Kings Cross York Road in 1976

[Mickey]

One of the last Craven units about to depart Kings Cross York Road station for Moorgate running via the Widen lines in 1976.

Behind the Cravens unit is 'the throat' area before remodelling the following year also note the two new metal stanchions in place beside the Down slow line on the approach to Gasworks tunnel for the impending GN electrification project as well.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Ra ... ground.jpg

Mickey

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Used to love going down the 'Drain'.

manna

[Mickey]

Used to love going down the 'Drain'.

Yes that was a minor experience in it's self as you would remember manna being a secondman yourself at onetime at Kings Cross back in the early 1970s and being 'up the front' on the loco bound for Moorgate which always a Brush type 2 with a set of 'block enders' behind.

You would roll into Kings Cross York road station and before the train had even come to a stop the secondman would be climbing down off the loco to 'put the banjo down' for run over the Widen lines to Moorgate then you would climb back on board the loco and sit down in the secondman's seat while the driver would be waiting the 'right away' from the guard and once the guard gave it you was off!!. The driver would then take the locos 'holding brake off' and open the locos controller a notch or two just to get the train rolling a few miles an hour then you would enter the tunnel bore at the end of York road platform and the driver would then shut the controller and let the trains own momentum push the loco into the 'blackness' of the tunnel and on down the twisting and falling gradient down towards Kings Cross London Transport Junction to join the Midland railway where the falling gradient would level out for the run across the Widen lines to Moorgate.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?view= ... .gz348Bc5g...

That section of railway from the tunnel bore at the end of Kings Cross York road platform down to Kings Cross London Transport Junction was so dark and black you couldn't see anything until you glimpsed some daylight down at Kings Cross London Transport Junction god knows what it was like back in steam days??.

Mickey

[manna]

G'Day Gents

Yes that was dark, down that tunnel, you could have wandered around down there for ages, if you didn't have a torch, and secondmen didn't have a torch.

manna

[Mickey]

Yeah funny it did cross my mind on more than one occasion back then that if you was on a light engine as the secondman and the loco failed down at the bottom of the falling gradient near to Kings Cross L.T. Junction on the GN section and they were going to send out an assisting loco down to hook on to your failed loco the secondman on the failed loco would have had to have walk back 'up the hill' towards Kings Cross York road station through that 'pitch black darkness' of that tunnel to meet the assisting loco so hopefully the driver would have had his Bardic lamp with him otherwise you would have been stumbling around in the pitch black plus the assisting loco crew wouldn't have seen or been aware of you until the crack of the exploding detonator!!.

That tunnel wasn't only pitch black but it wasn't all that wide either!!.

Mickey

[StevieG]

Anyone ever notice, between York Road and "King's Cross (Met.)" as I always knew it, part - way on the way down between the two stations, a bit of a 'wide-way' on the right roughly where the line started curving to the left?
It was where, in the really early days (1860s I'd guess), for some reason a single track-width tunnel was built from there, also falling, but curving west, down to join the Metropolitan Railway.
I think either it was never quite finished, or it was but track was never laid.
Then it got severed, I think by the building of the Midland line's tunnel down to KX Met and the City Widened Lines, and/ or even more so, at the Met.'s end, when their non - widened lines Platforms at KX Met. were superseded by the construction of the present Met/Circle/H&C line KX/St.P station under ground, opened in 1941.

[Mickey]

I use to refer to the junction with the Midland route towards Moorgate by my own name as the 'London Transport Junction' Stevie I never really knew it's correct name back in the early 1970s.

It was a strange experience being in the cab of a loco after leaving Kings Cross York road and heading towards Kings Cross Met station which was always a Brush type 2 loco. The tunnel between Kings Cross York road and the junction with the Midland near Kings Cross Met station was so dark you really couldn't see anything and the loco appeared to twist and turn on it's run down the falling gradient towards the junction with the Midland but eventually you would slowly see the approaching daylight at the junction and the shinny rails that looked like silver glass!.

There was a small signal box located in a portacabin like structure located at the west end of the Down Widened lines platform at Kings Cross Met station. I vaguely remember reading something on the internet a couple of years ago about one of the signalmen who worked at that box during the late 1960s & early 1970s being an American bloke?. Certainly a strange and isolated place to work at located deep in a brick walled cutting on a station platform with the station only being open during the morning and evening peaks and situated between the Widened lines on one side of the box and the Metropolitan & Circle line on the other side of the box.

Below looking westbound towards Kings Cross & St Pancras stations via the widened lines with the Metropolitan & Circle lines that are out of sight on left of the picture. The signalbox can be glimpsed at the far end of the westbound platform at Kings Cross Met station although the photograph maybe from the earlier 1960s because the structure that I remember being there from the late 1960s until the mid 1970s was a grey coloured portacabin structure.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?view= ... P.bsw3xhQK...

Below looking eastbound towards Farringdon & Moorgate with the widened lines in the foreground.

http://www.bing.com/images/search?view= ... P.2W8XzbeH...

Mickey

[manna]

G'Day Gents

To this day I don't know what the track layout was under Kings Cross station, seeing that it was so dark, you never got to see anything, but I believe, there was a single bore tunnel that turned west from the 'Drain' tunnel that turned 'east', and as you say the track was never laid, but I don't think it was just for Midland railway access only, by turning 'West' the GNR, could then access the whole of the 'Metropolitan Railway. including Paddington, which had just done the 'dirty' on the Met Rly.
The only way I worked out where the 'West bound' tunnel was, there was a different sound for a few seconds, as you past the tunnel, although everything was so loud, it was still hard to tell.

manna

[Dave S]

I've got these links from somewhere showing the tunnels under KX
https://www.flickr.com/photos/ianvisits/5995176612/

This is an old engraving Looking West on the Met, Hotel curve is on the right with the horse on the York Rd to West link.

[Mickey]

To this day I don't know what the track layout was under Kings Cross station, seeing that it was so dark, you never got to see anything, but I believe, there was a single bore tunnel that turned west from the 'Drain' tunnel that turned 'east', and as you say the track was never laid, but I don't think it was just for Midland railway access only, by turning 'West' the GNR, could then access the whole of the 'Metropolitan Railway. including Paddington, which had just done the 'dirty' on the Met Rly.
The only way I worked out where the 'West bound' tunnel was, there was a different sound for a few seconds, as you past the tunnel, although everything was so loud, it was still hard to tell.

Yes I have seen recently in the last year or so a simple diagram of the track layout or proposed track layout underneath Kings Cross station and you are correct manna it shows a connection turning westward shortly after leaving Kings Cross York Road station to as you say to link up with the Metropolitan Railway. I wonder why the proposed link with the Metropolitan Railway never came about in the end?.

An interesting engraving Dave.

Mickey

[Dave S]

Found this on Google, I've never seen any photographs before so found it interesting.

This is under York Rd with the abandoned West curve on the right.

[manna]

G'Day Gents

So that's what it looks like, been past it hundreds of times and never seen it, and not for the lack of trying.

manna.

PS. I makes you wonder how the PWay guys managed to work down there.