Many thought the roadworks at Baker Street on 27th August badly timed and wondered what the hell it was this time Thames Water were trying to do. But many did not even know this work was needed because of a massive leak into the tube station directly beneath the road surface! I wrote about that a few days ago. The good news is the leaks have finally stopped. In this brief update I want to illustrate the works and also look at social media covering the roadworks in Marylebone Road, when those huge tailbacks ensued. Agreeably it was perhaps bad planning and could have been done at the weekend… but there you are – some of these utility companies move in mysterious ways – at least Thames Water did their job and the station is becoming dry once again.
Actually I did not know about today’s repairs til I took a bus trip later in the day and spotted the works outside Baker Street station. On the way back I took some photographs. Its clear the spot where they dug up the road is exactly where I said the source of the leaks would be.
The leak in question very possibly came from a finely fractured water mains and how that came about will be discussed in a moment.
The site of the leak as I pointed out a couple of days ago, it was practically in the centre of the roadway.
It is clear the roadworks began very early on Tuesday morning 27th August…
Some of the tweets gave the impression the works were at York Gate. This was where the road restriction actually began. The works itself were directly outside Baker Street station.
TfL warns of delays due to roadworks above the station areas where the leaks are originating. Source: Twitter. (Note: Tweet has been deleted like most of TfL’s other social media – thus a screencap is used here.)
Quite a few were complaining that this seemed a pretty unmediated time to be starting some road works at this important junction and it was causing huge traffic jams. Some sources say the jams extended back as far as King’s Cross!
What practically no-one knew it was in fact road works to enable TfL to run its tube services effectively and safely. Absolutely nothing was said about that – but you will see from this blog it was indeed about the leaks into Baker Street station.
Our bus had actually passed the roadworks site when I quickly sprang into action took this picture. By the time I had egged what the works were about our bus was about to move eastwards so I just quickly grabbed this one image to show the roadworks as viewed from the bus.
Digital sign by Regent’s Park station warning of delays to traffic.
The point at which the lanes merged from three to just one. This was by York Gate.
The new patch of road surface marking the spot where the utility company had dug up the road to find the source of the leaks.
A 205 bus with its Wonderful World of Off Peak advert and a very smart blue sedan car outside Baker Street station! The car is about where the works took place.
There is a small manhole cover visible in the picture. It gives access to a water mains valve. Possibly because of the proximity of this valve to the surface, and the constant pounding of that by traffic, it hammered the pipe below and caused a small fracture along its length.
Down below the roadway at that very point, and despite some residual ingress (which would take time to drain away) Baker Street station itself was looking so much drier than it had been these past two weeks!
