Holborn Viaduct - Background - Early Green Period 1939-54
Entry posted by Lacathedrale in HV
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Our story is set around the nationalisation of British Rail at Holborn Viaduct. The kent coast expresses and the continental boat trains have long been diverted to more prestigious terminals, and it is obviously now an uncomfortable relic of the Southern Railway's quarrelsome pre-grouping past.
Holborn Viaduct in 1920, already well into decline despite the Edwardian splendour in evidence
The station's relatively light service schedule makes it an excellent candidate for the first electrification of suburban lines under SR in 1925, and testing (the world's first) four aspect colour light signalling in 1926. The evidence of its tenuous position is readily apparent - the Low Level station (and cross-London services) wrapped up before the Great War, and Ludgate Hill, less than a stone's throw from the tip of the platforms has been shuttered for a decade - a long cry from the Midland, Great Northern, and LSWR services that terminated from points north in this
An ex-LNER N2 passes a derelict Ludgate Hill, a picture of the colour light signals is visible between the canopy supports
While all suburban passenger services are multiple units cobbled together from pre-grouping coach bodies on modern underframes with the occasional 'all steel' new build - some semi-fast passenger trains to the kent coast are yet still steam hauled (and will be until the completion of the Kent Coast electrification scheme reaches Ramsgate) - and steam plays a vital role in the terminus' newspaper and parcels traffic that benefits from the proximity to the city.
An all-steel Bulleid 4Sub sits cheek by jowl with an unidenfitied steam loco at the unelectrified Platform 3
The station was designed as a mini-terminus by the LCDR on a tiny, narrowly tapered plot of land bordered by the road on one side, the metropolitan extension snaking underneath and Ludgate hill on the other. The already tight environs were further cramped by platform extensions to support eight car suburban trains in the 20's, and were taken further in the 30's which cut off the loco shed and left one island platform as a vestigal stump. The concourse was reduced to a narrow strip a few yards wide, and the outermost platforms were extended at the barest minimum width into the throat in order to support the trains lengths required. Despite that, a pair of 8-car EMUs would need to kiss the bufferstops to give each other clearance at the point formations leading into the station - and even then, would block movements to adjacent platforms.
Two eight-car EMUs on P1 and P4 show just how congested the throat of the station was in this 1940's aerial photograph.
The war has brought down the famous station hotel, and the station building itself limps on as a war damaged and shuttered relic. For long periods the station sits forlorn and impassive, between surges of rush-hour passengers arrive to head out towards the garden of England - and the conveyance newpapers and parcels to places far and wide courtesy of Fleet Street's printing presses and sorting offices of the Royal Mail. Underneath, the vast amount of cross-London freight rumbles through the Metropolitan Extension:
An ex-LNER J50 leads a freight train past HV in the 50's
The next thirty years will not be kind of Holborn Viaduct, reduced eventually to a single island platform before its unceremonious closure in 1990 - but for now, it's time to take Southern for Speed!
Edited by Lacathedrale
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