The LNER Encyclopedia

Hello Everyone,

Does anybody know where i can find a track plan for Welwyn Garden City station circa 1950?

I'm told that the station had quite an extensive yard back then and my Dad swears blind that he remembers 60007 being stabled there for a week or so employed on shunting duties following overhaul (by my reckonings late 50's early 60's) if anyone has any sightings I would be interested to know dates.

Thanks all

I think there should be a few WGC box diagrams lurking on my website in the East Coast Mainline section..

http://richard2890.fotopic.net/c710126.html

The yard was on the up side (- if you find helpful diagrams on R.Pike's site, it was accessed via points 75 and/or 80 at the north end, and if I remember correctly, No.56 at the south end).
There was a separate goods shed just north of being opposite about halfway along the Up Back Platform line's platform,
As I recall, there must have been at least six roads, and I think there were offshoot sidings into the industrial premises on the east side [like near, or perhaps including into, the Welgar (as in 'Shredded Wheat') factory] : - I believe some sections of rail may still be found in the 'concrete'.
No doubt an O.S. map of the period in which you are interested would reveal much.

Hello there 6231,

I was brought up from the age of seven (1956) in WGC, and as a keen train-spotter knew the station and yard very well.
That an A4 should be in the yard for a week shunting seems most unlikely. However stranger things have happened on rails - who would have thought such an old-fashioned machine as City of Truro would top the ton?
I don't recall there being any resident shunter (apart from the small diesel that worked the Nabisco sidings and that never strayed onto BR metals), the yard being shunted by engines from pausing pick-up goods or by visiting shunters from Hatfield. I do remember an 0-6-0 diesel pushing a long rake of bulk grain hopper wagons along the S curve that ran over to the industrial sidings that were parallel to the main line, but set back some distance.

As regards track plans of WGC

Middleton Press - Branch lines around Hertford and Hatfield
Middleton Press - Potters Bar to Cambridge
both still in print and both with track plans

in addition British Railways Illustrated Annual No 9 dealt with both WGC and Welwyn North in their Station Survey series, and included excellent track plans of both stations.

Being a fairly modern station (1926) WGC did not change that much until electrification, when a flyover was put in to allow terminating trains to cross to the up side without disrupting main line traffic. There were a few changes to the up side connections when the Hertford branch closed to passenger traffic and the old bi-directional single track to Hatfield became an up goods line. There were six running lines between WGC and Hatfield - from the east side they were...
Hertford branch - bi-directional
Up slow
Up fast
Down fast
Down slow
Luton and Dunstaple branch - also bi-directional
The junction for the two branches was at Hatfield, which was also the junction for a branch to St Albans. This odd arrangement dated from the time when there was no town at WGC and therefore no station
The Luton branch gained a passing loop between the platform road and the station building (during the war?) although I only ever saw this used once or twice.

Chaz

Further to StevieGs comments,

I still visit WGC once a month and walk over the long footbridge on the east side of the station. There are indeed some metals still embedded in concrete. There were originally 3 lines at the Nabisco end, and a small loco shed with a roller shutter type door, adjacent to the factory next to Hunter's Bridge Road, which housed the Nabisco diesel. There were other premises further south that used the sidings but most of the traffic that I remember seeing were bulk grain hoppers.
When I visited last month the Shredded Wheat factory looked closed.
There is no trace of the S curve connecting link and very little evidence, apart from the few bits of rail in the smallish area of concrete to bear testimony to the presence of the private sidings.
There is still a yard on the up side but I don't think it is currently used. About a year ago I did see a 66 class diesel leave from there, heading north, with a long rake of bogie open wagons - the big high-sided jobs - I have no idea of the wagon codes.

Chaz

I have to take you to task for swearing on the group(mentioning C_O_T) there is quite an opinion that she didnt make the ton and was only used by the GWR for publicity purposes.

Hi 52D,

glad to see someone took the bait!

I have read a detailed analysis of C_O_Ts "record run" that "proves" that it (not she, please!) didn't reach 100mph. Maybe it did, maybe not. At this distance it can't possibly matter. All I can say is that it was magnanimous of the LNER to put the loco in their museum, and shows that the rivalry between the two companies was mostly between their publicity machines and enthusiasts. There were, after all, relatively few places where the two companies were in open competition. And maybe it also implies that the LNER gave the GWR's claim some credence?

