please empty your brain below
All 19 photos can be seen here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/dgeezer/tags/northerncity

I hope The People Who Like Commenting About Trains are happy again now.

diamond geezer | Homepage | 15.12.15 - 7:01 a.m. | #

Well I certainly am (though thought your Rome week was fantastic) . Yesterday's post in my old stomping ground especially illuminating. I was born just south of Emerson Park (Halt).

Dave B | 15.12.15 - 7:23 a.m. | #

I went and visited those stations 6 years ago, and also while at Drayton Park took a look at the nearby stadium.
Pity that Drayton Park is not used on football days as it is so close to the ground.
Seemed very strange going through "tube" train type tunnels and stations in a regular train.
Yes,-happy, this is much nicer that Rome.

dg writes: No, seriously, it isn't.

John | 15.12.15 - 7:24 a.m. | #

and here's another great oddity. About once a week, some confused tourist turn up unintentionally at Drayton Park.

Quite often people get off the Eurostar at KXSTP, descend to the underground, and because of the 'wrong' right hand running of the Victoria Line, instead of heading south into central London, they end up going one stop north to Highbury & Is.

realising they've gone wrong, they (sensibly and logically) cross the platform thinking that train will take them back the other way .. but no, it's the Great Northern that takes them one stop north again to Drayton Park, at which point they wonder how they hell they got there!

Geofftech | 15.12.15 - 7:28 a.m. | #

For many years I never ever saw anyone board or alight at Drayton Park, now with London booming population there are passenger numbers well into single figures on a regular basis.

| 15.12.15 - 7:56 a.m. | #

A friend of mine lived in Prebend St, just round the corner from Essex Rd, in the late '80s/early '90s. Wow. Essex Road Stn. has not changed one bit since 1991 - what a time capsule. It was creepy back then too.

Burntweenie | 15.12.15 - 8:27 a.m. | #

Surprised to see that Network South East lives on! Usually First Group plaster their logo over everything as one of the first actions of a new franchise. Yet here it seems they did nothing at all through the time they were running the franchise. I remember them even contacting me because I had a website with a link to Thameslink and they told me I must change it to First Capital Connect!

Jon Combe | 15.12.15 - 8:44 a.m. | #

Until recently I worked on Essex road roughly halfway between Essex road and Angel stations. I much preferred the solitude of travelling from Moorgate to Essex road rather than using the northern line, as long as I had the time to wait up to 10 minutes between trains.

Although maybe I'm just a bit weird.

Lumma | 15.12.15 - 9:03 a.m. | #

As a semi-regular passer-through these stations, I really quite enjoy the retro-décor because (I think) they remind me of my early teenage solo wanderings into the London of the mid-1970s...when almost everywhere seemed bleak and mildly threatening.

Frank F | 15.12.15 - 9:39 a.m. | #

It looks like these stations would be a good place to film a thriller set in the 1980s, given their retro branding & low passenger numbers..

Adrian | 15.12.15 - 9:58 a.m. | #

Is anyone else not seeing anything under Moorgate (and the link goes to Finsbury Park).

dg writes: One of those was deliberate, the other is fixed, thanks.

I used this line a month or so ago. Very grim. I was quite shocked to be honest, that London could still have such a monstrosity of a station. Then the train arrived, and that certainly did not improve my impression.

Sykobee | 15.12.15 - 10:05 a.m. | #

Trains are set to be replaced by new ones in a couple of years - would be good if the platforms (particularly the lighting, talk about making darkness visble) get a makeover.

Gordon | 15.12.15 - 10:32 a.m. | #

I really like this line, it's my favourite line. So quiet and creepy.

the orange one | 15.12.15 - 10:34 a.m. | #

This line is so little-known that a couple of years ago someone designed a building which would have put nineteen piles through the northbound tunnel. They knew nothing about it until after construction had started, when a Network Rail official turned up at the site asking if they wanted their drilling auger back.

timbo | 15.12.15 - 10:51 a.m. | #

An excellent post. I am intrigued now by the emergency staircase at Essex Road and will have to pay a visit to see this - are there any photos online of it?

