it was to a fearless 10 year old??
Yes I remember,' Whisky Galore' a great film, it do'e's have a simular ring do's'n't it, would loved to have found a bottle myself.
Hitchin, I was taking another look at 1L09, was it a 'Pullman' the colour of the carriges look inverted??
I managed to get in the coronation shed only once had to drop a couple of coaches in there, would you belive the 'Royal Train' we had to go into Bounds Green to pick up the Royal Train and take it to the coronation shed, we stabled it next to the 'Old GN Inspection coach' the one that is now on the Bluebell. Weird a ! three firsts in one day, first time in Bounds Green, first time in coronation shed, first time I hauled the Royal Train, had plastic bags over the buffers and a cop lived on it full time, it was the NER one,beautiful finish.
Got booked on an engineers train one Sunday morning, about a 3am start, travelled out to Wood Green, then walked out to the job, under the Hertford flyover, I;m pretty sure it was the weekend they lifted the flyover, for electrifcation, we sat there for 6 hours, and never moved a wheel?
In 75/76 there was so much electrifcation work going on we were out nearly every day, with engineers trains, one of the first that I worked was a mast train, you would pick your train up at Kings Cross goods yard and take it out to Hadley Wood or some where like that where the guys on the train would start drilling holes at predetermined places, then filling them with concrete after putting the mast's in, at the end of the day we would take the train back to KX goods, where the guys would clean out there cement mixers, all the waste slurry would then be tipped out, into Top Sheds old turntable pit!!!! that had been cleaned out for that purpose, so heaven help the poor s*** that are rebuilding that area today ?????
We would then walk back to the Cross,walking back one day, we walked back along the old coal drop sidings, I was amazed to read the dates in the chairs, they nearly all showed GNR 1860, 2 bolts, 2 oak pegs??
manna

[Bryan]

2 bolts, 2 oak pegs??

To be pedantic 2 screws and 2 treenails or spikes.


Should I sign myself of as that famous german Herr Splitter?

[giner]

Lovely fascinating stuff, gents. It always seemed to me that the coach sidings were a huge distance out of KX (again it was probably a 10-year-old's thinking). I haven't thought about the locations of other companies' coach sidings, but were they as far out from their termini as the LNER's? Manna, what span of years did you work at the Cross? Just wondering if you might have known my uncle, Jim Ellis, a fireman.

[manna]

G'Day Gents
Stopping to think about it there was quite a lot of carriage siding space in the Kings Cross area,
Holloway CS
Waterworks CS(down side, between Hornsey & Wood Green)
Bounds Green CS + repairs.
Hornsey CS, inc Coronation Shed.( Very busy yard)
Finsbury Park CS, (suburban coaches)
And later, Carriage Sidings were opened on the site of Ferme Park down yard.
That's a lot of siding space, now you've only Bounds Green, and the EMU depot at Hornsey, just go'es to show just how much impact the HST's had on the King's Cross area,90% of the ECS work just went, gone ,never to return, HST's cleaned in the station, when the EMU's started running, bang, all the suburban, loco hauled stuff went too,and the yards and all the boxes and a lot of staff. Kings Cross was a busy, noisey, bustling place to work, something always moving, the last time I was at the Cross (1991) it was like walking into a morgue, the platforms were half empty,did'n't even seem to be that many people about. I try not to think about that time.
Sorry.
I worked at the Cross from 1970 to 77 but I did leave and then came back again.
No, I do'n't remember Jim Ellis, but I might know his face, I can't recall now how men there was at the Cross, probably 200/300 sometimes did'n't see a mate for months.
manna

[Flamingo]

Here's a picture of a stranger in the camp - GWR 7029 approaching Wood Green with a special in October 1967. The train is passing where Waterworks Sidings would be if you could see them, but they are hidden behind the coaches. What box is that? Waterworks or Wood Green No. 1?

