Welcome to the latest installment in my series “London Station by Station“. I am treating these two together because they are so close to one another that it makes no sense to split them up.
EUSTON AND EUSTON SQUARE
Euston Square, served nowadays by the Circle, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan lines is one of the 1863 originals, and as with Baker Street has been restored to look as it would have done when first opened. The City and South London Railway station at Euston was opened on May 12th 1907 and the Charing Cross, Euston and Hampstead Railway on June 22nd 1907. These two together are now the Northern line, and occupy four platforms here – although widely separated – to change between the two branches you would be well advised to continue northwards to Camden Town where the interchange is cross-platform. The Victoria line station opened on December 1st 1968.
The southbound platform on the Bank branch of the Northern line is very wide at this station because when it was opened as the City and South London Railway station there were two tracks either side of an island platform (an arrangement still in evidence at Clapham Common and Clapham North), and the extra width of that platform comes from the reorginastion when this arrangement was deemed unsuitable for such a busy station.
INTRODUCING THE RAILWAY DETECTIVE
Euston was the first of London’s railway terminals to open, serving the London and North Western Railway, and it was on that route that Edward Marston’s greatest creation, The Railway Detective (a.k.a Inspector Robert Colbeck) investigated the case that first earned him that title (and introduced him to his future wife). These stories are set thus far) in the 1850s, before the opening of the Metropolitan Railway in 1863, but I could see Colbeck still being in business when that momentous event occurs. He would undoubtedly embrace the underground railway wholeheartedly, although his colleague Sergeant Leeming would take some persuading of its virtues!
CONCLUSION AND PICS
I hope that you have enjoyed this post and will be inspired to share it. Here are a couple of pictures to finish…
A close up of the key areaThe Diagrammatic History
Welcome to the latest installment in my series “London Station by Station“. Whereas my regular posts contain links, photographs and sometimes infographics as well as the title piece, these posts contain no links, no infographics and only pictures that relate directly to the matter in hand.
HAMMERSMITH
The colours of the title are those of the modern lines that serve the station. The Hammersmith and City line, in the days when it was the original Metropolitan Railway reached Hammersmith in 1864, although the current station for that line was opened four years later in 1868. From 1877 to 1906 a viaduct diverging from the current line at Goldhawk Road and having a station called Hammersmith Grove Road connected to the District at Ravenscourt Park and thence to Richmond. The District line station at Hammersmith opened in 1874, and it was the original western terminus of the Piccadilly line in 1906.
The station which now serves the District and Piccadilly lines was completely redesigned a few years back, although the track layout remains the same – District line tracks on the outside, Piccadilly line tracks in the centre. Except for occasional services which also stop at Turnham Green, where the Richmond branch of the District diverges from the Ealing branch, Piccadilly trains run non-stop between Hammersmith and Acton Town. Just west of Hammersmith on the District and Piccadilly lines one can see the remains of the viaduct referred to in the opening paragraph.
Hammersmith is home to a major shopping centre (the reason for the redesign mentioned above) and also to the Lyric Theatre, at which I saw several good plays.
Here are a couple of pictures to conclude the post…
The Diagrammatic HistoryA close up of the key area for this post.
I hope you have enjoyed this post and I encourage you to share it!
As well as my title piece and accompanying photographs I have some cracking links to share with you.
A DULL GREY SATURDAY
In a classic application of Murphy’s Law today is dull and grey, immediately following several bright sunny work days. Not that unappealing weather meant that there was nothing to photograph – after being dry for some time the fountain in The Walks had water in it and was functioning as it should…
Just beyond that was a “Trivial Pursuit” type arrangement of flower beds, one half of which I captured for posterity…
The squirrels were not in the least deterred by filthy grey skies either…
The ducks and moorhens were enjoying the waters of the upper Millfleet as it flows through the parkland…
The younger generation were also in evidence out on the water…
Arriving at the river bank by way of Hardings Pits I took a shot looking towards the town…
Walking past the anti-flood wall near old Boal Quay I was gratified to spot this blackbird at quite close quarters…
My last shot was taken at the jetty now in its second summer of service, and hosting a single boat today…
LINKS
TWO AUTISM RELATED LINKS
I found this shocking story of institutionalized abuse (I can call it nothing else), by way of twitter and I have already made contact with the author and subject of the story, Jennifer Msumba who posted it on her blog Here is an infographic for you…
The petition calling on Playmobil to produce toys that show disabled people in a positive light has succeeded in persuading them, after gaining more than 50,000 signatures. As well as celebrating, the organisers are using this as a springboard for tackling their next target, Lego. To view, sign and share this new petition please follow this link.
