1961 GREAT NORTHERN MAIN LINE STEAM - On the adjacent line and from the same recent source, footage of large express trains thundering through my local stations in Haringey from Kings X towards the Welwyn Viaduct
Thanks for posting this, I think that I only ever saw the back of a working Palace Gates train at Seven Sisters, but Wood Green & New Southgate (Friern Barnet) I can vouch for. Some good shots from unusual locations, I found the background as interesting as the locos and stock.
I did a fair bit of work around the time the Olympic Park was being built so i recognised some of the areas, great videos just one tiny disapointment no G5s at Palace Gates. Manna our Antipodean comrade will love this.
Hi interested in the area served by 52D. also researching colliery wagonways from same area.
The Haringey Friends of Parks group has just published a pamphlet describing a three-mile contemporary walk along the course of the former railway from Palace Gates to Seven Sisters. The focus is on what the topography and surroundings look like now. A download is available here:
The above pamphlet is fronted by my favourite photograph of my favourite locomotive - the grubby N7 0-6-2T Tank Engine! One N7 tank locomotive has survived into preservation. No. 69621 is unusual in that the driver is positioned on the right of the footplate. Preserved alongside this tank engine on the North Norfolk Railway is an example of an 0-6-0 goods locomotive with tender - the J15 'Little Black Goods'' No. 65462 - a type of loco that would have handled most of the goods traffic on the Palace Gates branch.
There's footage of both of these engines running here and, at 4:45, Richard Hardy, former Assistant District Motive Power Superintendent at Stratford from 1955, reminisces about working 'The Jazz' suburban service from Liverpool Street to Enfield & Palace Gates:
Palace Gates wrote:The above pamphlet is fronted by my favourite photograph of my favourite locomotive - the grubby N7 0-6-2T Tank Engine! One N7 tank locomotive has survived into preservation. No. 69621 is unusual in that the driver is positioned on the right of the footplate.
69621 is not at all unusual other than it was the last steam locomotive constructed at Stratford Works, one very good reason for it being preserved. All GER locomotives were right-hand drive and it was only later LNER-constructed batches of N7 that conformed to what became the LNER standard of left-hand drive. In general English constituent company locomotives were driven from the right-hand side but Scottish locomotives typically from the left. From 1925 onwards all new-build LNER locomotives were left-hand drive. Although contrary to English custom and practice dating back to the middle ages, having the driver on the same side as the signals made sense as did operating the regulator with the right-hand.
