Hatfield station

[Mickey]

Two views of Hatfield station with one picture taken during the late 1960s and the other picture taken in the 2000s.

The picture below was taken from the public footbridge located towards the south end of the station that spans all the running lines as a blue Deltic hauled express heads south along the Up fast line towards Kings Cross possibly around 1968 or 1969?. Note the buffer stops in the long gone bay platform to the right of the picture.
http://www.rail.co.uk/images/1392/origi ... eld-he.gif

The picture below features Hatfield station in the 2000s and taken from the same vantage point as the picture in the 1960s and as it still looks today after the old station buildings featured in the above picture were demolished and the station was rebuilt around 1973-74 in a new modern style.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... 05-034.jpg

[manna]

G'Day Gents

I'll take pic No 1, far more character, No 2 is so bland. I can remember the Buffett on the island platform.

manna

[Mickey]

Hatfield station in 1960 looking south towards the Kings Cross direction from the Up slow line platform-
http://smallford.org/wp-content/uploads ... 1960-C.jpg

Hatfield station in 1960 looking north towards the Hitchin direction from the footbridge with the Up slow line nearest the camera and featuring the Down side station buildings with Hatfield No.2 s/box in the distance-
http://smallford.org/wp-content/uploads ... h-1960.jpg

Another view of Hatfield station in 1960 looking south and taken from the footbridge overlooking the Down fast line, note the small x4 lever ground frame near the bottom of the double-banner repeater signal post which remained until the early 1970s-
https://i1.wp.com/smallford.org/wp-cont ... .jpg?ssI=1

[Hatfield Shed]

Such a characterful station, with 'the marks' of the stages of construction as it developed still evident until all swept away in the rebuild. Functionally, it is now fully 'fit for purpose', but... sigh...

...I'll take pic No 1, far more character, No 2 is so bland. I can remember the Buffet on the island platform...

Until you mentally paint in some wide firebox Doncaster loveliness pounding by; with the background noises of the steam shed, and a J52 0r 69 having a slippy time in one of the East side sidings with their interesting profiles. I can still hear it all when I am there...

[silverfox]

In the early 70s i worked for BT at Ststion House New Barnet
By judging it correctly i could put in a return to KX in he lunch hour..and from my seat on the 6th floor had a good view looking Northwards
Mention of the buffet at Hatfield reminded me that one of our group was a Geordie and extolled the virtues of Newky. He said that it was a rare as hens teeth down here, but found via the geogrie mafia had found an outlet at the buffet on Hatfield Station
Again the timing meant i could do New Barnet to Hatfield and back in the lunchtime, and several visits were made to get half a dozen bottles. My ex FiL proclaimed it to be 'very moorish' So that was me on his good side!! Seemed like i had a affinity with the ECML. School at Wood Green was a three/four min run to the Station and when i moved to Peterborough could see the south end of the Station complex from my desk. Too far away to get numbers. Even The Peterborough Society of Model Engineers had their track at Werrington adjacent to the line and the Drivers used to sound the horn whenever we were running.

[Hatfield Shed]

I too managed to spend most of my career in offices with a view of the ECML. Best moment of all, I was in the office of our newly appointed director, when she asked "And what is that?" That' was an A4 pacific, light engine, stopped on the up slow. Her verdict "Looks like it was designed yesterday.".

[Mickey]

When I was a secondman at Kings Cross between 1974-75 I remember on maybe two occasions in particular of riding in the back cab of a class 31 that was working a newspaper train down from Kings Cross to maybe Hitchin I can't remember it's final destination but I believe it may well have been on a Sunday morning anyway I was hitching a ride back to WGC where we lived at that time. The train concerned must have left Kings Cross sometime around 3:30am because when we arrived at Hatfield it was around 3:55-4:00am and what happened next was the train would stop somewhere in the vicinity of the Wrestlers bridge north of the station on the Down slow line and then after the road was set up by the signalman on the Welwyn Garden City NX panel it would then propel it's train which usually consisted of 4 or 5 GUVs and Mk.1 BGs back across the ladder crossing north of the station back into the Up slow line platform where a couple of civilian workers met the train along with a member of the Hatfield railway staff who would all proceed to unload the newspapers off the train and onto the Up slow line platform. The unloading of the newspapers only took maybe 5 or 6 minutes and once it was completed the train guard would give a green bardic light forward to the locos secondman then it was 'right away' back through the ladder crossing and away along the Down fast or Down slow line to WGC station and eventually home to bed...

