Elephant and Castle - Fire

Malevolence said:
OK, allow me to rephrase. Why would they allow businesses that are of a higher fire risk, like motor mechanics, to operate under a railway line?
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Can't find the article on it but I do recall National Rail conducting a review/study of the type of businesses in arches for this reason exactly.

They also have less control over the arches after selling off a bunch of them to private investors.
 
Malevolence said:
Why would they allow businesses to operate underneath a railway line in the first place? Seems to be asking for trouble.

O8CUvK7.jpg
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Applying some critical thinking what are the other options?

Fill in all the arches under bridges at great expense whilst probably causing severe issues if you ever need to maintain the existing arches as you have now blocked access to most of their previously exposed surfaces ...

Leave them unused and susceptible to vandalism, fly tipping, abandoned vehicles and other criminal mischief that may in and or itself pose a significant fire risk

Or

Utilise the high value space for businesses whilst accepting there will be some risk from this but there isn't really a preferable and cost effective alternative?
 
Malevolence said:
OK, allow me to rephrase. Why would they allow businesses that are of a higher fire risk, like motor mechanics, to operate under a railway line?
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Because things like "motor mechanics" often aren't much of a higher risk than many other businesses, and may be less of a risk than some you might be surprised about as for example a car repair place might be a slightly higher fire risk under some circumstances when specific work is being done, but that will be offset by the fact that you'll have staff present and actively involved with training and fire fighting equipment handy, as opposed to say a nice safe brickabrack, clothing or paint shop where you might have huge amounts of flammable material that is left unattended often with electrical equipment running all the time or heat sources that are near the flammable materials and out of sight of staff.
IIRC the biggest risk of a car mechanics workshop is a fire during welding, or improperly stored materials, the welding risk is relatively small if basic safety practices are followed (and most places will, if just because setting fire to a customers car tends to cost them), whilst the material storage is not much worse than many other types of business.

Railway/bridge arches are also typically by nature highly resistant to fire because they're solid brick/stone so any fire is going to be pretty well contained and unlikely to spread easily, even in the photo you posted the flame is basically going up the external side of the bridge and probably unlikely to have caused much damage to the railway.

As Caracus2k says, you hire out the space and it means that you offset the cost of maintaining the structure and basically outsource a good part of the security for it. I suspect the railways would much rather the occasional risk of disruption due to a fire at a business in one of their arches than the constant ongoing cost of clearing them out and the sort of uncontrolled fire risks you get from leaving them unused and available for dumping/people deliberately starting fires in them.
 
Malevolence said:
Why would they allow businesses to operate underneath a railway line in the first place? Seems to be asking for trouble.
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Aren't businesses like this kind of the archetypal railway arch occupants?

This one is under the railway line about 100m from my apartment:

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I wouldn't know. Are they? I've been to London three times in my entire life, and in those three times I'd guess that I've spent less than 12 hours out and about. It just seems to be asking for trouble to me.
 
Plenty in Birmingham.

Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft held small events in them over years when launching new consoles.
 
Malevolence said:
OK, allow me to rephrase. Why would they allow businesses that are of a higher fire risk, like motor mechanics, to operate under a railway line?
Click to expand...

Probably because stone or brick railway arches aren't highly combustible like a tower block? I believe their usage became common place after the Blitz when standing commercial structures were at a premium in big cities.
 
I used to regularly have my car serviced at a garage in a railway arch, it's nothing unusual at all.
 
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