Oil trains?

[kudu]

PS There must have been road access as well as rail to the beer vaults, but I don't know anything about that. My guess is that a ramp leading into Somers Town Goods Station area would have been the best way of providing this.

Kudu

[Mickey]

The "underground connection" was a wagon lift located in the station area, not the goods depot. It was positioned in the station throat, on the end of the signal box facing the station, if I remember correctly. There must be photographs. I never saw it used.

I have a railway dvd of the Midland route out of St Pancras and included with in the overall dvd of the Midland main line out of St Pancras is a short 15 mintues film that was shot by the LMS in 1947 and features a interesting track re-modelling & re-signalling job over a weekend in the station throat area immediately outside St Pancras Junction s/box anyway a sequence shot from high above the entrance to St Pancras station features the hydraulic lift down to the 'beer vaults' outside St Pancras Station s/box.

[StevieG]

PS There must have been road access as well as rail to the beer vaults, but I don't know anything about that. My guess is that a ramp leading into Somers Town Goods Station area would have been the best way of providing this.

Kudu

I never heard of any connection, roadway underground, or rail of any sort, between the vaults below the station and Somerstown Goods Depot kudu, thought I can't categorically say that there was none.

As the vaults were at street level, there were several vehicular entrance/exits off Pancras Road on the east side, and there could have been similar off Midland Road on its west side, (the street runs between the station and where Somerstown depot stood, which is now the site of The British Library), though with the goods depot's tracks, AFAIK, remaining at a higher level, the only roadway accesses to the depot were I think at its frontage onto Euston Road, although possibly with others to the sides but close to the depot frontage.

[Mickey]

Following on from Stevie's & kudu's posts and I mite be wrong but I vaguley remember towards the west side entrance to St Pancras station circa 1969-70 if you turned off the Euston road and entered the station up a rise you then passed under a large arch which you still do although it's been 'filled in' so to speak by what looks like 'smoked brown coloured glass' anyway underneath that arch was cobbled stones on the ground which I think lead to a set of tall off white wooden gates behind which was a open area I think?. Anyway that was at the end of the 1960s but it's only a vague memory that I have as I didn't really bother much with St Pancras station at that time because if I wasn't at Kings Cross sometimes I would leave Kings Cross and walk along the Euston road to Euston station and see what was going on at that place and just pass by St Pancras station.

[rockinjohn]

Following on can we assume the Beer trains once having arrived @Somers Town goods,the trains when unloaded crates?/kegs were unloaded then trainshipped by Road & by Railway or Brewery owned Vehicles to the Vaults?If so fine when labour was cheap when the traffic commenced but seems an awful lot of hardwork &high costs after WW2.jj

[StevieG]

"Following on can we assume the Beer trains once having arrived @Somers Town goods,the trains when unloaded crates?/kegs were unloaded then trainshipped by Road & by Railway or Brewery owned Vehicles to the Vaults? .... "

I would have thought that going to the trouble of transhipping to road transport to go across the road to the vaults might not have happened jj, given that the wagons, from wherever they arrived at - [ was it Somerstown ? - or possibly St.Pancras Goods Depot around a half mile north, also on the Down side but sited between the Grand Union Canal and the North London Line ? : (Or even, if traffic conditions permitted at night, did beer trains run directly into the station ?) ] - could be tripped into the station (siding between Platforms 4 & 5 lines) and then lowered into the north end of the vaults level by the wagon hoist previously-mentioned by kudu, which was at the north end of that siding, immediately south of the pre-1957 mechanical signal box.

[rockinjohn]

Hi Stevie, well when I saw the Beer (I believe dedicated or @ least 50%)trains Crab or BLK5 hauled, they were usually in the up direction North of Kentish Town or around Cricklewood in the daylight hrs,just cant see them arriving in the "main"line stations platforms, maybe an odd "GUV"style van was added to a passenger arrival &did the vaults have rail tracks imbedded in the floor? for that wagon hoist to be used, not that I ever sighted it in the' 50's/'60's,used or otherwise but it was a long time ago, that other goods yard near the back of the cemertery(sidings) I think was mainly coal &other wagon sidings, the train was a daily turn with possibly more than one arrival per day,I think to this day the Civil Engineers have sidings by that name,I was not aware of St Pancras Goods Yard Nth.title maybe the same sidings?.jj

[Mickey]

I was working Camden Road box one night back in the late 1990s and a freightliner train was broken into while standing in Primrose Hill disused station while waiting for the road down the WCML which was a fairly normal thing that happened at that place anyway while this freightliner was standing in Primrose Hill a container was apparently broken into and some colour televisions were nicked from the container along with some coconuts from the same container so I presume the BT Police were very interested in finding someone who was watching a new (stollen) telly while eating coconuts in the Camden Town area?.