Patheos, who feature regularly in the links section of this blog, are here again, this time with a report on a particularly egregious piece of legislation which will cause the adoption rate in the state of Michigan to plummet.
My next and penultimate link is to a piece from handandmouse which combines slamming George Osborne with arguing cogently for Jeremy Corbyn to be on the ballot paper for the Labour leadership election.
To end this section here is a link to a piece in the Lynn News about how the town will be celebrating the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta.
PHOTOS AND AN AFTERWORD
AFTERWORD
I hope you have enjoyed this blog post and will be inspired to share it.
PHOTOGRAPHS
Here are a few random pics that I choose to share…
Window display at the Salvation Army shop in Fakenham.A close up of one the pieces featured in the first picture.
I have a few links to share with you, but most of the post will be taken up with the title piece.
CATALOGUE FOR GREAT CENTENARY CHARITY AUCTION IN PRINT
The catalogue for the Great Centenary Charity Auction is now available in printed form. For more detail please consult the official post on www.greatcharity.org, which can be viewed here. Just to whet the appetiite further here is a glimps of the cover…
A HARD DAY’S IMAGING
Having knocked the Great Charity Centenary Auction on the head, today was almost entirely devoted to imaging for James and Sons own June auction. I imaged a wide variety of lots today, and reckoning that pictures speak louder than words, the rest of this section will be images of some the better lots…
This is lot 1 – starting as we would like to continue!
LINKS
Just three links with this post, these two related stories from Patheos:
2) Miley Cyrus shows herself to be capable of being sensible.
Our final link is to a piece in The Mirror about the DWP’s continuing effort to avoid revealing just how many people have died as a result of welfare cuts.
I hope you have enjoyed this post and will be inspired to share it.
This is going be to what I think of as a ‘standard issue’ blog post – my title piece, a couple of infographics that have caught my eye, some interesting links and a few of my own photographs.
IMAGING, IMAGING AND MORE IMAGING
With James and Sons’ own June auction and the Great Centenary Charity Auction which is being conducted by James and Sons happening within four days of one another I have a heavy load of imaging to get through. The last of the GCCA stuff was done yesterday, and I then got back to imaging for the regular June auction, on which I had made a start before I was commandeered to image the stuff for the GCCA.
At least today, with the GCCA stuff out of the way, I will be working at my usual location the whole day, and should get a lot done.
Towards the end of yesterday I got a few bits of June imaging done, some of which I shall share now…
LINKS
I am grouping these links by subject matter, because although there are only a few of them, they cover a wide range of topics…
RELIGION
I have two pieces in this section, both courtesy of Patheos:
Just the one piece, but it is an excellent one, and it is feel-good story to end my links section on an upbeat note, courtesy of ramblingsofaspecialmom – a story about finding the right kind of support.
INFOGRAPHICS AND A CLOSING NOTE
I hope you have enjoyed this post and will be encouraged to share it.
Welcome to the next installment in my station by station guide to London. Following the success of my piece on Paddington I have gone for the other main line terminus among the original seven stations on the Metropolitan Railway…
HISTORY
King’s Cross and St Pancras are next door neighbours to one another, and therefore served by the same Underground Station. Although this was one of the 1863 originals, the platforms that now serve the Hammersmith and City, Circle and Metropolitan lines have been resited – the present ‘surafce’ level station dates only from 1941. The Piccadilly line station was part of the original section of that line which opened in 1906, while the City and South London Railway (now the Bank branch of the Northern line) got there in 1907. Finally, it was part of the second section of the Victoria line to come on stream in December 1968.
ST PANCRAS
Although King’s Cross (of which more later) is by some way the larger of the two main line rail terminals here, St Pancras is an extraordinary building, resembling an outsized fairy castle. St Pancras is now an international terminus, running trains to the continent, and meaning that over a century after he just failed to make it happen the dream of Edward Watkin, who guided the Metropolitan in its great era of expansion, of being able to travel by rail from Paris to Manchester by way of London is now a reality.
KING’S CROSS
King’s Cross is a station of two parts – the main concourse and platforms 1-8 which run long haul trains to the north and scotland, and off to one side platforms 9-11 from which trains to much more local destinations such as Peterborough, Cambridge and King’s Lynn depart. It is here that you will find the sign to platform 93/4 from which the Hogwarts Express departs in the Harry Potter stories. Having mentioned one literary association, King’s Cross plays a passing role in more than one of Edward Marston’s stories involving Inspector Colbeck a.ka. The Railway Detective.
