The LNER Encyclopedia

I'd appreciate guidance on the workings between Gospel Oak and Highgate Road - the quirky stub end of the old Tottenham & Hampstead Junction Railway.

This was triggered by looking at the SRS diagrams for Highgate Road Junction and Gospel Oak No.1.





I can't discern the date of these signal box diagrams. The various NLS maps give a clue. Highgate Road Junction must be pre-1952 and post-1936 based on the rationalisation of the sidings on the north side.

At Gospel Oak a connection was made through to the North London Line in 1916, eliminated in 1922 and reestablished in 1940. The THJR bay platform is more of a mystery, apparently being closed in 1926 but still used on summer bank holidays till 7th Aug 1939.

From the signal diagrams I'm unclear how this stub end of the branch was worked. The spur suggests that this was for passenger services into the bay platform, to allow loco run-round. If that's the case, how were the trains signalled out again eastwards from the Gospel Oak bay platform? And where did the boundary lie between Gospel Oak No.1 and Highgate Road Jn?

Interesting little corner of the network this and any guidance much appreciated.

Probably better to have posted this on the Railway Chat topic thread as the railway that you are asking about was LMS/BR (LMR).

I was a regular signalman at Junction Road Junction box (a Midland Railway box) between late 1981 until the box was closed in November 1985. I have a book of Midland Railway track diagrams that feature that area including Mortimer Street Junction box on the Tottenham lines and was located on the low level lines somewhat below Highgate Road Junction box further down the railway embankment and at the north end of the 'Kentish Town triangle' of both Carlton Road Junction & Engine Shed Junction with both those boxes being located beside the Midland main line out of St Pancras. Also shown are the boxes on the T&H (Tottenham & Hampstead) lines proper both at Upper Holloway & Junction Road Junction before heading westward from Junction Road Junction box on the high level lines to both Highgate Road Junction & Gospel Oak No.1 boxes the latter box of which was burnt down back in 1984 killing the signalman (Roy Bowley).

When I first went to Junction Road Junction box in late 1981 the box plus the old Upper Holloway box were both under St Pancras area control but shortly afterwards both boxes became part of the North London line control area first at Euston for a short time and then at Willesden High level station until both boxes closed in November 1985.

Below Junction Road Junction's Up T&H line 2nd home & junction signals during the first half of the 1980s. The right-hand top route took the driver straight along the 'high level' lines towards the former site of Highgate Road Junction & Gospel Oak and the North London line with Gospel Oak's 'fixed distant signal' seen beneath Junction Road's home signal that lead towards Gospel Oak's red colour light home signal (GO1) seen in the far distance. The left-hand lower route took the driver down the 'low level' lines down passed the site of the former Mortimer Street Junction to Carlton Road Junction and the Midland main line. The distant signal on the lower left-hand doll/post was a 'motorised distant signal' controlled by West Hampstead PSB but it "never really worked properly" because if it was ever 'cleared to the off position' it would then 'route lock' the route in further down towards Carlton Road Junction so was never cleared and remained at caution. The vacant doll/post in the center of the bracket signals I sometimes wondered if that was for an abolished 'splitting distant signal' for either Highgate Road Junction or maybe for Mortimer Street Junction(?) I shall have to look into that a bit further at some point?. Junction Road box was just beyond the 'bridge hole' on the left.

http://www.roscalen.com/signals/London/ ... 2/0253.jpg

Below more recent views from 2006 of the railway around Highgate Road Junction (High Level)-Mortimer Street Junction (low level) & Junction Road Junction.

http://www.abandonedstations.org.uk/Goblin.html

HIGHGATE ROAD JUNCTION

I have a drawing of the track layout & signals at Highgate Road Junction and on the drawing it says that the box contained a 30 lever frame and was closed on the 5th September 1965. I have also seen a photograph of the box on the web about a year ago and from vague memory I believe it was a 'Midland' type of box although both the close by Gospel Oak No.1 & No.2 boxes were LNWR boxes.

