Personal memories of the GNR and early LNER

[52D]

I note that the pictures so far are all showing signs of cleaning albeit with a little wear and tear the B7 has a burnt patch on the lower part of the smokebox door but otherwise the oily rags have been applied with good effect (no comments about Gatesheads engines please).The C1 presents a pretty picture The cleaners are to be commended.
On the building site is this the start of the widening scheme and is the excavator a Ruston Bucyrus steam shovel the area is a bit to far south for me to really comment on.

[third-rail]

thought the last picture was kings cross,but the left hand tunnel appears to go sharply off to the left,i like all the double slips in thepicture

[hq1hitchin]

thought the last picture was kings cross,but the left hand tunnel appears to go sharply off to the left,i like all the double slips in thepicture

Spot on, third rail - we are looking at the construction of the passenger loco yard on the left with the warehouses of Kings X Goods on the other side of Goods Way - a splendidly rare photograph, I would have thought

[giner]

Yes, great photo of the yard construction. What year would this have been and what was previously on that site?

[hq1hitchin]

About 1927, certainly before the resignalling of 1932 and I think the 'new' passenger loco was on land previously occupied by the Imperial Gas Light & Coke Co?

[61070]

I agree that it's a really interesting and historic picture, and hq1 is right about the site having been part of the gas works. I found the attached map on a website and it may help to explain the excavations, though it's a bit early (1877) to be certain that the 'Imperial Gas Works' was not rebuilt between the dates of the map and the photo. It's the only one I can find at the moment though.

The website reference is http://www.british-history.ac.uk/mapshe ... =306&y=156

The gas works was set up to receive its coal by the Regent's Canal - it has its own basin right up against the Retort Houses, to which canal vessels brought coal that presumably had been transferred out of colliers from the Tyne and the Wear. I think the former basin is basically what had been excavated away when the photo was taken, and now they are going at the demolished buildings' foundations. At a guess I'd say that the foundations visible are those of the southernmost retort house, and that the 4-wheeled vehicle (a mobile compressor?) is standing on the road to its east.

In the background of the photo, behind the excavator, is what appears to be a brand new (brick?) retaining wall for the road (?) and the canal; traces of the old retaining wall by the railway can be seen up near the tunnel entrance, and maybe on the left where the man is.

I wonder how they were getting all the spoil off site? I see no sign on the photo of it going out by rail, but it could have been loaded further to the left. Or was it being dumped at sea, via the canal?? Sorry, I'm a bit of an industrial history buff and this one's just set me off!

[52D]

Nice to see you so far south 61070, i wonder if the rubble was back filled into the existing basin. Is the company that owned the gas works called Imperial Gas & Light as i have seen a similar reference to sunken colliers owned by a company called The Gas, Light & Coke company.
The German attacks on the North Sea convoys produced great pressure on the southern part of the ECML by diverting some of the normally shipped coal on to rail. When you look at the industries that required coal and the amount that was required it is easy to see why this was with Power Stations and gas works lining the Thames from East of Tilbury right up into the Heart of London including the installation above and Battersea. It would be interesting to find evidence of these extra coal trains taking unusuall routes to reach London such as via GER/GNR not normally used for this traffic.

[third-rail]

Nice to see you so far south 61070, i wonder if the rubble was back filled into the existing basin. Is the company that owned the gas works called Imperial Gas & Light as i have seen a similar reference to sunken colliers owned by a company called The Gas, Light & Coke company.
The German attacks on the North Sea convoys produced great pressure on the southern part of the ECML by diverting some of the normally shipped coal on to rail. When you look at the industries that required coal and the amount that was required it is easy to see why this was with Power Stations and gas works lining the Thames from East of Tilbury right up into the Heart of London including the installation above and Battersea. It would be interesting to find evidence of these extra coal trains taking unusuall routes to reach London such as via GER/GNR not normally used for this traffic.

the large canel basin above the tunnel is still there, cant imagine them filling the branch to the gas works as they would have to dig it out again with having the canel bed maybe some six /seven metres above the track bed, by the way network rail must have one of the highest portable site offices ever built at kings cross approx six stories high must be about where the hole is being dug in the picture.there is only one gas holder their now still in place the rest are stacked up for rearection elsewhere

[manna]

G'Day Gents
Brilliant pic, these to me are the icing on the cake, the infrastructure is I think, sometimes more importent than the loco's.
I was going to ask what was on the site originally, but everybodys beaten me to it, ah well!
What a wonderful wooden box you have at home
manna

[Bryan]

Is that an RB 10 digging away at the spoil heap?

[52D]

It has the look of a Ruston Bucyrus i thought it might be a Ruston steam shovel.

[61070]

Is the company that owned the gas works called Imperial Gas & Light as i have seen a similar reference to sunken colliers owned by a company called The Gas, Light & Coke company.

52D: from what I've been able to gather, the gas works at King's Cross/St Pancras was built by the Imperial Gas Light & Coke Company. In the 1870s/80s nearly all London's gas undertakings became amalgamated into the Chartered Gas Light & Coke Company, the Imperial company in 1876. The Chartered GL&C Co. lasted until 1949, when it was nationalised and placed under the control of the North Thames Gas Board.

Here's a link to a print of the inside of one of the retort houses at the Imperial Gas Works in the Science Museum's picture library: http://www.scienceandsociety.co.uk/resu ... e=10318933 . Surprisingly the caption states that coal gas continued to be made in the UK for domestic use 'until the 1950s' which is at least a decade out; if I remember rightly most of us were 'converted' in the late 1960s / early 1970s – remember the fleets of vans?

The following link to a page on the Greater London Industrial Archaeology Society (GLIAS) website is particularly helpful in apparently dating Cock o' The North's photograph to 1923: http://www.glias.org.uk/walks/kgx.html . It's also interesting in documenting that gas production had ceased at those works by 1902, though clearly storage of gas continued nearby until much more recent times.

[AndyG]

... if I remember rightly most of us were 'converted' in the late 1960s / early 1970s – remember the fleets of vans?

'Getting the North Sea in'

Andy

[hq1hitchin]

Yes, and Wood Green station was still lit by 'town gas' as late as 1973 - it was only when they switched over to North Sea gas that it went electric.

[Cock o' The North]

61070, those historical links are superb. Excellent stuff. It brings it all to life somehow. If it was taken in 1923, father was ten years old.