Between King's Cross and Russell Square
The tunnel is 820m long. The layout of the track is important. Here is a link to a map of part of it. Starting 70m from the King's Cross platform is the trailing crossover, a piece of track that joins the eastbound and westbound tracks. It is 115m long and is constructed as a wide diameter tunnel.
Weaselbitch was in the 5th carriage of train 331:
When I got to the Picadilly Line platform London Underground were announcing delays on that line too, and you could tell. The platform was packed. I decided to make my way to the other end because it’s usually slightly less crowded down there. I just managed to squeeze onto the train in the second to last carriage. From what I’ve read/heard I think the bomb must have gone off in either the first or the third carriage from the front.
The train departed as normal. When I was describing it to thessalian and dodgyhoodoo last night I said we were about 30 seconds out of Kings Cross. The reports I’ve read since say it was 3 minutes, so all I can really say now is that it was “not long”. I was reading an article in the paper about London winning the bid to host the 2012 Olympics.
Suddenly there was an almighty bang, the train stopped, all the lights went out and the carriage was filled with thick, dark grey smoke.
...
One of the main reasons I think we were quite slow getting to the point of deciding to smash one of the windows is that we were in a very narrow tunnel. There was about a maximum of a foot's clearance on either side between the train and the curved tunnel wall. If we'd got outside the train we would have had to make our way along the side of the train propped up between the train and the tunnel wall. We didn't know about the fork in tunnel up ahead. I think this would have been where the people who'd smashed their window and climbed out came from.
At least part of the 5th carriage was in narrow tunnel. This puts the rear of train 331 much closer to the KXSP platform than the 100m often stated. If the whole of the 6th and half of the 5th carriage were in narrow tunnel, then the rear of train 331 would have been only about 45m from the platform.
In addition, the front of train 331 would have been in wide tunnel. Any explosion in either the first or third carriage would not have been as destructive as the explosion in train 311 in narrow tunnel up ahead.
Joe Orr places the front of train 311 about 440m from King's Cross.
...start running towards Russell Square down the left hand side of the track to try to get help. I look at the 100metre measurements along the track to see how far it is to Russell Square - about 380 metres.
Weaselbitch was in the 5th carriage of train 331:
When I got to the Picadilly Line platform London Underground were announcing delays on that line too, and you could tell. The platform was packed. I decided to make my way to the other end because it’s usually slightly less crowded down there. I just managed to squeeze onto the train in the second to last carriage. From what I’ve read/heard I think the bomb must have gone off in either the first or the third carriage from the front.
The train departed as normal. When I was describing it to thessalian and dodgyhoodoo last night I said we were about 30 seconds out of Kings Cross. The reports I’ve read since say it was 3 minutes, so all I can really say now is that it was “not long”. I was reading an article in the paper about London winning the bid to host the 2012 Olympics.
Suddenly there was an almighty bang, the train stopped, all the lights went out and the carriage was filled with thick, dark grey smoke.
...
One of the main reasons I think we were quite slow getting to the point of deciding to smash one of the windows is that we were in a very narrow tunnel. There was about a maximum of a foot's clearance on either side between the train and the curved tunnel wall. If we'd got outside the train we would have had to make our way along the side of the train propped up between the train and the tunnel wall. We didn't know about the fork in tunnel up ahead. I think this would have been where the people who'd smashed their window and climbed out came from.
At least part of the 5th carriage was in narrow tunnel. This puts the rear of train 331 much closer to the KXSP platform than the 100m often stated. If the whole of the 6th and half of the 5th carriage were in narrow tunnel, then the rear of train 331 would have been only about 45m from the platform.
In addition, the front of train 331 would have been in wide tunnel. Any explosion in either the first or third carriage would not have been as destructive as the explosion in train 311 in narrow tunnel up ahead.
Joe Orr places the front of train 311 about 440m from King's Cross.
...start running towards Russell Square down the left hand side of the track to try to get help. I look at the 100metre measurements along the track to see how far it is to Russell Square - about 380 metres.
posted by Numeral at 9:12 pm
2 Comments:
I may be missing something but I cannot see the point of any of these posts.
What are you trying to prove?
That more trains were bombed or that there are some small errors in the minor details of some official accounts?
If it's the latter then are you really surprised? Bombs went off, of course there is going to be some confusion especially over tiny details like the number of the train.
Thanks for the comment, confused.
I now think that there probably was only one train stuck in the tunnel - having two would make the evacuations much more difficult than they were. There are still numerous unresolved issues, mostly to do with timing.
The 311/331 issue seems to have arised from the Piccadilly Line Duty Operation Manager's incident report which gave 311 as the train number, which was later found to be incorrect.
The time of the explosion is still an issue. The 7 July Review Committee report moved it from 0850 to 0852 or 0853. And it is not known how long train 331 stood at the KXSP platform.
I have lost interest in this blog, I'm afraid. You will find more on July 7 here
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