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LT King's Cross Mystery Tunnel


Brian Kirby
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6 hours ago, keefer said:

It's the Post Office Railway.

Correct.  

 

I visited Liverpool Street's PO Railway station twice whilst employed on the main line station above.  It was a fair hive of activity in those days still having terminating / originating traffic and through workings to EDO (Whitechapel / Eastern District Office).  

 

Mention of Sun Street Passage and Kossoff's Bakery above bring back many memories.  As redevelopment and privatisation took their hold  my role became redundant and I was relocated first to Fenchurch Street, then Charing Cross, Euston and Paddington in turn also covering duties at London Bridge on occasions.  

 

Nowhere had the atmosphere of Liverpool Street.  Other stations had their mazes of tunnels - some forgotten, some obscure and known only to the few and numerous blocked up for good.  

 

My other visits to the PO Railway were at Paddington and Mount Pleasant but by then it was running down and a poor shadow of its heyday.  

 

An interesting diversion is to consider what might have happened had the MR / GER connections at Liverpool Street not been so short-lived.  In theory it would have been possible to route a train from the GWR to the various routes out of London Bridge via the Liverpool Street and Shoreditch curves, New Cross or New Cross Gate.  Oxford to Margate via Wapping, perhaps?  

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6 hours ago, keefer said:

It's the Post Office Railway.

Correct.  

 

I visited Liverpool Street's PO Railway station twice whilst employed on the main line station above.  It was a fair hive of activity in those days still having terminating / originating traffic and through workings to EDO (Whitechapel / Eastern District Office).  

 

Mention of Sun Street Passage and Kossoff's Bakery above bring back many memories.  As redevelopment and privatisation took their hold  my role became redundant and I was relocated first to Fenchurch Street, then Charing Cross, Euston and Paddington in turn also covering duties at London Bridge on occasions.  

 

Nowhere had the atmosphere of Liverpool Street.  Other stations had their mazes of tunnels - some forgotten, some obscure and known only to the few and numerous blocked up for good.  

 

My other visits to the PO Railway were at Paddington and Mount Pleasant but by then it was running down and a poor shadow of its heyday.  

 

An interesting diversion is to consider what might have happened had the MR / GER connections at Liverpool Street not been so short-lived.  In theory it would have been possible to route a train from the GWR to the various routes out of London Bridge via the Liverpool Street and Shoreditch curves, New Cross or New Cross Gate.  Oxford to Margate via Wapping, perhaps?  

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1 hour ago, Gwiwer said:

 

 

An interesting diversion is to consider what might have happened had the MR / GER connections at Liverpool Street not been so short-lived.  In theory it would have been possible to route a train from the GWR to the various routes out of London Bridge via the Liverpool Street and Shoreditch curves, New Cross or New Cross Gate.  Oxford to Margate via Wapping, perhaps?  

I think that did happen, but via St Marys curve rather than Liverpool street.

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43 minutes ago, simon b said:

I think that did happen, but via St Marys curve rather than Liverpool street.

Definitely via St. Mary's Curve.  Part of the original MDR service from Ealing Broadway iirc although it could equally have been MR (Met) via Paddington. Or indeed MR (Midland) / LNER via the Kings Cross / St. Pancras connections which is where this topic came in.  

.

Edited by Gwiwer
Ambiguity of "MR" clarified
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22 hours ago, simon b said:

I think that did happen, but via St Marys curve rather than Liverpool street.

It did happen but basically only for a few years during the Great War when what had become the remaining electrified rump of what had started as the GWR's service tp the city  from Mansion House (eventually) to Aldgate via Addison Road.  This had been cut back to start from Addison Road at the time of electrification in 1905 and was further cut back at that end to start from Edgware road in 1910.  But during the war some trains worked through to New Cross on Sundays only although course the GWR had ceased to run any of these services following electrification.

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7 hours ago, faa77 said:

Back to the original topic, does this mean there are/were 4 tunnels?

 

-York Curve

-Hotel Curve

-Maiden Lane Curve

-One feeding the current new Thameslink Station under St Pancras?

5 if you count the circle line.

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It depends how deep you want to go, of course, in that deep tube railways run under the area too, and at much the same level as the subsurface railways is the Fleet Sewer, which is as big as some railway tunnels.

