Love and carriage Underground

Will Gull and Katie Crammer at beautiful South Woodford



The London Tube system is wrongly thought of as a sterile zone for personal interaction but the Greater London transport map is not called “London Connections” for nothing! Sometimes, on a crowded, sweaty jolting Tube train the personal interaction with an Aussie life support system for an armpit is unwanted but at other times, at those special other times eyes meet across the carriage. For undoubtedly the Underground joins up London and sometimes its claustrophobia facilitates people watching. Maeve Binchy’s novels mine the rich seam of meeting on the Underground. Poems on the Underground acts as a catalyst for romantic interludes and well, people have a tradition of making their own arrangements. So, stations and trains are places of memory and associations, happy and unhappy, for many living and working in London.



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/06/poems-on-underground.html



So in the latest wizz of Cupid’s arrow two people who fell in love on the Underground have returned to the station where they got engaged as a married couple. Love is back on track for newlyweds at South Woodford station. A groom and his young bride returned to South Woodford Tube station in their wedding attire to let staff know they had just got married the day before (7 August) and to thank them.





The Love train



In December 2006 Will Gull and Katie Crammer looked across a crowded Tube carriage, passed each other a note, and fell in love. They began to chat and when they arrived at South Woodford Station they decided to go for a drink in a nearby wine bar, Switch.



Five years ago Mr Gull, then 30, glanced across the carriage and was stunned by Ms Crammer, then 27. He slipped her a note - "I think you are beautiful, from Will," with his mobile number - and she passed back the reply: "You're not so bad yourself, from Katie", also with her number.





Stefanie Schmiedel and Robert Gray’s environmentally friendly wedding travelling by Tube in 2008.



For the next few weeks the pair made calls and texts to each other, but it nearly all went wrong because incredibly they both lost their phones! Luckily they remembered the notes on which they had written their numbers and they got in contact with each other and have been inseparable every since.



Three years after they met Will treated Katie to a birthday meal at the Ivy. They travelled home on the Central line, and when they arrived at South Woodford Will told Katie she must get off because her birthday present was there. He then got down on one knee and proposed to her in front of commuters and station staff.







Katie, from Buckhurst Hill, said: "But for that fateful Tube journey I might never have met Will, fallen in love and married him, so I am very grateful to London Underground. The Central line and South Woodford station where Will proposed might not seem romantic to other people but they are special to me." She added: "Who would ever think an Oyster card would be such an aphrodisiac?" Who indeed!



For more Tube romance (sic) see;



http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/07/do-you-take-this-tube.html

Tube Heritage

St John's Wood Station - The signs say "Bakerloo Line" because originally it was on the Stanmore Branch of the Bakerloo Line which joined the other branch at Baker Street.


St John's Wood escalators 1939


Arnos Grove Station

Sixteen Tube stations were today granted Grade II listed status to protect their architectural heritage. The stations include Oxford Circus, Covent Garden, Aldwych and St John's Wood. The grading will protect station facades, including 100-year-old ornate tiling and brickwork, but allow internal changes for safety measures. Simon Thurley, English Heritage chief executive, said: "They are as valuable to London's architectural story as many more famous buildings like the Houses of Parliament."




Sudbury Town station

The stations include several designed by Leslie Green and have historic and architectural significance, illustrating the development of the capital's transport system as well as pioneering the use of a strong image which is recognised around the world.




Cockfosters Station

The stations given Grade II status are:

• Aldwych
• Belsize Park
• Brent Cross
• Caledonian Road


Caledonian Road

• Chalk Farm
• Chesham
• Covent Garden
• Hendon Central
• Oxford Circus (originally two separate stations on the north-west corner of Argyll Street and Oxford Street, and the north-east corner of Argyll Street and Oxford Street including the office above)


• Perivale
• Redbridge
• Russell Square
• St John's Wood
• West Acton
• Wood Green

Three other stations have had their listing upgraded from Grade II to Grade II*. They are:

• Arnos Grove
• Oakwood
• Sudbury Town

The listed stations include several of the tube stations designed by Leslie Green whose ‘ox-blood’ red tile facades, pioneered the use of a strong and consistent corporate image that’s recognised around the world. All the stations have historic and architectural significance, illustrating the development of the capital’s Underground system.