Paul | 15.12.15 - 11:01 a.m. | #

I use Essex Rd station everyday for work as I walk down to Goswell Rd and I like it. It has a brutal quality to it and yes, it does have a feeling of Deathline or Creep about it. But as the last train is around 10pm it never gets that scary really.

Plus one of the station is really friendly and regularly has a chat to passengers on the platform which gives it a different feel.

Michael O'Neill | 15.12.15 - 11:06 a.m. | #

Entirely off topic, but I see Historic England using a © Diamond Geezer photo of the Hepworth sculpture "Two Forms (Divided Circle)" stolen from Dulwich Park in 2011! http://historicengland.org.uk/news-and-features/missing-public-art/

Andrew | 15.12.15 - 11:26 a.m. | #

used to use this line years ago when the kids were young, they used to love popping onto the platform at Drayton Park to watch the train change from overhead to live rail, does this still happen?
(PS: interesting post today, but Rome was special)

Caz | 15.12.15 - 11:31 a.m. | #

For fans of An American Werewolf in London, Essex Road is hard to beat for ambience.
And on an unrelated note, for anyone who bemoans the gentrification and emblandenment of London, take the time to visit and remember London as it used to be.

Michael T | 15.12.15 - 11:39 a.m. | #

@Paul

RE: Emergency Staircase, you have to approach it from the platform (or below platform) level as you'll find it hard to track it down from the street.

It's hard to track down a picture because it's so little used, but I did manage to find this one (and only this one). A picture doesn't quite capture the ambience, you'll need to visit it yourself.

I wonder how many stairs?

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CTHhC1WWcAAYvyx.jpg

the orange one | 15.12.15 - 12:22 p.m. | #

I do hope the NSE tiling is preserved. Other tube / rail stations proudly retain their branding from through the years, it would be a real shame to miss this era out entirely.

Lewis | 15.12.15 - 12:26 p.m. | #

I've used the Northern City Line at different times over the year. I used it back in polytechnic (remember them?) days. I avoided the KX fire on the day of my graduation by taking the NC Line. I remember the drag through Old St when I worked there. Misjudge the timing and it was a mad dash down that connecting tunnel and up (!) stairs to the platform all the while hearing the rumble of the approaching train in the running tunnel.

I rather like the fact that the NSE decor has been retained as it's in a decent state and reminds me of more coherent times for the "big railway". Yes the tunnel walls, lighting etc could be vastly better and some care and attention is needed. I guess if nothing else this bit of line proves Sir Peter Hendy's comments (when he was TfL Commissioner) that the TOCs have no great interest in spending money on inner suburban routes. Clearly the DfT don't care either.

PC | 15.12.15 - 12:27 p.m. | #

Flickr only returned 4 results for the Essex Road tag, not 6.

Drayton Park is an interesting-looking station - it's a wonder the full-length canopy never got "rationalised". The line in general could definitely do with having some money spent on it, though. Didn't TfL have it on their Overground shopping list at one point? (If they took control of it, it would be an ironic turn of events considering they turned it over to British Rail forty years ago...)

swirlythingy | Homepage | 15.12.15 - 1:08 p.m. | #

@timbo:

Oh it got better than that. The first anyone knew of it was when an ECS train down to Moorgate wondered what the spiral metal things sticking through the tunnel wall were all about.

https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/410648/140213_R032014_Old_Street.pdf

The drill team wondered where their drills had gone to, so they dropped big metal rods down the hole. They were obviously waiting for a bus at Bow Church the day brains were handed out.

arctic troll | 15.12.15 - 1:14 p.m. | #

As for the Northern City, when I lived in Muswell Hill and worked in Islington I used Essex Road a lot, precisely because no bugger else did. It made for a much more pleasant journey to work.

arctic troll | 15.12.15 - 1:15 p.m. | #

There is something utterly wonderful about that line, and the fact that it's the line that branding forgot. That it escaped First's branding team is amazing, but also WAGN's influence was also extremely limited. I've been on stations that get one train every two hours that have been comprehensively branded. And yet here's one in the centre of London, completely forgotten. Were First even aware they ran there?

