Chronoyster - missing details

I've recently bought the map/book "The London Underground - A Diagrammatic History" by Douglas Rose (highly recommended if you like that sort of thing), which has revealed to me that my Chronoyster posts up to now have been lacking a bit of detail. Such as stations' former names and the fact that when they opened some stations were in a different location. There is also one branch opening that I've missed altogether because all the stations involved are now closed. Below, I've summarised the history so far, with all the extra details added.

10 January 1863 - section of Circle / Hammersmith & City between Paddington and Farringdon opened - Paddington (Bishop's Road) [now Paddington]; Edgware Road; Baker Street; Portland Road [now Great Portland Street]; Gower Street [now Euston Square]; King's Cross [now King's Cross St. Pancras, east of current location]; Farringdon Street [not same location as current Farringdon] (Open stations: 7)

13 June 1864 - section of Circle / Hammersmith & City between Paddington and Hammersmith opened - Notting Hill [now Ladbroke Grove]; Shepherd's Bush [now Shepherd's Bush Market, north of current location]; Hammersmith [north of current location] (Open stations: 10)

1 July 1864 - section between Ladbroke Grove and Kensington Olympia opened - Kensington [now Kensington Olympia] (Open stations: 11)

23 December 1865 - section of Circle / Hammersmith & City / Metropolitan between Farringdon and Moorgate opened, Farringdon relocated to current location - Aldersgate Street [now Barbican]; Moorgate Street [now Moorgate] (Open stations: 13)

1 February 1866 - new station opened- Westbourne Park [west of current location] (Open stations: 14)

13 April 1868 - section of Metropolitan from Baker Street towards Finchley Road opened, no stations remain open - St. John's Wood Road [later Lord's]; Marlborough Road; Swiss Cottage (Open stations: 17)

1 October 1868 - Kensington [now Kensington Olympia] renamed Kensington (Addison Road)
1 October 1868 - section of Circle between Edgware Road and Gloucester Road opened - Paddington (Praed Street) [now Paddington]; Bayswater; Notting Hill Gate; High Street Kensington; Brompton (Gloucester Road) [now Gloucester Road] (Open stations: 22)

1 December 1868 - Line extended south as Hammersmith relocated to current location

16 December 1868 - new station opened - Latimer Road (Open stations: 23)

24 December 1868 - section of Circle / District between Gloucester Road and Westminster opened - South Kensington; Sloane Square; Victoria; St. James's Park; Westminster Bridge [now Westminster] (Open stations: 28)

Chronoyster - 24 December 1868

On 24 December 1868, the Metropolitan District Railway extended from Gloucester Road to Westminster.

Route map of London Underground as it was 24 December 1868

South Kensington

Around the corner from South Kensington station, in Thurloe Square, there is almost a "Leinster Gardens" situation except that instead of the railway running beneath it runs behind. This, however, is a functional property - just very thin front to back.

Sloane Square

The large pipe that carries the River Westbourne.

Victoria

Not actually in the tube station, but in the mainline station, a couple of original maps of the London, Brighton and South Coast Railway.

The new Cardinal Place entrance.

St. James's Park

Missing S.

55 Broadway, finished in 1929, still headquarters of London Underground, once the tallest office building in London.

Westminster

At Exit 3, this revolving door leads to Portcullis House. Pass Holders Entrance Only.

Next: 12 April 1869

Chronoyster - 16 December 1868

On 16 December 1868, a new station opened.

Route map of London Underground as it was 16 December 1868

Latimer Road

There is nothing to take a photo of at Latimer Road. Absolutely nothing. That would be ghoulish.

Next: 24 December 1868

"Triple Crown" challenge

There is a new concept of tube challenge called the "Triple Crown", which I like to think of as the tube challenging equivalent of a triathlon.
It involves completing the three individual challenges as follows
1. Visit all the stations of the Docklands Light Railway
2. Visit all the stops of the Croydon Trams
3. Visit all the stations of the Circle Line "bottle" (all the stations on or inside the bottle shape of the Circle Line, plus Edgware Road and Marylebone for historical reasons)
one after the other!

Two of these I'd done before, and I've linked to my previous posts above, but I'd never even been on one of the Croydon trams before!

A competition day was organised for Saturday 12 August, with prizes for the best times on each phase and the overall time as well. I was attending the World Athletics Championship that day, but I did manage to complete it earlier on Monday 7 August.