Arnos Grove ticket hall with Passimeter


Escalators with bronze uplighters

The Directors of London Underground in the 20s and 30s saw good design as good for business. By the example it set under Frank Pick the Underground was gradually able to change the public’s attitude to railway stations which had been seen as shabby and inhospitable places. Sir Nicholas Pevsner wrote that Pick saw in every detail a “visual propaganda” and he used this not only to improve the Underground but the environment as a whole. Charles Holden brought the Underground station to the forefront of modern architecture: This achievement is unequalled by any other transport company before or since.

As the Guardian Newspaper's Architectural correspondent (and former London Transport management trainee) Jonathan Glancey observed;

“The first of Charles Holden's tube stations for Frank Pick was Sudbury Town, on the Piccadilly line, opened in 1931. There had been nothing like this distinctly modern yet well-crafted building in Britain before. With typical modesty, Holden, a retiring, teetotal, vegetarian Quaker draper's son from Bolton, Lancashire, chose to describe his first modern masterpiece as "a brick box with a concrete lid. Possibly, just possibly, Holden meant something more.



I can't help thinking that this truly great and still under-rated English architect was thinking of Inigo Jones (1573-1652), who had instigated a revolution in British architecture in the reign of James I when he designed the country's first truly classical buildings. When his client Francis Russell, Earl of Bedford, asked Jones to add a chapel "as cheap as a barn" to his smart residential development built around the new Covent Garden piazza, the architect replied "then you shall have the handsomest barn in England". Sudbury Town station is surely transport design's equivalent of St Paul's, Covent Garden.”


Covent Garden Station 1907

“Tube stations are great examples of the capital’s hidden heritage,” said Heritage Minister John Penrose. “Although listing does not mean these stations will remain unchanged for all time, it does mean that any redevelopment plans will have to take the sites’ heritage value into account, which seems entirely right and will ensure the best of design is preserved for the future.”


55, Broadway - London Underground's iconic HQ built in 1929 in the "airspace" above St. James's Park Station

For more on the architect Charles Holden see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/11/holden-goes-underground.html

For more on London Underground’s Grade 1 listed iconic HQ, 55, Broadway, see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/04/give-my-regards-to-55-broadway.html

For the history of London Underground and one of the world’s Great Railway Journeys see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-circle-line-journey.html

Though we take it for granted, and frequently curse it to high heaven, the London Underground is a wonder. The Tube network is the oldest and longest underground railway system serving a major city. Its history goes back to 1863, its conception even earlier.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/10/londons-wunderground.html


Aldwych Tube Station with the tiling showing the original name "Strand"

People in London also used tube stations during the Blitz. They would buy a platform tickets and camp on the platforms for the night. Sheltering in the tube was popular because it was dry, warm and quiet down there. The government was afraid that the overcrowded platforms would disrupt the movement of troops and tried to stop the public from using the tube stations as shelters. The people refused to give them up and the government was forced to back down. In some cases underground stations were closed down and given over to the public to use during air raids.

For the unique place which is Aldwych Tube Station and its role in the Blitz see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/11/blitz-on-underground.html

For more see ARCHIBLOGS, TUBE BLOGS and TRANSPORT BLOGS in the Blog sidebar >>>>>

Victoria Line; Out with the old, in with the new!

It may seem an implausible tale to tell today but when the Victoria Line opened in 1968 it was the greatest thing to happen to London in a very long time and represented the cutting edge of technology! It had dramatic looking automatically controlled trains with gleaming bodies with a tapered front, no driver side doors and unpainted brushed aluminium bodies.


