tube stations

Golders Green - because the platforms are outdoors, a nice view of suburbia. The awnings around the roof are arrowed, white-painted wooden slats from the Twenties. This detail reminds me of The Railway Children and other cosy children's books where urchins wait for steam trains to take them to adventures (Box of Delights, Narnia & c.). The effect is especially strong in winter when you're waiting for a train in your coat and scarf and breathing vapour into the cold air.

South Ken - love the art deco feel, with the lead pewter frontages, and built-in market.

Gloucester Road - I like the art they commission there. Big modern sculptures.

From the inside: Bermondsey (huge great big concrete blocks *and* pretty foliage!)

The worst, by a mile, and in every way I can think of, is Bond Street.

Of open tube stations the New Jubbly Line ones (Canada Water & Canary Wharf) are magnificent space age things of joy, whilst Arnos Grove is Art Deco Heaven.

I honestly can't think of my favourite tube station. I will have to give this some more thought. Some of the district line stations are rather charming out to the (EEESH) west.

Tom, I do think you meant Park Royal. Maybe that is my favourite tube station too, because it is next to an arcade with THE FIRST MIX OF DANCE DANCE REVOLUTION! O Boom Boom Dollar how I love thee.

Actual station itself though, I like the new Jubilee line ones, particularly Canary wharf and Bermondsey (I think)

Bad ones = dollis Hill (nasty and grubby) Baker street (smells of wee)

Earl's Court is rubbish apart from the ace train indicator light boxen. Park Royal is great from outside, but I've never been in it. White City has a certain amount of charm as well.

Flash forward a few years, Sarah is drunk and swaying at Earls Court station. Train to Ealing Broadway! Where is a Wimbledon train? Sarah slumps to the floor and starts drunkenly crying. Actually, YEAH DAMMIT! I HATE EARLS COURT!

Ricky T: similar (if slightly nearer) two-station tomfoolery at Edgware Road. When you are the King, which Shepherd's Bush will you rename, and (urgent & key question) what will it be called?

I luurrrrrve the DLR.

Or we could rename one station Eyepatch and the other one Treasure In The Hold. Howabout that?

Holborn and Tottenham Court Road both have nifty tricks like this with save mucho time.

Whoever mentioned Colindale: yep, one of my favourite outlying stations. The Central Line Shepherd's Bush has some truly wonderful 1920s posters of the "come to lovely rural Twickenham" stripe. Earl's Court is fabulous. I have too many fond memories of the Charing Cross and Embankment areas to say a word against those stations.

Most thoroughly uninteresting, overheated and dull: Leicester Square and Tottenham Court Road.

Imagine the panic and screaming horror when residents of Fulham/Highbury/Gentrified Hackney realise they might inadvertently be going south of the river.

'we're getting off at Tottenham Court Road, just to be safe'

Think the river has been removed and added a few times over the years. Overall I prefer its presence to its absence

Removing the river has allowed them to straighten some of the lines.

Lots of other little changes here if you're interested: http://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html#1376769898974718124

Diamond Geezer is your go-to-guy for any Tube map queries.

Max Roberts in that comment thread is author of this book: http://privatewww.essex.ac.uk/~mjr/underground/underground.html

That website ticks most of my nerdometer boxes.

tards

this is really cool: seems like a lot of the pre-Beck tube maps didn't have the thames, either.

http://places.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=11287

A very interesting read, thanks.

In case anyone didn't already know, Boris is going to announce Tube fare increases on Thursday.

So the Circle Line is no longer going to be a circle?!?!?

http://londonist.com/2009/11/circle_line_uncircling_set_for_dece.php

I've never done the whole circle line.

I should probably get around to doing it within the next few weeks, or I never will.

It's becoming the Spiral Line!

AARGTFGGGGHHHH... stuck in a downward spiral line?

It's not quite as exciting as you might think. A bit like going over the top on a paternoster lift for instance.

I don't understand the point of this at all. I mean this entirely served by existing stations, unless you want to take a really long stupid route from Hammersmith to, say, Westminster or something.

The London Underground? Doing something useless and needlessly complicated and redundant which serves no purpose at all except to confuse people? NEVER!

I don't understand the point of this at all. I mean this entirely served by existing stations, unless you want to take a really long stupid route from Hammersmith to, say, Westminster or something.

Well, yeah. But the point is that the stations aren't well served by trains. Having spent far more time than I would like on the platform at Westbourne Park waiting for an H&C train, I'm quite looking forward to this.

so is the "H&C line" no more?

so why don't they just...increase the number of h&c trains?

