The diesel era 1960s, 70s & 80s

[Mickey]

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[StevieG]

A Class 47 hauling block enders was not as rare as you would think, during the late 60s very early 70s there were a couple of morning workings from Hertford North one to the Cross and the other to Broad Street which were rostered for Class 47 diesels but none in the evening peak hours. By the early 70s all Broad Street workings became dmu until the GN ceased using this station in 1976. I also remember one morning in 1966 a Deltic yes most definitely a Deltic hauling a quad art set, yes also most definitely, from Welwyn Garden City to Kings Cross, how this came about I cannot now remember but I can assure you it most certainly did, must have shook the passengers up a bit on those rattletraps.

Going perhaps part-way towards an opposite situation, during the mid-1970s, come weekday a.m. peak service time at Peterborough, very occasionally a combination of circumstances left the place so drastically short of power for the Up hauled 'Peterborough Parly' trains to King's Cross that for at least one, we (Control) had two options - cancel, or run it hauled by a small Sulzer (by then, Class 25), with P'boro' men at the helm (KX didn't sign them : And I don't think Hitchin did either).

Naturally (in those days at least) cancelling was the last resort, so a 25 would end up making a rare appearance at KX; arriving some minutes late of course, but it least the train ran.

[Mickey]

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[strang steel]

This was mentioned before 3-4 years ago (if anyone never saw it?) but i use to like this train that was always worked by a Deltic and run on a Sunday afternoon back around the 1969-71 era although this train may have run before 1969 and a year after 1971?.

The train was made up of about 25-30 vehicles mostly BGs & GUVs hauled as said by a Deltic (we had a train reporting number for it from hq1hitchin) and that was a train and a half in length!!!, the Deltic would be standing in the Up slow line platform at WGC with the platform starting signal off (no.47) and the back end of the train would be standing back passed Lyles overbridge near the Knightsfield overbridge near Digswell!!.

This train use to come Up the slow line from Digswell and arrive in WGC sometimes usually between 5:00-6:00pm on a Sunday afternoon in the Up slow line platform to put down & pick up parcels and things before setting off again Up the slow line towards Hatfield, i think this train originated somewhere way Up the main line from either York or Newcastle i can't remember?.

Was it 3E09 Micky?

I saw that one Sunday afternoon south of Grantham in Oct 1968, and according to my notes it consisted of 32 parcels vehicles, but sadly on that date it had D1103 on the front.

[sandwhich]

Yes Stevie G and Mickey there were some strange sights during these times. I do remember a class 33 turning up at the cross on an east coast passenger working one afternoon (Peterborough men were trained on this traction). It must have covered for a failure and probably been an earlier failure itself on the Uddingstone cement train which was normally double headed. As regards the block enders they did work at some odd times on the inner suburbans Mon-Fri, there was one in the early 70s that left KX at 20 30 for Hertford North and the ran ECS to Gordon Hill for overnight stabling. Finsbury Park CS was the main stabling and servicing point for this coaching stock which closed on electrification but overnight it was scattered all over the place, New Barnet, Potters Bar, Hatfield as well as WGC. Hertford North and as said Gordon Hill.

[StevieG]

" .... As regards the block enders .... " " .... Finsbury Park CS was the main stabling and servicing point for this coaching stock which closed on electrification but overnight it was scattered all over the place, New Barnet, Potters Bar, Hatfield as well as WGC. Hertford North and as said Gordon Hill. "

.....Plus, in the late '60s anyway, one at Cuffley.

[Mickey]

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[Mickey]

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[manna]

G'Day Gents

I can also recall dropping off the block ender set at Gordon Hill in the evening and have worked said set from there at another time, I seem to recall that set was stabled on the down bay platform.

I can't ever remember seeing a cl47 at Hertford Nth, but then again I never went there in the 60's, all of the block ender sets from Hertford Nth went to Moorgate, unless someone knows differently.

As you say Micky, they were scattered everywhere, I can remember, when there was a shortage of DMU's, block enders running for most of the day, which caused no end of problems, with all the cl 31's handling the suburban services and 46's 47's and Deltics working the ECS, even the Holloway pilot got a run that day. into the Cross.

manna

[Mickey]

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[StevieG]

Thanks for Hatfield sandwhich, one which I'd forgotten.