Victoria Line 1967 Stock with the brushed aluminium skin

Amazingly it still had the first trains, known as 1967 Stock, which operated on the original line. Now after 43 years and millions of miles later these are being replaced. The 1967 Tube Stock was designed specifically for the Victoria Line. It was the first train in the world to be specially designed for a fully automatic railway designed from scratch.



Original 67 Stock interior


The line is equipped with an Automatic Train Operation system (ATO); the train operator (driver) closes the train doors and presses a pair of "start" buttons, and if the way ahead is clear, the ATO drives the train at a safe speed to the next station and stops it there. This system has operated since the line opened in 1968, making the Victoria line the world's first full-scale automatic railway.


Trains being produced at Derby: the Class 378 Electrostar for London Overground, the S-stock MOVIA for London Underground's SubSurface Lines and the MOVIA metro for London Underground's Victoria Line.

After 43 years in service the '67 stock Victoria Line trains are being replaced. 30th June 2011 was the last scheduled serviced, for two trips between Seven Sisters and Brixton. The videos offer comparisons between the 1967 Stock (so called because it entered service in 1968!) and the replacement 2009 Stock (so called because it entered service in 2010!)

For the full story of the Victoria Line see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2011/04/onwards-to-victoria.html

The London Bombings

Six years ago today four bombers brought death and carnage to London's transport system. The attacks by four suicide bombers on the London Transport system on 7th July 2005 were the largest mass murder in Britain in peacetime killing 52 passengers on The Tube and on the No. 30 bus at Tavistock Square and injuring 800 more, many seriously.

The victims are not forgotten

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/07/remembering-london-bombings.html

Single to Totenschinken Hofstrasse, bitte

Click on the map for a larger image

I’m grateful to Ross Lydall of the London Evening Standard for the heads up on what the London Underground map may have looked like if Germany had won WWII. Never mind the map of Europe, this is how the map of the London Underground could have been redrawn if the Germans had won, or would it? An Austrian university librarian has imagined how the Tube network would look if we all spoke German, renaming the capital's 270 stations from Heidenreihe (Heathrow) to Hahnenzuchter (Cockfosters).



Horst Prillinger has used a mixture of wit and linguistic dexterity - Heidenreihe most accurately translates as "heathen row" while Hahnenzuchter could be read as "chicken farmer" - in adapting the station names. Mr Prillinger said the map had translations that preserved the meaning of the English words, such as Burnt Oak becoming Verbrannte Eiche, and "deliberate misunderstandings".

While the suffix "ham" means "home", he translated it as the meat, so West Ham becomes Westschinken. Here is Horst’s website;

http://homepage.univie.ac.at/horst.prillinger/metro/english/network_maps.html



For the history of Mr. Beck’s iconic London Underground Map see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/11/mapping-world.html

Der Untergrund

Die Linien, Bahnhöfe und Zonen von London Underground, London Overground und Docklands Light Railway (DLR). Als Klassiker des Designs macht die U-Bahn-Karte das Fahren im Londoner U-Bahn-Netz denkbar einfach. Diese übersichtliche Karte enthält einen Schlüssel zu allen eingezeichneten Stationen sowie die 6 Gebührenzonen.


Click on the map for a larger image

For more see TUBE BLOGS and TRANSPORT BLOGS in the Blog sidebar >>>>>

Ghost Tubes

A constant source of fascination and speculation to Londoners is the “Ghost Tube.” This is not the tube system at weekends but the unused stations and tunnels under London’s streets. There are 40 disused or abandoned Tube stations out there and some have found alternative uses – South Kentish Town is a massage parlour, Marlborough Road was a Chinese restaurant and Aldwych is often used for movies and has hosted a recent exhibition on the 70th Anniversary of the London Blitz during which it gave distinguished service.





Click on maps for larger image

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/11/blitz-on-underground.html

The system has many former stations, while others were planned but not opened. Services to some former stations ended when they were closed because they had too few passengers to make their retention worthwhile; some stations became redundant after lines were rerouted or replacements were constructed; others are no longer served by the Underground, but remain open to National Rail main line services. Many stations were planned as parts of new lines or extensions to existing ones, but were later abandoned without having been opened.



