Hayes (Kent) goods traffic?

[HeavyDuty]

I've had an interest in the station at Hayes (Kent) for several years - the simple stub end terminus with slam-door EMUs is very attractive to me. Slightly sleepy, but with the potential for frantic traffic on peak.

 

The SEMG website has a photograph of the signal box interior including one of the station diagram. There apparently was a loop north of the station. I think I've seen a photo of this track taken from the platform, but don't recall where I saw it. I'm guessing this loop was a layover track for EMU stock since Wikipedia mentions that there was a goods yard south of the station until 1965.

 

Does anyone know what goods traffic would have been likely in Hayes? What locomotives would have been typically used through the years - any chance of a 73 at the end? (I'm doubting it, they would have been brand new at end of goods traffic assuming the 19 April 1965 date given in Wikipedia is correct.)

 

Has this line ever been the subject of an article or book that anyone can remember?

 

Thanks for any insights you can offer!

 

(Edited with additional information I found after creating the thread)

Edited February 5, 2017 by HeavyDuty

[Southernman46]

Signal box diagram here ..................

http://www.s-r-s.org.uk/html/sra/R1598.htm
 
Goods yard closed in 1965 so no, not into the blue era - mostly domestic coal at the end
 
Try the Mitchell book series - it'll be Branch lines in South East London or something like that

https://www.middletonpress.co.uk/books/railways/london-suburban-railways/london-bridge-to-addiscombe.html

Edited February 5, 2017 by Southernman46

[HeavyDuty]

Signal box diagram here ..................

http://www.s-r-s.org.uk/html/sra/R1598.htm

 

Goods yard closed in 1965 so no, not into the blue era - mostly domestic coal at the end

 

Try the Mitchell book series - it'll be Branch lines in South East London or something like that

 

Thank you! You posted while I was in the middle of updating my post with some additional information about the 1965 end of goods traffic I just found. I was hoping for blue era, but...

 

And thanks for the tip on a book - it led me to this Middleton title that covers Hayes: https://www.middletonpress.co.uk/books/railways/london-suburban-railways/london-bridge-to-addiscombe.html

[Southernman46]

Thank you! You posted while I was in the middle of updating my post with some additional information about the 1965 end of goods traffic I just found. I was hoping for blue era, but...

 

And thanks for the tip on a book - it led me to this Middleton title that covers Hayes: https://www.middletonpress.co.uk/books/railways/london-suburban-railways/london-bridge-to-addiscombe.html

Try this website - you can manipulate the maps to show track plans for Hayes station in the 1940-60's period, take a bit of work but worth it.

 

Category England & Wales

 

Map series London/TQ

 

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sidebyside.cfm#zoom=17&lat=51.3769&lon=0.0088&layers=173&right=BingHyb

Edited February 5, 2017 by Southernman46

[HeavyDuty]

Try this website - you can manipulate the maps to show track plans for Hayes station in the 1940-60's period, take a bit of work but worth it.

 

Category England & Wales

 

Map series London/TQ

 http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/sidebyside.cfm#zoom=17&lat=51.3769&lon=0.0088&layers=173&right=BingHyb

Oh, dear - I can see that website taking up a lot of my time. Thank you for the link!

[Nearholmer]

If you look through the maps, you can see this part of Kent gradually change from primarily agriculture to primarily residential, over the first half of the twentieth century.

 

So, in 1900, the area was mostly small farms, probably largely dairy farms, producing milk for London, plus a few market gardens and orchards, and good deal of woodland, which would have been very productive, supplying all sorts of "wooden sundries" to the capital, things like baskets, tool handles etc.

 

Like a lot of the "near country" in Kent and Surrey, it was popular as an area to build villas, detached houses for very prosperous commuters, from quite an early period.

 

As the country was progressively bricked over, there would have been less goods to send into London, and a greater need for coal, building materials and consumer goods inwards.

 

It's quite hard to sort out Hayes, Kent, from Hayes, Middlesex, in the "Britain from above" collection of aerial photos, but I think this one shows the southeastward spread of suburbia, rather than the westward spread of industry http://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw035256?search=Hayes&ref=108

 

K

Edited February 5, 2017 by Nearholmer

[HeavyDuty]

So, post war it sounds like there would likely be inbound residential coal and occasional other traffic. Pretty slim pickings!

