Locations to identify - new photos added.

[john coffin]

I think the thing about Oakleigh Park was that at that time it was pretty easy to get on to the hills and take photos.

One of the big things now with trying to find photos on flea bay is that they rarely have accurate location information, or timings make it
very much guesswork. Too many people buy large collections, and break them down without putting the information alongside.

Paul

[madgewildfire60135]

You are most correct Paul Sadly these priceless glass plates sometimes fall into the hands of those that do not realise the information contained on the outer sleeve is of most importance. A few years ago a good sized collection of glass plates came on the market but sadly the seller had ripped open the outer sleeves to scan the plates, then he discarded the sleeves and the information was gone forever. I find this is happening a lot and that goes for slides also with collections being broken up with slide boxes being thrown away with a wealth of information written on the inner box.

Thanks Mickey for that information much appreciated.

Simon

[Mickey]

I actually bought several b&w photographs maybe three or four taken at Oakleigh Park station looking south towards Oakleigh Park tunnel circa 1899/1900 which a couple were subsequently published in various railway books and one or two of them appear in Michael Vanns book called A Illustrated History of Great Northern Railway Signalling, I presume the b&w photographs that were taken at Oakleigh Park circa 1899/1900 that I bought back in the early 1970s were not the originals but copies.

There use to be a shop at Harrow-on-the Hill near to Harrow school in north west London back in the early 1970s where I bought the above photographs that also sold lots of other railway related stuff such as old railway books and railway photographs, I presume the shop is long gone?. If anyone is interested in finding out if the shop is still there from memory after exiting Harrow-on-the-Hill underground station (Metropolitan line) I recall I had to walk up a steep hill to the top where the road levelled out the old shop was located on the right-hand side of the road near to Harrow school.

I also bought at the same shop a black pocket size original GNR rule book in excellent condition and from memory it was signed by a GNR employee a office clerk I vaguely recall that's probably why it was in excellent condition I presume?.

Mickey

[john coffin]

Sadly Mickey you are too many years behind the times.

The old railway bookshop, can't remember its name, closed around the 80's by which time, it had moved to Northwood, much of my collection
of books was obtained at the Harrow shop, it was a favourite haunt of my youth.

Mind you, not to say that a walk up from Harrow on the Hill station up toward Harrow School is not worth the effort anyway.

Paul

[Mickey]

Sadly Mickey you are too many years behind the times.

The old railway bookshop, can't remember its name, closed around the 80's by which time, it had moved to Northwood, much of my collection
of books was obtained at the Harrow shop, it was a favourite haunt of my youth.

Mind you, not to say that a walk up from Harrow on the Hill station up toward Harrow School is not worth the effort anyway.

That's interesting Paul I wondered if anyone else on the forum knew of that bookshop and I have actually mentioned it once before on here several years ago but no one responded, so it closed back in the 1980s. I originally visited the shop way back around 1971 or 72 it must have been and with a railway friend of mine but I also vaguely recall visiting it on a second occasion on my own maybe a few months after my first visit?.

Yes that is a steep hill up from Harrow-on-the-Hill tube station to the top not something I would like to do regular on foot.

Northwood?. I once knew a young woman who lived around Northwood Hills (Metroland and the far edges of north west London) but that's a story for another day ha ha ha...

Mickey

[giner]

My earliest memories stem from that very spot. As a four year old with my Dad seeing a big blue engine (an experimental blue A1) bursting forth from Barnet Tunnel with a down express. Thank you very much for that photo Simon. It brought back a lot of memories.

[StevieG]

One from my collection which might be of interest . Original glass plate negative with location Oakleigh Park and date 1899 on the sleeve. GNR Loco No 544.

Yes it is Simon it's just to the south of Oakleigh Park station (about 9 miles north of Kings Cross). The train is running along the Up fast line and is fast approaching Oakleigh Park or Barnet tunnel. There appears to be quite a few photographs that were taken around Oakleigh Park station circa 1899/1900 that I have also seen myself in the past.

Mickey

I concur on the location and direction of the wonderful 'Oakleigh Park' photo, though I am unaccustomed to seeing this landscape so bare.

