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.

[citybranch]

Hahahaha at fanjo, over the intercom!
I've not long been up after last nights 4 am finish.

I do actually really like my job! I feel really lucky. DH is on stations and has applied for the drivers job many times (no luck) and competition for the job is rather fierce. A lot of my colleagues do tend to forget how fortunate we are. i never take the job for granted, I went for the assessments/interview when I was 6 weeks post-partum with unplanned DC1, i was only 23 too so fairly young and in the minority as a female. 6 years on, i still wake up in the morning and feel fortunate. The excellent thing for me is doing something I enjoy with the flexibility to do different shifts which means I can work full time but still spend time with the DC.

Favourite stations? I do particularly like Baker Street and Great Portland Street.

[Cloudbase]

I am in thread heaven!

You might want to check out a very spooky story set on the London Underground called Confidence Trick in this book.

One of my favourite short stories of all time. The book itself is sadly and inexplicably out of print, but is worth getting just for that one story (and lots of other great spooky stories if that's your thing)

Does anyone know any good books about ghosts on the Underground? (I wish to combine geekery with ghosties...)

[kingbeat23]

I have found my spiritual home!

I love being able to judge my london-ness by knowing where to stand on the platform so that I'm directly next to the exit of the station I'm getting off at. My journey from Homerton (on the overground) to Knightsbridge being one of them.

I remember the smoking carriges on the tube and being able to tell different tube lines by the pattern on their seats, the windows that opened to ventilate the tubes and walking carrige to carrige through the interconnecting doors whilst it was still moving.

[GeorginaWorsley]

Christopher Fowler's Bryant and May series deals with 'quirky' aspects of London,underground rivers,abandoned tubestations,etc.
I loved Barbaras Vine's 'King Solomon's Carpet',setaround Underground also.
And I live in the North!

[CJCregg]

Yy, Kingbeat, I used to pride myself on knowing where to stand on platform as well. Sadly I neither live nor work in London any more so I'm starting to forget. Also fondly remember smoking on the tube (second and last carriages) - I would miss a train if I hadn't got on the right one!

I also remember Open Door buttons being a real novelty.

[wriggletto]

Ben Aaronovitch's first two books are also based around spooky London details, like the spirits of lost rivers in Rivers of London, and the jazz clubs/Blitz years in Moon over Soho - he's v good at capturing that sense of ghostly history that clings to the modern city. The hero is a detective constable who just happens to be sensitive to ghosts, spirits, haunting, and so on.

I've been to Imber, a few years ago when it was opened to the public. Sadly there isn't a huge amount to see because the buildings were badly damaged when the Army later used it for training soldiers deployed to Northern Ireland during the Troubles; the houses are mostly shells, but the church is still intact, and I think villagers can still ask to be buried there, so there are some poignant additions to the graveyard. But there's definitely a strange, quiet air hanging over the place.

[FasterHigherBeardierDaddyman]

imber article

Main problem with imber is the bloody ugly 1970s houses built by the mod to train troops in urban combat.

[EugenesAxe]

bruffin - I've put on my profile I photo I took of Crystal Palace station in the snow... will be meagre in comparison to your DH's efforst I'm sure, but I like it. It shows off the red of the wall.

I am about you visiting the subway! My mum was born in Penge and I lived Anerley Park Road for a time, so I have a vague affinity with the place. My grandma gave me this article showing that Penge was the most bombed borough of London (in terms of bombs to m2)... my Dad who loves war history and who is a sensitive sod, said that it was a combination of us slipping the Germans dodgy coordinates or something (basically, they thought they were over central London) and that terrified pilots on bombing raids would bottle and dump their loads over south London when they were scarpering. My grandad once casually told me of a neighbour who had a bomb drop on her while she was waiting at Forest Hill station. It gave me the heebies to think so much destruction had occurred there when I went through blithely on my way to work.

[TeamGBIWI]

When I first started work (in the 1980s, in advertising, wearing power suits with shoulder pads an' all!) I used to get the train from Wimbledon to Waterloo, and then the Bakerloo line to Piccadilly Circus. The trains that ran then (1981) were the old, wooden paneled ones. It always used to make me feel that we were back in Victorian times!

I had a fab public transport fest on Thursday. I took my boys (at the ages of 20 and 17 they deigned to come with me!) to the Olympic park. Our journey was:

Northern Line from South Wimbledon to Embankment
Thames Clipper boat to North Greenwich
Thames Cable car to the 02 peninsula
DLR from Royal Victoria to Stratford
Javenlin train from Stratford International to St Pancras (only 7 minutes!)
... and then back home via the Northern Line.

[kingbeat23]

I love the new Ginger Line(overground) it's brilliant, the trains are light, airy, are walk through and buggy friendly. Most of the stations have been made step free access so is easy for carrying a buggy and bags. I also love the DLR and like to go to the front so I can "drive" the train like a previous poster.

