Images

026/270: #LondonBridge – The Distraction

ImageAndy Carter 2 Comments

20 days in to the year and this is only my 2nd Zone 1 station. A friend is showing me round Guys campus at Kings College so it also makes this my first naturally collected station beyond my normal commute.

There’s lots we could say about London Bridge… It serves the oldest mainline railway station in the city for example. It’s also the only tube station with “London” in its title. Or, you know, we could just do what everybody does and take a picture of The Shard…


Image copyright A Carter – CallingAllStations.co.uk

025/270: #HeathrowTerminal5 – The Numbers and Dingbats

ImageAndy Carter 3 Comments

Terminal 5 is a different beast again. Another product of 21st century design, but this time done properly with big caverns of glass and metal. It’s unlike East Hounslow (019) that’s for sure.

One of the few tube stations where trains arrive on one platform and then depart from another (via a reversing siding). This means Platform 5 has no regular passenger departures. I can recall this practice occurring at Amersham as well, but I might be wrong?

This station doesn’t really feel like a tube station, everything is a little bit wrong. There’s no blue back-lit station name plate at the entrance (that I could find), there are signs announcing that it’s in “Zone 6” plastered all over the gateline, some of the wayfinders are of airport terminal standard and not TfL… it’s all just wrong.

What’s certain is that Terminal 5, along with the other terminal stations, are the only three on the network to feature numbers. The roundels also feature a neat aeroplane dingbat, purposefully designed in the New Johnston font format.

Image copyright A Carter – CallingAllStations.co.uk

024/270: #HeathrowTerminal123 – The Unreachable

ImageAndy Carter 2 Comments

I’m never sure what to officially call this station, and now Terminal 1 has ceased to exist that’s been made even worse. Is it still Heathrow Terminal 1,2,3 or Heathrow Terminal 1,2&3 or Heathrow Terminal 2,3 or Heathrow Terminal 2&3??…

Well the roundels say 1,2,3 so let’s go with that. Terminal 1,2,3’s claim to fame is that it’s the only tube station not to be accessible by foot. And yes I suppose you could go back to my last post and say neither is Terminal 4 (023) as that’s only accessible through another building, but the building itself is accessible on foot. You could walk up to Terminal 4 and 5 stations from the outside world if you wanted to but that’s something you definitely can’t do here. The only way to access it (other than on the Piccadilly Line of course) would be to get a bus to the bus station or drive in and park via the Bath Road Tunnel.

Below I’m standing outside the Terminal 2 exit. The former Terminal 1 exit is seen through the ticket hall, now boarded up with advertising hoardings. Incidentally, is this the only station not to announce its own name on the entrance? It certainly used to be displayed here but I wonder if they haven’t got round to renaming it properly now Terminal 1 is shut… The ground level exit above is nothing to write home about either. But then it’s an airport isn’t it, functional and clear with no bells and whistles.

Image copyright A Carter – CallingAllStations.co.uk

023/270: #HeathrowTerminal4 – The Freebie

ImageAndy Carter 2 Comments

It’s free to travel between the Heathrow Terminals and Hatton Cross (022) so the next few stations are on TfL. The stations in these parts are full of rarities and oddities. Terminal 4‘s quirks are it’s only one of four stations with only a single platform (the others being Mill Hill East, Olympia and Chesham) and of these four it is the only one to be uni-directional. It’s also the only station, that I can think of, that is only accessible through another building – with it’s only exit leading straight into the terminal. Of course you could be pedantic and argue that both Terminal 1,2,3 (024) and Terminal 5 (025) stations also act in this way, but the former definitely has a street level exit to a bus station, and the later is part of the general station complex of the terminal with it’s own street level exit. Either way, it’s pretty rare.

I expect not many people stop to appreciate the airport stations as I expect their minds are fully focused on not losing any small children, and remembering in which of the 6000 suitcase pockets the passport is located. This is a shame as the octagonal ticket hall is rather pleasant, almost as if it too were mimicking Holden design just like South Ealing (015) at the start of this trip. There’s also an art exhibition in there if you’re passing through (also free)…

Image copyright A Carter – CallingAllStations.co.uk

022/270: #HattonCross – The Airport

ImageAndy Carter 3 Comments

Well, we had to do it at some point. Hatton Cross.

I shouldn’t like this station, I mean look at it… I could post this picture in colour and it wouldn’t look any difference. It’s awful isn’t it? It’s grey, and dirty, and ugly, and it’s surrounded by a nasty concrete jungle of industrial airport buildings, dual carriageways, car parks and NOISE.

And yet, there’s just something about it.

Not many new tube stations were built in the 1970’s. Only this, Brixton and Heathrow Terminals 1,2,3 (023) were true products of the decade. Both those stations have since undergone not just renovations themselves but whole area regeneration in which they sit. Hatton Cross on the other hand hasn’t had the same treatment, or at least not on the same scale. I’d be slightly disappointed if they ever knocked this down to build something better, partly because there’d be no point, but mostly because there’s really no other station as terrible as this. And that makes it unique. It still holds onto it’s optimistic 1970’s charm, even if it is decaying into the shabby heap of concrete and despair that we see today.

And that’s why I like it.

Image copyright A Carter – CallingAllStations.co.uk