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Ongar Branch Closure

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Journeyman

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No source, but I seem to remember hearing that the train left Ongar at little more than walking pace due to the voltage drop.

I can't imagine the onboard electronics coping very well with that either.
 

Cowley

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It's the only heritage railway I've ridden in it's before-closure existence too.
That made me stop and think.
It’s probably the only line I’ve ever ridden before closure, although I did travel on the Okehampton line in BR days. Interesting thread though.
 

ChiefPlanner

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That made me stop and think.
It’s probably the only line I’ve ever ridden before closure, although I did travel on the Okehampton line in BR days. Interesting thread though.

I rode it sometime in the early 1980's when it was rumoured for closure ,probably after the "Fare's fare debacle" - when the underground were stuffed financially. I got a lift to Woodford with a mate and presented my BR priv card to the booking clerk (remember them ?) , and asked for a return to Ongar. Cue to much swearing and I eventually got a handwritten "ticket" in triplicate , for about 60 pence.

The train was virtually empty , but a pleasant enough ride. In passing , someone I worked with - his father was the last BR SM at Ongar - they lived in the station house. When LT took over, they offered him employment but he decided to stay with BR , so was transferred to Ilford. Just a bit of a change of working environment.
 

Tom B

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On top of what others have said, the line had an extremely infrequent service of short trains, which made it a fat lot of use if people needed to get there urgently - I'd have thought helicopters might be more likely.

I suspect that by the time you were far enough down the line that the government needed to be relocated, public transport service would have been suspended some time ago.

Various bits of the 1980s War Book are available online - not especially pleasant reading.
 

AlbertBeale

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I suspect that by the time you were far enough down the line that the government needed to be relocated, public transport service would have been suspended some time ago.

Various bits of the 1980s War Book are available online - not especially pleasant reading.

A related snippet re war planning and the Underground, relating to the old British Museum station on the Central Line - which was closed when the stop moved a short way east in the early 1930s so as to have an interchange with the Piccadilly at Holborn. (There were still clues to the fact that the building on the site was a former tube station until the block was rebuilt about 30 years ago.) During the Cold War the subsurface part of the ex-station infrastructure was a minor part of the system for keeping control of anything that was left post-bomb. The London region HQ (Regional Seat of Government) was out near Ongar (as per the start of this thread); below that were 5 Borough Group Controls for 5 sectors of Greater London (though only 4 of the planned buildings had a proper physical existence), and then there were supposed to be borough co-ordination centres too. However, besides all that there were a few places round the centre of London where some troops were due to be based in vaguely protected premises, ready to pop up afterwards (to do what, I have no idea ... nor did they probably). The old BM tube station was one of those places. Although this is a subject I did some research on (and wrote about) years ago, and despite living just yards from the place, I never did discover quite how the BM station place fitted into the overall system of things.

What was apparent, until the building was replaced at the end of the 80s, was that it was still potentially operational until then. There was a little side door into the building, on the east side of an alleyway running north from High Holborn (just east of its junction with New Oxford Street) up to Barter Street. There was space for a table and a "commissionaire" in a tiny lobby before - presumably - going down to a lower level. Looking through a glass panel in the door, I could see some sort of log book on the table which came and went from time to time; though I never saw anyone going in or out.
 

Sad Sprinter

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A related snippet re war planning and the Underground, relating to the old British Museum station on the Central Line - which was closed when the stop moved a short way east in the early 1930s so as to have an interchange with the Piccadilly at Holborn. (There were still clues to the fact that the building on the site was a former tube station until the block was rebuilt about 30 years ago.) During the Cold War the subsurface part of the ex-station infrastructure was a minor part of the system for keeping control of anything that was left post-bomb. The London region HQ (Regional Seat of Government) was out near Ongar (as per the start of this thread); below that were 5 Borough Group Controls for 5 sectors of Greater London (though only 4 of the planned buildings had a proper physical existence), and then there were supposed to be borough co-ordination centres too. However, besides all that there were a few places round the centre of London where some troops were due to be based in vaguely protected premises, ready to pop up afterwards (to do what, I have no idea ... nor did they probably). The old BM tube station was one of those places. Although this is a subject I did some research on (and wrote about) years ago, and despite living just yards from the place, I never did discover quite how the BM station place fitted into the overall system of things.

