Welwyn Garden City

[redtoon1892]

They have probably been requested by someone under this Act.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/DisabledPeo ... DG_4019030

[chaz harrison]

Is Nabisco still in operation? At a brief glance at it when I was last over there it looked a bit run down.

I thought I read that the site has been sold. The factory was certainly silent when I last visited, although there was a bloke in the gate house, unlike on my previous 2 trips.

Chaz

[StevieG]

What is their purpose?

How about the same reason that is used on road bridges when width is restricted by barriers because the bridge is not strong enough at the edges to take the weight of traffic
(Am I being serious?)
Or is it because the path is meant to be a standard width to comply with regulations and the original was too wide.

Might it be that the side lattice work has been 'assessed' as now of degraded strength, non-compliant for structural integrity against being leant on/bumped against (although the main 'floor' strength must be 'OK')?

[chaz harrison]

Crikey, I would have thought that the main strength of the bridge is in the side girders. If they have become so weak that leaning against them......I'm not sure I want to walk across it again!

Chaz

[StevieG]

...I did refer to lattice work (not the 'girders').
Perhaps the handrails are meant to prevent or discourage the falling, dropping or dangling 'foreign' objects (even though this is not the bridge section above the main running lines), but are of a design which could make them as ineffective against deliberate actions in this as in other possible situations already mentioned in this thread.

[chaz harrison]

...I did refer to lattice work (not the 'girders').
Perhaps the handrails are meant to prevent or discourage the falling, dropping or dangling 'foreign' objects (even though this is not the bridge section above the main running lines), but are of a design which could make them as ineffective against deliberate actions in this as in other possible situations already mentioned in this thread.

I think that the lattice work is structural, StevieG. If you look at the snap isn't it the lattice strips that make each "panel" rigid.

So far loads of guesses, none of which seem worth the expense, but I must admit I can't think of anything better. Maybe it was a cheap way of "jazzing up" the bridge without the huge expense of replacing it.
It's all very strange because there is nothing under the bridge for much of its length, and the smart (snigger) new railings have gaps in them every so often. The main consequence of the railings to to make the bridge much narrower making life difficult for pedestrians facing oncoming bicycles etc.
As to the needs of disabled people nothing has been done to make their life easier on the stairs at the eastern end.
So it remains a mystery. Maybe someone from RailTrack could enlighten us?

Chaz

[manna]

G'Day Gents
Can you imagine the confusion in the faces of two blondes pushing prams, when they both arrive in the center of the bridge at the same time
manna

[Dublo6231]

Wow, thanks to everyone who has commented so far to my original post, just want to raise a few more questions regarding the yard at WGC:
Were there any kind of coaling facilities in the yard itself? Even just some coal bunkers that may of been used?
Was WGC in steam days more of a main station (maybe a bit like Stevenage now?) being a stop for expresses and is it possible that a "spare" loco may of been kept in steam there in case of a main line failure?
Also were there water cranes situated at the end of each platform ? Or if not where were these located?
Would the Luton and Hertford branches have been worked by predominantly N7's/N2's or what other classes may have worked over these branches?
Apologies for the further barrage of questions, i'm beginning to start thinking of modelling the station (I know there is probably far better locations to choose but hey, it would be quite a challenge, especially in 3-rail!).

[StevieG]

...." Was WGC in steam days more of a main station (maybe a bit like Stevenage now?) being a stop for expresses .... " ?

around 1968/9, not really. Stevenage 'old' didn't used to be then either, but Hitchin was (a bit), (& Huntingdon).
Back to WGC though, which was served mainly only by Class 2s; the 'locals' (all, or nearly all, stations from/to south), and the 'parlys' (semi-fasts to Hitchin, Huntingdon, Peterborough, Baldock, Royston, or Cambridge), but also, by most (I think) of the 1B66's 'Buffets' (the Cambridge Buffet Express).

[giner]

Stevenage 'old' used to be a stop on a Sunday (maybe a Sundays Only working) for at least one morning train. Us lads used to save up our paper-round money to take a 9/- return excursion (you young 'uns will have to ask yer dads what 9/- is) to Doncaster to 'do' the sheds. There were stops at Huntingdon, Peterborough, Grantham, Retford and Doncaster. Sometimes motive power would be a V2, and sometimes an A3 - commonly, if memory serves, Isinglass or Donovan. Can anyone clarify further on this, please?

[hq1hitchin]

There was one up express that called at WGC in the late 50s/early 60s (?) in response to a request from ICI, I think, and it came from Saltburn. Sorry to be so vague but I don't have timetables with me here. Will make further enquiries and give more details if I can get them. It also had a newspaper train from KX, with vans being detached there on a Sunday morning as well as a through freight service to Whitemoor even in the late 1960s.
Regarding the Dunstable branch, in the 1950s, N7s were the most common as N2s were by then banned on passenger trains west of WGC owing to them being thought unkind to the track. Before the war, Hatfield had a few N5s for working their branches. There were also some of the small GN 4-4-0s used in those days, too. When steam gave way to diesel, the Dunstable branch was still open and we saw the Birmingham C&W Type 2s (the D53XX), the EE Type 1s and of course the Brush Type 2s and Cravens DMUs.
No loco servicing facilities at WGC, it was all done at Hatfield, which punched well above its weight in operating terms in those long gone days. There were coal merchants at WGC, with coal heaps as witness (well, perhaps not) the fact that a guard on a ballast train booked out of the yard one Saturday night went across and purloined a few bucket fulls for his brake van ('the wee house at the back of the train' as one of the comics at Temple Mills called them)

[StevieG]

" Stevenage 'old' used to be a stop on a Sunday (maybe a Sundays Only working) for at least one morning train. " ....

Sounds like I need to defer to anyone with WTT knowledge regarding Stevenage (and probably Huntingdon).
I do though clearly recall the Camb.Buffets calling at WGC, certainly in 'daytime' at least (there's a story or two there!).
Unfortunately, by my time of first visits, the Hertford branch was truncated to being just an approx. 1/2-mile siding, and the Luton Line had become just an OES Staff-worked extension to the Down Back Platform line, ending at Blackbridge Siding, to where the refuse trains from Ashburton Grove [Finsbury Park; now known as the Emirates Stadium (Arsenal) ] had just about stopped running.

[manna]

G'Day Gents
I think a model of WGC would be brilliant, but it would be BIG! six through roads, two branches, a large goods yard a large footbridge, and little old me, have'in a kip on a Brush 2
manna

[chaz harrison]

Some of the Cambridge Buffets definitely stopped at WGC. My father used to use them to commute for a short time. He had taken a job at Weatherill Hydraulic (Tewin Rd) but we had yet to move into our our promised council house.
There were coal drops at Welwyn North and coal bunkers at Hatfield but I don't think there were any at WGC. Anyway wasn't the town a smokeless zone?

Chaz

[hq1hitchin]

Some of the Cambridge Buffets definitely stopped at WGC.
Chaz

They certainly did at one time, Chaz - even dating back to the 1930s but had ceased to do call towards the end of the service, say by the early 1970s, when they ran non-stop KX to Stevenage. In truth, we thought them speedy but the modern electric service from KX to Cambridge, running non-stop, is wonderful really and now brings Cambridge easily within commuting distance of London, something not so common in diesel days when the fastest services ran into Liverpool St.