Hanger Lane and Piccadilly Pilot

So accepting the wrong route nowadays would mean the train would have to be set back, shutting down the whole area?

You can also 'pre-set' the override by plunging in Ealing Common platform, drawing up closely to the starter signal. Any District driver who did so and then acceped a wrong route would almost certainly have some rather difficult questions to answer!

Of course this then makes me wonder, why not have two plungers on the platform to allow the Train Operator to advise where their train is going to, like New York did. It would solve many of the issues where a train has the wrong description, and a driver should know where they're going.

Previous attempts to get the train staff to determine a train's route have not had a friendly response from the unions, e.g. Turnpike Lane EB when Metal Mickey started.

Wrong Descriptions? Whatever happened to the Train Describer section?

Also on the website is the story of when District Dave 'accepted' the wrong route at Hanger Lane and had a run up South Harrow and back:

www.districtdave.co.uk/html/confession_time.html

Disbanded well before my time. 1992 I think, or certainly around then.

Correct

Sorry Tom, a rhetorical question.

Many pre-Grouping companies, such as the Great Northern, used lower-quadrant, and some such signals survived until quite recently, but the GWR was the only one of the Big Four to persist with them.

Hanger Lane Junction is on the District/Picadilly, unlike its namesake station on the Central, so GWR influence there would be minimal.

Not strictly true - there was a short-lived (two and a half years) service of through carriages between Mansion House and Windsor in the 1880s, but beyond Ealing Broadway they ran on the Great Western Railway, using their crews and locomotives.

The 'Hanger Lane' that is the topic of this thread has nothing whatsoever to do with the GWR/WR route through Hanger Lane on the Central line. Hanger Lane Junction is on the Picc/District lines West of Ealing Common, where the Ealing Broadway and Uxbridge routes diverge. I can remember these signals (and the EB Home for the junction at North Ealing). There was also a lower quadrant semaphore on the bank leading to Ealing Common depot from the Acton Town direction, controlled IIRC by the shunter.

Also, for historical accuracy, the GWR was not the only railway to use lower quadrant signals (but it did retain them and still does on some ex-GWR lines under Network Rail ownership where modernisation has not yet arrived!). I won't go into details as this would be off topic.