It is a testament to those glass-plate photographs regarding the astonishingly high quality of well-taken examples such as this, in which the definition is so good that, even viewed via the means of this forum, and enlarged to 200%, additional detail is not too difficult to discern, even though not crystal-clear : If I'm not mistaken, looking through and below the footbridge, fragments of OP station and signals, and the skyline beyond in the New Barnet area (some 3/4 - 1 mile away) can be picked out.

Thanks for sharing this one on here madgewildfire60135.

[john coffin]

Overnight, I think the name came to me.

I believe that the shop was called Roundhouse, and something from my distant memory, it had been in central London at one stage and moved out
as the area was slightly smartened up. It often confused me as to why you would have a railway book shop so far from a railway, or the centre of the town. But then in those days Harrow on the Hill was a pretty cheap place to buy or rent property, so maybe that was it. But the shop was never full of people although it was always a good source of good quality books that never seemed to have that "old book" smell

Finally, I did mean to say it is a nice walk up the hill, although you do need to be fit!!!!! The views from the top over West London are pretty spectacular and of course there is all the historic stuff at Harrow School which daily seems to attract many tourists.

Paul

[Mickey]

One from my collection which might be of interest . Original glass plate negative with location Oakleigh Park and date 1899 on the sleeve. GNR Loco No 544.

Yes it is Simon it's just to the south of Oakleigh Park station (about 9 miles north of Kings Cross). The train is running along the Up fast line and is fast approaching Oakleigh Park or Barnet tunnel. There appears to be quite a few photographs that were taken around Oakleigh Park station circa 1899/1900 that I have also seen myself in the past.

Mickey

I concur on the location and direction of the wonderful 'Oakleigh Park' photo, though I am unaccustomed to seeing this landscape so bare.

A slightly unusual view of the GNR main line south of Oakleigh Park station compared to the other 7 or 8 photographs that I have previously seen from the same era 1899/1900 because all the other photographs were taken from standing on Oakleigh Park station usually looking south towards Barnet tunnel so I presume the photographer wanted to take a photograph from another location instead of from the station platforms again.

Pity the photographer didn't include Oakleigh Park's Down fast & Down slow lines distant signals if it had been possible for him to have done so because he must have been standing quite near to them both (they would have been located behind him to his lower right) with both signal posts for the Down fast & Down slow lines standing several yards outside both tunnel mouth bores.

I believe that shop was called Roundhouse

Like I said Paul I believe I visited the shop twice and from a vague memory of about 45 years ago the shop appeared to be a 'treasure trove' of railway books, railway documents and other railway related material also the location of the shop stayed in my mind being a top of Harrow-on-the-Hill with Harrow's famous boy's school nearby and come to think of it now there mite have even been some of those young 'toffs' seen walking along the street wearing there straw hats!!.

Mickey

[JASd17]

I understand the Oakleigh Park bridge was a meeting point for enthusiasts for many years.

Frank Giles, whose spotting books I am digitising, would go there after school in the mid 1930s. As he lived in East Finchley, Lincoln Road, he must have used a bicycle to get there and to the locations he frequented.

I think Peter Coster and Geoff Hughes, who are both still with us, also went to the Oakleigh Park bridge.

John

[giner]

Dad and I would take the bus from North Finchley up to Whetstone, then walk along Oakleigh Road N to Oakleigh Park S, then down a footpath leading down to that footbridge. Happy days.

[Mickey]

I understand the Oakleigh Park bridge was a meeting point for enthusiasts for many years.

Frank Giles, whose spotting books I am digitising, would go there after school in the mid 1930s. As he lived in East Finchley, Lincoln Road, he must have used a bicycle to get there and to the locations he frequented.

I think Peter Coster and Geoff Hughes, who are both still with us, also went to the Oakleigh Park bridge.

I believe that footbridge is still there although obviously in better condition than the one featured in the photograph after being renewed on several occasions down the years.

Peter Coster leaving a side his railway books also appears in a number of Transport Video Publishing dvds that were recorded I believe during the 1990s & 2000s and with his LNER knowledge is especially featured in the LNER orientated dvds although he does appear in several other non-LNER dvds as well.

Mickey

[StevieG]

" Overnight, I think the name came to me.

