Sandy to ..... Broad Street?

[317362]

I have come across a 1974 timetable for the Huntingdon-St Neots-Sandy-London service.

One of the footnotes indicates that the 0710 Sandy-Kings Cross (seems to start Sandy) is temporarily diverted to Broad Street. This came as a surprise.

Anyone know the history/have a pic?

There is also one SO train that is down as arriving Kings Cross York Road platform, summer only.

 

[Bevan Price]

I have come across a 1974 timetable for the Huntingdon-St Neots-Sandy-London service.

One of the footnotes indicates that the 0710 Sandy-Kings Cross (seems to start Sandy) is temporarily diverted to Broad Street. This came as a surprise.

Anyone know the history/have a pic?

There is also one SO train that is down as arriving Kings Cross York Road platform, summer only.

There used to be regular "commuter" services from the ECML into Broad Street - at weekday peak hours and on Saturday mornings (when working on Saturday mornings was still fairly common practice until the 1960s or early 1970s . Terminating at Kings Cross York Road was also common (with some peak hour trains continuing to Moorgate.)
(And for completeness, Broad Street once also had commuter services from the Midland Main Line....)

 

[gg1]

(And for completeness, Broad Street once also had commuter services from the Midland Main Line....)

Going back to LNWR days there was also a direct Wolverhampton to Broad Street service in the years running up to WW1, complete with a novel feature to attract the Edwardian business traveller, onboard typists.

 

[Bald Rick]

If you go back far enough (1863) there was a daily direct train from Cambridge to the Met Line, terminating at Farringdon.

 

[Taunton]

There were two groups of GN line service that ran to Broad Street and York Road/Moorgate termini (used somewhat interchangeably). The inner suburbans to Welwyn/Hertford, and the outers to Royston/Huntingdon. Both used a mixture of 31-hauled non-corridor stock and Cravens dmus. These were all on 57 foot short frames. The hauled sets were made up for the two separate service types, the inners were second class only, the outers actually had first class non-corridor vehicles.

(And for completeness, Broad Street once also had commuter services from the Midland Main Line....)

I think actually a reference to WCML services from Tring etc (don't think you can actually get to Broad Street from the Midland, despite some notable closeness of the lines at multiple points). These lasted until shortly before electrification in the 1960s, Class 24 hauled by the end.

 

[317362]

Thanks all. Could anyone confirm the route to Broad Street, assume NLL and Dalton but you never know?

 

[RT4038]

In the summers of 1956/7 (and possibly other years too) some trains were diverted on Saturdays to/from Broad Street owing to congestion at King's Cross. This included a 1.18pm from Peterborough North/2.36pm from Sandy to Broad Street arr. 4.20pm, and the return 5.48pm Broad Street to Peterborough North, stopping at Sandy 7.27pm

 

[Taunton]

Thanks all. Could anyone confirm the route to Broad Street, assume NLL and Dalton but you never know?

Actually you do know, because that's correct . The Canonbury spur from Finsbury Park to Canonbury, still there, linked the routes. The North London route was 4-track all the way along to Dalston and on down along the long viaduct to Broad Street. The GN services used the north side lines right through to the eastern platforms at Broad Street, the DC electrics used the south side lines. Using this in 1974 at weekends was likely because of electrification works.

It was a longstanding use of the route. Before 1939, when a significant proportion of the GN suburban services ran this way, some old agreement was that the Broad Street services to Welwyn/Hertford/Edgware/Barnet etc were provided by the North London Railway, after 1923 by the LMS. Must have not been a good financial arrangement because it was the last, until 1939, London service which still used 4-wheeled, wooden-seated, gas-lit stock (the old NLR vehicles), hauled by Jinty tanks. After WW2 it was finally agreed that the LNER would provide the service.

 

[317362]

Thanks again. Had no idea. Clearly!

 

[Railwaysceptic]

Actually you do know, because that's correct . The Canonbury spur from Finsbury Park to Canonbury, still there, linked the routes. The North London route was 4-track all the way along to Dalston and on down along the long viaduct to Broad Street. The GN services used the north side lines right through to the eastern platforms at Broad Street, the DC electrics used the south side lines. Using this in 1974 at weekends was likely because of electrification works.

It was a longstanding use of the route. Before 1939, when a significant proportion of the GN suburban services ran this way, some old agreement was that the Broad Street services to Welwyn/Hertford/Edgware/Barnet etc were provided by the North London Railway, after 1923 by the LMS. Must have not been a good financial arrangement because it was the last, until 1939, London service which still used 4-wheeled, wooden-seated, gas-lit stock (the old NLR vehicles), hauled by Jinty tanks. After WW2 it was finally agreed that the LNER would provide the service.

When I was in my 20s, I used to travel to work that way. From the Hertford Loop, through Finsbury Park and Canonbury Tunnel - still twin track in those days - and via Dalston Junction Station to Broad Street. The EMUs to Richmond used to have metal bars across the door windows to stop passengers leaning out! At that time there was no passenger service between Canonbury and Stratford and so for regulars like me, the route from Dalston to Stratford was mysterious and fascinating. Now that we can travel along that route, the fascination has gone!

 

[Taunton]

There was actually a residual daily passenger service on this east end of the NLR (which I guess you were looking at before the Camden Road diesels started at the end of the 1970s), it had been given up in WW2 due to bomb damage but an unadvertised service remained until well into the mid-1960s from Devons Road old platform, by the diesel loco depot, to Broad Street and back, it left at about 4am and returned promptly, obviously a staff train before buses started running. The diesel depot provided a Type 1 loco for it. You can do this much of this run nowadays, some on the extended Overground and the rest on the DLR.

The barred windows on the DC emus were due to just one of the tunnels, I think Hampstead, on their system which had substandard limited clearance. Same reason as the dmus in west Cumbria had bars as well.