Observations on the latest images:
K Class loco on No.3 Goods train. Livery and lettering style of loco, albeit Metropolitan, would be also present under early London Transport, for the first 2-3 years after 1933 takeover. It’s a very fine and useful image.
There’s a view of K Class 112 on No. 3 Goods taken on 17 August 1935 by H C Casserley which was published in May 2018 Backtrack. Location given as Chorley Wood and looks similar, albeit a different point of taking.
Have no direct evidence on the train’s time schedule to hand, but looking at Goods Train Supplement 1/5/1931, the No. 3 train is broadly a late daytime trip in the Up direction and an end-of-day and overnight Down trip. Subsequently, it departs Verney Junction just after 8am, and calls at most but not all intermediate yards reaching Harrow by 9:49pm. It passed through Chorley Wood late afternoon. Train 3 in 1931 was allowed to be up to 600 tons load if a G or K class locomotive and 20T brake was used. Looking at the Freight Train Supplement 17/7/1939, there is a very similar run for train 3, so I feel it’s reasonable to infer the train working changed little through the years in question, 1933 to 1935/6.
In the Aylesbury image with loco 97, I believe the loco livery is of the early London Transport style, so image date may run from mid-1933 to 1935 or 1936.
The image of loco 5 is taken outside the Electric Car Shed at Neasden [the Baker Street end]. Name plates in that style were fitted and in service progressively from October 1927 onwards. By the way, archive evidence gives a cost of £5/3/0 per plate plus £140 costs for fitting plates to all the locomotives. In the background, the 3rd Class vehicle is 1913 Saloon Stock [elliptical roof and, added as an edit after checking pictures, the width of vertical panels adjacent to doorway] but not enough evidence to say which sort of vehicle.
I agree that H Class loco at Harrow-on-the-Hill is in the [old number] platform 3, headed in the Down direction. The loco has an oval form of company name and an oval large makers plate, which places the image relatively early in the career of these locos [entering service from mid-1920 to July 1921]. The train is of interest and may influence dating slightly, with a Bogie Stock coach formed in second position and other vehicles appear all to be Main Line Stock [‘Dreadnought’]. First vehicle is a 3rd Class Brake Coach and the third vehicle is a 1st Class Coach [from number of compartments]. The Bogie Stock vehicle is a 3rd Class Coach [by counting compartments]. It would be normal sometimes to include Bogie Stock vehicles in a Main Line Stock train to complete the formation up to the early 1920s, until later deliveries of Main Line Stock arrived. All but three of the remaining Bogie Stock loco-hauled coaches were formed into W Stock electric trains during the last half of 1921 leaving only three spare coaches remaining until 1924, two of which were 3rd Class. Best odds, therefore, are that the image dates from 1920/21 but could stretch to 1924.
I, too, agree that the junction image is Quainton Road, with excellent detail of the signal which I believe to be Metropolitan in style, and the usefulness of this image in a layout and signalling sense reinforces, I believe, the proposition that KB connects this sub-collection of images to Ken Benest. Worth noting also KB’s work on Metropolitan coach and car stock, published in ‘Underground News’, which provided the foundation for further research and publication in later years, yet his strong expertise was signalling, and he provided a substantial appendix on the subject in the great work on the history of the company by Jackson.
A footnote on post 189, the image of a G class loco. Purely speculation, that the loco appears to be on track whose 'ballast' shoulder seems to be supported by timbers. This could be the steam loco part of Neasden yard.
K Class loco on No.3 Goods train. Livery and lettering style of loco, albeit Metropolitan, would be also present under early London Transport, for the first 2-3 years after 1933 takeover. It’s a very fine and useful image.
There’s a view of K Class 112 on No. 3 Goods taken on 17 August 1935 by H C Casserley which was published in May 2018 Backtrack. Location given as Chorley Wood and looks similar, albeit a different point of taking.
Have no direct evidence on the train’s time schedule to hand, but looking at Goods Train Supplement 1/5/1931, the No. 3 train is broadly a late daytime trip in the Up direction and an end-of-day and overnight Down trip. Subsequently, it departs Verney Junction just after 8am, and calls at most but not all intermediate yards reaching Harrow by 9:49pm. It passed through Chorley Wood late afternoon. Train 3 in 1931 was allowed to be up to 600 tons load if a G or K class locomotive and 20T brake was used. Looking at the Freight Train Supplement 17/7/1939, there is a very similar run for train 3, so I feel it’s reasonable to infer the train working changed little through the years in question, 1933 to 1935/6.
In the Aylesbury image with loco 97, I believe the loco livery is of the early London Transport style, so image date may run from mid-1933 to 1935 or 1936.
The image of loco 5 is taken outside the Electric Car Shed at Neasden [the Baker Street end]. Name plates in that style were fitted and in service progressively from October 1927 onwards. By the way, archive evidence gives a cost of £5/3/0 per plate plus £140 costs for fitting plates to all the locomotives. In the background, the 3rd Class vehicle is 1913 Saloon Stock [elliptical roof and, added as an edit after checking pictures, the width of vertical panels adjacent to doorway] but not enough evidence to say which sort of vehicle.
I agree that H Class loco at Harrow-on-the-Hill is in the [old number] platform 3, headed in the Down direction. The loco has an oval form of company name and an oval large makers plate, which places the image relatively early in the career of these locos [entering service from mid-1920 to July 1921]. The train is of interest and may influence dating slightly, with a Bogie Stock coach formed in second position and other vehicles appear all to be Main Line Stock [‘Dreadnought’]. First vehicle is a 3rd Class Brake Coach and the third vehicle is a 1st Class Coach [from number of compartments]. The Bogie Stock vehicle is a 3rd Class Coach [by counting compartments]. It would be normal sometimes to include Bogie Stock vehicles in a Main Line Stock train to complete the formation up to the early 1920s, until later deliveries of Main Line Stock arrived. All but three of the remaining Bogie Stock loco-hauled coaches were formed into W Stock electric trains during the last half of 1921 leaving only three spare coaches remaining until 1924, two of which were 3rd Class. Best odds, therefore, are that the image dates from 1920/21 but could stretch to 1924.
I, too, agree that the junction image is Quainton Road, with excellent detail of the signal which I believe to be Metropolitan in style, and the usefulness of this image in a layout and signalling sense reinforces, I believe, the proposition that KB connects this sub-collection of images to Ken Benest. Worth noting also KB’s work on Metropolitan coach and car stock, published in ‘Underground News’, which provided the foundation for further research and publication in later years, yet his strong expertise was signalling, and he provided a substantial appendix on the subject in the great work on the history of the company by Jackson.
A footnote on post 189, the image of a G class loco. Purely speculation, that the loco appears to be on track whose 'ballast' shoulder seems to be supported by timbers. This could be the steam loco part of Neasden yard.
Last edited: