Pre-Grouping train services across the Thames?

[Lacathedrale]

Paddington to Brighton ran 1906-07:

 

 

[Tom Burnham]

Thanks - that's an interesting working.  I guess the object was to provide an easier route for passengers arriving at Paddington than the Inner Circle from there to Victoria, particularly for families with Edwardian amounts of luggage.  The route from Paddington to Latimer Road was over the Hammersmith & City Railway rather than the Metropolitan proper, and the GW was a partner in that, as it was in the West London and West London Extension Railways, so no entirely foreign metals were involved. Incidentally, running a train from the main line platforms at Paddington to or from the H&C must have notably interfered with smooth operation of the station.

[Miss Prism]

11 hours ago, Lacathedrale said:

Paddington to Brighton ran 1906-07:

 

 

 

Paddington?

 

[Compound2632]

56 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

Paddington?

 

Not very like, is it?

[Nearholmer]

I thought that too, and TBH I can’t place that station.

 

Was there (is there?) a bit outside the main train-sheds, beyond the cab-road? It would make sense for a train coming off the H&C to be over on that side.

 

 

Edited November 28, 2023 by Nearholmer

[Nick Holliday]

21 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

I thought that too, and TBH I can’t place that station.

 

Was there (is there?) a bit outside the main train-sheds, beyond the cab-road? It would make sense for a train coming off the H&C to be over on that side.

 

It definitely is Paddington. It is the most northeasterly platform, as you say, outside the main train shed. 

[Nearholmer]

I’ve been there endless times, walked along the cab road on many occasions, yet I still can’t get a mental image of where the edge of the train-shed actually is!

[Miss Prism]

I'm not convinced. Pictures of that side of Paddington are rare, and the area was rebuilt a few times, but this is the closest I can find of that era, platform 6 (with the County 4-4-0 and train), as it was numbered then, being on the far side of the cab road. I can't detect any low canopy or the distinctive lamps in the LBSCR B4 pic. Incidentally, the caption for this picture, referring to the nearest train, is "Arrival of the Boston boat train".  Was Boston a pickup place from New York?

 

 

[Compound2632]

3 minutes ago, Miss Prism said:

Incidentally, the caption for this picture, referring to the nearest train, is "Arrival of the Boston boat train".  Was Boston a pickup place from New York? 

 

Presumably a direct sailing from Boston, putting off passengers etc. at Plymouth en route to Cherbourg or Bremen or some such, or at Fishguard en route to Liverpool.

[Nearholmer]

Boston was a destination/origin in itself, there was even a Puritan Line steamship company. The city had a huge Irish population, and not everybody went one way and never came back.

 

 

Whether the photo s Paddington or not, and thinking it probably is, both it and Paddington seem to have the full-on wall of enamel adverts that I so like.

[Miss Prism]

There's probably a nerdy historical ship forum where UK destinations of boats from Boston is regarded as elementary information.

 

[Nick Holliday]

2 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

I'm not convinced. Pictures of that side of Paddington are rare, and the area was rebuilt a few times, but this is the closest I can find of that era, platform 6 (with the County 4-4-0 and train), as it was numbered then, being on the far side of the cab road. I can't detect any low canopy or the distinctive lamps in the LBSCR B4 pic. Incidentally, the caption for this picture, referring to the nearest train, is "Arrival of the Boston boat train".  Was Boston a pickup place from New York?

 

 

This photo appeared in Stephen Brindle's book on Paddington, and is dated 1911, with the caption noting the temporary roof over platform 6, presumably associated with the new roof bay designed by Armstrong which was completed in 1915. SO it is possible that the lower flat roof evident in the Brighton loco's portrait has been removed, and perhaps the distinctive steel columns, with their braced arms, were retained and repurposed.

This is another view of the same loco entering Paddington (from the John Minnis collection) on another occasion, and looking as it might be heading for the same arrival platform.

[Miss Prism]

Excellent, I wasn't aware of the temporary awning over platform 6 at that time.  (It seems very 'non-GWR' in style.)

 

 

[Nearholmer]

If you look at 1:1056 scale maps, they also show a platform beyond No.6, on the “off” side of the same track, sort of next to the curtain wall of Bishop’s Bridge Road station. I’m guessing that it was for parcels/mail, rather than passengers.

[Miss Prism]

I think that's the one shown in Nick Holliday's map given above, but I've never seen a picture showing it. The nearest I've got is tantalisingly out of view:

http://www.gwr.org.uk/churns/paddington-milk.jpg

 

[Nearholmer]

I struggle a bit to envisage levels, ramps etc for the situation then, but I think that outer platform had street access, so I wonder if was the churn landing area, and was linked to platform No.6 by a “gangplank” when needed ….,. That would certainly have avoided a lot of really annoying barrow/cart traffic on the cab road platforms.

