Great Western Coffee Shop

A while since we had a quiz.   Can you place the tracks?   One each, please

1.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/trax_01.jpg)

2.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/trax_02.jpg)

3.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/trax_03.jpg)

4.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/trax_04.jpg)

5.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/trax_05.jpg)

6.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/trax_06.jpg)

7.
(http://www.wellho.net/pix/trax_07.jpg)

4. Newcastle Central

2. Bristol Barton Hill TMD

3.  Bradford North Junction.

It's a Bradford Junction but I get confused as to which is which.   I think the one in the picture is plain Ole Bradford Junction, with Bradford West Junction to the North West of it, though still to the east of Bradford-on-Avon and Bradford North Junction to the North East, though still a smidgin to the South of Bradford-on-Avon and well to its East.

When the picture was taken, wasn't it Bradford South Junction?

7. St Andrews Road, looking south towards the coal conveyor, I guess from the car park.

6. King's Cross?

1 Approaches to Paddington. Westbourne Park area?

Five out of seven identified overnight!

1. Paddington - eightonedee
2. Bristol Barton Hill - bignonemac
3. Bradford Junction - bobm (area) and stuving (detail in discussion)
4. Newcastle Central - TonyN
5. Not yet identified
6. Not yet identified (NOT Kings Cross)
7. St Andrews Road - stuving

Random punt at 6 being Birmingham New Street?

'fraid not - sorry

Like Merthyr Imp, my first thought for 6 was Kings Cross, but I now believe it’s the west end of Edinburgh Waverley.

Your new belief is right - it's Ednburgh Waverley.

Which leaves just no. 5 unidentified

Left hand side of 5. seems to have DC third rail. Big layout so I’m guessing Victoria in transition.

It does, indeed have some third rail ... but not Victoria.  Third Rail is / was surprisingly wide spread - not only South London but some North London stuff too, Merseyside and the North East.

I couldn’t think of anything in north London with so many DC tracks, but Victoria was a total guess in any case. What looks like a wooden platform on the right might help someone I think?

5 sheer guess Liverpool on the line to Southport?

Last time I saw that many double slips in third rail country was this morning coming into London Waterloo.

Not Waterloo (if that was actually a guess!). Not Liverpool Exchange. Sorry, Gents.

Can I go back to my earlier suggestion and add “east of Manchester” to Victoria?   ;D

It's not Victoria.   East of Manchester (2.2426° W) is a bit vague for me to comment.

5. It's not London Bridge is it?

You are correct, it is NOT London Bridge.

Just going back to 6, the locomotive looks like the nose of a Deltic.

We're running out of options! Or hints, come to that, so let's try the one that's left: Newcastle Central, at the end of the bays used by the LNER electrics. So it's just before what's seen in no. 4, but now largely a car park.

I’m sure it’s too straight for Newcastle East End, IIRC nearly all the bays had a route towards the high level bridge curving to the right immediately at the platform ends, and the route towards Manors was also curved to the left.

It's not Newcastle Central. It probably is too straight for that.

When I put this quiz up, I suspected that this one would not go quickly, though it's a set of tracks I have travelled through many, many times.

Let's drop the 24 hour rule - does anyone who's already identified somewhere correctly know where this is??

Euston station DC lines for Watford service?

Nope!   Sorry

Another guess Chester?

I'm sorry, no, it isn't.

A further hint or two - the picture is an old one - changed there somewhat now. I am reminded of an edition of "Pointless" where contestants were asked to name railway stations in the top 30 for passenger numbers; there were two or three of them that were pointless - not of the 100 members of Jo Public had named them, and they had similar characteristics to the location in this picture.

Is it Southport?

South of Blackfriars Bridge looking south?  ???

It's neither Southport nor Blackfriars, I'm afraid - though I can see similarities in both cases.

I am looking for further clues which don't totally name the place (and not doing well!) .  I think I said "a set of tracks I have travelled through MANY times", didn't I?   Granted that would apply to Blackfriars and to a much lesser extent to Southport. Now where else could there be??

Somewhere in the Orpington area?