The main double-track running lines ran east from Junction Road Junction in a westwards direction pass Highgate Road Junction with the box being located on the Down side of the running lines that then curved around towards the south to join the North London line at a junction heading to & from Kentish Town West station & Camden Road station. There is also a double-track junction off of the main running lines located just to the east of Highgate Road Junction box that curved around westwards into what I presume is the present day Gospel Oak bay platform that eventually ends at a set of buffer stops there wasn't a connection with the North London line at the western end of Gospel Oak station like there has been since the late 1960s which today seems incredible as there wasn't a direct route to & from Willesden and the WCML or also the Southern region at Willesden High level and also the Western region at Acton Wells Junction.

* * * From my previous post regarding Junction Road Junction's bracket post junction home signals that also had a 'empty' doll/post on the bracket post that doll/post looks like it originally carried Mortimer Street Junction's 'splitting distant signal' for the route heading along the Down Tottenham line (low level lines) towards Carlton Road Junction and the Midland main line. Highgate Road Junction's 'own' Up T&H line distant signal coming from Junction Road Junction appeared to have been carried on a bracket post and possibly located a couple of hundred yards beyond Junction Road Junction on the Up T&H line.* * *

Mickey wrote: ↑Tue Jul 31, 2018 8:40 am Probably better to have posted this on the Railway Chat topic thread as the railway that you are asking about was LMS/BR (LMR).

Actually, Mickey, the line was joint GER/MR, becoming joint LNER/LMS. I knew a signalman who once worked at Crouch Hill who told me he had special "joint" buttons on his uniform.

Nevertheless, almost all of the signalling and signalboxes were Midland, with the one exception of South Tottenham which was a GER box.

Highgate Road Junction was indeed a Midland box, as was a small box at Gospel Oak which worked the terminus. On the LNW there was originally only one box at Gospel Oak (controlling the yard, south of the station), the second was added when the link was first put in between the two railways.

The prime use of the link from Kentish Town Junction to Highgate Road Junction was for the Tilbury boat trains but I would imagine there was freight traffic from St Pancras Goods too. This line crossed both the LNW and the Midland main line, swinging round to link into the Goods Lines just north of Kentish Town station.

There were of course originally two Highgate Road stations (High Level and Low Level). The latter was near Mortimer Street Junction box.

Best regards,

John

Hiya John I believe we changed over several times at Junction Road when you was on the relief around the North London line and I was regular at the box back in the 1980s about the time of the Gospel Oak box fire which was around 1984 time I believe when poor old Roy Bowley unfortunately lost his life in that fire at the box that night.

Yes you are correct John regarding the earlier railway companies history of that route in fact the 'main line' (as you would know yourself) was to & from the Midland Railway at St Pancras through Kentish Town then via Engine Shed Junction, Mortimer Street Junction, Junction Road Junction, Upper Holloway and onwards towards South Tottenham and beyond towards the Barking direction with a number of the boxes along that route being of Midland Railway heritage even down as far as Leytonstone High Road station and yes I believe that there was some early connection with the GER as well although by the time of the Grouping the route came under the LMS at least as far as the Upper Holloway/Crouch Hill boundary and during the BR era it came under the London Midland Region until around 1996/97.

As for the old Midland Railway box at Junction Road Junction was concerned apparently I was told by a member of the Southall Railway Society shortly after closure that they were going to remove the box to Southall and re-build it on a new site at Southall but unfortunately as is the way vandals set fire to the structure a few months after closure in November 1985 and of course that unfortunately ended that idea.

Mickey wrote: ↑Thu Aug 02, 2018 10:50 am Hiya John I believe we changed over several times at Junction Road when you was on the relief around the North London line and I was regular at the box back in the 1980s about the time of the Gospel Oak box fire which was around 1984 time I believe when poor old Roy Bowley unfortunately lost his life in that fire at the box that night.