 

The Fleet arises on Hampstead Heath as two springs and the Highgate Ponds. Then they go underground, pass under Kentish Town, join in Camden Town, and flow onwards towards St Pancras Old Church, which was sited on the river’s banks. From there it passed in a sinuous course which is responsible for the unusual building line adjacent to King’s Cross station; the German Gymnasium faced the river banks, and the curve of the Great Northern Hotel follows the river which passes alongside it.

 

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2 hours ago, Nearholmer said:

It depends how deep you want to go, of course

In the context of this topic probably only those directly linking to the Metropolitan Railway and associated City Widened Lines. 
 

Don’t forget the former relief line tunnel dating from 1926 which could take Eastbound trains from Baker Street onto the Widened Lines. That allowed trains terminating at Moorgate to be segregated from the rest. It did, however, create flat junctions across the Kentish Town and Hotel Curve routes thereby limiting their capacity. 
 

If one stands on the western end of the eastbound Circle Line platform at today’s Kings Cross St. Pancras station two things are apparent. One is that the platform and central passageways are now an island with the centre area infilled but were once two seperate platforms serving four tracks. The other is that a disused tunnel leads north-westwards away from the station which I believe was the original course of the Midland Railway connection towards Kentish Town. 

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1 hour ago, Gwiwer said:

In the context of this topic probably only those directly linking to the Metropolitan Railway and associated City Widened Lines. 
 

Don’t forget the former relief line tunnel dating from 1926 which could take Eastbound trains from Baker Street onto the Widened Lines. That allowed trains terminating at Moorgate to be segregated from the rest. It did, however, create flat junctions across the Kentish Town and Hotel Curve routes thereby limiting their capacity. 
 

If one stands on the western end of the eastbound Circle Line platform at today’s Kings Cross St. Pancras station two things are apparent. One is that the platform and central passageways are now an island with the centre area infilled but were once two seperate platforms serving four tracks. The other is that a disused tunnel leads north-westwards away from the station which I believe was the original course of the Midland Railway connection towards Kentish Town. 

 

Didn't we decide early in this thread that that tunnel went underneath the frontage of St Pancras and stopped? It's probably been shortened by recent developments at this location 

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There were only ever three tracks, not four, at today's Kings Cross St.Pancras Metropolitan Line station. Originally the present EB tunnel was empty, built to provide for a never-built connection to the LNWR at Euston, then from the mid-1920s it was used for a single EB-only electrified track which led into the Widened Lines through to Moorgate, serving Kings Cross Met station in its old location (subsequently used for Kings Cross Thameslink). In the late 1930s work started on the current Met station and a platform was added alongside the EB track in this tunnel which was then diverted back on to the route of the  EB Met line. The previous double track running tunnel had a new WB platform built on the site of the former EB track.

Between these two tunnels a third was bored which had platforms either side of a single terminating track - intended to be used by District Line trains extended from Edgware Road. The new station replaced the old Met station for LPTB purposes in 1940, and the old station was closed for the duration of the war, reopening afterwards to serve LNER (EB only) and LMSR widened line trains to/from Moorgate. The terminating track at the new station was never brought into use, or even electrified, and was subsequently infilled in the 1960s to provide a better circulating area.

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1 hour ago, bécasse said:

There were only ever three tracks, not four, at today's Kings Cross St.Pancras Metropolitan Line station. Originally the present EB tunnel was empty, built to provide for a never-built connection to the LNWR at Euston, then from the mid-1920s it was used for a single EB-only electrified track which led into the Widened Lines through to Moorgate, serving Kings Cross Met station in its old location (subsequently used for Kings Cross Thameslink). In the late 1930s work started on the current Met station and a platform was added alongside the EB track in this tunnel which was then diverted back on to the route of the  EB Met line. The previous double track running tunnel had a new WB platform built on the site of the former EB track.

Between these two tunnels a third was bored which had platforms either side of a single terminating track - intended to be used by District Line trains extended from Edgware Road. The new station replaced the old Met station for LPTB purposes in 1940, and the old station was closed for the duration of the war, reopening afterwards to serve LNER (EB only) and LMSR widened line trains to/from Moorgate. The terminating track at the new station was never brought into use, or even electrified, and was subsequently infilled in the 1960s to provide a better circulating area.

The surviving part of the middle track appeared on recent "Hidden London Hangouts" video.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE4P2Jt-zAs&list=PLKLSoLnrWgHx5kkCaH4iF8nin1s_8taNU&index=5

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