I spy a tube train

Yesterday was relatively quiet and we ran some errands.  Today was much busier.  I started by going to the gym because I am on a bit of a roll and may as well keep it going for as long as I can. Then we headed to Clapham Junction and on to Shepherd’s Bush Overground station.  It’s just a short walk across the bus lane to the Underground station where we met a group of people for another Hidden London behind-the-scenes station tour.

Shepherd’s Bush was originally opened in 1900 but not much of that can be seen at ground level. All around it’s been modernised and in 2008 the station was redesigned when the Westfield Shopping Centre was constructed.  The company behind the original railway, Central London Railway, set a flat fare and the line became known as  ‘Tuppenny Tube’ in the early days. The line also suffered from an unpleasant smell which resulted in a giant fan being installed at Shepherd’s Bush to pull air from the other end of the line, which at the time was Bank. I can’t imagine that it worked to well.

The guides who tell these kinds of stories are wonderfully knowledgeable. Over the years that we have been going to Hidden London events they have got bigger and slicker.  My favourite part is always the moment when you get to into a passageway or tunnel that the public are not usually allowed in.  They’re always grubbier and dirtier because many are hardly used or used for storage but often they give a little glimpse back into the operating railway. This shot is from such a service tunnel back onto one of the platforms as a train came in a picked up a crowd who had no idea there were people in an old corridor on the other side of the tracks.