Liverpool Street former connection to Met Line..? How?

[martin2345uk]

On the subject of Liverpool Street I see this building a lot in old photos... where was it exactly? What is there now?

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I'm not sure what it originally was, although it was obviously a pub in that photo - but I think it's where the now widened main stairs to the Underground ( Met / H&C / Circle ) are?

 

[Magdalia]

On the subject of Liverpool Street I see this building a lot in old photos... where was it exactly? What is there now?

It was opposite the platforms 2-5 barrier line. I remember it as the Jazz Buffet in Travellers Fare days. I don't remember it serving alcohol. It was accessed from the high level walkway.

 

[Rescars]

IIRC John Betjeman commended it as one of the nicest teaplaces in London.

 

[Taunton]

IIRC John Betjeman commended it as one of the nicest teaplaces in London.

This book reference made me go and check it out in the 1980s. Unfortunately I chose a Saturday and it was closed.

As I recall there were two premises, one a cafe and one a pub. It doubtless changed over time, and knowing Johnny B's delight at elegant places with tablecloths and fine china I now doubt that by then it was the same as when he visited. One side was the access from the high level walkway, the other looked out over the buffers. It must have been a bit of a challenge in the days of steam with Westinghouse pumps panting away.

I might have expected to see a battery tug and a line of BRUTEs, but what on earth is a 2 ton dumper doing driving right across the concourse in the photo?

 

[PeterC]

It was opposite the platforms 2-5 barrier line. I remember it as the Jazz Buffet in Travellers Fare days. I don't remember it serving alcohol. It was accessed from the high level walkway.

When I commuted through the old station around 1970 the eastern pavilion was offices and the western a buffet. If I was early I would stop there to watch the trains.

I don't know what later use was made of them before the rebuilding.

 

[Rescars]

When I commuted through the old station around 1970 the eastern pavilion was offices and the western a buffet. If I was early I would stop there to watch the trains.

I don't know what later use was made of them before the rebuilding.

I think both were teahouses originally. By c1970, one had become the stationmaster's office. The other was JB's favourite place for elevenses whilst watching the trains arrive and depart.

 

[bluegoblin7]

The connection ran behind the signalbox, I.e. the signalbox is in the V of the junction - which it controlled. If you look left as you approach L Street from Moorgate you can see the wall built across the connecting tunnel (or you could when I was last there a few years ago).

It’s a lot harder to see than it used to be following redevelopment in the area, but you can still make it out from the saloon. I thought I had a clear photo from the front of a train but unfortunately I can’t place one - I’ll try and organise a trip to get something to share in the near future, operational duties permitting.

Here’s a very little seen view from the back of the signal cabin showing what remains, which might contextualise it for some of those who haven’t seen it.

 

[DerekC]

It was opposite the platforms 2-5 barrier line. I remember it as the Jazz Buffet in Travellers Fare days. I don't remember it serving alcohol. It was accessed from the high level walkway.

The name "Jazz Buffet" is significant because I recall reading that the GER high intensity steam suburban services were known semi-officially as "Jazz Trains"- I think because the doors were painted different colours for different classes.

Edit - not quite right. There were stripes above compartment windows to indicate class and also different coloured destination boards on the platform. There's a rather good article about the whole operation here:

https://www.keymodelworld.com/article/great-eastern-jazz-trains

Here's the first few paragraphs:

LIVERPOOL Street station, on the east side of London, was first opened on February 2 1874 at a time when that part of the city was undergoing unprecedented expansion. Originally housing ten platforms, another eight were later added as demand for services exceeded the capacity of the original site.

The Great Eastern Railway (GER), which built it, pursued a policy of providing lavish and frequent services at prices which could be afforded not only by city gents, but also by ordinary workers, who used the trains in their thousands to reach new homes being built only a few miles away on developments promoted by the railway itself.

Within a few years Liverpool Street was to become the busiest of all the stations in London. In 1897 the trains brought in 2million people on cheap workmen’s tickets alone and by 1902 65.3million people a year were using the service. The company took care to accommodate all its potential users, providing crowded and dirty four-wheelers at a bargain price for workmen, cleaner yet quite basic coaches for the ‘half fare trains’ favoured by junior clerks and office workers and luxurious padded compartment stock for its more genteel customers, many of whom arrived between 8am and 9.30am each morning.

At the turn of the century almost 91% of Liverpool Street’s passengers made journeys of 12 miles or less and of these 75,000 were arriving before 10.30 each morning. Even then 399 suburban and 36 main line trains used the station each day. Demand continued to grow until in 1913 some trains were carrying up to 1,400 passengers each, at which point the station was bursting to capacity.

