Halts in London

[Deleted]

Are there still halts (request stations) that are still in within or in the commuter belt around Greater London to this day? I believe Tramlink stops are halts in off peck hours? But any National Rail ones?

[domh245]

I very much doubt that there are any halts (other than staff ones) on the NR network in the London area - anywhere that has a station will ensure that the station gets used enough to get proper hours. Whilst tram stops are nominally request stops, they do tend to stop at all of them, even if it is just stopping, unlocking the doors (not opening) waiting a couple of seconds, locking the doors again and shooting off. The last time that I saw a tram sailing through a tram stop because no-one had pressed any buttons was about 3 years ago late on a Sunday night - and I suspect that the late night trams probably still do a similar thing, but most other times will do what I described above

[norbitonflyer]

Aug 29, 2014 12:34:22 GMT domh245 said:

anywhere that has a station will ensure that the station gets used enough to get proper hours.

Northolt Park? Drayton Green?
They probably could be operated as request stops if there was any advantage to doing so.

[melikepie]

Request stops for trains seem to be for stations with very low usage. Those two most certainly wouldn't work. I might as well stand at Carpenders Park and flag down a passing pendolino

[norbitonflyer]

Aug 29, 2014 13:14:13 GMT melikepie said:

Request stops for trains seem to be for stations with very low usage.

I was citing Northolt Park and Drayton Green as counterexamples to the assertion that

Aug 29, 2014 12:34:22 GMT domh245 said:

anywhere that has a station will ensure that the station gets used enough to get proper hours.

Agreed flagging down a Chiltern Birmingham express at Northolt Park would be unlikely to work, but the only passenger service through Drayton Green is an all stations shuttle. I would imagine Cookham and Wargrave can be pretty quiet at times.

I can recall, years ago, when I was track-bashing in Cornwall, my Newquay train left Par very late because of a late-running connection from the east. The crew, presumably unofficially, ran it there and back as a request-only service (looking out carefully for any waiting passengers) and made up just enough time to get back to Par (in both senses of the word!) to connect with the last London-bound train of the day - much to my relief!

[theblackferret]

There's no such thing now as a halt or request stop on NR/LUL/LOL, at least officially.

However:

Anything closed on Saturday and/or Sunday, with the exception(until next year)of Cannon Street.

Anything with a distinctly smaller number of stopping trains calling than those that are not scheduled to stop there, even during peak hours.

Anywhere the last train from London is 1 or 2 hours before the other stations are served on that line.

Would any of these seem to you to be indicators of what is effectively a halt, sean? Tramline has whole sections closed on Sundays, on some parts of which through WCT cars run, but on others, not a sausage.

Birkbeck, Beckenham Junction, Knockholt, Ravensbourne & possibly others on the Catford Loop come to mind. Possibly Sunningdale on the way to Reading, nearly Greater London!

Off-peck hours are presumably when pigeons are not on platforms or on trains with food on offer?

[revupminster]

In Devon, Lympstone Commando and Exton on the Avocet line, all the intermediate stations on the Tarka line except Crediton and Eggsford are request stops. In Cornwall St Keynes Wishing Well Halt, Causeland, Sandplace, and intermediate stations between Par and Newquay are request stops.

[castlebar]

Trumpers Crossing on the GWR SOuthall-Brentford line, was

"TRUMPERS CROSSING (FOR OSTERLEY PARK) HALTE"

Photo's exist, and I'm unaware of any other Halts with an additional 'e' in the spelling

[theblackferret]

Aug 29, 2014 15:38:30 GMT revupminster said:

In Devon, Lympstone Commando and Exton on the Avocet line, all the intermediate stations on the Tarka line except Crediton and Eggsford are request stops. In Cornwall St Keynes Wishing Well Halt, Causeland, Sandplace, and intermediate stations between Par and Newquay are request stops.

Coombe Junction on the Looe line gets just 2 trains a day, compared to which you might think the others are veritable thrashing or throbbing metropoli.

Not quite! I've never seen an intermediate passenger depart or board except one American couple at St Keyne gone to see the Music Museum or Wishing Well, and I've done that line about 12 times in the 20 years we've lived in Plymouth.

We did it last about three months ago and I asked the guard about intermediate passengers. His reply 'What's them, then?'. Just goes to show it takes all sorts of stations to make a rail network.

[Deleted]

I believe Emerson Park is a halt.

[Deleted]

Castlebar Park used to be Castlebar Park Halt and South Greenford used to have the 'halt' appendage too (as did Drayton Green). However, more recently (and don't know quite when) South Greenford is now "South Greenford for West Perivale". How did that happen?