Yes indeed we did. I was based at Broad Street at that time, I think. I remember that day, I think I took over from you at lunchtime - it was a strange feeling knowing there was no signal box at the other end of the bell, so to speak.

Best regards,

John

thesignalman wrote: ↑Thu Aug 02, 2018 3:05 pm

Mickey wrote: ↑Thu Aug 02, 2018 10:50 am Hiya John I believe we changed over several times at Junction Road when you was on the relief around the North London line and I was regular at the box back in the 1980s about the time of the Gospel Oak box fire which was around 1984 time I believe when poor old Roy Bowley unfortunately lost his life in that fire at the box that night.

Yes indeed we did. I was based at Broad Street at that time, I think. I remember that day, I think I took over from you at lunchtime - it was a strange feeling knowing there was no signal box at the other end of the bell, so to speak.

Regarding Broad Street No.2 John I actually visited the box back in May 1970 one Saturday afternoon when I was only just a teenager at the time and the signalman who was on duty called me from the top of the signal box staircase asking me if I wanted to come up and have a look around?. Broad Street No.1, Skinner Street Junction & New Inn Yard boxes were all still standing there within a fairly short distance of one another but were all of course redundant by then anyway about a month later in June I visited Dalston Junction box (not the old Western Junction box that became known as Dalston in the late 1990s & 2000s) again on a Saturday afternoon. Of course I have read your articles about both boxes and the working between Dalston Junction & Broad Street on your excellent Signal Box website.

Yes regarding the fire at Gospel Oak box which I have posted on this forum once before a number of years ago now I was on duty on the early turn that Monday morning at Junction Road box after the fire and I relieved the late Fred Wells who was on duty during the Sunday night/Monday morning (18:00-06:00) and who apparently after talking with Control about not being able to raise Roy on the block bell and also trying to telephone him to no avail on the circuit phone left Junction Road box around midnight to walk along the track up to Gospel Oak to find out what was going on?. I remember Fred telling me that as he rounded the curve into Gospel Oak he could hear the crackling and then he saw the flames of the fire and then all of a sudden the box exploded in a huge fireball!!. Anyway I showed up at the access gate off Junction Road around 6:00am that Monday morning only to see a red flag dug into the Down T&H line coming down from Gospel Oak and I obviously thought to myself before I entered the box that something was up and as I walked into the box to relieve Fred with him in the box was Roger Taylor (local manager) as well who told me in sombre tones that there had been a fire at Gospel Oak box during the night and unfortunately Roy (Bowley) had been killed.

That was 34 years ago now.

Mickey and John, thank you, especially with the recounting of the fire and the loss of a friend. I had read about that on this forum, but didn't want to bring it into my query above. But it seems there's still a story to tell about that...

The prime use of the link from Kentish Town Junction to Highgate Road Junction was for the Tilbury boat trains but I would imagine there was freight traffic from St Pancras Goods too.

Well that would explain the layout at Kentish Town, where the high level route from Highgate Rd Jn crosses the goods line to join the main lines. I always wondered about that.

Mickey, it's the several iterations of the layout at Gospel Oak that are bemusing me. Your recollections of the quirks from Junction Road Junction (love that name!) with the motorised distant for Carlton Road Jn give me the impression that the workings over this little patch of the network were, well, patchy....

Everyone who comes across that name JUNCTION ROAD JUNCTION usually has to pass a comment about it or appears to find it amussing anyway I presume it is the ultimate railway Junction name.

