L.N.E.R. stations, s/boxes & gas lighting

[Mickey]

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[manna]

G'Day Gents & Micky

Sandy was gas lit until rebuilding.

Palmers Green was gas lit in the early 60's, and so was Luton, Bute St.

manna

[Mickey]

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[Mickey]

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[R. pike]

Rothley station is gas lit as is the signalbox. Worth a visit.

[Blink Bonny]

Ay up!

Oakworth station on the Worth Valley is also entirely gas lit. A lovely gentle light to work by I recall.....

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Not only were the stations lit by gas many of the surrounding suburbs were also gas lit, as a child I lived on the Noel Park estate in Wood Green, where all the streets were gas lit, the gas lamps were the Victorian type with the bar (for the ladder) jutting out one side, which were particularly handy if you could get a bike tyre hooked over it, they made a good swing !!

I can also remember the day when the council started putting up new concrete lampposts for the replacements of the old gas lamps, so instead of a white hissing lamp we had an orange light instead, and not half as much fun

manna

[StevieG]

" .... I'm not sure as well if NEW SOUTHGATE s/box was still gas lit in the early 1970s?. "

I started being allowed visits in there, in about '68. Can't recall whether there were any residual gas lamps, but there was certainly electric lighting and that's all I ever saw in use.
I've a strong feeling the platforms were still gas-lit though.

" .... To operate a station gas lamp- .... "

" .... a Porter/Railman would turn the station lamps on or off by the means of a long pole with a hook on the end of it where the Porter/Railman standing at the base of the lamp standard would reach up with the hook & pole and pull down the chain that was attached to the gas mantle to operate the gas jet to either light the lamp or extinguish the lamp. .... "

I thought that the mantle was just the central, fragile 'netting fabric'-like part which lit up with great brilliance when the lamp was 'on', and so I think that the chains (which connected to either end of a cenre-pivotted lever) operated the main valve controlling the gas supply.

[strang steel]

A lot of Lincolnshire rural stations were gas lit through the 1960s, but I am not sure when the lamps were converted to electricity, or replaced.

Slightly O/T but my grandmother's house had gas lamps in the ceiling until quite late in the 1960s. I used to stay there quite regularly, and remember Autumn evenings reading a book to the sound of the hissing, spitting gas light.

[giner]

Oh, and the joy of hunting around in the dark for a shilling when the light went out. The youngsters on here must be wondering what the hell we're on about.

[Mickey]

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[Mickey]

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[52D]

Slightly off topic but still lamps and cabins, ISTR a parafin lamp at Littlemill iust North of Alnmouth being pressurised by a bicycle pump before being lit. Please tell me i remember correctly or is senility creeping in.

[StevieG]

Slightly off topic but still lamps and cabins, ISTR a parafin lamp at Littlemill iust North of Alnmouth being pressurised by a bicycle pump before being lit. Please tell me i remember correctly or is senility creeping in.

Not at all sure if this is what you're referring to, but might it have been a Tilley lamp, such as once in use in great numbers by engineering staff working at night? - (Hand-carryable unit with a mantle-like light source in the lantern at the topand control valve knob just below, and flat-bottomed pressure-holding vessel section at the bottom, incorporating a small plunger which had to be pumped numerous times, rather bicycle pump-style, to create the necessary pressure to vaporise the liquid fuel.)

'Down south', at Crews Hill box on 'the Hertford loop' [one of several boxes/Block Huts on this line only switched-in for the Mon.-Fri. 'peak' services or diversions from the ECML between Wood Green and Langley Jn.(Stevenage)], when open in the hours of darkness, the only light in the box was provided by a Tilley lamp, placed on the narrow, level section along the top rear of the booking desk.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Remember the Tilly lamps used on PW jobs over the weekend, you would often see a dozen or more being lit on a engineers wagon, and then being hung on stakes along side the track, much nicer than those noisy generators that came later.

manna