Parsons Green

It has a number of sidings, some of which permit reversing.

Several trains stable there and there used to be a crew depot there, now closed, but it's not really a proper train depot no.

Great info here although that layout won't be around forever, they're going to alter it since the S7s are too long to be able to use some of the pointwork effectively and the layout is seen, I think, as unnecessarily complex in the present day.

28 Road you cannot clear another train onto the same road.
29 Road been decommissioned since the C stock has gone as it not long enough for a D or S7
31 Road was decommissioned in the mid 90's
23 Road you cannot clear another train onto the same road since a mod which was done in the early 00's

All the others a train can be routed onto the same road with a train already on it. This was due to the fact that trains used to be split there and the site has never been altered to stop this from happening so caution is needed at all times.

In someways it will be slightly better; that trains from Wimbledon can go into WB platform. That trains from EB platform can go to Wimbledon.

What can't be done in future is; go from 21-22 Roads into EB platform, and conversely EB platform into 21-22 Rd.


(an example of recent disruption was Monday; when driving into Wimbledon on schedule at 0805, to find no other trains in platforms, upon on time departure at 0817, I was still the only train there and didn't pass the next train until Southfields!
of course "a good service" was being broadcast with no other explanation!)

If we're thinking of the same track, that's 29 road. Not used because it's too short:

I worked in the crew depot at Parson's Green. 100 drivers and a 100 guards, 3 yardmasters working round the clock and one senior yardmaster on 9-5. The yardmasters also acted as Station Master for the station during the day although there were early and late Station Foreman, Booking Clerks, and Ticket collectors. Earl's Court had Station Guards that could be called upon to cover sickness and holidays.

The office was on the Eastbound platform. There was no canteen; this was at Earl's Court. Train crews took their meal reliefs at Earl's Court, Barking, or Acton Town (no canteen at Upminster).

Yardmasters I can remember was Len Preston, Basil Humphries. A station man (gay) who lived in a penthouse apartment overlooking the River Wandle ie top floor council flat in Wandsworth. He was treated mercilessly by the other gays (about 15, Acton town had even more). They called him the depot skivvy. I never got into any arguments with them as they would verbally cut you to pieces. They were some of the best workers.


I was sent along the embankment to remove a pair of trousers stuck on a bush that overlooked a woman trying to sell her house and devaluing her property.

Most of the yardmasters were ex train drivers like Basil and new all the drivers tricks. He nearly came to blows with the drivers on many an occasion. Parsons Green was a depot where the yardmasters were not behind a cage (a relic of when drivers were paid in cash) so they often leapt over the counter to get at each other. Looking back, Happy Days.

On Thursday pay days the pre-packed wage packets would come from Baker Street with a clerk to pay the wages (could easily be 250/300 packets) from behind the cage. They would go very quickly as people lived hand to mouth and any pay packets left over would be kept in the depot safe and the yardmasters give them out after the Baker Street clerk had left from about 5pm.

At stations the wages cash came in bulk (notes and loose change) and the Station Master and Chief Booking clerk put them into individual wage packets. No ticket office money could be used to make up the wages. Any wage packets yet to be collected would be kept in the ticket office safe drawer and given out by the booking clerks.

I think it was early 70's when staff began to get their money paid into bank account weekly and a some years later when paid 4- weekly as now.