Finsbury Park MPD

[Mr Bunt]

A long long time ago somebody asked here if anyone had a track plan of Finsbury Park MPD. I knew I had one somewhere but I couldn't find it.

Over the weekend it came to light, so here it is.

[rockinjohn]

Hi, going back way before the stop gap of (34B) as the London GN diesel traction depot,& the powers to be, knowing that the West Coast Route was to be "sparked"before the GN route,thought was given to the diesel output required to keep the schedules envisaged,& knowing that 2,000HP & other types were on the way instead, thought was given to a TMD near the Terminus two(2) suggestions were put forward (1)Clarence Yard(FP)or(2)Holloway Cattle Dock(later Car carrier loading dock) area,the former was chosen giving a wonderful view for train fan(spotters)&children alike from the area I knew as a Bomb site &played on often having been turned into a Childrens Park with Bench Seats.jj

[Mickey]

thought was given to a TMD near the Terminus two(2) suggestions were put forward (1)Clarence Yard(FP)or(2)Holloway Cattle Dock(later Car carrier loading dock) area,the former was chosen giving a wonderful view for train fan(spotters)&children alike from the area I knew as a Bomb site

Clarence yard a former 'bomb site' jj well I presume that would have been a 'lively night' inside Finsbury Park no.2 when Jerry dropped a few HE bombs around the railway sidings close to the box and shook the soot down the box chimney!.

Back around 1967-68 a old GNR 6 wheeled tender with x3 guard rails around the top and painted all over black was left sitting on a road close to Western sidings and I presume it was being used as a snowplough?

[rockinjohn]

Hi Mickey&all the "bomb site" were some houses that had been struck in Isledon Rd,I cant say if any sidings were damaged, always remember the yard backed on to the gardens of the houses hit &others that still stood,the yard always full of covered wagons,& on the site of the TMD building was a coal yard run by a Coal Merchant called "Albert Usher" who also had a coal office opposite the Station Rd entrance to Finsbury Park Station where the double deck buses arrived & turned ,the iron girders stood overhead decaying for many years of the aborted Northern City LIne exchange platforms & extension northwards, so losing us a fine "Art Deco" frontage for the station entrance,"the dream"finally vanishing from the "Underground"map in 1950.

[Mickey]

Hi Mickey&all the "bomb site" were some houses that had been struck in Isledon Rd,I cant say if any sidings were damaged, always remember the yard backed on to the gardens of the houses hit &others that still stood,the yard always full of covered wagons,& on the site of the TMD building was a coal yard run by a Coal Merchant called "Albert Usher" who also had a coal office opposite the Station Rd entrance to Finsbury Park Station where the double deck buses arrived & turned ,the iron girders stood overhead decaying for many years of the aborted Northern City LIne exchange platforms & extension northwards, so losing us a fine "Art Deco" frontage for the station entrance,"the dream"finally vanishing from the "Underground"map in 1950.

About 10 or 11 years ago I posted on here that the old houses probably built during the 1850s or 1860s that run along the back of Finsbury Park MPD northwards towards the Seven Sisters road at the Finsbury Park end once supposedly housed actress Pat Phoenix (Elsie Tanner of Coronation street fame of the 1960s) anyway someone told me that back in the mists of time of 50 plus years ago that she did live in one of the old houses at the back of Clarence yard anyway a bloke from northern England who use to come on here many years ago reckoned that wasn't true cos I think he may have claimed that he knew her I can't remember and posted that she never lived down in London.

[rockinjohn]

Hi Mickey &all,Pat was a Northern girl most of her life,however she studied @ Joan Littlewoods "working class"theatre group @ the other Stratford( East London) in the early '50's & may have picked up the odd acting job in the smoke,who knows where she lived most actors/actresses lived on site,before returning to Fame&Fortune in the North later,I read she bought a pub in the Delarmere Forest a beautiful area betwixt Manchester & Chester,but can find no reference to this,other then she owned another or aswell in the Buxton &Peaks area,Pat was a 60 a day smoker & which was her undoing with cancer passing @ an early age sadly,jj

[Mickey]

The abiding memory of places like Finsbury Park MPD and Stratford MPD and no doubt all the other Motive Power Depots around the country back in the 1970s was the smell of Swarfega a dark green jelly like substance that had it's own distinctive smell and was used for washing oil and grease off hands in the associated washrooms & toilets along with miles and miles of 'blue roll' combined with the ever present lingering smell of loco diesel everywhere!!.

