Norwood Junction Depot

[Brian Emeney]

I've been looking at locations for basing a new layout on and I've come across Southern's Norwood Junction Depot. I've ordered a 1:1250 scale map of the area from NLS and have been looking at maps and satellite images online. I've also found some useful stuff on kentrail.org.uk. I have one question after looking on google maps satellite image - does the ground layout still visible represent the footprint of the old depot? The image is at 51.403868014905434, -0.07027585565174574 on google maps (I hope that reference works).

Thanks in advance,

Brian

[Oldddudders]

The depot opened in 1935, and took up pretty much all the space between the Up Birkbeck Line at Bromley Junction, the Down Slow and the Down Crystal Palace Spur. A 4-road dead-end shed by the Palace Spur was supplemented by a coal stage with extra siding next to the Down Slow, and two roads leading to a 65' TT to the north end of the site were between the two.

 

My info from Hawkins & Reeve, Historical Survey of Southern Sheds, Oxford Pub Co 1979.

[Nearholmer]

The site of the loco depot was used to create the regional HV cable works unit, partly because it was rail-locked, and therefore easier than most places to keep secure from theft, but looking at recent satellite pictures it doesn’t seem to be that any more; it looks rather derelict, but seems to include what I think must be an on-tracking point for RRVs.

 

 

 

 

[phil-b259]

8 minutes ago, Nearholmer said:

The site of the loco depot was used to create the regional HV cable works unit, partly because it was rail-locked, and therefore easier than most places to keep secure from theft, but looking at recent satellite pictures it doesn’t seem to be that any more; it looks rather derelict, but seems to include what I think must be an on-tracking point for RRVs.

 

I believe it fell to the curse of Railtrack going bust!

 

To recap - Upon privatisation infrastructure maintenance depots were farmed out to various contractors (known as 'IMC's) who had won contracts to maintain the railway on 99 year leases from Railtrack PLC.

 

All well and good (with site leases usually transferred between different IMCs should the 2nd batch of 5 year contracts be different from the first) - until Railtrack got nationalised and became Network Rail.

 

At that point obviously NR went round to all the ex IMCs and asked for the leases to be given back to them - BUT while some contractors were fairly happy to give up their rail maintenance contracts - others were NOT

 

AMEC, who had won the infrastructure maintenance contract for the Sussex routes both times felt particularly agreaved as they saw failings which bought down Railtrack as being the fault of other contractors and took the view why should AMEC be forced to give up a profitable division because of the failings of others.

 

Now while AMEC couldn't stop the transfer of maintenance staff themselves and the cancelling of the IMC contracts, The nationalisation / creation of Network Rail had made no difference to the leases let at privatisation and as such things like Norwood Cable Depot (Purley training facility, Three Bridges p-way depot, The Combined Engineering depot built on the site of Brightons old steam depot) all remained firmly in the hands of AMEC.

 

Feeling rather pissed off, AMEC refused to give up the leases / demanded an obscene amount of money for them - which led Network Rail deciding to invest in alternatives sites if at all possible. The activities previously done at Norwood were thus transferred away thus meaning no more lease payments to AMEC (or Colas - the company AMEC sold its remaining rail interests to after a couple of years).

 

Since then, nobody has seen any need to take on the site on...

 

 

[keefer]

Side-by-side maps at NLS

 

Georeferenced overlays at NLS

[phil_sutters]

17 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

 

 

 

 

 

I once sat in a bus, on the way back from Croydon to East Dulwich, for well over an hour, roughly where the blue bus logo is at bottom left. A motorcyclist had come out of that junction with Kings Road, skidded as he turned right, on a newly rained-on road surface, and went under the front wheels of a lorry. The air ambulance landed on the cross shaped surface just inside the entrance to the depot site. The fence at that time, I think was straight along the road, but the down wash blew it outwards, although it held fast.

Edited March 3, 2022 by phil_sutters

[Oldddudders]

I found the AMEC history interesting. Southern IMU, as it was called prior to sale, was a rather pleasant place to go for the monthly review. Their leader, Bill (forgotten his surname) was bright and avuncular, and the Finance Manager I had known since the '60s. Bill was a principled man - he would occasionally go for a weekend retreat in a foundation at Aylesford - so the AMEC stance reflects his outlook, although he must have been retired by then.  

