Kings Coss Passenger Loco

[Mickey]

It was fairly congested with locos on most days.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

The turn table pit was still there (probably still is) it was just filled in and tracks laid over it, if you went to the North end of the buildings on the pit road, you'd see the edging of the turn table.

Remember the sign Micky, white letters on a 'Red' background, ......no idea what was on it

manna

[Mickey]

I vaguely recall that there was a large wooden notice board mounted on a straight concrete post up near where the old turntable use to be situated until the 1970s but i can't recall what was written on it?.

[kudu]

I vaguely recall that there was a large wooden notice board mounted on a straight concrete post situated up near where the old turntable use to be situated until the 1970s but i can't recall what was written on it?

It said "BEWARE OF POST".

Kudu

[strang steel]

There are a few photos in this collection, which are taken from York Road and therefore have the passenger loco as a background.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/16179216@N ... otostream/

[Dave Cockle]

Talking about oil contamination of the track in "Passenger Loco", after the track was lifted in the York Road and Hotel Curves, I took a walk
into trackless Hotel Curve and found my passage was barred about 300yds in by a vast pool of water topped with diesel oil. I reckon all the oil spillage from Passenger Loco had seeped down that way over the years. The tunnel reeked of diesel at this point.

My walk was courtesey of a project manager for the scheme to create Thameslink route by re-opening the Farrindon - Blackfriars Link.
At the time he was overseeing the track lowering where the Midland line intercepted the City Widened Lines. We walked up the trackless York Road curve and then ventured into the abandoned spur that was intended to link into the Metropolitan Line westwards towards Euston. Progress could not be made very far into this long abandoned tunnel as it had been filled in with spoil.

Another abandoned tunnel still in situ is the former Northern City Line tunnels north of Drayton Park. These are still the responsibility of Network Rail. The Northbound tunnel is the longer one as a portion of the Southbound one is used by Southbound Victoria line tube trains.
I believe a portion of the abandoned Northbound tunnel was used as a head shunt for engineers trains working on the Northen City Line when it was being converted for the GN Electrics to run that way. Who remembers the battery locos that were used on the NCL works
trains. Converted from former North London line electric stock I believe.

[Andy W]

Strang, that's a top, top shot you linked us to - No 7 as well, the FP depot favourite. You can clearly see the NCL buildings behind the pass loco with the actual workshop on the right hand side. Micky, they were built as "railway" buildings (even if they did deal with vans and lorries) and in the 1980's the workload there was still mostly railway, with some NCL and Evening Standard vehicles as well and most of the staff still thought of themselves as "railway". They didn't like the NCL management one bit!

There was some switchgear just inside Hotel Curve and two of my colleagues at the ODM had an unpleasent shock one day in the early 1980's when they found a stiff down there. He was a tramp who had gone in there and (fortunately for my mates) just died the previous night. Not that they were too worried, they were anticipating a paid day off attending the Coroners Court!

Dave, the Battery locos were indeed ex 501 motors and Hornsey had two sets of two cars. They didn't travel too far and were primarily used on the Northern City and at KX Stn. They weren't too popular as they weren't used enough and gave a few problems as a result. One set got NSE livery in my time at HX EMU - it looked quite odd. I have the pictures somewhere.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Remember the Battery/Electric locos, worked on one, one Saturday night, about half way to Moorgate, is it Old St !! I smoked in them days and flicked my butt out the window and set the dust alight on the cast iron segments, we ended up using the distilled water, for the batteries to put the smoldering dust out, OOPPS !

manna

Not a very comfy night, very small seat, no arm rests, and it got very hot !!

[Mickey]

Yeah i remember the L.T. Battery locos usually hauling transfer 1938 northern line stock through FINSBURY PARK station to & from East Finchley depot around 1969-70, also on several occasions going through YORK ROAD platform and coming up through platform no.16 at KINGS CROSS.

[StevieG]

Yeah i remember the L.T. Battery locos usually hauling transfer 1938 northern line stock through FINSBURY PARK station to & from East Finchley depot around 1969-70, also on several occasions going through YORK ROAD platform and coming up through platform no.16 at KINGS CROSS

Micky, Andy W isn't referring to the LT Battery locos you're talking about, but four ex-NLL Class 501 (full-size gauge) vehicles, converted to work in pairs as 'single' battery traction locos, and based at Hornsey EMU Depot.

Andy,
Do I recall at least oneattempt to get one(pair) to Hitchin to do a little local work, but the batteries became exhausted before it could get there?

[strang steel]

On the 25th Feb 1978, I had a guided tour of Hornsey EMU depot and amongst the 312 and 313 classes were 975407/8/9/10

A photo of one (although by then renumbered) is here:-

http://www.departmentals.com/photo/97705

[Mickey]

The LT Battery locos were in a dark coloured livery.

[John C]

Hi,

I'd love to see the pic/s of the 501 Andy, as I had a foot in both camps; ie secondman at KX before the electrification got fully underway (though I did do a couple of s/m stints on a wiring train in one of the tunnels - can't recall which, but feel it may have been Wood Green or Hadley Wood; blimey, the old memory's starting to go now; was there a tunnel at New Southgate? If there was, it could have been there).

I went back to Watford as a driver in '73 and worked on the 501's before leaving BR in 1980. I did see a couple of them converted to battery units for use on Merseyrail, but never realised there were also some done for the NCL electrification.

With ref to the Pass Loco., when an diesel came on shed, didn't old Siderod, or whoever else was on duty at the time, hold up one side of a double sided board that showed either "PIT" or "SHED",or similar, according to which road he wanted you to put the engine on?

John C.

[John C]

No sooner the word than the deed!

I hadn't realised that Strang Steel had posted them pics. Our messages must have crossed in the post!

Excellent. Thanks,

JC.

[Dave Cockle]

The last use made of the converted Class 501 "Battery Locos" was during the constructon of the Stansted Airport Branch.

They were used on engineers trains in the long tunnel that passes beneath the airport runway.

The locos were out based at Bishops Stortford and battery charging facilities were specially installed there for them.
I know the B'Stortford drivers enjoyed the jobs they got on the engineers trains as it made a change from their usual EMU work.