Food & drink at WGC s/box?

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Mickey
LNER V2 2-6-2 'Green Arrow'
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Food & drink at WGC s/box?

Post by Mickey »

All three resident ex-LNER signalmen who were at the box when I was a telegraph lad at the box between 1972-1974 use to use tins of Condensed Milk (no fridge in the box in those days) and none of the three of them brought fresh milk in with them except occasionally one of the old resident signalmen sometimes used Marvel dry powdered milk which tasted disgusting at 6:15am in a mug of tea but it didn't bother him.

One of the resident signalmen always use to have a morning fry up after the morning peak finished around 9:30am which was always cooked on a old chipped white enamel plate on the Belling cooker and always consisted of one pigeon egg (he breed pigeons at home) a couple of rashers of streaky bacon and a slice of fried bread.

Another of the resident signalmen always at the end of the weekday evening peak at 8:00pm (and maybe on a Saturday evening I suspect?) use to get out the cheese & cucumber sandwiches that he brought with him from home and also get the kettle on and make a pot of tea out of the old metal tea pot and then sit down quite often with one leg over the lino topped old table and enjoy his sarnies & tea during a quiet 10 minutes between trains mind you he'd be continuously on the lever frame and block shelf for the previous 4 hours solid that's what it was like at 'Garden City' signal box in the early 1970s.

Many times I never brought any food in with me to eat I was 15-16 years old at the time but at 10:00pm on a weekday evening when I went off duty and left the box a mobile hot dog & hamburger van use to be parked up in the old car park where the sprawling Howard gate shopping centre is today and I would buy two cheese burgers and a bottle of coke and walk home scoffing and drinking that lot.

A rear view of Welwyn Garden City s/box in January 1974 when I was still at the box but only just and several months after the lever frame had been removed and the new NX panel had been commissioned in September 1973. It was a fairly long LNER s/box- https://photos.signalling.org/picture?/ ... /1894-1974

The front view of the s/box taken from the Up platforms in July 1974- https://photos.signalling.org/picture?/ ... /1894-1974
Original start date of 2010 on the LNER forum and previously posted 4500+ posts.
Hatfield Shed
LNER A4 4-6-2 'Streak'
Posts: 1664
Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2011 3:34 pm

Re: Food & drink at WGC s/box?

Post by Hatfield Shed »

Sweetened condensed milk in tea and coffee is such a wartime rationing hangover, (and lets not forget the variant of making sandwiches with it either) which in my experience departed places of employment around the early 1990s as the ex-servicemen retired. It was something of a joke that the invention of 'Banoffee pie' was a device by Nestle to maintain sales of the milky goo in a tin...

Mention of the appalling car park to the North of the WGC station building: was it 'surfaced' with ash and clinker from the railway's steam loco sheds? Filthy and not very effectual whatever had been used. Some near neighbours around 1960 broke their old Ford Pop in the winter by getting it stuck in one of the monster flooded potholes, the front nearside wheel came off when it was dragged out...

Of the local fast food offerings back then, other than fish and chips, overall least said the better. Anyone who sampled the Tewin Road greasy spoon operation contemporary with Mickey's account would near die of shock if they visited that location today. There's a proper building, seats and tables, a MENU!, polite people running it, and the kitchen area all on view and shiny clean. I heartily commend their three bacon two fried egg on a bap, very suitable on a cold day.
Mickey
LNER V2 2-6-2 'Green Arrow'
Posts: 1192
Joined: Sun Jan 27, 2019 7:27 am
Location: London

Re: Food & drink at WGC s/box?

Post by Mickey »

Hatfield Shed wrote: Fri Dec 03, 2021 7:36 pm Sweetened condensed milk in tea and coffee is such a wartime rationing hangover, (and lets not forget the variant of making sandwiches with it either) which in my experience departed places of employment around the early 1990s as the ex-servicemen retired. It was something of a joke that the invention of 'Banoffee pie' was a device by Nestle to maintain sales of the milky goo in a tin...

Mention of the appalling car park to the North of the WGC station building: was it 'surfaced' with ash and clinker from the railway's steam loco sheds? Filthy and not very effectual whatever had been used. Some near neighbours around 1960 broke their old Ford Pop in the winter by getting it stuck in one of the monster flooded potholes, the front nearside wheel came off when it was dragged out...

