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Secrets Of The London Underground.

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Ashley Hill

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Talking of gas turbines on another thread it was interesting to see the power station at Greenwich. I was a bit disappointed when one was started up and the presenters excitedly talked over the noise denying the viewers the sound of the turbine winding up.
It seemed a bit familiar,didn’t Rob Bell visit here on one of his shows?
 
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timmydunn

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Ashley, hello. Rather than playing out several minutes of the turbine startup in realtime to keep turbine enthusiasts happy, i reckon the editors have clipped and used bits of us describing what was going on. I know some people can't stand the sound of my voice but my guess is that the sound of a turbine running up for 2 mins probably has even more limited appeal. ;) Now - i took a video of it from another angle (so you won't hear any voices) - and can pop it on twitter next week if i remember, and you really do want to hear it.

Yes, a few other crews have obtained access to the power station a few years ago - but as i always say when someone says "why did you go to X, Y has been there already": Great! No two progs will be identical. I haven't seen the prog you mention but you won't have had the same narrative, areas of discussion, sources, specific places within it, etc etc etc. You are lucky, you have seen both; but there will be a very low percentage of people who have too. cheers.
 

davews

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Thanks Tim. I did wonder how they managed to record you speaking calmly and clearly with the roar of the turbines right behind you. Look forward to hearing what they really sound like.
 

Ashley Hill

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I know some people can't stand the sound of my voice
Hello Tim,thanks for replying. No problem with your voice and appreciate you have no control of the editing. It’s a general gripe of mine when documentaries show film of a subject and then talk or play music over it drowning out the sound.
Keep up the good work :D .
 

edwin_m

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Thanks Tim. I did wonder how they managed to record you speaking calmly and clearly with the roar of the turbines right behind you. Look forward to hearing what they really sound like.
Presuming they put a clip-on microphone close to Tim's mouth so the speech was much louder than the background noise.
 

trebor79

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The old Angel station was bloody awful. Dilapidated, ramshackle, rundown and border line downright dangerous. The decrepit lifts were particularly "entertaining".
Is that the station that's the subject of a documentary made in the 1970s? I forget what it's called but it's on YouTube. The breaking down lifts feature conspicuously. Lovely piece of film which captures a London that has forever disappeared. Unintentionally hilarious in places too - such as som staff member going to tell the station master the lifts have broken again. "What are you telling me for? I'm on my lunch break, I don't give a s**t. Oh, all right then [muttered curses]". Then goes and deals rather brusquely with several dozen elderly ladies who really didn't want to use the stairs.
It's well worth a watch.
 

danorak

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Is that the station that's the subject of a documentary made in the 1970s? I forget what it's called but it's on YouTube. The breaking down lifts feature conspicuously. Lovely piece of film which captures a London that has forever disappeared. Unintentionally hilarious in places too - such as som staff member going to tell the station master the lifts have broken again. "What are you telling me for? I'm on my lunch break, I don't give a s**t. Oh, all right then [muttered curses]". Then goes and deals rather brusquely with several dozen elderly ladies who really didn't want to use the stairs.
It's well worth a watch.
Alarmingly, that documentary is from 1989! Shows you how neglected the Tube was in the 80s. It's called 'Heart of the Angel' and I think it may also be on the iPlayer. It's a great piece of work and quite touching in places. It is also a cautionary tale about what happens when you stop investing in your transport systems to keep them up to scratch.
 

trebor79

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Yeah that's the one! I was convinced it was much earlier than that! I first started riding the tube in the mid 1990s (a couple of times before that as a little kid on family visits to London). It was gloriously run down in places and had some real character that has gone now.
 

trebor79

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It's a great piece of work and quite touching in places.
It is indeed a fantastic fly on the wall documentary, and as you say there is something quite touching about it. The subject is treated with a kind of tenderness and a world away from the confected peril/danger/risk of it going wrong that we see in modern day documentaries. I love the way they use the lift bell as part of the soundscape.
They don't make 'em like that any more. Such a shame!
 