[HeavyDuty]

I should probably hold questions until the book arrives, but now I'm wondering if this line would have been in steam until the end of goods.

[Nearholmer]

I can't be certain, but I would have thought that a typical goods loco would have been a C class 0-6-0, with maybe a Crompton (Class 33) in the very final few years.

 

My guess is that the goods would have run from Bricklayers Arms or Hither Green, so worth a look at their allocations of locos ....... HG had some short-stay diesels in the late 50s and early 60s, I think, including what we now know as Class 24, just before the Cromptons. I'm not sure about Q class, maybe them too.

 

K

[TonyA]

From a very quick look in The Railways of Beckenham, locomotives in 1946 would appear to have been class C and O1 with Cromptons taking over by 1961.

 

As for agricultural traffic, there is a family story that my uncle collided with a cow near Eden Park while cycling home at night. That would have probably been in the late 1920s so dairy farms must have been in the area then.

 

Tony

[TJ52]

In An Historical Survey of Selected Southern Stations there are a couple of signalling diagrams and a detailed survey from 1942. The text suggests that goods traffic was never of much importance and was largely coal, though there is a loading dock at the end of one siding that could have handled livestock etc.

 

Terry

[Joseph_Pestell]

In An Historical Survey of Selected Southern Stations there are a couple of signalling diagrams and a detailed survey from 1942. The text suggests that goods traffic was never of much importance and was largely coal, though there is a loading dock at the end of one siding that could have handled livestock etc.

 

Terry

 

Beat me to it.

 

After the station was rebuilt, I don't think that there was any general goods traffic, only coal. Other goods traffic was presumably handled at West Wickham where there was a goods shed.

 

My family only moved to the area in 1969 so I never saw any goods traffic at Hayes. You are right that the platform loop was used for storing EMUs between peak hours.

 

To make an interesting layout, I think that you would need to apply quite a lot of Rule 1 with goods traffic continuing (there was IIRC a builders' merchants based in the yard) and a wider variety of EMUs than the usual diet of EPBs. We did have a brief period (due to London Bridge resignalling?) when we did see the occasional HAP, VEP or CEP off-peak. Always nice to get a first class seat at second class fare.

[Oldddudders]

Unfortunately the South Eastern Division proudly proclaimed itself the first BR Division to abolish steam, in 1961 I think, so the residual freight traffic on the Mid-Kent Line would have been diesel worked thereafter. Hither Green was the home of the Crompton, while the EDLs called Stewarts Lane home - it had the electric loco facilities built for the ELs, or Class 71 under TOPS. Thus coal etc for Hayes would probably have been worked from Hither Green yard with a Crompton.

[Nearholmer]

I did a bit more reading-up on Hayes as a village/town, and it seems that it really only "took off" as a place after the railway was electrified in 1925. Before that, the population was very low (c1000 in 1900, and only increasing very slowly thereafter), partly because the train service to London was tediously slow, in most cases involving a change at Elmers End. Once electrified, the population rose, but it wasn't until post-WW2 that there was really major house-building. Altogether, a bit of a backwater!

 

The original station (new one in the 1930s) would make quite a nice pre-grouping layout, but even then it didn't have much in the way of goods facilities ...... milk goes by passenger train, ditto soft fruit, so probably not much more than vegetables, hard fruit, and small wood products out, and coal, a dribble of building materials (a lot could be sourced locally), and 'odds and sods' inwards.

 

K

Edited February 6, 2017 by Nearholmer

[bigherb]

Beat me to it.

 

Other goods traffic was presumably handled at West Wickham where there was a goods shed.

 (there was IIRC a builders' merchants based in the yard)

Yes I was called Rays still going in the 80's then became a BuildBase.

[Joseph_Pestell]

I did a bit more reading-up on Hayes as a village/town, and it seems that it really only "took off" as a place after the railway was electrified in 1925. Before that, the population was very low (c1000 in 1900, and only increasing very slowly thereafter), partly because the train service to London was tediously slow, in most cases involving a change at Elmers End. Once electrified, the population rose, but it wasn't until post-WW2 that there was really major house-building. Altogether, a bit of a backwater!

 

The original station (new one in the 1930s) would make quite a nice pre-grouping layout, but even then it didn't have much in the way of goods facilities ...... milk goes by passenger train, ditto soft fruit, so probably not much more than vegetables, hard fruit, and small wood products out, and coal, a dribble of building materials (a lot could be sourced locally), and 'odds and sods' inwards.