[Mickey]

Below Hatfield No.3 in 1960 located just north of the Down platforms. The box mainly signalled trains on the Down lines but also worked a connection with the single line St Albans branch and also worked a connection with the single line WGC-Luton branch that ran parallel to the Down slow line north of Hatfield to Welwyn Garden City station. By 1968 the layout controlled by the box had been heavily rationalised and by about the last year before the box closed in late 1969 it just controlled the Down fast & Down slow lines between Hatfield No.1 & Welwyn Garden City with a 'turn out' from the Down slow to Down fast line and a 'turn in' from the Down fast to Down slow line along with a double road siding opposite the Down slow line mainly used for running round the Kellogg's train. Hatfield No.3s control of the Down fast & Down slow lines along with the Down siding was transferred to Hatfield No.2 on closure in late 1969.
https://i0.wp.com/smallford.org/wp-cont ... .jpg?ssl=1

Below another view of Hatfield No.3 in 1960 and also including Hatfield No.2 as well which mainly signalled trains on the Up lines and in a earlier time the Hertford-WGC-Hatfield single line branch line which became the Up Goods line from WGC later on. The view is looking northwards.
https://i0.wp.com/smallford.org/wp-cont ... 1960-C.jpg

[PinzaC55]

When I was a secondman at Kings Cross between 1974-75 I remember on maybe two occasions in particular of riding in the back cab of a class 31 that was working a newspaper train down from Kings Cross to maybe Hitchin I can't remember it's final destination but I believe it may well have been on a Sunday morning anyway I was hitching a ride back to WGC where we lived at that time. The train concerned must have left Kings Cross sometime around 3:30am because when we arrived at Hatfield it was around 3:55-4:00am and what happened next was the train would stop somewhere in the vicinity of the Wrestlers bridge north of the station on the Down slow line and then after the road was set up by the signalman on the Welwyn Garden City NX panel it would then propel it's train which usually consisted of 4 or 5 GUVs and Mk.1 BGs back across the ladder crossing north of the station back into the Up slow line platform where a couple of civilian workers met the train along with a member of the Hatfield railway staff who would all proceed to unload the newspapers off the train and onto the Up slow line platform. The unloading of the newspapers only took maybe 5 or 6 minutes and once it was completed the train guard would give a green bardic light forward to the locos secondman then it was 'right away' back through the ladder crossing and away along the Down fast or Down slow line to WGC station and eventually home to bed...

I worked as a guard at the Cross from 1983 - 89 and we had an early morning paper train which was an old 2 car DMU and it went to Peterborough. I can't remember much of it except that I think at Peterborough we did a set back into a little platform on the west side of the station, sort of a loading dock. I also remember how the nylon straps on the bundles of papers cut your hands if you weren't careful.

[Mickey]

An Interesting story Pinza.

Meanwhile 56 miles south of Peterborough back at Hatfield station...

During the early 1970s the WGC 'pilot' a 350hp 0-6-0 diesel shunter occasionally use to leave the Up yard and go up to Hatfield to shunt the Up yard and then return to WGC a couple of hours later with a few mineral wagons.

I recall a small but significant number of Kings Cross drivers use to live in and around the Hatfield area during the 1960s & 1970s.

[Mickey]

Hatfield at onetime was blessed with a BRSA club (British Railways Staff Association club) situated at the back of Hatfield No.3 box on the Down side of the running lines and could be seen quite clearly from passing trains. I presume it was closed sometime either during the 1970s or 1980s?.

[giner]

Played there with my group a few times. Always a good crowd. The last time we played there would've been about 1977.

[Hatfield Shed]

...I recall a small but significant number of Kings Cross drivers use to live in and around the Hatfield area during the 1960s & 1970s.

Certainly did. One was a near neighbour who had been on the Met link at KX, and then transferred to Hatfield near the end of his career, on allocation of a 'New Towns Commission' house. Another retired driver was the grandparent of a classmate, and gave us a talk on his experiences in our final year of primary ed., arranged by one of the teachers who was very interested in the railways. (We would have had a school model railway, but there wasn't the space to be found for it thanks to the post war baby boom, and school rolls well beyond what the planners had anticipated. One teacher to class sizes of 40; and they managed...)

[Mickey]

Played there with my group a few times. Always a good crowd. The last time we played there would've been about 1977.

I never visited giner mainly because we was living at the next stop along in WGC so I never had any reason to get off the train at Hatfield although I passed it a couple of hundred times a year on the train from the late 1960s through to the mid 1970s.

[Mickey]

...I recall a small but significant number of Kings Cross drivers use to live in and around the Hatfield area during the 1960s & 1970s.

Certainly did. One was a near neighbour who had been on the Met link at KX, and then transferred to Hatfield near the end of his career, on allocation of a 'New Towns Commission' house. Another retired driver was the grandparent of a classmate, and gave us a talk on his experiences in our final year of primary ed., arranged by one of the teachers who was very interested in the railways. (We would have had a school model railway, but there wasn't the space to be found for it thanks to the post war baby boom, and school rolls well beyond what the planners had anticipated. One teacher to class sizes of 40; and they managed...)

When I was a secondman in no.3 link 'the Doncaster gang' at Kings Cross early in 1975 my regular driver in that link was a scots bloke I forget his name who may have been around 50 years old at the time well he lived somewhere in Hatfield. I have a vague memory of being told he died later on during 1975 after I went up into no.2 link 'the Leeds/York gang' during the summer and wasn't with him anymore.