I try to limit the number of actual humans in my photographs. I like to let the architecture do the story telling.
Thing is, you can’t really tell a story about Victoria without featuring people. Despite a new entrance opening last week, Victoria is still an overcrowded chaotic mess. I don’t think I’ve ever come through here without it looking like this.
Still, needs must…
Image copyright A Carter – CallingAllStations.co.uk
We’re on the West Coast Mainline out of Euston as we join the Bakerloo Line to head back into town and on to home. This is another case where local, suburban and intercity services all multiplex along the same route.
When we arrived platforms 5 and 6 were locked behind an enormous metal gate. Peering through the railings to see a desolate platform without posters or light, I thought it was safe to assume that this area of the station was not in regular use. It turns out that the high-speed Pendolino trains running non stop on their way to Watford, rush through at such a speed, that it creates a near lethal wind tunnel effect through the station. The gated platforms are only opened 10 minutes prior to a departure and are promptly locked again when passengers have safely disembarked.
Normally I read up on stations before we visit them, but the awkward trip to IKEA at Neasden (039) meant we’d taken a bus to Wembley Central rather than walking back over the smog ridden North Circular. This unfortunately meant I hadn’t discovered this nugget of information until I got home. Had I known I would have taken a picture of the gates.
I’ll be back this way later in the year to complete the Bakerloo Line so I’ll have to retrofit a more suitable picture to this blog another time. Until then, enjoy this modern totem pole with 3D BR Arrows and LU roundel working in complete harmony.
Image copyright A Carter – CallingAllStations.co.uk
The industrial area around Wembley and Neasden is punctuated by an enormous rail depot (the largest on the London Underground) and is bisected at its throat by the A406 North Circular Road. Neasden represents how easy it is for manmade infrastructure to completely isolate two neighbouring sections of land. Transport is supposed to mobilise a city, however the school you attend, your council and sometimes even your social standing, can all be defined and influenced by these arbitrary infrastructure boundaries.
Neasden station and Wembley IKEA are a mere 350 yards apart. You can see the store from the station, but you might as well be in Morden. Navigating between these two places involves a 20 minute 0.8 mile walk through dark underpasses, precarious walkways, and a stroll alongside a 6 lane expressway. It’s dirty. It’s smelly. It’s polluted, and it’s hardly any wonder that doing so is so actively discouraged by the sheer amount of time it takes and the awkwardness of the route. Transport should unite a city, but when it’s done badly, it breaks it in half.
All this for some flaming meatballs…
Image copyright A Carter – CallingAllStations.co.uk
I love looking at Stanmore on a map. Go on, go on Google Earth and look at Stanmore station. There’s one more street beyond it, and then London just… ends.
I don’t think there’s anything quite like it anywhere else in the city. London’s sprawl usually seems to transition slowly and gradually from urban chaos to garden-filled suburbia to open fields. Even at its outer reaches the green spaces are still interspersed with residential streets, smaller communities and the odd out of town Tesco. But not at Stanmore. Houses, houses, cars, offices, houses, Jubilee Line, houses, houses… Nothing.
If the Jubilee Line continued on it’s current alignment north by northwest of Stanmore, then it would bump into absolutely nothing between here and the M25.
Image copyright A Carter – CallingAllStations.co.uk
I find penultimate stations very interesting. They’re always so quiet. Quieter even than their neighbouring termini. Ruislip Gardens, Theydon Bois, Oakwood (012), Hillingdon, Canons Park. All quiet. Why?
So what do you say about the Jubilee Line’s least used station? It’s got a couple of plain entrances beneath an over-bridge, a small wooden ticket hall, two modest platforms with canopies and some brown (so very brown) stairwell tiles.
It’s bright, clean, neat and well kept, but you can tell it was never destined for bigger or busier things.
It’s quiet.
Image copyright A Carter – CallingAllStations.co.uk
Calling All Stations 