LIVERPOOL STREET STATION'S MET CONNECTION

[kudu]

I am picking this topic up from the "Cubitt's Kings Cross" thread, where manna and CVR1865 raised it.

There was indeed a connection through to the Met, with the westernmost tracks, platforms 1 & 2 originally running through to the Met. I had always thought that the whole reason why the tracks at Liverpool Street are below street level was to facilitate this link, but re-reading Alan Jackson's "London's Termini" I learn that this also saved in land acquisition, since the station approach partly went under the earlier ECR Shoreditch terminus. (This was a controversial decision for the GER Board at the time: an article in the GER Magazine in 1923 (the final issue?) complained of the "great inconvenience to the travelling public" as "every one of our heavily-laden trains has to commence its journey at the bottom of an incline." The writer was a GER director himself, a certain Lord Claud Hamilton.)

Soon after opening these platforms served as the terminus for Met trains in 1875, but only for less than 6 months, until the Met's own Bishopsgate (now Liverpool Street) station opened. Wrangling over charges prevented a regular through service ever running, so there were only occasional specials, the last a Rickmansworth-Yarmouth excursion in 1904. The junction was removed in 1907.

I am doubtful, manna, that the connection was ever used for freight. But freight and parcels did use Liverpool Street: a "ghost train" from Stratford ran nightly, bringing in pw material, coal (for the hotel as well as loco stages) and misc goods, returning with hotel refuse and engine ashes. Parcels and freight also entered the station en route between the GE and south London via the East London Rly.

Kudu

[StevieG]

Even now, there remains a fairly low, now non-operational signal box structure of an old 'mechanical' style, at the west end of the UndergrounD's Met./Circle/Hamm.& City line eastbound platform. It looks like it's of an age that it could have controlled the junction of the connection round into Liv.St. GE's platforms 1 & 2, and stands in what would have been the fork of the junction.
Travelling east on the line from Moorgate to Liv.St., if the north wall of the tunnel is watched carefully as one emerges into the open approaching Liv.St., the wall soon starts to curve towards north, obviously following the alignment of the old connection, though it is soon obscured by another single-storey brick building or two erected on the old connection's track alignment, almost behind the old signal box, and themselves now looking fairly old.

[melton]

The tunnel became the staff canteen

[manna]

G'Day Gents

I knew the connection was'nt used a great deal, odd special etc but the story I heard was that, the odd goods train used it as well
manna

[kudu]

G'Day Gents

I knew the connection was'nt used a great deal, odd special etc but the story I heard was that, the odd goods train used it as well
manna

That would mean freights travelled on the Met, at least occasionally. To/from the GW? or Neasden?

Kudu

[CVR1865]

Sounds like a good cross london route, lets get Freight back on the underground, bring back the link.

I am familiar with that signal box on the Met Platforms.

As regards th ghost train I understand that there were wagon turntables for the coal to be delivered into the hotel from where the tracks dived under. But the met link and the hotel lines are different platforms. I think platfor 10 or 11 as is now are approxiamtely where the old line used to go under into the hotel. It has been a while but I did a lot of research on the jazz trains for a dissertation, and Liverpool Street is a great station with a lot of history, it was also built by the company when they were just leaving administration.

Simon.

[hq1hitchin]

The tunnel became the staff canteen

Known to one and all as the Iron Lung, complete with licenced bar at the back. When I had a mooch around with the Railtrack Duty Station Manager about 10 years ago, long after Liv St had been rebuilt and the canteen closed for many years, was amazed to find that it was still there, hidden away. Presume it still is - anyone confirm, please?

[kudu]

You're right, Simon.

Liverpool Street was an atmospheric station, unlike any other in London thanks to all those Westinghouse pumps. And those tracks reaching the hotel split the station in two so you either had to ascend steps and cross on the bridge as if it was a through station or take a detour through a narrow passage round the buffer stops. The pilot, 68619, in its immaculate blue livery, could always be found somewhere on these tracks messing about with a few vans.

Kudu

[StevieG]

Attached is an extract from an old signalling diagram of Liv.St. (1949) 'box, showing (if you can ignore the dirt-ingrained creases in the linen) the lines from platforms 9 & 10 going on (to the left) below the GE Hotel, which, I'm pretty sure someone local, who ought to have known the reality, once said that staff referred to these as 'the Backs'.
The pic, apart from showing how far these roads went west beyond the other platforms, also shows the ends of platforms 1-8, and 11/12, demonstrating how far apart 10 and 11 were.

It will be noted that 1 & 2 then extended that bit further than their neighbours, betraying that these were indeed the platforms whose lines continued south-->west as the link to the Met. I've once seen someone's photos which showed that, years later, (though unsure if still the case at the date of this diagram) platform 1 was still only accessible, both via the extant narrow footbridge over the track ends, or some sort of dark path or flat (wooden? bridging?) walkway round behind the buffer stops, provided after closure of the Met. link.

