MTWD goes off the rails

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Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023:01:29:12:04:53 by BarmierKev.

Chunky

Seaxe Man has been 98 for so long that he probably did make that journey from Pinner! I'd probably have walked to Palmers Green & Southgate (as it was still called up to the '60s) and got the train in to King's Cross.

As it happens I have just come back from a talk given to out local Civic Voice group by two TfL people inspired by the Piccadilly Line extension, which reached Southgate 90 years ago (13th March apparently). Our house was built just before then and the house I was born in just afterwards. The talk was actually less about Southgate and more about the development of the Tube network and the heritage architecture that came with it. The map at the top of this article actually featured on one of the slides!

I suppose it is obvious but the transport system and development go together, though the order in which they arrive varies according to how (or indeed if) it is planned. Sometimes (Metroland) the railway company was also the developer. Some planned Tube extensions were dropped because the Green Belt stopped London expanding any further outwards. Greater London could have included Watford, Hatfield, Ongar, Redhill ... now that would have given SM nightmares.


Adelaide

Excellent chunky. History always stranger than fiction. Hope our legends of that era get a mention. The Hearne's and Patsy Hendren. A bit far off for the modern media jack to have heard of any of them.. One of Patsy's alleged sayings was whilst touring the West Indies on re-entering the dressing room was to say: 'I have just been bowled by a Chinaman.' In these woke times not safe to repeat.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023:01:15:16:59:55 by Seaxe_man1.

Adelaide-

Hope you enjoyed your talk from the two TFL people.

I'm sure they will have mentioned this, so to make sure you were paying attention- what is unique about Southgate station?

Seaxe-Man- I do plan to mention players (on both sides) who had a good match. The problem (as I quickly discovered) is how much, or how little detail to include. Too much, and people would look at an article they consider too long to read and not bother. Too little, and it looks like I've not done any research, so I plan to add links to the wiki pages for players I mention, as well as items you might have read in your newspaper a hundred years ago.

Kev already has part 2, but I think there will be a bit of a break first, as I know he has something of his own to put up first, and to make things last articles need to go up fortnightly. Hopefully once the season starts match reports will take care of the two week rule. If I have anything left over it can always be used in October/November.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023:01:15:09:21:42 by chunkyinargyll.

Southgate Station is unique chunky I think, as the only Underground Station that has its own tunnel.

One of Charles Holden's best, Southgate underground. And his best is extremely good. I like Arnos Grove too.

Quote:

Seaxe_man1
Southgate Station is unique chunky I think, as the only Underground Station that has its own tunnel.

Someone raised it in questions. Apparently that has no longer been the case since the Heathrow extension was built, as Hounslow West was moved underground so as to get under the roads.

The other suggested USP was that it was the only station you could walk around outside. The speakers thought this was wrong too. I think they offered Earl's Court as one alternative but I suspect that you have other buildings there between the station and the roads that you would have to walk down.

Other little nuggets. Southgate might have been called Chase Side, Arnos Grove might have been Bowes Road (it is nowhere near the original house Arnos Grove, though closer to its grounds) and Oakwood could have been East Barnet rather than Enfield West (it became Oakwood later). I also have a book which claims that the station site was in East Barnet Valley UDC, thus in Hertfordshire, but old maps give the lie to this. The boundary is only a couple of chains away though; a fair chunk of "Southgate" is actually within the borough of Barnet rather than Enfield.


Adelaide

S-M

You're partly right, in the sense the stations either side of it are both in the open air, but there is a bit more to it than that.

Bobstan- Agree. Charles Holden's concrete stations defined the underground of the 1930's.

Edit- Adelaide posted whilst I was typing this post. Still not got its USP.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023:01:15:11:14:13 by chunkyinargyll.

I have just read in the excellent book "Who only cricket know" that the Chinaman remark was first made by Walter Robins when he was bowled by a half Chinese player called Achong. The whole thing is probably apocryphal as it was used in print in the Grauniad before then.

While we're on the underground what happened to the scheme to develop the old rail tracks which run under the Nursery?

Chunky

The escalator treads may differ as they conservation considerations stopped them being replaced by metal ones like (nearly?) everywhere else after the King's Cross fire. The passimeter is rare but not unique. The uplighters on the escalators and the pylons outside ditto. Being on its own island, maybe, but that is a variant of the "walking round" thing. Integrated bus station surely not unique.

Incidentally, someone speculated in questions how the local planners would have reacted to a UFO-like building spirited into a not particularly built up area. My suspicion is that planners had a lot less influence in those days; in any case the "planning gain" from getting the tube was immense. The evil side of me wonders whether some of the councillors owned land that could be more profitably developed with the tube in place!


