What’s Red and Lies Upside Down in the Gutter?
This is an old elephant joke from the 1960s and the answer is a dead bus.
It’s funny, but I’ve been on trains and planes that have broken down or developed faults, but I’ve never been on a bus that has suffered a similar fate.
Until today, that is!
A Dead Bus
As I was close to Turnpike Lane station, I took the Piccadilly Line to Manor House. This is one of the longest runs between stations on the tube and breaks the two-minute rule of calculating how long the journey will take. A good estimate of journey time is two minutes per station with five minutes for each change of line.
I’m not sure if it is unique, but Turnpike Lane still has the classic 1930s uplighters on the escalators. One place that still has them is Moscow, where London Underground installed all the original escalators. In Moscow, when I was there a few years ago, most of the escalators were still in wood, just like they used to be in London, until they were replaced after the King’s Cross fire.
The Anonymous Widower 
[…] laughed, as that is something that won’t bother me again. So buses break-down, but it’s not my problem to give them a push! 52.245212 […]
Pingback by No More Jump Leads « The Anonymous Widower | January 23, 2011 |
All the Piccadilly line station extensions have had something original kept and/or preserved. Southgate and Turnpike Lane still have the searchlite lamps on the escalators, Bounds Green still has the ‘daffodil’ lamps in the platform interchanges and what Wood Green, Turnpike Lane and Manor House have in common is the most delightful ventilation grills ever. True art deco, they depict scene relevant to the stations locale. (Wood Green e.g shows a white hart, Turnpike Lane a toll booth, and Manor House shows a dovecote.) Check them out!
Roy Barnacle
WAYLAND MA US
Comment by Roy Barnacle | March 7, 2011 |
I know the stations well, as I ived halfway between Cockfosters and Oakwood, went to schoole near Southgate and my father’s print works was in Wood Green. I went to Southgate recently and there are pictures here.
https://anonw.wordpress.com/2011/02/10/islington-to-the-m25-by-public-transport/
Comment by AnonW | March 7, 2011 |