 

K

It was, of course, a bit of an accident of history that the line terminated at Hayes. The original project would have seen it extended further eastwards and make a better Rule 1 layout.

 

The original Hayes village lies about 1/4 mile east of the station on the road to Downe and is very small. West Wickham was even smaller until the 1920s/1930s and Eden Park completely rural. Both Hayes and West Wickham were quite popular destinations for Sunday trips out from "the smoke".

[HeavyDuty]

Thank you all! This is a theoretical exercise at the moment. I somehow found Hayes about five years ago, probably after Bachman released the 2EPB while chasing down stub terminals in third rail territory where commuter EMUs would be seen. The simple track arrangement and suburban setting is very appealing to me, and is something I can relate to.

[bbishop]

Unfortunately the South Eastern Division proudly proclaimed itself the first BR Division to abolish steam, in 1961 I think, so the residual freight traffic on the Mid-Kent Line would have been diesel worked thereafter. Hither Green was the home of the Crompton, while the EDLs called Stewarts Lane home - it had the electric loco facilities built for the ELs, or Class 71 under TOPS. Thus coal etc for Hayes would probably have been worked from Hither Green yard with a Crompton.

 

Trouble is, Ian, there is no easy route from Hither Green down the Mid Kent.  What would you suggest?

 

Bill

[Nearholmer]

Which is why I raised the possibility that the goods service might have run from Bricklayers Arms ...... would be interesting to know.

 

K

[Joseph_Pestell]

I suspect that the answer is...both. From Hither Green but with a reversal at Bricklayers Arms.

[Oldddudders]

Trouble is, Ian, there is no easy route from Hither Green down the Mid Kent.  What would you suggest?

 

Bill

  

Which is why I raised the possibility that the goods service might have run from Bricklayers Arms ...... would be interesting to know.

K

  

I suspect that the answer is...both. From Hither Green but with a reversal at Bricklayers Arms.

And sadly by the time I was let loose on the SE facilities were even fewer, but maybe as Joseph suggests the runround was conducted at North Kent West Junction, i.e. the gateway to B Arms. Inward coal would have arrived from across London to Hither Green, I think.

 

Alternatively, if the trip ran at night, there may well have been some facility for running round at St Johns or New Cross, where the present track layout bears little resemblance to that which existed even as recently as the early '70s, when London Bridge resignalling changed the landscape.

[Joseph_Pestell]

     And sadly by the time I was let loose on the SE facilities were even fewer, but maybe as Joseph suggests the runround was conducted at North Kent West Junction, i.e. the gateway to B Arms. Inward coal would have arrived from across London to Hither Green, I think.

 

Alternatively, if the trip ran at night, there may well have been some facility for running round at St Johns or New Cross, where the present track layout bears little resemblance to that which existed even as recently as the early '70s, when London Bridge resignalling changed the landscape.

Looking at OS (old-maps.co.uk), Lewisham was a possibility for running round train at quiet times. But I have not checked signalling diagrams.

[Southernman46]

You are right that the platform loop was used for storing EMUs between peak hours.

and overnight until the late 80's

 

Indeed, one night a guy who had been drunk got out of the last train on the wrong side, fell onto the siding track (possibly killing himself either in the fall or on the conductor rail) - anyway the empties out of the siding first thing next morning finished him off - some of the old SR Ops sweats on here might remember the incident

[Steamport Southport]

Thank you all! This is a theoretical exercise at the moment. I somehow found Hayes about five years ago, probably after Bachman released the 2EPB while chasing down stub terminals in third rail territory where commuter EMUs would be seen. The simple track arrangement and suburban setting is very appealing to me, and is something I can relate to.

 

Snap!

 

I did exactly the same when I bought a couple of EMU kits from DC kits.

 

 

I'm still planning on something similar to Hayes.

 

 

Jason

[Rivercider]

and overnight until the late 80's

 

Indeed, one night a guy who had been drunk got out of the last train on the wrong side, fell onto the siding track (possibly killing himself either in the fall or on the conductor rail) - anyway the empties out of the siding first thing next morning finished him off - some of the old SR Ops sweats on here might remember the incident

Southern Electrics - A view from the past, by Graham Waterer has a list of overnight berthing allocations for summer 1955

Hayes is shown as having an overnight berthing of 3 x 4SUB sets,

 

cheers