Parcels and Newspapers in Croydon 1960-1985 - sidings, movements, sources and destinations?

[Platform10]

I feel the dock road lasted some years longer than the middle roads.  The rather blurred picture of the signal box diagram in your link makes reference to the already removed middle roads but it looks to me as though the GPO dock siding is still shown.  The major track layout alterations were done during 1981 and 1982, under the Brighton Line Resignalling Scheme, and I believe it was at this time the dock roads were removed and the dock rebuilt.  From a personal timeline, my wife began commuting from East Croydon in 1979 and she clearly remembers the old banana shed and the tracks in front.

And yes, I well remember the old staff club.  Accessed through a door between a row of public phone boxes and the side of the old station building and then down some rather dodgy steps.  The Road Motor Engineer had his garage workshops tucked under the stairs and into the arches under the corner of Dingwall Road.  The muddy, greasy, grotty environment all seemed to add to the charm of the Sunday Striptease in the club!

[Nearholmer]

Hmmm ……. I was at Croydon Tech one day and three evenings each week 1976-80, worked at Southern House 1980-89, caught a train home from Platform 6 every day, and would swear that the conveyor and GPO dock in the form I sketched previously were in situ throughout that period.

 

I could be wrong, memory is a tricky thing, but given how interesting I found the whole mail and parcels train business, and how much notice I took of it, I don’t think so.

 

Somebody must know for sure!

[Nearholmer]

1 hour ago, Platform10 said:

The Road Motor Engineer had his garage workshops tucked under the stairs and into the arches under the corner of Dingwall Road.  The muddy, greasy, grotty environment all seemed to add to the charm of the Sunday Striptease in the club!

Tom Garner - a mighty atom of a man.

 

Striptease was also at some pubs on a Friday lunchtime, all very sophisticated: some harassed-looking single mum, desperate for income, would come in from the market, put her shopping down, hang her coat on a chair, proceed to undress in front of a load of boozy office workers in a room full of fag smoke and the fumes of stale beer, job done, pass a mug round for contributions, off to do the school run. The 1970s were definitely not all good.

 

 

[St Enodoc]

On 25/08/2021 at 23:27, Lacathedrale said:

Found another picture showing @Nearholmer's memory was pretty good!

 

Great photo. 4-SUB 4732 is in platform 1, when it was still the Up Local. February 1983 according to the Flickr caption, just before I went to the Southern in May of that year.

[phil-b259]

31 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Hmmm ……. I was at Croydon Tech one day and three evenings each week 1976-80, worked at Southern House 1980-89, caught a train home from Platform 6 every day, and would swear that the conveyor and GPO dock in the form I sketched previously were in situ throughout that period.

 

I could be wrong, memory is a tricky thing, but given how interesting I found the whole mail and parcels train business, and how much notice I took of it, I don’t think so.

 

Somebody must know for sure!

 

I think the  railway infrastructure went during the early 1990s - around the time the station got the new entrance building and the canopies were rebuilt.

 

The actual postal conveyor stayed in place (albut disused) for another three decades until it was taken down to facilitate the northern passenger footbridge and station entrance.

 

(The post office conveyor at Redhill is still in place despite not having been used for over 40 years!)

Edited August 29, 2021 by phil-b259

[phil-b259]

On 24/08/2021 at 10:01, Lacathedrale said:

Good morning all,

 

EDIT: I am researching prototype information for a what-might-have-been layout based on Central Croydon, and one of the aspects I'm eager to cater for is newpaper and parcels traffic. I haven't 100% tied down my era but seems to be the post-steam BR Green era, or the late BR Blue era prior to sectorisation. This thread started off asking about East Croydon's GPO siding, but may better be described with the new title. Original post below.

 

I have spent a good deal of time staring at the Royal Mail building at East Croydon while waiting on Platform 6 for a train to the Caterham branch, as well as the curved roadway overhead and the various subterranean buildings underneath.

 

When I came across this picture of LBSCR H2 421 in 1911, it looked like the loco had pulled up at my usual spot waiting for the front of the 455:

 

H2 421 at East Croydon in works grey 1911, credit: Brighton Atlantics

 

The half scissors perplexed me - the only gap between platforms I could find in the usual maps was the through road between 2 & 3 (now lifted), and this one has a half scissors in the foreground. After more digging the half scissors opposite Platorm 6 came to light and the Post office spur:

 

1913 OS Grid Map

 

Without the post office elevator and elevated walkway, this is what the site looks like now:

 

Google Maps 2021

 

This is what the scene looks like now - although the curve of the elevated cab rank roughly follows the line of the spur, there is no meaningful correlation of any items except the re-clad platform canopies.

