Lifted flying junction, E Putney-Clapham jc

Thanks, yes I saw that in Wikipedia too. Thought it might be connected with some BR or District resignalling but couldn't square the dates. But as I said, I don't know that area well...

Many thanks NF. There are now quite sizeable shrubs growing from the piers.

Thank you, Roy: so they removed it to avoid the cost of renewing the bridge, I suppose?

Yes, the line was lifted to avoid replacing the bridge which was only used by a handful of ecs trains every day and the occasional diverted main liner.

It seems a bit daft removing the emergency crossover; it was remarkably handy during engineering works over the years. More than once I drove either 508s or 455s from East Putney to wimbledon single line workign with the DR terminating in the down/southbound platform at East Putney and using the other crossover to go back. Passengers were a bit puzzled! With the proposed removal of the crossover on Putney Bridge that will surely exacerbate any problems on the Wimbledon branch.

Further to the thread above, I can confirm that trains were still using the line from East Putney to Wandsworth Town via the flyover on the 5th December 1986 as I was booked to work a Sandite unit this way on this night. I was a Guard at Woking at the time and we worked all sorts of trains, with lots of engineers trains, as the Yard at Woking was still extensively used for engineers trains. I remember that there was some cause for concern from the Engineers that there were problems with the bridges on the line and subsequently I worked a ballast train (engineers train) on the 27th February 1987 hauled by 73133 from Woking Yard to Southfields. Here we entered a possession (the line was still owned and operated by BR then), and worked forward over the flyover to the embankment on the far side. The work that night consisted of removing the track from the Up Line to allow a full examination of the bridge structure. When the track was removed we returned to Woking via Clapham Yard and East Putney, as the examination would take place with the engineers once all the ballast was removed. The subsequent examination found the bridge to be in very poor condition and the down line was closed. The bridge was removed very soon after that and was never replaced, the solution being to work between East Putney and Point Pleasant Junction as a single line over the down line, with additional cross-overs at East Putney to access the Down line, and additional crossovers at Point Pleasant to access the up fast line much as the line is today. I am not sure but I think that it was deemed too expensive to replace the bridge for the amount of traffic which used the line. As posted earlier the Down line became reversible in 1990 and the route could be used in both directions once again. Between early 1987 and June 1990 it was worked in one direction only from Point Pleasant Junction to East Putney with empty trains from Wimbledon Park having to go to Wimbledon and reverse or use one of the other exits towards London on the Up Main Slow and Up Main Fast.

When they were up they were up, and when they were down they were down... The dates above sound about right to me with the up line (even though it went down) being taken out of use in 1987. I'm probably one of the few people around to have worked all permutations at East Putney. I've also used the emergency crossover between the up and down Windsor lines at Point Pleasant during engineering works. I can't remember the year, but the points were hand worked, clipped and scotched before movement was allowed, and this was for passenger trains.