Ashburton Grove

[rockinjohn]

hi may have posted this elsewhere forgive me 84xx dont think so(never left the GE lines apart from Southern Railway Resorts or GE East Coast not further than Clacton or Southend all of which they failed miserably or just managed to limp home to Stratford ,lived in the Grove, observed most Pullman departures in steam&early diesel days albeit boiler top or diesel roofs observed hope it helps the modellers? , here goes steam first N1/N2/L1/J6/WD/B1/V2/B16!& EE1/Paxman82XX/ NB61xx/Sulzer53xx(all before the scottish exodus)baby deltics 59xx&Brush 2's 56xx, shunting always performed by a 350hp early would be121xx they did Highbury Vale in 54/55?maybe steam before my time prob.J52's?The "dustcarts"tipped on to a belt for tin saving(before recycling was posh called salvage)they took the "Grove"street railings for the WW2 metal drive & went into a an AEC four wheeler truck&four wheel trailer (both v.high sided) owned by a company called "New Electron"who on later investgation made steel coil wire for fencing etc in East London, bottles of no relevance@ that time,hence the episode @ Oakleigh Park I assume, did the ex?sulphur wagons stink? you bet they did in the summer we called it the "Holloway Perfume"....jj

[Hatfield Shed]

Tipping of North London's waste in Hertfordshire's worked out sand and gravel pits adjacent the ECML and its branches, was already underway in GNR days. I have recently read a memoir of village life in Hatfield Hyde, in which such a tip site just South of 'Twentieth mile' bridge is mentioned. The local farm hands would pull on their 'ratting slacks' and take their terriers for regular meets on this tip in summer. The objective of course to kill as many as possible - there was a bounty payable per rat tail produced. The joys of country life and making your own entertainment in a simpler time.

The last time I saw an N7 working a train, was hauling a 'stink train' on the Hertford branch and having no small trouble keeping its feet as a restart was attempted at Attimore Hall level crossing. Level crossing something of a misnomer, there was a definite hump in both road and railway at the time, thus the trouble.

[Mickey]

The last time I saw an N7 working a train, was hauling a 'stink train' on the Hertford branch and having no small trouble keeping its feet as a restart was attempted at Attimore Hall level crossing. Level crossing something of a misnomer, there was a definite hump in both road and railway at the time, thus the trouble.

We once use to live in WGC anyway I can recall seeing a bloke riding a motorbike down The Ridgeway the name of the road between Heronswood road and Attimore school & Black Fan road one day and a van was stopped just off the Attimore Hall LC and wanted to turn right into a road leading to a nearby small factory when the bloke on the motorbike who couldn't have been paying attention 'went straight into the back of the van' and came off his bike although he did get up off the road surface by himself anyway that was either around late 1966 or early 1967?. Also around that same time they were lifting the track on the Hertford branch back to the Lincoln Electrics factory.

[Hatfield Shed]

We were stomping around the same area at much the same time then. My parents home until 1972 was near the QEII hospital (first general hospital built in the UK post WWII, opened 1962 and already demolished!). Our little gang used the Hertford branch as something of a playground; this partly due to one of the gang living in Holwell Hyde very near the level crossing, in one of the earliest houses built out on the East side of WGC, at the time quite isolated from the housing in Heronswood Road. The garden very satisfactorily ended on the branch boundary fence...

Just to be clear, we were ubiquitous in our trespassing, shouted at to Gerroff! on Panshanger airstrip, multiple factory grounds, and each and every working building site. Never made it onto the DH/HS site however, other than on open days, too much security and high fences with the barbly wire. We had to be content with getting to the closest point on Coopers Green Lane for those days when parental information vouchsafed that the Blue Streak rocket motor was due a test run, and sat there watching the aircraft operations before and after the mighty ground shaking went off.

All the above, and the ECML too. We were in a boys' paradise.

[Mickey]

Yeah pretty much so Hatfield Shed. We eventually moving out of WGC all together in 1979.

[Hatfield Shed]

I am still here, now on top of WGC's 'mountain', all of 400' above sea level, (we can see the top of the Shard!) and a short walk to the track bed of the Luton and Dunstable branch one direction, and the old Lyles Lane bridge over the ECML the other way. Not quite the same now with only the Ambiguous Pazuma sets and 700 EMU's going by most of the time, relatively little variety though an efficient service for getting up to Town. And we can now tap in and out too, long time waiting for that.

I gave the Ove Arup team the benefit of my suggestion for eliminating the Welwyn viaduct and tunnels bottleneck at a public consultation, and nearly caused a riot. Very simple, start the fast lines on a ramp just North of WGC, double deck the viaduct (it is structurally up to it) straight over the top of the little hills, and back down on the four track approaching Knebworth; all much in the style of what the French do for the TGV. Must remember to bug our MP again about this, while he is Minister for Transport.

[jwealleans]

Apologies if it's been posted before (I haven't been right back through the thread, but is this the 'Pullman'?

[manna]

Apologies if it's been posted before 9I haven't been right back through the thread, but is this the 'Pullman'?
G'day Gents

I would say yes, although I never saw one, they finished before I started at the cross.

Hatfield shed, so you can see the Shard from WGC, when I was a kid living in Wood Green, we frequented Ally Pally, where on a good day we could see Harringay, on a bad one, we were lucky to see Hornsey stn.

manna

[Mickey]

Meanwhile back at Ashburton Grove...

A rather nice overview of Ashburton Grove looking in a south easterly direction towards Finsbury Park No.1 box in the distance. The main line between Finsbury Park & Kings Cross is behind the photographer. The lines reading from left to right are the Down Canonbury line, the Up Goods line & the Down Goods line from Finsbury Park No.1 box. Ashburton Grove rubbish sidings are just beyond Ashburton Grove box to the right. The date I would guess was around 1973 or the early part of 1974?.

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[StevieG]

Noting the chap wearing an engineer's bump hat in the box doorway, I wonder if this was taken not too long before work for then 1974 resignalling started Mickey.
If that's correct it might originally have been a hoto by the recently deceased Paul Hepworth, who was involved in the work and took lots of photos of 'the old' before it all went.
Incidentally, the fact that the arm of the original Up Canonbury Goods line's Distant (Fixed) for Finsbury Park No.1 being missing does not necessarily support the possible period date that I mention, as for some reason that was superseded a couple or so years earlier by a new Fixed Distant on a tubular post just on the other (west) side of Bridge 12, which is the one from which that photo was taken.

[Mickey]

Ha ha Stevie I like that straight white lattice post that originally carried Finsbury Park No.1s Up Goods line distant signal, it could have only have been about 150-200 yards distance between the distant signal and it's home signal?.

Below Ashburton Grove box during the summer of 1971 when myself and a railway friend (who took the pictures) paid a visit one afternoon.

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Below the interior of Ashburton Grove box and the Dutton lever frame.

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