Cemetery, Oakleigh Park & New Barnet S & N s/boxes.

[Mickey]

Was OAKLEIGH PARK s/box unique in having the down fast line Home/Starting signal so far in advance of the s/box by a considerable distance (at a guess 250 yrds approximately?). WOOD GREEN UP BOX No4s up fast line Home signal was in advance of the s/box but only by several yards.
Presumedly if the signalman at OAKLEIGH PARK had a reason to speak to a driver of a train on the down fast line after accepting the train from CEMETERY s/box and leaving the down fast line distant and home signals 'on' would then on receiving 'Train on line' from CEMETERY s/box stand at an open box window holding either a RED flag or RED handlamp towards the on coming train?.
I presume OAKLEIGH PARK's down fast line two aspect colour light distant signal that was situated at the entrance to the south end of Barnet tunnel was worked 'independent' of whether NEW BARNET NORTH BOX & NEW BARNET SOUTH BOX were 'all off' on the down fast line through New Barnet even though it was relatively short block sections between OAKLEIGH PARK-NEW BARNET SOUTH BOX-NEW BARNET NORTH BOX.
Also i recall sometime about the beginning of 1970 the connection from the down slow line to down goods line was abolished, i do recall seeing one or two oil trains running a long the down goods line prior to it being taken out of use.
Finally what was the size of the lever frame in OAKLEIGH PARK (and NEW BARNET SOUTH BOX & NEW BARNET NORTH BOX as well?) also i seem to recall that B.R. repainted both OAKLEIGH PARK, NEW BARNET SOUTH BOX and NEW BARNET NORTH BOX (a year or 18 months before they closed OAKLEIGH PARK & NEW BARNET SOUTH BOX) in some sort of 'chocolate & cream' colour scheme sometime around 1969? (the same colours were both given to CEMETERY and NEW SOUTHGATE s/boxes) infact the chocolate & cream colour scheme didn't look to bad on those s/boxes in my humble opinion.

[StevieG]

DF Home (about 270? yards past the box) - certainly rare; and I would say unique around those parts. I've a feeling Cemetery's UF Homes were a few yards past the box.
OP's DF distant (by late '60s anyway) was actually a 3-aspect, showing double yellow as outer Distant for 'Barnet' South + North.
Frames : - OP, (only) 24 ; BS, 55 ; BN, 75.
Can't recall 'choc & cream' colours, but that may be my memory going.

[Mickey]

Good one Stevie not a bad guess of mine saying that OAKLEIGH PARK the down home/starting signal was 250yds beyond the s/box when it was actually 270yds. Yes you was right i believe CEMETERY's up fast home & up fast to up slow line bracket signal was several yards beyond the box as well.
Thanks for the info on the size of the lever frames i had OAKLEIGH PARK as having a 25 lever frame and NEW BARNET SOUTH BOX as having a 50 lever frame as for NEW BARNET NORTH BOX i was way out at thinking at about a 60-65 lever frame.
The 'chocolate & cream' colour scheme if i recall was all the main wood work that was painted in a 'cream colour' and the lining out of windows and door was in a kind of 'chocolate colour' if John comes back on and reads this he probably knows the exact colours used.
I use to like those five s/boxes NEW SOUTHGATE, CEMETERY, OAKLEIGH PARK, NEW BARNET SOUTH BOX & NEW BARNET NORTH BOX it's a pity that they all had to go, by the way the connection from the down slow line to down goods line at OAKLEIGH PARK was taken out of use at the beginning of 1970 i think but i may be wrong?.

[manna]

G'day Gents

Cemetery Box was always my favourite 'small box' so much so I built one? it's almost 30 years old, never finished (yet) has survived 10 house moves, including a move to OZ! and 10 years storage
manna

[Mickey]