Adelaide

Nope.

If you stand at the Cockfosters end of the platforms, you can literally see light at the end of the tunnel, as it isn't much of a distance before you are out in the open- the only tube station where this is possible.

Before anyone says 'Hounslow West' although you are almost immediately in the open air, I'm not sure if you can see the open air from the platform, and even if you can, Hounslow West is a box structure below ground, rather than a genuine tube tunnel station in the way Southgate is.

Chunky

I can see that would be true. It's closely related to the "own tunnel" claim. There aren't that many points where trains emerge blinking into the sunlight and given the choice between an outside or underground station, the cheaper option would be one just outside rather than inside the tunnel.

The ground falls away quite sharply to the north of the station and it is pretty much straight out of the tunnel onto the viaduct over the culverted Hounsden Gutter. There are some old cottages just off Winchmore Hill Road which must have had a fantastic view before the railway came, which again makes me wonder whether local people had any influence whatsoever when the tube was built. Their view is to be blighted even further by tower blocks up to 17 storeys high on the other side of the railway. As will mine but I'm not so close. I donpt think they will be visible from the Walker Ground (there you are, I've got cricket back into it).


Adelaide

If you're on the London-bound platform at Southgate you can actually see light at both ends of the tunnel. The Cockfosters-bound platform and track are curved so I don't think you can (and I've never hung around to check as I rarely take the tube to Oakwood or Cockfosters and am keen to get home when getting off the train).

The unused Lords tunnel scheme Freddie was abandoned on cost grounds as reported.. You can see the entrance bricked up at Marylebone Station to the left of the one in use. Would require a bridge over the Euston Line to bring it into use and emerge at Finchley Road if so desired. . There is also the problem of who owns The Nursery End. It belonged to Network Rail who sold it for a million to a developer who wants to build flats on it. Complicated. Was told that MCC retain ownership of the top 9 inches. Dunno how true that is. The Gang of Four led by ex PM Major wanted the developer to be allowed to build flats for a price. The membership blocked that.

S-M

Don't you mean the top 22.86 centimetres?

If that's the exact conversion chunky yes. I always assume 25mm to the inch when that mumbo jumbo is quoted. So 225 mm. The cms are a sorta half inch. I did read letters in the DT, that Napolean is better for splitting the atom from a couple of eggheads way back. For people visiting the shops however. Splitting the atom ain't a priority. Just need a system easy to visualise.as the old boys devised. I needed a strip light, length 7 inches, took my own tape measure The guy said measurement on box. I said yeah mate but in mms which don't mean too much to me. Anyway measured and bought. Two women behind me on the 398 bus I heard saying that they were pleased that women's dress sizes were being restored as they then knew what they were buying. Up yours Heseltine. Luckily not at Waterloo and not the Station.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023:01:16:09:34:25 by Seaxe_man1.

It's my birthday today chunky. I won't quote it in millimetres. Off the scale.

Quote:

Seaxe_man1
If that's the exact conversion chunky yes. I always assume 25mm to the inch when that mumbo jumbo is quoted. So 225 mm. The cms are a sorta half inch. I did read letters in the DT, that Napolean is better for splitting the atom from a couple of eggheads way back. For people visiting the shops however. Splitting the atom ain't a priority. Just need a system easy to visualise.as the old boys devised. I needed a strip light, length 7 inches, took my own tape measure The guy said measurement on box. I said yeah mate but in mms which don't mean too much to me. Anyway measured and bought. Two women behind me on the 398 bus I heard saying that they were pleased that women's dress sizes were being restored as they then knew what they were buying. Up yours Heseltine. Luckily not at Waterloo and not the Station.

Exactly - you took a tape measure rather than relying on your own visual assessment.

Anything involving international collaboration benefits from common units. Scientists would also point out the internal coherence of the metric system. For example, one newton force necessary to provide a mass of one kilogram with an acceleration of one metre per second per second. Totally irrelevant to everyday life (I didn't know it before googling) which is why I hadn't bothered to mention it. The everyday advantages of using powers of 10 are much more important.


Adelaide

Quote:

Seaxe_man1
It's my birthday today chunky. I won't quote it in millimetres. Off the scale.

[www.youtube.com]

I haven't been on here in the last couple of weeks as I have been busy with other things (hard to believe there is anything more important than MTWD I know). A very interesting read, including all the responses.

Living now in Mid Sussex, I think the train would have been running through Haywards Heath on the Brighton line and I could have then caught an omnibus from Victoria to Lord's, as I still do. As a boy in Finchley, does anyone know if the Northern Line ran as far as Finchley Central in those days?

