Euston And York Road @ Secrets Of The London Underground 尤斯顿和约克路

Name: Euston And York Road @ Secrets Of The London Underground 尤斯顿和约克路
Uploaded: 2026-08-14T14:51:41+00:00
Duration: 43 min 33 s
Channel: angta.hwf786

00:04this enormous bit of kit is a lift winding mechanism and one of these is found at the

00:11top of every lift shaft in a Leslie Green designed tube station now those are the ones

00:16with the blood red tiles as you can see this is actually square which is what dictated the shape

00:23of every Leslie Green station in London welcome to secrets of the London Underground I'm Tim Dunn

00:32and in this series I'll reveal the tube network as you've never seen it before wow what a space

00:39that's extraordinary isn't it the secret chambers behind locked doors each with their own fascinating

00:46story to tell well this is a bit bizarre isn't it a ticket office underground it is my fellow

00:51explorer is City Holloway such a rare find who knows every inch of these abandoned time capsules

00:59and has the keys to open them up and show me places that have never been seen before nobody

01:06would look for a nuclear bunker in the middle of suburban Hampstead and we'll dive into the history

01:12of stations and lines I'm gonna say it now it is really spooky using the archives here at the depot

01:19of the London Transport Museum oh wow this is my kind of archive this is fab it's crammed with the

01:28secrets of the London Underground

01:39the treasure trove of goodies here at the museum's depot simply oozes nostalgia there are 320,000 glorious objects from

01:51roundels and signs to huge chunks of engineering history and most of these items once lived happily at one of

01:58the tube networks

01:59two hundred and seventy stations but what most people don't know is that one in every five of those station

02:07buildings was designed by just one man there are about 50 Leslie Green stations right across the network and behind

02:17those blood red tiles they're actually steel framed buildings part of the reason for that is to support the colossal

02:25weight of this mechanism and this wheel is what you would have turned to lower

02:29or raise the lift or raise the lift if it got stuck took a couple of men I hear

02:33Siddy has taken me to see a very special Leslie Green tube station which is actually about to be demolished

02:41it's at Euston and there there's an absolute wealth of features hidden underground which Siddy has been itching to show

02:49me

02:54Euston has been the gateway to and from the north since the mainline station opened here in 1837

03:02but it's also home to one of the capital's busiest underground stations

03:07the tube first arrived here in 1907 but glancing around this fairly brutal modernist plot so today you'd be hard

03:16-pushed to find any traces of it

03:18however the layers of history are here if you know where to look

03:24of course it helps if you've got city by your side

03:28Sid when I come to Euston and I get on the train here to go on the tube I get

03:32on it in there that 1960s building

03:35yeah but it can't always have been like that no you're right so when the deep tube first opened here

03:40at Euston

03:40in 1907 there were two separate companies running underground railways here and they were on either side

03:47of the mainline station just over there you can see an old building yes yeah which was for the

03:52Charing Cross Euston and Hampstead railway let's just call it the Charing Cross branch

03:57that's a Leslie Green style station like a classic early underground station yeah but

04:03right on the other side of the mainline building was the City and South London

04:08railway building or the bank branch of the northern line but has now been demolished

04:14they didn't last very long as two separate stations only about seven years and after that

04:20all of the passengers wanting to use the underground at Euston had to go through the mainline station

04:25well I know you've got the keys can we can have a look into them of course this pocket of

04:31Euston is

04:32currently something of a building site work is underway to make space for the much debated

04:3888 billion pound high-speed rail line HS2 sadly as Euston modernizes the original Leslie Green station

04:48building on Melton Street has found itself in the developers crosshairs it's been in the middle of a

04:56construction site for months and it's due to be pulled down in the next few weeks so this is super

05:02privileged access it's a real honor but I must admit it's not exactly what I've come to expect from a

05:10Leslie Green interior this is extraordinary it's so loud I know not your typical ticket hall is it

05:18not at all what's this well this is the ventilation shaft of Euston it's pulling air out of the the

