Shoreditch Station is Sold
The old Shoreditch station was put up for sale a week or so ago, with a guide price of £180,000.
But it now appears to have been sold for £665,000. Do some have more money than sense? Or does it show that the property market is recovering?
Have You Ever Wanted to Own a Tube Station?
If the answer is yes! You can!
Islington to the M25 By Public Transport
I had to go back to Suffolk to pick some bits and pieces up and thought that the easiest way to do this was to get to Cockfosters Station, which is just a few minutes from Junction 24 on the M25.
So I took the 141 bus to Manor House taking a few pictures and a video on the way, where I got the Piccadilly Line to Cockfosters.
The journey from the Balls Pond Road took just 35 minutes and that included a delay of two minutes at Arnos Grove station, where they changed drivers. I could even have got a bus to the M25 from Cockfosters.
As I was running early, I did make a detour at Southgate Station to take a few pictures.
The station has been sympathetically restored and still contains many of the Art Deco features. It is still very much as it was, when I used to use it to go to Minchenden Grammar School in the early 1950s and late 1960s.
I also seem to remember reading somewhere, that the ticket barriers can be removed, so that the station can be used for period film and TV productions. Parts of the film, The End of the Affair were shot in the station.
I just think that Southgate Station sums up everything that was so good about the designs of London Transport before the Second World War. It was designed as a bus/tube interchange and still fulfils that function, with style and panache.
Southgate Station was one of the buildings created by the archtect, Charles Holden. If he had been of any other nationality, than British, he would be one of the most famous architects in the world. But he was a modest man, who twice declined a knighthood. On the other hand, his buildings speak eloquently of the quality and beauty of his work.
Are These Idiots After a Darwin Award?
The Central Line today was disrupted by cable thefts today.
This follows a pattern and eventually, it will lead to someone winning a Darwin Award.
The Darwin Awards commerate those who yield to natural selection and “remove” themselves from the gene pool…thereby ensuring that the next generation is smarter by one.
Of necessity, the award is usually bestowed posthumously.
Here’s typical behaviour that can win an award or in this case two.
Who would park the car on a busy freeway in heavy fog, for a quickie?
That’s the whole picture: A young couple, driving along Via Dutra, the largest freeway in Brazil with tons of heavy traffic, at 6AM under heavy fog. The couple decided that this was the time to park (for “dating” according to the charming Google translation) and, yes, they parked on the freeway in the right-hand lane, not on the shoulder, the median, or at a gas station. Naturally, given time a cargo truck encountered a “speed bump,” instantly killing both — during the act of procreation — double-double Darwin Award! (2) people making (2) obviously bad decisions, and natural selection acts at the very moment the two are reproducing. Textbook!
Stealing live high-voltage cables is probably equally stupid. But would our legal system pay out damages to the family of idiots killed in this way?
Surely being nominated for a Darwin Award disqualifies you from receiving compensation!
Boris Talks Sense
The unions are incensed that Boris Johnson has talked of introducing driverless trains on the London Underground.
But we’ve effectively had driverless trains on the Underground ever since 1967 on the Victoria Line. The so-called driver sits in the cab and when he’s satisfied that the doors on the train are shut, he effectively pushes a button and the train automation moves the train to the next station.
So as Boris said, everybody could drive an Underground train. Well not exactly, but any sane person, with a strong sense of responsibility and a degree of proper training could do it. I suspect that any bus driver could do it very well, especially as now, the average London bus, is probably almost as complicated as an Underground train. Remember, I’ve seen at first hand, what it takes to drive a train. But that was on a much more complicated line, at twice the speed and without the same degree of automation.
The unions are only delaying the inevitable day, when drivers on Underground trains, are only there for the rare times, when something goes seriously wrong. Even the announcements, when there is a problem could be done remotely from a control centre.
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.
A Walk Down Memory Lane
Or more correctly between Turnpike Lane and Wood Green stations on the Piccadilly Line.
I’d taken a 141 bus to Turnpike Lane from the end of my road and alighted opposite the station.
Turnpike Lane Tube Station
Or should I put the local name underneath which sounded like Turnpicky Larny. I wonder if it’s still used.
I walked down the west side of Wood Green High Road and the first place I remembered was the Marks and Spencer on the other side.
Marks and Spencer at Wood Green
I didn’t go in, but it certainly looked to be in a worse state than how I remember it from the 1960s, when it was one of their flagship stores. I visited it many times, as a bag carrier for my mother, when she used to do the food shopping, when she was working with my father in Wood Green.
Further up you can still see the remains of the old Wood Green Empire above the Halifax.
The Remains of the Wood Green Empire
I can remember going there once to see the pantomime. It may have been Babes in the Wood, with Ted Ray, but even if I hadn’t had the stroke, I wouldn’t be sure.
My father also claimed that he’d appeared on the stage there in a variety show. But at one time, I know he did print the programs and posters for the theatre, so perhaps he did a deal. Knowing him, that could have been possible.
The centre of Wood Green High Road used to be crossed by a railway bridge that carried the Palace Gates railway line to Palace Gates from Seven Sisters. At one time there was a station in the area called Noel Park and Wood Green, but although I can remember the bridge and trains running on the line, I can’t remember the station. To the south of the bridge there used to be a pub called the Alexandra, which was pulled down in the 1960s or just before to build Wood Green’s first supermarket. Now the whole area has been redeveloped as Wood Green Shopping City.
