Bishops Road (Paddington) - what do we know?

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, The Stationmaster said:

Something which crosses my mind is that GWR passenger trains to Moorgate (Street) clearly never used the Widened Lines.  The GWR only had Running powers over those lines as far as their Smithfield goods depot and in any case didn't have powers for passenger trains on those lines but did - obviously - have Running Powers over the Met as far as Aldgate.

 

They would have had nowhere to terminate at Moorgate via the Widened Lines - all the bays were claimed!

 

 

[Crop from scan of Midland Railway Study Centre Item 20628.]

 

 

[Nearholmer]

I presume that siding 'LL' on that diagram is a locomotive layby, to stable a turnover engine, but without the signals, its difficult to be certain how a terminator on the Met was dealt with.

 

Looks as if you could spot locos from at least six companies here, given that I think the Met and District still worked one road each of the Circle. If you shuffled along to Farringdon, you got GN as well.

 

When time travel is invented, I'm definitely going on a long weekend trainspotting to London in the Summer of 1901.

[Miss Prism]

The layout at Moorgate changed quite a lot. Here's the signalling in 1926 (courtesy Harsig):

 

[The Stationmaster]

Right a bit more for you (which I think  just about exhausts my archive sources).

 

1875 November  GWR Public Timetable.  Through trains to/from Moorgate Street

 

The information here is rather sparse as the public timetable obviously contains no information about balancing stock working.  So there was either at least one empty working or, perhaps, some of the stock movement was integrated with other GWR services over the route as this was the time of GWR trains from both Mansion House and Addison Road, plus the Richmond service over the Hammersmith and City

 

The Up service consisted of 2 morning trains from Southall and 2 from Windsor but only one afternoon train - from Castle Hill - a total of 5 trains.

The Down service only comprised 4 trains -  1 each in the morning and early afternoon to Southall and two in the late afternoon/early evening to Windsor.

 

July 1939.Service Timetable  

 

This would have been the final through service as it was withdrawn (perhaps initially ‘suspended’?) on the outbreak of !WWII in September that year.  From a quick check this service was the same as that 1938 Summer service Timetable.  I have only the stock working as a reference for Summer 1937 and unless I missed one (it can happen ) there might have been one train fewer in the morning service in that year.  I'll revisit that source when I can again summon up the energy to extract it from almost the bottom of the vertical filing system in which in resides.

 

Back to 1939 and the swansong of the GWR's City trains.    The Up service included one train each from Hayes, Windsor, and Uxbridge (Vine Street) all terminating at Liverpool St plus a second Uxbridge starter and one from  Southall which both ran through to Aldgate.  All the through Up passenger trains ran in the morning commuter period.

 

In the afternoon1xSO and 2xSX trains ran only as passenger trains starting from Paddington, all terminating at Liverpool St.  In addition there was a second SO train which ran as an ECS throughout from West London to Liverpool St (which meant that it had to cross 6 running lines between Ladbroke Grove and Subway Jcn).

 

The morning workings all returned as passenger trains as far as Paddington from where one ran empty to West London while the others ran through as passenger trains to Southall (1), Greenford (1), and Uxbridge (2).

 

The evening SX Down service was very limited compared with the number of trains which ran in the morning with only two workings - one to Windsor and one to Uxbridge (Vine St).  The Saturday working was obviously different in order to reflect the Saturday half day working of that era and also consisted of only two trains - one to Southall and the other to Uxbridge (Vine street).  Maybe the, probably better heeled, citizens of Windsor didn’t lower themselves to attend the office on a Saturday?

 

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

I presume that siding 'LL' on that diagram is a locomotive layby, to stable a turnover engine, but without the signals, its difficult to be certain how a terminator on the Met was dealt with.

 

Looks as if you could spot locos from at least six companies here, given that I think the Met and District still worked one road each of the Circle. If you shuffled along to Farringdon, you got GN as well.

 

When time travel is invented, I'm definitely going on a long weekend trainspotting to London in the Summer of 1901.

 

That might make sense of that Light Engine I mentioned earlier which ran to Aldgate in the morning but came back from Moorgate after the end of the passenger service.   However it doesn't reappear in later timetables (although it presumably might still have been around?),  The stock working is fairly easy to piece together (except for 1875!) but the engine working remains something of a closed book.  I've only ever met two Enginemen who had worked on Metro tanks in the Met Link at Old Oak and while one of them had been a Cleaner at Westbourne Park shed just about while GW engines still worked through he would have had no involvement with that working.  The other one of course had only ever worked through on Smithfield trains.  

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

I presume that siding 'LL' on that diagram is a locomotive layby, to stable a turnover engine, but without the signals, its difficult to be certain how a terminator on the Met was dealt with.

 

It certainly looks as if trains from the west on the Met non-widened (?) lines could terminate at the eastbound platform then either depart from there westbound using a turnover engine, or the carriages be put in the sidings on the north side. But that would have to be done pretty niftily, I imagine.

 

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Looks as if you could spot locos from at least six companies here, given that I think the Met and District still worked one road each of the Circle. If you shuffled along to Farringdon, you got GN as well.

 

Either that's your typo of GN for GW or the lettering on the map isn't completely clear. Those three platform lines at the Widened Lines terminus are Mid., GN, and SE&C. I like the way that it's laid out so that each company has not only its own platform road, loco layby, and water column (green dot) but also its own crossover. 