DLR
Beckton, dep. 08:28:36
Poplar, arr. 08:47:24, dep. 08:49:14
Stratford, arr. 08:59:26, dep. 09:08:19
Stratford International, arr. 09:10:44, dep. 09:14:17
Woolwich Arsenal, arr. 09:37:54
Southeastern to Lewisham, dep. 09:44:39, arr. 09:58:00
Lewisham, dep. 10:03:44
Bank, arr. 10:29:57, dep. 10:32:02
Shadwell, arr. 10:35:30, dep. 10:40:40
Tower Gateway, arr. 10:43:09
Time = 2 hr 14 min 33 sec (Personal best)

Circle line "Bottle"
Start at Aldgate
Circle to Gloucester Road, dep. 10:58:22, arr. 11:19:36
Piccadilly to Kings Cross, dep. 11:22:35, arr. 11:41:46
Metropolitan to Liverpool Street, dep. 11:43:15, arr. 11:50:50
Central to Notting Hill Gate, dep. 11:51:51, arr. 12:09:00
District to High Street Kensington, dep. 12:13:15, arr. 12:14:59
District to Edgware Road, dep. 12:21:00, arr. 12:29:35
Walk to Edgware Road (Bakerloo)
Bakerloo to Regents Park, dep. 12:36:30, arr. 12:40:12
Walk to Great Portland Street
Metropolitan to Euston Square, dep. 12:45:37, arr. 12:47:02
Walk to Warren Street
Northern to Charing Cross, dep. 12:53:10, arr. 12:57:55
Time = 1 hr 59 min 33 sec (Personal best)

Tramlink
Wimbledon, dep. 13:30:16
Reeves Corner, arr. 13:53:57
Walk to George Street
George Street, dep. 14:07:19
West Croydon, arr. 14:13:28, dep. 14:14:36
New Addington, arr. 14:40:49, dep. 14:42:26
Sandilands, arr. 14:58:10, dep. 14:58:55
Arena, arr. 15:05:22, dep. 15:11:23
Elmers End, arr. 15:13:43
Walk to Harrington Road
Harrington Road, dep. 15:33:00
Beckenham Junction, arr. 15:42:15
Time = 2 hr 11 min 59 sec

Total Triple Crown time = 7 hr 13 min 39 sec

Chronoyster - 1 October 1868

On 1 October 1868, a new branch of the Metropolitan District Railway opened between Edgware Road and Gloucester Road

Route map of London Underground as it was 1 October 1868

Paddington (Praed Street)

Bayswater

Bayswater gave me an opportunity to visit the "houses" at 23 and 24 Leinster Gardens. When this branch of the MDR was built using cut-and-cover, an open gap was required so that the steam locomotives could "vent off". Rather than leave a gap in the terrace of houses, fake facades were used at numbers 23 and 24 to match those of the properties on either side. Complete with fake doors and black painted "windows".

Leinster Gardens was mentioned in the season 3 episode "His Last Vow" of "Sherlock", although I doubt there is even space for the narrow corridor they show.

When I visited it was raining hard and I didn't stay any longer than necessary. The street cleaner in my photo is sheltering in front of one of the fake doors. He obviously knew there were no residents that would mind.

Notting Hill Gate

Still raining, so I was rushing to find anything to represent Notting Hill Gate, and settled on this wiry elephant.

High Street Kensington

Have you ever looked up at these motifs? "MR" for Metropolitan Railway, "DR" for District Railway and "AD 1906" for the year when the original station was replaced by the shopping arcade.

Gloucester Road

Next: 16 December 1868

Chronoyster - 1 February 1866

On 1 February 1866, a new station opened.

Route map of London Underground as it was 1 February 1866

Westbourne Park

 

Exits only used for extra capacity during the Notting Hill Carnival.

Next: 1 October 1868

Catching up with Labyrinths

There are some Labyrinths I've been able to catch up on since I first blogged.

55. Paddington (Bakerloo / Circle / District)

65. Lambeth North

128. Earl's Court

147. Leytonstone

163. Epping

170. Finsbury Park

Temple to Temple

On my way home from France, I decided to make it a journey between Temple and Temple, the only stations with EXACTLY the same name on the London Underground and the Paris Metro.

21 May 2017
Start at Temple
Line 3 to République, dep. 11:40:14, arr. 11:41:09
Line 5 to Gare du Nord, dep. 11:44:52, arr. 11:48:57
Eurostar to London St. Pancras International, dep. 12:52:29 CET, arr. 14:20:48 BST
Victoria line to Victoria, dep. 14:38:00, arr. 14:46:57
District line to Temple, dep. 14:48:28, arr. 14:55:21

Elapsed time = 4 hr 15 min 7 sec

Lyon Metro line C

Line C of the Lyon Metro is quite interesting. The section between Croix Paquet and Croix Rousse was opened in 1891 as a funicular railway, i.e. trains were hauled up and down by cable. In the 1970s, it was renovated and converted to a rack railway, i.e. a cog wheel underneath the train engages with a rack between the rails to help it up the steep slope. When the first two regular metro lines opened in 1978, it became line C and was extended (with rack) to Hotel de Ville. Leaving Hotel de Ville, there is a noticeable downward slope before it heads uphill. Finally in 1984 the northern end, up the hill, was extended (without rack) to Cuire.

