The Bends Before South Kensington

[melikepie]

Conflicting sources show the bends on the Piccadilly Line between Knightsbridge and South Kensington are due to either the tube line following the road layout above, or have be due to connecting up with a historical project to create an express tube that was abandoned and then reused by the now Piccadilly line but which is true? Or both?

[Hutch]

The latter I believe. South Kensington is the junction of two separate tube schemes that became the Piccadilly Line: the deep level express tube beneath the District line to the west, and the Piccadilly and Brompton to the northeast. Both came under the Yerkes umbrella and were merged. The deep District tube to the east was abandoned but I believe there is a relict third platform at SK which became a signalling school or something. I'd love to see a plan of SK to see how it all fits together.

[metman]

I thought the Piccadilly was formed from the Great Northern and Strand Railway and the Piccadilly and Brompton Railway.

I had heard there was a scheme to add a second express District Line so there might be some truth in it.

Of course it might just be the layout of the road above!

[jimbo]

I presume the high-speed District Line would have run beneath the current line, and the Picc from Barons Court to South Kensington uses that route. Tiles of the Unexpected Underground by Rose, Douglas has plans for the Yerkes tube lines showing also the roads above. South Kensington appears to be beneath the District Line station. The Piccadilly Line platforms were built at different levels to allow for a junction with a future high-speed line. The eastbound large platform tunnel continues beyond to the east with the Piccadilly Line tunnel departing to the north-east, leaving room for another line to eventually continue beneath the District Line. It seems the plan was for a single eastbound platform, but for two westbound platforms, to allow converging trains to await their forward path. This can be seen today at Leytonstone, and was the pattern at Baker Street when Stanmore Bakerloo Line trains were introduced. So the junction would have been to the west of the platforms and was apparently not started. Douglas Rose's plan shows clearly the only part of the High Speed westbound platform constructed was around the lift shafts, presumably to avoid future construction possibly distorting the lift shafts. It was this area that later became a training school and is now incorporated in the escalator scheme. Curves eastward must have been to minimise distortion of existing surface buildings and consequent compensation claims.

It seems that the westbound high-speed platform would have been sited under Pelham Street. Of course, the three most northerly sub-surface tracks were under rival Metropolitan Line ownership and could not risk disturbance (see track diagram here).

[Chris M]

Dec 11, 2022 11:04:59 GMT metman said:

I thought the Piccadilly was formed from the Great Northern and Strand Railway and the Piccadilly and Brompton Railway.

I had heard there was a scheme to add a second express District Line so there might be some truth in it.

The Piccadilly line was formed from the merger of three schemes, the Great Northern and Strand Railway (Finsbury Park to Strand, later renamed Aldwych), The Brompton and Piccadilly Circus (Piccadilly Circus to South Kensington) and the District Railway deep-level tube (Earl's Court/Gloucester Road to Mansion House). The Brompton and Piccadilly Circus station at South Kensington would have been north of and approximately parallel to the deep level District line station.

The schemes were eventually combined into the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway, although there were multiple options and routings proposed over the years.

The Wikipedia article about the GNP&BR contains a lot of the detail - en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Northern,_Piccadilly_and_Brompton_Railway

[roythebus]

I was lucky enough to have a friend who was station inspector at South Ken in the mid to late 1980s. A couple of times I called in there at night and we explored "forbidden" bits of the station, including a walk up the "District Express" tunnel to its end a short distance from where the e/b Picc branches off, and a visit to what was the training school tunnel. I've mentioned on here before there was a platform there with "suicide" pit. some said it didn't exist but as it was part of the school it certainly did. It's now part of the lower concourse and escalator tunnel.

[spsmiler]

Jan 7, 2023 18:44:43 GMT roythebus said:

I was lucky enough to have a friend who was station inspector at South Ken in the mid to late 1980s. A couple of times I called in there at night and we explored "forbidden" bits of the station, including a walk up the "District Express" tunnel to its end a short distance from where the e/b Picc branches off, and a visit to what was the training school tunnel. I've mentioned on here before there was a platform there with "suicide" pit. some said it didn't exist but as it was part of the school it certainly did. It's now part of the lower concourse and escalator tunnel.

Does that mean that the disused tunnels are now 'used' - albeit by walking passengers as part of the access routes between the street and the platforms?

[roythebus]

No, AFAIK they're part of the "new" escalators and lower concourse. Not been there since about 1989!

[jimbo]

As mentioned above, the spare platform was only partly constructed on the other side of the lift shafts at the westbound level. It was inevitably incorporated into the escalator scheme to cut excavation costs. It only stretched between the four cross passages for access to lifts and emergency spiral staircase. According to the diagram in Rose 2007 (Ibid) the stairs from the lower escalator landing drop into this large diameter tunnel which would have had room for both platform and track. Passengers still reach the Piccadilly Line via the passageways by the former lift shafts. The diagram also shows that two further openings were broken into the Piccadilly westbound platforms tunnel further to the east to connect through to the District deep level platform should it ever be completed. Given that the running tunnels west of South Kensington are of normal dimensions, by this time the deep-level District Line must have been envisaged with tube-gauge trains.

[brigham]

I hadn't realised that the Deep-Level District was to be anything other than tube-gauge.