wrote in message
ups.com...
Thinking about it, this must head due south, about half way down warren
street itself, (as the escalators to the victoria head south west)
which is totally bizarre - its the wrong direction to have been
something to do with the construction of the victoria line, the old
northern line lifts must be used for ventilation, and there isn't a
demolished building here anyway, so it cant be for that, so is there a
government bunker or something to the south of half way along warren
street, or maybe they just got the direction of the tunnel completely
wrong the first time, and didnt notice?

There is a former construction-shaft which surfaces on the north side of
Whitfield Place near the corner of Whitfield Street. This is now a
draught-relief shaft which comes down at the north end of the northbound
Victoria Line platform, and I suspect it is also connected with the passage
you mention.

Oh, I thought they used bigger shafts than that.
Was it for all the dirt and stuff that they had to dig out?

wrote in message
oups.com...
Oh, I thought they used bigger shafts than that.
Was it for all the dirt and stuff that they had to dig out?

Yes. The earlier Tubes were built mainly using the shafts at each station
which were later to become the lift shafts; the City & South London, Baker
Street & Waterloo Railway and Waterloo & City Railways additionally had
shaft(s) in the Thames.

With the advent of escalators, and with stations having ever more complex
layouts, it became necessary for most stations to be constructed using
temporary or permanent shafts - for personnel access, tunnelling and removal
of spoil. In the case of the Victoria Line every station has at least one,
and in addition much of the running-tunnel construction was carried out from
sites between stations. A few were backfilled (mainly those in sensitive
sites such as the squares of Fitzroy and Cavendish), but most remain as
ventilation or cable shafts, often connected to quite complex layouts of
purpose-built or surplus passageways. The sizes vary but a typical shaft
such as Whitfield Place would be 12ft in diameter and roughly 60ft deep.

Hope that answers your question!

nDavid Splett typed:
wrote in message
oups.com...
Oh, I thought they used bigger shafts than that.
Was it for all the dirt and stuff that they had to dig out?

Yes. The earlier Tubes were built mainly using the shafts at each
station which were later to become the lift shafts; the City & South
London, Baker Street & Waterloo Railway and Waterloo & City Railways
additionally had shaft(s) in the Thames.

*In* the Thames?? Do you mean near the Thames, e.g. on the riverbank?
--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

No, he means in it. They put in iron walls around an area of the
thames, pumped the water out, then dug the shaft. Ive seen it done for
the jubilee line station at canary wharf.

"Richard J." wrote in message
news
*In* the Thames?? Do you mean near the Thames, e.g. on the riverbank?

Being something of a perfectionist I most certainly meant "In"! All three
railways had stages/piers built out some distance from the bank from where
shafts went down to the level of the tunnel. The C&SLR's was slightly east
of London Bridge, near Swan Lane Pier, at the south end of Swan Lane. The
W&CR's were slightly east of Blackfriars Bridge, and the B&SWRs was slightly
east of Hungerford Bridge.

There are certainly substantial tunnel-level remains of the Swan Lane shaft;
can't remember for the other two.

"David Splett" wrote in message
...

*In* the Thames?? Do you mean near the Thames, e.g. on the riverbank?

Being something of a perfectionist I most certainly meant "In"! All three
railways had stages/piers built out some distance from the bank from where
shafts went down to the level of the tunnel. The C&SLR's was slightly east
of London Bridge, near Swan Lane Pier, at the south end of Swan Lane. The
W&CR's were slightly east of Blackfriars Bridge, and the B&SWRs was
slightly
east of Hungerford Bridge.

Was there/has there ever been a plan to put a station at Blackfriars on the
W&C given how close it runs to Blackfriars? I guess the cost would be high,
but I'm just wondering....

Angus

W&C was originally part of the rail network, and for getting people to
the city from routes that came into waterloo. The routes that came into
blackfriars were a rival to the waterloo-w&c option, so I doubt the
people who ran either line would have been too keen on those, in a
similar way to the fact that the circle/metropolitan line doesn't go to
euston (a rival route to the backers of the original line from kings
cross).

It only became part of the tube recently, so I guess they haven't had
much time for that, but maybe they might be planning something like
this when they demolish Blackfriars and move the station to the bridge
instead?

David Splett typed:
"Richard J." wrote in message
news
*In* the Thames?? Do you mean near the Thames, e.g. on the
riverbank?

Being something of a perfectionist I most certainly meant "In"!

I should have realised that! But to me it had seemed unlikely that they
would go to the trouble and risk of digging shafts in the river bed
rather than sink them on the adjacent dry land. Did they decide to do
the former (a) because they couldn't dig the tunnels unless they had
shafts less than x yds apart (where x is shorter than the width of the
river), or (b) because they couldn't gain access to suitable shaft sites
on land?

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

its cheaper to dig in the water, there isn't as far to dig