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Post by theblackferret on Aug 10, 2014 19:59:02 GMT
Looks like these were written between 1892-94.
Watkin resigned all his positions in 1894 & retired to Wales-well, he was 74 & the GCR Bill had finally been passed in Parliament in 1893.
The reference to caving in St John's Wood implies it was after the scheme to extend the last bit into Marylebone by buying Lords cricket ground was shelved(wonder why? ) and it was decided to tunnel under the Nursery Ground end of it instead, which was part of the amended bill passed by Parliament, but didn't actually happen until 1897.
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 8, 2014 21:47:37 GMT
I guess the connection is they all stand on the site of former closed mainline rail stations, possibly ones all opened by the GER.
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 7, 2014 20:47:12 GMT
Thanks everybody-fascinating replies so far. Keep 'em coming!!
I remember losing a filling to Toffets when I still had teeth--------
Poppets I remember in orange, mint & mixed boxes flavours-yes, all often half-empty
Bar Six in a Chelsea/Royal blue wrapper??
As for when they FIRST appeared: Herewith from JE Connor's London's Disused Underground Stations, LORDS(closed 1939):
However, if you can find the blasted station name in all that advertising, It didn't change FROM St John's Wood Rd to St John's Wood until 1925, so the penny chocolate slot machines were there before 1925-the photo is London Transport Museum copyright, so I can't guess when it was taken, but after 1912, when The Blue Hall Cinema,194 Edgware Road, was opened.
And I hope, johnw, if you sheltered in the Tubes during the War, you didn't have to go to Aldwych on Sundays during October-December 1940, otherwise you might have been part of a captive audience to Mr George Formby in concert.
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 6, 2014 22:06:39 GMT
Weighing machines were also prevalent. Yes, indeed.
The question is not so much whether they worked, as to who on Earth needed to know that information, especially on a public place such as a Tube platform, presumably in a not very long interval before one's train came. Bit like pondering why birds migrate, but then there is usually a good explanation for that one-birds have common sense.
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 6, 2014 20:58:29 GMT
I bet one of our erudite company has written a book on it, but if not.......
Personally, I can remember these from 1964-79 roughly, after which I had less time to keep my eyes open on the little things when on the Underground.
I can remember a lot of platforms had these, so any stations you can remember that did would be happily received on this thread.
Also think a few ticketing areas had them, mainly where the booking windows were mostly shut so the stations or entrances were lightly trafficked, as they said. Again, anyone who can name those that had them here, thanks.
Do NOT remember any on the way to the trains ie in subways or on side walls at the foot of escalator banks. Am definitely willing to be contradicted here, but thought they were the last place they'd be wanted, by management or punters!
Right, as to what they vended, I remember mainly chocolate, and:
1s or 5p, later 2/- or 10p for Cadbury's Fruit & Nut or Dairy Milk, Tiffin, Wrigley's Green or White packets of chewing gum, Smith's crisps when they finally went ready-salted and branched into Cheese and Onion etc, KP's salted peanuts in blue packs, Sun-pat's in clear packs & somebody's mixed nuts & raisins, plus Polos & Extra-Strong Mints.
So, was it only food, or do any of you recall anywhere that did drink, be that milk, Coke, Fanta or Fosters?
And where there ever cigarette machines on the Tube? I didn't start smoking until 1966 & in the early days usually purchased the traditional 5 flat-pack+ & book of matches at the offie or newsagent nearest to the embarkation station, so one returned home fagless and smelling of peppermints to Mum & Dad, who were never fooled, anyway, so was not looking for them on the Tube.
Finally, were there ever, or are there still, snack & drink vending machines on platforms, vide any hotel lobby or hospital corridors/waiting areas? I'd like to think that those who felt the need for a Pot Noodle or Coconut Flapjack at 21:15 on a wet Thursday in mid-November could have that urge quenched, thanks to LT?
There were TWO such entities on Twickenham station in May last year, when we stayed next to it.
+=Author's note:the traditional flat-pack, for non-smokers and smokers of more tender years, was either Untipped Weights or Tipped Park Drive-both equally disgusting;later supplanted by 10 number 6, when young lady on Tube journeys with me, or 10 Embassy, if said young lady was remotely sophisticated.
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 5, 2014 18:55:48 GMT
Hi
Yes, it was me.
And I apologise for forgetting the CSLR, especially as Angel, the subject of the thread, was opened by CSLR, before it became the Northern Line.
So you are in fact in no way off topic!
The majority certainly were installed when I said, because they were the 3 Yerkes' lines, but CSLR definitely led the way, which is no mean feat when we remember the actual railway was initially designed to be cable-hauled & not electrically run. It must have taken a huge leap of faith to switch, when all they had to demonstrate the possibilities of electricity was Magnus Volk's still-extant line at Brighton.
