South Harrow - A Gaseous P.S. (mini blog)

Thanks, They're Big Tanks!

If you were flying in to Heathrow in the good old days, you would not want to collide with a huge gas holder (often erroneously called a gasometer). Because the gas holder at Southall was huge, it carried an LH label; plus an arrow - Heathrow this way.

The similarly huger gas holder at South Harrow was provided with a guide to finding NOrtholt RAF Airfield.

It was useful for the plane's driver to know which was which! The signs appeared in 1964 after a couple of embarrassing incidents when jets landed at the wrong airport!

The site at South Harrow is now a Waitrose supermarket!

But when it was making gas it needed lots and lots of coal. In some places this might arrive by canal ...

... but at South Harrow it came by rail courtesy of the Metropolitan Railway.

Trains were steam hauled, of course, and after a reverse at Rayners Lane, all the wagons had to do was to get to the works itself.

Only a small remnant of the sidings infrastructure remains ...

... with the route now blocked and, indeed, obliterated by new buildings.

The relay room, which controlled access to the sidings and its associated signals still stands alongside the viaduct north of the station.

The track plan was quite extensive ..,.

... although the above shows a simplified later layout. Obviously, the junction arrangements had to be compatible with passenger train signalling.

Sadly, there are no photographs on-line showing any of the operation within the  gas works site itself.

But we do have a timetable allowing for a possible daily service of two  round-trip trains.

Trains originated in the LNER North East ...

... and came, via the Great Central Railway to Neasden, where Met locos took over to get the black gold  across to Rayners Lane and so to South Harrow.

A Query Solved - Possibly

fbb was unable to identify this train with a caption telling us it was at South Harrow. Correspondent Alan (yet another Alan!!) offers this ...

I do not have a definite answer to your two conundrums about South Harrow so these are just my theories. The line to Rayners Lane did not open until 1910 but was built and electrified before that. It was used by the Metropolitan Railway to test some of their own trains which would have had open end platforms until they were rebuilt about 1907, Can you imagine open end  platforms and manual sliding doors today? It may be one of these trains as the District trains were painted all scarlet when new ...

... and later all dark green.

This picture is of a "gate" train showing the driving coach from 1907.

The gate on the front vehicle is at the rear. Could the original "puzzle" picture be on a one coach test train, not in passenger service?

And The Cake!

Plus the cheese from No 3 Son ...

... the pork pie from Fortnum & Mason (No 1 son) ...

.. PLUS the choccies from Mrs fbb.

There is little chance of bb becoming less f in the near future.

Tomorrow we cross back to the USA.

 Next LA PS blog : Thur 27 Feb