When doing track renewals we regularly came across old water pipes.
During Modernisation when water facilities were no longer used most of the infrastructure associated with them was simply left and the pipes turned off.
It isn't only water, there are still lots of redundant gas pipes in station areas and buried underneath the track in stations.
It was always a lottery working in platforms, loads of buried stuff subways, sewers, gas & water pipes and cables, most with no record of their existance or if they were live or dead.
Even in the open there is plenty to find, for example there is a 12" cast iron water main wandering about under the track all the way from Euston to north of Bushey. Just what you want to find with a PABC on a Saturday night.
Just a thought but am I the only person to have dug up a working compressed air main from under the track?
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Hi there
Years ago water horses were used to fill up the boilers of steam engines. This water came from pipes, often located at the end of platforms. Dies anyone know if the pipes still exist and if they do, whether any have leaked due to being no longer used?
Kind regards
I have several times found pipe runs that led to the sites of water columns while reballasting. As OT has said they were usually just blanked or cut off just below ground and abandoned, when they were no longer needed.
If they are in the way and you have to take them out it can be worrying as even if they are disconnected there can be a lot of water lying in a long length of pipe. One STO I knew broke an obviously disused pipe only to discover it was still attached to a disused water tower, instant swimming pool.
