Great Eastern services before electrification to Norwich and Class 86?

[Taunton]

Yes, the signals seemed sometimes little more than a train length apart, more Underground style, and to pull you up would display at least two double yellow followed by two single yellow. Fortunately it's a pretty straight line.

I did read a few years ago that the most SPAD-ed signal nationally had been one on the Down Electric at Shenfield, and that after a string of trivial remedies like cutting vegetation back it was overcome by installing a banner repeater. Presumably time was when there would have been two or even three signals there.

Would like to try to find that article.

There's one up in my attic. Somewhere. Green front cover if I recall correctly. Unfortunately to get to it you would have to clear out first the old Christmas decorations, children's high chairs, etc!

 

[306024]

I did read a few years ago that the most SPAD-ed signal nationally had been one on the Down Electric at Shenfield, and that after a string of trivial remedies like cutting vegetation back it was overcome by installing a banner repeater. Presumably time was when there would have been two or even three signals there.

L487 was the signal. Sighted on the curve of Brentwood bank, but just after the gradient changes from a maximum of 1:80 uphill to going downhill, making it a tricky signal in leaffall especially. A timetable change when the every 10 minute Shenfield metro service was introduced was another reason, as the signal would be red if a train was departing platform 5 at Shenfield towards Liverpool St, something much less common in the previous timetable. Timetable changes are more rigorously assessed these days to avoid such issues.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Yes, the signals seemed sometimes little more than a train length apart, more Underground style, and to pull you up would display at least two double yellow followed by two single yellow. Fortunately it's a pretty straight line.

I did read a few years ago that the most SPAD-ed signal nationally had been one on the Down Electric at Shenfield, and that after a string of trivial remedies like cutting vegetation back it was overcome by installing a banner repeater. Presumably time was when there would have been two or even three signals there.


There's one up in my attic. Somewhere. Green front cover if I recall correctly. Unfortunately to get to it you would have to clear out first the old Christmas decorations, children's high chairs, etc!

The article may be in the shed . Will have a look - no promises. (along with WTT's , Station Working books and much else)

 

[306024]

@Taunton and @ChiefPlanner thanks for the offer. I can wait until Christmas (!) but please don’t go to any great effort unless you want to.

 

[30907]

If memeory serves correctly from my days as a controller at Liverpool St, there was the 1004 Liverpool St to Sheringham and the return working, which was formed of 3 x 2 car 105 (Cravens) units, which came from Finsbury Park. It was formed of these units as Stratford drivers took it to Norwich and back and Norwich drivers forward to Sheringham - Norwich drivers did not sign the units which Stratford had in any numbers (the Lea Valley suburban units). On a number of occasions the ECS would turn up in Liverpool St with only 2 x 2 due to shortage of GN units which resulted in overcrowding. It would have been quite an experience for holidaymakers, travelling on somewhat tatty DMUs on which everything which could rattle rattled, especially at speed, windows, doors, seats. It probably did the unit's engines good to have a gallop down the GE main line instead of all stations GN suburban services!

Thanks, that makes more sense than Metro-Cam units which would have had to come up from the country. The Lea Valley units would have been even less suited.

 

[Taunton]

Funny how many of us have hung on to the old magazines. Mine has even been in the 1980s to California in a container, don't think I ever read it while there though they were all was on open shelving, and some time later came back, now to almost within distant earshot of the line, here at Canary Wharf.

 

[hexagon789]

And all without the technology we take for granted today.

The train describers were something else. Hopefully someone remembers the detail better than me but a visit to the old Liverpool St signal box in 1978 was like visiting a museum. Not unknown for a signaller to stop a train outside the platforms and ask the driver what train it was.

Controllers recording the running of the service on huge A3 sheets of paper after a regular ‘square up’ with the signallers. Unit and loco workings recorded on coloured cards in a big rack against the diagrams. Match the colour of the diagram to the colour of the unit or loco was the theory unless you deliberately had a better plan.

If it worked, then while it may seem antiquated by modern standards, not a bad system of working

 

[David Burrows]

Thanks, that makes more sense than Metro-Cam units which would have had to come up from the country. The Lea Valley units would have been even less suited.

The Lea Valley units did have their trips to the seaside, each summer Saturday for a number of years 2 x 3 (or was it 3 x 3? Liverpool St to Yarmouth South Town (reversing at Lowestoft) and return. Great fun unless one wanted to go to the loo - of which there were none on these units. Extended station stops were sometimes necessary at those ststions with such facilities

 

[Alfie1014]

@Taunton and @ChiefPlanner thanks for the offer. I can wait until Christmas (!) but please don’t go to any great effort unless you want to.

Sounds like a road-trip, Manningtree station buffet and the secondhand bookshop at Felixstowe (if still open after lockdown!)

Another taster the Saturday service with the afore-mentioned Liv St - Sheringham summer service and extras down the East Suffolk. I've scanned all the East Anglian tables from the 1974 All System timetable, but so far only addedd tables 8 and 11 to my flickr site https://www.flickr.com/photos/8673209@N04/albums/72157718965768720/with/51112034550/ more to come as time allows.

 

[O L Leigh]

The Shenfield electrics must have been transformational , and I seem to recall the signalling on the "E" lines could display consecutive double yellows such was the spacing , something that was designed out on resignalling in the 1980's.