 

 

 

That taxi rank went in when Croydon Tramlink was built (thus removing the previous facility at the front of the station building). Naturally by that time postal traffic was long gone.

[John M Upton]

As a related aside, the 1980's era Red Star Parcels building (built when the bay was taken out?) is still there just past the Porter & Sorter, used as train crew accommodation now but still has some Red Star signage on it!!

[Oldddudders]

The overhead pic of East Croydon is full of stuff. First and foremost, it shows what a grotty station it still was in the '80s - despite having the second biggest 'take' of any BR station outside the London termini - only New St took more. Almost lost next to the Up Local line is the 1955 signalbox, where one afternoon in early 1968 I ran the down service during the evening peak, under the watchful eye of Welsh signalman Eddie Pryor, who 5 years later would succeed me as Area 4 Controller when I moved on from there. 

 

The slightly-space-age design of the new 1990-ish NSE station was largely dictated by the weak bridge upon which the existing station had been constructed, so the load had to be sprung off the abutments as far as possible. As I have said before, BRB HQ's Investment Adviser was deeply suspicious of NSE's Investment Procedures, and so insisted that we write a Strategy Submission for the whole (£10m?) scheme, to be submitted with the submission for the first segment. Unsurprisingly, the whole scheme was then 'called in' for forensic examination. I did enjoy being told, when that examination was reported about 6 months later, by Chris Stokes, Deputy Director NSE, that my papers had been found to be squeaky clean...... Office politics! Of course the Investment Adviser concerned, who had previously worked on an early version of RR's RB211 engine, then managed the Central Line modernisation project, more recently founded a 4mm scale track component company...... 

[Lacathedrale]

@Oldddudders though not you, I did think of this video when you posted that evocative prose:

 

 

I was planning on using a hybrid of East Croydon and Redhill's GPO siding as inspiration for one built on my layout - the only shot I have of the latter is front on, from kentrail on the top of this page: https://www.kentrail.org.uk/Class_415_3.htm

 

It looks like BR(S) green and cream, with NSE lamps and trolleys! How's that for contrast?

 

Here's the 1954 track diagram, showing the sidings between P2 & 3 and the pit road (!)

 

At the bottom it looks like the dock has been removed and the halls sidings are still extant?

 

For my little layout, it's only a two platform terminus in a cutting. Would there have been a GPO platform and then a conveyor up and out? Maybe a passageway under the road to an adjacent building? A side gate at the end of the platforms (ground level) where the trolleys would have been wheeled? Or would they just have been unloaded onto the platform and carted onward from there?

 

This is the plan, I am presuming a bay platform at the north side, and the sorting office being on the other side of Katharine Street:

 

Katharine St. is on a 4% gradient, high enough for a bridge on the right, and low enough on the left that the station building is at ground level. I had considered an East Croydon 'grasping arm' conveyor across both platforms (maybe in the middle, as a view break) first, then thought a GPO bay as per Redhill might be a little more interesting and increase the parcels focus for the layout - but I'm just sketching ideas at this point!

[Nearholmer]

Another one you might want to look at to further enrich your postal options is Woking. There was a parcels/mail bay at the London end of the Down Local platform, which is about the only place I can clearly recall seeing a green Class 03/04 diesel. In the 1960s, the little diesel was apparently used to shunt vans on and off of Down trains, but I only ever saw it snoozing, not actually doing anything.

 

Here it is, and notice the randomly strewn mail bags. https://davidheyscollection-static.myshopblocks.com/images/cm/1909beaab41028b657e9efa89cb80f8b.jpg

Edited August 30, 2021 by Nearholmer

[Lacathedrale]

I'd never seen an 03/04 in any other setting than a model, so that's just very cute. As per the signalling thread, since the original ask seems to have been sorted, is it possible for us to direct any further correspondence to the parent thread here, please?

[John M Upton]

This is the area today including the old Red Star Parcels depot:

[Lacathedrale]

Thanks ohn, I had no idea that the bizarre building you've pictured was the Red Star parcels office and the last stump of the GPO platform described by @Nearholmer

[Sarcodelic]

On 24/08/2021 at 17:13, Nearholmer said:

Somebody, I seem to recall, created a visual representation, a giant diagram, of the train movements, I think for "parcels" and for "freight".

 

Try to get this question prominent - maybe change the topic title - because there are at least three active RMWeb members who were Central Division Traffic Controllers at Essex House (in-scene for yoy layout) during the 1970s, who will probably know half the diagrams by heart.

 

Is this the thread with the diagram you were thinking about?

 

 

Edited September 26, 2021 by Sarcodelic
Link had been omitted