Tag: london underground

  • 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…

  • The London Underground’s history has been replete with many instances of main line passenger trains, and freight trains sharing tracks with London Underground’s trains. Bow Road to Upminster, Shoreditch to New Cross and New Cross Gate, Gunnersbury to Richmond, Putney to Wimbledon, Ealing Broadway to High Street Kensington, Kilburn High Road to Watford Junction, Croxley…

  • Now that the 1938 tube stock’s long era in public service has come to an end with the last examples having bowed out from the Island Line, I thought it would be a good time to talk about the one element of these tube trains no one ever seems to mention. That is the fact…

  • Just over a week ago I published a feature on the new pictures at Oxford Circus tube which featured the history of escalators on London’s underground. One curiosity was the fact all the pictures were in chronological order other than the final three which were set out as 1976, 1950 and 2014 (that’s in the…

  • Work on the down northbound escalators at Oxford Circus is accompanied by a novelty rarely seen at any escalator work on the tube. This is a photomontage of images depicting escalator history and building. While this has been done at one, maybe two, other tube stations, this particular exhibit includes a photograph of London’s only…

  • Sir Roundlington is a name you’ve probably never heard of. He was supposed to be a new TfL mascot, but he didn’t make the cut. Other examples of short-lived mascots include Wilfred the bunny, who failed to make the cut in the 1920s. Sir Roundlington is probably the least well-known, and after being deposed from…

  • ‘The Deep’ apparently was the nickname for the Southwark deep level bomb shelter sited within the City and South London Railway’s former tunnels between Borough and London Bridge. The other end of this section at King William Street too was a bomb shelter however it was totally unconnected to Southwark’s thus the section of the…

  • Historical knowledge of rail vibrations London Underground has known for decades there is a problem with tube trains making noises. There have been complaints since the first trains ran underground in 1863. However that is probably something that was largely accepted in those days (just as there was soot, steam, heavy machinery continuously at work…

  • Briefly, this is an overview of the problems of tube trains running beneath the Barbican Estate in the City of London, and the huge noise nuisance that’s generated as a result. My post looks at the history of the estate’s tunnels’ construction and how things look today. It also looks at the noise blight which…

  • Remember the popular post Central Line: Beyond Caxton Road published more than two years ago? This is a follow up and its based around several old photographs of the area plus some of the latest developments at Westfield. The DIMCO buildings, which some will know were once part of the coal fired power station that…