Identified GN location

[Eightpot]

Forgot to mention that the photo was taken from the site of the former Hawkshead siding.

[kimballthurlow]

Hi Eightpot and Mickey,

Hawkshead siding was 830 yards north of the spot where topic photo Page 1 was taken.
The 1930s up train photos (Page 3 of this topic) do indeed show the area at the Hawkshead siding on the north side of Hawkshead Lane.
Reproduced from page 3:


The bridge in the background is the one now situated at Brookmans Park railway station.
Siding shows as a cross on the satellite image.

Hawkshead Siding 1910 Six Inch to the Mile

The last coach in the 1938 up train photo (Page 2) posted by JASd17 on 30 July is likely only 50 yards south of the position of the last coach of the up train in topic photo Page 1.
Reproduced from Page 2:


In both the 1910 and 1930 photos, the trackside double-post overhead wiring is 7 crossarms.

Kimball

[Mickey]

When it came to fine looking locos you can't beat an Ivatt large boiler Atlantic (top photograph) in my humble opinion although the smaller 'Klondykes' (bottom photograph) didn't look quite so impressive somehow.

Hawkshead looks a fairly desolate spot in 1910 set in open farmland a bit like the main line north of Hitchin was until the 1960s.

[Eightpot]

Hi Eightpot and Mickey,

Hawkshead siding was 830 yards north of the spot where topic photo Page 1 was taken.
The 1930s up train photos (Page 3 of this topic) do indeed show the area at the Hawkshead siding on the north side of Hawkshead Lane.
Reproduced from page 3:


The bridge in the background is the one now situated at Brookmans Park railway station.
Siding shows as a cross on the satellite image.
hawksheadsiding2.jpg

The last coach in the 1938 up train photo (Page 2) posted by JASd17 on 30 July is likely only 50 yards south of the position of the last coach of the up train in topic photo Page 1.
Reproduced from Page 2:


In both the 1910 and 1930 photos, the trackside double-post overhead wiring is 7 crossarms.

Kimball

Interesting map in that it shows that there was a bridge over the railway immediately north of where Brookmans Park station - only provided circa 1927 - now is in 1910. I believe that prior to the bridge being built Bluebridge Road (from Potters Bar) originally ran over part of the site where the B. P. Hotel now is, and followed the line drawn on the map to a level crossing at about a 45 degree angle to rejoin what is now Station Road close to where the present Scout Hut now is. Also to be seen is a property labelled as Bradmore Lodge adjacent to the crossing which presumably was originally provided by the GNR for the crossing Keeper. I can vaguely recall seeing that house which I think was demolished around 1950. The question arising is when was the bridge built, as up to now I have assumed that it had been built at the same time as the station? Also, prior to the bridge being built was what is now Station Road then just regarded as an extension of Bluebridge Road ? I also recollect that in the 1960s (?) that the bridge was raised - presumably with electrification in mind - and seeing a couple of Foden 6-wheel chassied mobile cranes setting up to lift it.

[Eightpot]

When it came to fine looking locos you can't beat an Ivatt large boiler Atlantic (top photograph) in my humble opinion although the smaller 'Klondykes' (bottom photograph) didn't look quite so impressive somehow.

Hawkshead looks a fairly desolate spot in 1910 set in open farmland a bit like the main line north of Hitchin was until the 1960s.

In the late 1920s my Mother travelled from Hatfield to a College in London and said she thought then that BP was a pretty desolate spot! It was some ten years later on that due to marriage that she came to live there.

[StevieG]

...Back to Hawkshead and approaching Brookmans Park station on a down northbound goods train is a Gresley V2 travelling along the Down fast line, note the somersault stop signal showing an off indication but 'hanging wrong' and not a good off indication at all so I would say the signal wire could have done with a bit of adjusting?.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?view= ... 2.jpg&exph

Maybe something's changed since you posted this on Aug 16 2018 mickey, but I don't see an image remotely like your accompanying description : Any ideas ?
EDIT - - That photo's just popped up about three hours later mickey ! Now I see what you meant, and as it was motor-worked I'm sure it would indeed have been on its automatic way back to Danger.

Am I correct in thinking that that signal was controlled from Potters Bar box? If so, I recall it still being there in the 1950s, possibly it was replaced by a colour light one at the time that the new Potters Bar box was brought into use as part of the rebuilding of the station there. Must have been a bit of a 'pull' if operated from PB, or was it electrically operated? The next signals in the Down direction were (if I recall correctly) were a bracket/gantry type for both Slow and Main located about 1/4 mile north of Brookmans Park station. These were Distants for the Home pair by the Dixons Hill Road over bridge (now the site of Welham Green station) and controlled from Marshmoor box.

Eightpot, as I think was visible in the previously-posted photo of an Up Fast line train at Hawkshead siding in which all four signals were visible to varying degrees, the DF signal's post had a large black 'box' near its foot, which would've been an electric motor, probably of the LNER round-topped type of which examples of the same design were still operating semaphore signals at Oakleigh Park & New Barnet in 1970, and on other ex-LNER routes even in about 1990.