Yes, it's Bradford South junction.  Smoke obscures Bradford Junction SB, which, since 1933, had controlled the junctions at all three corners of the triangle.  At the time of the picture, it worked absolute block to Hawkeridge Junction (at Westbury), no-signalman token to Thingley Junction, and was the fringe box to Bristol panel, working track circuit block to Bathampton Junction.

So complicated that when Westbury Panel became a thing, Bradford Junction box survived for some years, because the interfacing of the signalling on the three routes was tricky to solve.  An outpost of mechanical signalling amidst the colour-lights.

5. Neither the platform nor the signalling posts look like anything I have ever seen on the UK network so I reckon it could be overseas, either Europe or North America. On that basis I will say Washington Union Station (because it's the only one I can find on Google Maps that looks anything like the posted image!).

I'll still back somewhere in the UK.  On the subject of platforms, Nunhead and Blackfriars both had wooden platforms in the 1960s; perhaps to save weight - Nunhead was on a high and narrow embankment, and Blackfriars extended southward onto the river bridge.

It IS the UK.   I remember the platforms at Blackfriars - looking through the narrow gaps between the planks and seeing. the waters of the Thames far below.  And, yes, that was while I lived in the Orpington area.

Clapham Junction?

Maybe there's hint in a later post mentioning Orpington, so I guess London Bridge.

You must have skimmed past posts #22/23…   ;D

Oops yes, sorry, my boo-boo.  My weak excuse is that those posts were in another world - yesterday and on a different page.  Now if only I could remember what I went upstairs for ...

Liverpool Exchange. Long gone now.

Long gone, but NOT pictured in this quiz!

I guess the stations with big usage that no-one guesses are the main suburban interchanges (though that does depend on how you count heads). So the likes of East Croydon, Wimbledon, Richmond. But I don't think there is one of those on the line through Petts Wood, so that's not a lot of help. Lewisham and Hither Green are more junctions that concentrate lines, and are both eccentric shapes.

As to what we see: four electric lines is common enough, but the non-electric ones that are linked by the crossovers and also have a platform (of sorts) so are not just for freight? That suggests longer-distance services, doesn't it? Nothing springs to mind there either. Of course if a lot of it was knocked down and the track removed 60 years ago it makes the springing to mind harder.

Not sure if anyone has suggested this yet, but in the 60s with Reading Southern/General?

I am ... amazed ... no-one has it yet.  Hard, perhaps, but it shouldn't be this hard.

Victoria has been mentioned, but with the assumption that this is the London one.

Manchester Victoria (east end) is a possibility with the Bury electrics out of the low-numbered platforms; but if this is the case, the photograph has been flipped.

I tried “east of Manchester Victoria” last night, post #20.

How about New Cross / New Cross Gate (I can never remember which was/is which)?

Sorry Paul, missed that.

I’ve been struggling a bit since as well, really…

And the place came up on the forum last month too ...

[search]Total forum discussions|month= January|place=stations|concept=trackwork[/search]

Wrong search string I guess ...

No, you have to think where would random places get a mention starting last month - and that leads to it being London Cannon Street (http://www.firstgreatwestern.info/coffeeshop/index.php?topic=25846.0).

Well done, got there eventually.  I just never thought Cannon St would have been so much more complex than today.

In those days the four tracks from London Bridge were two inbound on the west and two outbound on the east so lots of crossing needed. A further two tracks took on the very west took trains on to Charing Cross after a reversal, with some empties going into Blackfriars.  The suburban electric platforms took 8 carriage trains.

Things have changed - not sure I am totally up to date but:
* All lines electrified
* Lines are now in-out-in-out as far as Borough Market Junction
* Just a single track round to Charing Cross and only needed now from high numbered platforms
* 10 car scheme has extended the suburban platforms, space provided by reducing complexity of paintwork and flexibility

Do you have a date for the picture Grahame?

I’ve found a schematic of the present layout, Borough Market Jn is just a shadow of its former complexity, basically up services are now divided into 3 groups well before London Bridge, so there’s a dedicated track pair for each of Cannon St, Thameslink, and Charing Cross.

Paul

This map (https://maps.nls.uk/view/103030821) shows the 1952 layout, and looks to be exactly as in the photo. From that you can see that all platforms can serve the four-track main line to London Bridge, and all except P1 (I think) on the east, or left, side serve the line round to Charing Cross.

