Track layout on south approach to Peterborough in the 50s & 60s

[Mickey]

I imagine despite the route being a little awkward it must have had it's advantages as you could get a freight almost up to the down main platform and have it ready to go. Spital Junction could do a simultaneous move onto the Up Slow too.

It is a little hard talking about a railway location like the Peterborough North area that I wasn't that over familiar with despite visiting it by train on around a dozen occasions around 1971-72 and before the major re-signalling of the area took place around 1973-74 when Peterborough Power Box came on line at different stages.

Anyway looking at the Spital Junction & Peterborough North track diagrams I suspect with regards to Goods trains that travelled south along the Up Goods Departure line from Westwood Junction towards Spital Junction that it was more preferable to route those types of trains at Spital Junction rather then running them straight along the Up Goods Departure line to Peterborough North box. Routing Goods trains at Spital Junction meant that they could either be crossed onto and run along the Up Slow line to Crescent Junction where they could either be held at Crescent Junction waiting a 'path' heading south along the GN main line or diverting them at Crescent Junction to run them towards the Peterborough East direction. Also I presume that it was more preferable to stand a Goods train on the Up Slow line at Crescent Junction rather than standing it on the Up Main line blocking that road with it's train trailing back through the North station to wait a path for the Peterborough East direction when it could be held (more or less out of sight to the public?) on the Up Slow line. Also starting a southbound Goods train at Spital Junction for the GN main line heading south through Peterborough and 'turning it out' onto the Up Main line at Spital Junction and running it through the North station may have been more preferable doing it that way than to run it along the Up Departure line passed Spital Junction and for the train having to negotiate the Up Goods Departure line between Spital Junction & Peterborough North box?.

Mickey

[StevieG]

P.S. [ Mickey,
IF memory serves correctly (of diagrams seen, not actual location knowledge), I think, on the Up side, Westwood only worked the passenger roads, leaving Eastfield controlling the other Up lines to Spital Jn. Box / GF. ]

[R. pike]

Westwood Junction..

and his mate from the other side, unfortunately with the Wizbang line shut..

[R. pike]

Crescent Junction..

[R. pike]

For completeness here's Werrington Junction where the goods lines went back to more conventional arrangements..

I don't have anything for Fletton Junction. If anyone has one they'd like to part with...

I can post diagrams for New England, Nene Junction, Peterborough East, Turntable, Walton's and Helpston's and Wisbech Sidings East if there is interest.

[StevieG]

Thanks v.m. R. pike.
So I stand corrected about Westwood, Mickey.
With an Up Coal - Up Main connection present, Up Goods trains could leave onto the Up Main there.

[Mickey]

It is nice to know Richard many of those old box diagrams have been saved and in your collection.

By the way do you know whatever happened to Welwyn Garden City's x4 LNER Thompson block instruments presuming they survived?. Possibly they are in private collections or maybe one or two made there way to the NRM at York?.

Mickey

[R. pike]

Even a later Westwood Junction has that connection..

[Mickey]

Out of curiosity it would be interesting to know what the official 'walking route' was to get to and from Westwood Junction box if there were such things back then in the 1950s & 1960s(?) on B.R. because the box appeared to have been situated in between a number of frequently used running lines on either side of the box plus it appeared to have been a fairly 'long walk' to and from Peterborough North station?.

Mickey

[cunningnLNER]

Thanks Richard for all of those signal diagrams - I had seen a couple but not the rest. Very useful (though they will spawn more re-work I'm sure).
I can see the point in using both up goods 'routes' depending on circumstances though the myriad bits and pieces on the Up Goods departure line around North Box do seem over-complicated.
That picture of the excellent model is useful as it shows the starter for the bay platforms at the North end (4 & 5) which I had bodged in ignorance of the real arrangment.

Thanks again - it's great to hear the discussion on the running arrangements from people who know about it in real lief.

[R. pike]

Thanks again - it's great to hear the discussion on the running arrangements from people who know about it in real lief.

I was probably around six or seven years old when these boxes closed. I just collect box diagrams from 'my' bit of railway. (KX - Barkeston Juncs and East Anglia). I do have a fairly good understanding of signalling etc and have designed and built several fully operational signalboxes both for my own use and on Heritage railways. I'm currently installing point rodding on a Network Rail job not too far from Peterborough.

I learn a lot from these discussions, especially from those guys who were actually there. For my part i just stood there with my mouth open trying to take it all in. Tempsford was my first box followed by Everton, Arlesey, Three Counties, Sandy, and Hitchin Yard. All were gone by the time i was ten years old.

One thing i still haven't got my head around is Peterborough. Working out the main line arrangements is easy. What went on along those goods lines is still a bit of a mystery to me. I've got a diagrams for New England North and South. One diagram hints at a New England East Box. I remember seeing New England Shunting Cabin 'A'. Both of these i have nothing for. I have no idea how any of the goods lines boxes worked to each other and i've never seen pictures of their interiors. I can work out what went on a Fletton Junction but again i've not seen pictures etc or seen a diagram.

