WIDENED LINES - 1970s

[CVR1865]

so much gone.

It is quite a dramatic differnce to the Cross of today. I was aware of the old number 10, flying Sctosman 10 O'Clock from Number 10 I believe.

Thanks for all that info.

[hq1hitchin]

I suppose the atmosphere of the old suburban service can best be described as homely and quaint or (for those of a less cheery disposition) gloomy and slow. Certainly by the late 1960s/early 1970s we had a rag bag of rolling stock and traction, the principal players - the Craven DMUs - being quite unsuitable for inner suburban work. Allegedly these had been ordered for the M&GN but that had closed by the time they had been built so we got them at Kings Cross instead (they certainly had a panelled over cutout just behind the drivers door which looked to us suspiciously like where the tablet catching apparatus should have gone). Later on we aquired some second hand BUT and Rolls Royce DMUs, the latter being particularly bad as far as availability went. The loco hauled suburban stock, with the non corridor S and BS coaches, tended only to be used during the peak hours by this time as did the CL and SLO outer suburban stock.
It certainly cheered everbody up no end when we got the news that the GN suburban was to be electrified, even if it meant all the old character of the route being swept away.

[Flamingo]

We rarely saw the outer suburban coaching stock on the Hertford loop. The Quad-Arts I remember well, even back to the late '40s when some were still gas-lit with huge glass bell-shaped domes hanging down from the roof of the compartment. 'Matchbox coaches' we used to call them because the compartments were so narrow, except for a few slightly wider ones in the centre of the sets, which I presume used to be for the first class? What was the seating capacity of a 2 x Quad-Art formation I wonder.

When these began to disappear in the mid-1950s they were replaced by 5-coach sets of BR non-corridor compartment stock. The seats were much more comfortable than those of the Quad-Arts but on the other hand there were far fewer of them.

Then in the late 1950s came those horrible Cravens units - about which the least said the better. The M&GN would have been welcome to them. They ran mostly as 2 or 4 coach trains in place of the loco-hauled stock. Maybe there were longer trains in the peak hours but I always tried to avoid those because the dmus were so awful with their heat, vibration and rattling window glass.

[Mickey]

I like the old Craven units fond memories of riding on many of there turns like going flat out on a x6-car hammering down the main line through places like Wood Green and New Barnet!. Worst memory probably having to catch the 2:10 or 4:00 staff up from WGC to Kings Cross to sign on for either 4:00 or 5:00 diagrams as a secondman when you ain't feeling to bright?. Micky

[hq1hitchin]

I like the old Craven units fond memories of riding on many of there turns like going flat out on a x6-car hammering down the main line through places like Wood Green and New Barnet!. Worst memory probably having to catch the 2:10 or 4:00 staff up from WGC to Kings Cross to sign on for either 4:00 or 5:00 diagrams as a secondman when you ain't feeling to bright?. Micky

I remember the Sunday morning when something had gone wrong and there was no unit at all for the 02:10 up and a Class 31 was turned out instead. There was single line working (a dying art, nowadays) at Wood Green and I had to ride on this as pilotman, together with the driver, secondman and about fourteen others. Talk about crowded!

[Pullman]

I like the old Craven units fond memories of riding on many of there turns like going flat out on a x6-car hammering down the main line through places like Wood Green and New Barnet!. Worst memory probably having to catch the 2:10 or 4:00 staff up from WGC to Kings Cross to sign on for either 4:00 or 5:00 diagrams as a secondman when you ain't feeling to bright?. Micky

Photo attached of the lost York Road Tunnel on the opposite side of the Cross, this also gave access to the widened lines. Craven unit waiting short of the portal.

Pullman

[Mickey]

Nice one hq 1 hitchin 14 souls in the cab of a Brush type-2 god i bet that was crowded!!!. Thanks for the picture Pullman they don't make trains like the old Cravens anymore mores the pity. What about the x3-car Rolls Royce sets that we use to have?. Personally i always prefered the Cravens believe it or not. Happy memories... Micky

[StevieG]

This is the platforms I was talking about on the other thread. Ao they are at the far end of Kings Cross? Further over than the present platform 13? Just trying to get my bearings in relation to what is there now.

Not a lot left to see, now, CVR1865, just the German Gym, really. As Flamingo says, the suburban station (old Plats 11 to 16) was to the west of the main station. There was also a Platform 17, but I never heard of it being used for passenger trains by the 1960s. The Milk Dock was used for loading/unloading motor cars in the Motorail vans, which were attached to sleeping car services.

