Goodge Street Underground Station - Tottenham Court Road, London, UK
Posted by: Groundspeak Regular Member Master Mariner
N 51° 31.234 W 000° 08.066
30U E 698798 N 5711609
Goodge Street tube station is on the Northern line and is located between Tottenham Court Road and Warren Street stations.
Waymark Code: WMETNJ
Location: London, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 07/06/2012
Published By:Groundspeak Premium Member saopaulo1
Views: 3

The Underground History website (visit link) tells of the part that Goodge Street station played in World War II and afterwards in an excellently researched article:

"As congestion on the Northern Line increased in the '30s, a plan was developed to build a second pair of tunnels in parallel with the Charing Cross branch of the Northern Line that would act as an express route through London. These plans were shelved at the outset of the Second World War, but as the platforms of the Underground became increasingly used by the general public overnight as air raid shelters (despite being initially discouraged), work began in 1940 on building deep level shelters which were envisaged to eventually become the platform tunnels for the express route.

Ten shelters were originally planned - five to the north of the Thames and five to the south. All of these were to eventually form part of the Northern Line express route apart from Chancery Lane and St. Pauls, which were associated with the Central Line. The stations on the Northern Line that were equipped with extra tunneling are: Belsize Park, Camden Town, Goodge Steet, Stockwell, Clapham North, Clapham Common, Clapham South. Work on St. Pauls was abandoned in 1941 for fear of damaging the cathedral's foundations and also work ceased on a shelter at Oval soon after, due to extensive flooding. It is unknown whether Oval would have been included in the express route.

Above ground, each shelter's shafts were protected by specially constructed 'pill box' buildings to prevent any bombs that directly hit the location from going underground. Each pill box housed lift machinery and provided the cover for spiral staircases down to the shelter's tunnels.

As congestion on the Northern Line increased in the '30s, a plan was developed to build a second pair of tunnels in parallel with the Charing Cross branch of the Northern Line that would act as an express route through London. These plans were shelved at the outset of the Second World War, but as the platforms of the Underground became increasingly used by the general public overnight as air raid shelters (despite being initially discouraged), work began in 1940 on building deep level shelters which were envisaged to eventually become the platform tunnels for the express route.

Construction
Ten shelters were originally planned - five to the north of the Thames and five to the south. All of these were to eventually form part of the Northern Line express route apart from Chancery Lane and St. Pauls, which were associated with the Central Line. The stations on the Northern Line that were equipped with extra tunneling are: Belsize Park, Camden Town, Goodge Steet, Stockwell, Clapham North, Clapham Common, Clapham South. Work on St. Pauls was abandoned in 1941 for fear of damaging the cathedral's foundations and also work ceased on a shelter at Oval soon after, due to extensive flooding. It is unknown whether Oval would have been included in the express route.

Above ground, each shelter's shafts were protected by specially constructed 'pill box' buildings to prevent any bombs that directly hit the location from going underground. Each pill box housed lift machinery and provided the cover for spiral staircases down to the shelter's tunnels.

Each shelter consisted of two parallel tunnels that were 16ft 6in (approx. 4.9m) in diameter and were 1400ft (approx. 427m) in length. Two pairs of shafts were sunk for each shelter, with the pairs being sited a distance from each other in case a bomb struck, blocking a shaft. At each location, one shaft was for the spiral staircase and lift, the other a narrower ventilation shaft.

The two tunnels were interconnected at various places along their length. A floor was constructed at the horizontal diameter level of the tunnel, providing two decks of accommodation. Ventilation, medical, and catering facilities were provided and electricity was obtained from two sources in case bombing caused one to fail - the local authority and the London Underground system, which had its own power station at Lotts Road.

The spiral staircases were constructed in the form of a double helix. One staircase would lead to the upper deck, the other to the lower. This was to allow shelterers to be able to quickly access their destination deck with minimum confusion. On the whole, the upper and lower decks were run independently, though access between decks was provided in the mid-point and at both end of the tunnels. The lift would have access to both upper and lower decks, but was not meant to be used by shelterers.

Toilet facilities were constructed near the lift shafts, with the sewage being periodically hydraulically pumped up a rising main to a sewer close to surface level. There was storage capacity of 5 days for sewage should the hydraulic mechanism fail for some reason. Water was supplied from the local water supply, but should this fail, each shaft was equipped with a 3000 gallon tank of water near the surface.

Capacity
Each shelter was originally designed to house up to 12,000 people but by the time they were built, the number of bunks had been dropped to a more comfortable 8,000. Bunks were arranged along the walls in various configurations, to maximise use of space.

Ventilation
Ventilation is vital in such a confined environment and a lot of thought was given to this. Air entered the shelter through the entrances and flowed down the spiral staircases, along the connecting tunnels into the shelter area. Stale air was then sucked out of the shelter through metal pipes in the roof (top deck) and under the floor (bottom deck). A fan pumped the air up a specially constructed ventilation shaft, out into a 30ft high tower so that it exhausted well away from the fresh air entering at ground level. When the fans were run at maximum power, the air in the shelter would be completely changed 15 times an hour.

The air was filtered in case of gas attack. All doors were gas seals when closed, and should there be an attack, the entrance doorways would be shut, with the air passing through grilles in the roof of the pill box and through gas filtration equipment.

Location
It was hoped that when their wartime use had come to an end, tunneling would re-start to allow the already constructed tunnel sections to be interconnected, providing the express Northern Line route. For this reason, most shelters were constructed with ease of access to the existing Northern Line in mind. All of these shelters were constructed close to and in parallel with the existing platform tunnels of nearby stations on the Northern Line, and have interconnection tunnels with the existing platforms. In some cases, these interconnections have since been blocked.

Use During the War
Most of the shelters took about a year and a half to complete, but amazingly, the government got cold feet about using them as public shelters as they were incredibly expensive to maintain. Several of the shelters were re-purposed. Goodge Street became Genereal Eisenhower's headquarters, some were converted for government use while others were used as army barracks, to house troops in transit.

It took the advent of the flying bombs (V1 and later V2) to convince the government that they should be used as they were originally intended and some were converted back to be used as public shelters.

After the War
After the Second World War came to an end, plans to create the express route stayed on the shelf, and were then ultimately dropped as money for the project wasn't available. Most of the shelters found post war use initially as accommodation for the army in transit and most are today in use as storage facilities.

As they were now being used for other purposes, all the deep level shelters were isolated from their associated active Underground stations, in most cases the interconnection tunnels being bricked up.

Goodge Street
Eisenhower Centre The deep level tunnels at Goodge Street have had a particularly interesting history; during the Second World War, they were equipped as General Eisenhower's headquarters and since then they have been used as an army transit camp until a serious (but non-fatal) fire closed the camp on the night of May 21st 1956. Officials were alarmed by the fire and deep level shelters were no longer considered suitable for accommodation.

Since then, several of these tunnels have been used to store archived material with Goodge Street's tunnels now being used to store films and video tape.

One of Goodge Street's pill box entrances has been smartly decorated by the company currently in occupation and it has been named The Eisenhower Centre in in memory of the American President who used it as his Second World War command centre (Yes, that's spelt correctly though arguably it should be "center" as he was an American."

Is there other puplic transportation in the area?: Yes

What level is the station?: Below street level

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