[ I met and worked with Dave F. for several years when I moved to Liverpool Street, JeffB : Initially on a March Thursday in 1989, in the old signal box there on its last full day working (the 23rd if I remember correctly), and when we moved across the lines to the new IECC signal control centre from then onwards until moving on in 1995.]
sandwhich wrote:Walking across the Kings Cross Goods Yard to get to Belle Isle and Copenhagen Jcn boxes must have been a bit hairy with all the light engine movements to and from Top Shed as well as shunt and train movements especcially on a foggy day.
There is something I was told about the Goods & Mineral Signal Box which closed in 1975. It was at one time manned by two signalmen who were a special grade because they did no booking, I know this was long ago but it would be interesting if someone could confirm if this was true.
I never heard that one sandwhich, though neither can I say that it was never so.
By late 1968 when I first visited G&M, the Goods Yard certainly had its busy periods, but already also long periods of nothing happening in the box; e.g. for a little more than an hour, to my knowledge.
So there was (unsurprisingly) just the one signalman per shift, and normal Train Register Book-ing was done then.
But even at busy times in that period, there was not much booking to be done in proportion to the total workload as the nature of the place was that a lot of the work did not involve signalling the Block Sections,
(the Up & Down Goods from/to the Holloway South boxes, The "Down South London Goods" connecting line rising from Gasworks Tunnel [with King's Cross Box], and the N.London Incline [using a 'One Engine in Steam' Train Staff] was worked with the St.Pancras Sidings Shunter but which in any case was seemingly only done by telephone [no block bell/instrumentation] ).
Instead at least half the work was involved in dealing with the one '350'(hp: - Class 08) pilot loco making long shunts on, or shunting between, the main 'reception'("Arrival")/"Departure"/other roads that led into/out of the main 'goods yard', or either way between those roads and 'the North Yard' (Nos. 3 to 12 Arch sidings
[except No.9, occupied by the line which headed up and over Cop.Tunnel to the 'Caledonian Coal Yard' beside the NL line] ), sited on the north side of where King's Cross 'Top Shed' loco depot had been; plus the remaining freight traffic from/to the north, and Temple Mills, a few local light engine moves coming in only to reverse and head north again (e.g. Finsbury Park Carriage Sidings - Fins.Pk. depot), and also the occasional freight via 'the Incline' between the North London line and 'the North Yard'.
In better days there was the short connecting line down towards Copenhagen Tunnel (to Copenhagen Junction Box : line known locally [by the signalmen at least] as 'the Lickey' owing to its steepness) used by locos from Top Shed heading down to King's Cross station, and although I'm unsure how this was worked between G&M and CJ, G&M had a relese lever for CJ's points connecting this line with the Down Slow, so I suspect that it was rather like the long 'ladder' or 'through' crossovers jointly-worked between two boxes, such as at Holloway North, which were worked using an 'Interlocking bell' only; no block instrument.
The nearest thing to the 'two signalmen and no booking' story, that I heard of was that, in the days of much higher levels of goods traffic, more than one pilot loco shunting all the time (up to six, according to who it was that was relating how things used to be, and how long previously they were speaking of), and all the loco comings and goings to/from 'Top shed', I was assured that G&M was the only box in the whole London area where the (one) signalman was assisted in working the box by the telegraph lad, and this necessity, though perhaps not formally authorised, was recognised by not being challenged or forbidden when District Inspectors
(signalling) visited.