If you look at this map, I reckon Plat 16 would be between Plot A2 and the new Underground entrance:

http://www.kingscrosscentral.com/the_site

How things have changed.

Useful maps hq1.
I think I'd put platform 16 a little higher, roughly along the left-hand end of the lower of the two parallel rows of trees just above Plot A2, (although the platform was anything but straight of course!).

Ah yes, 'No.17'. I recall walking through/up to it from 16 in the late '60s [ as 16 sloped up from the Hotel Curve tunnel, and 17 was level, from their north ends, where they were at the same level, although not far apart at all there was a difference in their heights, the nearer that you were to their southern ends : ( nearer the south ends, were there a few steps through No.16's buildings between these two platforms, or a short sharp slope?) ].
I remember that the requisite BR(ER) dark blue enamel "PLATFORM 17" sign still hung from the platform canopy.

I suppose that passenger trains could legally have left Plat.17 as the correct sort of signalling was there until the 1977 resignalling. In the '32 signal box, it looked like there had been the ability to properly signal passenger trains into plat.17, as there was a lever present (128) in the box in the correct place for the up direction 'E Route' signal to show a yellow for that route, but 128 was Spare by the late '60s, and I think had been so for some time; the remaining incoming 'E' signal route to 17 being only a 'shunt' route using disc 132, sited just below the 'E Route' main signal head, by then permanently showing red, and which stood right by the wall of KX 'Passenger Loco's 'elephant house' diesel shed.

[StevieG]

G'Day Gents
Certainly a different planet, platform 16, all wood,even different smells, compared with the rest of Kings Cross, A Cl 31 often had big trouble trying to get away from that platform, first train, ECS out of Moorgate in the morning and a nice frosty rail, or wet, and you NEVER got a clear run through KX, and there you were slipping and sliding, sparks flying! and you could hear the rails being burnt, and Gasworks tunnel was getting farther away as you slipped backwards!! Brakes on! try again, hoping the slipping had dried the rails, by then the signalman had put the road back because you'd taken to long to get moving!! Happy days
Yes, Micky remember York Rd and the 'Banjo'.... you had to be careful coming into York Rd to, bit to fast and you ended up with the cab in the tunnel, then it was difficult to set the 'Banjo' and to see the guard giving you right away.
manna

As I think, has been mentioned before somewhere amongst the forums, the loco-hauled services going to Moorgate and back needed a 'turnover' loco to be in the relevant Moorgate spur before the first hauled train arrived, in order to then drop onto the back to be the down direction hauling loco; the incoming loco then going to the spur ready for the next one; etc.; with the last inward loco departing light engine back towards KX, following the last train.

Also prev.-mentioned, L.T. needed these locos to have tripgear for working over 'their' Widened Lines tracks.
Did we in KX Div'l. Control (GN House) hear about it from LT if they got to know that a loco went down with tripcocks not working, or not even fitted !
I also think that, very occasionally, 'somehow'(?), the first Moorgate hauled train got allowed past Holloway Up the Slow, into York Road and away to Moorgate, ahead of the turnover loco. I think this caused some minor mayhem at Farringdon LT Box (whose area included control of Moorgate), because they didn't have the proper means of legally signalling the turnover loco on to the back of the first departure, from the eastbound Widened line ; it was only possible from the appropriate platform's engine spur, which was why the turnover loco was always required to precede the first up train. So I presume all they could do if this happened, was verbally authorise the loco to pass the last main signal at Danger and enter the occupied platform. If so, definitely against their normal standards of operating, we could imagine.

We've said about the Cravens units also working to & from Moorgate. They were the only DMU type supposed to do so : The story always was passed to newcomers that (presumably from hard experience), if a 3-car 'B.U.T.' or 'Rolls-Royce' did the run, it would arrive in platform 16 minus quite a few door handles, having had them knocked off in the sharply curving, tight, Hotel Curve Tunnel ; presumably lost from around the coach-centres of the right-hand side in direction of travel, though I did also wonder if any would have gone from car extreme outer ends on the left as well.

Come to think of it, I only recall hearing of the tripgear for these workings being of concern regarding locos, and never in connection with the Cravens DMUs. I don't think the DMUs were fitted with it, and maybe there was official dispensation for that(?)

[manna]

G'Day Gents
I wonder if LT ever knew that we never, switched on the trip cocks, the trip cock may in the down position, but they were not active.
Cravens units, I always thought they OK as a unit, smokey though, pain in the neck if you had to follow one through the tunnels from Moorgate, but always nice for a warm sleep!