MAPS
I have my usual style map images to help those of you not familiar with the area to orient yourselves:
CONCLUSION
I hope that you have enjoyed this piece and that you will be encouraged to share it.
As well as my title piece I have some links, and few photographs to share. I am producing a post specifically about travel because I have always enjoyed travelling and also because in honour of a forthcoming visit to the UK one of my favourite bloggers, Autism Mom
THOMAS ON TRAVEL
PUBLIC TRANSPORT AND SUTCLIFFE’S FIRST LAW
Not only do I not drive, I knew long before I was of an age to drive that I would never do so, so all travelling that i do under my own steam is done on public transport. Since I am now 40, my experience of public transport is long, and because I am British it is also not entirely happy!
The second part of my title refers to a law I have coined for travelling by public transport which reads as follows:
Sutcliffe’s First Law of Travelling by Public Transport – If you allow time for things to go wrong they won’t but if you don’t they will.
The practical application of this somewhat cynical ‘law’ is that when planning a journey where you need to be at your destination by a certain time you should work out the particular bus or train you need to catch and then aim for the one before to allow for mishaps.
These pictures of an RAF rescue helicopter were taken through the window of an X8 bus on the way home from work…
IN TRANSIT
When in transit I either seek to enjoy the scenery (if I am not familiar with the route) or to read a book (if I am)
Another reason that travel is much on my mind at the moment is that my local bus station, which I use frequently is in the process of being refurbished. Here are a couple of pictures…
Paddington was one the original seven stations that opened as The Metropolitan Railway on January 10th 1863 – it was the western terminus of the line, although right from the start there were track links to the Great Western Railway, which supplied the Metropolitan with rolling stock before it developed its own. In 1864 the western terminus became Hammersmith, over the route of today’s Hammersmith and City line, and the origins of the station can still be seen because the H&C platforms are structurally part of the mainline station, although ticket barriers now intervene between them and the rest. The second set of London Underground platforms to be opened at Paddington were also originally opened by the Metropolitan, although they are now served by the Circle and the Edgware Road branch of the District line. They opened in 1868 as Paddington (Praed Street) – as opposed to Paddington (Bishop’s Road), the original 1863 station. In 1913 a northern extension of the Bakerloo line included a deep level station at Paddington. By 1948 the suffixes of both ‘surface’ stations had been dropped, and all three sets of platforms were known simply as Paddington.
A LITERARY DISAPPOINTMENT
In 2013, to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the opening of the Metropolitan Railway Penguin brought out a series of books, one for each line. I wrote about all of these books at the time, but I am going to mention Philippe Parreno’s “effort” about the Hammersmith and City line again. Given the line that contains all seven of the original 1863 stations Mr Parreno produced a book that contained no words, just a series of pictures. Had these pictures been meaningful and clearly associated with the line and its stations this might have been acceptable, but these pictures were blurry and meaningless (it was barely even possible to tell what they were supposed to be of).
OTHER LITERARY ASSOCIATIONS
Of course, when thinking of Paddington’s literary associations the one that springs instantly to mind is that with the fictional world’s best known refugee: Paddington Bear. Also however, Dr Watson (see “Baker Street” in this same series) had his first practice here after moving out of Baker Street to set up home with his wife (see A Scandal in Bohemia for more details).
CONCLUDING REMARKS
I hope you have enjoyed this post and will be encouraged to share it. To tie everything together, here are a some pictures.
