KX train diagrams in the 1970s.

[Hermit 109]

Just found the diagram Micky, King's Cross 3 link 194 duty : 12.55 3N09 K.X- Peterborough / 18.17 1A33 Peterborough-KX

[Mickey]

Deleted

[strang steel]

Just found the diagram Micky, King's Cross 3 link 194 duty : 12.55 3N09 K.X- Peterborough / 18.17 1A33 Peterborough-KX

That would explain why I cant find the working in any of my Grantham notes (those that survived my mother's 'cleanouts').

[Hermit 109]

Micky, I can give you No. 3 link turns c1970 in abbreviated form, as you know 3 link was the old night goods link :-
174 : 20.20 1A66 K.X-23.14 DON / 01.43 1A61 DON-04.39 K.X
179 : 02.00 1C16 K.X-04.40 GRAN / 05.40 3A01 GRAN-06.33 LINCOLN ST M / 07.25 1A01 L. ST. M.-09.52 K.X
180 : 16.05 1N21 K.X-18.18 DON / 19.10 1A41 DON-21.45 K.X
181 : 04.00 1N02 K.X-06.05 GRAN / 07.20 3E05 GRAN-11.40 K.X
187 SAT ONLY : PASS BY 23.55 TO GRAN / 02.47 1A61 GRAN-04.39 K.X
189 : 14.30 4S04 K.X GOODS-16.36 WESTWOOD / 18.01 1B04 P'BORO-19.24 K.X
188 SAT ONLY : 21.05 2C44 K.X-23.05 P'BORO / 02.04 1E89 P'BORO-03.36 K.X
189 SAT ONLY : 12.30 2C24 K.X-14.10 HUNTINGDON / 3C24 14.55 HUNT-P'BORO / LIGHT ENGINE-HORNSEY LOCO
190 : 09.00 7N44 K.X GOODS-12.35 N.ENGLAND / 13.45 3B23 N.ENGLAND-16.16 BOUNDS GN
190 SAT ONLY : 12.15 1A28 K.X-14.39 DON / RETURN AS REQUIRED
193 : 12.20 1N93 K.X-13.39 P'BORO / RETURN AS REQUIRED
194 ; 12.55 3N09 K.X-16.48 P'BORO / 18.17 1A33 P'BORO-19.30 K.X
195 : 22.45 1N01 K.X-24.00 P'BORO / 00.54 3B18 P'BORO-04.45 BOUNDS GN
198 : 01.15 1A04 K.X-02.27 P'BORO / 04.37 3E09 WESTWOOD-06.25 K.X GOODS
199 SAT ONLY : 19.40 1A60 K.X-21.32 GRAN / RETURN AS REQD
TO BE CONTINUED ON A SEPARATE MESSAGE FOR FEAR OF TAKING UP TOO MUCH SPACE

[Hermit 109]

KINGS CROSS NO 3 LINK FREIGHT AND SUNDAY DUTIES C1970

552 : 20.10 4N08 K.X GOODS-22.16 WESTWOOD / 23.37 3E23 WESTWOOD-01.15 K.X GOODS
553 : 21.17 4E53 FERME PK-23.59 GRAN / RETURN AS REQD
555 W.O : 19.20 4N45 FINS PK-21.46 WESTWOOD / RETURN AS REQD
555 SAT ONLY 17.00 4N45 DALSTON E. JCT-19.36 N. ENGLAND / RETURN AS REQD
564 : 23.55 3S07 HORNSEY-02.19 GRAN / RETURN AS REQD
565 : 23.00 4N18 FINS PK-01.30 WESTWOOD / 03.04 5E06 N. ENGLAND-05.38 FERME PK

SUNDAY DUTIES

218 : 22.45 1N01 K.X-01.35 DON / 03.26 1A73 DON-06.32 K.X
223 : 19.10 2C40 K.X-21.15 P'BORO / 01.38 1A53 P'BORO-03.04 K.X
224 MAY-SEP : 07.55 1A10 HOLLOWAY CLB-10.37 DON / RETURN AS REQD
227 MAY-SEP : TRAVEL PASS BY 12.00 TO DON / 15.50 1A29 DON-19.00 HOLLOWAY CLB
228 : 18.05 1A52 K.X-19.43 GRAN ? RETURN AS REQD

No 3 link always got the left overs from the top two links

[Mickey]

