Ghost Stations of the London Underground 296
PinchDuck writes "Check out this site to get a tour of London Underground stations that have been abandoned during the century+ history of the commuter system. You can apparently still get to some of them! (though not by taking the Tube, obviously). I wish I had found this site 2 weeks ago, when I went to London, but now my geeky explorations must wait until my next visit (having just flown back in to Detroit today)."
Mornington Crescent! (Score:4, Funny)
I win!
Re:Mornington Crescent! (Score:4, Funny)
so there...
Re:Mornington Crescent! (Score:2, Informative)
Following the errors in understanding... (Score:3, Interesting)
I live on Watling Street, so that amendment stands too. Or indeed the playstation 2 version, considering the media of this discussion...
Re:Mornington Crescent! (Score:4, Funny)
John: My hat! Sir Horace!
Jasmina: (not daring to look) Has he been...
John: Yes - after breakfast. But that doesn't matter now... he's dead.
Jasmina: Oh! Poor daddy...
John: Looks like I shan't be catching the 11.30 now.
Jasmina: Oh no, John, you mustn't miss your train.
John: How could I think of catching a train when I should be here helping you?
Jasmina: Oh, John, thank you... anyway you could always catch the 9.30 tomorrow - it goes via Caterham and Chipstead.
John: Or the 9.45's even better.
Jasmina: Oh, but you'd have to change at Lambs Green.
John: Yes, but there's only a seven-minute wait now.
Jasmina: Oh, yes, of course, I'd forgotten it was Friday. Oh, who could have done this.
(Enter Lady Partridge.)
Lady Partridge: Oh, do hurry Sir Horace, your train leaves in twenty-eight minutes, and if you miss the 10.15 you won't catch the 3.45 which means
John: I'm afraid Sir Horace won't be catching the 10.15, Lady Partridge.
Lady Partridge: Has he been... ?
Jasmina: Yes - after breakfast.
John: Lady Partridge, I'm afraid you can cancel his seat reservation.
Lady Partridge: Oh, and it was back to the engine - fourth coach along so that he could see the gradient signs outside Swanborough.
John: Not any more Lady Partridge... the line's been closed.
Lady Partridge: Closed! Not Swanborough!
John: I'm afraid so.
(Enter Inspector Davis.)
Inspector: All fight, nobody move. I'm Inspector Davis of Scotland Yard.
John: My word, you were here quickly, inspector.
Inspector: Yeah, I got the 8.55 Pullman Express from King's Cross and missed that bit around Hornchurch.
Lady Partridge: It's a very good train.
All: Excellent, very good, delightful.
(Tony runs in through the french windows. He wears white flannels and boater and is jolly upper-class.)
Tony: Hello everyone.
All: Tony!
Tony: Where's daddy? (seeing him) Oh golly! Has he been... ?
John and Jasmina: Yes, after breakfast.
Tony: Then
John: Exactly.
Tony: And I suppose as his eldest son it must go to me.
Inspector: Just a minute, Tony There's a small matter of... murder.
Tony: Oh, but surely he simply shot himself and then hid the gun.
Lady Partridge: How could anyone shoot himself and then hide the gun without first cancelling his reservation.
Tony: Ha, ha! Well, I must dash or I'll be late for the 10.15.
Inspector: I suggest yOu murdered your father for his seat reservation.
Tony: I may have had the motive, inspector, but I could not have done it, for I have only just arrived from Gillingham on the 8.13 and here's my restaurant car ticket to prove it.
Jasmina: The 8. 13 from Gillingham doesn't have a restaurant car.
John: It's a standing buffet only.
Tony: Oh, er... did I say the 8.13, I meant the 7.58 stopping train.
Lady Partridge: But the 7.58 stopping train arrived at Swindon at 8.19 owing to annual point maintenance at Wisborough Junction.
John: So how did you make the connection with the 8. I3 which left six minutes earlier?
Tony: Oh, er, simple! I caught the 7.16 Football Special arriving at Swindon at 8.09.
Jasmina: But the 7.16 Football Special only stops at Swindon on alternate Saturdays.
Lady Partridge: Yes, surely you mean the Holidaymaker Special.