Wood Green Shopping City
Moving along towards Wood Green tube station, I passed what some refer to correctly as the Broadway, but I just remember it as the place where you caught the trolley buses. On the left there used to be a restaurant called the QS for Quick Service and one of the first burger bars. I can remember visiting both quite a few times with my mother. I can still remember and smell, the chef, Ally, turning the greasy burgers as he fried them.
On the corner opposite the tube station, there is a pub which is now called the Goose.
The Goose, Wood Green
I think the pub used to be called the Nag’s Head and it is part of a family tale. My father used to live with his mother over the print works in Station Road, which is just around the corner. One Sunday morning her dog, who was a renowned thief, arrived back with a large cooked joint of beef in his jaws. My grandmother, immediately washed such a prize present off and that was the family’s Sunday lunch. My father surmised that the chef in the Nag’s Head had put the cooked joint on the window sill of the kitchen at the back of the pub to cool down a bit and the dog just couldn’t resist.
I then crossed the road by the tube station to catch a 141 bus back home from where the trolley buses stopped.
Wood Green Tube Station
All of these stations from Cockfosters to Turnpike Lane are very much part of my childhood and I remember them all with affection.
A Disappointing Result at the Morgue
I went in hope to Chelski for the FA Cup match with Ipswich. I returned very disappointed, as it seemed that the Town players virtually gave up after thirty minutes.
Inside Stamford Bridge
Chelski may have an impressive stadium, but I wasn’t very impressed with the pitch and it certainly wasn’t up to the standard at Portman Road.
Considering that there were 41,000 people inside it was also very quiet.
I last went to Stamford Bridge in probably about 1963 to see Spurs play. In those days, you stood in an enormous terrace alongside the pitch, with the so-called Shed sticking up like a thumb to your left on the other side. There was also a lot more aggro about and Spurs and Chelsea still have a certain amount of bitterness between them.
One thing that hasn’t changed is the difficulty of getting to the ground. I took the train to Fulham Broadway to get there and coming home, I did what we did in the 1960s and walked to South Kensington. From there in the 1960s, I would have taken the Piccadilly Line to Oakwood. Yesterday, I just took it to Piccadilly Circus and got a bus from there all of the way to the stop by my house.
Tired Euston
Euston has hardly changed since it was rebuilt in the 1960s. The black marble inside the station has always made it a bit of a black hole and I’ll admit it used to be worse as you walked down the ramps to the trains. They seemed to have brightened up this area with perhaps just a few more lights and some new paint.
But it is in the Underground and the connections to it, that it is really lacking; from the inadequate escalators from the station and the rather dull tunnels connecting you to the Northern and Victoria lines. Compared to later stations like Liverpool Street, it is all very poor. It will look even more so, once King’s Cross and St. Pancras are finished.
Euston also needs to be properly connected to the Metropolitan and Circle lines, which run just in front of the station, by some form of proper people mover.
Perhaps in the future, all the Marylebone/Euston Road stations could be properly linked, so that passengers arriving at Marylebone and Euston could be quickly whisked to St.Pancras and King’s Cross for Paris, Brussels and the North East.
I think, I would ban cars and lorries from the route, put a travelator down each side, with trams and gardens in the middle and cafes and restaurants along the side.
ASLEF Put Their Marker Down for the Olympics
The various rail runions have never got on well and have always tried to see that they could get more out of owners, managers and ultimately taxpayers for as long as I can remember.
Today’s action by ASLEF was supposedly about triple pay and a day-off for working Boxing Day, in variance with an agreement they are reported to have signed, but was it also to show their power with the Olympics coming in 2012? They didn’t get the Danegeld this time and as millions of Londoners and tourists were seriously inconvenienced, I doubt they’ll get it if they try to do something similar about extra benefits for themselves during the games.
I was seriously inconvenienced today, as I had intended to get a Central Line train to Newbury Park for a friend to take me to the football at Ipswich. As I said earlier, the direct trains weren’t running. Instead I tried to take a 25 bus to Ilford, from where I would complete the journey on another bus.
But I was running seriously late for a pre-arranged pick-up time on a bus that would have had just a small bit of space for a couple of Snow White’s friends. All of the overcrowding could be put down to the non-running Central Line, as people had things like cases and bags of presents with them. So I abandoned the bus with some difficulty at Stratford and thought I’d get a bus home. The queues were enormous, as I suspect many had come to the interchange to get buses like the 25 to Oxford Circus. The shopping centre by the interchange was very busy too and it looked like things were getting worse rather than better.
I’d determined that I needed to get a 276 to Stoke Newington, but as that shared a stop with the 25, it would not have been a sensible proposition, so I walked back down West Ham Lane to the previous stop of the bus. Eventually, I got on a small single-decker bus after about a quarter of an hour, as that is the Sunday frequency. It then drove back through Stratford and the overcrowded stops and was probably carrying twice its legal capacity by Bow Church, where it started its meander towards Hackney.
It was then, that I got a text saying that the match at Ipswich had been called off due to a frozen pitch. So at least I was saved a long journey, even if my shorter one wasn’t much fun!
In the end I abandoned the 276 when it got to Mare Street in Hackney and went to look for another to get me back home.
I shall be interested to see how this story develops. ASLEF have seriously managed to annoy all of the shops in London, Transport for London and I suspect several million Londoners. At times, at Stratford, I felt some were going to seriously explode and that was one of the reasons, I walked away to look for a bus. I saw mothers with children getting distraught, as youths refused them access to buses with buggies, drivers and other staff were getting abuse and no-one was offering the disabled and the elderly the priority seats.
Still it was all good fun and practice for a man with dodgy eyesight and only one 100% hand. But the idea is to see if I can improve the parts of my body that don’t woek too well, by using them!
The Anonymous Widower 