The lower station of the original section, Croix Paquet, is claimed to be the steepest Metro station in the world (which I can believe) with an incline of 17%. Also, it's opening in 1891 makes it some of the oldest Metro infrastructure in the world, predating Budapest and Paris.

Lyon metro

Completing the whole Lyon metro system is more of a challenge. It has 40 stations on 4 lines. There are not a lot of connections between termini, so I did a lot of doubling back. Apart from the ends of line C, there are no terminating platforms - in each case I had to get off the train and change platforms while the train disappeared into the tunnels to re-emerge on the other platform.

Refer to this plan.

17 May 2017
Start at Gare d'Oullins
Line B to Charpennes (Charles Hernu), dep. 09:22:28, arr. 09:37:34
Line A to Vaulx-en-Velin (La Soie), dep. 09:40:11, arr. 09:48:54
Reverse line A to Hotel de Ville (Louis Pradel), dep. 09:52:54, arr. 10:06:49
Line C to Cuire, dep. 10:09:15, arr. 10:17:13
Reverse line C to Hotel de Ville (Louis Pradel), dep. 10:18:25, arr. 10:28:01
Line A to Perrache, dep. 10:32:03, arr. 10:37:02
Reverse line A to Bellecour, dep. 10:40:51, arr. 10:42:54
Line D to Gare de Vaise, dep. 10:45:18, arr. 10:52:28
Reverse line D to Gare de Venissieux, dep. 10:54:50, arr. 11:19:18

Elapsed time = 1 hr 56 min 50 sec

Marseille metro

Last month, I went on holiday to France, working my way from Nice, via Monaco, Marseille and Lyon to Paris.

On the way, I managed to visit the whole Metro system of two cities, starting with Marseille.

The Marseille Metro is just under 40 years old and there are two lines which cross each other in two places. My route was to start at one end of line 2, go the other end, back to the nearest interchange station, go to the nearest end of line 1, then reverse and do the rest of line 1.


15 May 2017
Start at Bougainville
M2 to Sainte Marguerite Dromel, dep. 15:05:05 arr. 15:20:20
M2 to Castellane dep. 15:21:59 arr. 15:26:12
M1 to La Fourragere dep. 15:31:01 arr. 15:38:29
M1 to La Rose dep. 15:43:44 arr. 16:08:58

Elapsed time = 1 hr 3 min 53 sec

A guide to Redbridge railway station

Why Redbridge? Well, it's all down to "All The Stations". I recommend that you go and read about it at allthestations.co.uk, but the summary is that it is a project of Geoff Marshall and Vicki Pipe in which they will film a documentary as they visit all 2563 railway stations in Great Britain. By profession, Geoff is a video producer for londonist.com, also appearing on their's and his own YouTube channels. By reputation, he is a serial Tube Challenger who has twice held the Guinness World Record for the fastest time to visit all 270 stations of the London Underground. Vicki works in museum education. They successfully funded "All The Stations" through Kickstarter and I chipped in.

@diamond_tittle As part of your #AllTheStations pledge you get a shout out on twitter, to say thanks and that you're BRILLIANT!

— All The Stations (@allthestations) April 30, 2017

One of the rewards available to Kickstarter supporters was to "adopt" a station, which basically means that your name will be attached to that station on their web-site. They recently allowed supporters to choose their station on a first-come-first-served basis, in the order in which you made your pledge. I didn't pledge until the funding deadline was nearly up (backer number 1472 out of 1564) so I pretty much had last dibs!

As I imagine most backers did, I looked for local stations, but most of the stations in Southampton were already taken, and I ended up choosing Redbridge. It's not local to where I live, Southampton Central is the most convenient station for me, but Redbridge is close to where my father's side of my family come from. Despite that, I'd never actually been to Redbridge station. I've been through it on non-stopping trains many times, but I can't recall even having been on a train that stopped there. Now that I've adopted it, I thought I'd better remedy that.

Redbridge sees a few peak-hour trains that go beyond (including one early train that comes from London Waterloo), but the only regular service is the hourly South West Trains 'Figure of Six' service between Salisbury and Romsey. 'Figure of Six' because from Salisbury it calls at Dean, Mottisfont & Dunbridge, Romsey, Redbridge, Millbrook, Southampton Central, St Denys, Swaythling, Southampton Airport Parkway, Eastleigh, Chandlers Ford and Romsey again. So, Salisbury is at the top of the 6 and after it has been through Romsey it goes in a loop back to Romsey.