Tony: Oh, yes! How daft of me. Of course I.came on the Holidaymaker Spedal calling at Bedford, Colmworth, Fen Dinon, Sutton, Wallington and Gillingham.
Inspector:' That's Sundays only!
Tony: Damn. All fight, I confess I did it. I killed him for his reservation, but you won't take me alive! I'm going to throw myself under the 10.12 from Reading.
John: Don't be a fool, Tony, don't do it, the 10.12 has the new narrow traction bogies, you wouldn't stand a chance.
Tony: Exactly.
Re:Mornington Crescent! (Score:2, Funny)
Well, they probably haven't heard of it because there was a major contractual wrangle between the the IAMCP (Imperial Association of Mornington Crescent Players) and the AUMCO (American United Mornington Crescent Organisation) over who had rights to radio broadcasts, in the early thirties. The IAMCP won and sold the rights to the BBC for a comparatively small sum, while the AUMCO broke away and renamed the game after the stations of New York. Bit like the way Monopoly was rewritten with London streets for the UK edition. Sadly, since then, what with one ruling and another over the years, the American and British versions have become quite mutually unintelligible.
Very interesting (Score:3, Insightful)
One step closer to the vision of NYC in AI (the movie by Spielberg)....
Re:Very interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Very interesting (Score:5, Funny)
So, in about 480 years, then?
Re:Very interesting (Score:2)
Re:Very interesting (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Very interesting (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Very interesting (Score:2)
Jessica [looking at a tombstone]: "Beloved husband, beloved wife... I wonder what it means?"
Re:Very interesting (Score:2, Insightful)
We still talk about the leaders of Egypt, and the pyramids are still standing, and that was around 6,000 years ago if I'm not mistaken. Its amazing just how much can be reconstructed from ruins. It'll be more interesting after humans leave the planet (through exodus or extinction) and something discovers our ruins. I bet Disney World gets remembered as the largest place of worship on the planet, and that Mickey Mouse was a god we worshiped by giving little green pieces of paper to his church.
Re:Very interesting (Score:2)
Ok,, I'm confused, I mean they are similar, but do I really appear to be that much of a bookworm? Sorry to ruin your misconceptions but I had never heard of that book until this very minute, however Amazon helped me out here...
Walter M. Miller's acclaimed SF classic A Canticle for Leibowitz opens with the accidental excavation of a holy artifact: a creased, brittle memo scrawled by the hand of the blessed Saint Leibowitz, that reads: "Pound pastrami, can kraut, six bagels--bring home for Emma." To the Brothers of Saint Leibowitz, this sacred shopping list penned by an obscure, 20th-century engineer is a symbol of hope from the distant past, from before the Simplification, the fiery atomic holocaust that plunged the earth into darkness and ignorance. As 1984 cautioned against Stalinism, so 1959's A Canticle for Leibowitz warns of the threat and implications of nuclear annihilation. Following a cloister of monks in their Utah abbey over some six or seven hundred years, the funny but bleak Canticle tackles the sociological and religious implications of the cyclical rise and fall of civilization, questioning whether humanity can hope for more than repeating its own history. Divided into three sections--Fiat Homo (Let There Be Man), Fiat Lux (Let There Be Light), and Fiat Voluntas Tua (Thy Will Be Done)--Canticle is steeped in Catholicism and Latin, exploring the fascinating, seemingly capricious process of how and why a person is canonized.
It seems that this is along the same lines, but for crying out loud... Accusing me of plagiarism is a bit far, don't ya think?...
Re:Very interesting (Score:5, Interesting)
[ More pages like this ] (Score:5, Interesting)
I found this [thetube.com] old article on The Tube's Web site that really gives a nice overview of things. I actually read that a few weeks ago, so it's kind of ironic that this
Re:[ More pages like this ] (Score:2, Insightful)
You obviously learnt about irony from Alanis Morisette.
Re:[ More pages like this ] (Score:2)
I actually saw Pearl Harbor about a month ago, so it's kind of ironic that you're posting with your sig just now.
TTC (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:TTC (Score:5, Informative)
As for the station refered to in the parent, it was called Lower Bay (or Bay Lower) station, and was shutdown after 6 months of use. It's now used mainly as a film set, and for training I believe. Since little to no maintenance is performed on it, it's easy to pass it off as a New York subway station
THIS [infiltration.org] page is a good read about exploring the TTC tunnels (and lower bay), and THIS [toronto.com] page gives a little bit of the history of lower bay.
