Going Underground (Again)

With what seems to be an endless barrage of wind and rain it was time once again to take the safe haven of Subterranea. This time a chance to visit parts of the London Underground previously reserved for real urban explorers and TFL staff. Moorgate is not the easiest of location for those originating from Kent but when you consider there are only 29 stations south the of the Thames visits are pretty restricted to the like of Clapham South or Salad farms for out of bounds locations.

So with the additional plot the route game of no Circle/District/Metropolitan lines at all and major issues on the Northern and Bakerloo lines the usual hr journey became more like two and involve getting trains in the opposite direction to get their on time.

A quick but essential safety briefing and hi-viz and hard hat issues and off in the usual format through various side doors and staircases not used or mostly visible to the general public

Some of these tunnel/walkways hadn't been used for years up until 6 months ago. Various fading posters from 60-70 years ago were still just about visible when these were active parts of Moorgate station

Even had some helpful directions marked on the wall and given the option of avoiding the Elephant and Castle for somewhere a little warmer

Loads of interesting historical info about the formation of the stations which I will reserve for fellow anoracks but where else can you see an original Greathead Shield used in the excavation of the deep London Underground lines still in situ (well you try and move it up to ground level)

You could easily get seriously lost down here although light-ish, the floors are very uneven and in parts flooded and filthy as you would expect but a short through yet another side door and there is a platform which doesn't appear on any tube maps but is occasionally used for stabling trains/emergencies , the visit being the same day as major engineering work meant virtually no traffic so the unused platform was... unused and does feature in some undisclosed contingency plans should they be needed.

Back up to surface level where due engineering works the normal packed platforms remained ghostly empty

The short metal bar in the middle of the rail to the right was the automated train stop implemented across the network following the Moorgate tube crash which occurred on 28 February 1975 at 8:46 am on the London Underground's Northern City Line; 43 people died and 74 were injured after a train failed to stop at the line's southern terminus, Moorgate station, and crashed into its end wall. It is considered the worst peacetime accident on the London Underground.

There is a lot of work in progress at the station not least the long overdue Cross Rail projects which is now scheduled to open in 2021 and will double the number of daily passengers at Moorgate.

Also found out the reason for the tube line closures was to test new signalling which will mean two previously dormant platforms will be bought back into service after 11 years to extend the running hrs during the weekdays and give much needed additional capacity

FYI - Despite its name, only 45% of the system is underground in tunnels