What was apparent, until the building was replaced at the end of the 80s, was that it was still potentially operational until then. There was a little side door into the building, on the east side of an alleyway running north from High Holborn (just east of its junction with New Oxford Street) up to Barter Street. There was space for a table and a "commissionaire" in a tiny lobby before - presumably - going down to a lower level. Looking through a glass panel in the door, I could see some sort of log book on the table which came and went from time to time; though I never saw anyone going in or out.

Fascinating, reminds me of the supposed glass panel in the men’s toilets of the ICA (went there, it’s completely opaque) that apparently, if looked through, one could see a set of stairs that supposedly lead into the tunnels under Whitehall.

Surprised that soldiers were stationed at BM. You would have thought that A. Being ground zero, the soldiers wouldn’t be able to come out for many weeks and B. Being ground zero, the Central Line tunnels wouldn’t be able to take the pressure wave of a hydrogen bomb detonating above. Where would they exit anyway after the bomb had gone off? Surely they didn’t expect the street level buildings to be intact?
 

Journeyman

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This is the aforementioned photo, of the 1992 stock test at North Weald. Interestingly, the train destination in a close up at Ongar did read "Ongar"

https://www.flickr.com/photos/widnes_road/7956856864/

And here's the proof at Ongar https://www.flickr.com/photos/widnes_road/7956850692/

There's a photo in one of the Capital Transport "London Underground Rolling Stock" books by Brian Hardy, taken from the opposite end of the train at North Weald - I suspect Brian took the pic himself. I seem to have mislaid the book, sadly.

Brian is probably the world's leading authority on the Underground - I worked with him for a while, and he's a top bloke.
 

Journeyman

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A related snippet re war planning and the Underground, relating to the old British Museum station on the Central Line - which was closed when the stop moved a short way east in the early 1930s so as to have an interchange with the Piccadilly at Holborn. (There were still clues to the fact that the building on the site was a former tube station until the block was rebuilt about 30 years ago.) During the Cold War the subsurface part of the ex-station infrastructure was a minor part of the system for keeping control of anything that was left post-bomb. The London region HQ (Regional Seat of Government) was out near Ongar (as per the start of this thread); below that were 5 Borough Group Controls for 5 sectors of Greater London (though only 4 of the planned buildings had a proper physical existence), and then there were supposed to be borough co-ordination centres too. However, besides all that there were a few places round the centre of London where some troops were due to be based in vaguely protected premises, ready to pop up afterwards (to do what, I have no idea ... nor did they probably). The old BM tube station was one of those places. Although this is a subject I did some research on (and wrote about) years ago, and despite living just yards from the place, I never did discover quite how the BM station place fitted into the overall system of things.

What was apparent, until the building was replaced at the end of the 80s, was that it was still potentially operational until then. There was a little side door into the building, on the east side of an alleyway running north from High Holborn (just east of its junction with New Oxford Street) up to Barter Street. There was space for a table and a "commissionaire" in a tiny lobby before - presumably - going down to a lower level. Looking through a glass panel in the door, I could see some sort of log book on the table which came and went from time to time; though I never saw anyone going in or out.

I used to work at Charing Cross tube station, and there was a mysterious and very substantial door on the station with an old rotary-dial phone next to it that was rumoured to have a 24/7 armed guard behind it - and this was only about fifteen years ago. How much truth there is in that, I don't know, but Charing Cross station was huge, with a lot of rooms in it, and if there was ever a nuclear attack, I suspect you'd have been quite safe down in the lowest bits of it.
 