Re:TTC (Score:5, Informative)
The most commonly known abandoned station is Lower Bay, the lower level of the Bay station. It was used for a few months when the Bloor-Danforth line first opened, to allow the trains to interline with the Yonge-University line.
When the Yonge line was planned, it was thought that a streetcar subway would run under Queen Street (rather than the Bloor-Danforth line we have today). A roughed-in platform was built for the streetcars under Queen Station. At Osgoode (Queen St, University line), there is no second platform, although utlities were moved to accomodate a line (should it be built).
Another abandoned "station" is located at Allen Road, along the cancelled Eglinton line. The station was the first to be built, but the new government at the time cancelled the line and the station was filled in. Work never progressed far enough for it to be called a station though.
Keele and Woodbine stations on the Bloor line were terminal stations when the Bloor-Danforth line first opened. Special tunnels were built [toronto.on.ca] to make it easier for passengers to transfer to/from the streetcars, but were later abandoned.
Lots of info on these tunnels: (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.thetube.com/content/metro/01/0110/31/ [thetube.com]
http://www.londonrailways.net/ghost.htm [londonrailways.net]
The BBC has a great article here [bbc.co.uk].
Most older cities have a lot of steam tunnels and abandoned stations like these. Does anyone out there have some interesting exploration stories to share?
Re:Lots of info on these tunnels: (Score:5, Interesting)
Seems the tunnels do connect a number of Columbia and buildings, but it also links up to the 116th street train station and a number of other non columbia facilities. Whats really odd is the total lack of security and the equipment being housed.
Most of the power generatos and phone switches for columbia seem to be located down there, and there isnt much keeping one from going from the ny subway system into the tunnels housing Columbia's equipment.
Re:Lots of info on these tunnels: (Score:3, Interesting)
My friend has a very good map of the tunnels. You should email him if you want a copy. See also this excellent site [undercity.org].
Re:Paris subway (Score:3, Informative)
What is the most amazing to me is that these stations seem to have escaped time: you can see ads from the 50s on the wall. When there was some works done at the Roosevelt station, they removed a part of the wall coverings, revealing the original wall, covered with ads, and a map of the subway as it was in the mid 60s.
Place for a rave. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Place for a rave. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Place for a rave. (Score:4, Funny)
Yeah, but the problem is giving out directions to these parties.
"You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike."
Now just try to get to the drinks without running into a grue.
Visits to these Underground Stations (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Visits to these Underground Stations (Score:2)
Huh? There are legitimate sites in .cx?
I'm not about to click this link (Score:2)
No clicky for me!
Re:Visits to these Underground Stations (Score:2)
James Bond: Die Another Day (very minor spoiler) (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:James Bond: Die Another Day (very minor spoiler (Score:2)
urban spelunking (Score:5, Informative)
Another site that has similar information about places you're not supposed to go is www.infiltration.org [infiltration.org]. Ah, running around steam tunnels back when I was an undergrad....
More on Ostbahnhof (Score:3, Interesting)
Ostbahnhof was a station on a line that started in West Berlin, ducked into East Berlin for a little bit, through one station and then went back into West Berlin. The U-Bahn did not stop at Ostbahnhof while the city was divided. However, that did not stop some East Berliners from trying to use that train to escape East Berlin - which resulted in some fatalities until the East German government wised up.
Later, West Berliners taking the train would be able to see a "ghost" station as the train sped by Ostbahnhof with armed guards patrolling the station to prevent East Berliners from trying to escape.
Re:More on Ostbahnhof (Score:2)
And it was damn spooky. I was lucky(?) enough to make a trip to East Germany in 1989, and came into the country through Checkpoint Charlie. We got there from the airport partly on the U-Bahn, and passed through at least one ghost station. Just the existence of the ghost stations was a bit spooky, but when you realized why they were there it became quite unsettling. It really brought home the reality of the cold war like nothing else I saw (at least until our bus had to wait behind Soviet tanks on maneuvers).
