The station was situated in a deep cutting. The double tunnel in the centre of the picture (the Wapping tunnel) goes down to the Wapping dock on the waterfront. The tunnel to the right goes up to the original passenger terminus at Crown street. The entrance to the left went only to a store, created for symmetry; later a double tunnel curving up to Crown Street over the Wapping tunnel was created here in the 1840s. The two large chimneys, nicknamed the "Pillars of Hercules", took the smoke from two stationary engines that were used to haul wagons back up from the docks in a cable railway arrangement, as the incline was too steep for the earliest locomotives. Between the two central tracks can be seen the endless rope that the wagons were attached to, to achieve this.