A follow-up from the Harrow picture in post 148 and subsequent discussions. Thanks for the reminder of Odeon Radio, I’d forgotten about it even though I’d looked inside many years ago. From visiting during the past week, I notice the new building on the same site is called Odeon House.
I promised to come up with a dating rationale for the image, even though I can’t make it particularly tight – it is between 1939 and about 1946. I have had a fuller look at LT Museum online pictures this weekend to clarify my working.
The signal has the Met designation J68 and pre-dates the 1948 commissioning of new signalling and with the Met sign also in view, it is definitely earlier than the LT Museum picture of old plus new signals side-by-side March 10 1948.
There is shadow over the loco and the area nearest to the photographer. This has to be from the new station structure following rebuilding. From drawings of steelwork and station structure, and from general information on the rebuilding, I’m confident that the new station and structure was largely in place and in use and casting shadows by early 1939.
I believe the latest date for the image is set by the loco re-numbering date of 1946 [post 160]. Clues from the stock in the LNER train may refine the date window.
I should explain why I had thought initially that the layout change was significant for dating. I'd looked at surviving drawings for the layout works several of which were ready by early 1939, but photographic evidence tells me the layout changes critical to dating the image weren’t implemented until 1948. Two pictures in the LT Museum collection show the layout before and after changes to the Up and Down Main Line tracks, during early 1948, taken from the new cabin structure high above the station:
https://images.ltmuseum.co.uk/images/max/qz/i00006qz.jpg
Harrow layout 1948 02 24
This shows the Down and Up adjacent tracks, broadly as in the image.
https://images.ltmuseum.co.uk/images/max/sm/i00006sm.jpg
Harrow layout 1948 04 30
This shows the realignment of the former Down Main Line track to the new Up Main, with a trailing crossover added, connecting to the new Down Main.
Explaining these by referring back to the image under discussion, we see the track closest to our photographer [Main Line Down] aligned close to the adjacent Up track on which the LNER train is passing. This was the long-established layout at Harrow. As part of the layout changes, eventually post-war, the old Down platform was cut back for the line to be slewed leftwards. I infer that this was not only to ease the curve but also to give clearance for movements taking the new trailing crossover between Up and Down, not far north of the platform. A new platform 1 was created to the left, out of the image, for the new Down Main, and the former Down Line became the Up Line in its new alignment.