There was a small dip in ridership during the war years in 1914-1918 but once hostilities had ceased passenger numbers began to rise once again, giving the Great Eastern a considerable problem. There was no room available at Liverpool Street for platform extensions or additional tracks, and the built-up nature of the station approaches meant that adding more lines outside the station itself would be very expensive. An obvious solution would have been to follow the example of railways such as the London, Brighton & South Coast, which were by this time steadily electrifying their systems but the initial cost estimate of £3m was well beyond the resources available to the company at that time.

A BRAINWAVE

Clearly what was needed was a way of increasing capacity, but without significant investment, and in order to do this the Great Eastern’s directors turned to their flamboyant General Manager, Sir Henry Thornton, and to their Operations Superintendant, FV Russell.

Henry Thornton had already proved himself to be something of an organisational genius. Born in the USA he’d worked his way up to become the General Superintendent of the Long Island Railroad before crossing the Atlantic to join the Great Eastern in 1914. During the war he’d been promoted by the military to Major General and had become Inspector General of Allied Transport due to his outstanding ability in organising transport for troop and supply movements. He came back from the conflict with British citizenship, an OBE, Belgium’s Order of Leopold, the French Legion of Honour and the American Distinguished Service Medal. There was clearly no better man to investigate the logistics of the Great Eastern’s commuter problem, especially as he was supported by a very competent engineer, in the shape of Russell.


Working together the pair came up with a scheme which would optimise passenger numbers, yet which would be closely based on the existing operation. At Liverpool Street, tracks were rearranged to provide maximum capacity, platform barriers were moved back to enable more rapid passenger movement, small refuge sidings were provided at platform ends for locomotives and the signalling was improved to allow more than one train to be present on each platform at one time. Trains were reconfigured so that each had 16 fourwheel coaches and operating practices were modified to be as efficient as possible. This work was completed by July 1920 at a cost of only £80,000 yet it provided an increase of capacity of between 50% and 75%.

 

[357]

It’s a lot harder to see than it used to be following redevelopment in the area, but you can still make it out from the saloon. I thought I had a clear photo from the front of a train but unfortunately I can’t place one - I’ll try and organise a trip to get something to share in the near future, operational duties permitting.

Here’s a very little seen view from the back of the signal cabin showing what remains, which might contextualise it for some of those who haven’t seen it.

Any photos of inside the signal box? Is there much left?

 

[Gloster]

The name "Jazz Buffet" is significant because I recall reading that the GER high intensity steam suburban services were known semi-officially as "Jazz Trains"- I think because the doors were painted different colours for different classes.

An item on Liverpool St. on .jaggers-heritage.com says that the reason was that the coaches carried destination boards to indicate routes and destinations, with numbers to indicate stops. The effect of these stripes and colours meant that it was originally known as the ‘Rainbow Service’, but a local paper called it the ‘Jazz Service’ and that became the normal name.

 

[Mr_B]

Any photos of inside the signal box? Is there much left?

One of the recent Hidden London Hangouts on YouTube covered Liverpool St and had a visit to the box.

 

[Magdalia]

The name "Jazz Buffet" is significant because I recall reading that the GER high intensity steam suburban services were known semi-officially as "Jazz Trains"

The Jazz trains all used platforms 2-5. The platform end loco refuges, that were key to the operation, were at the ends of platforms 2/3 and 4/5.

Even in the days of the Jazz Buffet Enfield and Chingford trains were still almost entirely using platforms 2-5.

 

[martin2345uk]

It’s a lot harder to see than it used to be following redevelopment in the area, but you can still make it out from the saloon. I thought I had a clear photo from the front of a train but unfortunately I can’t place one - I’ll try and organise a trip to get something to share in the near future, operational duties permitting.

Here’s a very little seen view from the back of the signal cabin showing what remains, which might contextualise it for some of those who haven’t seen it.

Wow that's great, thank you! Nice photo too. Looking forward to anything you can show

 

[bluegoblin7]

Any photos of inside the signal box? Is there much left?

One of the recent Hidden London Hangouts on YouTube covered Liverpool St and had a visit to the box.

Yes and no. The cabin was fully operational up until March 2021, albeit not as most people expect. The original 1875 structure remains, but has had three separate frames over the years; the original 1875 mechanical frame, a replacement mechanical frame in 1910 and the still extant miniature lever frame installed in 1954. For most of its life (since c. December 1956) this frame operated remotely, first from Farringdon cabin and later from Baker Street Signalling Control Centre. It was abolished with the commissioning of SMA 3 as part of the Four Lines Modernisation programme.

The structure itself is Grade II listed, but there's no particular preservation or designation order on the interior (unlike e.g. Edgware Road). The K-style power frame remains broadly untouched since closure, and there's little trace of the pre-1954 equipment. I'm not sure how much is in the public domain (I haven't had chance to watch the Hangout...), but there are hopes that the LTM will be able to do something with it in due course.

Wow that's great, thank you! Nice photo too. Looking forward to anything you can show

Not a problem! Always happy to share any 'behind the scenes' tidbits I can. Will see what I can do with anything more!