Of the local fast food offerings back then, other than fish and chips, overall least said the better. Anyone who sampled the Tewin Road greasy spoon operation contemporary with Mickey's account would near die of shock if they visited that location today. There's a proper building, seats and tables, a MENU!, polite people running it, and the kitchen area all on view and shiny clean. I heartily commend their three bacon two fried egg on a bap, very suitable on a cold day.
With regards to 'condensed milk' Hatfield Shed yeah those three blokes were probably brought up on the stuff mind you condensed milk ain't to bad actually although better in coffee than in tea but that's a personal choice.

The car park?. Where the hot dog & hamburger van was usually parked up it was on some open ground in the direction of the Cherry Tree pub (it mite be called Stone Hills that area?) although remember by 8:00pm the car park rapidly emptied after the evening peak had finished until by about 9:00pm the once full car park during the daytime had vast empty spaces in it for the rest of the night until the following morning and with regards to the actually car park surface I vaguely recall it was just mainly on broken ground and gravel and such like. The town centre back in the late 1960s & early 1970s was a 'ghost town' after 8:00pm weekdays and weekends.

With regards to 'fast food' back in the late 1960s and early 1970s apart from a 'coffe bar/wimpy bar near to the station entrance and a posh restaurant located in the Welwyn department stores the only other place I recall seeing was a Chinese restaurant located off one of the main avenues in the town centre and that was about it.
Original start date of 2010 on the LNER forum and previously posted 4500+ posts.
Hatfield Shed
LNER A4 4-6-2 'Streak'
Posts: 1664
Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2011 3:34 pm

Re: Food & drink at WGC s/box?

Post by Hatfield Shed »

The 'Wing On'. The proprieter was a very pleasant Chinese guy. He bought his supplies (well discounted) at the Welwyn Department Store food hall, as I learned when as a schoolboy I got a part time job on the fruit and veg counter. Supply of all that he wanted was variable, and sometimes one would be sent out to deliver some item that had 'come in'. If you were lucky you might get some noodle in 'brackabean wi shredleaf', very tasty.
Mickey
LNER V2 2-6-2 'Green Arrow'
Posts: 1192
Joined: Sun Jan 27, 2019 7:27 am
Location: London

Re: Food & drink at WGC s/box?

Post by Mickey »

Hatfield Shed wrote: Fri Dec 03, 2021 8:31 pm The 'Wing On'. The proprieter was a very pleasant Chinese guy. He bought his supplies (well discounted) at the Welwyn Department Store food hall, as I learned when as a schoolboy I got a part time job on the fruit and veg counter. Supply of all that he wanted was variable, and sometimes one would be sent out to deliver some item that had 'come in'. If you were lucky you might get some noodle in 'brackabean wi shredleaf', very tasty.
Was that the name of that solitary Chinese restaurant in the town centre back in 1970 'The Wing On' Hatfield Shed?. If it is the one I vaguely recall of over 50 years ago it was almost located in a back alley and had long white net curtains covering the windows or is my memory playing tricks?. Anyway one place I forgot to mention Hatfield Shed regarding 'fast food' was the town centre 'fish & chip shop' that place I believe is still trading and was at that location back in the late 1960s and possibly had been around since the 1950s?.

Regarding the hot dog & hamburger van I can still see that bloke in my minds eye who ran it almost 50 years ago?. He was a older bloke probably in his 50s at that time and those two cheese burgers and a bottle of coke that I regularly bought on the way home after a late turn (2:00-10:00pm) all went down a treat after not eating anything for maybe 12 hours!. Some times I would buy two hot dogs and a bottle of coke which equally went down a treat!.