This is the latest post in a series I have been running giving a station by station guide to London. Today’s post will feature a measure of London Underground history, a bit of tennis and some music…
BARONS COURT – A MEETING OF TUBE AND SURFACE
HISTORY
Barons Court opened in 1906, as part of the original Piccadilly line section from Finsbury Park to Hammersmith. District line trains had been travelling the route since 1874 but there was no station at Barons Court before the Piccadilly line opened. The Piccadilly when it opened was either a compromise involving elements of three different plans or if you prefer a bodge job trying to combine elements of three different plans. Desmond F Croome’s “The Piccadilly Line: An Illustrated History” gives full details. Of relevance to our post, one of the roles that was subsumed into the making of the Piccadilly line was that of ‘deep level district’, easing congestion on the older subsurface level route. Thus, from South Kensington to Earls Court the Piccadilly follows the district, and from Barons Court, where the Piccadilly surfaces, it shares a set of four tracks with the district as far as Acton Town, and on the Heathrow branch as far as Hounslow West and the whole of the Uxbridge branch the platforms are at the compromise height used for platforms shared by ‘tube’ and ‘surface’ stock, as the district used to run these routes as well. A couple of pics between subsections…
QUEENS
Barons Court is the home of the Queens Club, host of the best known of all the Wimbledon warm up tournaments. For most of the year tennis is played on a variety of surface other than grass, and Queens gives men (it has no women’s section) a chance to get to used to both grass and London before the big one,
THE MUSICAL CONNECTION
Barons Court’s musical connection comes by way of St Pauls Girls School, just across the A4 from the station. For some years the Director of Music at that establishment was Gustav Holst, famous both as a composer and for collecting folk stories to serve as an inspiration for his composition. His best known work today is The Planets, which focuses on the attributes of the gods whose names the planets bear (yes I would wish for the focus to be astronomical rather than astrological/ mythological – but it is still excellent music).
CONCLUDING REMARKS AND PICTURE
I hope you have enjoyed this post and that you will be encouraged to share it. My final picture is of a Piccadilly line promotional poster…
I have a good haul of photographs from today, and some interesting links to share with you, as well as the main story…
ELECTRODES AND FLICKERING IMAGES
Being signed up to the Autism Research Centre in Cambridge’s email alerts I get a lot of details of studies into Autistic Spectrum Conditions for which they need volunteers and being passionate about reducing the ignorance about Autistic Spectrum Conditions that continues to bedevil our world I nearly always agree to take part.
This particular project was to do with responses to visual stimulation and required me to visit Cambridge. My appointment had been arranged for 11AM today, carefully avoiding any clash with work commitments…
GETTING THERE
The train journey from King’s Lynn to Cambridge takes almost exactly an hour, which given that they leave King’s Lynn just before the hour strikes meant that I had to be on the 8:57AM. Arriving at the station in King’s Lynn in very good time, and purchasing my ticket without undue difficulty I was able to take some photos at the recently restored station…
This blackbird clearly isn’t conversant with passenger safety advice!
The train approaching.This map is inside the train doors – I took the pic en route to finding a seat.
The train journey was uneventful and (mirabile dictu) ran exactly according to schedule. Although it is far from straightforward to get good photos through a train window one or two of my attempts are worth sharing…
Ely CathedralBoats at ElyAt Cambridge, witnessing a service run by Abellio arriving (almost certainly late given their reputation)The operating company that runs service between London and King’s Lynn – no connection to the Great Northern Railway of old which ran services out of London Euston.
From the station, it was a walk through past the bus stops and on to Brooklands Avenue, which goes straight through to Trumpington Road, picking up some more photos en route…
Cambridge and its environs are served by an excellent local bus system.
AT THE AUTISM RESEARCH CENTRE
Having dallied sufficiently that I would not be crazily early I rang on the doorbell of Douglas House 15 minutes in advance of my appointment time, signed in as requested and waited. It turned out the researcher who should have been conducting the experiments was not around that day, so someone else took charge of me. The preliminaries (paperwork) attended to, it was time to set me up for the tests. This involved me donning an electrode cap (effectively a swimming hat with points for attaching electrodes), each electrode point being filled with a conducting gel before the electrodes could be attached, and then the electrodes being attached. A second set of electrodes were attached around the eyes . The purpose of this get up was to monitor electrical activity in my brain while I responded to various visual stimuli.
Everything, be it lines or proper pictures, was flickering so that I only got fleeting glimpses. There was one set of exercises that involved proper pictures, one that involved viewing arrows and then clicking a button as soon as white box appeared on the screen, and several involving flickering lines.
At the end I was quite relieved when the wires were all detached and I was able to wash the gel (which is water soluble) out of my hair and take my leave.
Although the gel feels cold when it first makes contact with you, and when all the electrodes are fitted to it the cap weighs quite a bit I feel that this set of experiments are no great imposition. If you are 18 or over, have an Autistic Spectrum Condition, feel that you could undergo this and are able to get to Cambridge you could send an email to: Sarah Kaarina Crockford” <skc48@medschl.cam.ac.uk>
GETTING BACK
A combination of the fact that I finished at the Autism Research Centre at 12:15 and that I wasted no time getting back to the station meant that I was able to catch the 12:35 train back to King’s Lynn, and was sat down to a late lunch at 2PM. A last couple of photos…
aspiblog 