[manna]

G' Day Gents.
Flamingo, Think thats Wood Green No1? hard to think that Wood Green had 4 box's and Finsbury Park had 7 ?? One day sitting about on a shunt job me and my driver named all the signal boxes the WE could remember,between Kings Cross and Peterborough, we came up with approx. 70, that did include the Herford branch but not the Cambridge branch.
Always seemed to be plenty of Thompson and Gresley coaches parked in Waterworks sidings, when we went to move them all the tramps would jump out, then we would take them to Bounds Green or Hornsey CS for a thorough cleaning, I think those coaches were only used for summer specials.
Do you remember the big fan fair when the new 2d air conditioned (anyone know the date)arrived at Kings Cross, well in the very first week it was running 1S16 (ex 0800KX) I was working a Welwyn-Moorgate service, all stations to Potters Bar, fast to Finsbury Park then all stations to Moorgate, all was going well until we were coming out Oakleigh Pk tunnel, as we came out 1S16 was going in Deltic hauled, we were doing at least 75MPH, 1S16 probably 80MPH, or more, thats a lot of air presure, anyway it sucked a door open and hit 1S16, this ripped the door right off,which then proceeded to bounce between the two trains until they had passed one another, just after passing Cemetery Box, the cord was pulled,we did'n't know why, as luck would have it we stopped half way up New Southgate's platform, 20 yards from the box, after stopping we went to find out what was going on,as we were walking back down the train a couple of doors flew open a people jumped out onto the platform, they quickly told the driver what had happened, he dashed off to the signal box to imform the signalman, he then shut everything down (now 0820 middle of rush hour ), had to send a S&T man out to find the Door??(could be on the track) while this was going on, the guard was protecting the train (Dets etc ) and I was trying to get the people out of the compartment, with the door missing, 2 Ladies wanted to continue there journey to Moorgate in that compartment?????? The next compartment had a broken window ,and one man had a fair bit of blood on him,in the end we locked a couple of compartments out of use and carried on to Moorgate? not much else we could do. 1S16 had also been stopped for inspection, they found dents,scratches and half the door handles missing, on there brand new train
Exciting morning eh ??
manna

[manna]

G'Day Gents
Sorry Bryan, did'n't mean to ignore you, I should have known it was a screw, not a bolt, not heard of a treenail, ah well! learn something new every day?
The fuzzy picture of the 31 at Wood Green is to show where 'flamingo' use to stand, (and me)to watch the LNER's finest, rocket past ( ah, forget the carriage pilot J52)
Many is the Saturday night that I've been booked on, to find out that it was another engineering job, but this one was a bit different, we travelled out to Finsbury Park to relieve another crew, only tp find out it was a Battery Loco, we were working down the tunnels between Drayton Park and Moorgate, BR were in the process of taking over the line, so there was a fair bit to do, we had to go to the Old Street area, the strange thing about those loco's is that there silent! just a bit of a rumble in the tunnels to tell you there moving, and a strong smell of battery acid!well we rumbled backwards and forwards for a few hours, and being a smoker in those days and my driver a non smoker, he asked me to go in the back cab, fair enough, I though, so I trotted off to the back cab and had my smoke, then rejoined him in the front cab, a little while later we had to shunt back about 100 feet, so back we went, we were just sitting there reading a book or newspaper, when my driver said to me 'Do you smell something' taking a bit of a sniff, I agreed with him, and it was getting stronger, with that my driver stuck his head out of the cab window 'Whoa! it's hot out here and smoky' he then put his hand out of the window, the tunnel wall was red hot?? he asked for a paddle, which I passed to him and he scraped the wall, it was glowing red hot, the dust was alight, 'Panic stations' the driver was beating the wall with the paddle, while I went in to battery room of the loco and bought out large bottles of distilled water, which we poured all over the tunnel wall to put the fire out, when it was almost out we got out of the loco and made sure it was out, it was me when I threw my smoke out of the window?? it fell onto a tunnel segment, which had about 2 inches of dust on it and had slowly smoldered for at least 20 mins before we had to shunt back, at least we managed to put it out.
manna