Good one manna, i must say it's a fairly good resemblance to the original s/box you even have the 'small brick base' just like the original.
When i first saw CEMETERY s/box sometime around 1967 there was a connection from the up slow line to the up goods line and also another connection from the up goods line (to a second up goods line No.2?) but that second up goods line No.2 was abolished sometime around 1968 or early 69 and the two 'full sized' stop signal arms reading up slow line to up goods line and up slow line to up goods line No.2 (one on a separate straight wooden post for the second up goods line No.2 and standing beside the up slow line home signal) was abolished and a 'miniture arm' replaced both of the other two arms beside the up slow line home signal on the original bracket post. Also the up goods line starting signal was abolished at the sametime as well which was mounted on the same bracket post that carried CEMETERY's up slow line starting signal which also carried NEW SOUTHGATE's up slow line distant signal below it. The down slow line home signal was mounted on a straight post but the post had a bracket and a platform added and a 2-aspect colour light signal was added which i think only ever showed a GREEN aspect when the arm was pulled off and of course the green spectacle glass of the semaphore signal was blanked out.
I don't know if many people were aware (probably Stevie, Richard & John were) that the two CEMETERY nameboards were different?. The nameboard at the north end of the box (from memory near 37 years on since the box closed) had an extra space for the original UP word when the s/box was known as CEMETERY UP. The nameboard at the south end was a later nameboard which may have been either very late G.N.R. or L.N.E.R. and replaced the original CEMETERY UP nameboard when CEMETERY DOWN s/box closed in 1922 i believe but other's may know for definite this is just speculation on my part.
It was noticeable to anyone (with an interest) when riding passed CEMETERY on a train in it's final month before it closed in February 1973 that the nameboard at the south end of the box had gone 'missing' i wonder who had that thing away?.

[StevieG]

Re - Oakleigh Park's Down Fast 'Home', I only said about 270 yards past the box, temporarily forgetting when I wrote that, that you'd already mentioned 250yds. You could still be right, or we could both be a little bit wrong.

Did you know/remember that, as well as a berth TC to that signal (which ran through the station platform, starting at or very near the box, and which no doubt was linked to the 'Train On Line' (TOL) indication of the Block), there was also, very definitely linked into the Block back to Cemetery, what I suppose would be referred to as a clearing point TC, running for (according to the box diagram) 440yds beyond the signal, and which held the rear Block needle at TOL.
This TC was rather necessary as the signal was sited just beyond the start of the RH curve heading towards New Barnet, and the location of the clearing point, apart from any question of being visually difficult to judge, was in any case I think obscured by the up island platform's buildings, so the back of DF trains went out of the 'bobby's sight soon after passing the signal.

So at something like 690yds' travel beyond the box before being able to start giving 'Train out Of Section' to the rear box, it was only a very short time before TOS was being received from New Barnet South, only 1386 yards away from OP box, IIRC. So if, on giving TOS to Cemetery (or wherever), another following 'Is Line Clear?' was immediately offered for the next train and could be accepted, the OP signalman doing that could barely be completed before, or was still being done when, TOS was being received from 'Barnet South'.

Re the loss of the Down Goods at OP, I think it went as part of the great simplification that was done of the OP-NBS-NBN area in Spring 1970, when most of what the three boxes had was reduced almost to the bare minimum for continued 4-track working ; I reckon, only a few weeks before the June '70 resignalling there came into use, closing OP and BS, and substituting a small 12-or-so switches panel for the lever frame at BN.

At Cemetery, despite that full-size arm of the third of the three Up Slow Homes (on its own separate post) your 'second Up Goods line No.2' was actually named the Up Reception, and was a "No Block" line, worked by 'telephone & prayer' to New Southgate (NS), with N.Southgate 'Top Yard's exit trailing into it along the way, using only handpoints.
I don't think there was ever an Up Goods Starter (a very rare animal on the GN Goods lines that I knew).
I certainly remember an ER-style bracket semaphore standing on the left of the Up Goods by the Oakleigh Road overbridge, and which had two dolls tall enough to take two arms one above the other, with the RH one being taller than the left, carrying the Up Slow Starter with NS's Distant underneath, but the left doll only had NS's UG Distant, lower than the US Distant beside it, with nothing at the top.
Now Cemetery once (to early '60s?) had an UF Starter with Inner Distant for NS, beside an US Starter and Distant, and in my pre-signalling youth, I remember seeing from a bus on the bridge, the UF and US pairs of arms of what must have been the dolls of a bracket structure also close to the bridge. It's easy to imagine that this UF/US bracket became the later US/UG signals-carrier, but whether it was always, even then, standing just outside the UG, or was moved over to there when the UF Starter & Distant was abolished, I don't know ; just as I don't know what NS's UG Distant & post looked like before that change, when the UF/US sigs.were on a bracket.
The UG / Up Reception, I don't think, got altered much if at all, before the slimming down started, ready for the 1972(?) resignalling the Cemetery/New Southgate area.