Until late 1981 the 'main route' past Junction Road box heading west was via the low level Tottenham lines via Mortimer Street Junction & Engine Shed Junction leading into and out of Kentish Town station because that route was the route of the 30 minutes local passenger service between Kentish Town & Barking provided by x4 car Derby Rolls Royce units with the high level route over the Tottenham & Hampstead lines from Junction Road Junction heading west via Gospel Oak and the North London line that route was mainly used by freight trains only and was a secondary route although it was worked under Absolut Block so excursion trains could use that route as well and occasionally did but that all changed in late 1981 when the new bay platform was opened at Gospel Oak and the local Barking passenger services were diverted to start and terminate at Gospel Oak instead of Kentish Town so the low level route over night via Mortimer Street & Carlton Road Junctions became a 'little used route' being used mainly for the odd freight train (and I mean the odd freight train maybe as little as one freight train a week!) and the x3 car DMUs (they shortened the units to x3 cars because of the limited length of the Gospel Oak bay platform) that provided the Gospel Oak-Barking service being stabled and serviced at Cricklewood depot for a number of years until the later 1980s also used the low level lines daily during the early mornings and later at night.

The West Hampstead PSB 'motorised distant signal' episode that remained at caution for the low level lines because it 'route locked' the route on the West Hampstead panel further on down towards Carlton Road Junction came about shortly after Engine Shed Junction box that was situated along side the Midland main line out of St Pancras was closed in late 1981. One day the S&T were called out because the route on the West Hampstead panel was 'route locked' after a freight train or a light engine had being given the route along the low level lines from Junction Road Junction to Carlton Road Junction and the route had remained locked in after the train had passed through Carlton Road Junction?. The S&T duly arrived at Junction Road (I was in the box that day) and did there testing and it was found that the West Hampstead PSB 'motorised distant signal' back at Junction Road (that was slotted underneath the Junction Road home signal on the bracket signal post the other side of the box beyond the bridge hole) was failing to go back fully to the ON position after a train passed by it?. Anyway to cut a long story shorter it was decided that the West Hampstead PSB 'motorised distant signal' should in future be kept at 'caution' to save the route becoming route locked further on down at Carlton Road Junction.

When I mentioned to the signalman at West Hampstead PSB about the above cure to the problem his remark was-

"What distant signal?. I didn't even know we had a semaphore distant signal??." lol ha ha ha...

FWIW lemmo, a tiny bit of info.: I was with the LM Region S&T gang involved in making the outdoor parts of some c.1970 minor changes at Gospel Oak to the signalling of the Junction Road lines. This involved moving the 'from Junction Road' Home signal further away from the main junction by about 50 feet and installing a facing trap point that derailed to the left
Prior to that, the safety 'trap' in that line was facing points turning to the right which crossed the other, 'to Junction Road', line and included a single slip, and led into a short Engine spur parallel with the main Up line; with disc signals into and out of the spur.

That facility would have catered for a train at GO's 'from JRJ' Home (where I believe that there had once been a passenger platform), having its loco detach and run-round its train via the other line and crossing back over at JRJ (or previously perhaps at Highgate Road if there was a crossover there). But what signalling would have controlled any such train starting back towards HRJ/JRJ, I don't know.
Our c.1970 work also included removing the two discs, and disconnection of the engine spur connections, leaving just a simple trailing trap point in the 'to JRJ line'.

That reminds me for sometime prior to 1981 and I am guessing dating back to 1965 when Highgate Road Junction box was closed I remember that Junction Road Junction's Up T&H line starting signal towards Gospel Oak (No.1 box) that also carried Gospel Oak's 'fixed distant signal' beneath it was mounted on a small wooden bracket post (the left-hand doll/post having been removed at some unknown date?) and was sighted at the top of the gradient coming up from Junction Road roughly where both the old GO1 colour light signal was sighted between 1985-2011 and where the current NL1306 colour light signal is sighted today that is fairly near to the railway bridge that spans Highgate road.