Re:More on Ostbahnhof (Score:3, Informative)
After the war, the U-Bahn and the Buses were run by West Berlin and the S-Bahn + Trams were allocated to East Berlin.
The U in U-Bahn means Underground, although they often run about 30 feet above ground. The U-Bahn runs in the built-up areas.
The S in S-Bahn means Stadt (city), they went way out into tge surrounding areas.
There were 4 U-Bahn lines affected by the wall:
The S-Bahn was more or less boycotted after the wall was built in 1961. When the staff went on strike around 20 years later, the E-Germans reacted by closing most of the existing lines and stations. All (I believe) are open again.
Re:urban spelunking (Score:2)
Ostbanhof is now a really nice station (most trains to Paris, Belgium, etc. start from there). Quite a bit of monez has been poured into rebuilding the infrastructure in East Berlin.
I think, though, that the new Potsdammer Platz and Central Station whill take over for it when they are fully finished.
Underground mystery, US version (Score:5, Informative)
http://triggur.org/silo/site.html [triggur.org]
World's weirdest site--exploring an abandoned missile silo.
Re:Underground mystery, US version (Score:3, Interesting)
There was a promoter who claimed to be working up a plan to turn the silos into upscale underground homes for people with off-center tastes in housing, but that never got anywhere. I haven't heard about them in four or five years now, so maybe they've just been filled in.
rj
Re:Underground mystery, US version (Score:2, Interesting)
don't say much more though, wonder if the cops were just waiting for them when they came out or something
Re:Underground mystery, US version (Score:2)
Re:Underground mystery, US version (Score:2)
Hobo's, Hermits and the Hairless (Score:2, Interesting)
--The sex of hobo's and hairless people [tilegarden.com]
Detroit is perfect! (Score:5, Informative)
The Fabulous Ruins of Detroit (Score:5, Informative)
Check it out. [detroityes.com]
There are dark and strange things down there... (Score:5, Funny)
... The Government has put a D-notice on the publishers of London Underground maps. There are stations the public aren't supposed to know about out east; they built the Dome to discourage prospective explorers. The Forbidden Line starts near the Thames Barrier then goes 'London Below - Rl'yeh - Pandaemonium'. Another station serves the workers on the underground dragon-breeding project.
They claimed that those raiders who attacked the Dome with a JCB were aiming to steal diamonds. We know the truth now! They were aiming to break into the main shaft and expose the horrors below... Don't let them lie to you!
Re:There are dark and strange things down there... (Score:2)
many such stations are full of poor deranged canibal zombies that speak but one sentance, "mind the gap", over and over again.
Re:There are dark and strange things down there... (Score:2)
Re:There are dark and strange things down there... (Score:2)
Reign of fire is on at our student cinema on tuesday BTW - dont give too much away
Re:There are dark and strange things down there... (Score:3, Insightful)
I think the third one came along, saw my followup post, and decided to be wilfully perverse :-)
The trailers for RoF all showed dragons wrecking London with great enthusiasm, so I don't think I've given away anything particularly spoilerish...
NYC abandoned stations. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:NYC abandoned stations. (Score:2)
Boston, too (Score:3, Interesting)
Speaking of relics, the big dig (multibillion $ replacement of the main artery with tunnels) brought up all sort of oddities, such as hollowed-out tree trunks used as sewers in the 18th century. The mysteries that stir beneath.
Surely the Chicago L, Paris Metro, and so on share these features. And, given the nature of the web where one person's trivia is another's lifelong obsession, I'm sure the info is out there, somewhere.
Thanks for the NYC cite. NYC has all sorts of interesting things buried there.... And I can't help but say there are a lot of public works in the city that are not abandoned -- and should be.
Oh *&%!&! (Score:2)
Isn't the net cool? For bringing us information like this that we really, really need? Well, beats watching sitcoms.
Re:NYC abandoned stations. (Score:2)
No need to go to London... (Score:5, Informative)
One of them is even a national historic monument [nycsubway.org].
The Secret Is Out (Score:5, Funny)
Oh that's just great. Now where are we going to hide out when the machines take over the planet?? The get-out has always been that mankind would take refuge in the abandoned tunnels and sewers. Now that Google has the archive of all the locations, that plan isn't going to work too well.
