A thread for mumsnet nerds to talk about the history of the London Underground (aka what's your favourite tube station)

[GetOrfMoiIand]

I spent a happy hour looking at this site www.abandonedstations.org.uk/

The history of the tube is fascinating, and I love travelling on it, it is so atmospheric (apart from when I am commuting within London and then I hate it with a vengeance like any normal person reserving special ire for the wanking Circle line).

Some stations feel really evocative - for instance Lambeth North looks as if it hasn't changed since the second world war.

Thanks portblack - that rayner's lane pic is great and links to a whole directory here which lists all the stations, bridges and walls. It is a great source.

GetOrf - i always seem to end up on your threads...

m.facebook.com/?refsrc=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.co.uk%2Fsearch&_rdr#!/photo.php?fbid=10151043563637086&id=318029037085&set=a.10150996746192086.440670.318029037085&__user=1778424639

Has anyone here been on the Glasgow underground? At least you can't get lost, and it has a ghost station too.

I haven't read the whole thread, so I hope this hasn't come up already - have you seen this quiz?

www.slate.com/blogs/five_ring_circus/2012/07/24/olympics_quiz_british_olympian_or_london_tube_stop_.html

Hi, tube and other railways etc nerd here. Haven't read thread yet, read a brilliant book about the tube last year (borrowed from DF (92), a similar nerd - he won't let us call the Metropolitan or the District 'the tube' as they aren't in tubes), will read thread more thoroughly and see if book is referred to.

Some good photos of part of Notting Hill station untouched for years here

Scroll down and click on the image for more photos.

I love this quote from that site tethers "Mike Ashworth, who is the Design and Heritage Manager for London underground took the photos and says the area will never be open to the public as its very inaccesible - which is probably why its survived untouched for so long. The posters will be left as they are and the room closed up"

Those posters are beautiful.

I have run out of tabs on my phone owing to all the links I have been opening. Great thread :D

Check out the derelictlondon website...... Brilliant!

Yy Olympia, I have wasted spent many hours on that site!

Just looking at all the derelict pubs makes me they had been there years some of them

And the abandoned and empty houses round the north circular. Sad.sad.sad.

Double decker trains here in The Netherlands too. Went from Leiden to The Hague last week and sat upstairs (obviously). And you can take your bike.

Love the clockwork orange, margerykemp thanx for link, which is the gjost station?

When you go through the gates at Leicester Square station to enter the Northern Line, look to the right and you'll see a teeny tiny Alice-In-Wonderland-esque door. Through there is an amazing labyrinth of spiral staircases, tunnels etc. Used to go down there to do a station check. A few staff were spooked but I used to LOVE it! It was like walking a part of history

love this thread.
perhaps not the first to mention it but look out for the ghost station between Hampstead and Golders Green, the station that was built but never used, called Bull and Bush.
Baker St station is superb.

Ohh this thread is not good, made me quite homesick. I'm an ex employee and proper miss some of the real geeks that work on the underground, Mike Ashworth and the heritage people, accessability, timetables, and engineers, happy geeks in their geekdom, I miss them all. Waves at City and Rachel, I was non operational but was privilaged to know many on the front line, heros (both 7/7 and everyday). Anyway as I worked there some time ago some things may have changed.

There's a stream running through Earls Court, you can lift a cover in one of the walkways under the district line tunnels (which are above the picc line) and see the water flowing.

There's a not very secret back exit at West Ken, I think there was an entrance into the flats at Clapham South.

I've walked in the tunnels at night and during engineering works, also entering by South Kentish Town. It was hot, hard to get around because it's not maintained and was full of hot sweaty track workers so not very exciting. Other disused areas can be great fun though, Belsize Park has some excellent places if I remember right.

The office above Chalk Farm was a rentable space, used to be leased to Jay Kay's management, is an amazing shape and that fantastic curved window has a view down Chalk Farm Road to Camden and the city below. Awesome, I wanted to live there.

Baker Street is evocative.

Wow, bit of a latecomer here! (heaves a sigh and happily settles down in Spiritual Home)....Now I've got to think of all the things that I've read over the last 19 pages that I want to comment on....

For those talking about Imber, I believe you can visit in August, when the Army has a holiday from blowing things up. I've always, always wanted to go.

Stop dissing the Paris Metro people! I love that too! For those who think it's not atmospheric, try the elevated lines- parts of the shocking pink one( 4? love their line colours) around Montmartre, notably Barbes- Rochechouart (I think it's the steps in that station that featured in the film Amelie), and the minty-green one south of the river (7?) that gives you an amazing view of the Eiffel Tower. Lovely Belle Epoque ironwork. Also, the entrance and escalators at Saint Michel are almost (almost, I say) are as good as at Westminster. And i like the smell of the Metro! IME, it more often has a kind of....biscuity smell than a smell of wee.

But, to return to the original question, I'd say....Baker Street, for the massive, 1863- vintage yellow brick construction, and 1930s features. Or Canary Wharf or Westminster, if you want to go modern. Embankment ticket hall has an amazing floor- black and white chequered tiles.

Merkland st is the abandoned clockwork orange station.

There's still a wooden escalator at Greenford station.

And at one of the Ruislips IIRC?

Some interesting pics of abandoned railway stations around the world. www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2180156/Spectacular-photographs-abandoned-railway-stations-left-fall-pieces-world.html?ITO=socialnet-twitter-mailonline

I now want to buy an restore a Spanish railway station.

I love love love this thread. Now have a thousand links opened, my laptop is about to explode

The Leinster Gardens story is brilliant. I have only skimmed the thread so far and already know I will do nothing today except wallow in underground memorabilia.

Thank you thank you thank you.

I'm not really an 'art buying' type but I was at a photography exhibition a couple of years ago and bought a print of a fab photo of the disused Aldwych station. The photographer was thrilled because no one else had particularly liked it, but I love it.