Please excuse and forgive me if this is VERY old hat but I have been away
from the Newsgroup for a long time.

As I understand it a certain length of additional tunneling was done on the
central line way back with a view to having extra tracks. This work was
abandoned and I know one section was taken over by what was then the GPO
(BT) as an underground exchange. This is mentioned in one ofJames Herberts
books (Domain or Lair). At the time I worked for BT and asked my boss about
this and he confirmed the details mentioned in the book. He also said that
at the time when it was being used London Underground even used to make them
buy platform tickets when they needed access via the station!

Steve


"Kat" wrote in message
...
lonelytraveller wrote:
I had read that there were some shelters built under some of the
central tube stations, but that the planned one at St. Pauls was never
actually built.

Now, I was passing through St. Pauls this morning on an eastbound
train, and happened to stand at the back (west), which is unusual for
me, and when we got to St. Pauls, I noticed that there seemed to be a
series of several black doors at the west end of the platform. I would
guess this is pretty close to where the old post office building was,
near the bombed church, and there seems to be a wierd blockhouse in a
similar position in the middle of the road on the surface.

Did they build it after all, as it would have been good for the Post
office, but keep it secret, or are these doors something completely
unconnected?

According to our duty manager, who used to work on that group, the doors
do lead to what was going to be a shelter. He said that while the
excavating was taking place local people complained about the noise and
got the work stopped by finding some ancient law forbidding any tunnelling
under St Paul's Cathedral. The excavated area is now a ventilation shaft
and the block house thing you describe is the top of it.
That was what I was told.....
--
Kat