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 5, 2014 9:38:39 GMT
From a little earlier, here's the Aldwych lift and ticket 'office' in full swing. From Capital Transport's The Aldywch Branch, old bean! And not a poodle-faker in site!
I wonder if the mods could use this for a competition? Sort of putting a witty caption to this cleary staged shot?
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 4, 2014 21:29:23 GMT
I should add that delayed lift replacements did often mean unreliable existing lifts. Not sure now whether Angel was in that category, but the authorities in the 70's & early 80's were rather concentrating too much on the new Jubilee & DLR Lines for some people's liking, and that may be why the situation got so bad at certain stations.
I didn't use that station very often, but others who did said it was dingy and messy, so it could just be the lifts were unreliable, too.
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 4, 2014 21:11:41 GMT
Yes, we've discussed this programme in the past. I agree, very fascinating characters, not sure i'd want to work with them though! As for working in the lift, it's before my time at TFL, but I remember some stations had lift operators, Aldwych being another. I don't know if the lift operators were Railmen (job title back then) and covered the lift as part of a roster or whether they were permanently working in the lift. Were the lifts staffed as they were unreliable or because of the depth of the lift shaft? Am thinking of Angel in particular. From what I remember c 1970-1989, most liftmen(and a few women)were rostered on ticket office duty and filled in on lift shifts to relieve when the rush hours were finished and the ticket windows were no longer under siege. I was a union official in another part of the public service at this stage, which is how I learnt that.
Aldwych was initially a special case, because there was no ticket office open from in the 1920's onwards, and tickets were sold or collected/examined in the lift. The 1930's wooden ticket-issuing desk, or at least most of it, stayed in the lifts to the very end. The advent of UTS meant, in 1988/9, that they installed a ticket machine there, single effort with multi-fares, and a pair of electronic ticket gates.
The intial lift installations across the Underground took place in the 1900-1910's, when many department stores also had them and not escalators, and duly-liveried servants of the company were there to reassure passengers/customers and provide a visible reminder of whose store/railway you were in/on. I believe the original liftmen were just that & nothing else, btw, just like in the stores.
The tendency post-war was to phase out liftmen once lifts were renewed or mostly replaced by escalators in any given site, cutting costs, of course. But I think Angel, like other Northern Line & some Piccadilly Line stations, clung on to them because the station refurbishment was delayed & the authorities were concerned the lack of any staff presence would be off-putting to tourists amongst others.
So, by default almost, that Angel was such a deep lift, was indeed a reason the lifts stayed staffed.
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Post by theblackferret on Aug 4, 2014 19:15:45 GMT
May I say the first posted picture was a most imaginative use of uplighting?
Charles Holden would have approved!
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Post by theblackferret on Jul 31, 2014 15:10:24 GMT
Hi
Having noted you are station spotting, among other things, might I suggest you do either the inner part of the Central Line between about 10:30 to 12 noon, and the inner part of the Piccadilly Line between 14:00 to 15:30, or vice versa? It's amazing how busy both these bits of the Underground get across lunch-time.
Any part of the Northern Line and most of the Victoria Line might be busy all the time on a weekday, but not so bad at weekends.
The only station I'd avoid is Bank, because it's cramped, always busy and the connecting passageways are a bit long in places. But you could look on it as a challenge and try & find a quiet time there!
Have fun & hope you enjoy yourselves.
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Post by theblackferret on Jul 30, 2014 19:19:48 GMT
We stayed in Uxbridge last October for a week & I noticed this. Both with the Met & Piccadilly trains, too.
However, every train we caught to or from there had at least a digital info board in working order in every carriage and most had announcements, too, even if it was simply 'This train is a Metropolitan Line Service to Baker Street, where this train will then terminate.'
I wonder if it's because there aren't a great variety of short workings on the branch, so, unless it's one of those suddenly forced on them, there's no need to put it up on the platforms, because it's only going to be Baker Street, Aldgate or Cockfosters in nearly every case? Equally, how many tourists would need that info, compared to the number who would in the central area?
The rest of us, meantime, also have enough space on those platforms to be able to safely read what's on the front of the incoming train-which I would hesitate to try as a modus operandi of finding out where the next one's going at Russell Square/Bank etc!
All of which makes me suspect the lack of these might be solely down to an unwillingness to shell out, install and maintain what there doesn't seem to be much call for; equally, have you tried bringing it up with TfL and see what the official response is? Without being facetious, you really could be the first person that's asked them why this is the case, instead of just accepting it.