[StevieG]

rockinjohn,
Good question about rails embedded in the floor of the vaults jj. Can't say I'm sure. Bet someone would know, or it's in a book(s) somewhere.

" .... that other goods yard near the back of the cemertery(sidings) I think was mainly coal &other wagon sidings .... "

Oh yes, those certainly were mainly or completely for coal.

" .... I was not aware of St Pancras Goods Yard Nth. .... "

As I tried to say, this depot was just south of the North London Line which passed over its approach sidings as they started to fan out, with rail access off the Down and Up Goods lines controlled by St. Pauls Road Goods signal box.

[rockinjohn]

Hi Mickey&all "down to a fine art" thieves must have been the East London gangs who worked the Northbound FORD ex Ripple Lane Car trains managing to steal the new car radios somewhere in the Woodgrange Park Area possibly when the train was checked or stopped & making sure they were all off Radios &all before the Forest Gate Juncs.jj

[StevieG]

rockinjohn,
Apart from the Dagenham/Ripple La. car-carrying trains not being Freightliners jj, I'd expect that they were often stopped at Forest Gate Junction box signals to await a path on either Up line through to Stratford Central Junction on the Up Main.

But one car radio thief didn't quite get to the 'fine art' stage, in the early 1980s I think, as he didn't look after himself whilst on board, presumably on a car roof or the upper deck of a Cartic vehicle ; leading to a northbound train getting stopped one evening at Welwyn Garden City following a report of someone having seen 'something unusual' on top in the darkness : Which turned out to be one person, 'fried' and deceased.

While speaking of these trains, back in the 1980s, when most coaching stock was still of 'slam door' type, King's Cross Power Box got asked by the Dalston signalman to stop one of those car-carriers at Finsbury Park, as a car door was open, doubtless through the aforementioned thieving activity between Woodgrange and Forest Gate.
On the ex-GE lines, trains of ECS then were (still are?) routinely referred to as 'Carrs'.
After the car train had been made safe and gone, it was later heard that, after the train had previously left Forest Gate Junction, something akin to "There's a door open on the cars" had soon been reported.
But the car train was allowed to keep going through Stratford and on through Victoria Park and Dalston. Meanwhile the signalmen in probably more than one GE box were apparently trying to identify an ECS ('Carr') train with a passenger door open so that it could be dealt with.
Only when no problem on any ECS was found, did the report's true cause get realised when the train was already passing Canonbury Junction ....

[rockinjohn]

Hi Stevie, When I think back the trains in most cases would stop in a platform?awaiting clearance&(escape for the "lads") to take the up Stratford lines to peel off for the GN or LMS lines North via the NLL then,so you have added another missing jigsaw piece to my vague railway observations of the time.jj

[Mickey]

With regards to the double-deck cartics when I was at Junction Road box on the Gospel Oak-Barking line between 1981-85 sometime during that time period maybe around 1982-83(?) I noticed that those double-deck cartics became 'enclosed' even the top deck was enclosed although the top decks these days aren't always enclosed with the few car trains that are still running about anyway I remember I was told that one reason for enclosing them was because 'yobs' would throw stones at passing car trains and or would sometimes drop rocks or bricks from over bridges on to the new cars when they were passing underneath plus as what jj mentioned the car radios were nicked when car trains were detained at certain signals like the signal on the approach to Gospel Oak where freight trains would be normally detained awaiting a path to join the North London line for the run across to Willesden and the WCML.

[thesignalman]

On the ex-GE lines, trains of ECS then were (still are?) routinely referred to as 'Carrs'.

That term used to be used quite widely, it was common on the LMR (with one "R"). It almost certainly originated from the Telegraph abbreviation for Empty Carriages being EMCARS.

John

[thesignalman]

With regards to the double-deck cartics when I was at Junction Road box on the Gospel Oak-Barking line between 1981-85 sometime during that time period maybe around 1982-83(?) I noticed that those double-deck cartics became 'enclosed' even the top deck was enclosed although the top decks these days aren't always enclosed with the few car trains that are still running about anyway I remember I was told that one reason for enclosing them was because 'yobs' would throw stones at passing car trains and or would sometimes drop rocks or bricks from over bridges on to the new cars when they were passing underneath plus as what jj mentioned the car radios were nicked when car trains were detained at certain signals like the signal on the approach to Gospel Oak where freight trains would be normally detained awaiting a path to join the North London line for the run across to Willesden and the WCML.

I remember a little incident at that same location, at the time it was theft from Freightliner containers was causing concern rather than car radios. From the footbridge, a local constable on patrol spotted suspicious people lurking in the undergrowth. He called for backup and the suspects were all rounded up - only to find they were BT Police hoping to make their own arrests.

John