I used to sign the GE side as far as Seven Kings in order to access Ilford Car Sheds for ECS, and the signalling sequence on the "E" lines was still G-YY-YY-Y-R. I presume that it still is. The signal sections were so short on the "E" lines that it was not uncommon to see trains almost literally nose to tail along there if there was any sort of disruption. It made the approaches to Stratford great fun if you were following something, as the approaches were curved, six tracks wide, all of which were bi-directional, and the signals were all up on gantries.

I'll stand to be corrected, but I'm pretty sure that it was only two double yellows and not three as @306024 suggests, but then the sequence could have been different further out at Chadwell Heath.

 

[36270k]

Sounds like a road-trip, Manningtree station buffet and the secondhand bookshop at Felixstowe (if still open after lockdown!)

Another taster the Saturday service with the afore-mentioned Liv St - Sheringham summer service and extras down the East Suffolk. I've scanned all the East Anglian tables from the 1974 All System timetable, but so far only addedd tables 8 and 11 to my flickr site https://www.flickr.com/photos/8673209@N04/albums/72157718965768720/with/51112034550/ more to come as time allows.

There is a sign in the window of Treasure Chest books in Felixstowe saying they plan to reopen.

Link https://www.bottbooks.com/

 

[Jim Jehosofat]

I’m reasonably sure they could be persuaded . Might need the promise of some biscuits.

I believe Krispy Kreme do-nuts are the preferred currency in this modern age!

 

[306024]

I'll stand to be corrected, but I'm pretty sure that it was only two double yellows and not three as @306024 suggests, but then the sequence could have been different further out at Chadwell Heath.

No you are correct for what you signed, I was referring to the up main back in the 1970s, when the signalling was very unusual.

 

[O L Leigh]

No you are correct for what you signed, I was referring to the up main back in the 1970s, when the signalling was very unusual.

Righto.

 

[AM9]

Sounds like a road-trip, Manningtree station buffet and the secondhand bookshop at Felixstowe (if still open after lockdown!)

Another taster the Saturday service with the afore-mentioned Liv St - Sheringham summer service and extras down the East Suffolk. I've scanned all the East Anglian tables from the 1974 All System timetable, but so far only addedd tables 8 and 11 to my flickr site https://www.flickr.com/photos/8673209@N04/albums/72157718965768720/with/51112034550/ more to come as time allows.

Thanks for the table 8 and 11 scans. If you have the Southend Victoria and Shenfield ones as well, - were they tables 5 & 6 in those days? I might have a crack at creating somthing like a combined representation of the peak hour timetables (not real of course but certainly something for discussion, - maybe in another thread).

 

[MontyP]

At the risk of asking a personal question, how was your waistline at the end of that? If I worked late some evenings I would treat myself to dinner from Liverpool St. If you got on early enough and warned the crew they could serve two courses by Colchester, brilliant service.

The 07.56 Ipswich to Stowmarket is hidden away in the timetable, but the 'toasting fork' symbol gives this away as the North Country Continental from Parkeston to Manchester.

Also note the 15.30/16.30/17.30/18.40/19.30 departures from Liverpool St are all through trains to Great Yarmouth where the stock was stabled. Maintaining the fleet on the edge of Breydon Water in winter wasn't for the faint hearted.

Amazing to see 5 trains in a row extended to Yarmouth, was there ever the demand for this or was it just for convenience (stabling etc). The sets must have been in marginal time anyway

 

[306024]

Amazing to see 5 trains in a row extended to Yarmouth, was there ever the demand for this or was it just for convenience (stabling etc). The sets must have been in marginal time anyway

Must have been operationally led. Difficult to imagine much demand, although one through service did exist using class 170 units in Anglia Railways days.

 

[ac6000cw]

Amazing to see 5 trains in a row extended to Yarmouth, was there ever the demand for this or was it just for convenience (stabling etc). The sets must have been in marginal time anyway

The stock was stabled and serviced there - from memory, both loco-hauled and some DMUs. IIRC, Norwich (at that time) had a loco shed and a fueling point, both close to the station, plus some carriage sidings.

Crown Point depot opened in 1982 to replace the old facilities at Norwich and Yarmouth (and also Cambridge DMU depot, which closed for a while after that before being re-opened as an RES depot and then becoming an overnight servicing depot for the CT/XC Cambridge/Stansted stock).

So when Crown Point opened, East Anglian area DMU maintenance was centralised there and diesel loco maintenance at Stratford and March. I don't know where the non-Norwich-London hauled stock was maintained e.g. for London-Cambridge-Kings Lynn and Harwich boat train services before they went to EMUs after electrification.

 

[Helvellyn]

So when Crown Point opened, East Anglian area DMU maintenance was centralised there and diesel loco maintenance at Stratford and March. I don't know where the non-Norwich-London hauled stock was maintained e.g. for London-Cambridge-Kings Lynn and Harwich boat train services before they went to EMUs after electrification.

Cambridge (CA) was still open as a carriage depot after Crown Point opened, so it was maintaining the stock for the Liverpool Street - Cambridge services. After electrification I think it was Network SouthEast that closed it before it was taken on by the Parcels side. But I'd have to double check my Platform 5 books to see if it did actually close.