Chaz

The only real area where the GWR/LNER came together were the lines around Buckinghamshire and from what i have seen it seemed to be a good working relationship also we have to thank the GWR for the improvements to Gresleys way of thinking regarding the A3s and eventually from improved A3s to Mallard. So im not that biased against Gods Worst Railway.

Oh come on 52D, let's not carry reasonableness too far. Remind GWR fans at every opportunity of the exploits of 2509, 4472, and 2750. Hinting at the dubious nature of 3440's "record" is also a guaranteed wind-up. Really get's 'em going.

At a recent show I watched a 7mm Castle limping around a test track. Two people stood watching near me and one said to the other "What's wrong with it?". My wicked side surfaced and I blurted out "It's Great Western!". Sometimes you just have to! My father always hated the Gresley pacifics being painted in what he referred to as Swindon Khaki.

Sorry, I've drifted a long way off topic, so by way of redress....

Although the original WGC station building (booking hall) is long gone, Its site occupied by the appalling Howard Centre, the platform buildings are still intact (and in use - unlike the station at Welwyn North where the original building has had its windows boarded up). The canopies are largely original, although modified here and there to accomodate the catenary supports.
I could take some snaps the next time I go (end of the month).

Chaz

chaz harrison wrote: .... " There were a few changes to the up side connections when the Hertford branch closed to passenger traffic and the old bi-directional single track to Hatfield became an up goods line. " ....

The need for an extra Up Goods line facility by the time of the Hertford branch passenger service cessation would surely have considerably waned.
A now retired S&T lineman of KX once allowed me to copy pages of his father's notebook, which showed the WGC-Hat. section of the Hertf. branch converted to an Up Goods line in the 1940s - entirely believable if done to facilitate extra traffic to help the war effort. This would presumably have left the Hertf. branch passenger traffic curtailed at WGC.
The listed arrangement of the six running lines would have been entirely correct before any such change.

Given the age of most sizeable stations on the southern part of the GN main line, it still feels odd, although entirely understandable, that WGC station has only been around (only??!!) since the 1920s, and that before the main station's creation (and its short-lived predecessor small 'halt' on the curve of the Luton Line, just north of the present Bridge Road overbridge), the only notable named railway locations between Hatfield, and "Digswell" (south end of Welwyn Viaduct), were the Twentieth Mile Up and Down signal boxes, each controlling three of the six lines.

The Hertford single line was controlled by key token and to reduce the workload on the signalman and any risk to others a special system was put in place. A token machine was located in a hut at the north end of the up platforms controlled by a special instrument in the signalbox. This may be the actual signalbox instrument..

http://richard2890.fotopic.net/p45991120.html

This system avoided the need for the token to come to the box across four running lines. I hope one day a photo will turn up showing this instrument in place and also the Hatfield and Ayot single line instruments..

By the late 1960s/ early 1970s the short bit left of the Hertford branch north of the station was worked as a siding to serve two local factories which still recieved materials by rail - Lincoln Electric and Norton Abrasive, the latter by Rectanks which were attached to 7C80 2245 Tinsley - Temple Mills at Retford and detached in the Up Yard. There was still a resident shunter then - a black bloke called Fred? and a resident 350 hp diesel plus a goods clerk (Bob - what a job he had!!) I earnt a bit of overtime with some chancers of contractors lifting the remains of the Up Goods between the Garden City and Hatfield in 1973 and also walked between the two stations in about the same year one Sunday morn as pilotman putting in single line working. We were tough guys on the GN then!

G'Day Gents
I remember the up goods being in place in the early 70's, what always intrigued me was, about a mile south of WGC in a lowish cutting there was a break in the cutting wall, and what looked like a siding, joining the up goods, anyone know if it was a siding?
Some up to date pic's of WGC would be very welcome, thanks.
manna

manna wrote:G'Day Gents
I remember the up goods being in place in the early 70's, what always intrigued me was, about a mile south of WGC in a lowish cutting there was a break in the cutting wall, and what looked like a siding, joining the up goods, anyone know if it was a siding?
Some up to date pic's of WGC would be very welcome, thanks.
manna

Just looking in my 1947 Sectional Appendix and it shows a siding - Smarts Siding - as being connected to the 'Up Independent' line and controlled by Annett's Key which was normally kept in WGC box. Long gone by the time we came on the scene and cannot be too certain what the traffic there was, aggregates of some kind, I think?

G'Day Gents
Thank you Hitchin, I always though it was a siding, although the Willow tree? always made it difficult to see.
manna