Engine sheds serving London termini

[PhilH]

It’s weird where your mind goes to when trying to fall asleep. Last night I started to think about my childhood train spotting trips to London and the sheds we used to bunk. This led to trying to remember what engine sheds served the London termini in steam days, or if indeed some of these stations ever had a steam hauled service. There seems to be 14 main line termini in London currently, there must have been more historically. These are the sheds that I reckon might have mainly served them if they had a steam service, please feel free to add / correct, stations or sheds, or indeed open it up to other cities in the UK. My arbitrary date is around 1950, but again feel free to go earlier / later.

 

Blackfriars….did it have steam hauled service?

Cannon Street….don’t know, Bricklayers Arms?
Charing Cross….as above
Euston….Camden, Willesden as well?
Fenchurch Street…don’t know did the Tilbury Line go from there, or maybe no steam service.

Liverpool St…Stratford plus in station servicing

London Bridge….don’t know

Kings Cross…Kings Cross shed plus in station servicing

Paddington…Old Oak Common plus Ranelagh Road

Victoria…Stewart’s Lane, Bricklayers Arms as well?

Waterloo….Nine Elms

Marylebone…Cricklewood? Neasden? Kentish Town?

St Pancras…as above

Moorgate…no steam service ever?

 

Three former termini which I didn’t know about, did they ever have a steam service way back when?

Bishopsgate

Broad Street

Holborn

 

Any history lessons will be appreciated!

Edited December 6, 2021 by PhilH

[iands]

I know there used to be a large shed (and works?) at New Cross Gate (roughly where Sainsbury's is now) that would/may have provide engines for London Bridge. 

[The Stationmaster]

For St Pancras the principal shed was Kentish Town but some work was probably covered by Cricklewood.

Euston did have work covered by Willesden as well as Camden.

Ranelagh Bridge (not Road) for Paddington

The shed for Marylebone workings was Neasden - a very strange place which always seemed to be virtually deserted apart from a few engines once the DMUs had taken over the local working.  It was on my regular bunking route for some years and without a doubt the easiest shed in London - except there wasn't much to see once there.

Moorgate had a steam service for many years but no shed - its services were worked by London area GN line and Midland main line sheds.

 

Cannon Street and Charing Cross very definitely had steam hauled services in 1950 and getting on for 10 years after that - what finished them were Kent Coast Electrification and dieselisation of the Hastings route.   London Bridge also definitely had steam worked services in 1950 and similarly for some years subsequently into the 1950s.  I think there might have been one or two commuter trains from Blackfriars which were still steam worked.  According to the ABC of Southern (Railway) Locomotves - published before delivery of West Country class engines.

 

The Southern's London sheds  were as follows -

Eastern Division - Stewarts Lane, Bricklayers Arms (these were both South Eastern depots so. between them served Charing Cross etc as well as Victoria) and New Cross Gate.  (also Norwood Junction and Hither Green - which were freight depots I think).  New Cross Gate was basically a Brighton depot and had mainly ex LBSCR engines so presumably served the Brighton side of London Bridge?

Western Division was Nine Elms (Feltham being the mainly freight shed). 

 

The shed for Fenchurch Street was Plaistow, it closed in 1962 following LT&S electrification.

[Fat Controller]

Would Broad Street have been covered by Bow?

[Marshall5]

Wouldn't Fenchurch St. services be served by Plaistow shed?

Ray.

[burgundy]

6 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

 

The Southern's London sheds  were as follows -

Eastern Division - Stewarts Lane, Bricklayers Arms (these were both South Eastern depots so. between them served Charing Cross etc as well as Victoria) and New Cross Gate.  (also Norwood Junction and Hither Green - which were freight depots I think).  New Cross Gate was basically a Brighton depot and had mainly ex LBSCR engines so presumably served the Brighton side of London Bridge?

Western Division was Nine Elms (Feltham being the mainly freight shed). 

 

Victoria (Brighton side) would originally have been serviced by Battersea shed and London Bridge (Brighton side) would have been serviced by New Cross. 

Best wishes 

Eric 

[melmerby]

What about Ewer St on the SE lines? Known as the "Hell-hole of Southwark"

Just a servicing point IIRC

[31A]

7 hours ago, Fat Controller said:

Would Broad Street have been covered by Bow?

 

Would it not have been almost entirely electric by then, with the exception of the few peak hour trains off the GN which would have been pulled by the same locos that ran the King's Cross suburban services.