05:27northern

05:27line up through a giant fan in there and up and out of the building ever since it closed in

05:361914 this

05:37old ticket hall has been used for ventilation to keep the northern line cool a little less noise

05:47what a space it's open to the elements though it is this is a lift shaft but it's never had

05:53lifts in

05:54it it's been a vent shaft ever since the station opened in 1907 so it's always been a crucial

06:00ventilation shaft for the northern line below just 10% of the heat produced by a tube train disperses

06:09naturally out of the station a whopping 80% stays underground and gets absorbed by the tunnel walls

06:16it's the remaining 10% that gets sucked out of ventilation shafts like this one it may not sound

06:24much but imagine how stifling our journeys would be if we didn't have these monstrous bits of kid I

06:33wonder how many people down there realize that this shaft exists and it's that that's giving them all the

06:38nice fresh air it's one of the things that we don't think about when we're traveling on the tube but

06:43it's so

06:43important because you're so far down on the ground you need fresh air somehow it's a critical piece of

06:51tube infrastructure but as with so much at Euston change is afoot the platforms themselves of HS2 are

07:00actually going to be underground so they will cut through all of this once the building's been

07:05demolished but they can't lose the vital function of the ventilation for the northern line so they're

07:11building a tunnel to intercept here and diverting the ventilation purposes to another building so

07:18given HS2 is coming in imminently we must be some of the last people to ever be in this building

07:23we've

07:24been expecting this to be demolished for such a long time so it's a huge privilege to be able to

07:30see this

07:30before it goes it's a shame to lose this building but whilst HS2 has its critics Euston has always been

07:41a

07:41modernizer and constant evolution is in its DNA I'm back at the depot to meet TFL development manager Simon

07:59Galbraith he specializes in station modernization and is currently overseeing the upgrade of Euston's

08:06ventilation system Simon before I'd seen Milton Street I'd never really thought about ventilation

08:14working like this I didn't think you've got massive fans the secretly all over London taking all the hot air

08:22and it's surprising how much we rely on our stations to get the fresh air into the system the key

08:28thing are the

08:30illustrious trains they come along they come out of a small tunnel window a big tunnel you feel that blast

08:35of air coming towards you then you hear the clicking of the train on the tracks then it arrives in

08:39the

08:39platform and then there's no more wind so this is what we call on the tubers the piston effect but

08:45that's just pushing warm air around it surely that's not cooling it down no when that train leaves the

08:50station as it leaves it creates a vacuum behind it and draws air in from the street via the stations

08:56coming in at certain locations within the tunnels there's an extraction fan similar to this one that

09:02will be literally sucking the air out from the tunnel like a glorified hoover and just pumping it out

09:07to atmosphere Melton Street is clearly a place of massive change what is about to happen we have

09:16to build a completely new building within that will be the ventilation and the new power systems to feed

09:22power to the tube the fan in there will then extract heat out of the railway and then take it

09:28up and vent

09:28it out to the atmosphere I suppose the longer that London's existed the more development on top there's

09:34been is the heat can't escape throughout so it gets denser and denser it gets hotter and hotter so

09:38even more ventilation right absolutely the ground's heat soaked so what you end up is a situation where

09:42we've had heat build up from years and years and years of running trains human traffic obviously generates

09:47heat that heat gets into the tunnel that then spreads into the clay that surrounds the tunnel it holds

09:53the heat certain lines have bigger heat issues than others so as an example with the upgrade of the

09:58Victoria line we've planned and we put in additional ventilation new fans to mitigate the effects of

10:05the extra heat driven by the trains I think there are new trains as well aren't there that are coming

10:09in or plan to come in they're gonna have aircon inside yeah but is it something to do with like

10:13the the brakes are gonna be more effective a lot of the times you think about the braking of a

10:17train

10:17even up to the 90s we still had trains the same as a car a brake pad on the wheel

10:23on a disc stop the

10:25train we then moved into a thing called an electrical brake that brake just took all the energy and