I have no idea if any of these three stations were 'request' type halts at any time.

[castlebar]

@ Reganorak

Drayton Green was a request stop for just one year around 1979 I think

The other two never have been

Castlebar also had Castle Bar separated on the station sign for very many years

The station sign read "Castle Bar Park Halt"

[brigham]

Isn't Denham Golf Course a Halt?

[CSLR]

Down Street was a request stop during WWII...but it was an official secret!

[phillw48]

Aug 29, 2014 17:23:30 GMT @rockorange said:

I believe Emerson Park is a halt.

It was also the last station to be lit by gas in the Greater London area (late 70's?)

[Deleted]

Aug 29, 2014 15:35:50 GMT theblackferret said:

There's no such thing now as a halt or request stop on NR/LUL/LOL, at least officially.

However:

Anything closed on Saturday and/or Sunday, with the exception(until next year)of Cannon Street.

Anything with a distinctly smaller number of stopping trains calling than those that are not scheduled to stop there, even during peak hours.

Anywhere the last train from London is 1 or 2 hours before the other stations are served on that line.

Would any of these seem to you to be indicators of what is effectively a halt, sean? Tramline has whole sections closed on Sundays, on some parts of which through WCT cars run, but on others, not a sausage.

Birkbeck, Beckenham Junction, Knockholt, Ravensbourne & possibly others on the Catford Loop come to mind. Possibly Sunningdale on the way to Reading, nearly Greater London!

Off-peck hours are presumably when pigeons are not on platforms or on trains with food on offer?

I believe there is a 'staff' halt at the Stratford Depot on the Jubilee Line? Could some lightly used stations off peck become request stations? Trains still have to slow down when approaching a station so if a bell could be installed on the train and a request button at the station to send signal the train driver to stop at the station?

[superteacher]

Aug 29, 2014 18:52:14 GMT phillw48 said:

Aug 29, 2014 17:23:30 GMT @rockorange said:

I believe Emerson Park is a halt.

It was also the last station to be lit by gas in the Greater London area (late 70's?)

I believe that Selsdon was gas lit until its closure in 1983.

[phillw48]

Aug 30, 2014 9:12:04 GMT superteacher said:

Aug 29, 2014 18:52:14 GMT phillw48 said:

It was also the last station to be lit by gas in the Greater London area (late 70's?)

I believe that Selsdon was gas lit until its closure in 1983.

I'm not sure of the exact date but Emmerson Park was gas lit until the line was electrified.

[class411]

Aug 29, 2014 17:28:45 GMT @reganorak said:

Castlebar Park used to be Castlebar Park Halt and South Greenford used to have the 'halt' appendage too (as did Drayton Green). However, more recently (and don't know quite when) South Greenford is now "South Greenford for West Perivale". How did that happen?

I have no idea if any of these three stations were 'request' type halts at any time.

I used Castle Bar Park Halt in the late 50's for Saturday morning cinema trips and it did not seem to operate as a halt, then.

I remember some years age it was announced that the intermediate stations between Sittingborne and Sheerness on Sea would be 'request'. I've no idea if that ever happened or, if it did, if it is still current practice.

[Deleted]

Aug 29, 2014 17:33:08 GMT castlebar said:

@ Reganorak

Drayton Green was a request stop for just one year around 1979 I think

The other two never have been

Castlebar also had Castle Bar separated on the station sign for very many years

The station sign read "Castle Bar Park Halt"

I was only referring to signs with 'halt' but not whether they actually were request stops. Thanks for the extra info.

[Tubeboy]

There were halts/halte on the former GWR branch to Staines West. Poyle Estate Halt, Poyle Halt, Colnbrooke Estate Halt and Yeoveney Halt.

[metrailway]

Lets not forget the GWR halts in London on its main line to Birkenhead Woodside, namely Old Oak Lane Halt, North Acton Halt, Park Royal West Halt, Twyford Abbey Halt, Brentham Halt, Perivale Halt and South Harefield Halt. Further along the line just out of London, there was Denham Golf Club which switched between platform and halt status a couple of times.

AFAIK Denham Golf Club was the last halt on the mainline until Dorton Halt some 30 miles away.

[Tom]

Aug 30, 2014 15:48:35 GMT @reganorak said:

Aug 29, 2014 17:33:08 GMT castlebar said:

@ Reganorak

Drayton Green was a request stop for just one year around 1979 I think

The other two never have been

Castlebar also had Castle Bar separated on the station sign for very many years

The station sign read "Castle Bar Park Halt"

I was only referring to signs with 'halt' but not whether they actually were request stops. Thanks for the extra info.

