Woodford Goods

Has been ever since I can remember which at earliest is probably around 1968/69. Apparently the goods yard closed in April 1966 so I'd never have spotted it, aged nearly 1, over the side of my pram. 

....Perhaps,to encourage people out of their polluting cars,they could replace the car-parks at each station with a local goods facility? [/lastyearofthebabyboom]

BR had a policy of mechanising the coal yards in the suburban area, There was to be one central yard where all the merchants were to take their lorries.The one chosen for NE London was Angel Rd,well situated on the North Circular Road. That suited the big boys, like Charringtons, the Coop, and John Knight. But it put the small coal merchants (like Mason's at Highams Park) out of business.The coal trade was changing anyway, as smokeless fuel took over as the Clean Air Act was brought into force by local authorities over a 10-15 year period. Another revolution was the self-weighing hopper lorry; instead of the coal being sacked up at the depot and loaded onto lorries, it was shot into the hopper lorry and sacked up on the roadside by the customer's house.
Some merchants continued to use the old local depots for stacking; eg Charrington's at Loughton.
The BR manager who closed the Central Line depots later became a prominent local politician, but I never read in his manifesto that it was he who imposed all those extra lorry movements on the area.
Most of the coal yards became car parks; but now TfL seems to have a policy of converting them into residential.

Thanks for that info! Very interesting. Is this the type of loco you refer to?

Do you have any pictures of them at Woodford? I'm sure I saw one once but can't for the life of me remember where.

Although there was a vast improvement there were still a couple of smog events.

,Aftermath

Smog and its health effects continued to be a problem in London. During the London fog of 2–5 December 1957 smoke and sulphur dioxide concentrations reached levels comparable to 1952 and there were 760–1000 deaths. Another episode in 1962 resulted in 750 deaths.

I remember the 1962 event, as our school choir in East Greenwich was awaiting a decision on if we could travel to Central London for a Christmas carol festival. From memory, it lasted over a week, but cleared two days before the big event.

Disappointingly, our transport to it involved one of those red 2-0-2 things and not rail.

I thought the main problem was the expansion of Battersea, and the building of Bankside and all the other power stations.  I am sure I have seen a scientific paper on the causes of the smogs.  Of course for a Smog to form you did need the right weather conditions, Fog and a couple of days of light winds coming up the Thames estuary from the North Sea. This held the polluted air in the Thames basin so it could build up and mix with the fog!  Normal the westerly weather patterns we have would blow the pollution out into the North sea and across to Scandinavia to change the chemistry of their lakes!

Graham Hewett writes "On a pedantic point, I suspect the Clean Air Act was 1956, but its effects were felt almost immediately. Pea soupers stopped at once and we suddenly acquired a plethora of - highly dangerous - paraffin stoves for the flat in Ealing where we lived."
I cerrtainly remmember those lethal Paraffin stoves,producing a smelly damp fug which had the windows streaming with condensation!
I was born in 1964,but can clearly remember public notices about the Clean Air Act zones,and what was allowed and where,and until when which leads me to believe that introduction was phased ovber probably a ten or so year period.
In my local area of Battersea,the air didn't really improve dramatically until the local industry died the death in the 1980s.
Even today I am impressed as to how relatively clean London's air looks (note: LOOKS) since my childhood.

Horse-buses still running in 1962?

I thought our Newcastle-Gateshead service was the last in Britain, ending in the '30s.

It seems most houses had paraffin stoves. We certainly had them when we moved to a house just off Fulham Palace Road, prior to that in mimosa Street just off Fulham Road we had coal fires and paraffin stoves. Awful things that stank the place out. They seem to have fallen out of use these days.

But yes, the class 31 shown above is the type that would have been seen at Woodford on the coal trains.

I have a very distant memory of my dad singing me the "Pink" jingle¹, which is slightly bizarre given that my Grandad (my Father's Father) only sold Esso Blue <dum dum dum dum>² in his shop!

1:

A: I've got a cold house.
B: Why don't you heat it then?
A: My heater's empty.
B: Why don't you fill it then?
A: I'm out of paraffin.
B: Then why don't you ring for pink?

2

There was also Fina green, sold AIRI at Regent garages.
Some railway coal yards (eg Loughton) also had large (c 750 gallon) tanks built on brick plinths. I used to wonder if there were for paraffin, and if so, whether distribution to them was by rail, but never found out.
Incidentally, ebay has recently had a wagon label for a wagonload consignment from Loughton (goods station) to Nottingham, Boots. Anyone any thoughts as to ehat might have been sent?

With my chemist's hat on, I did a quick calculation. Based on the assumption that the average molecular formula for the hydrocarbons in paraffin is C15H32, and a gallon of paraffin weighs ~3.6kg, burning this would give ~1,3kg of water, quite a long way off the 4.5kg a gallon of water would weigh. Still potentially a problem though. Also note that generally paraffin is now referred to as kerosene, ie jet aircraft fuel. Heathrow stinks of it!