10:29burned it off as heat not helpful what we're doing now is the newer trains are all coming in and

10:35they're

10:35actually regenerating that voltage back into the system to help reduce our carbon footprints that's

10:41brilliant so actually the future is going to be a cooler tube for London fingers crossed fingers

10:46crossed we all live in hope I certainly do because I use the central line over the summer time it's

10:51very

10:51warm but certainly I'm looking forward to a cooler tube one day I am having explored the nuts and bolts

10:59of what makes Euston tick next we'll delve deeper underground and visit one area that's been caught in

11:06a time warp we've been visiting some of the hidden disused parts of Euston station and city says there's an

11:25abundance of goodies waiting for me underground every day a hundred thousand passengers pull through these

11:33ticket barriers to get to the northern and Victoria lines but even for seasoned commuters it's a bit

11:40of a maze down here with the separate branches of the northern line shooting off in four directions

11:48one false move and you could end up at good street instead of old street

11:57cities brought me to a platform of the northern lines bank branch but we're not here to board a train

12:04we're slipping quietly off the platform through this rather anonymous looking gate and into a lost world

12:14it's like being transported back 80 years and what's more there are treasures in these passageways

12:23that you won't find anywhere else on the network

12:29well this is a bit bizarre isn't it a ticket office underground it is yeah I know do you want

12:34to go

12:35inside no definitely ah suits you thank you very much suits you very well yeah so you know how we

12:45were

12:45upstairs earlier and there were two separate stations one was serving the Charing Cross branch of the

12:50northern line and the other was serving the bank branch this corridor here was an interchange passage

12:55between the two separate companies but because the two separate companies you have

13:00to buy another ticket if you're interchanging and that's what this was

13:08today contactless and Oyster cards let passengers hop seamlessly from one line to another without a second thought

13:16but in 1907 when this passageway was opened there were seven separate tube companies running

13:22underground railway lines across London each with their own ticketing system a single fare could cost

13:31anywhere between one and six old pennies depending on how far you traveled that's equivalent to between 50p and

13:40three pounds in today's money this ticket window designed by leslie green is a stark reminder of how complicated tube

13:49travel must have been for Edwardian passengers

13:54so was leslie green building stations for both the railway companies at this time no no no no not at

14:00all so the city and south London railway the bank branch of the northern line as we know it today

14:06was a completely separate company and had a very different aesthetic to

14:10the leslie green run charing cross branch which is over there which had these beautiful blue tiles on the platforms

14:16and of its corridors

14:17what's interesting is that down here it's a completely different color almost black isn't it

14:22which kind of makes sense because the aesthetic of the city in south London they only had white and black

14:27tiles so maybe this was an attempt to unify the two

14:31if that makes sense it's like merge the brands together in this space yeah exactly yeah

14:38the two companies officially merged in 1914 and ten years later in a mind-boggling feat of subterranean

14:47engineering they wove their lines together between Euston and Camden town

14:55spare a thought for this poor signalman struggling to wrap his head around the bewildering new layout

15:03this crossover ticket window became redundant frankly it's a miracle it's still here

15:12it's the only one that exists on the underground so you are in a very unique spot right now i

15:18feel honored to be

15:19here yes it's a beautiful thing but it's time to peel myself away city's arranged special access to another secret

15:29space

15:31it's a tunnel i never knew existed and incredibly it lies just behind a platform i must have used dozens

15:39of times

15:42there's so much dust down here i know well that's because we're walking in the old running tunnel of the

15:50northern line

15:52this used to be the northbound tunnel but when the victoria line was built in the 1960s

15:59a new northbound tunnel was created on the other side of the station

16:03to make it easier for passengers changing lines

16:09which means that the southbound running line is just here what behind this fence

16:14yeah in fact here comes a southbound train now

16:17it sounds so quite ominous doesn't it

16:19i was gonna stand back a bit

16:26this is a real thrill but city hasn't just brought me down here for a bit of surreptitious train spotting