The Cemetery (C) Down Slow Home (No.2) that you describe, Micky, had always had that bracket, which I remember in about '67, still had its DS-Down Fast Home, No.3. It was later, after the DS-DF turnout (No.6) had gone, when the Oakleigh Park-New Barnet resignalling was done that the yellow/green colour-light head appeared under the DS Home. After that resignalling, OP's Down Fast 3-aspect Distant was retained as New Barnet (North) switch panel box (NB)'s Distant for the new NB507 (later the present K507 signal) (about 100 yards N.of OP platform).
But with OP's DS mechanical Distant gone, and the Slow lines having slower linespeeds, and their signalling only 3-aspect instead of 4 on the Fasts, a new distant of some sort was needed for the equivalent NB new Down Slow signal at OP (505).
So what would later become NB501 automatic signal, not far N. of Barnet Tunnel was also commissioned in June '70, but as signal C3, a 3-aspect Intermediate Block Home signal for Cemetery; [Remember, initially, until C and NS were abolished by resignalling; the working between Cemetery and NB was still Absolute Block.
So the C/L signal head under C2 Down Slow Home was put up to act as the Distant for C3, and although usually seen showing either no light when C2 was at Danger, or at green with C2 'off', it would show Yellow whenever C2 was 'off' while C3 was at Danger.

I can only think that you're right about the difference between the two CEMETERY box nameboards, arising after those box amalgamations were done by the LNER; - In these parts, bringing about closure of New Southgate 1, 2 & 3, Cemetery Down, Oakleigh Park Down and Up (the OP we knew was a new structure), and Barnet No.2.

[StevieG]

G'day Gents

Cemetery Box was always my favourite 'small box' so much so I built one? it's almost 30 years old, never finished (yet) has survived 10 house moves, including a move to OZ! and 10 years storage
manna

Yes, agree. Pretty fair representation of Cemetery, manna!

[Mickey]

Stevie as usual a lot of detail from you (which is good). With regards to CEMETERY i remember the 'up slow line starting signal' which was on a bracket post also carried on the same signal post an 'up goods line starting signal' as well but this was abolished at the sametime as the connection and stop signal on the straight wooden post that read from up slow line to up reception line via the up goods line which at a guess was sometime around 1968 or very early '69?. After that alteration where they abolished the up slow line to up goods line and up slow line to up reception line via the up goods line x2 full size stop signal arms they replaced those two stop signals with a 'miniture arm' that read up slow line to up goods line or reception line?. So that '2nd up goods line' was infact the 'up reception line' that lead into the sidings on the approach to NEW SOUTHGATE up sidings. Yes i just about remember the 'turn out' from down slow line to down fast line or could it have been that they had just replaced the 'old signal post' with the one that remained there until the closure of the s/box in February 1973. I believe i first saw CEMETERY s/box sometime around mid 1967?.
With out going into detail because you have done a 'very good job on describing the set up' in regards to how the TCs worked in relation to OAKLEIGH PARK's down fast line home/starting signal yes you are right (i never gave it any thought) for OAKLEIGH PARK to accept a train on the down fast line from CEMETERY s/box OAKLEIGH PARK would have to (in clear weather) have his 440yds 'clearing point' free beyond his down fast line home/starting signal before he could accept from CEMETERY and in fog & falling snow i would assume the OAKLEIGH PARK signalman would be working DOUBLE BLOCK with NEW BARNET SOUTH BOX anyway?.
Reference to 'goods line starting signals' i believe KNEBWORTH had an 'up goods line starting signal' that stood beside KNEBWORTH's up main line colour light starting signal.

[StevieG]

[ Post edited at approx. 23:10, 28/09/10 ; to identify incorrect text written from my memory only, and amend my info. to agree with detail notes taken from the actual lever badges. ]

Micky, As I said :

"I don't think there was ever an Up Goods Starter (a very rare animal on the GN Goods lines that I knew).
I certainly remember an ER-style bracket semaphore standing on the left of the Up Goods by the Oakleigh Road overbridge, and which had two dolls tall enough to take two arms one above the other, with the RH one being taller than the left, carrying the Up Slow Starter with NS's Distant underneath, but the left doll only had NS's UG Distant, lower than the US Distant beside it, with nothing at the top.