As to 'who's signal?', probably 'no-one's in a normal sense, being an Automatic signal normally controlled only by the track-circuiting beyond being clear or occupied, as often used on Main/Fast lines to maintain line capacity where LNER 1930s schemes did away with the simplest, sometimes termed 'break-section', form of signal boxes (existing only or mainly to increase line capacity by splitting a long block section into two) : The second lines were then often still Goods lines which could be worked Permissively, so no equivalent signals were usually provided on those lines next to those on the Main/Fasts as there was not necessarily any capacity caused by the combining of two Block Sections into one which resulted from the abolition of such boxes.
Long gone boxes like Hawkshead, Wymondley, Barford, and others further North would appear to have been of this type (save perhaps for working one siding which was then catered for in other ways).
Although "Automatic" it was then customary with such signals to provide a control at the signal box ahead which would put the signal to Danger in emergency.
By 1968 that control of the later 2-aspect (red/green) replacement colour-light signal at Hawkshead was in Marshmoor box (not, probably never, in Potters Bar) by lever 28, so the signal's formal identity number was M28.

The question of when the semaphore was replaced by the colour-light, I cannot answer with certainty.
It could have been done amongst the many replacements of somersault signals by more modern equivalents.
Alternatively it may have been done with the advent of the c1955 power box to replace the old 'mechanical' one, which would, if it was still then operating, have brought the end of the old box's LNER 'mechanical' colour-light Down Fast Starter signal which incorporated the function of Distant signal for the Hawkshead signal.
In any case replacement of somersaults, although started in general in the 1930s, was still going on well into the 1950s, which was also when the PB quadrupling and new box were done.

[Mickey]

In any case replacement of somersaults, although started in general in the 1930s, was still going on well into the 1950s, which was also when the PB quadrupling and new box were done.

Going 'off topic' but a general observation regarding somersault signals.

As you would remember Stevie there was x3 miniature GN somersault signal arms mounted on a bracket post coming out of the Hornsey bridge road sidings at Holloway North Up until around 1967/68 before being abolished also there was two separate full size GN somersault stop signal arms and a full size GN somersault distant signal arm (all three signals arms mounted on straight posts) on the Ramsey branch single line at Holme (north of Connington) until the early 1970s and also a number of somersault signals existed around the GN Lincoln/Gainsborough branch until well into the 1970s.

Also possibly a GNR 'slang term' regarding when a signalman put a somersault signal back to danger may have been "to throw up" meaning the somersault arm would 'go back up' into the danger position. Harry Fitzgerald a regular signalman at Welwyn Garden City during the 1960s and until the box closed in 1976 and who had started with the LNER during the mid 1930s as a telegraph lad use to occasionally use the term when I was a telegraph lad at the box (1972-74) when he would 'throw back the boards' (put the signals back to danger) behind a train although I am not certain if the term was generally used amongst GN/LNER signalmen I only remember Harry using it?.

[giner]

Staying briefly 'off topic' for a moment, and going up the line a bit, can you gents tell me when Langley's up distants at the north end of the troughs were changed from lower to upper quadrant?

The reason I ask is that I recently saw a photo somewhere of an up express headed by an A4 passing those signals and they were lower quadrant. The photo was dated 1953, but I'm jiggered if I can remember lower quadrants at that point in time. So it must have been mid-50's when the changeover took place.

[Mickey]

I can't answer your question directly giner other than to say I presume probably sometime during the early to mid 1950s but I remember Langley Junction's Up slow line semaphore distant signal circa 1970-73 which was prior to and until about late 1973 a upper quadrant signal carried on a small to medium size white painted wooden bracket post with a top final (a spike) and was located during the building of Stevenage 'new' station during 1972-73 and for a few short months after the new station was opened in June 1973 about 50 yards beyond the end of the Up slow line platform which with it being located so very close to the brand spanking new modern brick & glass building of the new Stevenage station looked a bit 'out of place' and a throw back to a previous era to be honest.

I suspect that when Langley Junction s/box had the old lever frame taken out and a new small temporary NX route setting panel installed in late 1973 one or two BR officials were quietly glad to see that old semaphore distant signal and it's post disappear from just beyond the end of the Up slow line platform so as not to spoil the image of the new modern built Stevenage station.

[giner]

Cheers, Mickey. That up slow distant on a bracketed post is what I remember, as an upper quadrant. So best guess is 1954/55 for the change from a lower quadrant. As I mentioned, the photo I saw was dated 1953, but sometimes inaccuracies occur as you know.
Thanks again, Giner

[Mickey]

A4 no.4498 at a unidentified location on a two track section of either the GN/NE/NB main line unless it's on a diversion around the branch via Lincoln?.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?view= ... h=632&expw