I believe that the shop was called Roundhouse, and something from my distant memory, it had been in central London at one stage and moved out
as the area was slightly smartened up. .... "
Paul

I recall what might have been such a shop, in a back street (Charlotte Street?), behind Tottenham Court Road's Goodge Street UndergrounD, but don't remember its name : But I'm sure it was something appropriate; like Roundhouse; or perhaps The Turntable.

" .... Pity the photographer didn't include Oakleigh Park's Down fast & Down slow lines distant signals if it had been possible for him to have done so because he must have been standing quite near to them both (they would have been located behind him to his lower right) with both signal posts for the Down fast & Down slow lines standing several yards outside both tunnel mouth bores. .... "

Mickey, do you remember that, although the Down Slow signal was well positioned for viewing while approaching all the way through the tunnel, its underslung, suspended, or 'gallows'-type bracket was actually very wide - almost certainly because at one time there would have been a Slow-Goods line 'splitting' Distant to the left of the DS signal, so depending on when the photo was taken (a change of policy meant that the GNR abolished many such 'splitters' around 1915), that third distant might've still been in place at the time.

Incidentally, regarding Barnet Tunnel and others in the area, I was once shown ( or should that be shewn ? ) what was presumably quite an early-ish GNR gradients chart document neatly bound in a small leather and embossed folder.
Therein, one of the area's tunnels - I think it would've been "Wood Green", as we've known it for so may decades - was named "Tottenham Tunnel", and at least one other, can't recall whether it was Barnet Tunnel or at Hadley Wood, was "Enfield Tunnel".
Presumably it was thought that those were then the nearest concentrations of habitation in those days large enough to merit their names being so used.

[Mickey]

I recall what might have been such a shop, in a back street (Charlotte Street?), behind Tottenham Court Road's Goodge Street UndergrounD, but don't remember its name : But I'm sure it was something appropriate; like Roundhouse; or perhaps The Turntable.

Yes I do remember the shop you are referring to Stevie and I visited it around 7 or 8 times circa 1994-95. The shop was located In a walkway between Goodge street (north) & Rathbone street (south) called Rathbone Place. The funny thing regarding that shop was when I first discovered it (by chance) it was a full-blown railway book shop but over the course of about a year it gradually metamorphosed into a railway model shop because the owner gradually started buying & selling second hand model railway locos & carriages that gradually took over half the shop where previously there had been many railway books and other railway publications. I believe from memory the shop closed sometime around the first half of 1996.

Mickey, do you remember that, although the Down Slow signal was well positioned for viewing while approaching all the way through the tunnel, its underslung, suspended, or 'gallows'-type bracket was actually very wide - almost certainly because at one time there would have been a Slow-Goods line 'splitting' Distant to the left of the DS signal, so depending on when the photo was taken (a change of policy meant that the GNR abolished many such 'splitters' around 1915), that third distant might've still been in place at the time.

Yes I do Stevie and I also remember that it was very rare to see that Oakleigh Park Down slow line distant signal at caution from the front seat of an approaching Cravens or Rolls Royce unit, that distant signal always seemed to be pulled off also there was a set of spring worked catch points just beyond where the Down slow line distant signal was located.

Incidentally, regarding Barnet Tunnel and others in the area, I was once shown ( or should that be shewn ? ) what was presumably quite an early-ish GNR gradients chart document neatly bound in a small leather and embossed folder.
Therein, one of the area's tunnels - I think it would've been "Wood Green", as we've known it for so may decades - was named "Tottenham Tunnel", and at least one other, can't recall whether it was Barnet Tunnel or at Hadley Wood, was "Enfield Tunnel".
Presumably it was thought that those were then the nearest concentrations of habitation in those days large enough to merit their names being so used.

Maybe the same could be said regarding the Welwyn viaduct or is it the Digswell viaduct?. I always use to call it the Welwyn viaduct but in recent years I have started calling it the Digswell viaduct (to myself) although I think most people would call it the Welwyn viaduct and they may well be correct in doing so.

Mickey

[silverfox]

The Roundhouse
Spent many happy hours there in the late 70's amassing my RM collection. They then moved off to Kingston, which was a bit tooooo far for me to get to in my lunch hour