simon b

Go back a couple more years and you could also run Chiltern's "Green Goddess" water cannon unit, certainly one the more unusual units to roam the Chiltern line. Of course if you want to be really silly, dont forget about "Scaz", Chilterns 01 shunter.

We used to get DC rail class 56's through here quite regularly, on the Willesden to Calvert spoil trains. EWS/DB class 59's can sometimes turn up on the Northolt to Calvert binliner instead of a 66. When the GW mainline is closed FGW HST set's are another regular.

I think a bit of both was used, these tunnels were altered over time.

Spot on, york road is the access to the Thameslink core section whilst maiden lane isnt used for anything at present. Hotel curve houses alot of bt cables in the 2 remaining sections, and the underground ticket hall cuts through the middle of it. The fleet river runs over the top of the york road tunnel, you can see the bottom of it's ribbed iron culvert when standing at the junction of the tunnels. The white ducting was indeed used for pumping fresh air down the tunnels whilst the cleanup was underway, a thorough inspection of the brickwork was carried out at the same

This is the inside of maiden lane curve after all the mess was cleared up the second time around, note the far end of the tunnel is blocked off.

Yes and no. The maiden lane curve was closed in 1865, but it was the tunnel to the midland railway that claimed the crossing trackbed in 1868.

It crossed hotel curve with a diamond crossing a short distance before connecting with the met/circle lines, all 4 tracks leading to the diamond were in separate tunnels. When the widened lines were built the tunnel was ran through the site of the diamond crossing, hotel curve was realigned to connect with the new tracks whilst maiden lane tunnel (which was out of use by this time) was closed off by the new tunnel wall. I've not been all the way down to the end of maiden lane tunnel as it is not safe to do so, but it should stop only a few meters from the newer tunnel.

The maiden lane curve was blocked off at it's western end when the widened lines were put in, the only thing down there now is water and rubble.

And a video, the part you want is around 3.30

That is the open air section of York road tunnel, hidden round the back of kings cross. Taken in the very late 70's after it was closed to traffic, the pic is looking southwards downgrade. It is still used as an access route for network rail and you can see their vans crawling through sometimes, it currently looks like this:

Not my picture, but the more I look at those pics the more it reminds me of this:

I like that a lot, very effective.

Those traveling cranes would be good fun to motorize.

I've got no experience of DCC, but I regularly run pairs of lima loco's together on DC. I use old H&M controllers and slow speed running isnt an issue.

Looks great, I'm surprised that it hasn't happened on the real thing yet.