Goldie Looking Chain?, No!.

Littered throughout the city of London, under the hustle and bustle of the street life, twisting and diving around the tube tunnels, the drains and sewers is the nervous system of London. Long tunnels of all shapes and sizes carrying water, gas, power and broadband.

It was a nice evening and i was strolling around Hyde Park with Loops in search of a memorial. when i got a phone call for JD who was also in London checking a few drains with Dsankt and Stoop. "Where are you?" i asked. "Underground", baffled as to how he had reception i probed deeper.

"In a drain?"
"No, well not exactly"
"hmm, is it brick"
"Yes"

I pondered for a while trying to think what else could be explorable in London apart from drains and trains.

"Not the subways?"
"....Yes"

I instantly high tailed it to the nearest tube station and headed over to meet them. Since they had been exploring for a while they were on the way out when we arrived. After a quick chat myself and loops headed down.

GLC Subway

After a small ladder we touched down in a lit brick tunnel with broadband cables running overhead and water pipes running along the floor. This was too good to be true, it felt like a drain, it looked like a drain but it had lights and there was no dirty water to trudge through. This must be what heaven is like.

We started taking photos before heading to the north. A few small alcoves connected from the side seemingly leading nowhere before we reached the end, a brick wall. The cables and pipes seemed to be fed through smaller holes and continued onwards but for us this was it.

Hmm lets try the south shall we. Same result, a brick wall. Ahh well it was good while it lasted. We were about to head out when loops pulled a rotten piece of cardboard from behind a pipe, as he turned it around his face lit up like the sun. Printed on the back was a detailed map for six other pipe subways in the surrounding area. The hunt was on!.

North Thames Gas Subway - West Branch

Easily the largest of the subways, in fact quite monstrous in size. This felt like the Paris comm tunnels, they just seemed to go on forever it was amazing. We visited this subway in two trips, as it needed it.

It was another cold night, but we had a mission to undertake. We arrived at our entrance and promptly headed down into the warmth of london's underbelly. We entered into a tunnel which was rather small in comparison to the others, but we persevered and headed west. Before long we came to a set of several junctions leading to small rooms housing emergency exits. We found that they cant be opened from the underneath. So basically they are the most useless emergency exits known to man.

We stuck it out with the original tunnel which began to open up and broaden. The amount of pipes and cables just seemed to increase as we went further along before we came to another large junction with a large concrete box shape tunnel heading south. We had a quick look and after the first corner we were met with a tunnel that just seemed to go on forever.

We decided to leave it for another time and headed back along the main path. This ended up turning into a real slug of a walk. Stupidly the ladders heading out were placed in the middle of the tunnel so a serious amount of squeezing was in order to progress further. Eventually we came to the end of the tunnel with a ladder leading up into a small room with what looked to be a disused drain running off half way up, now filled with concrete.

After a quick rest and a few pictures we headed back to our entrance and back to the car. We would return three days later.

North Thames Gas Subway - East Branch

Once more we ventured down into the Thames Gas Subways, this time heading east. Sadly it turned out to be the same situation as the GLC subways, the tunnel just kept going on and on until it finally reached a dead end.

We headed back and checked out some of the side tunnels, a few leaded directly over an underground station which was fun as there was a cold blast of air rushing through the subways every time a train went past. Unfortunately access down into the underground tunnels was not possible. We continued on before coming to a junction with the west branch. Damn. Oh well we had one more tunnel to check.

We backtracked to the main junction along the west branch to the tunnel that seemed to have no end. Sure enough it did have an end. A metal wall which connects to the Thames river. I wasn't to sure what the purpose of this tunnel was as it wasn't carrying any cables and didn't seem to go anywhere. Odd.

After exhausting all the other nooks and crannies we headed back topside.

We visited several other section and regional subways but those tales are for another time.