Presumably the H&C will stay as well for that journey eastwards? Especially for the ease of getting from Liverpool Street to Aldgate East, which is a nightmare of ringroads and poor crossings on foot.

so why don't they just...increase the number of h&c trains?

^^^^^^^^^^^^ this would seem to me the most sensible option?

I came up with a sage and reasonable explanation of why this is not the most sensible option but now I can't remember what it was. So let's just accept it, eh?

Surely, increasing the number of H&C trains is more sensible - going west from Aldgate East is terrible, not likely to get better it seems.

Actually, going from Liverpool Street to Aldgate East is now the only possible justification for the Hammersmith & City Line - everything else will be replicated by the Circle, District or Metropolitan Lines.

Bloody east London olympic people! Want to de-West London the tube net work! Sad news :(

Surely, increasing the number of H&C trains is more sensible - going west from Aldgate East is terrible, not likely to get better it seems.

Remembered my explanation! They can't introduce more H&C trains because although there's loads of room between Hammersmith and Paddington, once the Metropolitan and Circle lines join it, the track is pretty much at capacity. This way all they're doing is increasing the number of trains on that particular stretch of track without affecting the overall quantity which they don't have room for.

Maybe.

no, that's what i figure too. there's three different lines on the same track! i've always thought that was madness.

The long-rumoured plan for a potential divorce of the Northern line has apparently been confirmed by the man in charge of the route.

The idea, which has existed since at least TfL's Transport 2025 document (released 2006), is to have two, distinct lines: one running from Edgware to Kennington (and possibly beyond to Battersea) via Charing Cross, the other from High Barnet to Morden via Bank. The current cross-dressing at Camden Town, where the lines flip over each other, would come to an end, meaning that if, say, you were travelling from Archway to Embankment, you would need to change at Camden. Same goes if your trip runs from Hampstead to Old Street.

Responding to questions by a Lib Dem parliamentary candidate, Northern line general manager Pat Hansberry confirmed that TfL plans to split the line for the evening rush hour by the end of the decade, and said that the system was already being implemented for northbound trains in the morning.

I'm sure they have their reasons. Would love to know what they are. They stopped doing the northbound switch at Kennington - all trains from Morden now go via Bank, Charing X served solely by the loopback from Waterloo. Fortunately i don't live at Kennington any more and don't go through it much, otherwise i'd find it hugely irritating.

I got a Northern Line train yesterday from TCR to Stockwell, so they do still occasionally run through (but that's maybe not what you meant).

yeah it's only northbound they're segregated. although that should mean charing x branch gets fewer trains, if some southband charing x trains still go all the way ... i'm only ever there in the evenings, perhaps it's time dependent. can't find any info on tfl.

can barely call myself a tube nerd with the lack of knowledge i'm displaying here tbh

Dammit, that would mean I wouldn't be able to get a direct train into work. Though hopefully it would do something to clear up the terrible congestion between Camden and Euston.

Should do as most of the congestion is caused by the crossover. Loads of people on every train changing at Camden isn't going to be much fun though.

http://britton.disted.camosun.bc.ca/punch_cartoon.gif

http://britton.disted.camosun.bc.ca/punch.html

live train map of the london underground:

http://traintimes.org.uk/map/tube/

Far better than the Paris Metro, on that the stops are too close together and the train looks like a little car

Never been on any undergrounds apart from those two though - anyone else? How does the New York one compare?

new york subway is dirty but relatively reliable. chicago's el train is great, though not always underground. my one trip on DC's subway, water was leaking from the train ceiling via the overhead lighting onto a chair across from me.

The tube in Athens is fantastic.

(Athens, Greece. Olympic legacy in action.)

Barcelona is great and cool and air conditioned.

The above link shows the Jubilee Line atm at a standstill from Canary Wharf to Waterloo. So it's accurate then.

Is Barcelona's an Olympic underground too?

It began operating in the 1920s I think. I'm not sure how much updating was done with Olympic money. After years of sweltering in the London tube between May and September, I was just really, really taken by how cool it was.

The Glasgow subway is freezing and that opened in 1896.

The London tube is cold between 6-7 am btw Oct and April.

The Glasgow subway is freezing and that opened in 1896.

― Madchen, Friday, July 19, 2013 5:32 PM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm always a bit freaked out by the amount of water sloshing round the tracks/platforms on the glasgow underground

I grew up with the Liverpool underground - which was fine and worked pretty well. It's only about 4 stations but I never cared about the heat. I think it's an age thing.

Normally find the tube-maps-with-different-things-on-them meme a bit tired, but thought this was actually interesting:

http://usvsth3m.com/post/52135944891/ghost-stations-of-the-london-underground-on-the-classic

Bilbao's underground system is nice.