Taking this slightly further off topic, I thought Castle Bar Park was still three words? It's been a while since I've been on the branch though.

And, on a point aside, despite it having once been a Halt it does have a ticket office which is supposedly open in the morning peak. I'm not sure if the Ticket Office was provided while the appendage 'halt' appeared on the nameboard though.

[Tom]

Aug 30, 2014 21:18:46 GMT metrailway said:

AFAIK Denham Golf Club was the last halt on the mainline until Dorton Halt some 30 miles away.

To split hairs, Denham Golf Club never carried the name halt, it was Denham Golf Club Platform.

[trumperscrossing]

Aug 29, 2014 16:27:52 GMT castlebar said:

Trumpers Crossing on the GWR SOuthall-Brentford line, was

"TRUMPERS CROSSING (FOR OSTERLEY PARK) HALTE"

Photo's exist, and I'm unaware of any other Halts with an additional 'e' in the spelling

We were more refined than other "haltes" and eschewed the vulgar connotations of the common spelling

It was opened on 2 May 1904[1][2][3] by the Great Western Railway as "Trumpers Crossing Halte", and was the only intermediate station between Southall and Brentford GWR stations. At this time, the GWR favoured the French spelling of "Halte" for such stations, because the English word "Halt" had an inappropriate meaning.[4]

[brigham]

Denham Golf 'Club', rather that 'Course'? That must be another memory defect on my part. Roll on.

What was the 'inappropriate' meaning of 'Halt', I wonder? Presumably the one from Luke 14:21:-

"... and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind."

Showing that over-sensitivity to minorities is nothing new.

[metrailway]

Aug 30, 2014 23:05:09 GMT Tom said:

Aug 30, 2014 21:18:46 GMT metrailway said:

AFAIK Denham Golf Club was the last halt on the mainline until Dorton Halt some 30 miles away.

To split hairs, Denham Golf Club never carried the name halt, it was Denham Golf Club Platform.

Actually it did carry the name halt. It opened in 1912 by the GWR as a platform but certainly for a short while during the 1960s it was designated a halt by BR (W). I believe there was also another switch by the GWR from platform to halt and the back to platform during the inter war years.

[theblackferret]

Mordon Road & Waddon Marsh on the Wimbledon-West Croydon line(that Tramlink swallowed)were officially de-haltified with the timetable issued on 5.5.1969, when Southern Region ended the use of the term entirely.

Neither of these stations were manned thereafter until the line closed on 31.5.1997.

Selsdon was gaslit until the very end in 1983,but was never classified as a halt or platform.

Emerson Park's useage has tripled in the last 10 years, and is now over 2,000 passengers a week.

However, despite what you may seed on train indicators or in timetables:



It is STILL signed as a halt!

No ticket machines, no station buildings, just a canopy under which is a TV monitor giving train arrival & departures info.

And, the crucial part, the line was electrified in 1986, with the advent of Network SouthEast-their logo is still(?)fired into the platform. So was that when the gas lighting went; does it beat Selsdon?

The latter had Oxted-Croydon going through it, not electrified until after overall closure of that station, those trains ceased using Selsdon in 1959, whereas Woodside-Sanderstead trains ended in May 1983 & had been electrified since 1935 & the Woodside line's pointless reopening after a 17-year slumber!!

The tension is unbearable, Hastings,n'est ce-pas?

Footnote-J.E.Connor's London's disused Stations Vol 4-South Eastern Railway records:"Selsdon remained gas-lit until the end with its unattended mantles burning night and day. It was one of the last, if not the very last station within Greater London to be illuminated in this manner."

[theblackferret]

Others mentioned in this thread:


The ex-GWR halts out of Paddington(Old Oak Common etc.)were closed in 1947, when the Central Line extended out to Ruislip.

The likes of Poyle Estate Halt etc. closed with the branch in 1965.

As far as I remember, a halt tended to be unstaffed, though not invariably, and mostly, though again not invariably, with a limited number of trains on the line in question stopping there, whereas a platform was mostly a by request stop only, and very often with a golf links or golf club in the title.

Neither definition was set in stone and both useages not only varied between the Southern & Great Western Railways, neither of those organisations were always consistent in their respective applications of the terms. Not to mention what the railway's timetables, signs or tickets might do to add to the confusion, before Bradshaw is taken into consideration.

[Hassaan]

Aug 29, 2014 15:35:50 GMT theblackferret said:

 Possibly Sunningdale on the way to Reading, nearly Greater London!

I think you mean Longcross. Sunningdale has a full 2tph service every day (4-5tph weekday peaks), whereas Longcross has just 10 trains towards Reading and 11 trains towards London per weekday.