Fire, King's Cross Station, 1987

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXC6eQzducw" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

philipmartin wrote:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AXC6eQzducw

I think the rebuilt escalator has no wooden treads on the steps and there are more restrictions on smoking.

The escalator - which I have used several times - leads from the Underground lines to the main station.

I passed through this station earlier in the day . I had taken 1/2 a day off to head up country for the weekend . Has i not done so i would have been passing through about the time of the fire. then again If i hadnt been going north for the weekend I wouldnt have passed through it at all.I wasnt aware there had been a fire under I got back on the Monday . No internet in those days.
The smell of the fire prevaded through the entire station for months.

David Benton wrote:I passed through this station earlier in the day .

Close call.

Either your in the wrong place at the wrong time or your not I guess .
It was a bit nerveracking travelling on the wooden escaltors after that , though they had made a point of cleaning all the grease out after the fire.

Macy's, in NYC, still operates wood escalators ... in fact, they were just refurbished as part of a remodeling in the store.

litz wrote:Macy's, in NYC, still operates wood escalators ... in fact, they were just refurbished as part of a remodeling in the store.

Wooden treads are still very common, though I think more recent escalators, especially those in department stores, tend to be made of metal.

I think the Kings Cross fire made operators aware of the need to clean properly underneath the mechanism. I haven't seen that escalator for a long time so I don't know if they installed more fireproof steps.

That seems to be it: from what I remember reading it was the grease rather than the wood that did the damage.

Well the grease is what caught fire ... which in turn lit off the wood.

Smoking was banned totally shortly after.
I noticed that escalators were shut down at nights in many stations, for quite a long period after the fire. (Maybe a year or so). One I used to use quite often was very deep , maybe 200-300 steps.
Good exercise i suppose. Possibly they were cleaning them , or they had someone underneath during the day looking for fires, and the traffic at night did not justify it .

there was a very good documentary on british tv , about the angel station on the northern lines. It was acessible only by elevator (lift).Very small ones. The station was changed so escolaters were used, and the documentary was on the station staffs noticing the lack of close contact with the passengers .( of the social kind , though I guess it was also a gropers paradise).Some of them got quite depressed.
Go find it , Philip.

David Benton wrote:
Go find it , Philip.

Yes, marster. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angel_tube_station" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
This probably isn't what you have in mind. More later.
It's later. Here's more. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQwERv8V6JA" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXTpngoTS-o" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

David Benton wrote:Smoking was banned totally shortly after.
I noticed that escalators were shut down at nights in many stations, for quite a long period after the fire. (Maybe a year or so). One I used to use quite often was very deep , maybe 200-300 steps.
Good exercise i suppose. Possibly they were cleaning them , or they had someone underneath during the day looking for fires, and the traffic at night did not justify it .

there was a very good documentary on british tv , about the angel station on the northern lines. It was acessible only by elevator (lift).Very small ones. The station was changed so escolaters were used, and the documentary was on the station staffs noticing the lack of close contact with the passengers .( of the social kind , though I guess it was also a gropers paradise).Some of them got quite depressed.
Go find it , Philip.

I hope they changed the policy with regard to cleaning underneath. A regular cleaning would have been the right response.

Angel station had changed a great deal since it was first built. It is much busier than it was at the beginning. 100 years ago lifts were considered a suitable access technology, but nowadays they are known to be unsuitable. But it takes a lot of money to replace them with escalators, which have a much larger capacity for transporting customers.

here is the documentary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuRWKb2Q1RQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

David Benton wrote:here is the documentary.

From the documentary "The doors won't work. You'll have to use the stairs." "This lift isn't going anywhere."
One laidy says "To save me from walking all the way up these bloody steps. It nearly killed me."

All LU escalators are now metal. In fact the fire caused a lot of effort to be put in to remove flammable materials from every where on the underground