I have a railway story regarding that fish & chip shop in the town centre in around about way that was related to the railway but have never posted it before now. Basically what happened was it was quite soon after the colour light re-signalling and the commissioning of the NX panel in WGC s/box in September of 1973. What actually happened was a light engine 'rang out' of the Up yard at the north end it was a blue liveried class 31 heading south back up towards London anyway he came out of the Up yard and I think the old layout was still in use because I remember the light engine was crossed over to the Down Main line before being routed along the Up fast line towards Hatfield anyway the light engine crossed back through the main to main crossover and proceeded past the box and then came to a dead stand at a green colour light the same colour light that is still located at the south end of the station in the Up fast line today and just sat at the green signal?. In the meantime a Deltic hauled Up express was fast approaching coming up through Woolmer Green and Welwyn North with this light engine still sitting at that green colour light signal at the south end of WGC station?. Eventually the Deltic hauled Up express came to a stand at WGC Up fast line first controlled colour light signal at RED back up towards the Knightsfield area and was 'blowing up' on the locos two tone horn anyway the driver of the light engine that was still standing at a green colour light he eventually comes on the SPT (Signal Post Telephone) and says to the signalman (Harry Fitzgerald) that his secondman had gone into the town centre to buy fish & chips!. Harry said "So why did you ring out mate and take the signal out of the yard?." Anyway another signalman was in the box the late Roy Revell who was learning the new NX panel and he says to Harry "Put the signal back and re-route the Up express along the Up slow line" to which harry replied "No way he shouldn't have rung out if he wasn't ready to leave the Up yard". Shortly after Harry saying that the light engines secondman came strolling past the box carrying the fish & chips and proceeded over the barrow crossing then up onto the Up platform and proceeded to walk the entire length of the Up platform eventually arriving at the south end of the station and the light engine and then climbed up into the loco cab and away they went!.

The Deltic hauled Up express finally 'got the road' and made a standing start away from where it had been standing with plenty of Deltic fumes heading skywards with the twin Napier Deltic turbines working flat out (the old Deltic hum heard loud and clear!). When the Up express slowly passed the box with it's 12-13 coach train it wasn't entirely unexpected to hear a blast on the locos two tone horn after being brought to a dead stand but the secondman 'hand wrist gesture' from the sliding cab window on his side was!. Charming!. :wink:
Last edited by Mickey on Sat Dec 04, 2021 12:11 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Original start date of 2010 on the LNER forum and previously posted 4500+ posts.
Hatfield Shed
LNER A4 4-6-2 'Streak'
Posts: 1664
Joined: Fri Dec 23, 2011 3:34 pm

Re: Food & drink at WGC s/box?

Post by Hatfield Shed »

Mickey wrote: Sat Dec 04, 2021 11:24 am Was that the name of that solitary Chinese restaurant in the town centre back in 1970 'The Wing On' Hatfield Shed?. If it is the one I vaguely recall of over 50 years ago it was almost located in a back alley and had long white net curtains covering the windows or is my memory playing tricks? Anyway one place I forgot to mention Hatfield Shed regarding 'fast food' was the town centre 'fish & chip shop' that place I believe is still trading and was at that location back in the late 1960s and possibly had been around since the 1950s?...
Right on both counts. The Fish and Chip shop on Stonehills may well be one of the last retailers still in 'original location' in the town centre. It's been rebranded, but still has the 'Jolly Fisherman' in GRP standing outside when open.
Mickey
LNER V2 2-6-2 'Green Arrow'
Posts: 1192
Joined: Sun Jan 27, 2019 7:27 am
Location: London

Re: Food & drink at WGC s/box?

Post by Mickey »

Hatfield Shed wrote: Sat Dec 04, 2021 12:06 pm
Mickey wrote: Sat Dec 04, 2021 11:24 am Was that the name of that solitary Chinese restaurant in the town centre back in 1970 'The Wing On' Hatfield Shed?. If it is the one I vaguely recall of over 50 years ago it was almost located in a back alley and had long white net curtains covering the windows or is my memory playing tricks? Anyway one place I forgot to mention Hatfield Shed regarding 'fast food' was the town centre 'fish & chip shop' that place I believe is still trading and was at that location back in the late 1960s and possibly had been around since the 1950s?...
Right on both counts. The Fish and Chip shop on Stonehills may well be one of the last retailers still in 'original location' in the town centre. It's been rebranded, but still has the 'Jolly Fisherman' in GRP standing outside when open.
Strange as it may seem I have occasionally wondered down the years what the name of that Chinese restaurant was called?. With regards to the fish & chip shop when I have occasionally visited the town over the last 15 years I recall seeing that big hard plastic yellow 'Jolly Fisherman' figure standing outside the shop obviously it wasn't around back in the 1970s.
Original start date of 2010 on the LNER forum and previously posted 4500+ posts.
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