It is looking the other way, therefore an Up train.
The PB sewage works was in the dip on the Down side, where Cranborne Road now is. I can see the distinctive footpath fence at the south end of the dip in the landscape in the original post.
The distant signals would have been abolished when the Hawkshead box was closed in 1926.
I have to agree with Mickey, I think the Atlantic is northbound approaching Hawkshead Bridge cutting.
To be honest Redhall actually crossed my mind for a minute or two as well Eightpot but I ruled that location out because unless Redhall box was out of sight further back along the long curve and those two distant signals belonged to the original Hatfield No.1 box that signalled trains on the Down lines only at that time then I still go for it being north of Potters Bar approaching Hawkshead and John's photograph of a Stirling 8ft single wheeler travelling along the Up fast line south of Hawkshead virtually confirms it to me but I still know what you mean there is something about that photograph that doesn't quite feel totally correct in saying that it is at Hawkshead?. It is all a little bit strange?.
Being over Potters Bar way today I had a go at replicating this from much the same spot where the line path is level with the track. Due to shrubbery that has grown in the last 110 years or so I had to position myself a few yards nearer PB, and use a stepladder because of the fence there now. Going back down the line path the lowest point is less thatn 200 yards from my standpoint with a tunnel under the line to the golf course on the other side. The way the telegraph wire are running on the RH side means that the next set of poles must have been on the far side of the line path, or at least on it. I hazarded a guess that a 50 mm lens should give a near proportional view as the original. I will follow this up with another from the same spot, but using a 90 mm lens, both using the equivalent of a 35 mm camera. Note that an awful lot of junk has been erected along the line since the original was made!
Problem - the system tells that the file is too large to put in this posting. Any suggestions?
I've had a close look at both the original photo (and what a good one that is), and the small second one from JASd17, and tried thinking my way along the line from 'Southgate' to P'boro', in both directions.
I too come back to the stretch south of Hawkshead cutting.
The ground on the left is too low to be the Redhall (or Red Hall if you prefer) areal.
Would the presence of the white building, left background, mean that there was no Potters Bar golf course here that long ago?
That apart, I agree the visible slope on the right is not as low as the lowest ground of what's now the Cranborne Industrial estate, but what if that low enough ground is further right, out of shot ?
The object in the close right-of-centre foreground : What if not a crossing gate, crossing, or it's keeper's hut, but instead a short stretch of wooden railing fence above a culvert or subway : There is even today the subway for the footpath between Cranborne Road and the modern-day golf course.
The signals and Hawkshead box : If these Distants were close by the subway at the later Cranborne area they would have been around 900 yards from Hawkshead's stop signals, an entirely likely situation, and I think they are the same pair as in the far background of the photo posted by JASd17, which does seem definitely to be of that area looking north.
[ incidentally even if Hawkshead box ceased to be a block post around 1926, its running signals were apparently retained.
A photo exists, of perhaps c.1930s?, of close to there looking north and showing a somersault stop signal on each of the four roads. While the DS signal seemed to have still been mechanical, at least two of the other three had electric motors to work them, suggesting they were then Automatic or Intermediate Block signals, with that on the Down Main apparently equating to the later nearby M28 Auto colour-light signal there; the whole seemingly indicating that that photo post-dated closure of the box, and taken while the Hawkshead Down siding was retained, worked (like Wymondley Down Siding) as a Ground Frame having its own protecting Home and Distant signals. In view of that, and the 'Auto' DM signal at Hawkshead, I would doubt that both (possibly neither) of the pictured Distants disappeared in 1926.]
So I do believe that the original photo is just south of Hawkshead cutting.
Last edited by StevieG on Mon Jul 30, 2018 10:41 am, edited 1 time in total.
Quite Impressive field research Eightpot to actually visit the Hawkshead location and to even take a stepladder with you as well for a better view of everything.
As for the location I still believe it is at Hawkshead which for anyone who doesn't know where Hawkshead is it is slightly over the half way point between Potters Bar and Brookmans Park station travelling in the Down direction. One thing that has crossed my mind is I never really knew exactly where Hawkshead box was located and I can't even recall seeing a photograph of the box I don't think and I always assumed for some reason that it was located on the Down side of the running lines beside the Down slow line and was also quite near to the overbridge in that area anyway if that was the correct location for Hawkshead box would those two distant signals have been a little bit to close to there individual home signals?. Maybe Hawkshead box was a little bit closer to the present day Brookmans Park station?.
Interesting info Stevie regarding the signalling at Hawkshead before and after 1926.
Also never seen a photo of the box mickey.
I had the same feeling about which side of the line box was on.
It wasn't in the 'later' photo that I described.
If you go along there, a spot on the Down side about halfway between the bridge and BP station is the only place where land on that side is at the same level as the main lines, so that would appear to be where the siding(s) led back off the Down Slow, presumably crossing the line path, so that was logically where the box could have been.
Last edited by StevieG on Mon Jul 30, 2018 10:22 am, edited 1 time in total.
Aha! A good and useful photo there John. Thank you.
