What's going on 'ere?

[giner]

Just nosing around and came across this: http://www.rcts.org.uk/features/archive ... ch=&page=0

I hadn't seen this photo before and, having spent an awful lot of time around this location, I can't ever recall seeing a loco and train in this position so far out on the up main. With the brake van visible, I'm wondering if the train is about to take the long crossover to the down side with another loco at the other end of the train (not visible in the photo).

Any of you GN fellas (Stevie, micky, et al.) with any idea?

[Mickey]

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[StevieG]

Well I think either of those explanations could be right.

If giner was nearly right, but if the loco was moving south, the possible absence of a loco at the other end could mean that the engine's setting off light for Langley, to cross over there and come bck on a Down line, then cross back over at SS onto the train, to complete a run-round move.

[giner]

Thanks, gents. That's a couple of interesting scenarios you put there. No kidding, Steve, all the way up to Langley for a run around would be his only alternative - a fair old way, though.

I thought it was probably a Sunday, micky, and that maybe a bit of ballasting work on the up slow might have been in progress. If that was the case, and any up traffic was diverted on to the down main, I'm struggling to think where that change would have been made. Hitchin? Then there's the question of where an up train would get back on to the up side beyond Stevenage South.

That was one of our favourite spotting locations. The houses on the right are in Green St. and a footpath used to run right along the up side of the line as far as Chequers Bridge Rd., about a half mile to the south. Also, right close to the up side buttress of the bridge in the photo was what we knew as 'the rock', a big granite slab perched right above the up slow.

[StevieG]

" .... I thought it was probably a Sunday, micky, and that maybe a bit of ballasting work on the up slow might have been in progress. If that was the case, and any up traffic was diverted on to the down main, I'm struggling to think where that change would have been made. Hitchin? Then there's the question of where an up train would get back on to the up side beyond Stevenage South. .... "

Well if that was the game, it would've been an 'N'-shaped reverse shunt at Hitchin South box I suppose, then back over to the up side, again at Langley crossover (which went from the Down Slow to the Up Siding, with trailing slips in the DF, UF, and US (levers 1-9).

[giner]

No Sunday picnic for anyone involved in that little lot. Cheers, Steve.

[Mickey]

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[StevieG]

" .... I spent a couple of weekday afternoons during the warm sunny summer of 1972 in STEVENAGE NORTH box with a relief-siganlman called Mo Canter (ex-L.N.E.R. man) working the lever frame & block to the passing of Deltic and Brush type 4 hauled express trains made up of rakes of BR Mk1 & Mk2 coaches right out side the box windows (remember how close the box use to be to the trackside and how fairly low to the ground box was as well). .... "

Was SN like Southgate and Wood Green 4 Micky? - Every time a fast went by right outside on the 'Up Main', the continuous pressure build-up in front of the loco made the box structure sway backwards an inch or three for a second, then back again?