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Post by GentlemanJim on Apr 2, 2013 19:56:03 GMT
If you stand on the E/B platform facing the wall there is another tunnel above head height, anyone know why it's there?
I was talking to the S/S there one day and he related a story of an armed robbery outside the Station, the villains are said to have run down to the platform and hidden there stash in said tunnel but it's never been found...... an urban myth maybe?
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Post by railtechnician on Apr 3, 2013 1:27:08 GMT
If you stand on the E/B platform facing the wall there is another tunnel above head height, anyone know why it's there?
I was talking to the S/S there one day and he related a story of an armed robbery outside the Station, the villains are said to have run down to the platform and hidden there stash in said tunnel but it's never been found...... an urban myth maybe? I haven't worked at Shepherds Bush since about 1996. I don't know about tunnels above the platform as such but the last job I had there was shifting PA speakers for some upgrade works to the area which at the time was all very damp unfaced red brick at a level between the ticket hall and the platforms with a number of empty rooms which may have been related to new emergency lighting switchrooms but I really can't recall now. I was there for just one shift, the job being a rush one IIRC in which I had to relocate speakers in conduit from the corridor into the rooms. One thing I do recall is that the brick walls were thick and even though damp were far from soft to drill through with our battery Hilti drill and a 25mm SDS masonry bit. It would've been a nice location for a film like Creep, it was somewhat eerie and more so than other places I have worked deep in the bowels of stations. I wouldn't be surprised if the area was unrecognisable to me now if I saw it again.
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Post by deansullivan on May 5, 2013 12:35:59 GMT
Those grills are part of the station ventilation system. If your facing the track, behind the grill is a passageway about 10 feet wide which turns left towards the old lift shafts. Part of this passageway is visible through a gate at the bottom of the spiral stair case. At the far east end of the platform is another ventilation system which uses forced air. This is accessed from a bridge over the eastbound track. This leads into a passageway about 50 foot in length heading east which connects with a cross passageway. To the left is the station ventilation fan. On the right the passageway travels over the running tunnels with access points above the track. It was often the case that when escalators were fitted to stations, the old lift shafts were turned into ventilation shafts. This is certainly so at Shepherds Bush, Bond Street, Oxford Circus, TCR, & Holborn. In many cases the former passageways linking to the ventilation shafts were retained as part of this process. I would obviously stress that no one actually tries to access these ventilation systems without prior permission from LUL.
Dean
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Post by railtechnician on May 5, 2013 17:48:09 GMT
Those grills are part of the station ventilation system. If your facing the track, behind the grill is a passageway about 10 feet wide which turns left towards the old lift shafts. Part of this passageway is visible through a gate at the bottom of the spiral stair case. At the far east end of the platform is another ventilation system which uses forced air. This is accessed from a bridge over the eastbound track. This leads into a passageway about 50 foot in length heading east which connects with a cross passageway. To the left is the station ventilation fan. On the right the passageway travels over the running tunnels with access points above the track. It was often the case that when escalators were fitted to stations, the old lift shafts were turned into ventilation shafts. This is certainly so at Shepherds Bush, Bond Street, Oxford Circus, TCR, & Holborn. In many cases the former passageways linking to the ventilation shafts were retained as part of this process. I would obviously stress that no one actually tries to access these ventilation systems without prior permission from LUL. Dean I'm trying to recall if Shepherds Bush was also the station with the very dusty old stairways from the platform still extant behind doors in the refurbished platform cross passage facades circa 1986 when I commissioned the Central line longline PA system. I have memories of the PA rack being located in such an area at the time. I know OXO, TCR and Holborn very well having spent many hours working in the non-public areas. Bond Street was an early intro to vast NPAs for me back in 1979 when working on the Central line long line CCTV installation. The station was being knocked about at the time and the substation had been relocated, a huge void which was the former lift shaft was accessible from several points at the time.
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Post by deansullivan on May 6, 2013 14:50:28 GMT
There was an emergency staircase installed in one of the old lift shafts. At the top of the shaft is a series of dampers which in the event of a fire would be closed to reduce air circulation on the staircase. Unfortunately the staircase was never actually commissioned due to issues with its design. Cannot recall where the PA rack was, but the station had a very unusual basement. One half was a Staff Gym, the other half used by various departments for storage. I suspect most of this may have survived in some form. However the Gym was initially converted into the GSMs accommodation. Now the GSM & Station Staff have very nice facilities in the new part of the station. Dean
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Post by railtechnician on May 6, 2013 17:23:41 GMT
There was an emergency staircase installed in one of the old lift shafts. At the top of the shaft is a series of dampers which in the event of a fire would be closed to reduce air circulation on the staircase. Unfortunately the staircase was never actually commissioned due to issues with its design. Cannot recall where the PA rack was, but the station had a very unusual basement. One half was a Staff Gym, the other half used by various departments for storage. I suspect most of this may have survived in some form. However the Gym was initially converted into the GSMs accommodation. Now the GSM & Station Staff have very nice facilities in the new part of the station. Dean What I am thinking of would be the disused access stairways from the platforms to the subway leading to the lift shaft, my recollection is that they were narrower than found in other locations such as at Down Street, Hyde Park Corner, Euston, Embankment etc and so long disused that the walls were literally black with dust and may not even have been tiled. My recollection is that they were bricked up at the top so did not actually lead anywhere, i.e. they were without an upper landing, simply staircases and unlit. Perhaps one of the most interesting Central line non interchange stations was St.Pauls with its partially flooded subway below the lower lift pits accessed from a very narrow (single person) spiral staircase in the lift pit. Chancery Lane was another station with disused areas, I moved a CER there in a single shift circa 1990 as part of the CLP enabling works from one room along the platform to another. I suspect that one of the rooms may once have been a signal cabin, its floor being lower than platform level with steps down behind the access door. I surveyed TCR for Crossrail in the mid 1990s so I saw all the disused areas which would be impacted by Crossrail construction and Liverpool Street was a favourite location that I worked in all the disused/non public areas over nearly 30 years on many projects.
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Post by ribaric on Jan 23, 2015 17:31:20 GMT
I was told by an aged sage (circa 1969) that those big vents at the Bush are a throw back to when it was a terminus and the line used locomotive hauled trains. That's as much as I recall, maybe they got hot?
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