In that case I suspect that by that time, Potters Bar's Down Main Starter signal of the LNER's 'mechanical colour-light' type had already been brought into use, acting also as Distant for the Hawkshead signal. And if Hawkshead Siding was still operable, it no longer had its own signals and was released some other way, as any Distant signal for the siding would surely have been visible in this shot.
A bit of thinking on all this. A general acceptance to gain a neutral (for want of a better word) proportion in photography is to have the focal length of the lens about the same as the diagonal of the negative. So for a 35 mm negative a lens of about 42 mm focal length would be needed. My photos taken yesterday were done with a 50 mm and 90 mm ones which would result in a small telephoto lens result. If the original photographer was using the equivalent of a 42 mm lens this would give the impression of things in the distance being further away than they really are, thus upsetting the proportion. I gain the impression that the original photograph with the C1 was made with a lens with a focal length possibly less than the negative diagonal. On the other hand, today's posting of the C2 photo does seem to give a more 'neutral effect to the distance.
JASd17 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 30, 2018 10:17 am
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the correction about the signals.
They did disappear, as this photo shows, stated to be c1938, it is certainly mid 1930s onwards.
LNER C2 3259 approaching Potters Bar c1938 v2.1.jpg
Eightpot, your image is probably too large to post, if you can edit it to around 200kb that will do the trick.
John
Any help to a computer dinosaur on how to do this would be welcome. Got a bit of a problem in posting photos at the moment as the 'Documents' icon has disappeared!
A nice photograph John of no.4475Flying Fox on a Down express.
The Down slow line starter has a D sign attached to the signal post (I always thought that indicated the presence of a 'Fireman's call plunger?).
On zooming in on the photograph to 400% at the extreme left in what later was to become Potters Bar golf course it appears to show several buildings quite possibly residential houses maybe?.
Also a question regarding the Hawkshead 'turn out' from the Up slow to Up fast line that was remotely controlled by Potters Bar 1955 panel box and was still there until around 1971-72 before it was abolished and plain lined anyway the question being was that connection originally worked by Hawkshead box or was it laid in after the box was closed?.
I have read somewhere that the Up Slow to Up Main crossover near Hawkshead Bridge was installed early on in WW2. As there was Permissive Block in operation on the Up Slow where freight trains would stack up one behind another while waiting for a path through the then two-track section to Greenwood. This meant that N2 hauled local trains (for example) could overtake the freight ones.
I believe that you are correct Eightpot regarding the Up slow to Up fast line 'turn out' at Hawkshead possibly being laid in during the early part of WW2 so as to maximise the existing line capacity for freight trains heading south along the Up slow to Up Goods line south of the Hawkshead turn out as it makes good railway sense especially during wartime with heavy freight traffic on the railways also there is some previous discussion on this precise topic on the forum a couple of years ago I recall.
I remember on a small number of occasions towards the end of the 1960s and the beginning of the early 1970s when riding on a local train or 'parly' (semi-fast) along the Up slow line south through Brookmans Park station we were either 'turned out' at Hawkshead from the Up slow to Up fast line through that connection or we waited for a Up express to pass before being turned out behind it and to follow it up the fast line towards Potters Bar although most local trains at that time either comprised of x2 or x4 car Craven units (and a few Roll Royce x3 car sets) but more usually our local train would just travel along the Up slow line through Brookmans Park and forward to Potters Bar and beyond southwards although on rare occasions you mite be turned out up the fast line at New Barnet.
Good latest photo JASd17; certainly PB's last Down signals, along with his First (or 'outer') Homes for both Up roads.
Hawkshead turn-out may well have had to appear on Potters Bar old box's diagram, and possibly the old power box's panel, but was not worked from either.
The facing 'turn-out' points were Marshmoor's - I'm pretty sure that they were No.5 - (UF end were Spring points), with protecting signals M4 Up Slow (main aspect both ways) and M9 UF, with a banner-type Calling-On signal below M4 worked by Marshmoor lever 'A' for US trains accepted straight up the Slow when occupied, by P. Bar.
Once the four-tracking was opened through PB station, and with the war long over and quadrupling through to Greenwood on the way, I suspect that the PF (Permissive for Freight) working along the US from Hawkshead was abolished along with PB old box or earlier and so the 1955 new power box probably never handled that working.
Certainly the 1960 Sectional Appendix Table A shows "Automatic and semi-automatic signalling" (the then phrase for what became Track Circuit Block) right through that section to New Barnet North (which actually was not correct in respect of the DS from PB), and when I first started visiting Marshmoor box c.1968 (certainly no later than '69), both Up roads were definitely TCB to PB. Confusingly, the SA still referred to M4 as an IBS, which would've been entirely correct while the section ahead was PF worked, but no longer by 1960 : Seems the ER's definition of IBSs did not always quite match with that of other Regions.
I have a problem with the dates previously posted for removal of Hawkshead turnout. It had gone by the time mentioned above of my visits to Marshmoor box, I recall no clue that it was a very recent removal, and once the quadrupling was completed right through in 1959, there would seem to have been little advantage to keeping the turnout for long.
R. Pike sometime previously posted two versions of Marshmoor's box diagram somewhere in these forums but they may not be helpful as to dates.
Last edited by StevieG on Sun Aug 26, 2018 2:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
