Poole Street (NCL)

[S&T]

Hi all.....

What can you tell me about a place that, if I recall correctly, was called Poole Street.

It was located between Essex Road and Old Street on the Northern City Line. It connected the two tunnel portals with a short connecting passage. I think the location was the original power feed source for the NCL prior to the power being fed from each end in later years.

Thinking back some 40 years or so, I remember access was from street level through an inconspicuous door which gave access to the top of a vertical shaft with a metal grating across the top. Part of the grate was lifted which then enabled you to go down a ladder and then continue down vertically some distance. The whole process required a good head for heights. On reaching the base of the access ladder, there was a small S&T equipment room.

The location could be briefly glimpsed when on a passing train as the location was always lit.

It was a place I remember visiting quite frequently when part of S&T at Finsbury Park and later when based at KX.

Can anyone tell me more about the location of have any stories to tell?

S&T

[Mickey]

The only mention that it gets on the history of the Northern & City branch was that is it a 'section gap' between the two DC electrical sections between Moorgate & Drayton Park on the northbound line and Drayton Park & Moorgate on the southbound line.

The only other thing of minor note was a 'near miss' was narrowly avoided due to the quick reaction of a driver stopping his train in the vicinity of that section of the line (near Pool Street) when a deep level 'boring machine' from a nearby building site above ground broke through the tunnel wall and obstructed one of the running line tunnels in 2013.

[Dave Cockle]

Poole Street was the location of the original coal fired power station that generated electricity for the NCL. Coal came in by barge on the Regents Canal. It was relatively short lived 1904 - 1919 as the Metropolitan Railway bought out the NCL and used their Neasden Power station to provide power to the line.

The old power station became the Gainsborough Film Studios between 1919 and 1949 and then became artist studios. In 2002 luxury flats were built soon the site and there is an historic plaque on the flats celebrating the sites connection with the film industry.

[StevieG]

Perhaps Dave Cockle, like me, you took the chance to explore 'Poole Street' "TPH" ('Track Paralleling Hut', as it was depicted on the Isolation Diagram), during one of the late 1980s, NCL staff emergency evacuation training's weekend tunnel trips.

From what I recall S&T, and with the advantage of traction current being off at the time, I discovered that the tunnel bores were (perhaps not by chance) very close together at Poole Street, the 'connecting passage' was more like a quite large rectangular opening between them than a passageway, with some parts of its below-sleeper (and foot, in the opening) level being some sort of gulley-way(s), including as I recall it, running water, and covered by grilles &/or large metal sheeting (with one or two hazardous gaps having no cover at all).

Then - exploring in the opposite direction to your visits commenced from above - there was the electrical area, which was as you say permanently-lit (by fluorescent tubes). In its small passageway leaving the left (east) side of the Up (Southbound) bore at a right-angle and running for some 40 - 50-ish feet, it was lined with various electrical large switches, cabinets, etc., which I confess I took little interest in.
Then, somewhere at the far end, the fixed (vertical?) ladder; - was the descent/ascent done in two stages of some sort rather than a single ladder ? The grille I do not recall but that could easily be a slip of memory after thirty years; [ was it (part?)-surrounded by a small floor area? ] ; I do remember the quite unimpressive smallish door to the outside world (having only a Yale or similar lock for security ?).
Where I found myself on emerging into open air, I thought was somewhere quite open, tarmac-ed, but parts enclosed by buildings and others by railings, but, as mentioned by others, certainly close to the canal.

The above of any value to you S&T ?

[S&T]

Thanks for the replies StevieG, Dave & Mickey...
Strangely, some of the tings you mentioned StevieG I know recall.....like the running water under the grilles. Yes, the access ladder was at least two stages rather than a single drop. The outside door was the weirdest thing...just a plain brown door with, as you said, a single lock. I recall parking the van in the street so I think it was a housing area, or overlooked by flats or something...but I might be wrong on that.

The thing I always remember was the heat working in all locations on the NCL. Changing an HW2000 or a Trip Cock...or working in one of the relay rooms....always hot and always late at night or in the early hours.

Cheers guys
S&T

[Dave Cockle]

One of the stories that I heard about the constant water leakage into the NCL tunnel at Poole Street was that it came from the Regents Canal. There was some concern that it may have been from a leaking water main so samples of the water were collected and taken to the former Eastern Region laboratory on the old Alexandra Palace station site.

The laboratory undertook a comprehensive analasist of the water and came back that the water had no chemical additives. They said jokingly you ought to bottle the water as, although coming from the canal, it had been perfectly filtered draining through the
layers of clay/gravel etc. Such a shame as the water gets pumped back up to the surface via the Poole Street shaft and discharged back into the canal.

As an aside one Sunday when I was in charge of the Northern City Line Fire & Evacuation training trip we stopped at Poole Street
to undertake a train evacuation and found the sumps in the four foot full up and starting to come over the sleeper tops. Some maintenance work had been carried out Saturday night on the pumps and the technician had forgotten to turn the pumps back on!

[StevieG]

A stroke of luck there then Dave, else there could have been TC failures and an inability to re-charge the traction current by Monday morning.

[Andy W]

Poole St pumps. A regular monthly weekend overnight maintenance job for the ODM - access via “Kelaty’s Warehouse” (i.e. the Gainsborough Film Studios).

There was a lifting beam to lift the pumps out if they needed replacing or for annual overhaul - building up the shafts by metal spraying or rewinding the pump motors were common annual or bi-annual jobs.

They had a heavy duty cycle - the leaks from the canal and other sources were constant. In my time at the ODM there were alarms if they failed because you didn’t have too many hours before you flooded the NCL.