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Post by theblackferret on Jul 29, 2014 10:43:40 GMT
Hi Chris M
I can't speak from experience about any of those you listed.
Just to add that on each of my last 4 visits to Canary Wharf, I've had at least one request from another person asking where the DLR station is.
Even more amazingly, only one of those was from a tourist, and they were Australian.
Even more astoundingly, I wouldn't consider myself as someone who walks around looking as if they know how many beans make five, but wherever I am, I get asked, so I must have some aura of certainty emanating from me!
I should also confess the first time there, I had a heck of a job to find it, but not on subsequent visits.
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Post by theblackferret on Jul 28, 2014 21:31:10 GMT
My wife commuted for 18 months from Oakwood to Bank.
This was over 30 years ago, mind, but we recently had to use it for a 1-station ride & change.
Her thoughts on Bank have not changed & she echoes your comments about it.
Definitely looks bolted together in a hurry.
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Post by theblackferret on Jul 28, 2014 20:54:15 GMT
I wonder if there also ought to be a category for most improved station?
Angel, once dingy, dirty and dangerous, would be a clear winner, though the exterior isn't the most sympathetic!
On that score, Oval could be the worst, because of the 'improvements' that turned a moderately successful Holden redesign of the T. Phillips Figgis CSLR original into something Motorhead would have happily had adorn their LP sleeves. And, let it be noted, something that might even have made a suitable flying prop for the live shows promoting the album in question.
But then, there's Canary Wharf. The descent from light and air into the vaults doesn't strike one as that, because of the spaciousness of the JLE platforms. The seating is a bit of a one-off, too, but that isn't the main problem.
Coming up from the depths of a great cathedral of glass and steel into that air and light should be sensational. And where do you emerge? In a flipping identikit shopping centre. Let there be Mobile Phone Shops, and there were. By the dozen!
Plus, on a practical level, the DLR station is shovelled away down a side alley in between two bits of a store frontage and is poorly signed, if we are being generous. If we're being honest, it's probably London's least obtrusive station.
An honourable(?) mention for Stamford Brook & Ravenscourt Park, but only because watching all them Piccadilly Line trains whizzing by most of the day is depressing, especially if you got off there from the District Line by mistake, thinking you could change!
Cannon Street also needs to buck its' ideas up, once Thameslink starts calling there at weekends, too.
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Post by theblackferret on Jul 27, 2014 19:12:48 GMT
TUT
Might also be interesting to include closed stations & least favourites? If so, can post on either later.
For the present, in no order:
MORNINGTON CRESCENT: Leslie Green Oxblood faence tiling nice and bright makes the outside like a rose on a dungheap. Station itself survived sneaky years-long closed for repairs attempt to shut it for good, and continues, as the only intermediate station on that branch, to stick its' single digit up to somebody, not quite sure who.
SLOANE SQUARE: One & only station on the Tube map of which we can all truthfully say---A River runs through it.
EARL'S COURT: Because of the old-fashioned next train indicators, white on blue, --> 1, --> 2 etc, that appear, apparently randomly, against the various possible destinations & with no times involved: adds to the anticipation, leisure and sheer poetry of travelling that way.
ARSENAL: Though a lifelong Man. U fan, I have to admire Herbert Chapman's chutzpah in getting the-then LT to rename Gillespie Road. Gordon Selfridge couldn't do it with Bond Street for Selfridges!
MILL HILL EAST: For clinging to life as the only dead-end branch on LUL(can't really count Kenny, can we?), and for being a station where you can sit & think of the immortal Peter Sellers' sketch 'Balham-Gateway to the South' in a Northern context.
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Post by theblackferret on Jul 27, 2014 10:54:33 GMT
Looks suspiciously from the photo like it fell on the railway and bounced off into the pit.
Good job no train was underneath it at the time.
Obviously, management will try and play it down-that's what they are there for; to reassure the public. Same with 24-hr services being safe.
That's not to imply great swathes of tunnel lining are about to cascade down throughout the system in the next few days, because they very probably aren't.
Simply that management wouldn't know one way or the other if that were the case, or whether a race of prehistoric vampire bats are gallantly holding the crumbling masonry together.
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Post by theblackferret on Jul 24, 2014 21:27:13 GMT
Yep, happy if the mods want to pull this onto a new thread.
So will await that before continuing the discussion.
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Post by theblackferret on Jul 24, 2014 20:52:47 GMT
I think we should maybe have a discussion, too, about whether these sort of describers were actually better than the "smallprint" ones we are lumbered with today.
I would think many visually-impaired passengers might find that larger print more helpful, for a start? Especially, if they could be adapted to show in brackets how many minutes before first & 2nd trains arrive.
I believe there's one station on the District Line that still has these on one platform-might be Earl's Court?
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Post by theblackferret on Jul 24, 2014 20:42:34 GMT
Hi William
The 2007 latest edition is currently available for £7.94 on Amazon(plus P & P), if no joy on eBay.
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Post by theblackferret on May 26, 2014 20:14:54 GMT
Living down here in sunny Plymouth, we recently had both the Waterloo-Exeter & Paddington-Plymouth lines knocked out of action. One of the company's websites referred to buses replacing trains between somewhere a lot of water was and shouldn't be and the next city down the line, and t'other referred to an emergency bus SHUTTLE(my caps.) between some other newly-submerged Lyonesse and another next city down the line. I only mention this because I can distinctly remember Network SE, British Rail & LT on past occasions all using both descriptions- emergency bus services and emergency bus shuttle- to describe what we had to look forward to when engineering works etc were in progress, usually on a Sunday, of course, or weekday late evening. Usually refreshment-free buses, funnily enough, too. I personally associate shuttle services as something unusual or unscheduled, as it were. I would always have thought of Aldwych as a branch-line, and part of the Hainault loop in the same way. Sorry, but South Acton ceased when I was only 7, so never used it! The Epping-Ongar bit would only have struck me as a possible shuttle if they had purposely omitted either North Weald or Blake Hall(pre-1981 closure) from most trains. Nobody would have noticed if they had, anyway. I think the use of shuttle has evolved over time, but what the correct useage is or should be now remains a very moot point. Steve
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Post by theblackferret on May 22, 2014 21:38:19 GMT
Yes, just put the pub name & location in to Google, followed by images: Thanks to legacy.co.history.uk for that image, complete with Kim, the buffet cat in 1938!! Works for Hole In The Wall Sloan Square, anyway!! Steve
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Post by theblackferret on May 19, 2014 22:11:02 GMT
Yes, the remnants of Sloan Square definitely still there.
That's a massively wide Westbound platform & a BIG snack shop sitting there, as rather a giveaway.
I think there was one or two others along that side of things on the Circle/District, Victoria and what's now Embankment under whatever guise it had around 1969-73ish come to mind, from my memories of then, and brown ale, Mackeson, Courage Velvet stout, port & Double Diamond!
And the pub grub was sophisticated for those days. Cheese AND onion rolls, not just plain cheese.
Unfortunately, tempis has rather fugited since, and I don't suppose we will be returning to licensed bars on Tube platforms. Possibly, more's the shame!
Steve
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Post by theblackferret on May 3, 2014 15:10:53 GMT
Thanks tut & norbiton flyer.
Just to put you in the picture, I'm South London born and bred and spent a considerable amount of time using tubes to watch my team when in London or to get to Euston for their home games, and then commuting in from Maidstone to work-all this between 1965-1987. I took early retirement in 2008, after finishing work down here in Plymouth.
I had a week's holiday based in Uxbridge last October & we covered passing through over 220 stations, including all the abandoned stations, so that's my latest working impressions.
tut
Back in 1987, the Northern Line was one to avoid. We only touched on it in parts last October, because it still had the feel of a line ready to fall apart at any moment, though it never does. But certainly one where any increase in passengers might affect that balance.
The Piccadilly central part, I always preferred using the Central Line to get anywhere at lunchtime and could never understand why the Piccadilly was always so crammed. Nothing changed there, either, in fact, it's even more sardine-can these days.
The Victoria Line was rarely a problem in 1987 outside of peak rush-hour. But I must say every time we used it in October, I noticed a big difference in the train-loads these days. So that's another one clearly creaking at the seams now.
norbitonflyer
Yes, I think the Kings Cross/Victoria reductions might be feasible, but that could only be soaked up by the Victoria Line, which doesn't have much room to manoeuvre and was probably shoe-horned in at the start anyway.
I have to admit, increasing capacity through either Aldgate East or Earls Court, let alone both is totally impossible. Short of building a new crossline linking the two, to which the words 'reinventing the wheel' might just come to mind.
And thanks to both of you again for so much information.
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Post by theblackferret on May 2, 2014 21:44:33 GMT
I wonder what you good people think is the point, or not, of maintaining the Circle Line service?
Is it reasonable to say that District, Met and H & C services could all be increased in number if the service was scrapped?
Or are there a requisite number of people travelling, say, from Barbican to Westminster with no direct line between the two, just the Circle Line Service clockwise?
If there is still the need for such a Service, has the Circle in question moved through some sort of geometric transition?
Apologies for all the questions, but it really does intrigue me to see people's opinions on this.
Especially if there should exist a sort of travelling preservation movement who take it in turns to journey round it-because they could be actively preserving a part of our heritage.
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