 

[357]

Yes and no. The cabin was fully operational up until March 2021, albeit not as most people expect. The original 1875 structure remains, but has had three separate frames over the years; the original 1875 mechanical frame, a replacement mechanical frame in 1910 and the still extant miniature lever frame installed in 1954. For most of its life (since c. December 1956) this frame operated remotely, first from Farringdon cabin and later from Baker Street Signalling Control Centre. It was abolished with the commissioning of SMA 3 as part of the Four Lines Modernisation programme.

The structure itself is Grade II listed, but there's no particular preservation or designation order on the interior (unlike e.g. Edgware Road). The K-style power frame remains broadly untouched since closure, and there's little trace of the pre-1954 equipment. I'm not sure how much is in the public domain (I haven't had chance to watch the Hangout...), but there are hopes that the LTM will be able to do something with it in due course.

It would be nice to have the signal box preserved similar to Epping but without the same "characters".

 

[bluegoblin7]

It would be nice to have the signal box preserved similar to Epping but without the same "characters".

(With apologies for the drift This is largely the plan for Edgware Road, which is much more feasible. There’s very little you can meaningfully demonstrate with a 7 lever frame, itself poorly sited for manual operation. Another long term LTM aim, but the will is there.

I admit I haven’t been to Epping so can’t really comment (a bit too much like going to work!) but have heard mixed things.

 

[swt_passenger]

It’s a lot harder to see than it used to be following redevelopment in the area, but you can still make it out from the saloon. I thought I had a clear photo from the front of a train but unfortunately I can’t place one - I’ll try and organise a trip to get something to share in the near future, operational duties permitting.

Here’s a very little seen view from the back of the signal cabin showing what remains, which might contextualise it for some of those who haven’t seen it.

Well done finding that. I had a feeling something from closer in would be posted eventually. You can clearly see on the right the evidence of a cavity wall extension for the odd shaped brick building on the map that @stuving uploaded in post #29. But there’s probably quite a few generations of modifications in the area, noting the different styles of brickwork, blockwork and cast concrete, probably done at different times over many years?

 

[Russel]

The structure itself is Grade II listed

Now that surprises me, given how dilapidated it looks, externally!

 

[DerekC]

There is a Historic England aerial shot taken in 1947 which (if you zoom in) shows the area quite well (just above and to the right of the eastern exit from Finsbury Circus) with the curved building alongside the line of the link, the "funny shaped building" partially obstructing the tunnel mouth (remains visible in the shot in post #68) and the brick shed. I can't work out how to embed the image - maybe somebody else can - but here's a link to it.

https://historicengland.org.uk/images-books/archive/collections/aerial-photos/record/EAW074353#

Edit - here's a clip of the area. The quality is much better on the original image and you can zoom in better too.

 

[181]

It was opposite the platforms 2-5 barrier line. I remember it as the Jazz Buffet in Travellers Fare days. I don't remember it serving alcohol. It was accessed from the high level walkway.

To clarify, it was opposite where that barrier line was then -- I think the present-day barrier line is somewhat further south. If I'm vaguely correct in my estimate that the barrier line is now roughly where that for the high-numbered platforms always was, comparison with the 1895 plan would indicate that what's on the spot now is the extended platforms 2-5 and their tracks. Can anyone provide more accurate information on how the current barrier line relates to the pre-rebuild station?

This picture appears to be approximately the reverse of the view in post #61, with part of the tearoom structure visible at the top of the image.

I might have expected to see a battery tug and a line of BRUTEs, but what on earth is a 2 ton dumper doing driving right across the concourse in the photo?

Part of the 1980s rebuilding, perhaps? You might expect more separation between heavy machnery and the public, though.

 

[Magdalia]

To clarify, it was opposite where that barrier line was then -- I think the present-day barrier line is somewhat further south. If I'm vaguely correct in my estimate that the barrier line is now roughly where that for the high-numbered platforms always was, comparison with the 1895 plan would indicate that what's on the spot now is the extended platforms 2-5 and their tracks. Can anyone provide more accurate information on how the current barrier line relates to the pre-rebuild station?

A useful indicator is the row of double pillars running the length of the space between platforms 7 and 8.

The wider arch is where the platforms 1-8 concourse used to be, including the high level walkway passing through it. This picture shows that arch:

Liverpool Street Station, London EC2.

Liverpool Street Station, London EC2. All photographic images are the exclusive property of Paddy Ballard. The photographs are for web browser viewing only and may not be reproduced, copied, stored, downloaded or altered in any way without prior permission.

www.flickr.com

Liverpool Street Station, London EC2.

Judging by the EMUs in the picture I'd guess the buffer stops moved somewhere between 1 and 2 coach lengths, suggesting that, if you were sitting in the car nearest the buffer stops now, where the Jazz used to be would be above your head.