AlbertBeale

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Fascinating, reminds me of the supposed glass panel in the men’s toilets of the ICA (went there, it’s completely opaque) that apparently, if looked through, one could see a set of stairs that supposedly lead into the tunnels under Whitehall.

Surprised that soldiers were stationed at BM. You would have thought that A. Being ground zero, the soldiers wouldn’t be able to come out for many weeks and B. Being ground zero, the Central Line tunnels wouldn’t be able to take the pressure wave of a hydrogen bomb detonating above. Where would they exit anyway after the bomb had gone off? Surely they didn’t expect the street level buildings to be intact?

Indeed. The lack of logic - optimism isn't perhaps the right word! - of those planning for "life" after a nuclear war has always been a major driver of the anti-nuclear-weapons movement's suggestion that such things should be ruled out at all costs, not making sense even in its own terms.

I'd heard of ICA stories - possibly on account of the fact that there are government tunnels down there (quite likely more or less under the ICA).
 

AlbertBeale

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I used to work at Charing Cross tube station, and there was a mysterious and very substantial door on the station with an old rotary-dial phone next to it that was rumoured to have a 24/7 armed guard behind it - and this was only about fifteen years ago. How much truth there is in that, I don't know, but Charing Cross station was huge, with a lot of rooms in it, and if there was ever a nuclear attack, I suspect you'd have been quite safe down in the lowest bits of it.

Aha - I'd not come across the Charing Cross story before ... another one for the list!!
 

bspahh

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Tom B

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Yes, quite what there would be left to preside over is anyone's guess - not much - widespread anarchy amongst the survivors. You can't "win" a nuclear war. The 1983 documentary-film Threads is available on YouTube - but do not watch unless you have a strong stomach.
 

Sad Sprinter

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I used to work at Charing Cross tube station, and there was a mysterious and very substantial door on the station with an old rotary-dial phone next to it that was rumoured to have a 24/7 armed guard behind it - and this was only about fifteen years ago. How much truth there is in that, I don't know, but Charing Cross station was huge, with a lot of rooms in it, and if there was ever a nuclear attack, I suspect you'd have been quite safe down in the lowest bits of it.

Whereabouts was the door? Or are you not at Liberty to say? :P
 

Journeyman

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Whereabouts was the door? Or are you not at Liberty to say? :P

I'm struggling to remember, to be honest, but I don't think anyone was particularly concerned about keeping it secret. There was a bog-standard door we could open with LU keys, and it was right behind that - we couldn't open it, and there was a phone and a bell-push next to it. Wherever it went, it was off LU property, certainly as far as station staff were concerned!
 

Sad Sprinter

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I can only imagine it must be some kind of fire exit for the Pindar bunker nearby. Seeing as if the MOD building on top collapsed by nuclear attack, then the people in the bunker below would be trapped down there. There must be other routes to get out.

Edit: actually now you mention it, the Q-Whitehall cable tunnel under Whitehall was connected to the old Trafalgar Square station. The cables then running through the Bakerloo Line tunnels. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the entrance to it.
 

Journeyman

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Edit: actually now you mention it, the Q-Whitehall cable tunnel under Whitehall was connected to the old Trafalgar Square station. The cables then running through the Bakerloo Line tunnels. I wouldn’t be surprised if that was the entrance to it.

That sounds like it could be right. Is that the tunnel between secure telephone exchanges? Didn't someone manage to get into it and (rather scandalously) document his adventures in The Guardian?
 

AlbertBeale

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That sounds like it could be right. Is that the tunnel between secure telephone exchanges? Didn't someone manage to get into it and (rather scandalously) document his adventures in The Guardian?

It was the revered investigative technical journalist Duncan Campbell [not to be confused with other journalists of the same name, though the Special Branch once seemed a bit confused...] who went for a wander round some of the cable tunnels one night - as referred to in a link earlier in this post. That was nearly 40 years ago, when some of us spent time digging out information and/or speculating about these sorts of things.
 
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