please empty your brain below

A delight to read as always.

group of ... horses

It is one of the curiosities of the English language that we have so many collective nouns for horses, some very obscure, yet none seem quite suitable to describe a number of horses that happen to be in a field together.
While you were at Upminster station I thought you might have mentioned the Upminster to Romford shuttle service.
Although you might not expect it Plaistow is truly a magnificent piece of railway architecture. Particulary if you go to the far end of the platform and look back along both Easbound and Westbound platforms. Also the bridge next to the ticket hall is of note with it's airy skylights and ironwork. I think this station should be listed.
Upminster with its "roundel-less platform" - I'm sure DG must have noted such trivia before, but what are the other Underground stations without roundels? Wimbledon is another... any more?
I'd never spotted the Tea advert at East Ham, heard about yes, but never seen it.

A year or two ago, there would have been something to see and comment on at Dagenham Heathway; The waiting room was turned into an art exhibition for a few months. Almost no one noticed.
@Andy C

Until a few years ago, East Putney and Southfields, despite having no national rail services, were owned by NR (and BR before it) and had appropriate branding.

Other stations served by the Underground but run by another operator include Barking, Olympia, Richmond, Kew Gardens, Gunnersbury, and all stations from Queens Park to Watford Junction, but these now all have TfL Overground services and, I think, are branded accordingly.
Statoins like Ealing Broadway, Paddington and West Ruislip have separate sections for TfL and NR, each with the appropriate branding
Mile End is the only LU station without any full-size platform roundels.
@Andy C, Stratford was originally a National Rail station, when the Jubilee Line arrived there it was transferred to TfL. The staff were not happy about this at first, because of the possible effects on pension rights etc.
You would think DG, that given the line east of Barking has been full or part closed for over 100 weekends in the past 5 years as part of the so called upgrade project, they would have had time to spruce up the stations a little bit, but apparently that is beyond TfL.
TfL reckons the fastest way from Upminster to Richmond doesn't use the District Line at all - it goes C2C, Jubilee and SWT, in 62 minutes if you catch a fast train at Waterloo.
Using District all the way you would have only got as far as Sloane Square, and have almost another half hour to go.
(If you get a stopping train from Waterloo, it takes about fifteen minutes longer, by which time your tube traveller will have reached Hammersmith. Or alternatively, you can set off fifteen minutes later, and overtake the District Line train somewhere near Barking.
Another informative and insightful piece.

Bravo
According to this excellent video the only stations without roundels are all on the District - Barking, Gunnersbury, Kew Gardens, Richmond and Upminster.
And as Kim points out Mile End's are not full-size - anyone know why?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TH9a-yJm71c
@Pedantic: A companionship of horses sounds appropriate.
Current tube stations without counsels, from memory:

Upminster, Barking (despite the Overground being there), and possibly Richmond (fairly sure Kew Gardens and Gunnersbury got roundels once the Overground arrived), and possibly Wimbledon (?). And also the Central line platforms at Stratford.

In the recent past, also: Harrow and Wealdstone, Kenton, South Kenton, North Wembley, Wembley Central, Stonebridge Park, Harlesden, Willesden Junction, Kendal Green, Kensington Olympia (all pre-Overground); New Cross, New Cross Gate (in days of the ELL being part of the tube), East Putney, Southfields, Wimbledon Park, and all four of the platforms on the Waterloo and City Line (all of which were owned by BR until 1994, and were transferred as part of preparations for rail privatisation).

And as for the absence of full size roundels at Mile End: simply no room for them on the platforms at such a cramped and busy station, I presume
Am I right in thinking St James's Park has one roundel with the spelling St James' Park? It's leftover from the time when 's apostrophe s' fell out of fashion. On second thoughts it might have lost the apostrophe altogether.
Not only does Wimbledon not have roundels, but it doesn't have standard LU destination indicators on the platforms. It used to until a few years ago when they were replaced, for some reason, with the standard model used by South West Trains.

Didn't quite get why they did that. Wasn't as if the new ones were massively different in what they displayed.
The shop on the W/B platform at Sloane Square was once one of the few pubs on the Underground situated inside the ticket barrier and at platform level.










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