Journalists were invited yesterday to inspect one of the new London Tube shelters about which there have been many rumours, some of them rather extravagant. There are eight of these shelters, each with bunks for 8,000 people. They have been built under Tube stations, four on the north side of the Thames and the other four on the south.
The shelters have all been built, with slight variations, to a common design which will enable them to become part of a new underground railway after the war. The basis of the design is two tunnels side by side, each of them 16 feet in diameter and divided by a concrete slab into an upper and lower deck, so that the height of each deck is some eight feet. This gives in effect four parallel tunnels, each about 1,200 feet long and provided with bunks for 2,000 people.
Each of these four tunnels is divided into four sections by cross passages in which are the medical aid posts, lavatories, machinery control rooms, and so forth. In each of the tunnel sections there is a canteen of snack bar design to serve hot drinks, sandwiches, and cakes, and, perhaps, hot pies. The bunks have been arranged in three tiers on both sides of the tunnels with a good deal of ingenuity; some of them fold up if required so as to form back rests for a lower tier of bunks and so provide comfortable benches for sitting during the early part of the evening.
FIVE ENTRANCES
The shelter which was inspected yesterday is between 75 and 110 feet below ground level at different places, and the tunnels are lined with reinforced concrete with cast-iron linings at junctions. There are five entrances well distributed over the shelter. The biggest and easiest is a wide staircase from the Tube station above, which leads down to the central cross-passage of the shelter and so gives access to all parts. The other four entrances are from the ground outside, and each consists of a small emergency lift and a staircase.
MANAGEMENT ARRANGEMENTS
The running of the shelter will be in the hands of full-time wardens, assisted by part-timers and, it is hoped, by volunteers from the shelterers themselves. The canteens in shelters south of the river will be run by the Women╒s Co-operative Guild, those north of the river by church organisations.
The general management of all eight shelters is in the hands of the committee appointed by the Ministries of Home Security and Health, of which Sir George Wilkinson is chairman.
Of the eight shelters two are ready for use now and another five are so nearly ready that they could be used at once in emergency. The Exchequer is paying for their construction and maintenance, and it is the Minister of Home Security who will decide, in consultation with the Regional Commissioners, when they are to be opened. His policy is to keep them in reserve and not open them to the public until their extra accommodation is actually needed. At present it is not.
When the Minister does decide that circumstances warrant the opening of these new shelters the public will be informed. In the meantime no applications for tickets or admission to the shelters will be accepted.