16:35you see how this tunnel ends here and the much wider one is around us where we're standing

16:42this is because this part of the northern line used to be a terminus

16:46the train would terminate on the platform over there

16:49yes

16:49and the locomotive would move up to this chamber here

16:53yeah

16:53and here would be a traverser

16:55basically a big hydraulic push that would push the locomotive from one tunnel to the other

17:01i guess queue down here underground you haven't got the space to put a big turntable in and rotate the

17:06trains around

17:07yeah

17:07you're just shunting them on tracks going side to side instead

17:10exactly and it remained like this until 1924

17:13so quite lovely that we can actually stand in it today

17:17i had no idea this was here and i had no idea the tube even had one of these

17:22it was the only one

17:27it's wonderful that so much of the old euston has survived underground

17:33especially because above ground it hasn't fared so well

17:38in the 1960s the original great hall and much loved euston arch were demolished to make way for the brutal

17:46block we see today

17:50but the 60s was also a time of cultural revolution

17:55and more than 20 meters underground lie vibrant fragments of that bygone era

18:03this passageway sealed off in 1962 is plastered with the remnants of some terrific posters

18:12in place

18:13in places the colours are still popping off the walls

18:17poster art historian mike walton is going to help me peel back the layers of history

18:24oh mike these posters are so striking aren't they

18:28and they're so graphic rather than being like today's photographic posters

18:32great advertising has to attract the eye

18:35that's exactly what they do

18:37being a terminal station for much of the midlands and the northwest of the country

18:41this was your opportunity at euston to grab the newcomers to london

18:45with the most important messages you wanted to communicate

18:47of course people are coming down off the trains from euston station

18:51many of them this is their first time

18:53first time ever first time ever underground first time in london

18:55and they're going to see this assault on the senses of all these brand new cultural things

18:59to enjoy and experience

19:01very much

19:01the 1960s saw an explosion in literature theatre and film

19:08and the layers of peeled poster here are like lingering echoes from that time

19:14the most evocative is surely this

19:18the original poster for alfred hitchcock's psycho

19:23almost as vibrant today as it was in 1960

19:28the colours around here as well are really very bold

19:32not just on here but up and down this corridor

19:35advertising is entirely fashion driven

19:38and this period in time it was very much a new idea of print technology

19:43what they could print the different colour inks they could do

19:46even the composition of those inks which became achievable and affordable

19:53when these posters went up neon was brand new

19:57the pigments patented as recently as 1957

20:04it was claimed by those selling the ink to be three times brighter than regular colour

20:09so you can see why it was embraced by those advertising underground

20:15the main methods of advertising were posters on railway stations newspapers magazines

20:23and therefore it becomes much more important to get your message over

20:28in the most attention grabbing way you can

20:31and for example neon was one of the ways that that could be done

20:34and it also echoes that whole movement and that whole way of life at that time

20:39the multiplicity of fashion new ideas new techniques echoed in the world at large

20:46and this is this little microcosm of just that here

20:50this corridor really does provide a fascinating snapshot of another era

20:57but the 60s was also a time of radical change

21:01and next i'll explore a hidden tunnel that was built whilst euston underwent its very own revolution

21:19i'm at euston station where more than a hundred northern and victoria line trains pass through these platforms every hour

21:27at peak times

21:29but the people driving those trains rarely get to see the hidden parts of the network

21:35the strange secret spaces that lurk behind the tunnel walls

21:43henry holland has been a tube driver on the northern line for 26 years

21:48and has driven through euston more than 40 000 times

21:52but he's never been in this part of the station before

21:58well i cannot believe this is here

22:02and i've gone past that door so many times

22:05you just see the door with private and you don't know what's beyond

22:09you just think it's a storeroom

22:10there's brooms or something in there all

22:12you know my god

22:17we are making our way to a special area that was created when the victoria line was built in the

