Hay making on the Northern Line.

[John M]

One of my memories of traveling home in late Summer evenings on the Northern Line during the 1980s was what appeared to be hayricks by the lineside on the above ground section between Golders Green and Edgeware.  

 

At the time I lived in Colindale and worked in Wapping normally driving to work, I took the Tube home on Thursday evening after a session in the pub with my workmates, traveling to work by Tube on Friday mornings, part of my London Days long ago!

 

With few people travelling some Guard/Conductor would leave their door open between stops letting in some fresh air and adding to the bucolic atmosphere.

 

Presumably the 'hayricks" /dried grass cuttings would have been removed by Works Train.

 

The questions are whether the 'hayricks" were a figment of my imagination, was the hay actually used as animal feed and when or if the practice ceased.

 

[Michael Hodgson]

Wasn't the hay was used to feed the Golders Green shunting horse ?

[Wickham Green too]

Now, the fact that you only saw the hayricks after a session in the pub might tell you something !!?!

[RANGERS]

3 hours ago, Wickham Green too said:

Now, the fact that you only saw the hayricks after a session in the pub might tell you something !!?!

They were never moved, they were the fodder for the pink unicorns that roamed North London in the 1980s...

[Tom Burnham]

Harvesting lineside hay was definitely a thing on steam railways.  The Kent & East Sussex used to auction it off.

[Nearholmer]

I know exactly who could have told you, but he retired some years ago. Mr Mole (I kid you not), who was the man in charge of “vegetation management” for the Underground. My instinct is that you did see something real, because the whole business of preventing mass overgrowth of the line-side, trimming trees etc is quite a thing.