Redundant Power stations on the London Underground
Lots Road Power Station, SW10
Even though London Underground only officially decommisioned Steam traction in 1961, it's electrification under the auspicious eye of Canadian financier Charles Tyson Yerkes began with the construction of the first deep level "Tube" lines in the late 1800's. Power Stations were built at Neasden, Greenwich, Hoxton and Lot's Road. The privately financed Central Line had it's own "Generating Station" at it's Wood Lane Depot in Shepherds Bush from it's construction in 1900 until it's integration with the "Yerkes Group" in 1905 - it originally planned to use Overhead Wires (The Ganz 3-phase system). You may also notice that the tunnels are a fair bit narrower than some of the other lines....
Lot's Road was built in 1904 on the approximate site of the "Cremorne Pleasure Gardens" - a Victorian park frequented mainly by young men of the Middle and Upper Classes - a place where they could "gorge to excess" on whatever their victorian fancy took them. Within it were many "shady" corners - hence it was also popular with whores and pickpockets, and having to compete with nearby Pleasure Gardens at Ranelegh and Vauxhall, finally closed it's gates in 1877.
A Strike at Lot's Road in 1923 resulted in the closure of several stations, one of which, South Kentish Town (On the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line), never re-opened.
The station at Lot's Road complemented it's sister station at Neasden, built on the banks of the River Brent in 1903 (Between 1940 and 1945, although he tried, Hitler missed them BOTH). Switchgear was fitted at the Cromwell Curve and Coburg Street to allow power to be drawn from either for the central section. Greenwich was eventually converted into a standby station, and Neasden was knocked down in the early 1960's with Hoxton having closed in 1914. However, at the time of its closure, Lot's Road was the longest serving Power Station in Europe, having clocked up almost 98 years!!!!!
Originally, the station was coal powered, coal being brought up the Thames on special barges, but was converted to run on heavy fuel oil in the 1960's (piped in from the nearby Fulham Gas Works). Water was sucked in from the river and filtered though Band Screens. After use, the steam would be condensed and pumped BACK into the river at a slightly higher temperature. This created a unique eco-system in the river around the power station, now sadly lost. Needless to say, some rather unusual marine life was lifted by the Band Screens, along with everything else floating around in the Thames, including the occasional corpse.........
In 1973, Lots Road was chosen as the unlikely site of the IBA's first London MW transmitter - providing broadcasts for Capital Radio on 539m and London Broadcasting on 437m. The Transmitter was a cable strung between the two chimneys at the Power Station, earning the nickname "Radio Washing-line" - surely a reference to Radio Caro-line. Radio 4 was also Broadcast from Lots Rd up until it's closure.
It was decided in the '70s that the tube would eventually be powered by the Grid. Permission to go ahead with the project was granted in 1985, but the station carried on generating for another 17 years. Some outer-reaches of the network were powered by the domestic supplies as early as 1933, and only in 1960's was the generating plant converted to run at 50Hz rather than 33Hz (DC powers the rails +480 and -260 on the Central and Outer rails respectively - presumably rotary converters are used). The Station finally closed on 22nd October 2002.
My friend Graham Johnson and I were given an opportunity to visit in July 2002, shortly before it's closure. We jumped at the chance and here are a selection of Photographs I took at the time. Click on a picture for a larger image.
My thanks to Len Elkington for the invite.
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| One of the Six Turbines. C.S Parsons had supplied the turbines since 1909. These are second-hand ex marine turbines though. | Big bugger isn't it..........
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| A view of the Turbine Hall | From the end......... This closest turbine is being stripped down - you can see some of the bits in the bottom pictures..... | |
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| Another view, giving an idea of the sheer enormity of this place | ||
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| The "Steam Range" - Probably the biggest kettle in London!!! Certainly the first to include 6 membrane sided boilers. | Looking down the other way, with Graham and Len in the Foreground... | |
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| The right hand dial displays the stations output - currently reading 85Mw at 2.38pm on a Saturday. | In the case of failure, then the whole of the Victoria, Piccadilly, Northern and Bakerloo Lines would be powered by these two Batteries........ Only joking - actually, Greenwich, although unmanned, would fire up automatically. | |
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| The Turbines would be stripped and re-built in turn - but 5 of the 6 were always available. | The business end - you don't want to get your hand caught in THOSE!!! If you look on the balcony half way up on the left of the picture, you can see one of the alternators used to actually provide current. |
Lot's Road Development - Home Page