[Nearholmer]

Yes, Ewer Street was vital to the Charing Cross, Cannon Street, and I think Holborn Viaduct tangle, but it was only a servicing point.

 

Hither Green and Norwood Junction were indeed goods loco sheds. New Cross Gate I’m pretty sure closed as a loco shed very early in the BR period, and I think locos for the Oxted Line services (the main remaining steam services) from London Bridge were dealt with at Bricklayers Arms, but with most of the locos actually based at Tunbridge Wells West and coming into London in the morning.

 

Steam into Cannon Street is an abiding mystery to me, because I have a very clear memory of being on a steam hauled train going round the curve over the river into the station when I was a small boy - I was dead chuffed that I could see the engine up at the front! But, according to everything I read, I’m too young to recall steam there. Did I dream it???

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 6, 2021 by Nearholmer

[burgundy]

36 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

Steam into Cannon Street is an abiding mystery to me, because I have a very clear memory of being on a steam hauled train going round the curve over the river into the station when I was a small boy - I was dead chuffed that I could see the engine up at the front! But, according to everything I read, I’m too young to recall steam there. Did I dream it???

The Hastings line services were steam hauled until about 1956/7. Some rush hour Hastings services in diesel days went into Cannon Street and this may also have been true with steam.

I am not sure whether you are old enough to remember all that though!

Best wishes 

Eric 

[Nearholmer]

I’m not, and therein lies the conundrum!

 

The memory probably dates from 1961 at the very earliest. 
 

We normally used to travel from Tunbridge Wells, and as you say that was all diesel by then.

 

Mind you, I also remember being on a Charing Cross to Hastings train that ran via Redhill, noting down each station we passed through, when I wasn’t much older, so diversions clearly happened.
 

 

Edited December 6, 2021 by Nearholmer

[DY444]

Wrt to Cannon St; the report for the Lewisham 1957 accident states that the light engine for the 4:56pm to Ramsgate came from Stewarts Lane.

[Hal Nail]

8 hours ago, burgundy said:

Some rush hour Hastings services in diesel days went into Cannon Street

To continue this diversion, I can clearly recall my father propelling me though the door of a moving Hastings unit (and fellow passengers grabbing me) at Charing Cross with the explanation "We're not walking to bloody Cannon Street".

[The Stationmaster]

12 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

Yes, Ewer Street was vital to the Charing Cross, Cannon Street, and I think Holborn Viaduct tangle, but it was only a servicing point.

 

Hither Green and Norwood Junction were indeed goods loco sheds. New Cross Gate I’m pretty sure closed as a loco shed very early in the BR period, and I think locos for the Oxted Line services (the main remaining steam services) from London Bridge were dealt with at Bricklayers Arms, but with most of the locos actually based at Tunbridge Wells West and coming into London in the morning.

 

Steam into Cannon Street is an abiding mystery to me, because I have a very clear memory of being on a steam hauled train going round the curve over the river into the station when I was a small boy - I was dead chuffed that I could see the engine up at the front! But, according to everything I read, I’m too young to recall steam there. Did I dream it???

 

 

 

 

 

 

Definitely still steam in 1957 as the steam hauled train in the Lewisham collision had started from Cannon Street.   I wonder if steam working there might possibly have lasted until Kent Coast electrification?

 

16 hours ago, burgundy said:

Victoria (Brighton side) would originally have been serviced by Battersea shed and London Bridge (Brighton side) would have been serviced by New Cross. 

Best wishes 

Eric 

Yes - but by Phil's 1950 date Battersea shed was well and truly part of Stewarts Lane with the remaining former Brighton engines transferred into the expanded Stewarts Lane shed in 1933/34

[Nearholmer]

2 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

wonder if steam working there might possibly have lasted until Kent Coast electrification?

I reckon it must have, even if maybe only on diversions during engineering work. If so, that does just bring steam there into my ‘memory window’, in that KC Phase 2 wasn’t completed until mid-1962.

 

There is a fascinating article here, which I managed to skim through the slot in the app-wall https://www.pressreader.com/uk/steam-days/20210615/281569473670946

 

Some of the trains are exactly as I remember: green coaches, with a black “elephants ear” (smoke deflectors) engine on the front.

[PhilH]

Really interesting replies, thank you. 

[Oldddudders]

2 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

 I wonder if steam working there might possibly have lasted until Kent Coast electrification?