I have lived in various places around london and worked all over it, I think I can say I've lived on all the train lines at one point or another. I know I can bore people with my knowledge of how to go from one end of London to the other, but it can be helpful directing people about I guess.

I grew up at the end of the Northern Line and getting the last trains back from places and having the carriges to ourselves was fantastic, I remember someone managing to open the doors between stations just to sing out of the carrige! :O

There is a brilliant book called Necropolis that talks about Londons Graveyards from the beginnings of the city to modern day, a fab read and noting the Victorian tradition of funerals and all things gothic and macbre, is a fond read for those inclined.

Goml it includes guides around Abney Park Cemetery in Stoke Newington, thanks for this thread!

[kingbeat23]

Also, GBiwi , My BiL works along The Thames in a boat, but I've never been on one of the clippers, are they any good?

[TheSilverPussycat]

I think you lot might like this blog, from a kindred spirit: diamondgeezer.blogspot.co.uk/

[TeamGBIWI]

It was! Mind you, it was a lovely sunny day, so it made it really enjoyable - it was like playing at being on holiday.

What's the Ginger Line?

[bruffin]

Eugeneaxe can't see your photo I think you need to make your profile public or something.

I lived just behind Gypsy Hill station, and then Sydenham Hill in the 80s for about 10 years in all.
If I remember correctly they just opened up the tunnel and the retract group I was a member of got invited down there.
I used to use the line that was a circle route that went though Crystal palace to gypsy hill and loved hearing the peacocks in the park.

[edam]

CJ/Kingbeat, knowing exactly where to stand has been ruined for commuters on First Capital Connect - the ruddy spoilsports have painted lines on the platform edge showing people where the doors will be when the train comes in! Heaven forbid London Transport bosses ever adopt that idea (although the suicide screens on some Jubilee line platforms are a bit of a give-away).

[EugenesAxe]

Sorry bruffin - try now. My local vicar & his family were at Gypsy Hill for a while - Andrew Rumsey.

Such a nice part of London; I also travelled regularly on the Lon Bridge to Victoria loop. If that's what you were referring to!

[kingbeat23]

GBiwi the Ginger Line is a name myself and a friend lovingly call the Overground network. Used to be called the Silverlink - which we had renamed the shittylink or the rustylink.

Edam - Ah but it's more than that, it's knowing which carrige to get in and where to sit/stand so you are directly opposite the exit of the station. I.e. for a westbound Central line train you need to be in the 3rd from last carrige and stand on the left to be next to the interchange/exit at Holborn. When getting on the westbound Piccadilly line you need to be at the end of the train. When getting on the Overground train westbound to Highbury you need to be in the last carrige to be first off the train and up the stairs and then walk all the way down the platform to be on the right carrige for the change at Green Park and then at Green Park you get on the carrige to get off at Knightsbridge! :)

[bruffin]

Thanks Eugene
It's a great picture. You are right it sa the Victoria loop.
I love the history if the area and the lively Victorian houses

[TheSilverPussycat]

Many moons ago I travelled on the V-LB loop to school from Thornton Heath to North Dulwich (change at Tulse Hill).

For alighting (lovely word) at Th Heath, v front of train, for Norbury, at v back. Norbury has long slopes from platform to exit, this is because there used to be a race course nearby, so was for getting the horses out of the station easily.

[edam]

I know, King, but I sometimes choose to be away from the main drag in order to avoid bunching - at King's Cross I deliberately get on the far end of the train (nearest my entrance to the platform) even though it's then a walk at Earl's Court. It is very satisfying when you know exactly where to stand, though. Reverse journey back to King's Cross on the Piccadilly is very irritating because there are exits at both ends of the platform and you get loads of dopey tourists standing around looking puzzled blocking the way. Even if you are right next to the exit you want there will always be a dozen idiots with mahoosive suitcases stood right in the way debating whether they need these escalators or the other ones. We need big signs saying 'if you don't know where to go, STAND TO ONE SIDE and let people who do have a clue get past you'!

[kingbeat23]

Ha ha ha, I used to get a certain type of pride running up the escalators at Holborn thinking I was some kind of weirdo all alone in the world as others were left marvelling in the path of my wonderous knowledge of where to stand, and it seems I was just a thread away from meeting like-minded weirdos individuals!

[TheSilverPussycat]

If memory serves correctly, me and my friends, at age 17, used to skip along the long interchange corridor at Green Park way back in the 1960's

[TheSilverPussycat]

edam I expect you are in a hurry, my DF often stops to help lost tourists though, and I have pointed lost foreigners at Victoria in the direction of the East Croydon trains, as I knew they were likely wanting to go to Lunar House.

[Lilymaid]

Some more nerdy plans and silly maps

Anyone old enough to remember the buffet bar on the Sloane Square Station platform?

[edam]

king

Silver, I'm grumbling here, IRL I do stop and help people who are looking bewildered. I just wish they wouldn't stand in a gaggle of massive suitcases blocking the whole ruddy platform!