22:221960s

22:26this impressive tunnel is in fact a ventilation shaft

22:31built to draw hot air out of the new running tunnel below

22:37oh my god

22:41but with a diameter of 12 feet it's exactly the same size as a regular tube tunnel

22:49what's it like going along those tube tunnels

22:52what do you see what do you feel when you're whooshing along

22:56because we only see it from the sides where there's passengers

22:58what you basically see is is this

23:01it'd be complete darkness

23:02and would what we would see would be the track with our headlights pointing down

23:07is it a lonely pursuit sometimes being on a train because how long is a shift

23:12you could be driving a train for up to four hours fifteen minutes

23:16you change at least every hour change ends

23:19but you've only got four minutes to change ends in the rush hour

23:22so you don't get a lot of chance to talk to people

23:25so there's no chance for a coffee break or a quick tea break

23:28it's boom boom back again you go

23:31yeah yeah

23:31what happens if you're dying for a pee

23:34do you just have to wait

23:36at Kennington there is a toilet

23:38and you have to call the controller

23:40and say you need a P&R

23:42which is a physical needs relief break

23:45what's your favourite part of driving this underground line?

23:48coming down from Barnet on the old trains

23:52it was a bit of a gradient

23:54so you could get to 50

23:55but you can't do it now

23:57all the trains all run at the same speed

23:59you're going to retire quite soon aren't you in a couple of months

24:01I'm going to retire yeah in a couple of months

24:03what are you going to miss the most?

24:06um

24:08the view

24:08no I'm joking

24:13a driver's view may be monotonous

24:15but I guarantee Henry's never seen the tracks from this perspective

24:21well

24:22here we go

24:25down there I think it was one of your tracks

24:26who knew that this was up here

24:29I certainly didn't know this was up here

24:31well those people on the platform down there don't know it's here either

24:35no they don't

24:36wow that's amazing

24:41walking around this network of tunnels

24:43it becomes clear just how complex the track layout at Euston is

24:48with all the branches converging

24:53it would be impossible for drivers like Henry to navigate safely

24:57were it not for the skilled signallers behind the scenes

25:01to find out more I've come to the depot's small object store

25:05where the collection's assistant director Chris Nix

25:08is showing me two of the network's oldest signal blocks

25:12this is the kind of thing that you'd have had on the metropolitan line

25:17yeah and this was a system which had been made compulsory

25:22for passenger carrying railways in 1889

25:25because there have been so many disasters caused by a lack of signalling

25:28and trains running into the back of one another

25:31or on single track lines going head to head

25:34so signalling is really important for stopping trains running into one another

25:39and causing loss of life

25:42when they were in service each of these blocks would have been stationed

25:45hundreds of meters apart along the track

25:49so can we try and get this working as it would have been set up

25:52absolutely so we've got this loco here pulling a passenger carrying train

25:57and that loco pulling another passenger carrying train

26:00it's on this section of line

26:02and therefore this would have been already set to show there's a train on line

26:07the box down here box C has told me that the next section is clear

26:11so I can move this train off

26:14so that one leaves

26:15I let that signal box controller know that that's gone

26:19now I'm sitting here in my signal box

26:21and I know that outside my signal box

26:23I've got the driver getting furious

26:25who wants to get back to the depot up there

26:28to get his cup of tea

26:29absolutely

26:30so I want to let you know that I've got a train waiting here

26:33and I want to send it up the line towards you

26:34and you do that with a bell code

26:37okay

26:37which is three dings, a pause and a one

26:40right

26:44I look at my track, I know I've not got a train on it

26:47so I will send you the reply

26:49the same message to say

26:53you can move that onto my block

26:55and I will show you that by putting it to line clear

26:58and you can see that in your box too

27:01fabulous

27:02I can then put my lever

27:03to let this little signal here go green

27:06and tell this driver he can proceed up the track

27:09off you go

27:10off you go

27:10and as soon as it comes onto my section

27:12as soon as you see the back of that train

27:15leave your section

27:16you need to let me know that

27:18with two dings on your bell

27:19okay

27:23I'll send the same message back to say thank you

27:26I've acknowledged that

27:27and I now move this indicator to say train on line

27:30that reminds me that the train's on the line

27:32and it also shows you that for the moment

27:35you can't send another one into this section

27:38and being a signaller is really an intense job isn't it?