[wagonman]

Trips to London from school c1960, which travelled via the B&H line, often seemed to arrive at platform 11 under the 'new' roof. I don't know about parcels, but there was usually an all-pervading smell of fish.

[pH]

On 29/11/2023 at 04:17, Miss Prism said:

There's probably a nerdy historical ship forum where UK destinations of boats from Boston is regarded as elementary information.

 

Kind of like a maritime RMWeb 😁?

[LondonCharivari]

I was perusing the Railway Archive and came across this collision report involving a Midland Service from South Tottenham to Victoria. Would anyone happen to know what route this service would've taken (presumably it headed south via the Snow Hill tunnel, but curious how it then got to Victoria) 

 

https://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/docsummary.php?docID=5004

[Nearholmer]

Turn right at Loughborough Junction.

[Compound2632]

1 hour ago, LondonCharivari said:

I was perusing the Railway Archive and came across this collision report involving a Midland Service from South Tottenham to Victoria. Would anyone happen to know what route this service would've taken (presumably it headed south via the Snow Hill tunnel, but curious how it then got to Victoria) 

 

Tottenham and Hampstead to Kentish Town:

 

 

Then on to the Metropolitan Widened Lines and over Blackfriars Bridge:

 

 

Past the Midland Coal station at Walworth Road then:

 

1 hour ago, Nearholmer said:

Turn right at Loughborough Junction.

 

and in from Brixton:

 

 

James Staats Forbes, chairman of the Chatham, was, as far as I can make out, a proxy for Midland interests, in opposition to Watkin of the South Eastern and, of course, the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire, which was allied with that thorn-in-the-flesh the Great Northern.

 

I think Midland goods trains only started running through to Hither green exchange sidings (over South Eastern metals) after the formation of the South Eastern & Chatham Joint Management Committee. Prior to that, exchange was at London Bridge.

 

Not that any of this South London partisanship stopped the Midland, Sheffield, and Great Northern companies collaborating in Lancashire to challenge the North Western hegemony!

Edited February 10 by Compound2632

[Penrhos1920]

21 hours ago, Compound2632 said:

 

 

 

James Staats Forbes, chairman of the Chatham, was, as far as I can make out, a proxy for Midland interests, in opposition to Watkin of the South Eastern and, of course, the Manchester, Sheffield & Lincolnshire, which was allied with that thorn-in-the-flesh the Great Northern.

 

I think Midland goods trains only started running through to Hither green exchange sidings (over South Eastern metals) after the formation of the South Eastern & Chatham Joint Management Committee. Prior to that, exchange was at London Bridge.

 

Not that any of this South London partisanship stopped the Midland, Sheffield, and Great Northern companies collaborating in Lancashire to challenge the North Western hegemony!

 

How many of those routes around Clapham Junction could you travel as a passenger when that map was drawn and how many can we travel today?

Edited February 11 by Penrhos1920

[Compound2632]

6 minutes ago, Penrhos1920 said:

How many of those routes around Clapham Junction could you travel as a passé when that map was drawn and how many can we travel today?

 

Well, not the lines into the various goods stations and coal depots!

 

I think from Clapham Junction to Kensington, both the north and south curves are still in use for scheduled passenger services? 

[Oldddudders]

15 minutes ago, Penrhos1920 said:

 

How many of those routes around Clapham Junction could you travel as a passé when that map was drawn and how many can we travel today?

More than in recent decades. The London Overground runs from C Jn Western to Kensington and beyond several times an hour. In my yoof there was one train each way each day if you were lucky - the Kenny Belle. That same Overground train then returns, after circumnavigating London, via Factory Junction and Longhedge Junction at bottom right, to a different but adjacent platform at C Jn Western. That route saw no local passenger services whatever in my yoof, but occasional Inter-regional trains ran that way. Services operate in both directions, obviously. 

 

It should be noted that the Longhedge Junction to Stewarts Lane Junction layout saw substantial rationalisation under the VARS (Victoria Area Resignalling Scheme) in the early '80s. Longhedge Junction box used to be a fascinating place to hear trains. The Brighton Main Line ran overhead, and the LSWR Main Line was not far behind the box. But, especially in the rush hour, hardly anything moved on the four-track section that the box controlled, unless in or out of Stew Lane. A Cross-London freight might creep round from Latchmere Junction, but it would simply sit up the Ludgate Line curve to Factory Junction, typically until 09.30 or 18.30, when a path existed for its onward journey to Hither Green or Dover, via the Catford Loop. 

[Nearholmer]

When I was a trainee with CM&EE, one of my oppos in S&T told me very wide eyed one day that he’d been out on a job at Longhedge Junction, and while they were doing whatever in the box, the signalman spent the whole time playing chess by block bells with a similarly bored chap next along.