Moorgate

Northern / Northern City Line

MOORGATE

Most of the (existing) tube stations in London that have had their lift shafts replaced with escalators, will still have the old lift shafts and access passageways still in existence. Some are used for ventilation purposes, some for cabling, some just collect soot.

Moorgate has more disused passageways than most existing stations, owing to the replacement of the separate lift shafts and passages for both the Northern and Northern City lines, as well as the interconnecting passageways to the Metropolitan Line.

The station has been rebuilt three times. 2nd October 1936 saw the opening of a new ticket hall serving all the lines, and with it the consequential closure of the Northern City Line ticket hall (this 'new' ticket hall was itself rebuilt in the mid-1970s).

NORTHERN CITY LINE

(Moorgate - Finsbury Park line)

This is the scene of the 1975 accident - a 1938 stock London Underground train arriving from Old Street didn't stop at the station and instead ploughed straight into the wall at the end of the tunnel. An old stationmaster stated that the marks on the wall are from the impact: the square indentation in the middle was from the coupling unit and the two small round marks below/either side were from the buffers.

The validity of that however has been questioned by Richard Griffin who said "...the 1938 stock's coupler was a Wedgelock similar in shape to the auto couplers still used today...those trains didn't have twin circular buffers, rather a single rectangular one above the auto coupler."

Paul Ogram also commented "...the "buffer marks" are simply flaws in the brickwork and the square hole is associated with the single oleo buffer which used to be in place at the end of the sand drag."

The platform (number 9) was closed for ten days following the crash and the line taken over by British Rail less than eight months later.

The other platform serving the Hertford/Welwyn trains has this at the tunnel end: a Greathead Shield that got stuck when the tunnel was being extended for the Lothbury extension and was just left there when the project was abandoned.

(photo: 2008)

This disused passage starts from the southern end of platform 10. When in use however, it was accessed from platform 9 (the western one seen at the top of this page). The layout was altered during the provision of the escalators and now the passage is used for ventilation.

(photo: 2008)

At the top of the stairs seen in the photo above, the passageway continues. Contuing straight on, a T-junction is reached: turning left leads to the lift shafts; turning right leads to the Metropolitan line (dealt with on the next page).
The grille on the far left of the photo leads to the emergency stairs, as seen in the photos below.

(photo: 2008)

Emergency stairs, leading toward the old ticket hall, looking up from a point where the grille is in the photo above this one. Access is prohibited now due to their dangerous condition.

This photo, taken in the late 1970s, shows, as Paul Ogram describes, "the gleaming white tiles of the London Underground".

The passageways accumulated dirt for a quarter of a century after this photo was taken but were cleaned up in 2004.

Emergency stairs: opposite view from the photo above, taken a quarter of a century later.

Emergency stairs: the stairway shown above splits left and right. This is the downward view from the right-hand staircase.

Emergency stairs: looking up at the left hand staircase.

Emergency stairs: looking up at the right hand staircase.

Looking back toward the platform 10 direction.

...continues on next page...

Moorgate - Pt.3 (Northern City Line)

Photos taken between 1977 and 1981, except where stated.