27:42absolutely

27:42because you'll have

27:43you know

27:44you'll have to be passing the train onto the next section

27:46you'll have an up and a down line usually

27:48so you'll be managing the ones going on the other track

27:51going in the other direction

27:52and if you've got points, sidings, junctions

27:56you could have you know many many of these in a bank

28:00and different bell tones that you've got to listen out for

28:02so yeah big boxes take a lot of looking after

28:07later we'll get an insight into the high pressured world of modern day signalling

28:12and you might be surprised to see how little has actually changed

28:38Sid, this train is fabulous isn't it?

28:41what actually is it?

28:42this is the standard stock train

28:45and it was called the standard stock because it was the standard train

28:48that ran on several underground lines from sort of the 1920s and up until the late 1930s

28:54it's so immocative of the age isn't it?

28:56with this wonderful maquette, the lighting

28:58and of course down here all this wood on the floor

29:01you just don't see that in trains these days

29:04of course, well you can't really have any wood in modern days

29:07because it's a fire hazard

29:08but this particular train always kind of warms my heart a little bit

29:12I always think of the people that would have travelled in this car

29:15maybe going out on the town

29:17yeah the roaring 20s

29:18absolutely

29:19so this particular car is from 1927

29:22and the reason why I wanted to bring you here

29:26is because it really reminds me of a station that most people do not know exists

29:32it's York Road

29:40I've come to the King's Cross area of London

29:43a place usually associated with the main line's imposing Great Northern Railway Terminus

29:50or perhaps its neighbour, the spectacular international hub at St Pancras

29:56but today I'm on the trail of a little known station that not only boasted a unique platform layout

30:04but was also for more than 30 years one of the loneliest places to work on the entire tube network

30:13this part of London has in recent years undergone an extensive regeneration

30:19from its poor industrial origins to a swanky new part of town

30:24but tucked away there is still one part that remains the same

30:31York Road Station

30:35York Road is another classic Leslie Green structure

30:39it opened in 1906 to serve the Great Northern, Piccadilly and Brompton Railway

30:46what we think of as the Piccadilly Line

30:49at the turn of the century this was an industrial area known for its coal and gas works

30:55but the residential neighbourhoods nearby were among the most run down in London

31:02the pollution from the railway was said to mix with the awful noises from the cattle markets and slaughterhouses to

31:09the north

31:11in fact in 1899 one district was declared the foulest parish in all London

31:18it is indeed a veritable slum

31:23what's more the York Road site was just a half a mile from a far more appealing tube station at

31:29King's Cross

31:31so it's perhaps little wonder that passengers rarely used it

31:36and after just 26 years service it was shut down

31:48this place has been off limits to the public for 90 years

31:53and buried beneath the cobwebs and grime

31:57there are features here that remain completely untouched

32:02this is the ticket hall area

32:04and just over there is where the lifts would have been to take passengers down to the platforms

32:08and if you needed a comfort break before travelling

32:11over here are the men's loos

32:13but what I absolutely love about this station is the fact that it's been disused since the 1930s

32:21and all this time dust and dirt have been slowly claiming the site

32:26but even so you can still catch glimpses of the station's former beauty shining through

32:40the original spiral staircase is no longer here

32:46so the only way of getting underground is via these emergency steps

32:52which lead me 27 metres beneath the ticket hall

32:57and this is where the most extraordinary features of York Road

33:03gradually reveal themselves

33:14I'm heading underground at York Road Station in North London

33:19it's been disused for the best part of a century

33:22and to a regular tube traveller this place is barely recognisable

33:29now it may look like I'm in some industrial tunnel

33:34but I'm actually stood on the platform of this station

33:37and just over here we can see glimpses of the tiles just coming through

33:41the Y of York Road is just there

33:44hiding behind some paint

33:46but another thing we can also spot is that the platform itself has been removed here