Some closed stations retain their original station building, converted for other uses or abandoned, while others have been demolished and their sites redeveloped. A number of stations, while still open, have closed platforms or sections, such as the Jubilee Line platforms at Charing Cross. The interiors and platforms of closed stations are among parts of the London Underground available for filming purposes.





The retro website Retronaut has picked up on Penney Design’s modified Tube art, which has redrawn old transport maps with new “ghost” symbols for long lost stations like North Weald and Ongar.

“Ghost-stations are those which are closed and disused. Many remain fairly intact and some even feature time capsule-like qualities, such as WWII propaganda posters hanging from the platform walls.”

- Penney Design

All map images (c) Penney Design.

Have a look at their site;

http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/2010/07/ghost-station-tube-maps/

An invaluable source of information on London’s abandoned Underground stations is Hywel Williams Underground History site;

http://underground-history.co.uk/front.php

For info on a whole underground railway abandoned under London see my Blog on London’s Other Underground;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/08/londons-other-underground.html

For details and a rather amusing video of an abandoned extension to the Northern Line see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/01/northern-heights.html

As part of BBC Radio 4's "London: Another Country?" season, London Underground's David Leboff offers a guided tour round St Mary's in East London, one of the tube network's least well-known or visited disused stations.



This video takes you on a visual journey through Aldwych, a closed station on a now defunct branch of the Piccadilly Line.

Onwards to Victoria!

Victoria Line 1967 Stock with the brushed aluminium skin

It may seem an implausible tale to tell today but when the Victoria Line opened in 1968 it was the greatest thing to happen to London in a very long time and represented the cutting edge of technology! It had dramatic looking automatically controlled trains with gleaming bodies with a tapered front, no driver side doors and unpainted brushed aluminium bodies. It was the first new deep tube line to be built across Central London since 1907 and the first major investment in the Tube since the Second World War – that’s over 29 years! It is also the only truly “underground” Underground Line with only its Depot at Northumberland Park being above ground and every station (except Pimlico, which was a late addition) is an interchange station.


Original 67 Stock interior

It looks different today as the graffiti plague which began in 1984 put paid to the somewhat beautiful brushed aluminium skin on the trains, the short sighted budgetary cuts during construction compromised the utility of the line later and it is a victim of its own success with crowded trains and at Victoria the Underground’s busiest station with over 71 million passengers a year. You have to ask, where did all these people go before the Victoria Line was built? Its very success shows how much it has contributed to London’s economy since it first opened.


Victoria Line Route - Click for larger image

Amazingly it still has the first trains, known as 1967 Stock, which operated on the original line. Now after 43 years and millions of miles later these are being replaced and the London Transport Museum is organising a special Railtour on the 15th May to mark the passing of these remarkable trains. The line is equipped with an Automatic Train Operation system (ATO); the train operator (driver) closes the train doors and presses a pair of "start" buttons, and if the way ahead is clear, the ATO drives the train at a safe speed to the next station and stops it there. This system has operated since the line opened in 1968, making the Victoria line the world's first full-scale automatic railway. It is worth remembering in these days of Outsourcing (a process where a company gives its brain away and then pays double to get it back!) that the design and testing both of the trains and signalling system was done in house by London Underground with great success. These trains were also used for the new stock on the Piccadilly and Bakerloo Lines.


1967 Stock - National Railway Museum, York

But more than that the trains were unique for despite the budgetary cut backs which resulted in a somewhat drab grey and blue tiled interior each station had individual tiled designs commissioned from artists in the seat recesses to represent the history of the locality.


Warren Street Motif: Warren, by Alan Fletcher.


The line's origins can be traced back to the Second World War when it was included in the 1943 County of London Plan. The constraints of the war years and the subsequent re-organisation and nationalisation of London's transport caused the plan to be postponed, and Parliamentary Powers to build the line were not obtained until 1955. Further delays in obtaining funds meant that actual construction work did not start until 1962.


