Mickey wrote: ↑Mon Sep 30, 2019 7:13 pmPosting about "The Midland" on a LNER website tut tut it isn't on lol ha ha ha...
Back on LNER territory I visited Ashburton Grove s/box back in the summer of 1971 where the "Ashburton Grove Pullmans" originated from it's on a thread on here somewhere?.
I await the issuing of a Form 1 at the end of my shift!
It is such a shame the LMS Forum faded away, never to be seen again - although in truth there were only a couple of people regularly on there and they wore smoke deflectors and really couldn't talk about anything more than esoteric detail of steam locomotives. The broad interest on this forum is what makes it so unique.
Back to the LNER, sadly I never had the opportunity to visit Ashburton Grove although when working as telegraph lad at Holloway South Up I was often in communication with dear Harry who used to work the single-shift box there.
thesignalman wrote: ↑Tue Oct 01, 2019 6:39 am
...such a shame the LMS Forum faded away, never to be seen again - although in truth there were only a couple of people regularly on there and they wore smoke deflectors and really couldn't talk about anything more than esoteric detail of steam locomotives. The broad interest on this forum is what makes it so unique...
I am 'broadly interested' enough to always want to read about LMS matters, because the relationship with the LNER was inevitably a close one along the roughly 600 mile frontier.
Regarding the 'other railway' I actually like that railway especially when the LMS became the London Midland Region of B.R. between 1948-1970s and also the last days of steam on B.R. in the 1960s around the north west of England.
Back to Ashburton Grove s/box...-
Harry at Ashburton Grove John?. I believe I may have met him because when I visited the box with a railway friend back in the summer of 1971 there was a kindly mature Indian gentleman working the box that afternoon who I believe you maybe referring to?. Dave Cockle clarified that a Indian bloke use to be a resident signalman at the box at that time about 10 years ago when this came up about Ashburton Grove box before. From memory the Indian gentleman said that he had been a resident signalman at Palmers Green s/box on the Hertford loop for a number of years prior to going to Ashburton Grove.
A bit of a novelty thought regarding Ashburton Grove box is it's a shame that the box wasn't 'saved' and relocated into the London Science Museum?. That may sound like a bit of a daft idea but they already had a mock up of the interior of Haddiscoe Junction s/box in the building and with Ashburton Grove being a small and compact little (but slightly tall) s/box containing a 15 lever frame inside it that would have been a nice little railway exhibit to feature showing the interior of a signal box with it's lever frame and block shelf with it's block instruments and it's GNR track diagram located amongst the GWR Caerphilly castle and the prototype Deltic loco.
Last edited by Mickey on Wed Oct 02, 2019 12:02 am, edited 4 times in total.
Original start date of 2010 on the LNER forum and previously posted 4500+ posts.
Mickey wrote: ↑Tue Oct 01, 2019 6:42 pmHarry at Ashburton Grove John?. I believe I may have met him because when I visited the box with a railway friend back in the summer of 1971 there was a kindly mature Indian gentleman working the box that afternoon who I believe you maybe referring to?. Dave Cockle clarified that a Indian bloke use to be a resident signalman at the box at that time about 10 years ago when this came up about Ashburton Grove box before. From memory the Indian gentleman said that he had been a resident signalman at Palmers Green s/box on the Hertford loop for a number of years prior to going to Ashburton Grove.
I always thought Harry was an Englishman but I could be wrong as I only ever spoke on the phone with him and may be guilty of making assumptions.
The name of the Indian signalman at Ashburton Grove box on the day a railway friend and myself visited the box back in 1971 John was called 'Clem' I just had a look on a old thread about my visit to the box back in 1971 and Dave Cockle who knew him confirmed his name and obviously he was the only resident signalman at the box at the time with the box only being open Mon-Fri for 8 hours during the day between 08:00-16:00 I believe?.
Original start date of 2010 on the LNER forum and previously posted 4500+ posts.
Mickey wrote: ↑Tue Oct 01, 2019 7:53 pm
The name of the Indian signalman at Ashburton Grove box on the day a railway friend and myself visited the box back in 1971 John was called 'Clem' I just had a look on a old thread about my visit to the box back in 1971 and Dave Cockle who knew him confirmed his name and obviously he was the only resident signalman at the box at the time with the box only being open Mon-Fri for 8 hours during the day between 08:00-16:00 I believe?.
I remember the name but it wasn't him I spoke to in, probably, 1972/3.
I only just thought of this last night but when I was at Junction Road Junction box on the Kentish town-Barking line between 1981-85 there was a resident signalman at Harringay Park Junction in the early 1980s call 'Clem' who was a elderly Indian bloke and it crossed my mind it may have been the same bloke who was at Ashburton Grove 10 years earlier?. If he was the same person he may have got Harringay Park Junction when all the GN boxes were closing during the first half of the 1970s?. Harringay Park Junction back in the 1980s (and previous to the 1980s) came under the Liverpool Street Area Manager's office on the Eastern Region.
Original start date of 2010 on the LNER forum and previously posted 4500+ posts.
A Harry was one of the regular men at Wood Green No.2 John : - Harry Creek (had one or two brothers who were also signalmen I think).
I believe, in a similar way to the lad at Fins.Pk. No.6 regularly calling KX box to say 'Passing the Park' for Up (Fast line?) trains, that on receiving 'Train Entering' from Southgate for Up Main trains, WG2 called Holloway on a certain circuit and said something seemingly-cryptic like 'On line.'
I suppose arrangements such as these could be seen as a sort of 'phone equivalent to the MR's Overland bells.
StevieG wrote: ↑Fri Oct 04, 2019 11:08 am
A Harry was one of the regular men at Wood Green No.2 John : - Harry Creek (had one or two brothers who were also signalmen I think).
One of the Creek brothers may have come out of signalling around 1974 because although I didn't know either or all of the brothers and as Stevie says there may have been three brothers(?) I did know as Stevie says that one was a regular signalman in Wood Green Up Box No.2. One or the other brother around 1974 cropped up working as a 'pointsman' located at the south end entrance to the then newly re-opened Ferme Park carriage sidings on the Down side of the running lines between Harringay & Hornsey stations with these siding at that time being used in 1974/75 mainly for stabling ECS anyway I forget how I come to know about this although it may have been by a Kings Cross driver who mentioned it to me who knew of the Creek brothers but I remember during the summers of 1974 & 1975 near to where Ferme Park South Down s/box once stood a 'portable telephone box' type of shelter was provided for the pointsman working at this location that contained a telephone and it wasn't uncommon to see the pointsman during the warm summer days sitting outside sunning himself in a deckchair while waiting for the telephone to ring to be asked to set up the road by hand points into a empty road for an approaching train of ECS from Kings Cross.
While on the subject of people from the past and heading back to the Ashburton Grove area mention must be made of "the yank" who I didn't know personally although he appeared to have been known by a number of Kings Cross loco drivers for whatever reason good or bad?. I believe I was told that he worked in Finsbury Park No.2 but some others on here say he was in Finsbury Park No.1 and from an older thread on here I believe his surname may have been Sullivan?.
Original start date of 2010 on the LNER forum and previously posted 4500+ posts.
I hadn't mentioned the surname but the gentleman at Ashburton Grove I was thinking of was indeed one of the Creek family. So it looks as if I have his first name wrong. So long ago now . . . so much water under the bridge since then. When I was younger I remembered all the faces and all the names but not now.