33:52in order to make this space more valuable in terms of storage

33:56so we're stood at track level

33:59and right next to this brick wall is the running of the Piccadilly Line

34:07hearing a train race past in the dark is pretty unsettling

34:12and all of a sudden this ghost station feels very much alive

34:18yes the platforms are long gone

34:21but this original diagram for their layout is a revelation

34:24it shows how they curved outwards slightly in the middle

34:28and that was to accommodate a design feature of the lift shafts

34:33something way ahead of its time that was only ever seen in four stations

34:38Caledonian Road, Kings Cross, Earl's Court and here

34:42this lift landing was completely unique when this station opened

34:47most underground stations which had lifts had lifts that came down to a mezzanine area

34:52and then from that mezzanine there had been stairs that took you down to the platforms themselves

34:57but here the lifts brought passengers all the way down to the platforms

35:02very convenient and very modern actually

35:10these days step free access to platforms is something TFL looks to provide at as many stations as possible

35:18the two lifts here were state-of-the-art electric Otis elevators from America

35:25they were part of a delivery of 140 units shipped over to be installed on the new Piccadilly Line

35:33yet despite the mod cons York Road was one of the most lifeless stations on the network

35:39in fact by 1909 just two years after opening

35:44there were so few passengers that some trains were timetabled not to stop

35:49so drivers began rumbling straight past

35:55in 1918 Sunday services were withdrawn completely

36:02and when the Piccadilly Line was extended in 1932

36:06ultra modern stations like Arnest Grove and Southgate

36:10ushered in a sparkling new era for tube travel

36:15to deliver a reliable service for those suburban commuters

36:19older quieter stations were earmarked for closure

36:24on the 17th of September 1932 York Road shut for good

36:32but that wasn't quite the end of the story

36:37now on the other side of this door is the live track

36:40so it's far too dangerous for me to actually go on the other side of this

36:44so this is as far as we're gonna go

36:49just at the end there we can see something very special

36:55the remains of the York Road signal box

36:59now from that cabin all of the signals for this part of the line would have been controlled

37:04now that signal cabin was in use for over 30 years after this station closed

37:10so an operator had to come down here and work an entire shift on the signals by themselves

37:16I'd imagine that was quite an experience

37:26thrillingly the York Road signal frame survived and has been refurbished for training purposes

37:32it's right here at the depot and compared to the Victorian boxes Chris showed me earlier

37:38this is seriously high-tech stuff

37:42TFL signaler Charlie Monroe is going to show us how it works

37:47well it's quite good gig to be a signaler because you get to play trains all day long in my

37:53mind

37:53but it's a bit more complex than that isn't it

37:55it is whilst it seems a bit like a giant model railway

37:58actually you know there's real people on those trains and you've got to keep the railways running safely

38:02we've got this unit here demonstrate a bit about what signalling is

38:07yes um so this is a York Road signal frame which is used to demonstrate and show how

38:13signallers would be trained and could do things

38:15we've still got frames very similar to this actually still work running on the London Underground

38:19I use one as part of my day job every single day on the Metropolitan Line

38:23with little levers like this

38:25little levers exactly like this that just go backwards and forwards

38:28wow

38:28it's something that people are not aware of

38:31people see the shiny new trains but forget that you know actually behind that there are

38:35in some cases signaling equipment nearly 100 years old still keeping the railway running today very safely

38:40so can you show us exactly how this wonderful machine actually operates

38:45I'd be more than happy to Tim

38:47if you can just press that button just over there

38:49this one here

38:50that one there that will put a train on the simulator and we can get going

38:53let's start the process

38:56boom oh there it is okay

38:57that's our train

38:57so that's going along the tracks at the moment and it's going to come up to the signal

39:01so where the light is off that's how we know where the train is

39:03and when the light comes back on we know the train has safely passed through

39:06so it's now come to a red signal

39:08the train can't go any further than that we've got to make the signal go green

39:11which is then how things can keep moving

39:13what are the different sort of sections on here?