Euston Motif: original Euston railway station Doric arch by Tom Eckersley.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2009/09/euston-arch.html

The Victoria Line runs for 13 miles from Walthamstow Central at its northern end to Brixton in the south. It was opened in sections, north terminus first, between 1968 and 1971, and so the Victoria Line sections of all these stations date from then. The first section was built between Finsbury Park and Manor House, but after testing was complete and the rest of the tunnels were completed, it was decided not to open a set of Victoria Line platforms at Manor House.


Blackhorse Road Motif: Black Horse by Hans Unger

The Victoria Line was built to relieve congestion on other lines, and so some of the interchanges were designed to minimise walking distance. This was done by either building the new tunnels next to the existing ones, or by swapping which line used which platform. The effect is that several interchanges allow you to continue a journey in the same direction, that is to say change from one northbound or southbound platform to the other, by walking about ten metres. The exception is Euston, where instead the northbound Victoria platform is intimately linked to the southbound Northern line (Bank branch) platform and vice versa. These platform-level interchanges of the Victoria line can be seen on a track layout diagram.




Refurbished 1967 Stock - Painted exterior and refurbished interior

As a theoretical rough guide, trains take two minutes to pass from each station to the next, and with 16 stations on the line it takes just over half an hour to travel from Walthamstow to Brixton. However, due to extended stops in tunnels and at stations, trains can take twice that time to make the entire journey. The Victoria Line was the world's first automatic passenger railway, and the drivers simply operate the doors and then press the start button.


Tottenham Hale Station - An interchange for the Stansted Express


Tottenham Hale Motif: Ferry across the River Lea, by Edward Bawden

The Victoria line is a deep-level London Underground line running from the south (Zone 2) to the north-east (Zone 3) of London. It is coloured light blue on the Tube map and, in terms of the average number of journeys per mile, is the busiest line on the network. It is the only line on the Underground, except for the two-station Waterloo & City line, that is operated entirely underground, the only section of track to emerge above ground being the part from Seven Sisters to the line's depot at Northumberland Park.


Seven Sisters Motif: Seven elm trees, by Hans Unger

The line has hump-backed stations which allow trains to store gravitational potential energy as they slow down and release it when they leave a station. This provides an energy saving of 5% and makes the trains run 9% faster. 183 million passengers use the Victoria line each year making it the fourth busiest line on the network. Overcrowding has been a big issue on the Victoria Line and is almost inevitable given the station interchanges on the line. If the moribund Chelsea–Hackney line were to be built it would relieve a lot of congestion on the Victoria line, offering an alternative route across Central London between Victoria and King's Cross St. Pancras.


Brixton Motif: A ton of bricks, by Hans Unger.


Victoria Line's southern terminus at Brixton

When the Victoria line was constructed, severe budget restrictions were imposed and as a result the station infrastructure standards were lower than on older lines and on later extension projects. Examples of these lower standards include narrower than usual platforms and undecorated ceilings at Walthamstow Central, Blackhorse Road and Tottenham Hale, adversely affecting lighting levels. At most stations there is still a concrete staircase between the up and down escalators, where an additional escalator could be installed. The lack of a third escalator can cause severe congestion at peak times. However in recent years an additional escalator has been installed in place of the fixed stairway at Brixton (2004) and Vauxhall (2006). The line was originally to go to Wood Street (Walthamstow) but this was dropped to reduce the budget at a late stage.


Leaf motif; Green Park

The oldest group of tube stock is the 1967/72 type. The 1967 Tube Stock was introduced for the opening of the Victoria Line with automatic train operation (ATO). Although the car body was to the same general dimensions as the earlier tube stocks, there were a number of differences in style and layout such as wrap-round cab windows, double-glazed passenger windows and the provision of all-longitudinal seats in the trailer cars. Cabs were not provided with side doors for safety reasons.