There can be few stations where the Network South East branding has remained so dominant. Obviously there's some tiling at Clapham Junction, but the actual signs are all long gone.

Andrew Bowden | Homepage | 15.12.15 - 1:19 p.m. | #

This used to be part of my regular commute in the 80's. It's like stepping back in time nothing has changed. Is this your contribution to all the Star Wars nostalgia that is running this week?

Aidan | 15.12.15 - 1:28 p.m. | #

The Telegraph has DG's Hepworth photo too - Mystery-of-the-missing-art-plea-for-public-to-find-disappearing-sculptures.html

Andrew | 15.12.15 - 1:51 p.m. | #

The photo is in the Daily Mail too, but with the wrong credit (they often fail to give proper credit at all; this time, they somewhat lazily say "© Historic England").

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/blah

Andrew | 15.12.15 - 1:57 p.m. | #

This was my route to work for two years, and there is nothing 'wonderful' about it whatsoever. It serves as a horrifying vision of a parallel universe where TfL never existed, and anyone responsible for it should be locked in the tunnels as penance. Overground. Now.

Dominic Self | Homepage | 15.12.15 - 2:01 p.m. | #

I believe the abandoned Croxley Green station near Watford has some NSE branding in it, as described on DG's website a few years ago.

dg writes: Alas, removed last year.

Adrian | 15.12.15 - 2:22 p.m. | #

Come to think of it, wasn't NSE a sort of precursor to the London Overground branding?

Adrian | 15.12.15 - 2:23 p.m. | #

@ Adrian: No, it was British Rail's London and South East operation in the last part of its history.

Silent Hunter | Homepage | 15.12.15 - 2:44 p.m. | #

Perhaps Geofftech has already covered it in Secrets of the Big Tube or whatever, but why are the Essex Road liftshafts and emergency stairs so much deeper than they need to be? Back in 1904 they probably didn't worry that it made the platforms less accessible, but it must have made the station construction massively more expensive.

What prevented the conventional arrangement of a short flight of stairs up from the platforms and a level passageway to the lifts... a plague pit, a sewer, an underground river, an early Secret Bunker?

BTW, Geofftech revealed an interesting factoid at a pub meeting last week. TfL doesn't have enough fingers and thumbs to do the calculations, so the notice at the bottom of any deep emergency staircase always warns that it's equivalent to 15 storeys, regardless of the number of steps !

Gerry | 15.12.15 - 2:52 p.m. | #

On reflection it is probably the narrow straight platforms and the lack of cross passages that make the stations feel unsafe, plus the black platform surfaces.

Of course it was the mainline sized tunnels that made the crash at Moorgate so much worse, as the extra space gave plenty of room for the tube carriages to crumple.

**** | 15.12.15 - 10:14 p.m. | #

I travelled from Hornsey to Moorgate or Old Street daily for several years. It wasn't the stations that got me down; far from it. It was the absolutely appalling service (prompting a very popular Facebook group 'I hate First Capital Connect'). Trains in the morning peak are frequently too full to board well before Finsbury Park, so it's no surprise few people board at Drayton Park or closer in. There are so many signalling faults and other delays, the odd occasion I decide to catch the train these days I regret it. Weekends are different - typically peaceful... Though for seemingly years there was no regular weekend service due to track works.
Love the curved corridor at Old St, BTW - indeed, quite spooky when empty.

EskimoPie | 16.12.15 - 8:20 a.m. | #

I visited Essex Road yesterday and can only concur as to the creepiness of it,especially the entrance to the emergency staircase snd the fact that there was absolutely no one else on one of the platforms while I was there.

I also found this video which gives a good feel of its weirdness:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rN8EEN8AclA

Paul | 20.12.15 - 10:14 a.m. | #

A report on safety concerns at Essex Road from the 1980s, showing it in an earlier state:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=5Q0xz4V7nZ8

Paul | 20.12.15 - 10:17 a.m. | #











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