Micky wrote:Point taken Stevie about 'only four roads' coming up the Holloway bank and thats it as far as Finsbury Park. When one remembers like i'm sure you do how it use to be around that area back in the late 60s/early 70s it feels that way!. Micky
Oh yes. I know what you mean, right enough.
There certainly are only four roads up at and along the main line level for about 1/4-mile north from the top of Holloway bank.
Just re-spotted this thread, and realised that I think I meant to mention : Up to the beginnings of simplification ("rationalisation") of the tracks leading to the full 1970s remodelling, resignalling and electrification, if you imagined a drawn line across all the tracks running between Holloway and Finsbury Park, just south of Ashburton Grove box and Hornsey Road underbridge, there were eleven running lines ! : -
- Up Carriage ('Creep-up'), Up Coal, Up Goods, Up Slow, Up Fast, Down Fast, Down Slow No.1, Down Slow 2, Down Carriage, Down Goods No.1, and Down Goods 2 ; (plus the 'long siding' beside DS2 between Holl.N.Down and Fins.Park No.3).
...And I even forgot to mention the three Hornsey Road Bridge Sidings between East Goods Yard Box / shunter's cabin/ground frame and Holloway North Up, on the cess side of the Up Coal line ; - as one came up 'the Creep-up' they were just above to the right, at main line level.
About late '69/early 1970, when I was working at Canonbury one day, I took the gang's lunch break to walk through Canonbury Tunnel to Ashburton, then up 'the creep-up', so that I could photograph the trio of miniature somersault arms on the one GN lattice bracket structure as siding exit signals at the Holloway end of Hornsey Rd.Bdg.Sdgs.; only to find that they had very recently been replaced on the same bracket, by miniature upper quadrant arms !
I reckon those three somersault arms, plus the three somersault-pattern Down Distants (Fixed at 'Caution'; and looked very old or neglected) for Finsbury Park No.2, which were abolished around the same time (& new Distant arms added under Holl. North Down's Starters on the Down Goods Nos.1 & 2) must've been the last somersault arms 'down south' by a considerable number of years. [ I think the nearest others on the ECML would have been it/those mentioned not long ago as remaining at Holme for the Ramsey branch ].
Stevie, i remember the 'three miniture somersault signals' on that bracket post on the up side worked by Holloway North Up around 1968/69 then they were abolished. Talking about Holloway North Up thats another s/box were there's next to NO photographs of it?. George Croft one of our signalling manager's on the North London lines in the 1980s/90s at onetime worked Holloway North Up back in the late 1950s/60s. Getting back to miniture somersault signals and i don't know if i am or was imagining this but wasn't there also 'three miniture somersault signals' on another bracket post on the DOWN side of the lines betwewn Holloway North Down s/box and near where Western sidings started worked by (i presume?) Holloway North Down s/box which were abolished at about the sametime as the three on the up side of the lines?. By the way the avatar that you use (as you know) was Finsbury Park No3s gantry, i remember seeing that gantry with it's semaphores around 1967/68 but as you would 'obviously know' they abolished all the signal arms and cut/removed the dolls then erected colour lights with theatre light route indicators all worked by Finsbury Park No3. Micky GNR/L.N.E.R.
Micky, I can only think that your 'three miniature somersault signals on the down side', were not so miniature, and would've been the three Fins.Pk.2 Distants, side by side on one bracket, that I just mentioned earlier today [right by where the three tall blocks of flats stand].
Yes it's a long time ago 1968/69 and to be honest those three somersault signals on the down side are a bit hazy but i DO REMEMBER THE THREE SOMERSAULT MINITURES on the up side. Micky
I maybe thinking of those three distants on the down side that you mentioned before Stevie and had forgotten that thet were distant signals (it was 42 years ago!). Micky GNR/L.N.E.R.
