Kings Cross

[Mickey]

Deleted

[strang steel]

It takes a rather interesting route from Donny to Bradford, via Wakefield Brighouse and Halifax.

I might have to go on that just to get in some untravelled mileage.

[StevieG]

Blimey, how things have changed:-

http://youtu.be/iAYOP1Dd67U

If you mean 'how things have changed' along the route in general, you're dead right there.
if you were referring to KX, in case it helps 'get bearings', this GC train left from platform 9 (No.11 until the early '70s).
I wouldn't mind getting to my 'home' station in under a minute like that!

[strang steel]

Yes sorry, this thread seemed the most appropriate one to add the link, but I was really referring to the whole video.

[brsince78]

Some good pictures and an article on the rate of progress at Kings Cross in this month's Modern Railways. It is part of a focus section on the East Coast route in general.

[Mickey]

Deleted

[sandwhich]

Kings Cross which until not long ago could only be described as a dump and thats putting it politely. I worked there for 48 years so I know something about the area. Things started to change around 12 years ago when "gentrification" came to the area with people such as Clive Sinclair moving in (and he did live in a penthouse in York Way for some years, not to use on an occasional basis), property prices then went through the roof. With the rebuilding of St Pancras station the rebuilding of Kings Cross just had to follow and when its all done it should look good, and with a cafe society also gradually building up then the history of the area should become just that and not before time.
Just as an aside can anybody remember the mid 1970s when the Railway system was going through a hate period and proposals were being thought up to convert the rail system into roads which included converting the termini such as Kings Cross into bus stations, I know it sounds like a lost Goon Show script or even a rejected Monty Python one but these people were serious. Weve come along way since then.

[Mickey]

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[sandwhich]

Just think that these people were very serious indeed, although these ideas came up every so often until the 1990s, it was around 1976 when during a Panorama broadcast discussing this issue of Rail into Roads it was proved that a double decker bus every seven seconds would be required to replace all trains in the peak hours at Liverpool Street (Bus) Station (I really am not making this up). Multiply this around all terminal stations in London including Kings Cross and St Pancras! Need I say anymore. They were not of this world that I am convinced. Sad to say that at this time morale was very low on the railway system and there were many railway people that started to beleive this was going to happen in some form or another. But of couse it did not.

[strang steel]

I'm sure I remember this point being put by some young media upstart, to Sir Richard Marsh when he was BRB chairman.

His reply was along the lines of "a bus every 7 seconds?, why not couple them all together and you have a train, which will save hundreds of driver salaries, much more economic dont you think?"

This was followed by a rather stony silence.

He also walked up to a small boy trainspotter and asked him - "I hope you have a valid platform ticket", the poor little chap looked like he had crapped himself, surrounded as he was by BR dignitaries and cameras.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

I remember all those loony proposals, it was like listening to a gathering of aliens all jabbering away, trying to get there bullying ways across to the gullible politicians, who where thinking how they could get there snouts in the trough, it's always amazed me that these people are allowed to breed and vote

I also used to think to myself, of all these double decker buses, heading to Kings Cross bus station, and taking the top deck off as they passed through Copenhagen and Gasworks Tunnels, Reg Varney would have loved it

manna

[Blink Bonny]

Ay up!

Maybe we could have imported an Aussie solution. You know - road trains!

[Mickey]

Deleted

[sandwhich]

Yes much is changing up York Way, there are just some parts of the old Goods Yard still left and they will remain because they are listed buildings and new costruction is going on around them. The arches that carried York Way across old railway lands were demolished several years ago with the road rerouted at ground level to the west of the old arches and no sign of Top Shed can now be found, and of course High Speed One crosses the area. I was always in awe of Eurostars wending their way from St Pancras to Paris/Brussels. If someone had forecast this 40 years ago they might have been deemed "to have lost it"

[manna]

G'Day Gents

I always have a chuckle to myself now when somebody, mentions 'Top Sheds' turntable, back in the 70's when all the masts for electrification were being concreted in place, special 'masting' trains were run, a machine mounted on the train would, drill a hole then put a large pipe onto the hole, then we would move forward until the concrete mixers were in position, and then they would fill the holes with concrete, at the end of the day we would take the train back to, Kings Cross goods yard, pulling up next to 'Top Sheds old turntable, which had been dug out, we would then move backwards and forwards as required, while the train crew cleaned out the cement mixers, all the old waste would be dumped into the old pit, that old TT pit would probably have weighed in at about 500 tons, by the time electrification was finished

manna