On 30 Sep, 00:35, Mizter T wrote:
On Sep 29, 4:28*pm, Roy Badami wrote:

On 29/09/10 14:36, Mizter T wrote:

There's a rather dark side to the passageway though, which doesn't
really match up with it's smiley façade.

What kind of dark side? *Rather more dreary decor? *Dangerous to walk
down at night? *Literally dark, as in lacking illumination?

I was a bit hazy on the details, so I've just taken the opportunity to
look at an authoritative source - the Fennell Report into the King's
Cross fire. This is available on the Railways Archive website as a PDF
(which is text searchable) - see:
http://www.railwaysarchive.co.uk/eventsummary.php?eventID=138

What follows is just my interpretation based on a pretty quick and
distinctly incomplete scan through of the full report, so please don't
take it as gospel.

On the night of the fire, one member of LU staff redirected some
passengers to this passageway leading to the Midland City exit so as
to escape from the fire, but unbeknown to him it was blocked by locked
gates - these passengers then returned and some understandably gave
him some stick.

Why didn't they direct anyone to the northern line's emergency stairs?
They still seem to be there (behind aluminium slats on a narrow door
on each of the platforms), even now after all this building work. And
they would have lead outside the ticket hall area back then.

Or the piccadilly line stairs (assuming they are still there after the
victoria line was built - the lobby is certainly still there).?

What's the point of having emergency stairs if they are ignored when
there's an emergency.