"New" tunnel opened at Kings Cross

[TRP]

An LNER Azuma has used the Eastern Gasworks Tunnel on the approach to Kings Cross for the first time this morning.
The easterly of the three portals of Gasworks Tunnel had been mothballed by BR when the track was rationalised in the 1970s, but has now been brought back into use to increase capacity in and out of Kings Cross.

https://www.lner.co.uk/news/lner-tak...e-in-40-years/

Tony

[Beeyar Wunby]

Yup, this is my old stamping ground.

The Western bore of Gasworks had become traffic-limited because the Up & Down Slow lines feeding it are now also used by the many Thameslink services coming and going through Canal tunnels.

This in turn had pushed the Faster Great Northern services (Peterborough - KGX, and Kings Lynn/Cambridge - KGX) into what was the UP & Down Fast lines the Central bore, clogging up the ECML Long Distance services.

Now that it's been completed, the ECML trains can use the Eastern Bore for their dedicated Eastern side platforms.

There's been quite a lot of 'de-complicating' the turnouts in the station throat.

Here's a photo of the contractors 'playing in the sand' outside Platforms 0-8, which I borrowed from the Kings Cross drivers Facebook page

Credit is to Joanna@Jay_Tee71 via twitter

[boilersuit]

This thread reminds me of a photo I took of a disused tunnel at Kings Cross sometime around 1985. Can anyone tell me what tunnel it is/was? Is it in back in use nowadays?

[Beeyar Wunby]

This is the Down Moorgate Line, where trains climbed up the slippery steep slope of Hotel Curve from the Widened Lines. It is way over on the West Side - Platform 13 if my memory serves me right.

I think we mentioned this on another thread, where I posted the picture below.

You can't see this view of the entrance anymore as it is under the West Side development - though I have a sneaky feeling that the tunnel remains and is in use, as there is a significant amount of commercial traffic which goes down a new concrete slope from Goods Way and disappears in the direction of Kings Cross undercroft.