[Flamingo]

G'Day Gents
Sorry Bryan, did'n't mean to ignore you, I should have known it was a screw, not a bolt, not heard of a treenail, ah well! learn something new every day?
The fuzzy picture of the 31 at Wood Green is to show where 'flamingo' use to stand, (and me)to watch the LNER's finest, rocket past ( ah, forget the carriage pilot J52)
manna

Yes that was the spot all right, next to those railings just this side of the overbridge. Its still hard to believe I was unable to see the down fast from there due to the fog when 62822 came though on its last run. There can't be many of us who have heard an Ivatt Atlantic and even vaguely seen its smoke without actually seeing the loco itself.

Where the main road turned left to go over the bridge the road opposite led down to Palace Gates station.

[Bryan]

Sorry Bryan, did'n't mean to ignore you, I should have known it was a screw, not a bolt, not heard of a treenail, ah well! learn something new every day?

Thats all right. I normally come up with obscure PW or Snowplough comments as they are my pet topics. (I don't think there were many snowplough workings on your patch though)

Treenails became spikes later on when they went to metal and in some cases the screws were replaced by throughbolts but that was a mistake as maintenance became a problem.

[hq1hitchin]

Here's a picture of a stranger in the camp - GWR 7029 approaching Wood Green with a special in October 1967. The train is passing where Waterworks Sidings would be if you could see them, but they are hidden behind the coaches. What box is that? Waterworks or Wood Green No. 1?

7029WoodGreen1067-1.jpg

Great shot - think there was once some trouble at KX with 7029 and Ian Allan's insistance that it carried a headboard on one of the trips. The owner demurred and the Ian Allan man said that they weren't paying for the train unless it did. Enter the late, great, Eric Steward, then ASM. He immediately told all concerned that, unless there was agreement, that the train wasn't leaving. There was - you didn't mess with him. RIP, old mate

The box is Wood Gn no 1, a right dump with few regular men by my time. Notice the slightly bowed structure, a legacy of a Gerry rocket landing nearby

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Bryan, Snowploughs,we were blessed with two, converted GNR tenders that sat at Finsbury Pk depot from at least 1970 and were still at the depot in 1980. I never saw them move, I did check them out they had GNR on the axle box covers, I think there was a plate on the back of the tender, but I can't be sure now, I suppose they were scrapped when the depot closed, pity!

Hitchin, Locomen always use to say after a longish wait at a signal, that they should take the roof off, that'll make him move faster. The worst signalbox for delays in the 70's was Highbury,next to Drayton Pk, there was a large American?? signalman use to keep you waiting for ages, we had to put 22 car flats in the sidings down at Highbury one day, the loco and half a dozen car flats were in the tunnel, we sat there for ages, in the end my driver my driver,who was fed up breathing fumes said 'go see if the buggers alive' so I got off the loco walked back away's then climed onto the car flats, easier to walk on! half way back to the box I could see the signalman sitting there with his feet up reading a book, he never moved until I shouted 'when are you going to let in to the sidings' he slowly move himself out of the chair saying 'I will, I will' and pulled a couple of leavers, to let use shunt our train into Highbury sidings.
manna

[Flamingo]

[quote="hq1hitchin

The box is Wood Gn no 1, a right dump with few regular men by my time. Notice the slightly bowed structure, a legacy of a Gerry rocket landing nearby[/quote]

Speaking of Gerry rockets, can anyone tell me more about the incident when a rocket landed on the line close to my local station (Palmers Green) on 26/10/1944? It landed about 100 yards beyond the end of the platforms in the Winchmore Hill direction and there was a train there at the time. I've seen pictures of the crater it made, not that big really and neither was the damage in Devonshire Road which was right next to the station. It was recorded as a German V2 rocket rather than a flying bomb but I've often wondered about that. How would they know which sort it was when it all happened after dark?