(That was in 1967, with no evidence of any recent alterations.)

A 1967 run-down of the whole Frame's functions (not exactly what was on the lever badges; but from memory only) :

1 Down Slow Distant - 2
2 Down Slow Home (Line Clear)
3 Down Slow Home to Down Fast - 6 (Line Clear)
4 Down Fast Distant - 5
5 Down Fast Home (Line Clear)
6 Down Slow-Down Fast points, & F.P. Lock, & Bar
7 spare
8 Up Fast Home - 11 ? * (Line Clear)
9 Up Fast Distants - 8
10 Up Fast-Up Slow points - 17
11 F.P. Lock No.10 Points; Unlocked / Locked ? * - 17
12 Up Slow Starter (Line Clear)
13 Up Fast Home to Up Slow - 17. 10. 11 ? * (12 Normal)
14 spare
15 Up Slow Home - 19 (12 Normal)
16 Up Slow Distant - 15. 12
17 Up Slow points, to Up Goods - 19
18 Trap Run Back Catch Points in Up Goods - 19. 17
19 F.P. Lock No.17 Points; Locked / Unlocked / Locked - NIL Or 17. 18
20 Up Slow Home to Up Goods - 19. 17. 18. 19. 22 (19 Back)
21 Up Goods-Up Reception points - 22
22 F.P. Lock & Bar, No.21 Points; Locked / Unlocked / Locked
23 Up Slow Home to Up Reception - 19. 17. 18. 19. 21. 22 (19 Back). 22. 21. (22 Back).

* - Can't recall for sure, but I reckon, unusually for the 'GN', 11 the FPLs stood Reverse (lever 'Out') when locking 10 points : Perhaps they were altered it had been the case (when Cemetery used to have four mechanical up distants - 'Splitters', including for UF-US and US-UG) that the UF-US 'turn-in' points also had an economical FPL, like 6, but was split onto 2 levers after the time that BR policy was to have FPLs normally 'Out' (unlocked when the lever's Normal).

There were two ground frames controlling Up Reception - Up Sidings [the STC (Standard Telephones and Cables) Co.] between the box and Oakleigh Road bridge - serving their loading platform, which, in part at least, must have been the old Great Northern Cemetery Co's platform. Both GFs were released by an Annetts Key that lived in an Annetts lock on the front of 21 lever. When 21 points were Reverse the Key couldn't be turned and withdrawn. When 21s were Normal, turning the Key and taking it out locked 21 lever Normal - the key could then be taken down by the shunter to release either of the ground frames for use, but obviously had to be returned to the box on completion.

[thesignalman]

The bracket that latterly carried the Up Slow Starter was set up differently in earlier years. Around 1940 there were indeed two Starter arms but the one on the right-hand bracket was the Up Fast Starter and the straight post carried the Up Slow Starter. Both had distants underneath for Southgate. It was once positioned between the Up Slow and Up Goods but it seems it grew legs and moved to be between the Up Goods and Reception at the time the arrangements changed.

I'm sorry Mick but I do not remember the colour scheme for Oakleigh Park box. It was the first signal box I ever set foot in but that's rather a long time ago now.

John

[Mickey]

CEMETERY's up slow starting signal which was mounted on that bracket signal the main post of which stood beside the up goods line (just before the road bridge) i always took it that the other arm (with NEW SOUTHGATE'S distant signal below it) was the 'up goods line starting signal' and was directly beside the up goods line this was prior to some signalling alterations taking place at CEMETERY either in 1968 or early '69?.
Thanks for the lever badges Stevie, yes the FPLs stood in the 'reverse' position (same as WELWYN) because when i payed an 'unoffical visit' to the box days after it had closed (door left open!) i vaguley remember the FPLs standing in the reverse position. Talking of 'facing points' does anyone every remember being 'turned in' off the up fast line at CEMETERY?. I have a 'vague memory' of maybe towards the end i may have been on a train that was but i wouldn't swear on it.
The re-painting of those 'five' boxes i have a feeling that OAKLEIGH PARK, NEW BARNET SOUTH BOX & NEW BARNET NORTH BOX was repainted in this 'Chocolate & Cream' colour scheme sometime in 1969?. As for NEW SOUTHGATE & CEMETERY i think they to were repainted in the same colour scheme but in 1970 or '71. To be honest these dates are just from 'memory' and i could be totally wrong?.