This means you need to make sure you go in the right direction. For instance, if you wanted to get from Redbridge to Romsey you would think that the train that has Romsey as its destination would be the one, but that would be going "the long way" around the loop and take 36 minutes. You should take the Salisbury train for which Romsey is the next stop in 7 minutes. Even though the Salisbury train is timetabled to arrive at Redbridge 16 minutes after the Romsey train it will still get you to Romsey 13 minutes earlier.

Geoff & Vicki will probably have to get this service as it is also the only regular service for Dean, Mottisfont & Dunbridge, Millbrook and Chandlers Ford as well. If they're reading this, I hope it helps!

The view from the footbridge looking east, towards Southampton

The view from the footbridge looking west. Turn left for Bournemouth and Weymouth. Turn right for Salisbury, Bristol and Wales.

I pass this way on my way to work every day (along the A35 you can see in the background in the photo above) and I can see a small waterside park which I have always thought would be cut-off by the railway. Indeed, as I have now discovered it is only accessible from the footbridge of Redbridge station, it's called Redbridge Wharf Park, it was donated by the docks, it contains a few pieces of playground equipment and there were no (other) people on Saturday.

I don't know if this is a piece of genuine dock equipment!

Postscript 1: That train from London Waterloo that I mentioned leaves at 0612 for Branksome. It stops at most stations, making 26 stops in total. Is there another train anywhere in the country that makes more stops?

Postscript 2: Don't confuse Redbridge in Hampshire with the tube station on the Central line. The first time I was at Southampton Central after I made my "adoption", I overheard a poor lady getting assistance from the station staff. She had arrived at Gatwick Airport and wanted to get to Redbridge but she ended up here rather than London!

Chronoyster - 23 December 1865

On 23 December 1865, the Metropolitan District Railway (as it was now known) extended from Farringdon to Moorgate.

Route map of London Underground as it was 23 December 1865

Barbican

The memorial plaque to much-missed station cat Pebbles...

... and the "lifetime achievement award" Pebbles was due to receive with partner Barbie, but sadly he died before it could be presented.

Moorgate

The Metropolitan seems to be the one line that didn't like playing nicely with the others. When the iconic roundel was introduced, the Met went with this diamond. It's not an original sign by the way.

Next : 1 February 1866

Chronoyster - 1 July 1864

On 1 July 1864, the Metropolitan Railway opened a new branch from Ladbroke Grove heading to Kensington (Olympia) instead of Hammersmith. The actual branching point was west of where Latimer Road now is. This link connected to what is now the London Overground north of the current Shepherd's Bush Overground station. The link closed in 1940, so I had to use the Chronoyster on the Overground from Shepherd's Bush down to Olympia.

Route map of London Underground as it was 1 July 1864

Kensington (Olympia)

Next : 23 December 1865

Chronoyster - 13 June 1864

The first expansion of the Underground came on 13 June 1864, when the Metropolitan Railway extended from Paddington to Hammersmith, with two intermediate stations.

Route map of London Underground as it was 13 June 1864

Ladbroke Grove

Shepherd's Bush Market

Hammersmith (Hammersmith & City / Circle)

Next : 1 July 1864

Chronoyster - 10 January 1863

The first post in this series features the first seven stations that opened with the Metropolitan Railway on 10 January 1863. Wikipedia has Edgware Road as opening on 1 October 1863. Sam Cullen of https://innsidetrack.wordpress.com goes by that list, but I can't find any source that indicates why Edgware Road opened later than the other stations. I suspect that someone (probably American) misunderstood the format of the date 10/01/1863.

I'm trying to take a photo for each station, related to art, design or architecture, or of some notable oddity. If necessary, a location close to the station. But keeping away from anything railway related.

Route map of London Underground as it was 10 January 1863

Paddington (Hammersmith & City / Circle)

I'd never been to look at the "Rolling Bridge" at Paddington Basin, so I took this opportunity. It was designed by Thomas Heatherwick, the same man who designed the "New Routemaster" bus and the Olympic cauldron for London 2012. It has to be the most pointless location for a bridge - the channel it crosses is a dead end about 30 feet long.

Edgware Road (Circle / District / Hammersmith & City)

This is "Wrapper", the 2012, artwork by Jacqueline Poncelet, which wraps an electricity sub-station at Edgware Road, from outside the station and from the platform.

Baker Street

Great Portland Street

Euston Square

A location just around the corner from the station now. Apparently, Giuseppe Mazzini once lived at 187 North Gower Street. Has anybody noticed how they cover the blue plaque when 187 North Gower Street plays 221B Baker Street?

King's Cross St. Pancras

A picture of the cash cow that is the queue waiting to be pictured at Platform 9 3/4.

Statue of famous locomotive designer Sir Nigel Gresley.

Farringdon

Next : 13 June 1864