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[Hermit 109]

Hello Micky, you sent me running back to my diagrams to check 555 duty, it was me abbreviating the duties that was at fault. the diagram read :
K.X Pass. Loco 16.00 L.E
16.30 Dalston E Jct. 17.00 4N45
19.36 N. England
Relieved by PE 490
Return as reqd

Can't remember much about it, but obviously changed engines at Dalston for some reason. When the Freightliners started running big time out of Stratford, King's Cross had numerous turns relieving Stratford men at Finsbury Park & normally working through to Doncaster. I guess my copies of 3 link diagrams were at a transitory period. I can remember waiting in the shunters cabin at N.England on cold winter nights, jam packed with men, coal stove glowing red hot and atmosphere you had to fight through. Happy days!
Talking of Stratford, yup, that's where everyone was sent for formal boiler training, I can remember walking through that passageway from the station to the depot. I presume that the 2012 Olympics will be played where we were playing with steam heating.
Incidently, somewhere I read that Baby Deltics were used on the widened lines, I doubt that is true as any loco going "down the hole" had to be fitted with LT trip apparatus and I don't recall the Baby Deltics having it fitted. I do remember they had a habit of setting light to the boiler exhaust though. On one occasion running into Finsbury Park in the rush hour I wondered why the punters were all looking up at the roof of the engine. When we stopped I took a peek and was met by flames about 3ft high coming out the exhaust. Needless to relate, the boiler was shut down and the punters had a cold ride home. The Baby Deltics were never a great success like their big brother, but the Hitchin crews seemed to like them.

[rob237]

Diagram 189 14:30 4S04 Kings Cross goods yard-(Peterbrough) Westwood. This was the famous ''Scotch goods''?.

Always thought that the 'Scotch Goods' ran non-stop from KX Goods to York Dringhouses?
Cheers
Robt P.

[Hermit 109]

The Scotch Goods traditionally left King's Cross Goods around 15.30 and was distinguished from other goods trains by being a King's Cross top link duty worked by an A4 between London and Newcastle, the crew and the A4 returned the next day on the up Flying Scotsman.
By 1973 when I was in the top link, the Scotch Goods had evolved into a Freightliner leaving King's Cross Goods at 18.50 4S82 non-stop to Newcastle, where again the crew went into lodge and returned the next day on the up Flying Scotsman. The train crew diagram is reproduced below

154 duty sign on 17.40, Mobilise loco 46 (GD) King's Cross Goods 18.50 4S82
Relieved Newcastle 00.17

LODGE

sign on 11.22, Relieve 55 Newcastle 11.55 1E05
King's Cross 15.42

[StevieG]

( Edited at around 23:00 15/12/10 to correct Down/Up line direction details, following subsequent posts by others.)

Presumably pre-4S82, I seem to recall being told that 'the Scotch Goods' (the only non-suburban, pre-4-character train numbering system train identity that I've heard of sufficiently often to recall that it was '266 Down' in old money) became 6S64, still leaving 'KG' at or around its traditional afternoon departure time; the light engine to work it coming in as, unsurprisingly, 0S64.

That 555 diagram, re-engining at Eastern Junction (Dalston) does seem intriguing : I can't dispute the details as being what was quoted in the diagram, but having been with the LMR S&T around 1970 when the little remaining pointwork there was simplified, I don't recall there being a signalled provision for putting a loco back onto a Down (westbound) train there (Dalston was a tricky area for what was Up and what was Down: Camden Jn.- Western Jn.(Dalston) - Broad Street was Up, and so was Western Jn./Dalston Junction - Eastern Jn.- Victoria Park - Poplar).

The Eastern - Dalston Junction curve had been lifted by then; all that was left was the lead connecting the eastbound ('Up') line, just on the E.J. side of Dalston Lane overbridge, across to the two 'down' sidings, with a slip to the Down line where that line was crossed.
After we'd finished, the sidings were accessed by a facing point from the 'Down' line, and there was a simple trailing crossover between the main lines on the Victoria Park (Stratford) side of Dalston Lane bridge : Fortunately the old Eastern Jn. Down line LMSR colour-light home signal array (knicknamed 'the Christmas Tree' by my then colleagues), still with three signal heads (and a 'banner' for Calling-On: I think both lines between EJ and WJ had Permissive Freight working authorised) could still protect the revised layout so didn't need moving (else it would probably have been replaced by a standard type) : - It had had a fourth head when the East curve was still open (it's complicated, but I can explain if anyone wants it).