Mcr Warrior

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Getting back on topic, the final (tenth) episode of the second series of "Secrets of the London Underground" is this Thursday (7th July 2022) and includes a behind the scenes visit to Baker Street station as well as to London Underground's lost property department.

It's on 'Yesterday' channel at 8 p.m. this Thursday, and is then repeated at 9 p.m. the day after (i.e. Friday 8th July 2022).
 

kwrail

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The second series of SOTLU has been excellent. Hopefully a third series is being planned. Assuming that it is, what would you like to see in it? To kick it off:

1. Northern Heights - particularly the Ally Pally branch. I know that Highgate high-level has previously featured but there is tons more to see
2. Northern Line extension - cant remember if this has been covered before
3. Isle of Wight - to see 1938 museum stock and refurbished District line stock
 

Ashley Hill

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The Metropolitan electrics,perhaps out and about with Sarah Siddons (if working).
Primrose Hill tunnels.
More disused stations.
Overnight engineering work and maintenance.
 

Mikey C

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East London line? I can't remember if much of that (former Underground) line has been covered. Also the (former Underground) Northern City Line, and related to that Finsbury Park must have some interesting disused bits left over after the Victoria Line rebuild which took over the Northern City platforms.
 

swt_passenger

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East London line? I can't remember if much of that (former Underground) line has been covered. Also the (former Underground) Northern City Line, and related to that Finsbury Park must have some interesting disused bits left over after the Victoria Line rebuild which took over the Northern City platforms.
I think the only underground remains at Finsbury Park would be short running tunnel stubs where the routes were switched to give cross platform interchange, as all four platforms there are original? Were there any significant changes to the tube platform access routes for the Victoria Line, until recently they were pretty much unmodernised?
 
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Mojo

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I think the only underground remains at Finsbury Park would be short running tunnel stubs where the routes were switched to give cross platform interchange, as all four platforms there are original? Were there any significant changes to the tube platform access routes for the Victoria Line, until recently they were pretty much unmodernised?
You’ve got the disused tunnels from Drayton Park to a point just south of Finsbury Park station, that were formerly used by the Northern City line until that was cut short as part of the Victoria line project. They aren’t particularly interesting though.
 

swt_passenger

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You’ve got the disused tunnels from Drayton Park to a point just south of Finsbury Park station, that were formerly used by the Northern City line until that was cut short as part of the Victoria line project. They aren’t particularly interesting though.
Were the tunnels also dug away a bit at the Drayton Park end when they built the new routes up to the surface station? Clearly the old portals are no longer there, but I’ve never seen that much detail about exactly what was done just beyond the Drayton Park platforms? (IYSWIM) There’s a bit on the District Dave forum about the area being “demolished and landscaped” - I suppose that means some sort of earthworks on, and hiding, the original line of the route?
 
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DelW

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I think the only underground remains at Finsbury Park would be short running tunnel stubs where the routes were switched to give cross platform interchange, as all four platforms there are original? Were there any significant changes to the tube platform access routes for the Victoria Line, until recently they were pretty much unmodernised?
I don't think that the passenger areas at FP changed much at all from when I first used them in the late 1950s or early '60s until the changes resulting from building works in the last few years.
There were three pedestrian tunnels roughly in the shape of a T: the "cross bar" tunnels ended on Seven Sisters Road and Wells Terrace, while the "stem" ended on Station Place. The platforms were reached by pairs of staircases going down either side of the stem tunnel. Obviously the services from each platform except northbound Piccadilly changed during the conversion from Northern Line branch to Victoria Line.
There were (and are) spiral staircases between tube platform level and the BR / NR station above, but I don't think they've changed either. However I've rarely used them, I was normally changing between tubes and the Wells Terrace buses.
The bus numbers changed though: the 212 became the W7 and the 233 became the W3. I remember the originals when they were operated by RFs and RTs ;).
 

