The Great Northern Railway Society

28/09/2026

Happy Monday everyone, and we start the week with a photo of Peterborough GNR Station, the view from Crescent Bridge. From the railway stock and the clothing styles I'd suggest Edwardian times. Unfortunately the great close-up of the somersault signals isn't as detailed as it might be because the lighting means they're heavily in silhouette.

25/09/2026

Happy Friday everyone, and we're on the Up line towards the weekend with this splendid depiction of GNR Hawthorn 2-2-2 No. 208 at King's Cross on August 1st, 1871. I've called it a 'depiction' because this looks like either an artist's copy of a photo, or a hand enhanced photo - both techniques were used in the late 19th century for illustrations.
In a way, you could see such practices as early human forerunners of today's AI-enhanced photos...

21/09/2026

Happy Monday everyone, kids safely back at school, Christmas shelves appearing in the shops and all's right(-ish) with the world! Here's another express action shot, this time it's GNR 4-4-2 No. 950 on up train passing the boundary post near Potters Bar, once again with a fine rake of GNR stock (and possibly some ECJS too?) behind it...

18/09/2026

Happy Friday everyone and staying with the first GNR Pacific, 1470 'Great Northern', as featured in Monday's post, here's a view of the cab as built in 1922, as a right-hand drive A1. The original surviving A1s were converted to left-hand drive following the introduction in 1928 of the A3 Pacifics (built from the start as left-hand drive to give drivers a clearer view of signals) but 1470 wasn't converted at the same time.
The story of its subsequent conversion - or perhaps more accurately its metamorphosis - under Thompson into an A1/1 in 1945 is a story perhaps best left for another day...

14/09/2026

Happy Monday everyone, and here's a classic shot of GNR 1470 'Great Northern' on express duty, passing Southgate from the building in the background, and the camera's even caught some movement in the loco wheels and motion!

11/09/2026

Happy Friday everyone and for the coming weekend's perusal, here's a sequence of photos showing the replacement in July 1937 of Bridge 31 (the Hertford Line Flyover) at Wood Green. While this isn't strictly a GNR project as the line was by that time part of the LNER, it was originally a key point on the GNR's East Coast Line run out of King's Cross.
It carried the Down Hertford Loop line safely over the main East Coast Main Line (ECML) fast tracks. This design prevented slow local trains headed toward Hertford North and Stevenage from blocking the paths of high-speed express trains departing London King's Cross.
Bridge 31 was a steel flyover located just north of Wood Green station (now known as Alexandra Palace Station).
Because it sat directly across one of the busiest main-line rail arteries in Britain, the replacement was executed over a highly coordinated weekend possession in July 1937.
The new steel superstructure was fully pre-assembled on temporary staging alongside the old bridge. Once traffic was halted, the old bridge was cut away or slid out, and the brand-new framework was rolled or "slid" laterally into its permanent alignment. This minimized total track closures to just a matter of hours.

07/09/2026

Happy Monday everyone, the start of another week and the start of many peoples' school terms - good luck to everyone there! Here's a picture of GNR 0-8-2T No. 151 at Pinxton in February 1912, hauling a couple of GN wagons. Pinxton is a village on the Derbyshire / Notts border and the GNR opened a line there in 1875, with the original station being called Pinxton Station, later renamed Pinxton South, proving both passenger services and coal and freight service for local collieries. It was absorbed into the LNER in 1923, with passenger services being withdrawn in 1963 ('Oh Dr. Beeching!'), though the line remained open for morning shift freight and coal traffic until the late 1960s.

04/09/2026

Happy Friday everyone, and here's a very restful picture of Caythorpe Station on the GNR, to get us in the mood for the weekend, with a Ground Signal very prominently featured in the foreground...

30/08/2026

30/08/2026

Is this the last remaining somersault signal alongside a still working ex-GNR line?

On a recent visit to Boston, I wanted to get an up-to-date photo of the swingbridge to Boston Docks crossing the River Witham south of the main road crossings. Included in the photo set is an early colourised postcard of the bridge.

While wandering by the bridge, I realised that the signal arm was actually a GN somersault unit, still on its lattice-framed pillar, albeit possibly one of the shortest there will have been and it is located alongside the bridge control building (as per the ppc). The line to the swingbridge looks to be very new, so it is clearly still in use, but the signal post looks to have been non-functional for quite some time.

Is this the last remaining unit on an active ex-GNR line?