[Nearholmer]

Do you mean Bill who lead what I knew under BR as the cable works unit?

 

If so, I know who you mean. He took it over after the previous manager moved to Stratford OLE depot IIRC. Bill was very gentle mannered, but had a very mischievous wit, and he used to deliberately, and very subtly, provoke huge arguments between myself (young, idealistic, and standing for election as a Labour councillor) and the senior supervisor there (c60yo, fairly hard-bitten Tory councillor in Surrey). On one occasion, we drove in the big van from Norwood to somewhere way down in east Kent to look at a particularly challenging job, and the argument lasted the entire trip, and resumed on the way back, interrupted only by genial and productive time on site. Bill would sit in the middle, one of us on each side, and if the debate flagged, or we were approaching agreement, he would gently insert a few words guaranteed to reignite it. I was too niaive at the time to realise that there was a big clockwork key in my back!

 

The previous manager, BTW, was a great character too. He was a model engineer with strong interest in the GER, and was building a 5” gauge 4-4-0. He was in his late 40s, a tad dour and grumpy, and claimed he thoroughly disliked women, a single man. Then, somehow, he met the love of his life, and became more devoted to her than you can imagine. Truth was I think, he didn’t dislike women, he had never found one, and was a bit dejected as a result. Complete character transformation, and everyone lived happily ever after.

[Oldddudders]

I think 'my' Bill would have been a senior Chartered Civil to have been in his role, and he was obviously liked by the BRIS Directors, who were by and large former Sector Infrastructure Directors, including Richard Bonham-Carter, who I know you wot of. 

[Nearholmer]

A different Bill then, but thank you for stirring long-dormant memories, as has this entire thread.

 

I was never actually based at the CWU, but did stints with them during training, and later was technical link-man as we transferred from oil-filled to modern type high voltage cabling and accessories.

[Oldddudders]

2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

A different Bill then, but thank you for stirring long-dormant memories, as has this entire thread.

 

I was never actually based at the CWU, but did stints with them during training, and later was technical link-man as we transferred from oil-filled to modern type high voltage cabling and accessories.

Ooh, oil-filled cables, great fat things. In my Control days, I think it was St Helier signalman who rang to say the P Way had stuck a scythe through a cable and oil was spilling out. I rang Southern House electrical control and they were grateful and got the chaps on the way. 

[phil-b259]

6 hours ago, Oldddudders said:

I found the AMEC history interesting. Southern IMU, as it was called prior to sale, was a rather pleasant place to go for the monthly review.

 

They definitely seemed to be a good outfit to work under - and in many respects because all management was done locally things were just far less of a faff than under NR.

 

I was told that in the early days one of the newly appointed middle ranking AMEC managers (from outside the industry) tried to take a hatchet to staff T&Cs (no doubt believing like many they had just bought 'a bunch of builders'), but when staff refused to sign the new contracts en mass, the top brass at AMEC commissioned an outside party to investigate and when the report came back saying that far from cutting pay - it should be massively increased due to skill sets etc needed AMEC ditched the troubling making manager and apologised to the the staff. Net result staff felt valued (and kept one of the best setups pay / T&C wise amongst all the IMCs) which had a positive impact on quality of work / productivity

Edited March 3, 2022 by phil-b259

[Brian Emeney]

Thanks for your help everyone: so it looks as if the current footprint does not represent the depot as it was during its lifetime. Perhaps the hive mind could help me with another question about this depot? 

The attached image shows the loco shed at Norwood Junction with the water tower to the left of the picture. There are some single storey brick buildings to the extreme left of the picture which I assume to be workshops and associated buildings. There appears to be a structure on the roof of these buildings - does anyone have any idea what this might be?

I did see a better quality version of this image somewhere but I'll be damned if I can find it again!

[Oldddudders]

As an aside that loco, former LBSCR 411 "Blackheath", is a fairly rare bird, being one of only two E6x class. It and 407 were assigned to Norwood Junction depot on opening, and seem to have spent their working lives there. By all accounts the E6x was an even better loco than the 10 E6 from which they were evolved with a bigger boiler, both being highly regarded for shunting etc duties. Note the 4'6" wheels.