At Gordon Hill, pre-resignalling, the additional Down line and platform through the station, while looking like an extra platform, was actually signalled as a siding, having no direct running facing access from either direction, and only ground discs as exit signals at both ends; to the Down road at the north end and across to the Up line at the south.
But the period of resignalling and electrification, though seeing the north end connection severed and substituted by a buffer stop, brought full bay platform status to the line with direct running access/egress at the south end.
However, during my time in KX box at least [1979-89], the Down Bay saw little actual use, and I've a feeling had no trains booked into it during that period, and became one of the resignalling's earliest changes to end up being secured out of use, with the track later removed, though its overhead wiring pointlessly remained for some years afterwards. Perhaps this resulted from the fact that the resignalling also created direct Down facing access into the Up Bay for the first time, and, for non-passenger use, also the means of Down ECS to form Up peak services being able to run straight into the Up Main platform, both coinciding with the (by then at least) non-existence of the originally planned four trains per hour service between Gordon Hill and Moorgate; Two from Hertford + two Gordon Hill starters (did this frequency of service ever run in reality? [excluding peaks] ).

You're right about one set stabling at New Barnet, sandwhich and Micky.
Weekday evenings, M-Th., 'Barnet North' box crossed it into the "Local Siding", between the Up Slow and Up Goods : (I've a feeling the same may have happened on Fris. as well, meaning that that set would've remained over the weekend for Monday morning). Presumably in winter time, the morning Up working's boiler-fitted loco would've been booked to arrive early enough to steam heat the train adequately before it was drawn out at the south end and set-back into the Up Slow platform.
North box had a lever-operated (No.44) Clearance Bar about half way along 'the Local', and this had to be pulled to Reverse before he could clear any Down lines disc for this propelled move to take place.
(One or two signalmen at least, disliked having to walk around the reversed 44 lever while moving back and forth along the frame all night (& all weekend?), so as soon as reasonably possible after the train was crossing, the disc for shunting across was put back to Danger so that he could riskily then also push 44 back to Normal, making the bar rise and fall again just before the leading wheels of the train reached it(/I).

A rather earlier part-memory, of this route's 'diesel dawn' days I think (about 1961?), is of being on 'Barnet's fully-enclosed (with smoke-'fogged' or uncleaned glazing) station footbridge, above the Down Slow and Goods roads, and seeing, through a broken pane, an early D50xx Sulzer propelling a rake, quite possibly quad-arts, from the DS platform back into one of what I later learned were Nos. 1 & 2 Down Sidings; and this was when Nos.3 & 4 sidings were also still there and usable, accessible only from the Down Goods via points about halfway through the station just before the long loading dock by the DG was reached.

In similar times I think I also recall seeing one member of another of the 'pilot' loco classes a D53xx 'Crompton' making a similar move there.

[Mickey]

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[StevieG]

" Yes i thought they stabled a set in the Down bay platform at Gordon Hill but i can't recall if there was a Up bay platform as well?. Like you manna i never ventured much around the Hertford branch in the late 1960s & early 1970s it was only around 1974/75 that i went around there on a number of occasions and by then it was nearly all x3 aspect colour light signalling along the branch except at Bounds Greens s/box (just north of Wood Green station) where there was still a few semaphore signals, ground disc-signals and mechanical points but both on the Gordon Hill & Hertford north NX panels it was 100% colour light signalling by then. .... "

The Up Bay was a long standing feature Micky, having been on the 26-lever frame when it was all mechanical (15/16 points/lockbar and 18 Starting signal, I think).

In your later-described period, Gordon Hill did get an NX panel. rather narrow for its length, in the front of the box where the then-removed lever frame had been.
But Hertford North's panel, while it was in the box (and for many years after its transfer to the relay room when KX took over), was an I.F.S. type, dating from 1971, when it only controlled the Hertford station/sidings area, complete with two new B&W plastic Absolute Block instrument/bells, on a table also where the 65-lever frame had been, and only used about 17 switches.
But it gained about 9 more switches when the Hertford-Cuffley and Hertford-Langley resignalling stages came in from '72 on, replacing the 'Absolute' with Track Circuit Block working.

[strang steel]

Finally there was always a number of sets stabled at Finsbury Park in the Up sidings north of the station.

As can be seen here http://www.flickr.com/photos/sirbrianro ... 978887556/ Micky.

[Mickey]

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