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Sussex Seaxe
As a boy in Finchley, does anyone know if the Northern Line ran as far as Finchley Central in those days?

No it didn't.

In those days it only went as far as todays Archway station, but to confuse things todays Archway was originally called Highgate.

Finchley Central existed, but as part of the GNR. Got electrified and taken over by the Northern Line in 1940. Thanks to the war, only some parts of the planned Northern Line extensions were completed, otherwise we might have been able to go to places like Muswell Hill, Alexandra Palace and Elstree.

The advent of the Green Belt put the kibosh on the Elstree and Bushey Heath extension. It didn't make sense to extend into open country that could no longer be built on. Denham (beyond West Ruislip) was mentioned at the meeting another abandoned extension for similar reasons; also the Ongar line was at one time going to be extended as far as Chelmsford, which struck me as particularly ambitious. Someone at the meeting thought there had been a plan to extend from Cockfosters to Potters Bar but given the steep valley just south of the M25 I doubt that it would have happened even without the Green Belt; the TfL guys were unaware of any such plan.

The war and the lack of money thereafter did for some of the other projects. I have a feeling that the original idea was to extend the Northern City line from Finsbury Park along existing tracks to Alexandra Palace but that fell by the wayside.


Adelaide

Oh- and Finchley Central even has its own song-

[www.youtube.com]

I can remember being taken aback in the '60s when I saw a poster in Aberystwyth for a band called Arnos Grove. It was around the time of Amen Corner so perhaps it was a fad of the time. Cockfosters was in showbiz too, in Max Miller jokes. Outdone by Mornington Crescent though.


Adelaide

Quote:

chunkyinargyll

Quote:

Sussex Seaxe
As a boy in Finchley, does anyone know if the Northern Line ran as far as Finchley Central in those days?

No it didn't.

In those days it only went as far as todays Archway station, but to confuse things todays Archway was originally called Highgate.

Finchley Central existed, but as part of the GNR. Got electrified and taken over by the Northern Line in 1940. Thanks to the war, only some parts of the planned Northern Line extensions were completed, otherwise we might have been able to go to places like Muswell Hill, Alexandra Palace and Elstree.

Thanks for that. As a small boy (must have been very late 1950's or early 1960's) I have a vague memory of seeing a steam train through the fence at Finchley Central; was I dreaming?

I'm sure you did.

BR continued to run a couple of steam hauled goods trains each day until the mid 60's.

Then the various goods yards were closed and turned in to car parks for commuters.

Here's a fairly easy one on a slightly different tack. Identify one of the London bus routes that left the United Kingdom mid-route.


Adelaide

Adelaide-

No idea if I'm right, but would it be anything to do with the film 'Passport to Pimlico'?

Bayswater, Gloucester Road and Sloane Square are all in their own tunnels (there is a map on the TFL website showing the tunnels), as well as Hounslow West and Southgate. When Finsbury Park was on the Northern City Line, it was in its own tunnel; the platforms are now used by the Piccadilly and Victoria Lines.

Barnet and East Barnet Urban Districts were in Hertfordshire; Friern Barnet was in Middlesex. The boundary between Middlesex and Hertfordshire was repeatedly modified over the years, and still is.

Yesterday's BBC Breakfast anniversary special had Russell Grant being given a jumper with a Middlesex County Council flag as "he supports the Middlesex cricket team". He is from Staines, in Spelthorne, in historic Middlesex. The MCCC website seems to forget that area when its refers to the boroughs covered by the team.

I suppose you could say all the stations on the Circle Line have their own tunnels, in the sense that gaps had to be left every so often for the steam to escape, but Southgate is the only true tube station where you can see the open air from the end of the platform.

I'm glad this thread has so far tempted four occasional posters out of hibernation. Clearly pointless starting threads about cricket. Salisbury joins coaching staff has not had a single reply so far, so better stick to the underground from now on!

Quote:

chunkyinargyll
Adelaide-
No idea if I'm right, but would it be anything to do with the film 'Passport to Pimlico'?

Nope. Go West...


Adelaide

Adelaide-

Don't know. I give up.

Chinky

For many years a number of bus routes supposedly left UK territory when they used the cargo tunnel to get between T123 and T4. Not allowed now for security reasons. I was told years ago that the airside cargo area was considered to be international territory but having said that I can't find a link which confirms that! Apparently it is a myth that transit areas are not part of the host country but it has been used (e g by Russia) as a reason/excuse for not arresting a fugitive they liked. If it is a myth then there is a bit of a paradox; while you are queueing at passport control you have not entered the country but you are on the territory of that country.


Adelaide



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 2023:01:21:20:56:29 by adelaide.

Obviously a slip of the finger, Addledaide.