Highbury and Islington Station

I think you would have to look at a second entrance/exit at the opposite end of the deep level platforms.

There are questions to the Mayor for tomorrow's MQT about any capacity improvements being planned for Highbury & Islington. If we're lucky there may be written answers next week, however if the usual level of response is provided we'll be waiting weeks for someone at TfL to draft an answer.

I am sceptical that anything major will be done because of the money that was spent to extend concourse level capacity in recent years. I agree there are severe problems with access to / from Vic Line and GN but relief of that would cost tens of millions and places like Holborn and Camden Town are further up the queue for funding.

Is the current set-up another of the 'temporary' arrangements after the Blitz? Some of these have had remarkably long lives.

This is from Wiki & checks out with all my railway books:


The NLR station was damaged by a V-1 flying bomb on 27 June 1944, however, its main building remained in use until it was demolished in the 1960s during the building of the Victoria line. The original westbound platform buildings remain, as does a small part of the original entrance to the left of the present station entrance.

Today's single-storey structure was built in the 1960s for the opening of the Victoria line on 1 September 1968 and is the entrance for all lines. When the escalators to the deep level platforms were opened the GN&CR station building was closed. Its disused entrance remains and was refurbished externally in 2006 – it houses signalling equipment for the Victoria line.

The Victoria line was built to give as many interchanges as possible with Underground and British Rail lines, with, wherever possible, cross-platform connection between different lines heading in the same direction. To this end at Highbury & Islington the northbound Northern City Line platform was reallocated to the southbound Victoria line to give a direct link between the two southbound platforms; a new northbound platform was constructed for each line; the northbound running NCL tunnel was diverted to its new platform; and the southbound Victoria tunnel was joined to the old northbound NCL tunnel.


On TfL's own website:


HIGHBURY & ISLINGTON: The busiest times at Highbury & Islington Tube station are 08:15 - 08:45 and 18:15 - 18:30 on weekdays. If you are able to travel outside these times, you could have a quicker and more comfortable journey

So they are aware of the problem, but solving it won't be easy, I suspect.

Thirst, you say the station is built on a bridge - but the NLR must have had its massive Horne building grounded on something fairly solid. The concrete rendering on the first shop NW on the A1 shows where it must have stood - the site is occupied today by what look like temporary single storey shops.
Was there any underground connection between the GN&C and NL stations before the war?

With suitable support there is nothing preventing large buildings being built over the railway - the present Nottingham station, on a comparable scale to the old H&I, is on a bridge over the railway for example.

Can't find anything to suggest there was so far, vide Wiki & Middleton Press.

But, as the GNCR was going to become a branch of the Northern Line in line with the Northern Heights Electrification/New Works program of 1936, wonder if anything happened between then & 1945/6? I think the work only started at Drayton Park on that segment & then from Highgate out towards Stroud Green, but if I can find my book on it again, I'll try & confirm.

At a guess, if it was slated to've been built/made at some point during the war, the end of the NLL service to Broad Street in 1944 may've put the kybosh on it.

Were both pairs of tracks on the NL and hence all 4 platforms used by NL trains pre-1939? As I remember it in the 60s, only one pair was electrified/used, but I might be wrong....
The whole site was heavily hoarded up, I think, a bit like that other grand NL station, Bow. But at least H&I still had trains.

stapler

Found the book-there were four roads through the GNCR part, which were converted to Tube stock/Tube platforms over five days in May 1939.

There are four surface platforms in my Middleton Press book; new tracks on the north side were known as no 1 lines & were added in 1871 on quadrupling of the route & those platforms are/were sharply curved at H & I. As it says the no 2 (original) lines were used for fast trains once no 1 lines were put in, the latter must have been used for slow trains.

Unusually for Middleton, there's no historic timetable for us to work out what consisted a fast or slow train-if we can find one pre-1939 and ascertain whether H & I fielded fast trains, we will know if all four platforms were used for NLL trains.

I'll have a look around.

norbitonflyer

I read over thirty years ago that there was a plan to convert the entire NLL to a Met Tube branch & run it through to Aldgate from Broad Street, having given that its' own Tube station.

This was apparently not publicly announced as part of the Northern Heights New Works program, but was under serious consideration if phase one, as published, had been successful. I think H & I was mooted as an exchange station in this.

I can't honestly remember if that was mentioned in what I read. From what I do remember, it was under consideration at a high level, but was not worked up beyond that into any planning stages, because events rather overtook things.



stapler


Thanks to Disused Stations site:



Looks like H & I was on the fast service from this timetable, so that may suggest the NLL was indeed using all four platforms before the war.

There's a photo in Middleton Press captioned that as a result of the bombing damage, remedial works in 1956 added a new building to the centre platforms and a replacement canopy to the down electric lines' platform. The photo illustrating this is undated, but one side of the central platform looks a bit forlorn, as does the up electric line platform.

Will keep researching & see if we can answer your question for keeps.

I grew up in Highbury in the 1950s. There was no connection between the two stations. There is also a rear entrance to the old tube station facing Highbury Crescent. There were lifts and a spiral staircase down to the platforms.

Orienteer, Thanks---could you confirm as to the state of the NL station (fast lines, etc platforme) in your youth?