Please, be more responsible in the stories that you post on here. Thank You, STF
abandoned web site (Score:2, Funny)
will be abandoened, with no links leaving to it
and we are going to rediscover it.
Neverwhere (Score:5, Interesting)
Very cool book, IMHO
Re:Neverwhere (Score:2)
I understand that it is based on a series he did for the bbc. I wonder if they used any abandoned stations for location filming.
Anyone ever seen the series?
I would (Score:5, Funny)
Flooding (Score:2, Interesting)
psychoreactive slime? (Score:3, Funny)
I didn't think so.
Re:psychoreactive slime? (Score:2)
Infiltration, it's called... (Score:5, Informative)
Similar site for NYC subway system. (Score:3, Informative)
Makes me think of Seattle (Score:2, Informative)
Anybody know if there is anything like this in some other big cities?
Re:Makes me think of Seattle (Score:3, Informative)
-Sean
I went on a tour of the Ghost Boston Stations... (Score:3, Interesting)
Neil Gaimon (Score:3, Informative)
If you've never read it, I recommend it, very reality bending and a good read besides.
Re:Neil Gaimon (Score:2)
Sounds like you missed your calling - you should be a Slashdot editor!
Berlin - pre unification (Score:5, Interesting)
It was wierd as hell, the stations looked... well... bombed out and there was debris everywhere. At each station there was a lone bare bulb and a lone polizei with an AK-47. The air was extremly stale too. The train wasn't allowed to stop, it just slowed.
Like a litle tram trip through the Twilight Zone.
I can only assume that all that is a memory and those stations have been re-built now and are operational, no? Any Berliners care to comment?
Slime! It's a river of slime! (Score:2)
A hobby i would like. (Score:2)
A well, cant win them all.
He missed one oddity on the Victoria line (Score:5, Informative)
The Victoria line has a stretch between Victoria and Green Park. The most direct route would go under Buckingham Palace, the Queen's primary residence. However, if you look at 'real' maps of the Underground, a kink is in the line which causes it to skirt the Queen's property.
Supposedly this is related to security, but also to an atomic shelter located under the Palace.
If, however, you keep your eyes peeled while looking out of the train between these two stations, you can actually see a very small platform and some dim lights. I've only seen it once, and I -think- it's out of the left hand side of the train when going northbound, but I'm not 100% sure.
The newsgroup speculation at the time was that this was a way for the Royals to access the Underground in certain 'situations'. Next time you're on that stretch of line, check it out.
Re:He missed one oddity on the Victoria line (Score:5, Interesting)
On other stations there is also a station at parliment as well, that is only for use in war situations, that i've seen from time to time. And when they refurbed Embankment i'm sure i notice a line that is not used today. But this seems the best time to find things, when they have to close stations for varying reasons. Take this year when flooding closed large areas of the network in early september. I got to use stairwells that obviously had not seen the human foot of the normal passenger in some time.
Disturbing (Score:2, Interesting)
On the splash-guard above the sink I was very surprised to read written recently in the dust "Hywel 2000" - so another person bearing my name has recently visited this complex!
His name is Hywel. If I had such an uncommon name, and such an uncommon hobby, I would've been scared half to death by this.
Even the interpretation that he has been there before, but can't remember it, is quite scary.
Re:Disturbing (Score:2)
Re:Disturbing (Score:2)
Picadilly Line (Score:5, Informative)
Of all the deepcut lines, the Picadilly Line is probably the most fascinating for abandoned stations.
There are three notable abandonments; Aldwych, Down Street, and Brompton Road. There are also abandoned sections at Hyde Park Corner (which no longer uses it's original surface building, which is now a Pizza Restaurant), Green Park, South Ken (the lift shafts are empty), Caledonian Road, and no doubt several other stations.
Aldwych is probably the best known of the abandoned stations. It was closed in 1994 as the replacement cost for the lifts was deemed uneconomical, given the usage the station got. Aldwych runs on a branch down from Oldborn, and some tunnel extends further. This is because the Picadilly line was originally two seperate lines, the western section running to Covent Garden, the northern section running to Aldwych. The northern section was intended to run south of the river, hence the extra tunnel. This was never completed though, and the two sections wer joined at Holborn very early on.