39:16so these are what we call the track circuits

39:18so every bit of railway line is split up into small chunks so that you know where the trains are

39:22and so now it's in section B what happens next?

39:26so we've got to get the train from section B to section C and then into the station

39:30and to do that we have to make the signal go green

39:33so York Road what we call the cabin code is YR or Yankee Romeo

39:37so it's lever number 2 for signal number 2

39:40as we do that the relays and stuff will make the lights go off on our diagram

39:46and we'll then go over and light up the signal which is demonstrated just behind him

39:50oh YR 2 is it? Yankee Romeo 2?

39:52that's the one yep

39:53so yeah so we can reverse it like that

39:55signal goes yellow

39:56and then as the train goes past it the signal goes straight back to red

40:00because now we know there's a train in the section

40:02and we don't want another train to be going in there

40:05ideally not

40:06yes

40:06so we can either send it now on the main line or on the branch line

40:11from York Road station

40:12if we were to go on the branch line for instance

40:15it's our points here which is points number 6

40:17and they go from the normal again to the reverse position

40:21now I can hear this clunking and clinking happening down inside this unit

40:26what is that?

40:27so that's all part of the interlocking

40:29underneath the frame we have a series of locking bars

40:31which are horizontal and vertical bars that all link together

40:34and will stop you from doing any conflicting moves

40:38so stopping trains going where they shouldn't do

40:40so it's a fail safe system

40:42absolutely

40:42that makes it super safe underground

40:44where you've got massive numbers of people heading about the place really quickly

40:49this is super top tech stuff

40:51exactly

40:52it's basically a giant computer from the early 1900s

40:56whilst it looks very old and very antiquated

40:59the same principles are used in modern signaling across the world today

41:02so to go onto the branch line it's going to be signal number 3

41:05which is this one here

41:06again signal is no longer red doesn't mean it's green

41:09and the train will then close its doors and go on its journey

41:13and move up

41:14wow

41:15gosh imagine trying to operate this at York Road in that dark tunnel

41:20yeah

41:20some of the stations with massive junctions like Baker Street for example

41:24must have had a huge signal cabin to control the different platforms and routes going in and out

41:29yeah exactly

41:30and you know the busy junctions were often the most complicated places to work

41:34I worked at Edgware Road before it closed in 2019

41:37we would run 56 trains an hour across a flat crossing and four platforms

41:43and there would be two of us to make sure that you know we're not overworked and to focus on

41:48what's going on

41:49wow that's amazing

41:51can it be is it stressful sometimes

41:52I don't think so

41:54you haven't got time to get stressed because as soon as you've got one train has left

41:58you've now got the X train trying to go in and you know if this is in the middle of

42:01the rush hour

42:02that's got thousands of people on board and they all want to get somewhere

42:05it's just a giant jigsaw puzzle trying to keep everything moving as best you can

42:09so in the future are these all going to become redundant

42:13these are all going to be phased out over the next sort of 10 to 20 years

42:17as they reach the end of their lives and the computerized systems start to take over

42:21at the height of signal boxes in the sort of 1940s and 50s

42:24pretty much every single station had something like this

42:28yeah

42:28you know it's one thing seeing them but it's actually seeing the move that is the really special part

42:34it's really nice you know to be able to kind of demonstrate and show how it works

42:37thank you for showing us a secret part of an early underground

42:43next time we step back in history to explore the early underground

42:48look at this it's enormous

42:51that is extraordinary look at these columns

42:54and discover the parts of Oxford Circus you never normally get to see

43:00isn't that phenomenal

43:17you

43:19you

43:23you

Euston And York Road @ Secrets Of The London Underground 尤斯顿和约克路

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