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General Brixton history - photos, stories etc

Certainly is niche - almost as mesmerising as a Philip Glass opera (123 12 12 12345 etc)

I was amazed at how bendy the track is. Throws more light on Network Rail's excuse for not progressing a Brixton interchange. Wonder how safe all those nuclear waste flagons are passing during the night - especially now they have dispensed with guards and guards vans on heavy goods trains.

My own little niche is this - I was fascinated by what appear to be electrical sub stations at Nunhead Junction and between Ravensbourne and Shortands. These are similar in style to the one at Loughborough Junction by the scrap yard. Would they all be contemporaneous?

Is the film for training purposes - like a flight simulator sort of thing, or just for fun?
Yes, I have noticed the substations. Not sure when they date from. The line from Victoria to London Bridge through Brixton and Denmark Hill was the first in the UK (I think) to be electrified, around 1905. For that scheme they had overhead wires. Then in the 20s it was converted to "third rail" which became the standard for the south of england, so substations could also date from around then.

There are not many nuclear flasks coming past now. 5 years ago there would often be a couple of trains a week. More recently it seems to be a train only every couple of weeks, and usually just carrying one flask wagon (I think maybe because one half of Dungeness PS has been shut down now). They are designed to stay intact in a high speed collision so I doubt a guard's van would make any difference in the kind of accident. In any case guard's vans are redundant on modern freight trains as they have failsafe braking.

Not sure what the video was for. Maybe just for fun. Although they do sometimes make route-learning videos I think.
 
Wow. Loads of empty shops along the Front Line, and massive plots of boarded up land along Railton Road. How has the area changed (and yet in other ways remained the same),
apart from the health centre and new flats on one side of railton I recall it looked pretty much the same in the early 90s.
Nice to see the anarchist squat (was that 121?) was there then - I remember going to vegan lesbian nights there in mid '80s. More boring flats now, shame.
 
morley-fire-fire-aug-1910.jpg


Love this video:



The Great Fire of Brixton Morleys, August 1910 – photos and video
 
View attachment 74710

Loving this late 60s/early 70s (I'm guessing) slide from eBay.

Looks like a Citroen DS estate (white car driving away from the photographer) - :eek:

Routemasters first appeared on the 2B in 1966, and their combination of grey (not white) band round the middle, and absence of the white LT logo on the side would also say late 60s / early 70s

If you can make out (at higher resolution) the registration number of the bus, I may be able to trace when it was at a garage that did the 2B
 
Just came across this in Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage (1915):

'She got them furs at the Bon Marche at Brixton. I saw them in the window the last time I went down there [from Herne Hill].
'And I said to my aunt, I wouldn't buy anything in the window like that, for everyone to know how much you paid for it.'
 
http://historicengland.org.uk/news-and-features/news/help-needed-post-war-pubs

If you know of any post-war pubs in your area we would like to hear from you.



We're looking for post-war pubs across England, of any type, although we're particularly interested in those built or rebuilt between 1945 and 1985. These need not still be in use as a pub; they may have been closed, altered or demolished. Your suggestions will help us to ensure our knowledge of post-war pubs across England is as complete and up-to-date as possible.

Currently, post-war pubs are a severely threatened building type, with many being converted to other uses or demolished altogether. Through this project we're aiming to help people understand and appreciate these buildings, and hopefully to help protect them.

Please contact Jo Bradley on jo.bradley@HistoricEngland.org.uk with your suggestions.

Seems like a worthwhile project and I might email them. Hero of Switzerland comes to mind. Any others?
 
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