[rockinjohn]

Hi all,one signal box that I have only seen pictures of which must have been a "take your pillow" roster was FP7 @ the junction of down &up "Alley Pally" branch, of course going into I assume disuse pretty early, when the shuttle &goods ceased running,but then was it just opened for the LT stock transfers from Drayton Park?( I can remember BR locos on this rare turn before LT's battery locos) which did carry thru in to the early' 60's until the over bridge @Crouch Hill was declared unsafe it had supports&single line working there, along with the flyover also declared unsafe, did you Mickey, Stevie G or Manna or any others visit it when closed?, it lasted in situ until the'70s.jj

[Mickey]

Hi all,one signal box that I have only seen pictures of which must have been a "take your pillow" roster was FP7 @ the junction of down &up "Alley Pally" branch, of course going into I assume disuse pretty early, when the shuttle &goods ceased running,but then was it just opened for the LT stock transfers from Drayton Park?( I can remember BR locos on this rare turn before LT's battery locos) which did carry thru in to the early' 60's until the over bridge @Crouch Hill was declared unsafe it had supports&single line working there, along with the flyover also declared unsafe, did you Mickey, Stevie G or Manna or any others visit it when closed?, it lasted in situ until the'70s.jj

Yeah I visited Finsbury Park no.7 just after it had closed one grey, damp and miserable day with a railway friend of mine back in late 1970 which from memory would have been in either October or November of that year which was only weeks after the box had closed. Some interior pictures of Finsbury Park no.7 exist on the web although I haven't searched for them for at least 5 years but they look like they were taken shortly after the box was closed either in late 1970 or in early 1971 at a guess?. (Makes me wonder if my railway friend actually took those pictures now that I think about it that day that we both visited the box?).

Yeah not a bad little job jj if you wasn't into doing much work except for maybe making the umpteenth cup of tea during the shift and looking out the box windows or getting comfortable in the armchair by the fire and shutting ya eyes for an hour although having said that I use to like those little jobs back then when they existed before they were all swept away!.

[StevieG]

Hi all,one signal box that I have only seen pictures of which must have been a "take your pillow" roster was FP7 @ the junction of down &up "Alley Pally" branch, of course going into I assume disuse pretty early, when the shuttle &goods ceased running,but then was it just opened for the LT stock transfers from Drayton Park?( I can remember BR locos on this rare turn before LT's battery locos) which did carry thru in to the early' 60's until the over bridge @Crouch Hill was declared unsafe it had supports&single line working there, along with the flyover also declared unsafe, did you Mickey, Stevie G or Manna or any others visit it when closed?, it lasted in situ until the'70s.jj

Yeah I visited Finsbury Park no.7 just after it had closed one grey, damp and miserable day with a railway friend of mine back in late 1970 which from memory would have been in either October or November of that year which was only weeks after the box had closed. Some interior pictures of Finsbury Park no.7 exist on the web although I haven't searched for them for at least 5 years but they look like they were taken shortly after the box was closed either in late 1970 or in early 1971 at a guess?. (Makes me wonder if my railway friend actually took those pictures now that I think about it that day that we both visited the box?).

Yeah not a bad little job jj if you wasn't into doing much work except for maybe making the umpteenth cup of tea during the shift and looking out the box windows or getting comfortable in the armchair by the fire and shutting ya eyes for an hour although having said that I use to like those little jobs back then when they existed before they were all swept away!.

I had a look in No.7 when it was still operational around 1969 Mickey.

But, being only staffed as required by then, with only the LT transfer trips from/to Drayton Park running, it wasn't well cared for and could have looked disused to most who didn't know otherwise.

The early 1930s colour-light signalling and TCB both ways*** to Park Junction box had long gone - possibly not too long after the last passenger services, to/from Alexandra Palace (the original), had ended in 1954, though freight to Edgware, Mill Hill, and particularly the High Barnet line yards, continued long enough to become worked by Class 15 'Paxman' diesels for a year or two - so exactly when is unclear.

By the time I visited, it was obvious that normal working with Park Junction LT box after the TCB / colour-lights had gone, had become something like 'No-Block' lines, presumably worked by telephone, with No.7's old colour-light Down Starter having become a red-only main signal at the end of the remaining track-circuiting**, with a worked position-light below it to allow trains to proceed.
And the Up Distant was a yellow-only colour-light (which had been the last Up Automatic stop signal of the old signalling) leading to the (semaphore) single Home with a Fixed Distant below it for FP No.6.

But at that time, I feel sure that the Crouch End bridge problem, and the erection of its added support on the Down road, blocking it, had already happened, and so the situation was already that some form of Single Line Working over the Up road, as you already mentioned, with a relief signalman or certificated station inspector or Manager as Pilotman, was already the case. And No.7 box was only manned for these moves.

*** - which would have surely been replaced by standard LT signalling not many years later if the 1935-1940 New Works planned take over of the LNER's 'Northern Heights' lines to Edgware, High Barnet and Alexandra Palace to extend the LT's Northern and Northern City lines to those destinations had been fully carried out rather than being only part-completed and abandoning the rest.

** - The illuminated diagram worked as one of the old-style, TCs lit up when Clear / Light out when Occupied, type.

[Mickey]

Circa 1967-1970. From that time and from memory both the Down Edgware line Down semaphore distant and home signals that were both worked from Finsbury Park no.7 and were both carried on either straight GNR or LNER type concrete posts with the Down Edgware line distant signal located fairly close to Finsbury Park no.5 and stood directly opposite no.5s 'stop boards' which either read along the Down slow no.1 line or from the Down slow no.1 to Down fast line and were both 'spitting distance' away from each other standing side by side with the Down Edgware line in between.[/i]

[rockinjohn]

Hi all these sidings always fascinated me they pre- war were used for the storage of the Royal Train&ECS, a heavy climb from FP for the latter, sidings were added to for outside storage by LTE,now further on the lines @Finchley Central(Church End) show by the Junction@the country end that the Edgware line was considered the "main line"& not the High Barnet line,having done a few "you tube"LT tube cab rides, the pre-war/ early postwar NLL/Jinty hauled trains along with The GN/BR N2 tanks could achieve a fair speed with the gaps between stations,the goods yard @High Barnet still saw regular coal traffic into the '60's I have seen both N2&PaxmanD82xx on these workings,along with the coal yard on the down side of the climb to East Finchley LT station,the coal yard had road access from Archway Rd with 2or3 houses alongside, whats special about that I hear you ask? (I hope)well one family home contained a famous to be budding soccer player/ R&B&pop star one (Rod)ney Stewart no less maybe those lines gave him his lifelong intrest in Railways &Model Railwaying?who knows jj

[Mickey]

Hi all these sidings always fascinated me they pre- war were used for the storage of the Royal Train&ECS, a heavy climb from FP for the latter, sidings were added to for outside storage by LTE,now further on the lines @Finchley Central(Church End) show by the Junction@the country end that the Edgware line was considered the "main line"& not the High Barnet line,having done a few "you tube"LT tube cab rides, the pre-war/ early postwar NLL/Jinty hauled trains along with The GN/BR N2 tanks could achieve a fair speed with the gaps between stations,the goods yard @High Barnet still saw regular coal traffic into the '60's I have seen both N2&PaxmanD82xx on these workings,along with the coal yard on the down side of the climb to East Finchley LT station,the coal yard had road access from Archway Rd with 2or3 houses alongside, whats special about that I hear you ask? (I hope)well one family home contained a famous to be budding soccer player/ R&B&pop star one (Rod)ney Stewart no less maybe those lines gave him his lifelong intrest in Railways &Model Railwaying?who knows jj

It is a pity that the old Finsbury Park to East Finchley and onwards to Edgware line was abandoned at the outbreak of WW2 cos that would have been a well used route from north London into Moorgate these days.

As a youngster in the early/mid 1960s and especially between about 1963-1966 when I was 'into' trains and railways we were living in London at that time and we use to live around the Crouch Hill area and on a number of occasions myself and a few other 'kids' use to go onto the railway line between Stroud Green dissued station and Crouch End dissued station 'and play' on the track although I don't ever recall seeing any train(s) during the daylight hours at all although is was rumoured that a 'ghost train' use to travel across that double-track line between Finsbury Park and beyond the old dissued Crouch End station or vice versa during the night time?.

[StevieG]

"It is a pity that the old Finsbury Park to East Finchley and onwards to Edgware line was abandoned at the outbreak of WW2 .... "

AFAIK, it was passenger services that ceased then Mickey, with goods continuing until around the time that rockinjohn mentioned for High Barnet.
The WickedPedia reckons that Edgware closed for goods on 1st June 1964.

[Mickey]

Yeah you are correct Stevie but I was just lamenting overall that the route between Finsbury Park and Edgware with regards to the passenger service in particular wasn't retained because I presume that the route if it was still there today would be heavily used the same as all railway lines in and around the London area are these days although I can see why either before or after WW2 why the passenger service was withdrawn because of the increase in road traffic overall and the corresponding bus services in those parts of north London that shadowed the route.