MOVING A WHOLE STATION

Evening Post, Volume CXII, Issue 10, 11 July 1936, Page 27

MOVING A WHOLE STATION

One of the stations on the London Transport underground railway system is to be, moved, inside and out, 100. yards down the road at the cost of several thousand pounds, says the "Christian Science Monitor."

This station is Aldgate. East, near Aldgate Underground Junction, one of the most complicated pieces of underground railway engineering, where three: lines meet!. '.. . .

The lines by Aldgate East are to -be dropped seven feet while the: station is r moved. it -will be three or four years before the work is finished. But, using .a scale model which has a reproduction of every drain pipe, electricity cable, and gas pipe contained in it, the engineers know already exactly what they are going to do. The reason for this difficult en-, gineering job, with its complicated' moving of pipes vitally necessary to East London's daily life, is that the London Passenger Transport Board wants, to be able to'run longer trains from Liverpool Street to the east side of London. ~ ■ .At present long, trains stopping at the station would overlap upon the underground; junction, where - three lines converge, and block .the route to other trains. . " •. •_ . .."We need longer trains on this line," a. London Transport . official toid the newspaper. "We, are going, to move, the station at Aldgate East, some hundred or so yards further down the. line. Then we can run our trains. . "Of course," he added, "it will be a difficult, job.". / •- _" It will. The difficulty will not be in dropping the line or moving the station, it will be in moving the pipes

and cables under • the road. Taking the top/ off this, portion of; London would be like taking,the lid off a saucepan full of macaroni. Some thirteen undertakings have burowi\i through the ground at .-.th is spot.' Gas mains, hydraulic mains, post office mains, sewers, electricity cables, traffic light controls, they all twine in and out near the three tunnels.., . .

To plan-their work ' the London Transport officials have constructed two scale models,-showing the junction before and after the engineers have been at it. ; This planning has taken a year to complete. ' '■ '■"'■ :-

On the. line the workmen will build the new -station in a tunnel of their own, while the trains go by as usual a few feet away. Then, one day, Londoners will find the old station is not being use,d any more' and a new station has apparently appeared from nowhere.

The line will be dropped one early morning while the trains are back in the sheds and the passengers are still asleep in bed. Workmen will prop the line up on trestles and, one weekend, they will drop it into a pit dug beneath the wooden props, so^ that it is seven feet lower over a section of the route. This has to" be done so that the new station can be put- in with the minimum of underground wire pulling and cable, arranging. '

When all this has.been done, one or two extra carriages will be added to the . trains pulling/ out east down' the tunnel for East London, .and a number of travellers .will find that, after many years of standing in the trains, there is a seat vacant for them.