On 10 Oct, 13:36, Roland Perry wrote:
In message
, at
03:55:18 on Sun, 10 Oct 2010, lonelytraveller
remarked:



I have no idea what that is (and therefore how long that is), sorry. For
example, are we talking more or less than the distance between the
platform faces?
The visible portion is slightly shorter than the distance between the
platform faces of the northern line.

At the end, does it disappear to the left, or the right?
To the right (the north)

However, we now seem to have cleared up the confusion between "facing
the opposite way", and "turning round" (which at first sight are the
same activity)... and therefore the new passage would seem to head east
and not west. That is much more consistent with being a link to the
other new lifts which are on the reconstructed Pentonville Road passage,
and (if they also have a "secret doorway") would link all three of the
new deep lifts together for emergency purposes.
No, it faces west. All phrases such as "facing the opposite way" and
"turning round" should be interpreted so that you face west at the
end. Go there yourself, and you'll see. The passage faces west. Its a
physical thing, and no amount of argument about semantics will ever
change the way it actually physically faces.

Please excuse me if your description:

* * * * "If you go in from the ticket hall, turn round and face the SAME
* * * * way as the door you came in through."

...and your later clarification that when you go in that way you have
your back to the escalators and are therefore facing west, confused me.

Because if you turned round and faced the door you came through, you'd
be facing east. That's not semantics.
--
Roland Perry

You're in the ticket hall, you face the escalators, that's looking
east. You go in to the lift facing that direction, then turn round,
you are now facing west. I had thought that was obvious. But to avoid
any confusion, the passage faces west, any other description should be
interpreted in such a way that you conclude it faces west.

In message
,
lonelytraveller writes

Why didn't they direct anyone to the northern line's emergency stairs?

I think the short answer is that the fire was initially thought to be
small, and that evacuation via the Victoria line escalator was thought
to be safe.

Add to this the fact that the station had no evacuation plan, and those
initially trying to evacuate passengers were two Met police officers and
six members of the BTP (BR Eastern Region), none of whom had any
detailed knowledge of the station's complex layout. The Fennel Report
said that the two Met officers genuinely believed that the Victoria line
escalator was the only other available exit. Even when the fire brigade
arrived, they couldn't access the station plans or communicate with most
of the LT staff (the infamous radio problem) and so they, too, were
probably unaware of the emergency stairs.

In the end, most of the passengers from the deep-level platforms were
evacuated by tube (Victoria line), which was probably safer than
encouraging hundreds of panicky people to attempt the long climb up the
emergency stairs.

--
Paul Terry