Waterloo Station - pictures, chat and stories
- Thread starter davesgcr
- Start date
Waterloo and City line (aka The Drain)
Even the trains look sad
Even the trains look sad
agricola
a genuine importer of owls
I don't know if you've ever seen it, but the 1956 film The Long Arm has its closing scenes in and around there.
davesgcr
Reading books
Wonderful stuff!
Amazing find - the last picture I can hardly get my head around , there is so much detail of ordinary people getting on with the journey - locomotives with tenders working suburban trains into platfoms 1 to 4 - and the fireman on no4 just about to go in between and uncouple.
And as for that buffet car ...with not a polysterene cup in sight .....!
davesgcr
Reading books
StoneRoad
heckling from the back!
Ha - ha ha,With the reliabilty of those things - they would need a spare engine.
more like positioning move or more bogies than planned ...
And thanks for sharing that article, very interesting images.
skyscraper101
0891 50 50 50
I remember first going to Waterloo in 2000, when I travelled up to London for a University interview. The one abiding memory of that trip besides the amazing weather was that they still had the old split-flap displays for the next trains. Even in 2000 that seemed really old school to me, and not something I'd seen before at any other station. Until then, I'd only ever been to Paddington which had used digital displays for as long as I recall. Felt like being in the 80s.
davesgcr
Reading books
Known in the trade as "Solaris" ---Italian made I think , great because the gentle clattering made people aware of trains being "put up" ....before that they had a superb wooden train indicating system , hand worked by the local staff , relying on any updates by a Bakelite phone from the signal box. Liverpool Street had a similar one , which is in the depths of the stores at York Museum. Watch the BTF film "Terminus" for period action. On "Youtube" I suspect.
davesgcr
Reading books
Bless you - fabulous shot - must be the (early) 1970's or so , judging by the populace !
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
not my photo, i hasten to add. i wasn't quite taking photographs in 1977
davesgcr
Reading books
But you found it ....
Lived in SW19 from 1982 , love the route and the station to bits. Just about caught the last of the 4EPB's ....very soft spot for it.
davesgcr
Reading books
Yes -those 2 , but the EPB's were around for just a bit longer. "Proper Southern" .....
editor
hiraethified
Here's how the station looked yesterday during the evening rush hour
www.urban75.org
In photos: The eerie emptiness of Waterloo station in rush hour lockdown, Thurs 4th June, 2020 -
It's Britain's busiest railway station, handling an astonishing 94 million passenger entries and exits every year, but yesterday the station was almost deserted during the evening rush hour, with more staff than passengers. Here's a selection of photos taken around 5.30pm on Thursday 4th June...
www.urban75.org
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Based on that I think I will take a trip up to town for a burn around on my bike, is London really this dead?
As to the steam days, which were before my time, I have a question; The steam engine came up to the concourse, did they drive them backwards towards Windsor, Portsmouth etc. or did another engine come along and connect to the other end? davesgcr and other train nerds...
And Puddy_Tat
I do remember that board, earliest memories are probably 1976, heading to Hounslow, not sure why not on tube though, but that pic flashbacks...
As to the steam days, which were before my time, I have a question; The steam engine came up to the concourse, did they drive them backwards towards Windsor, Portsmouth etc. or did another engine come along and connect to the other end? davesgcr and other train nerds...
And Puddy_Tat
I do remember that board, earliest memories are probably 1976, heading to Hounslow, not sure why not on tube though, but that pic flashbacks...
editor
hiraethified
I was surprised to see it so dead so long into what I assumed what a rapidly loosening lockdown.
I'm posting some more pics tomorrow but here's what Piccadilly Circus looked like at 4.30pm yesterday
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
Wow!
Said on another thread that as a kid I used to cycle around the West End, City and Docklands on a Sunday, as all the shops were shut, that's what it was like back then. Will get back up and give it another go, City & Docklands may have changed a bit since mid 80's...
Puddy_Tat
naturally fluffy
as far as main line engines are concerned, after coming in to waterloo from (say) bournemouth, they would go 'tender first' to nine elms depot where they would get another load of coal, then they would go on the turntable, thus-ish -
then run tender first to waterloo and take another train out.
depending on circumstances, either a shunting engine would remove the carriages (so they could be cleaned, and the bog water tanks re-filled) to release the loco, or the arriving loco would have to wait until the train departed.)
waterloo did have a turntable - see 1951 OS map - but it looks possibly a bit small for a full size loco, and was probably only used by locos on suburban trains (most of the inner suburban lines from waterloo went electric between the 20s and the 1939 war)
'push pull' operation of steam trains (where the train was driven from the front but the loco was still at the back) was restricted to quite short trains on branch lines, as in this example on the westerham branch
even in to the BR diesel / electric locomotive era, push-pull operation was quite a rarity, it was used on the bournemouth-weymouth line from the late 60s, when they electrified only as far as Bournemouth -
the diesel loco here is pushing the un-powered trailer set, the driver is in a cab in the front carriage. the un-powered bit was pushed from waterloo to bournemouth by an electric unit.
full on main line push-pull operation didn't really happen in the UK until the mid 80s on the Glasgow-Edinburgh line.
Bahnhof Strasse
Met up with Hannah Courtoy a week next Tuesday
and at a tangent, a southern railway 'tavern' car at waterloo
yes they really did have mock brickwork / half timbering.
more here.
I’d start commuting again if they brought this back!
