Brent Cross (LU) station bypass tracks

[eh_oh]

When look at the carto metro london map, it shows that Brent Cross station once had fast tracks going around the station.
The space for these can also be seen in real life.

I cannot find any details of their existence online, does anyone know anything more about them?

 

[John Webb]

There is a 1938/39 map: https://maps.nls.uk/view/103657934 on the National Library of Scotland's maps website which clearly shows the lines in place at that time. But there is no later map of the area at the same scale that I could find.
This photo from 1961 shows they had been removed by then:
Brent LPTB Station, on platform

© Copyright Ben Brooksbank and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence.
(click on photo to go to the larger original on the Geograph website)

The caption to the above photo mentions that the station was renamed from 'Brent' to 'Brent Cross' in 1976, so it may be worth looking for 'Brent' in your searches?

 

[stuving]

NLS do also have large-scale maps for about 1951, though the revision date is a bit vague. This aerial photo from 1946 (https://maps.nls.uk/view/238225972#zoom=5&lat=7027&lon=4952&layers=BT) shows the space empty, and also that low raised platform visible in the 1961 photo. Was that (whatever it is) connected with the removal of the loop lines?

PS: Wikipedia says they were added soon after the station opened, and removed in the 1930s. That begs the question of why there was space for them, unless they were planned in the original station design.

PPS: This, from the Hendon & Finchley Times, 2 February 1923, says this was indeed the original design.


We all know how much quicker Victorian railway builders were then today's, but clearly that was still true in the 1920s. And don't those costs look an absolute bargain - whichever index you use to scale them up to current money.

 

[MarkyT]

Another aerial photo source is Britain From Above. Here's the station in 1926:

EPW016526 ENGLAND (1926). Brent Cross underground station and environs, Golders Green, 1926 | Britain From Above

britainfromabove.org.uk

Note that if you register and log in, you can see user comments on the photos and zoom in. Looking closely, the rails might still be there but I suspect they're not as distinct as the platform tracks because they may be disused and rusty.
A user added the following comment:

Brent station had a northbound and southbound passing loop added shortly after the line was opened in 1923. This involved the considerable expense of additional engineering and signalling merely to facilitate very infrequent peak time non-stopping services. In the event, it was not considered to have been worthwhile and the loop was decommissioned after only a few years.

 

[stuving]

Another clipping from the Hendon & Finchley Times, of 12 March 1937, narrows the time window again (from a very long piece about a protest meeting):

The article was headed "Borough demands tube seats; improved travelling facilities must come before extension to Elstree". This was the New Works Programme's proposal to extend to Bushey Heath, on which some work was done but the war stopped that and it never restarted. The protesters were mainly complaining about overcrowding, so the loss of the extra fast trains was seen as making things worse (even if they skipped Brent)

 

[MarkyT]

The outer tracks are definitely there in this image, also 1926:

EPW016525 ENGLAND (1926). Brent Cross underground station, Highfield Avenue and environs, Golders Green, 1926 | Britain From Above

britainfromabove.org.uk

Sneaky screen shot:

 

[Sad Sprinter]

I have seen a picture at least once of a fast train bypassing a stopping train on those tracks. In the early days skip-stop services were common on the Underground. At least on the Northern and Piccadilly.

Would have been great, of course, if provision had been made to widen the whole alignment to four tracks.