The Kellogg's train

[Mickey]

The Kellogg's train working circa 1969-1970s-

Am I correct in assuming that the train after leaving Marshmoor Down sidings ran along the Down slow line to beyond the north end of Hatfield station where it then stopped in the vicinity of the Wrestlers overbridge over the trailing end of the Down fast to Down slow line connection behind the ground signal to await the road to be set up and cleared back into the Down sidings and once the road was set up and the ground signal was cleared the train would then be propelled back into the Down sidings. Once the train was in the Down sidings the loco would then run/round the train and then wait for the road to be set up and the ground signal cleared for the train to be propelled back out of the Down siding and back along the Down slow line and then stop again in the vicinity of the Wrestlers overbridge just beyond the Down fast to Down slow line connection and behind the ground signal and then wait for the road to be set up and the ground signal cleared which would then cross the train back over to the Up side of the line through 'the ladder crossing' north of the station and then the train would I presume usually proceed along the Up slow line up towards London.

Until about the early part of 1968 I believe the Kellogg's train could have been routed onto the Down goods line from Hatfield No.1 to Hatfield No.3 but I believe the connection from the Down slow to Down goods line at Hatfield No.1 was abolished sometime early in 1968?.

[Mickey]

Another question regarding the Kellogg's train did this train during it's journey south from Hatfield travel over the 'Harringay flyover' because I always thought that it did so?.

Apparently it didn't the train carried on towards Finsbury Park and then travelled via Finsbury Park No.1 and Canonbury Junction on the North London line as far as Eastern Junction (Dalston) where the loco ran/round the train between Eastern & Western Junctions before heading in a westward direction towards Camden Road & Willesden.

Thanks for that information John regarding did the train travel over the Harringay flyover?.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

IIRC, it was worked by Hitchin men and they worked it to Willesden.

manna

[Mickey]

Interesting manna I didn't know that the job was a Hitchin diagram.

Seems a bit of messing about at Harringay & Hornsey in running the train back over the Harringay flyover so I presume there was a reason why the train didn't just use the 'Kings Cross Incline' even with it's a 1 in 37 gradient rising on part of the Incline going westward between Goods And Mineral Junction & Maiden Lane on the North London line.

[sandwhich]

The Kellogg,s train from Marshmoor to Manchester was worked by Hatfield crews as far as Willesden up until 1971 when that depot was closed and the crews divided up between Kings Cross and Hitchin but after that it was Kings Cross crews that worked that train to Willesden and then waited for the up working and worked it back to Kings Cross Goods Yard to await relief for another crew to work it forward to Marshmoor. The job finished in the 1980s when either the Kelloggs warehouse at Marshmoor closed or it was transferred to road I cannot remember which.
I know when you stood at Willesden sidings awaiting the return cornflakes with the Heinz factory and a biscuit factory next door and the waft of food you always felt hungry!

[StevieG]

It was 4M44 from Marshmoor to Willesden, and I think 4E43 return, though I was never, erm..., 'around', late enough to see the latter.

[Mickey]

Now that you mention it Stevie the Kellogg's did run as 4M44 from Marshmoor to Willesden that headcode sounds familiar although the return working running as 6E43 from Willesden to Marshmoor wasn't as noticeable possibly because it ran during the early hours of the morning.

[thesignalman]

The Up (4M44) used to run through Finsbury Park to Dalston, running round between Western and Eastern Junctions before continuing to Willesden. I can't rmember the Down one doing that so presumably it ran vua the Harringay curve.

After Eastern Junction box was abolished, a ground frame was provided to work the crossover specifically for those run-rounds.

John

[Mickey]

Yes it would be a lot easier wouldn't John for the train to go via Finsbury Park No.1 & Canonbury Junction on the North London line and then to run/round between Eastern & Western Junctions at Dalston.

For some reason I always had it my mind that the train it's self once arriving at Harringay Up Goods and attaching a loco onto the backend of the train it then basically travelled backwards over the 'Harringay flyover' as far as Ferme Park North Down before heading towards the Haringay Curve and the T&H line heading towards the North London line and Willesden.

Thanks John for clarifying the question did the Kellogg's train travel over the Harringay flyover when heading towards Willesden?.