[Mickey]

There was a 'fair size yard' on the up side of the line with about 8-10 roads on the approach to OAKLEIGH PARK station from NEW BARNET which must have closed around 1970?. After the track was lifted the wasteland was developed into a housing estate which is still there today.
I presume that the up & down goods lines between NEW BARNET NORTH BOX/NEW BARNET SOUTH BOX/OAKLEIGH PARK s/boxes was worked under Permissive block regulations?.

[simonh]

I take it these are the signals you are discussing, perhaps this will help. The figures are from 1971, they come from a "Route Book" issued by the Divisional Manager's Office, KX. Actually I have scanned the whole book, which is all the running lines KX-Hitchin and am happy to share with people if someone can suggest a place to upload it. (About 17Mb).

The drawings seem to indicate Cemetery still open but Oakleigh Park closed (replaced by a ground frame?), does that accord with your memories?

Simon.

[Mickey]

Hello Simon, thanks for your notes from your 'route book' from 1971 of CEMETERY & OAKLEIGH PARK layouts. The signals on the 'up road' at CEMETERY that we are talking about was from a few years earlier around 1967/68 just prior to some signalling alterations done at CEMETERY around that time period maybe even early '69?. Your route book shows the 'miniture arm' that replaced the x2 full size stop signal arms that had read up slow line to up goods line and up slow line to up reception line before the aforementioned signalling alterations. As for OAKLEIGH PARK & NEW BARNET SOUTH BOX i thought they both closed around August of 1970 but Stevie i think says June (i think he did?) and he's probably right my date of August is just a 'feeling' that it was in August 1970.

[StevieG]

Thanks for those scans simonh.
They do largely show the situation that pertained after the 1970 resignalling of Oak.Pk./ New Barnet (which became the first stage of the whole KX Resignalling scheme), entailing closure of Oakleigh Park and New Barnet South boxes, and introduction of the first panel (Individual Function Switch type) in New Barnet North box [renamed New Barnet (NB)], many features of which we've mentioned in previous posts in this thread.
As you say, Oakleigh Park up yard became ground frame operated (released by NB), thogh hwthere it ever saw little use, or none at all, in this form, I can't remember.
I think the arrangements remained as shown here (unless OP GF was abolished along the way) until the Cemetery / New Southgate area was resignalled (1972?).

Those Route Books actually were not known to be completely accurate in every detail (Note that Cemetery's Up Slow Home is labelled as being "Southgate"s), but that's the only niggle that I am noticing at present.

Micky,
I don't recall the Up Goods/Reception changes to become Through Siding happening before the 1970 OP/NB work, but I suppose I can't be 100% confident on that, just from memory.

Regarding the earlier discussion about Oak.Pk.'s Down Fast home etc. :
Taking the 1960 Sectional Appendix distance between OP and NBS boxes of 1386 yards,
then looking at the 'Alan Godfrey' old O.S. map (of 1911/1912 I think), that shows signal posts ; and
by knowing where 'our' OP box was, later (it wasn't there in 1912 of course) ;
plus some re-scaling calculations : -
- I reckon that the DF Home was about 256 yards from the box (well done!), so
- it must have been about 696 yards from OP box to the termination of his DF 440-yard clearing point track circuit ; and that ; -
- from the termination of OP's DF 440-yard clearing point track circuit it was only ; -
- - about 542 yards to 'Barnet South's DF Homes,
- - about 690 yards to 'Barnet South' box.
So no wonder it seemed no time at all between when OP could start giving Train Out of Section, and 'Barnet South' wanting to give TOS to OP.

[ Edited to add a Postscript : Brainwave! Just remembered that I made a rough-ish, roll drawing of the whole line as at 20/02/70 (by showing all changes published in the SN Weekly Notice up to that date) : Just looked it out, and there had been no recent changes (since at least '67) on the up side at Cemetery at that time ; Only the Down Slow-DF points and signal had already been abolished.]