[Mickey]

Thanks again - it's great to hear the discussion on the running arrangements from people who know about it in real lief.

I learn a lot from these discussions, especially from those guys who were actually there. For my part i just stood there with my mouth open trying to take it all in. Tempsford was my first box followed by Everton, Arlesey, Three Counties, Sandy, and Hitchin Yard. All were gone by the time i was ten years old.

Same here RP although I presume I am about 6 or 7 years older than yourself and remember the above named boxes quite well during the 1970-75 era and In particular Arlesey (box) which was and always has been a favourite GN box of mine, I always thought it was one of the most attractive looking boxes on the GN (and almost anywhere else on B.R.) and that was when Arlesey (box) still had a 2 line 'bottleneck' outside the box with a little used road crossing as well.

One thing i still haven't got my head around is Peterborough. Working out the main line arrangements is easy. What went on along those goods lines is still a bit of a mystery to me. I've got a diagrams for New England North and South. One diagram hints at a New England East Box. I remember seeing New England Shunting Cabin 'A'. Both of these i have nothing for. I have no idea how any of the goods lines boxes worked to each other and i've never seen pictures of their interiors. I can work out what went on a Fletton Junction but again i've not seen pictures etc or seen a diagram.

I also remember New England Shunting Cabin 'A' and that would have been a nice little box to have been preserved?.

From personal memory Fletton Junction (box) closed around February 1973 I guess 'John the signalman' has the exact closure date of the box.

Richard have you still got those 6 levers that a friend and myself removed from Ferme Park South Down (box) during the early summer of 1971?.

Mickey

[thesignalman]

From personal memory Fletton Junction (box) closed around February 1973 I guess 'John the signalman' has the exact closure date of the box.

You are sharp, Mickey - I think it was April but to get that close from memory is pretty spectacular!

It is a box I don't remember at all, for some odd reason. Maybe I was always sitting on the opposite side of the train as I passed. I remember seeing most of the others in my travels.

John

[SteveBrissle]

Hi all,

I only joined yesterday and was very interested in the information about Peterborough.

I lived in the city between 1959 and 1976 (and then became a student and eventually moved to live in the West Country in 1980). I remember the signal boxes between Holme and Essendine , around Peterborough East and on the MR line to Stamford from 1967 onwards. My friends and I used to visit New England MPD in 1968 and parts of the yards before they closed, including visiting the outside of New England East SB and the 'A' and 'B' shunting cabins (they were unmanned at weekends and locked).

Crescent Junction SB was my favourite box because we could trainspot beneath Crescent Bridge, watch the trains including those passing at a maximum of 20mph, and hear the block bells ringing and the levers being operated in the busy box. The other locations I regularly visited were Fletton Bridge, Peacock Bridge, Spital Bridge (with good views of the GN and MR boxes) and Westwood Bridge (two GN and one MR boxes). My dad would also take us down to Holme some afternoons and once to Essendine.

I also visited Peterborough East (I could hear the wagons being shunted and the loco whistles in the early 1960s when we lived in Gloucester Road, Fletton) but we were unable to visit the East and Turntable boxes.

My Dad arranged a visit to Werrington Junction SB in the last 1960s (it was a very cold winter afternoon); he knew the signalman. I also visited the PSB after it opened; my Dad also knew Malcolm Heugh, a signal engineer and stalwart of the NVR. Malcolm and his crew donated a home signal, signal post (with oil lamp) and GNR fog lever which they installed in my parents' garden. When Dad asked whether I would like to instal the signal in my own garden (my partner Maria would not have been happy), it was agreed that it should be donated to the NVR where it has been renovated and installed in the yard at Ferry Meadows/Overton station .

Happy spotting days and exploring the railway infrastructure (although my main interest is the SR, notably the railways of Kent and East Sussex).

British Railways Illustrated Volume 5 issues 3 and 4 (1995/6) have good track diagrams of Peterborough and various photos.

I've seen the copies of various Peterborough SB diagrams but not those for New England South and North New England.

Steve

[Mickey]

An interesting post of yours Steve.

I use to have an occasional ride down from Kings Cross to Peterborough North station as it was still called during 1971-72 on some Saturday afternoons which from vague memory took around 70-75 minutes from start to stop to cover the 76 miles. From memory I think a down express departed Kings Cross possibly for Doncaster(?) usually behind a Brush type 4 (class 47) around 2:45pm at that time and was formed of B.R.Mk1s and it made a change from being around the London end of the GN main line all the time back then. Anyway after a couple of hours on Peterborough North station watching the train movements around the station I would catch another Up express calling at Peterborough North back up to Kings Cross.

During 1971-72 coming down from Kings Cross on the train the boxes between Huntingdon station and Peterborough North station were-

Huntingdon North No.1
Huntingdon North No.2
Abbotts Ripton
Connington South
Connington North
Holme
Yaxley
Fletton Junction
Crescent Junction
Peterborough North

Happy days...