New Barnet Sidings

[Mickey]

CORRECTION on my part Stevie, yes your drawing makes everything clear now as it was so the diamond crossing with double-slips that I posted DIDN'T exist although a fixed diamond crossing did exist but not how I described it with double-slips.

I have amended and also deleted parts of my previous two posts on this subject.

Thanks Stevie.

[Mickey]

With regards to the Up Goods line from New Barnet South Box to where it converged into the Up slow line just north of Oakleigh Park station in my opinion it was a 'funny bit of railway' in some ways in regards to the exit from the south end of the Up sidings crossed through the 'run off' line from the Up Goods line via a fixed diamond crossing into a dead end sand drag as can be seen in Stevie's drawing. I remember it more clearly now from the drawing and Oakleigh Park's Up slow line semaphore home signal that was carried on a wooden bracket post with a top final (spike at the top) I always found an interesting signal to look at while travelling as a passenger on a passing train in either direction circa 1968-1970.

While I am still on the subject of the Up Goods line from New Barnet to Oakleigh Park the Oakleigh Park Up Goods line semaphore distant signal is worth a brief mention in that it was another interesting signal that was carried on a rather tall straight concrete post and stood directly opposite or diagonally opposite New Barnet South Box with this same tall distant signal also standing just yards opposite from the New Barnet South Box Up slow line semaphore starting signal which was carried on a lattice bracket post (which appeared to be leaning slightly towards the Up Goods line?) which also carried the Oakleigh Park inner semaphore distant signal beneath it.

I use to like the New Barnet and Oakleigh Park area up until the autumn of 1970 when it was still a mixture of mainly semaphore signals with a few older colour light signals mixed in as well.

The former open site of the Oakleigh Park Up sidings was built on for residential housing back in the 1980s.

[rockinjohn]

Hi "In front of the old signalbox(demolished '57 & replaced with a new pwr box on a new site) @ platforms end @ St.Pancras Station stood an Hydraulically operated lift for transferring wagons to a lower (sic)level,with hydraulic capstans for moving the wagons,this lift was still in situ in 1963,all though not known if in use.ref: Railways Then & Now, Edwin Course Batsford 1979,can we now assume as @Broad Street (lower lvl) rails were in place &likely capstan operated also.jj

[S&T]

Hi Everyone, I was wondering if there was anyone that knows of a pic of the siding at New Barnet south on the up side. Like many places it is now gone and tree lined where there were no trees at all in the early 1970's.

This video might help with your original request re NBS up siding, It does not date back to the ‘70s….but might be of interest nonetheless.
https://youtu.be/4PcUTzYDbVc
S&T

[Mickey]

This video might help with your original request re NBS up siding, It does not date back to the ‘70s….but might be of interest nonetheless.
https://youtu.be/4PcUTzYDbVc

Mildly interesting S&T although thanks for posting it all the same but as it falls outside my own period of interest in the GN suburban area namely between about 1967 to 1974/75 it doesn't overly interest me that much but having said that I suppose it is kind of interesting up to a point and I suppose it does go to show how much the old GN suburban area after the Kings Cross to Sandy (and branches) re-signalling and the electrification projects both starting in the early 1970s and both being finally completed around 1977 showed how much the 'gleaming new electrified GN electric railway' went into a slow and steady decline from a 'general care and maintenance' point of view?. The overgrown vegetation at both the Middle and South ground frames is quite appalling and resembles 'a jungle' which was common everywhere on the Britain's railways from about the late 1980s onwards.

Also it is kind of interesting as well in as much as someone I presume in the latter years of British Rail then followed by Railtrack and then finally Network Rail (1990s-2020s) should actually take the time and trouble to go and film in very good quality film footage a couple of quite inconsequential 'ground frames' and sidings that were both eventually made redundant at New Barnet over a period of several decades?.