LU Staff Canteens pre 1997 - Please Post Memories

Hainault is further east than Leytonstone, but Loughton crew depot has recently re-opened.

When I first joined LTE I quickly volunteered for night work as it paid an unsocial hours allowance which boosted the weekly wage by about 35%. Most canteens were closed at or before the end of traffic although Liverpool St. was open all night except for the canteen staff lunch period but it was the only such canteen that I recall on LU. We occasionally would visit Euston BR canteen if working near or by but mostly in those days we took tea and eat our sandwiches in the tunnels, we were not actually officially allowed to use the canteens at all at night as there was not a 'lunch hour'. One man in the gang was detailed as a messman so he carried the crate (plastic relay crate like a milk crate but smaller) containing large teapot, cups, spoons, tea towel, teabags etc. He also had the 'gas chit' which was required by the station supervisor before the cooker could be used to boil the kettle, the operating department had to be paid for the use of its metered gas! We'd take a break sometime around 0300 and the messman would walk down the tunnel to us and generally serve the tea from our track trolley. There was nothing better than two cups of rosy lea in the middle of a hot and dusty environment. In those days we were working mostly on the Northern line and it was a sweat box but the Bakerloo, just before that section of it between Finchley Road and Baker St became the Jubilee, was worse for dust and heat. Now the P-way also had messmen but their habit was to have tea on the platform at the end of their work after washing up in endless buckets of hot water also prepared by the messman whilst waiting for traction to be switched on and for the first train to run. Back then only a few blue eyed boys travelled in the few company vehicles whilst the rest of us were supposed to travel everywhere by train, we were also captives being locked in at the unmanned stations as most of them were at that time!

Of course rules were made to be broken but that's another story!

Brian

When I was a Box boy in the 80s and had to go to the old training centre at White City I use to use the bus garage canteen at Goldhawk Road as it was much better than the training centre and at the local station. The BAA canteen at Heathrow was very good too (dont know if we can still use it)

Was any canteen set up as an all-you-can-eat facility?

Yep same here early 1980's Goldhawk Road canteen used quite a bit by myself and a few other box boys (JTRO's). Goldhawk even had a snooker table on the first floor which we used quite a bit. & we even had the pleasure of walking through Shepherds Bush market to get to it ;D ;D

ROA's & some JT's did and got into some real trouble for it ;D ;D

I remember reading about this at your website. It's making me thirsty already

In the 1970s the District Line had canteens at Acton Town, Earls Court and Barking. Oddly never anything at Upminster station booking on point and not even a CME/RSE staff facility in the depot itself. There was also a bus canteen at Hammersmith Garage and another at Sloane Square. I remember one guard having an argument with the catering staff at Earls Court and decamping there for his M/R/ Predictably the WB then got delayed and he was late back! There was no canteen at Parsons Green for trainstaff either but I often wondered if the Works & Building depot had anything there before it closed. The clientele of the main DR canteens would vary - at Barking it was augmented by bus crews, a regular group of pensioners, and the occasional Green Line inspector off the 723. Earl's Court (originally open 24-hrs) was mainly rail staff but had an influx of bus staff when West Brompton served as a relief point. Ditto Acton Town after Acton Tram Depot reopened and this became the nearest facility for a while. I once had a complete list supplied by photographer John Parkin and envisaged trying to visit them all - of course I never completed the project! Even better were the London Country canteens where there was none of this 'write it on a ticket' nonsense and you would be served at your table, or alternatively one could go up-market in the Griffin Rooms, South Kensington, where silver-service was employed. Happy days!!!