Come to think about it, I'm unsure that there was a signalled move that could put a loco back onto a train from the Stratford direction standing at Western Jn. either, but can't say any more definitely as I knew even less about that box.
Of course, putting an engine back onto a train at either box might have been done; unsignalled, but with the 'bobby's authority.

On refering to loco types, in KX Divisional Control in 1974, one of the main loco controllers, Len 'the Judge' Moore (whom 'hq1' has referred to in one of the other LNER forums) and I think one other, always, even though by then we were into the TOPS-numbering days of loco classes, still referred to Brush Type 4 / Cl.47s by their quoted horsepower rating, as 'twenty-seven fifty's ; similarly, EE type 4 / Cl.40s, as 'two thousand's, and far more commonly Class 08 shunters as 'three-fifty's.
This method didn't seem to be in general use in the Control office (except for '3-50's), but I never heard anyone seem to refer to it or regard it as being quaint, so could this have been a common alternative, in the earlier days of diesels perhaps?

[Mickey]

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[strang steel]

4S04 was certainly a regular freight service in the 1960s. It used to pass north through Grantham at about 4p.m. and had a variety of motive power, although quite often a class 46.

I saw a Deltic on the train once, and class 40s were regular performers although the first 120 or so did not have headcode boxes so I am just making an educated guess that a down fitted freight at that time of day would be it.

[hq1hitchin]

4S04 was certainly a regular freight service in the 1960s. It used to pass north through Grantham at about 4p.m. and had a variety of motive power, although quite often a class 46.

I saw a Deltic on the train once, and class 40s were regular performers although the first 120 or so did not have headcode boxes so I am just making an educated guess that a down fitted freight at that time of day would be it.

Possibly there was some fault with that particular Deltic that day resulting in it being restricted to freight work only? Certainly by the late 1960s/early 1970s they were virtually prohibited on freights, including liner trains, unless special dispensation was first obtained from the relevant Regional HQ Officer at York - the name Tom Jackson seems to come to mind.

Class 40s, or 'Two thousands' as some of the older hands still called them then, didn't seem really at home on engineers trains. Never seemed quite as responsive to moving a train up a wagon length or two, or setting back an engine length, as the indigenous Brush Type 2. When the Kings X Suburban Electrification Scheme started in 1972, authority was given for the works trains out of KX Goods Elecrification Depot (ironically enough on the site of Top Shed) to haul another loco marshalled extreme rear in order to save a path and also so that the train could be quickly divided into two once inside the relevant engineers possession and work separately before being coupled up together again in the afternoon and return as one back to the Goods Yard. It worked after a fashion for a few months but wasn't at all popular with the locomen being knocked about at the back of a train of four wheeled wagons so was quietly dropped and the second engine used to come down signalled as a light engine in time for the start of the weekday possession, which was normally 10:00hrs.

[thesignalman]

I can't dispute the details as being what was quoted in the diagram, but having been with the LMR S&T around 1970 when the little remaining pointwork there was simplified, I don't recall there being a signalled provision for putting a loco back onto an xxx (westbound) train there (for xxx, substitute the actual direction: Dalston was a tricky area for what was Up and what was Down: Camden Jn.- Western Jn.- Broad Street was Up, and so was Poplar - Eastern Jn.- Dalston Junction, but on the bit of the original E&WID&BJR, between Eastern and Western Jns., I honestly don't remember which was which).

snip

Come to think about it, I'm unsure that there was a signalled move that could put a loco back onto a train from the Stratford direction standing at Western Jn. either, but can't say any more definitely as I knew even less about that box.
Of course, putting an engine back onto a train at either box might have been done; unsignalled, but with the 'bobby's authority.

You are absolutely right, there was no signalled move at either junction to put locomotives on trains but of course that was a different era to the present day and unsignalled shunt moves were not unusual at any location. Changes at Western Junction were relatively uncommon (apart from the run-rounds of trains like the Marshmoor corn-flakes which continued after Eastern Junction box went, using a ground frame) but Eastern had been changing engines since (it seemed) time began. Westbound trains were, I think, usually re-engined inside the yard.

John

PS - it was Down all the way from Poplar or Broad Street to Richmond. Simples!

[Mickey]

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