Looked at the map Hitchin posted, wish I had'nt
manna

[Mickey]

Yes you are right there manna about the trip cocks or bangos as locomen called them NOT being activated. The very next day after the Moorgate accident on the then branch of the northern line in 1975 when we stopped in York Road platform with a Brush type-2 (class 31) and a rake of coaches i got down from the loco and put the bango down but COULDN'T move the handle above the trip cock to activate the thing!. By then the driver had the 'right away' from the guard so he says to me 'forget it and get back on board' and away we went. Micky

[manna]

G'Day Gents
Micky you must have been at the 'Cross' at the same time as me, as I was working at the 'Cross' the same day as the Moorgate crash, my wife had a very stressfull day as she knew that I travelled through Moorgate to get to the 'Cross' and I was on a 9am start (unusual to say the least) so by the time I got home she was in a right state, did'nt have a phone in them days. I don't remember any extra instructions about the trip cocks, being issued (panic mode)
manna

[StevieG]

....good job your Moorgate, manna, and where the crash happened, are on considerably different levels, though (understandably), 'Moorgate' is Moorgate to most people.
Ever hear from LT staff involved with the GN&CR / Met./Northern Line (Moorgate Branch) / Northern City Line, that when the Moorgate crash sadly happened, the casualty list might have been even higher, or at least different, had the train gone into Plat.10 instead of 9 ? --
-- Said to be because, when it took place, beyond the buffer stop in 10 [where there's a space and then the Greathead Shield for tunnel boring, still in place at the tunnel end, from the line's construction (perhaps because there was originally a plan to extend from Moorgate to 'Lothbury') ], there was then also a temporary workman's hut behind 'the stops' for those engaged in constructing the adjacent new "Finsbury Circus" Sub-Station in a disused lift shaft, in preparation for the different DC traction feeding arrangements as a part of BR(ER)'s taking over the line soon afterwards ; and when the crash occurred in 9, the men were all in their hut beyond 10 buffer stop, having breakfast.

[Mickey]

Out of something bad at Moorgate came something 'good' or different in the method of train working on the approach to terminal stations in this country. Up until the Moorgate accident ALL trains approaching a terminal station with buffer stops approached on a 'green aspect' but after the accident ALL trains approaching a terminal station with buffer stops approached on a SINGLE YELLOW ASPECT. Also there were other safeguards built into approaching terminal stations were by the loco/units train speed had to be checked so as to approach a 'dead end' at a SLOW SPEED. manna i thought that you was at HITCHIN for some reason?. Stevie i must say (if you don't mind) that you have a 'RAZOR SHARP' recall of how things were back then your knowledge of everything to do with signalling and mostly everything northwards from Kings Cross is 'spot on' 35-40 years after the events VERY IMPRESSIVE. Micky

[StevieG]

Thanks very much for the compliments Micky. But I think it might be a little exaggerated: - My knowledge is certainly neither perfect nor infallible.
I do have to check up on a few things before making some posts, but it's really amazing how much can stick in the brain, when learned through strong interest, particularly when in times of enthusiasm and youth : [ Such as, even now, being able to make a reasonable effort at drawing from scratch, the diagrams, with numbers, from memory, of quite a few of the old 'boxes ; and needing little practice to get back into the swing of using the SN Telegraph; - (not many left to communicate with by that means, though!) ] .
Perhaps part of the explanation is that my experiences and involvement were, for about the first six years, all 'hobby' and opportunism ; - nothing to do with having to be involved for duty reasons; working nights, or doing long, or too many consecutive, shifts, etc.

Overall, I've been fortunate, to (officially & unofficially, to varying degrees depending on year, place and job), variously see, experience, gather some info. about, and do work in/for ; - London and surrounding area parts of, all routes to/from, and inter-connecting between, all the London termini, from Fenchurch in the east, anti-clockwise, through KX, and on round to Padd.
One result is a pretty wide general apprectiation of north London's railways, then and now; and absence of an overwhelmingly strong loyalty to any one route. But 'the GN' was my 'home station', the one where I spent most hours in early times, found most interesting (the actual route in London was pretty complex, as you know Micky) and was the line I learned most about, pre-modernisation/electrification.

Regrettably I think, (some may differ), my knowledge of the old 'green' railways' routes in and around London, is, conversely, rather more on the poor side.