 

53 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

The layout at Moorgate changed quite a lot. Here's the signalling in 1926 (courtesy Harsig):

 

So now there's an extra bay, taking up the space occupied by the Met and Midland loco laybys, but with a scissors crossover so this additional bay plus the Midland bay can be accessed from either pair of lines. It's not clear where the Midland (LMS) turnover engine now goes, unless company occupancy has been re-arranged - were there still SE&C (Southern) services in the twenties?

[Nearholmer]

3 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

were there still SE&C (Southern) services in the twenties?

 

I don't think so. I'd need to delve to be certain when they ended, but I think it was before WW1, possibly when the Circle was electrified, and became a viable means of transport again, having become a nightmare snarl-up in latter steam days, so sapping custom from the Victoria to Moorgate route. Electric trams came in at about the same time, again sapping custom from steam inner suburban services. 

[Compound2632]

8 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

I don't think so. I'd need to delve to be certain when they ended, but I think it was before WW1, possibly when the Circle was electrified, and became a viable means of transport again, having become a nightmare snarl-up in latter steam days, so sapping custom from the Victoria to Moorgate route. Electric trams came in at about the same time, again sapping custom from steam inner suburban services. 

 

The map is dated April 1912, with revisions to June 1916 and again to Jan 1923, but there's no guarantee any non-Midland aspects would be kept up-to-date. 

 

I suppose with the ex-SE&C lines being electrified on the L&SW third rail system, working over the Widened Lines would have become an awkward steam anachronism.

[Jeremy Cumberland]

Harsig (https://www.harsig.org/index.php) is the source for London Undreground signalling diagrams, but he doesn't now have anything before 1935 for the Met/Widened Lines (the 1926 plan Miss Prism posted appears no longer to be on his site for some reason, although I have a copy I downloaded when it was).

 

Another very useful source is NLS, and in particular the 1894-1896 60" maps of London. Most of Moorgate Street and quite a lot of Bishopsgate (Liverpool Street Met) are on this sheet: https://maps.nls.uk/view/101201565

 

Moorgate station throat is here: https://maps.nls.uk/view/101201562

 

Most of Aldgate is here: https://maps.nls.uk/view/101201598. The southernmost line heading west ends about 50 feet beyond the edge of the map.

 

I have never worked out how Aldgate was worked with reversing loco-hauled services, at any time; it seems impossibly cramped. Having to deal with both Metropolitan and Great Western locomotives working their respective trains in the first years of the century must have been very difficult indeed.

 

I take it no GW steam-hauled services ever terminated at Liverpool Street, where only one locomotive could be stabled. I know they did in electric days, but this wasn't a problem, of course.

[Miss Prism]

I understand regular SE&CR through services ceased 1 July 1908. However, there was an SE&CR autotrain service to Moorgate from September 1914, but this ceased 1 April 1916.
 

[Jeremy Cumberland]

52 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

were there still SE&C (Southern) services in the twenties?

I recall reading some detailed information about the east curve at Farringdon which I'll have reached from the sadly moribund Basilica Fields website, but I've just found some information here https://www.railmagazine.com/news/rail-features/widening-the-horizons:

Quote

The LCDR then persuaded the Metropolitan to build a south-to-east curve that allowed the LCDR to run trains from Victoria, south of the River Thames, to serve Moorgate. These started in 1871 and reached a peak of 80 trains per day (which was also the limit imposed by the LCDR’s agreement with the Metropolitan Railway).

However, the service was not a long-term success. By 1911, the South Eastern and Chatham Railway (a partnership between the LCDR and the South Eastern Railway) recorded just 78 passengers alighting from 52 trains arriving at Moorgate between 0703 and 1104. The SECR withdrew trains from the curve in 1916, with calls to cut coal consumption in the First World War a handy excuse.

The curve was formally closed in 1927, after the Southern Railway paid the Metropolitan £25,000 to release it from the agreement its LCDR predecessor had made in 1870. The curve’s tunnel was demolished in 1958 following a fire in the poultry market above it, that led to a new market being erected.
 

 

The curve isn't shown on Harsig's 1926 track plan.

 

Edited February 6, 2022 by Jeremy C

[Miss Prism]

Nurse! The Templot please!

 

 

[Nearholmer]

2 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

Either that's your typo of GN for GW or the lettering on the map isn't completely

Or, I just got so excited at the thought of all that tank engine variety that I lost the plot.

[bécasse]

The 1926 layout at Moorgate Street allowed Metropolitan Railway trains to terminate there but they were always multiple-unit trains (principally slam-door stock) working in from (and returning to) Watford and Uxbridge (and, for a period, Stanmore). Later these trains worked via the Widened Lines, electrified for the purpose, coming on to the Widened Lines east of Euston Square EB and leaving the Widened Lines WB at Farringdon (effectively providing a very elongated flying junction); at this period Kings Cross station on both the Met and the Widened Lines was in the same location later used for Kings Cross Thameslink. When Kings Cross Met was relocated to its current site early in WWII the use of the Widened Lines by LPTB trains ceased (and probably had done so at the outbreak of war). The new Kings Cross Met incorporated a central bay platform which it was intended would be used by District Line services extended on a regular basis from Edgware Road, however this never happened and although the bay road had track laid for quite a long while it was never electrified. District Line trains were extended from Edgware Road to Moorgate over many years but, rather strangely, only on those Saturdays which proceeded a bank holiday Monday (and no, I don't know why).

 

Incidentally, when looking at maps the current route between Barbican and Moorgate isn't the historical one, all four tracks were relocated in the 1960s to facilitate building development. Moorgate station was very badly damaged during WWII and was still effectively a tidied up bomb site right through to the early 1960s.