KX train diagrams in the 1970s.

[Andy W]

The odd stock working that used to run between KX (KC) and Bounds Green (DG), calling as required at various yards in between was indeed "5B98" and we used it primarily to get the cripples back to DG and move replacements and restaurant cars around.

5L30 was the train that used to take vehicles to works. It used to run out of Holloway in the early morning but when that shut it started from Ferme Park CS. It stopped at Doncaster to drop stock off there before going to York. By the mid to late 1970's I was sending coaches to York and vans to Doncaster. Anything for Wolverton or the Southern/Western works went via "the Mills" on the trip. Horwich used to do a lot of 4w vans at that time and they either went via the LM or Doncaster and drop off there.

I only had one real duff job come out of York. A Mk1 TSO (a PB parly set coach) that came back absloutely prestine after a C2. Beautiful paint job and fresh varnish inside with newly painted ceilings. Only problem - they hadn't fitted any seats - backs or squabs! Back it went on 5L30.

Wolverton caused chaos one night when an overhauled Motorail GUV brought KX to a standstill. We were always short of vans at the southern end of the GN Main line and this van, fresh from Wolverton, was quickly put into the motorail rake by Bounds Green and sent to KX. So that night they opened up all the doors in the milk dock but on this one, positioned right in the middle of a set, they couldn't - Wolverton had welded the doors up!!

Of course the delays in shunting this vehicle out & the subsequent delays to the overnights didn't go unnoticed. I was told not to send anymore to that works.

On the subject of the cl.46's - they would have been borrowed by KX Control to do the Cambridges as they were nice out and home workings in between booked workings. I suspect we must have been short of 31's at the time. We did a similar thing with cl.25's on the P'Boro parlys in 1979.

[Mickey]

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[hq1hitchin]

5L30 was the train that used to take vehicles to works. It used to run out of Holloway in the early morning but when that shut it started from Ferme Park CS. It stopped at Doncaster to drop stock off there before going to York. By the mid to late 1970's I was sending coaches to York and vans to Doncaster. Anything for Wolverton or the Southern/Western works went via "the Mills" on the trip. Horwich used to do a lot of 4w vans at that time and they either went via the LM or Doncaster and drop off there.

Wolverton caused chaos one night when an overhauled Motorail GUV brought KX to a standstill. We were always short of vans at the southern end of the GN Main line and this van, fresh from Wolverton, was quickly put into the motorail rake by Bounds Green and sent to KX. So that night they opened up all the doors in the milk dock but on this one, positioned right in the middle of a set, they couldn't - Wolverton had welded the doors up!!

Odd you should mention GUV doors being welded up, Andy - we almost had the same problem at Crewe one night when we needed a replacement for one of the Inverness Motorail vans in a hurry. An alert shunter pointed out that he had seen some recently ex works vans which had the doors welded up. Consultation with the TOPS clerk revealed that this detail was now shown on TOPS so we were able to identify a suitable one in the South Yd. Obviously the mod wasn't widely publicised!

5L30 - or 3N30 as it was originally - also used to call at Connington Yard, final resting place in the KX division of condemned coaching stock and other stuff not likely to run in traffic again. As there were no staff based here, the guard was expected to do any shunting. At one time it was booked to be worked by a P'boro passenger guard who worked up on 1B16 0715 P'boro - KX (a much monitored train - most boxes had to report its passage) and this could cause difficulties because, as you are only too aware, splitting and dropping buckeyes can be a very dirty business and they objected to having to do it.

[Mickey]

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[Mickey]

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[Mickey]

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[CVR1865]

nice story, Micky.

[AndyRush]

Interesting route, Micky, Lincoln - Sleaford - Boston and run round. I wonder why you didn't go straight up the Joint line, which was the normal diversionary route for blockages south of Doncaster and the one that I believe some Kings Cross drivers signed.

I can remember some Saturday nights in the early 70's when diversions via Leamside, Askern, the Joint line and the Hertford Loop were undertaken - you had to watch out for EE Type 4's on the sleeper jobs if they came through from Edinburgh, they tended to run out of fuel at Wood Green or thereabouts, particularly if they got delayed

Regards

Andy

PART TWO: After spending all day on the Saturday knocking around inside the West Parade Hotel at about 6:pm it was time to eat so i joined my driver at the diner table (first time i'd seen him since we arrived at the Hotel about 12hrs earlier) and had a big plate of STEAK & CHIPS!. Anyway, at about 9:pm or just after we left the illustrious West Parade Hotel with our guard and walked back down the hill to Newcastle central station to await what was known as 'the first mails' (there was a second mails as well) which duly arrived sometime before 10:pm. The locomotive on the front of the train was a Deltic which would be our ride back to London so after relieving the crew that had worked her up so far we departed Newcastle and made our way south stopping at the usual stops (York was one) eventually arriving at Doncaster sometime well after midnight. On arriving at Doncaster and coming to a halt the cab door opens and a driver says that we were being diverted via Lincoln and Boston due to the road south of Black Carr Junction (south of Doncaster) was BLOCKED due to engineering work and that he was the pilotman. Oh well my driver says to me to get in the back cab and come back (on the front) when we arrive at Peterborough. We set off from Donny and was turned off the up fast line at Black Carr Junction to go via Lincoln. The thing that remains in my mind about this 'moonlight ride' was that at Boston there was 'somersault signals' still in existence mounted on gantrys and straight posts as well as at one or two other locations along that route which was very interesting indeed. Finally we eventually rejoined the ECML at Werrington Junction and shortly thereafter we were arriving at Peterborugh. At Peterborough we dropped the Pilot driver off and i went back up the front for the rest of the return journey up to Kings Cross which turned out to be uneventful finally arriving back in the 'Cross' at about 3:25am on a Sunday morning up no.1 platform with a handful or two of passenger's just under 6hrs after leaving Newcastle on the Saturday night. Micky G.N.R/L.N.E.R. x I was in no.3 link at Kings Cross as a secondman at the time of this trip to Newcastle & return and being in no.3 link that was the 'Doncaster link' the Newcastle 'lodge turns' were done by secondmen in no.1 link or as it was also known as the 'top gang' or 'top link' with your own 'regular driver' so me falling in for a return Newcastle job was the first (and last time) it happened to me.

[Mickey]

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[Mickey]

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[Andy W]

Micky - great stuff but you probably mean via Sleaford and Spalding rather than Boston.

It would have been a bit hard to go from Lincoln to Boston and then to Werrington Jct in 1975. But going all the way up the joint line in 1975 is something I wouldn't mind owning a time machine for!

[StevieG]

hqi,
Thanks for coming up with that headcode of '5L30'. Don't know how I could have forgotten that one. Do you recall, as I seem to, some sort of similar up working beong called 5A19 ?

[Mickey]

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[Mickey]

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[Mickey]

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