It may just be discerned from the photo that platforms 7 & 8 lines had platform faces on both sides.

The late 1980s/early '90s rebuilding saw platforms 1-8 extended (after demolition of the west side buildings and removal of the 'looped' sloping cab roadway outside them) to new buffer stops, affording 12-car multiple-unit length plat. accommodation, and being lined up with the shortened 9 & 10.
And 7 & 8 became conventionally single-faced by removal of 7/8 island, with its (extended) line of main station roof supports ending up standing on new, much lower, masonry plinths.

[kudu]

Just to add that the two long platforms were 9 & 10.

I'm pretty sure that the topmost siding in the diagram was removed in BR days. Platforms 9 & 10 were then straightened and widened with the removal of one of the two sidings between them. In 1962-4 the backs were closed in and a post office and lost property office opened there.

Kudu

[manna]

G'Day Gents

I am amazed, with the replies that come back with just a passing comment, and look what comes forth I suppose I'd better ask! any pics??

In all the years that I travelled through Liverpool St I never once went over to the lower numbered platforms.....SHAME ON ME
manna

[StevieG]

The tunnel became the staff canteen

Known to one and all as the Iron Lung, complete with licenced bar at the back. When I had a mooch around with the Railtrack Duty Station Manager about 10 years ago, long after Liv St had been rebuilt and the canteen closed for many years, was amazed to find that it was still there, hidden away. Presume it still is - anyone confirm, please?

Amazing 'hq1'. With so much else all around altered / re-levelled / rebuilt, etc. out of all recognition, I can't imagine from which point one would now get access to that forgotten area!

[CVR1865]

Stevie, the hotel is still there so I imagine they have a basement perhaps that would be the best place to start. As for the rest of it, 9 amd 10 would have carried on through what is now the concourse area. I have a book by Betjemen about Londons termini from the 60s and today (2002) I will root around for the pictures of Liverpool St, i believe it also had flying tea rooms... great place for a cuppa.

The GERS have some shots on their website. http://www.gersociety.org.uk/

Simon

[StevieG]

...Agreed; to a point : Not that I'll be searching out actually getting in there.

But between the hotel and where that canteen ought to be (slightly west of south from Plats.1 & 2, remember), below the terrace in front of the station's main entrance off Liverpool Street itself, is now the fairly large, slightly below main station concourse-level, LUL ticket hall.
Some anonymous door behind the scenes of the modern-day West Mall's southern side shops might perhaps be the way in : or even via LUL's private areas - either leading off their above-mentioned ticket hall, or through their info.office at main line station concourse-level, or off the Met. eastbound platform, maybe.

It would be easy to imagine some part of the hotel basement still exists, though 'we' have (/had?) at least part of it, at concourse level, as the Travel Centre, and the Station Reception and SM & staff's offices.

Remember (I think) that taxis etc. could once come down into the station cab road/Post area through an archway and ramp through the hotel? The opening's still there off Liverpool Street (the street) but last time I looked in (about ten years ago) the roadway didn't go far and ended, still below the hotel's structure, with something like a modern road vehicle turntable just before the end, as the station concourse's high level walkway would be just beyond, with the concourse floor (no ramp) far below.

[kudu]

Remember (I think) that taxis etc. could once come down into the station cab road/Post area through an archway and ramp through the hotel? The opening's still there off Liverpool Street (the street) but last time I looked in (about ten years ago) it didn't go far and ended with something like a modern road vehicle turntable, and not much beyond, as the station concourse's high level walkway would be just beyond, with the concourse floor (no ramp) far below.

Your memory is correct, except I think you're driving the wrong way! Taxis ENTERED the station from Pindar Street, the first bridge crossing the entire station throat. The descent to platform 10/11 was where trainspotters had to congregate - not a convenient viewing point, but the only place to observe both sides of the station. The EXIT was up under the hotel to access Liverpool Street.

There was separate road access on the western side, where the station was set back and gave room for a small drop-off area etc. I can't remember what this looks like now, as it is some years since I visited.

Meanwhile, according to Jackson (again), the upper level walkways had no less than three tea-rooms, two on the west side opposite platforms 3-6 and one in the new station facing 12 & 13. He says: "These delightful Gothic gazebos provided many a pleasant half-hour for the railway-minded station saunterer ... Sitting here, with the aroma of tea and buttered toast subtly mixing into the smoke and steam wafting through the open window, it was possible to enjoy a particularly cosy contemplation of the bustle and activity always present below." Only one survives, as a self-service cafeteria, he says - but that was 40 years ago.

Kudu