Vauxhall Motif: Old Vauxhall Pleasure Gardens by George Smith


Highbury & Islington Motif: Highbury House, by Edward Bawden

The 1972 Stocks, consisting of two versions known as MkI and MkII, were 7-car versions of the 8-car 1967 Stock. They were designed to operate on manually driven lines with a possible future conversion to automatic operation in mind. They never had this fitted but the MkII stock is now working on the Bakerloo Line under One-Person Operation with manual driving. The Mark I version has been disbanded but some cars have been used to supplement the Victoria and Bakerloo fleets following suitable conversion.


Trains being produced at Derby: the Class 378 Electrostar for London Overground, the S-stock MOVIA for London Underground's SubSurface Lines and the MOVIA metro for London Underground's Victoria Line.

The 1967 Stock is now being replaced with new 2009 Stock. The 2009 stock is a type of London Underground train built by Bombardier Transportation as part of their Movia family at their Litchurch Lane Works in Derby, England. Forty-seven 8-car units are being built for the Victoria line, replacing the original 1967 Tube Stock.


Victoria Line Northern terminus at Walthamstow Central






Walthamstow Central Motif: William Morris design, by Julia Black

Construction of the new trains is on-going and rollout will continue until 2011, when all 1967 Stock trains will have been replaced. The first 2009 Stock train entered passenger service on 21 July 2009 and a new train is now entering service every two weeks. The Victoria Line trains are now effectively in "one in, one out" mode, meaning that as soon as an 09 is dropped off at Northumberland Park depot, a 67 is sent to be scrapped by Booths from Acton Works.

The '67 stock has been running on the Victoria line for 43 years since the line opened in 1968. It will be decommissioned this summer as part of the Victoria line upgrade. To mark this historic event there will be a special offline tour on Sunday 15 May. Victoria line General Manager John Doyle said:

"The tour is an exciting and unusual event. It will be the first and last time passengers can travel by '67 stock on the District, Piccadilly and Metropolitan lines. The tour marks the end of more than 40 years of sterling service given to London by the '67 stock and any money we are able to make from the tour will be donated to the Railway Children charity."


2009 Stock at Euston

So what’s so special about the 1967 Stock Railtour? First; because it is the first time passengers have been conveyed by ’67 stock on the Piccadilly, District and Metropolitan lines. Last; because it will never happen again! This unique tour marks the end of more than 40 years of sterling service given to London by the '67 stock.

The train will leave Seven Sisters on 15th May at 10:13 and return at approximately 16:00, taking the following route:

Seven Sisters platform 4 – Northumberland Park staff platform
Northumberland Park staff platform – Uxbridge via Finsbury Park and Rayners Lane
Uxbridge – Barons Court siding via Rayners Lane and Acton Town
Barons Court siding – Ealing Broadway via Acton Town
Ealing Broadway – Seven Sisters via Acton Town and Finsbury Park

Tickets

Tickets are priced at £30, with all profits going to the Railway Children Charity. Please note that as this is a full day trip, with limited comfort breaks available, we do not recommend that children are brought on the tour. However, if you do wish to bring children on the trip, the prices are: 0-5 yrs – Free and Under 16’s - £15 (all children MUST be accompanied by an adult).


Ticket issued on 1 September 1968, the first day of service of the Victoria line

For tickets, please contact London Transport Museum bookings office on 020 7565 7298 or Book Online;

http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk


Stockwell Motif: The Swan, representing the nearby pub, by Abram Games


Victoria Motif: Blue cameo of Queen Victoria on pink background by Edward Bawden

So farewell to the unique Design Icon which is the 1967 Stock. Hopefully with the new trains, the upgraded signalling and the “new stations” due at Victoria, Euston and Oxford Circus the Victoria Line will regain some of the admiration it enjoyed on opening in 1968 as the first new tube line in London in 61 years.

For the history of the Tube see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/01/great-circle-line-journey.html

And see "TUBE BLOGS" in the Blog sidebar >>>>>>>>>>>>