When I went as a regular signalman at Western Junction box between February & July 1987 the ground frame that you referred to John at the site of the former Eastern Junction box (I vaguely recall that it was a x2 lever 'stirrup lever' frame with one release lever and one point lever) had by then had been abolished and removed and the p.way at that location had been plain lined although a couple of hundred yards further eastwards a new connection had been laid in at Navorino Road for mainly EMU passenger & EMU ECS trains heading to & from Liverpool Street during the morning and evening peak hours services only. The western end of the Navorino Road curve was controlled by Western Junction box by electrically operated motor points & colour light signals (short handle levers) although the south connection on the GE lines was controlled by Hackney Downs panel box.

[sandwhich]

Before 1971 Hatfield crews worked both trains from beginning to end to and from Willesden, before that depots closure I think they picked up the engine stabled at Hatfield and left it there afterwards but after that year when Kings Cross crews took over the engine was booked to be picked up at Clarence Yard and instead of the train going via the Harringay Curve it definitely came down the North London incline propelled into the Goods Yard where the crew were relieved and the train taken forward to Marshmoor then light engine to Hitchin for their next working. If i remember correctly the North London incline at that time was considered an extended siding and was only used as a through running line in an emergency. Perhaps Mickey you could confirm this.

[Mickey]

I am guessing sandwhich that both Stevie and John would probably know quite a bit about the working between Goods And Mineral Junction and Maiden Lane box on the North London line over the Incline especially during the late 1960s and the first half of the 1970s. When I was a relief signalman on the North London line during the second half of 1987 until 1990 and worked Camden Road box the 'Kings Cross Incline' during that era was basically only used for either the odd light engine movements and a few ECS workings that travelled over it although there was a handful of freight trains that used it during a week and I am especially thinking of the 'stone trains' to & from the southern region that started and terminated in Kings Cross Goods yard.

Going back to the Kellogg's train I have a vague memory of seeing it during 'daylight' one day standing in the Down sidings at Hatfield running round possibly sometime in the early/mid 1970s although I believe it's usual departure time from Marshmoor was during a weekday evening sometime between 21:00-22:00hrs?.

[sandwhich]

Yes Mickey you are right about the departure of the Kelloggs from Marshmoor around 20 00 to 22 00 it arrived back there at the "dead" hours around 02 30.

[Mickey]

Thanks for clarifying the approximate departure time of the Kellogg's from Marshmoor sandwhich. Strangely enough I never really saw that train being as I was at WGC box as a 'box lad' between 1972-74 but I knew that it departed Marshmoor during the middle part of the evening sometime between 20:00-22:00hrs. I also remember those wagons or vehicles the train was formed of painted in a sort of brown/red colour I would describe it as.

[StevieG]

Mickey, sandwhich, in c1968 the NL Incline had proper running signals for leaving it at the bottom end (Goods & Mineral's 88 Home and 89 Distant), but only a ground disc (78) for going up, these arrangements probably having been unchanged for around 50 years.
The line was worked using a One Engine in Steam train staff kept at G&M when not in use.

By then, in contrast, arrangements at the top end of the incline, which IIRC was referred to as St. Pancras Exchange Sidings (I really should have closely examined the Staff), were rather different. The man at the other end of the phone line that was used to work the incline being a Shunter, no doubt based in a hut near the top, with the line merging there with the several other siding roads variously running between York Road Junction and Maiden Lane Junction boxes on the then Down (south) side of the running lines, and where there were also several other point connections between the sidings; all were handpoints.
Until a few years earlier [c1964-ish? (John?) ], at least some of those, and at least some running lines (only the No.2s I think), were worked by a St. Pancras junction box about halfway between YRJ and MLJ boxes, and so perhaps the incline then had been worked between G&M and SPJ.

