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Kensington Olympia

A Railwayman's View - BR Western Region by Peter Collins > Kensington Olympia

The photographs in this collection are from the Kensington Olympia section of Peter Collins' Railwayman's View Book Volume One - BR Western Region.

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Images 1-6 of 6 displayed.

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Kensington Olympia basks in the warmth of a beautiful spring day in 1971 as Hymek Class 35 number D7055 rumbles slowly though with an Acton to Norwood Yard transfer freight. There were many of these services scheduled to run inter-regionally across London although, by this time, their future was hanging by a thread as British Rail desperately tried to extricate itself from wagonload traffic. Traffic from the LMR came from Willesden and that from the ER mainly from Temple Mills. Kensington Olympia was yet to be returned to being a station on a national railway network and, as can be seen, no third-rail electricity supply had yet been laid.
The first vehicle in the train is one of the ‘To the Continent by Rail’ vans that would be attached to a Dover service once on the Southern and, by means of one of the cross-channel train ferries, gain access to France and beyond for European traffic – the Channel Tunnel was not the start of pan-European rail services.
Keywords: BR, Western, Hymek, Freight, Kensington Olympia, 1971, D7055

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A quiet moment one summer’s morning at Kensington Olympia in 1971 as a Brush Type 2 Class 31 gets underway from a signal stop outside the North signalbox, with a cross-London freight for Hither Green.

This is a fascinating glimpse during the long evolution of BR from Victorian masterpiece of the world to state-of-the-art modern railway. The signalbox, signals and general infrastructure are firmly from the past and even the locomotive, by this time, is coming up for its 12th birthday, longer on the rails than many of BR’s Standard classes of steam engine managed. Mind you, the budget available for change from the public purse was tiny, compared to the huge amounts thrown at today’s privatised rail franchises.
Keywords: BR, Kensington Olympia, Western, Class 31, Freight, 1971

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Still carrying its duo-green livery and ticking over in the languid way that typified the type, Class 25 Sulzer Type 2 number D7530 (later 25180), one of the late-built batch, sits in the warm sunshine in 1971 in the Milk Sidings at London’s Kensington Olympia station, surrounded by an array of LMS style upper quadrant semaphore signals.

The station was originally named Addison Road after the street in the background but was changed when the Olympia exhibition halls were built alongside.

Eventually the route was electrified on the DC third-rail system which led to the development of London’s Overground suburban lines, but also allowed Eurostar trains to travel from their Old Oak Common depot to and from Waterloo International until that service was found a permanent UK home at St Pancras, with maintenance at Temple Mills.
Keywords: BR, Western, Class 25, D7530, 25180, Kensington Olympia, Sulzer, Freight, Milk

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Just being given the road is a Southern Crompton Type 3 Class 33 number 6577 (later 33058) with an inter-regional Coal Concentration train, probably from Chessington to Brent on the LMR. The location is Kensington Olympia where all the regions, except the Scottish, met in some form or other. Although the signalling is firmly from the pre-war era, the modern world is represented not only by the Class 33, but also by a Class 08 350hp shunter acting as station pilot to shunt the milk terminal, and a Mark 3 Ford Cortina.
Keywords: BR, Western, Class 33, Freight, Coal, Class 08, Milk, 6577, 33058

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Another late-model Sulzer Type 2 Class 25 of the type built without corridor-connections, number 7666 (later 25316/25911) rumbles through Kensington with 9T37, loose-coupled inter-regional southbound coal, probably from the Midland’s Brent Yard in North London. Brave new world, but even that headcode box would prove to be transitory. It was astonishing how busy the line was with freights following each other in both directions. Now it’s almost entirely Class 378 Overground trains which run every 20 minutes in both directions between Clapham Junction, Willesden Junction and beyond. The locomotive was one of twelve ‘low-hours’ (since overhaul) of the remaining Class 25/3 locomotives that were subsequently designated as Class 25/9 in March 1985. Intended to operate traffic expected to be won for the Industrial Minerals Division of Railfreight, it was withdrawn soon after when Railfreight failed to win the contract.
Keywords: BR, Coal, 7666, Class 25, 25316, 25911, Western, Kensington Olympia, Freight

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One day the Special Carriage Notices landed on my desk and foremost was a very small item. It consisted of only three lines of print. The Royal Train was due to arrive at Kensington Olympia that Sunday in the early afternoon. In theory it had nothing to do with us as the train was due onto the WR at North Pole, run briefly to Kensington, where the locos would run round, and it would then depart northwards again. One big attraction was that this was not the latest Royal Train, but the previous incarnation, thus it contained such gems as the 12-wheeled converted ex-LNWR power car, which can clearly be seen as the first vehicle behind the two Sulzer Type 2 Class 25s. Other than the railway employee on my platform and the member of the public in the right background, there was no-one else around to record the movement.
Keywords: BR, Class 25, Double Header, Royal Train, Kensington Olympia, ECS, Western

Images 1-6 of 6 displayed.