swt_passenger

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I don't think that the passenger areas at FP changed much at all from when I first used them in the late 1950s or early '60s until the changes resulting from building works in the last few years.
There were three pedestrian tunnels roughly in the shape of a T: the "cross bar" tunnels ended on Seven Sisters Road and Wells Terrace, while the "stem" ended on Station Place. The platforms were reached by pairs of staircases going down either side of the stem tunnel. Obviously the services from each platform except northbound Piccadilly changed during the conversion from Northern Line branch to Victoria Line.
There were (and are) spiral staircases between tube platform level and the BR / NR station above, but I don't think they've changed either. However I've rarely used them, I was normally changing between tubes and the Wells Terrace buses.
The bus numbers changed though: the 212 became the W7 and the 233 became the W3. I remember the originals when they were operated by RFs and RTs ;).
Thanks for that detail. I hadn’t used the station at all before the Victoria Line, but I always got the feeling not much could have changed, all the tiling and stuff seemed in the same style.
 

102 fan

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I was surprised to hear 'Signal Cabin', usually that's the term used in Ireland, and as you know,Signal Box in GB.

Was there a reason why Edgware Rd had a cabin until recently?
 

Mcr Warrior

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Was there a reason why Edgware Rd had a cabin until recently?
Presumably because it still worked, although it was obviously old technology and so needed to be retired in 2019 in order to allow for capacity improvements (i.e. trains able to safely run at closer intervals).
 

John Webb

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I was surprised to hear 'Signal Cabin', usually that's the term used in Ireland, and as you know,Signal Box in GB.....
The terms "signal box" and "signal cabin" were frequently used in the early days of such buildings, according to "The Signal Box - A Pictorial History and Guide to Designs" (The Signalling Study Group, Oxford Publishing Co., 1986). "Signalmen's Hut" was also used in early days.

Interestingly until fairly recently the "Railway Modeller" always used 'SC' for 'Signal Cabin' when marking-up track plans of model railways they were describing to distinguish boxes from 'Station Buildings', abbreviated to 'SB'!
 

REVUpminster

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Signal Cabin was used on the underground reflecting the signalling originally was American (Westinghouse). Maybe why Ireland uses the term.
 

bluegoblin7

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I was surprised to hear 'Signal Cabin', usually that's the term used in Ireland, and as you know,Signal Box in GB.

Was there a reason why Edgware Rd had a cabin until recently?

Various UK undertakings used ‘cabin’ although it is most prevalent on the Tube. As mentioned, it seems to derive from the American origins of both the Tube and the equipment, something backed up by the Metropolitan Railway traditionally having ‘boxes’ until the miniature frames started to come in during the 50s and 60s.

The main reason Edgware Road survived so long is money - it was significantly past design life when it shut, and had a significant amount of bodging to both keep it running and to facilitate the new S stock trains. A plan to resignal the area in the 1980s never came to fruition due to cost, and of course the recent history of the Four Lines Modernisation programme, 4LM, is well documented. It ably managed the job it was designed to do right up until September 2019, but as I mentioned in the programme the other night it was absolutely creaking by the end - I was sad to close it but it wasn’t before time!

It is worth noting though that capacity itself wasn’t a huge issue - in times of disruption you could quite easily eek out every last path with some creative signalling, something that the modern computer system still struggles to match. The mods put in for the S stock trains in 2012 were quite helpful in this regard. The benefits come from replacing a larger number of different systems across the SSR with one unified system, which also tracks every train in real time and can manipulate run times to ensure trains present at junctions, such as Praed Street, at exactly the right time, alongside other innovations such as real time train information. At a site like Edgware Road moving block is of very limited benefit; it is still a constrained and slow speed area with little more than a train length between, or making up, each ‘part’ (approach, platform, junction etc.).
 

102 fan

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Thanks Bluegoblin. It's lovely to hear that an old cabin and the MK 1 human can beat the computer!
 

John Luxton

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The former Mersey Railway Signal Box located in the middle of the Mersey Railway Tunnel was known as River Cabin.
 
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