When G&M box was closed, a much reduced layout [partly because the formation of part of the rest was 'carved' away during the 1970s remodelling for construction of the new Slow lines' alignment, to run between the western bore of Gasworks Tunnel and the west (Goods lines) bore of Copenhagen Tunnel], became operated by a new little brick-built 'hut' containing an IFS panel (17 switches IIRC) installation, initially titled, I'm pretty sure, Freight Terminal Junction Ground Frame (signal prefix "FT").
This controlled the points, and signal routes through them, of the few remaining King's Cross Goods Yard Arr./ Dep. lines, and those out onto what became the No.2 Slow/Down Slow line (formerly the Down Goods) on receipt of the release by Kings Cross PSB, plus full control of the bottom end of the Incline.
The intent seems to have been only that FTJ GF's purpose was to deal with arrivals & departures to/from the yard, whether from/to the GN main line or the North London Line via the Incline.
With the latter traffic, anything other than light engines was too long to use the remaining short spur by the portal of Copenhagen Tunnel for reversal, and so needed to go out onto the Down Slow into the tunnel for its out and back movement.

At this time the Incline itself had become fully track-circuited, with an elevated Position-Light shunt signal at the top (FT1) to control descending movements, (these arrangements had actually come in previously during the 1970s while G&M was still open, with FT1 starting life as G&M's 96), plus another GPL, FT2, where G&M 88 had been, at the trap points at the bottom of the Incline. As the other sidings at the top had by then been put out of use, from the top of the Incline, its line then continued west, 'on the level', as (operationally) plain line, to all that was then left of Maiden Lane box's points, the simple points crossover into the Down No.2 line (by then, I think, these were already worked by Camden Road box, MLJ having already been abolished).
So the line was still worked as a sort of partially signalled 'through' siding.

Now we touch on a bit of railway company/Union politicking.
FT GF was, for a time at least, initially staffed by men of shunter grade.
Occasionally at times however, unexpected circumstances made it expedient to want to run a through GN/NLL train via the Incline (Down or Up), which was possible using the infrastructure provided including the necessary signalled routes, but which triggered the debate that for that to be done the FT GF operator ought to be of a signalman grade (higher pay rate) as he would now be handling through train movements.
Although I think one or two such moves were grudgingly ad hoc-negotiated 'on the hoof', some were also refused by some staff on the grounds of the above.
And I've a strong feeling that in the interim, one reason for E43 Kellogg's coming down the Incline and shunting back into the yard before heading north to Marshmoor would've been that it then constituted an Incline-to-yard reversal move, and then a yard originating movement forward, so was not one 'through' train movement.

However, somehow the wisdom of being able to use the Incline for through trains must've won the day, with the GF operator post becoming re-graded to Signalman 'A', and FTJ's name was officially changed to 'signal box' in ways where it was not expensive to make the alteration.

But the pseudo-through 'siding' status of the Incline line itself [including the non-track-circuited portion from FT1 to the Camden Road outlet signal (CR1111?) ], remained until, in c1988?, FTJ was abolished, with the line being brought up to full 'Running' status, becoming fully track-circuited with main aspect signalling routes to, along, and from it [including replacement of FT1 by a 3-aspect R/Y/G main signal [K305R I think (yes, I know, but it was complicated!), as was FT2 by another 3-aspect (K305?) ].

Later still, with KX Goods yard completely closed, the advent of the CTRL ('HS1') route from below the NL Line and crossing above the ECML, into St. Pancras International station, with its tubular bridge virtually over the sites of G&M and FTJ, brought a major change and expansion of non-ECML railway connections in this area. This included the raising/re-profiling of the Incline line's gradients, right down to its connection with the No.2 Slow/Down Slow line at the mouth of Copenhagen Tunnel, and two new junction connections part-way along it, to & from the HS1 tracks.

And for the record, appearing in the last couple of years, also below the HS1 overbridge and close to the G&M and FTJ sites, has been the relatively new double junction in the No.2 Slow/Down Slow and Up Slow/No.1 Slow lines, of the teo bi-directional connecting lines to St. Pancras, which rapidly drop away from this new junction into the "Canal" tunnels, thence running to their grade-separated junction with the Thameslink lines at the north end of that line's sub-surface platforms below the main St. Pancras EMT/Eurostar/SE station.

[ Anyone object if I was to copy any of the above into a Facebook Group for local (KX / Hornsey / Hatfield / Hitchin) Footplate and other staff ? ]

[sandwhich]

Thank you Stevie G for that interesting information about KX Goods Yard and the North London incline, it must be over 40 years since it all changed up there and some of it started to come back to me.