Private Rod

It's also interesting (sic) that the name for certain LU departments change over time. Therefore engraved signs which have a very basic meaning i.e. staff only often have a historic and mystifying name. One fairly recent one is that operational staff - not sure if it just stations - were a part of the passenger services directorate. So u can still see signs that say PSD use only which meant "oh infraco staff hands up" I wonder if the new name for what used to be metronet , APD, we will see APD private.

There is quite a lot of history hidden behind doors in stations but there is also a great deal in plain sight but not obvious unless u take the time to have a good look.

There is so very much more to Liverpool Street than one would imagine, lots of which is set to disappear as Crossrail is built. Over nearly three decades I spent lots of time working there in what are now disused or NPAs or redeveloped areas such as the Broad Street escalator shaft, the central line lift shafts, the canteen/Queen Victoria tunnel and the many nooks and crannies beneath the old main line station taxi ramp which were once inhabited by various LT sections prior to the Broadgate development.

I can say similar things about Mansion House as I spent many hours there too before during and after modernisation.

There is so much to see at so many stations, once upon a time I would walk from Holborn to Aldwych using the second tunnel which like Down Street, St. Pauls, Brompton Road and other stations was kitted out for other use during WW2. I am led to believe that access became limited when part of the area was redeveloped in connection with the works of a London Utility several years ago but I still recall the offices with their brown painted door frames and the narrow corridor running between them.

I recall Mark Lane as a site where we maintained a working tunnel telephone relay room in my earliest days on the system before we shifted it circa 1980.

Other great complexes are perhaps more obvious, Euston/Euston Square, Baker Street, Oxford Circus, Bond Street, Stockwell, Kennington, Tottenham Court Road, St John's Wood, Earl's Court, Camden Town, Charing Cross, Waterloo, Green Park for example.

There are other less obvious places with more to see than is obvious such as Aldgate, Wood Green, Finsbury Park, Manor House, South Kensington etc.

There are even 'secrets' to be discovered at places such as Holloway Road, Hyde Park Corner and many more stations with spaces that are seldom noticed.

I have no detailed knowledge of the JLE as I was never involved in any way with it despite volunteering to work on it. Thus I can say little about it although I did work at London Bridge on cable diversion works while the bulldozers and other machinery were using the tunnels instead of trains as part of the enabling works for the station modernisation. Of course the principles upon which its stations were constructed are quite well known, every tube station being basically a large reinforced concrete box containing an average 300 to 400 rooms. However, the station boxes are so large that they may contain more than LU interests which generally only the planners and builders are aware of apart from the interested authorities.

There used to be tours of Down Street some of the other disused stations but I believe they stopped a long time ago. Health and Safety concerns, I would imagine. Personally, I would be quite happy to sign a H&S waiver if it meant I could see some of these places!

Railtechnician...were the "Nooks and crannies" under the cab ramp at Liverpool Street,used by LT,housed in the old curve tunnel between the Circle and the GE Main Line?

Yes, that is perhaps the most frustrating and dissapointing change this forum has undergone since the begining. It is irritating that stuff in the public domain, and even in some instances once upon a time boasted about, has now in an age of beuracracy become almost a state secret, not specifically here but in general in this country. The other pressing example being photography.

When I was young the tours of disused stations still took place. I visited Down Street and Aldwych, I think British Museum was another one that you could visit, but I didn't. A great pity that paranoia provided the excuse to stop these as they were fascinating, and a rare oppertunity for the hardcore enthusiast to ask questions that nowadays would be unable to answer with a 'google' search.

The ability to ask such questions is fast diminishing, not least because of this culture of secrecy that seems to be impressed on workers now, but also because time itself doesn't stop. For example, if you wanted to find out something obscure about Q stock handling, the last person to have done that was 41 years ago, so presumably they'd be in their mid-60s now? Or F stock... 49 years ago, so add another decade. Memories fade, and with them goes vast amounts of the unreported past.

RT, I'd love to know more about the spaces at Mansion House, especially those that disapered after the rebuild. As you may know at some point in the SSL programme its proposed to become a single island, ostensibly because of platform lengthening. It seems suprising given that not too long ago it had 4 platforms (and before that sidings, shunts etc) that more can't be squeezed in. Would you be able to comment? (Or PM, perhaps?)

That tunnel was the QV tunnel that I mentioned which housed the staff canteen. During the Broadgate development the old canteen became a contractor stores and the rest was a building site. I would imagine that a large part of the area beneath the taxi ramp was in the original QV tunnel if not all of it. These days there is an emergency exit from there out to the shopping precinct so the tunnel still exists although it would probably not be recognised as one due to its maze of many interconnecting compartments.

I well remember the 24-hr LT staff canteen at Liverpool Street with its arched roof, quite clearly on the alignment of the MR/GER link. IIRC there was a BR Staff Dining Club in another part of the old tunnel. The days when public transport operators looked after their staff!