LIVERPOOL STREET STATION'S MET CONNECTION

[manna]

G'Day Gents
The taxi way was were the van use to pick up staff for Kings Cross, fell asleep standing up once, waiting for the van.

Now I do'nt know weather I want some buttered toast, or to smell coal smoke
manna

[StevieG]

Kudu (16th June '10),
Thanks for the correction. My memory of old photos seen is obviously a little sketchy.

I had meant to confirm CVR1865's comment about the old tea rooms, of which neither exist since at least, the 198x-1991? station rebuilding (if not earler).

For photos and text about old Liverpool Street station, & approaches, etc.*, I really cannot overlook recommending : -
- "Great Eastern In Town & Country" (hardback, Irwell Press) vols. 1 1990, 2 1991 (by Chris Hawkins), and 3 1996 (Peter Kay);
And British Railway Journal ; "Special Great Eastern Edition"; (softcover) Wild Swan Publications Ltd., (undated; also around 1990/1 I think).

* - Also featuring a good deal about Shoreditch old Terminus/Bishopsgate Goods, Whitechapel sidings (GE, not ELL), Fenchurch St.& approaches, plus Mile End, Stratford, and also include pieces on several other locations including Ilford, Colchester, Ongar, Lowestoft (ships, IIRC), Norwich.

Re previous post(s) about the titled Topic; Concerning Liv.St. Plats. 1 & 2 and the walkway behind the buffer stops as alternative access to the footbridge ; from two photographs of the immediate area in the above books, it appears from the dates endorsed on the prints, that the walkway was provided during June / July 1920.

[CVR1865]

that would coincide quite nicely with the introduction of the Jazz Trains

[CVR1865]

Was at the street today and took the Circle line toward Paddington. I had a good look around the old signal box from the opposite platform and there is clearly a later build brick wall to its left that looks like it conicides with a kink in the track this to me looks like a natural arch that would link up with P1 even as is today, so perhaps the old line was even better aligned. The retaining wall along P1 one assumes is as always with Broad street as was next door. Was the platform width altered at Liv Street during the refurb works in the 80s?

[StevieG]

Although having a somewhat tenuous link with this thread, in that the East London line joined the GER near Liverpool Street, and was for many years administered by London Transport as part of the Metropolitan Line, I nevertheless wondered if the accompanying photocopy of a photograph of East London Junction might be of interest.

I know it is of poor quality, but I have scanned it anyway, to include here on the basis of 'a poor image is better than none'. I think someone at Liv.St. gave me this photocopy in around 2000, but I've no idea of its source or the date of the original, except that it obviously predates the '1949' resignalling, when East London Junction came under the control of the then new Liverpool Street power signal box.

The location is where the East London line diverged from the GE main line just west of the former's Shoreditch station, and the large 'flyover' skew bridge No.19 which carried the approach lines for Bishopsgate Goods over the main line's six-tracks near the bottom of 'Bethnal Green bank'.
The view is to the east from between the Up Local and the Down Through* lines, looking across to the Through* lines on the right and with the double, Throughs*/E.L. lines junction, with the signal box being set into the retaining wall almost opposite the fixed diamond crossing in the Up Through, and east of the junction points.
* - [ from introduction of Ilford Flyover and the 1949-ish Liv.St.-Shenfield electrification and resignalling, the Local lines here became today's "Main" lines, and the Throughs became the Down and Up "Electric" lines.]

The prominent overbridge is Brick Lane, with, beyond it, over the E.L.lines, the bridge structure for Shoreditch E.L. line station, with the station's platform/canopies just discernible in the right background. Abutting the Shoreditch station bridge, the bulk mostly visible to the left through the Local lines bridge opening, is that of the abutments to the previously-mentioned overbridge No.19 which also ran above Brick Lane.

There is another photo of this area, on p.38 of the 1991 book "Great Eastern In Town & Country, (vol.) Two"; by Chris Hawkins, from Irwell Press.
That photo was taken from a little further west, hard by the retaining wall beside the Up Through (possibly from the E. end of Bishopsgate Low Level platform), and prominently features E.L.Jn's pair of Down Through lower quadrant L/H-bracketed home signals for the junction, springing from the brickwork of, or standing in a recess of, the up side retaining wall; their red arm fronts apparently only relieved by white lettering ; 'T' (Through) on the left (high) arm, 'EL' (East London) on the (lower) right.

For several years until his retirement not that long ago, I worked with someone who had been a Stratford fireman, and he remembered firing on goods trains to the Southern Region which used this route, around the mid-1950s I would think, and probably running Temple Mills-Hither Green. As East London Jn. faced west, these ran via Liverpool Street station, apparently being shunt-released to run-round there, and thus a return trip would pass E.L.Jn. four times.

[BHornsey]

Hi Steve.

Nice photo. I have a scan of a 1953 WTT and it shows about 3 trips in from the southern en-route to Temple Mills and 3 the other way.
They all used platform 15 except one that used 13 and none had more than about 13 minutes turn round time so I guess that that didn't round run but a fresh loco dropped in on top to work it back. One was a train of fish empties, the rest were class H goods. I also have some 50's STNs and they include one or two excursions to Brighton that worked out and back via New Cross.

When I used to ride up to Liverpool St in the late 70's, I used to see the site of the signalbox but it was just a door a ground level and a high level window in the flat wall. If I'm not mistaken it's still there. This image shows the box built out somewhat. When I started at Hackney I used to work with George Buckland who relieved at East London Junction (the Hole In the Wall everyone called it!) and the way he described it, I didn't expect what the photo shows.

He told me you entered at track level into the locking room and had to climb a ladder to the operating floor above and it was very cramped. The toilet was just a bucket in the corner and it was the boxlad's job to empty it!! Health & Safety bods would have a coronary today.

Brian

[kudu]

Although having a somewhat tenuous link with this thread, in that the East London line joined the GER near Liverpool Street, and was for many years administered by London Transport as part of the Metropolitan Line, I nevertheless wondered if the accompanying photocopy of a photograph of East London Junction might be of interest....

There is another photo of this area, on p.38 of the 1991 book "Great Eastern In Town & Country, (vol.) Two"; by Chris Hawkins, from Irwell Press.
That photo was taken from a little further west, hard by the retaining wall beside the Up Through (possibly from the E. end of Bishopsgate Low Level platform), and prominently features E.L.Jn's pair of Down Through lower quadrant L/H-bracketed home signals for the junction, springing from the brickwork of, or standing in a recess of, the up side retaining wall; their red arm fronts apparently only relieved by white lettering ; 'T' (Through) on the left (high) arm, 'EL' (East London) on the (lower) right.

Thanks for reminding us of the excellent photos in that series. Also on p38 is a view of the taxi ramp I mentioned earlier. I note that in this undated photo there were railings on the west side, so the view for any spotters in those pre-war days was better than it later became.

More to the (original) point, on p12 is a 1920 shot of the end of platforms 1/2, the disused tunnel to the Met in clear view. Despite closure of the link, passengers leaving platform 1 still had to climb stairs (though unless they were changing trains they wouldn't need to descend again.) All the same, it looks a thoroughly inconvenient arrangement.

Kudu