Micky wrote:The Midland Railway had an ENGINE SHED JUNCTION s/box just to the north of Kentish Town station in north London.
The box closed around the Christmas of 1981 (as part of the West Hampstead PSB re-signalling scheme) and was apparently nicknamed 'The palace' because of it's cleanliness i believe?.
Any s/box that was either named LOCOMOTIVE JUNCTION or ENGINE SHED JUNCTION were usually 'rubbish s/boxes' to work cos you would spend most of the time 'lever bashing' morning, noon and night dealing mostly with light engine movements to and from a loco shed which usually gets up your nose in the end as a signalman!.
Funnly enough, that box did not control access to the Engine Shed, access was made from Kentish Town Sidings or Mortimer Street Junction boxes - it gained that name from being alongside the Engine Shed at Kentish Town. Whilst it didn't suffer the engine movements you refer to, it would have suffered from the more evil issues of being adjacent to an engine shed - noise and dirt! In later years it was indeed kept immaculately (largely through little to do there!) but I bet it wasn't in steam days.
The Midland Railway had more than one "Engine Shed Junction" signal box (there was one in Leeds and another in Bristol) which must surely caused some clerical confusion at times, along with some other permutations like Engine Shed Sidings etc. As Andy says, across the UK railway network there must have been a very large number. On LNER territory I can identify:
Percy Main Engine Shed
Peebles Engine Shed
Inverurie Loco Siding
Locomotive Junction (Colwick)
Locomotive Junction (Hull)
Locomotive Yard (York)
Loco Junction (Stockton)
Loco Works (Darlington)
. . . but in there there is no duplication within the pre-group companies as there was on the Midland.
Are you sure about those? I've never heard of them. The only remarkable thing about Stockton was that it had about 5 boxes, none of which had Stockton in the name
Are you sure about those? I've never heard of them. The only remarkable thing about Stockton was that it had about 5 boxes, none of which had Stockton in the name
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I have Loco Junction at 0m 15¼ch on the Up side of the North Shore branch, closed by 1934 WTT, but I can't trace a 'Loco Works' at Darlington : pre -1909 presumably, as it doesn't figure in the 1909 Southern Division list of that year, nor in Dr Bragg's atlas based on the position in 1922.
Quite often, it would be the answer. Engine Shed Junction at Holbeck was in the middle of a large complex of junctions and boxes so rather than call it Leeds No 476 or Holbeck No4 (for example) then I reckon the name at least located the box.
The L & Y and Midland (my example above) also indulged in this practice.
If I ain't here, I'm in Bilston, scoffing decent chips at last!!!!
rather then coming up with a more imaginative name?.
Also identifying a group of s/boxes at a large location with different numbers seemed another easy cop out as well although somewhere like FINSBURY PARK i guess that there was no viable alternative in reality?. On the former G.N.R. other then locations such as FINSBURY PARK, HORNSEY, WOOD GREEN, HATFIELD & DONCASTER this practise always seemed to be more prevalent of the former L.N.W.R. although i maybe wrong?.
Well, out of the thousands of signalboxes on the NER I think I am right in saying that ONLY ONE had the suffix "Station" after the placename, but the station only had one box! Which was it?
PinzaC55 wrote:
Well, out of the thousands of signalboxes on the NER I think I am right in saying that ONLY ONE had the suffix "Station" after the placename, but the station only had one box! Which was it?
I assume you mean on the box name board, as opposed to Appendix/WTT documentation?
Yes it was actually on the nameboard, though I cannot remember if it was in the Appendix. The only reason I can think of why it would have had "station" is that maybe the LNER employed a local S&T man to make the nameboard? I would guess most LNER(NE) nameboards were made at York - does anyone know for sure?
Micky wrote: " .... Also identifying a group of s/boxes at a large location with different numbers seemed another easy cop out as well although somewhere like FINSBURY PARK i guess that there was no viable alternative in reality?. On the former G.N.R. other then locations such as FINSBURY PARK, HORNSEY, WOOD GREEN, HATFIELD & DONCASTER this practise always seemed to be more prevalent of the former L.N.W.R. although i maybe wrong?. "
I think generally, you could be right : Carlisle I'm sure, reached No.13 in 'naming' boxes (or was it 14?), and that wasn't even all the boxes in the close-by area.
New Southgate (1 to 4) and Barnet (1 to 3) were other 'numbers' locations, at one time in GN days. Conversely I've always guessed that Huntingdon North Nos. 1 and 2 only got their numbers in LNE days, when the GN and GE stations came under the one ownership as 'North' and 'East', prior to which these boxes may have been more conventionally, 'Huntingdon South' and 'Huntingdon North'.
On the 'lettered' front, I've a feeling that at some time, the Somerset & Dorset Joint managed to get to 'D', at Highbridge (?)