It certainly did, w Phase 2 routes via Tonbridge maintaining some steam into 1962. Full electric working commenced on 18.6.62, but I can't say for certain when the last mainline steam working was. The Cromptons and Derby Type 2s were certainly being used to obviate steam. 

 

Remember that while Phase 1 routes were on the former Chatham lines, there were peak hour Chatham services to/from Cannon Street, using the Up and Down Chatham Loops at Chislehurst Junction. [Off-topic, the latter is a modeller's delight, being a 4-track mainline crossing and connecting with another, lower level, 4-track mainline at right angles. I can't think of another such anywhere in Britain?]

[Michael Hodgson]

On 06/12/2021 at 11:26, PhilH said:

 

Moorgate…no steam service ever?

 

 

Moorgate had BR Steam services for many years, later replaced by DMUs from the Midland and GN lines via the Widened Lines.  These finished several months before the GN 25kV suburban electrification happened (about 1975).  This included taking over the former LT Northern City line using 313s  on 3rd rail DC from Drayton Park to Moorgate (using a deep level pair of platforms) .    I assume the Metropolitan Railway also once used condensing steam locos to Moorgate, although electrification was early on the route via Baker Street, changeover between electric locos and steam at Rickmansworth.  Steam also ran goods services terminating at Smithfield Market, on what is now the Thameslink through route across London, the space once occupied by the sidings being just about visible from the window of current services.

[Nearholmer]

The steam locos latterly working into Moorgate must have come from sheds like Kentish Town and Kings Cross, or their suburban opposites.

 

The Met eliminated steam from its own and GWR passenger services over the Circle Lines in, IIRC, 1906/7, when the Camelback and BTH electric locos took over the non-EMU services and the Met’s own inner goods workings. The changeover locations were Bishop’s Road and I’m 99% sure Harrow (possibly Finchley Road for a short period). While the Met was using steam locos, those for inner services were shedded at Edgware Road, where there was also a carriage shed, and a very cramped overhaul workshop.

 

As noted above, GWR goods continued to us the Circle for part of its trip, steam hauled, and there was a variety of goods services, as well as the passenger ones, over The Widened Lines, rather than the Circle.

 

All a bit pre-BR though!

[PhilH]

28 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

 

 

All a bit pre-BR though!

Absolutely fine, really interesting. As I said  in the OP history lessons welcome!

Edited December 7, 2021 by PhilH

[whart57]

21 hours ago, melmerby said:

What about Ewer St on the SE lines? Known as the "Hell-hole of Southwark"

Just a servicing point IIRC

 

Ewer St is covered in the book Historical Survey of Southern Sheds. It may have just been a servicing point but it would have been a busy one as after 1926, when Cannon Street shed closed, it handled all steam services into Charing Cross, Cannon Street and Blackfriars. I'm surprised that I've never seen it in model form.

[whart57]

5 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

Definitely still steam in 1957 as the steam hauled train in the Lewisham collision had started from Cannon Street.   I wonder if steam working there might possibly have lasted until Kent Coast electrification?

 

 

According to the Historical Guide of Southern Sheds, New Cross Gate closed in 1948 except for stabling, which stopped in 1951. As a Central section shed it wouldn't have supplied locos for Cannon Street trains anyway, they would have come from Bricklayers Arms

[Fat Controller]

21 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 

Ewer St is covered in the book Historical Survey of Southern Sheds. It may have just been a servicing point but it would have been a busy one as after 1926, when Cannon Street shed closed, it handled all steam services into Charing Cross, Cannon Street and Blackfriars. I'm surprised that I've never seen it in model form.

ISTR a 'Bazzing About' feature in 'Model Railways' a long time ago. A neighbour was based at the 'Bidonville' there during the Thameslink modernisation.

[Oldddudders]

31 minutes ago, whart57 said:

 

Ewer St is covered in the book Historical Survey of Southern Sheds. It may have just been a servicing point but it would have been a busy one as after 1926, when Cannon Street shed closed, it handled all steam services into Charing Cross, Cannon Street and Blackfriars. I'm surprised that I've never seen it in model form.

Despite the thread title, you might enjoy this. Ewer St is Adrian's second location in the thread. Page 115 will give a you a taste, but there is much fine modelling in previous pages. 

 

 

[73080]

According to notes on the rear of some Jim Aston photos, the last day of scheduled steam working from London Cannon Street was 12 June 1959

34013 hauled 5.14pm departure

34004 hauled 5.44pm departure