G'Day Gents
Great memories coming in folks.
R Pike, love that little story, Is it a bird???
Hitchin, Never had the need to go into Wood Green No2, lucky a! was No 2 at the end of the down platform or the up?? I've seen the picture of the N2 covered in rubble at Kings Cross that's got to be the same incident, the yank had fair hair if I remember rightly?
When I use to go to Wood Green station to do a bit of spotting I/we use to try and find a different vantage point, so here's a new one, gone today though.After arrival at Wood Green station we carried on over the road bridge and turned right, which today is called Palace Gates Rd, I thought it had a different name then?? ah well, after turning into said road we use to turn right again down a carriageway next to a greengrocers, when you got to the end you had a good view of Bounds Green Carriage sidings, it was a whole new vista, there was a low (4ft ) sleeper fence and a (5ft) brick wall to sit on,but after a while you would get a bit cold as you were always in shadow, so we started to jump down onto the side of the cutting, then it was a case of a little bit more, we started to sit on the cutting wall, on the BG side of the bridge, which again afforded a wonderful view of everything, now where we were sitting was right next to the old goods line, so every so often a WD would very close by and then clank off down the track, so being what we were we started to walk along the cutting side towards Wood Green tunnel, this goods track went round the back of the Hertford flyover, in a cutting, this was known as 'The Kyber Pass' To the local enginemen (see sketch below) we, in the end started to sit on the retaining wall just past the Hertford flyover, and opposite the Roundtrees warehouse, that bit of track was permissive block, so there was often more than one train on that bit of line, quite often we would sit there chatting to the footplate crews, on there WD's,they were there some times for half hour or more,we would be watching there every move, the fireman putting a round of coal in the box, the driver with lump of cotton waste in his hand, wiping it on the brake handle, without knowing he did it, and all the time that wonderful smell of coal smoke and steam drifting around your bare legs, the little things like the hiss of the steam, the scrape of a shovel as the fireman puts another on in the firebox, sometimes the guard of the train in front was only a few feet away from the WD, so he would join in as well, then you would hear the loco on the first train give a pop on the whistle, then a clonk, clonk, clonk all the way down the wagons as he pulled away and into Wood Green tunnel, at the same time our? train would start to move up,thedrivers would often say ' bye son' more clonking,we were still sitting there waiting for the next one, sometimes we had to move position, to be next to the loco maybe a K3 or a Gresley 2-8-0 even a Green Arrow. Now there's a lost sound, starting and stopping a loose coupled goods train?? some drivers were so gentle in getting there trains away, but others?? the guard would be flying around his van?
There was a added advantage to sit where we sat, behind us were allotments! when you felt hungry there was always, blackberries, blackcurrants, gooseberries etc etc YUM??
One day as a dare (Stupid I know) I sat in the sand bin (as marked on the map) as a down express went by, the noise to me was incredible, the view fantastic, it was either 60010 or 60012, but I never did it again?
EDGWARE GN, Steam in the Suburbs.
and you could have a ride on the steam crane for 3d, ( up, round and down), but what else was there, was there a class 40????
