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King William Street in N Scale - Present Day Imagination


John M Upton
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Some twenty years ago I did a mock up N scale hodge podge of cardboard as a possible project to recreate the former CSLR northern terminus station King William Street.  Finding the photos I took of that admittedly very rough and rather incorrect first attempt spurred me into trying again.

 

The concept has always been to recreate a modern interpretation of King William Street at platform level in a what I imagine it would look like were it still in use as a branch of the Northern Line, this led to Plan A which was to have been a series of connected box files and a mock up in an old box file I had found was made:

 

KWS02.jpg.2de5e63855cdf0d35d1eb1bdfbe62a13.jpg

 

KWS03.jpg.342181051eea8a5f16c86f5080aafb36.jpg

 

A couple of problems arose, one was that the only plan of the platform area that seems to exist is of when it was converted for air raid shelter use which omits the lift landing and associated shaft, the other is the two or three passageways that linked the platform head tunnel section to the said lift landing, some photos clearly show two, the plans showed three but with some unexplained door between two of them.

 

The lift landing area and shaft is blocked off at the ends of the passageways and no photos seem to exist.  Assuming that TfL probably would have some objections to me popping down there with a sledgehammer and a tape measure to see what lurks being them walls, I had to make some educated guesswork!!

 

KWS01.jpg.eb6cc5d5b8da2a196e2bbf1f2c45cf61.jpg

 

On my interpretation, I have decided to retain just the two passageways to the left on the above plan, the third has become an equipment room or something similar.  There is also a passageway on the opposite side of the platform head tunnel, this is a modern addition I have put in, a walking route connecting KWS with Monument via a subway that in this imagination was added when the station was recommissioned.

 

The box file didn't really work so I changed the plan to a purpose made box of foam board, a toilet roll middle from work supplied the perfectly sized platform head section and a three inch diameter posting tube has been cut to length and with a opening along the south side for the platform.

 

KWS05.jpg.5f9d69a41193fa4a1e653bdeafa0febb.jpg

 

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The photos here are a rough assembly, nothing is fixed in place yet.  Lighting comes from grain of wheat bulbs at the platform head end and a strip of warm white LED lighting in the ceiling of the platform tunnel.  Tunnel tiling is based on the originals with the CSLR frieze tiling at waist height faithfully replicated by importing a cropped photo of a surviving identical tile at Elephant & Castle and reproducing it.

 

The lift landing area will be visible through a viewing hole in the side where two lifts can be just seen.

KWS06.jpg.a0af60beed3f5542be3c280c07ea2100.jpg

 

At the moment it is all still very much a work in progress.  The platforms are longer than the prototype so that I can eventually accommodate a four car train of 1995 TS.  A separate section will have the crossover points leading to two slightly offset individual running tunnel portals for the up and down lines.

 

A 1959 Tube Stock kit from N-Train is already on site and awaits work:

KWS-59-01.jpg.970af5feeeb01c7f8bdc5f5e0a031ae1.jpg

 

Edited by John M Upton
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Don't know if you've seen the pages at abandonedstations.org.uk?

http://www.abandonedstations.org.uk/King_William_Street_1.html

 

The station approach is covered in pt.3, the station itself in pt.4. 

 

Plans from when the station was converted to an air-raid shelter are on the LT Museum site:

https://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/collections/collections-online/drawings/item/2003-22363

(If you do a Google image search, there are slightly larger images of this, but not really clear enough to read details)

Edited by keefer
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I think between various books and scouring sometimes dusty forgotten corners of the Internet I have managed to trawl up pretty much every image I can.

 

It wasn't until I found the wartime plan mentioned already that I realised that the platform head end tunnel, passageways and lift shaft were at an angle to the platform tunnel.

 

One measurement I have got wrong so will have to quietly gloss over, I have drawn up and built the platforms to take four cars as per what I found out, unfortunately I measured out four cars of 1995 TS and the platforms were in fact four padded cells long which were in fact shorter!

 

Unfortunately I am on late shifts this week so it will be a few days before i can carry on with the project.

 

Meanwhile, anyone got suggestions for a London Underground buffer stop in N scale I can source please?

 

 

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Still very much a work in progress but the second module along, the crossover tunnel is loosely assembled and the platform tunnel now has a head wall and a pair of starting signals.

KWS08.jpg.77109eef90511f93a63a6a34c945f6de.jpg

 

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I am trying to replicated the west end wall of the crossover tunnel like the original with the offset portals, the incoming Up line was higher than the outgoing Down line as the latter dived underneath the former and they ran on top of each other past the Swan Wharf shaft and under the Thames.

 

This is a prototype mask for the end, not convinced it is going to work yet:

KWS12.jpg.3cbf03e42638a9fa692d4c1f0911d987.jpg

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Returning to this project after a lengthy absence, I stalled originally on how to deal with the running tunnels.  

 

After a couple of weeks of experimenting, mostly involving cutting holes in foamboard, I finally reached a point where I have a headwall for the crossover tunnel that I am happy with, allows the tube stock through and retains the distinctive off set nature of the two portals.

20210728_160005.jpg.df4d02bceb377e8fe484171f20767269.jpg

 

This has now been incorporated into the end of the cross over tunnel section which has been refined with a better looking brick finish including curved finishes around the portals.

20210728_160047.jpg.2d64a84d85907ca0ba1227739cab315a.jpg

 

The tunnel section itself, the subject of so much frustration and headache will be a short straight section which will be fine visually for arriving and departing trains.

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