Also worth a mention as this type of thing is usually lost in the mists of time was the method of working between Junction Road Junction and Gospel Oak box over the Up T&H line until late 1981 when the Barking line service was diverted from Kentish Town to Gospel Oak where it started and terminated in the new bay platform and also at the same time the Junction Road Junction Up T&H line starting signal at Highgate Road at the top of the gradient was abolished as well was that prior to those changes the old Absolute Block regulation 5 'The Warning Arrangement or acceptance' was authorised between both boxes. The reason why this regulation was authorised between both boxes was because Gospel Oak's Up T&H line home signal (a semaphore signal mounted on a small straight metal tubular post near to the box) was sighted fairly close to the junction at Gospel Oak with the North London line being immediately beyond it and because if a train was accepted by the signalman at Gospel Oak from Junction Road Junction under the 'normal' Absolute Block regulation 4 with the line being clear through to the end of the 440 yards 'clearing point' that ended beyond the junction and then the signalman at Gospel Oak in the meantime changed his mind after accepting a train from Junction Road Junction under Absolute Block regulation 4 (normal acceptance) and then infringed the 440 yards 'clearing point' rule beyond the home signal that wasn't authorised for the signalman to do to allow another train to approach or pass through the junction at Gospel Oak in either direction along the North London line to or from Camden Road or Willesden when a train was already approaching Gospel Oak's Up T&H line home signal outside the box after being accepted 'normally' from Junction Road Junction. Anyway to get around the problem what would happen was once a train had been accepted from Junction Road Junction by the signalman at Gospel Oak (usually always under Absolute Block regulation 5 'The Warning Acceptance' because there was usually a lot of train movements around Gospel Oak) the block bell 3-5-5 was sent to Junction Road Junction and was acknowledged by the signalman there who would then show either a green flag or handlamp held steady from the open box window and waited until it was acknowledged by the driver via the locos horn of the approaching train before withdrawing it from the box window and then pulling off the Junction Road Junction Up T&H line starting signal at the top of the gradient at Highgate Road towards Gospel Oak, it was a way of telling the driver of an approaching train (not verbally but via the green hand signal held steady from the box) that THE BLOCK SECTION BETWEEN BOTH BOXES WAS CLEAR BUT THE JUNCTION IMMEDIATELY BEYOND THE HOME SIGNAL OF THE BOX IN ADVANCE WAS BLOCKED so just be aware when approaching the junction ahead that if you over run the home signal of the next signal box the junction immediately beyond the home signal was BLOCKED but of course if no trains had been accepted 'on the block' from Camden Road on the Down North London line by the signalman at Gospel Oak and no trains were approaching Gospel Oak from the Willesden direction (TCB section) on the Up North London line and so the route WASN'T already set through the junction at Gospel Oak towards Camden Road then a train (usually always either a freight train or a light engine) could be accepted under the 'normal' Absolute Block regulation 4 from Junction Road Junction but that was usually a fairly rare occurrence between both boxes as there was usually a number of train movements either approaching or going through the junction at Gospel Oak with usually another train following a couple of signal sections behind the first train although maybe around 4:00-5:30am it may have been quiet enough to have accepted a train at Gospel Oak from Junction Road Junction under the normal Absolute Block regulation 4 acceptance which meant the 440 yards beyond Gospel Oak's home signal outside the box and just before the junction was clear to the end of the 440 yards clearing point.

The above method of working (Absolute Block regulation 5 'The Warning Acceptance'') may sound a bit complicated to understand but in practice it was all quite easy to work between the two boxes.

Later on around 1988/89 British Rail amended Absolute Block regulation 5 'The Warning Acceptance' whereby it basically became a 'paper exercise' between both boxes where it was authorised as after a train had been accepted under Absolute Block regulation 5 by the box in advance there was no need for the signalman to display a green hand signal held steady from the box in the rear anymore so the driver obviously wouldn't know in reality if the line immediately ahead of the stop signal that he was approaching was blocked or not so it all became a bit pointless??.

Re Reg. 5 over the line from Junction Rd. to Gospel Oak, apart from not being that far from the Junction with the main 'North London line', as I said earlier, there was a facing trap point just beyond the Home board - probably even more important as protection for the passenger lines because Reg. 5 was authorised (although it did look like quite a climb from JRJ, reducing the SPAD risk a bit). I'd have thought that trap point could have remained until the next changes to the layout (the new Barking Bay presumably).