1976 – ‘Last GN Suburban' at Moorgate..
Taken on November 6th 1976
The Railway Correspondence and Travel Society ‘Great Northern Suburban Rail Tour’ at Moorgate station in November 1976. The loco – Class 31 31183 - was cleaned for the occasion, but the carriages themselves were typically dirty, as they had been taken over from another GN suburban service at Finsbury Park at the start of the trip. Some time was spent cleaning the windows, before the special departed..
This trip was to commemorate the end of loco-hauled inner suburban ‘slam door’ services on the GN lines from Kings Cross and Moorgate and Broad Street, but in fact this type of stock was still used on some outer-suburban services into 1977..
31183 had entered service in 1960 as D5604, and was renumbered in 1974.. It was withdrawn in July 1988, and scrapped in July 1989. 36 examples of the class have been preserved, but not all of these are in operating condition.…
These ‘Widened Lines’ tracks were later electrified, and in use until 2009, when platform lengthening at Farringdon severed the line to Moorgate. The tracks remained in place for many years after that, and there were plans to use them as a ‘long siding’ for storage of S Stock LT units, but today (2024) these tracks are derelict, and have been taken up in places..
Restored from an under-exposed unfocussed grainy cyan/green-colour-shifted original..
Original slide - property of Robert Gadsdon
1976 – ‘Last GN Suburban' at Moorgate..
Taken on November 6th 1976
The Railway Correspondence and Travel Society ‘Great Northern Suburban Rail Tour’ at Moorgate station in November 1976. The loco – Class 31 31183 - was cleaned for the occasion, but the carriages themselves were typically dirty, as they had been taken over from another GN suburban service at Finsbury Park at the start of the trip. Some time was spent cleaning the windows, before the special departed..
This trip was to commemorate the end of loco-hauled inner suburban ‘slam door’ services on the GN lines from Kings Cross and Moorgate and Broad Street, but in fact this type of stock was still used on some outer-suburban services into 1977..
31183 had entered service in 1960 as D5604, and was renumbered in 1974.. It was withdrawn in July 1988, and scrapped in July 1989. 36 examples of the class have been preserved, but not all of these are in operating condition.…
These ‘Widened Lines’ tracks were later electrified, and in use until 2009, when platform lengthening at Farringdon severed the line to Moorgate. The tracks remained in place for many years after that, and there were plans to use them as a ‘long siding’ for storage of S Stock LT units, but today (2024) these tracks are derelict, and have been taken up in places..
Restored from an under-exposed unfocussed grainy cyan/green-colour-shifted original..
Original slide - property of Robert Gadsdon