Turnpike Lane, Wood Green Box

[Dalekoracle]

Heres a photo of Y1, Turnpike Lane.



Heres the source link: http://www.harringayonline.com/photo/844301:Photo:36745

Cheers

Mark

[hb88banzai]

Wow - thought I posted this ages ago. Oh well.

I have more on it, including a shot of the original Mark 1 this Mark 5 replaced - just have to dig it up.

Sorry... 

[hb88banzai]

Oh wait, I did post it, just didn't create a Metbox Catalog topic for it.

Here's the old post that has this photo along with a few others (some still not put into their own Catalog topics, sorry): http://tardisbuilders.com/index.php?topic=5101.0

Here's the blowup for this Mark 5 from that topic --



Good find regardless Dalekoracle - keep them coming!

[hb88banzai]

In my travels I've come across a couple of photos that show the original Mark 1 Met Box that stood at this site.

Here's one from the London Transport Museum archives, dated May 1933 --



A blowup --



The Mark 1 is in the centre of this blowup, and lest you think I'm seeing things, I actually have a copy of this photo waiting to be scanned and can confirm it is indeed a Mk 1 Met Box.

Here's another I came across on ebay --



Through a comedy of errors, though I won the auction I didn't get the actual photo as the Seller had double posted the same photo in two different auctions and my win was the second of the two. He was kind enough to get me a high resolution copy of his photograph of the photograph he used in the auction, however, which I was able to use to do a decent correction for parallax, etc. Not perfect, but good enough to get a decent view of the Box.

Here's a cropped closeup of the Box portion of the corrected image at max resolution (and with a bit of enhancement) --



Doubt if the original would have been much better than this, but it's still good enough to see it's definitely a Mark 1, as expected for one of the first of the Wood Green Boxes.

[petewilson]

Here's a photo of the Mark 1 from the early 1930's that I found on my Hard Drive (Which I thought had already been posted!)  

[scruffy57]

Just another shot of this PCB 

[scruffy57]

The subject is named on the back
Turnpike Lane
Southgate Extension, Piccadilly Line
Photo by Topical
13 Oct 1930

[petewilson]

That's Y1 again scruffy along with the other thumbnail that you posted on the correct thread of this box.......Well done for spotting them though!
The box was there before the trams  terminus and station!

Is there any better photo's (or links) to these two thumbnails?

Pete

[scruffy57]

Hi Pete, no these are the best shots. They are from a photo/card sale site that doesn't offer better images

Regards Scruff

[hb88banzai]

Wow, I seem to have opened the floodgates for this one. About time, I think. Great finds Pete and Scruff!

Anyway, here's a blowup of Pete's pic --



Not great quality to work with, but I did a rough perspective correction for Scruffy's thumbnails and enlarged them a bit for clarity --





Slightly enhanced blowups of the Box --

E



Now this last one has got to be very early on. It's not only before the bus and tram terminals were built, which I believe was around the same time Turnpike Lane Station was opened (September 1932), but it clearly sports the original red globe top light that all the Mark 1's and the early Mark 2's were initially equipped with. As you can see from the later photos, they were all changed over to standard MetBox Fresnel beacons within a year or two. In contrast, Pete's pic of it looks to show it with the refitted light and full Mk 1 telephone and St. John signage (which weren't attached until mid-to-late 1930).

It's kind of odd though, the lack of a St John's badge would also suggest an early 1930 dating for Scruffy's second photo of the Box, probably around the time it was commissioned (unfortunately the gentlemen standing in front are obscuring a view of any telephone signage to confirm this), yet the glint on the left top sign would suggest that it is after they began experimenting with the glass replacements for the original pierced metal "POLICE" signs. It was reported that most Boxes had received St. John signage along with the requisite First Aid kits fairly early in 1930, but had thought the top sign experiments (in Wood Green, by the way, so that fits) would have been around the same time or even later. I'll have to dig up those memos again and cross-check the dating.

Found another interesting bit, though. Wasn't sure where this had been located before, as the Surveyor's lists merely put it as "Hornsey, Green Lanes", but I also found a photo of the original type Metropolitan Police Telephone Box (aka Fixed Point Box, aka Mk 0) that preceded the above Met Boxes.

Here's a photo of it from some time in the late teens or early 20s (hand written on the back of the postcard is "Aug 10, 26", so earlier than that) --



A closeup --



This was situated on the west side of Green Lanes/High Road Wood Green, just outside The Wellington P.H., which is on the corner just the other side of Turnpike Lane from where the later Met Box was sited. It appears to have been originally erected circa 1908, and remained in use until the Met Box was installed across the street. It had apparently been joined by a Metropolitan Police Ambulance shed some time between 1912 and 1924, either at this same site or on Duckett's Common itself like the Met Box.

[dr hue]

Mk5

Y1
A.R.W. Siren
20-Jan-1930
05-Feb-1970

Southwest corner of junction of Turnpike Lane and Green Lanes


District:    Wood Green
Subdivision: Hornsey

51.590176, -0.103386



1968






Map March 1954: