Category: Architecture

  • A famed British Rail ship that’s for sale? Erm, which one was this then? Well it was one that stood right by water but it was also one that never floated! The last ‘captain’ of the said ‘ship’ had been one who owned a world-wide business concern that included a privatised yet highly reputable railway…

  • Railways and Canal Tunnels

    When one thinks of railways and ‘canal tunnels’ one thing would come to mind and its the Canal Tunnels that belong to Thameslink! They are indeed named after the Regent’s Canal beneath which they pass. Its misleading however because they are not strictly a tunnel like that nearby at Islington where the same canal passes…

  • The fact Cockfosters station – an appraisal was popular prompted me to dig out this further look at one of the Piccadilly line’s iconic tube stations. Although we regularly visited Southgate in the 1960s, at no time was the Piccadilly line ever used this far. However the station certainly is remembered because this was where…

  • Despite being the butt of many a joke, ‘Cock Fosters’ as it once was, is a real place and noted for being the northern terminus of the Piccadilly Line. The location itself prior to the opening of the tube was not even a major settlement of any sort, just a small school and a vicarage.…

  • Could this photograph from 1937 be the best ever composition taken on London’s tube? It’s certainly very unusual for its time because it suggests a substantial abstraction and mystique. We do not know who the subject is other than its a guy in a bowler hat and his entire figure is almost in shadow. Perhaps…

  • Tower Subway gets filmed!

    London’s mysterious Tower Subway, which opened in August 1870 and was the site for the city’s very first tube railway even though that was a small narrow gauge line with just one carriage carrying a few passengers a time under the Thames, has been the subject of curiosity for decades because many spot its circular…

  • Tube Viaduct Mystery!

    Remember the Arnos Park viaduct mystery? How many arches did it actually have? Here’s another London Underground Piccadilly line viaduct mystery. And this time the answer is a balls up… Let me explain. Arnos Grove station has an exhibition on its footbridge detailing the history and construction of the station and the Piccadilly’s extension to…

  • Arnos Park Viaduct on the Piccadilly Line is the biggest brick viaduct ever built for London’s underground under the LPTB. 3 million bricks were used in its construction and the viaduct was built in the early 1930s, with the railway upon it to Southgate, Oakwood and Cockfosters opening in 1933. The viaduct is also the…

  • Revisiting Meudon

    Meudon is a major icon in the history of photograph and its often used as an example in the evolution of photographic composition. Not only that its a famous railway picture. The scene depicts a subject carrying a wrapped parcel (probably a painting) up Rue du Docteur Vuillieme whilst a steam engine is seen crossing the lofty…