Angel Station - 40 Minutes

As Tubeboy says, this has been discussed before. I remember how bad rhe lift situation was at Angel. Of course, three years after the documentary was made, the new Angel station opened. Was it really 22 years ago . . .

The staff in the documentary clearly date from a different era. The Company Plan put paid to many of the old ways of working. But what a great snapshot of how things were.

I recall in the late seventies tickets were inspected in the lift at places like Russell Square and Gloucester Road (Picc - there was a separate barrier line with a "passimeter" for the District/Circle station). Occasional "traps" were laid on the emergency stairs to plug the obvious loophole - much used by the local student populations at thoe stations. Aldwych was a special case, as tickets were also SOLD in the lift.

Mention of lifts and emergency stairs reminds me I am currently reading this
www.amazon.co.uk/Murder-Underground-British-Library-Classics/dp/0712357254/ref=cm_cr_pr_product_top

Written in 1934, and set in that year (despite the 1938 stock in the cover illustraton!) , I don't think I'm giving away much of the plot to say that the murder scene is the emergency stairs at Belsize Park station.

Rick Wakeman performs a very early version of "The Six Wives Of Henry VIII" on a prototype Moog to an audience of one distinctly unimpressed Elliot Ness impersonator.

The lifts at Russell Square, with the refurbishment work, are regularly operated from the landing in the peaks, I can tell you that

Ditto Covent Garden.

Sure, but do not forget what started it. The C&SLR had lifts at all of its stations when it opened 10 years earlier in 1890. The lifts were almost as big a novelty at that time as the electric railway and there was even a press report on how the company had taken on a responsibility for transporting passengers vertically as well as horizontally.

There are many interesting points about those early hydraulic lifts, but here are three to keep you going:-

1. At the terminal stations the lower level was at platform level, but at the intermediate stations the lifts descended to a landing from which passengers passed up or down to the platforms via inclined passages...a very early example of the Underground catering for less able passengers.

2. The exception to this rule was at Borough, where the lift descended to a rather large passage that led straight onto one of the platforms (the other platform being accessed by a narrow, almost concealed staircase). Until the relatively recent installation of automatic lifts at Borough, you could still see how the side wall at the bottom of the lift shaft was designed to be unbolted and removed. This design seems to have been part of the original plan to get the cable operated cars onto the railway as there would have been no surface depot and therefore no other means of access.
The layout partly served its purpose as it did allow the first electric locomotive and experimental carriages to be sent down into the tunnels before there was any connection to the surface at Stockwell.

3. At the start of the first world war, women were forbidden to drive the trains or lifts on the C&SLR. As the war progressed they were eventually allowed to operate the lifts and open the gates on the carriages, but not to drive the trains.

I think that I am off topic. Sorry!

Aug 5, 2014 12:30:55 GMT programmes1 said:

Aug 5, 2014 16:56:08 GMT CSLR said:

I think that I have got a little rusty at this.





                                                                           _{Why does the Tippex not work?}

Just to add my two pennoth. I use to be a Station Supervisor at Goodge Street. I can confirm that the lifts would operate in landing control during the peaks the rest of the time automatically. We would occasionally run them in car control. They could also be operated in engineer mode where the lift engineer could operate the lift from on top of the lift car, This for obvious reason would over rule the other operating modes.

Thanks David. That illustrates the point perfectly.

The curved wall in the background, with modern horizontally striped tiles, is the side wall to the lifts. This was originally a series of metal plates that could be removed to allow anything that had been lowered down the lift shaft to be moved along the passage towards the camera and on to the northbound line. The removable plates - which I always thought made the lower level look unfinished - remained in place and visible until the lifts were refurbished.

It is this passage that the first locomotive and experimental carriages passed through when they were placed on the line for test running in 1889.

The handrail in the foreground is on a bridge that crosses over and cuts through the roof of the southbound platform tunnel.

Passengers exiting the lifts on the bottom landing are faced with this large passage which was designed to lead directly onto the northbound platform specifically for equipment access purposes. By contrast, the entrance to the southbound platform is an almost hidden gap in the wall, just to the right of the enamel line diagram.

That reverse-facing sign is essential, as many passengers unfamiliar with the station naturally follow the main passage onto the northbound platform and then have to back-track to find the southbound line.

'Is the World round or flat'?

I'm quoting the employee in the film Jtuthill.

Indeed! Haha. I've worked at Angel station, albeit the new one!

Yes the spiral staircase is still in situ, though last time I went down there it had a 'dangerous structure' notice on it so couldn't actually be used.