So the tracks leading out upwards (and over the Thames) were four electrics, then one loco siding, then three non-electric merging to two, and then some more parking space. I don't see that pair on the right as in any way dedicated to the Charing cross route, for obvious reasons.  Pathing trains through there must have been a nightmare - all those reversals, but not in p1, and P6-9 being unelectrified! My local signallers know how embarrassing it is if you get that wrong.

Presumably those steam-hauled trains were to the coast, not electrified until ca. 1960. There's loads about that in this article from the Southern Electric Group (http://extra.southernelectric.org.uk/features/historical-features/kentcoast.html). And did you spot this, still just in time to be on this day?

So where was the photo taken from?

I understand that there was a signal box across the tracks and it was from there.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannon_Street_station#/media/File:Ian_Strang_-_Cannon_Street_Station_-_1923_-_Strang-Cannon.jpg

I can see a couple of problems with that explanation - the signal box in the picture was further out than the end of the longest platform, and it was demolished in 1926 at the same time as the new trackwork and electrification being put in. The location of the signal box can be seen down in the bottom right corner of this map (https://maps.nls.uk/view/103313321) (revised 1915, but not published until 1936!). I presume the photo must have been taken from up on the the front wall of the station; while I can't see it was ever easily accessible, there must have been occasions like painting and repair work when it could have been done.

All that work took place during a three-week closure: 3 p.m. on Saturday June 5th to 4 a.m. on Monday 28th June 1926. There's even pictures (The Sphere 12 June 1926) of the work being done by a (not very) small army of men in typical 1920s workwear, with the signal box half removed. I don't think we could match that today - and it's not as if all that S&C, with its rodding from a new signal box, plus coping with the newfangled colour lamp signalling, was really a lot simpler.

It was explained at the time that a complete closure allowed the work to be done much more quickly (day and night). This of course was just after the General Strike (4-12 May) and while the miners stayed on strike disrupting coal supplies, so the new timetable could not be introduced in full from day one. In addition, between the peaks the station was closed for several days for some finishing off and adjustments to be done.

I suppose as a general point, such complex layouts as we see here at Cannon St would probably not have used bi-directional lines to the extent they’re used nowadays.  Everything seemed to be designed to cross over right at the platform ends, up and down lines seemed sacrosanct further away, so was that a limitation of semaphore signalling?  Or was it just custom and practice to sort everything out in a short distance?

Paul

Thanks Paul and stuving for your thoughts ... agreed, probably from the main arched roof when folks were up there doing painting of other maintenance works.

Until the days of electric points, pointwork was clumped around signal boxes to allow for practical rodding, and with trains passing from one box to another under bell control, single direction working on each track was the norm - these things together effecting layout design.  These days, stuff can be spread out without needed signal (or rather point control) boxes all over the place.

I just dug out a book I have about Newcastle Central Station and the High Level Bridge, (HLB). The famous “east end diamonds”, which are often seen in photos as in picture 4, historically claimed a record for complexity, and are a great example where the early railway builders went for the maximum possible flexibility.   In the original 1893 layout, and somewhat before the west end King Edward Bridge was added, trains from the Gateshead side could reach the 3 through platforms, and all the east end bay platforms, 7 passenger platforms and a carriage dock. 

But the rationalisation started quickly, the diamonds only lasted in full form about 10 years, and by 1904 the easternmost lines leading from the HLB to platforms 1,2 and the dock were removed, this reduced the number of flat crossings significantly.  It had been decided that with north Tyneside electrification the first two platforms would be dedicated to the route towards Manors station.  This is the layout in the quiz picture.  The scale of the diamonds was reduced again in 1969, long before the Metro was proposed, and as before they now removed the next easternmost route from the HLB into platform 3.

The maintenance requirements were huge.  Complete replacement took place on about 8 separate occasions, say every ten years, but with constant problems of broken rails, and significant issues with track circuits.

I hope forum members find this YouTube photo montage interesting,  but please note from the dates it doesn’t actually go back as far as the 1893 full monty layout:

https://youtu.be/zdLW3h9yY-s