Aldwych also has other random tunnel going to it, as the Jubilee line was built all the way to Aldwych, but never used that far. Now the Charring Cross section of the Jubilee line is completely abandoned as the Jubilee extension takes the line through Westminster instead.
Down Street was closed in the 1930s along with Brompton Road to thin down the number of Central London stations on the Picadilly line when the line was extended further east and west. Down Street, due to it's proximity to Green Park, was never a particularly busy station, and hence was an easy target. During the war it was converted into a transport command HQ and government bunker.
Brompton Road was likely chosen for closure due its very high proximity to South Ken - much of the surface building still stands next to the Kensington Oratory, just a few minutes walk away. Brompton Road was also used during the war, although it's uses were entirely military, and somewhat murky. The military still own the shafts, making access from the ground impossible. Several years ago a man died after breaking in and falling down one of the shafts. His remains were not discovered for quite some time!
Both Brompton Road and Down Street can be spotted from passing tube trains - the platforms were bricked up during their war usage, so you can see where the platforms would be by looking where the tube wall turns into a brick wall. Brompton Road is between South Ken and Knightsbridge, Down Street is between Hyde Park Corner and Green Park. Also look out for the cross-over / passing tunnels between Hyde Park Corner and Down Street :-)
Some good urban decay sites (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.nelsap.org
http://www.forgotten-ny.
And exactly on the subject of abandoned subway tunnels, here's an index for New York...
http://www.columbia.edu/~brennan/abandoned/
Re:Some good urban decay sites (Score:2)
Pity that everyone's in anti terror mode now, though, nobody can ever enjoy the sensation of exploring forgotton or abandoned structures in NY (and probably many other states) without getting arrested. That leaves a great loss in metropolitan history for the masses.
Those are Maps (Score:3, Insightful)
Um. Take a trained geographer's word, that's a map. I guess Polynesian wave and star charts are not maps because they don't show geomorphological features in an easily discernible way to Westerners... We are part of the landscape. Get over it.
Re:Those are Maps (Score:3, Insightful)
Harry Beck's diagram of the London Underground is a representation of the nature of connections, not relations of points in space. That's why it's not a map.
only that such-and-such station is near another station.
It gives no such information; if it did the LU map would be huge unless it had a regular, calculated, distortion applied. It does not.
No accounting for idiots, I suppose.
TWW
Abandoned subways? (Score:4, Funny)
There goes
Man this place is going to the dogs..
Vauxhall Cross Station (Score:5, Informative)
Interesting site.. But doing it is more fun. (Score:3, Interesting)
But while the sites are impressive. (taking a good
Does Q work there too? (Score:2)
In Toronto... (Score:2)
-psy
Re:In Toronto... (Score:2)
I can't believe noone has started a game of "morni (Score:4, Funny)
I'm invoking the 1822 revision of the slave release rule and starting with "Embankment"
.02
cLive ;-)
Re:I can't believe noone has started a game of "mo (Score:3, Funny)
TWW
Northern Heights (Score:3, Informative)
There are still rows round here about rebuilding the line - which would relieve a lot of bus congestion but at the price of the loss of a local amenity (the Parkland Walk nb: not the Woodland walk as stated in the article).
Of course the Tories (boo hiss) wanted to turn the Parkland Walk into a motorway and only abandoned the plan when they realised they were about to get slaughtered in the 1990 local elections...
Re:What? No 'Ghostse' Troll? (Score:2)
Anyway, you can mostly successfully futz with your settings such that you never have to see them.
-B
Re:If you're that bored in the tube... (Score:2)
I am interested in this. Please describe further.
Re:If you're that bored in the tube... (Score:2, Informative)
Anyway, when the scheme inevitably collapsed most of the Rabbit access point signs disappeared, but a noble few were left behind, either as largish stickers high on the wall, or as sticking out signs next to boxes on the ceiling/wall. I guess it was too much trouble to take them down, or they were just overlooked as they were covered in tube grime.
IIRC there was one in Tottenham Court Road, and another in Westminster, but I haven't noticed them in a year or so. I used to catch sight of them every once in a while and they always amused me.
Re:Gaiman (Neverwhere, etc.) (Score:2)