h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Okay, everyone... thread dedicated to posts about single stations, for the guide.

-- Yoz

The least-visited station on the Northern Line. One in 8 northbound trains go there, and a train will leave (on average) every 12-15 minutes. It's just a dinky little station with one platform, but it's cute.

How about Angel - definitely the best looking station, and it has the added advantage of having the longest escalator on the Underground.

AndyF
That was my tuppence worth, and now I'm skint!!

A bifurcation point on the Northern Line, one line going to West Finchley and on until High Barnet, the other just going to Mill Hill East.
Two features of the southbound platform are a reproduction of Harry Beck's original 1930's design for the Underground map (Finchley Central was his local station) and a news stand run by a very friendly bloke.

Shim should really post something about this as it's his local station, but I'll just say that the platform has a nasty smell of burnt tires.

One of the only stations to be half under the Thames. And it feels SO eerie - you have to be there to expierience it. Its damp, cold, smelly and its always empty - the lifts are eerie too!

Perhaps people suffering from claustrophobia should avoid this station, because the only way to get out is by elevator, and a very packed elevator too. But it is a nice station with a quaint Liberty feel to it.

Warren Street used to be called Euston Road.
Goodge Street used to be called Tottenham Court Road.
Tottenham Court Road used to be called Oxford Street.

So now we have Goodge Street station in the middle of Tottenham Court Road, and Tottenham Court Road on Oxford Street.

Hammersmith suffers from schizophrenia - it is really TWO stations separated both vertically (about 10 metres?) and horizontally (about 100m?). The District/Picadilly interchange is among the easiest on the underground - a 3m walk if same direction. Getting to the Hammersmith & City line is quite a walk up stairs, through ticket hall, past shops through a shopping mall, across a busy road (which cannot be avoided - you come up in the middle of a huge traffic island that doubles as a bus depot) and thence to the other station.

Sloane Square is the only district/circle line station I know that has an escalator to the surface - handy if you've heaps of luggage.

Any visitor to this neck of the Galaxy should make time for the marvels of East Finchley. Upon arrival at the station, newcomers can take in the architectural splendour of the MacDonalds UK headquarters, which features a full-size replica restaurant serving full-size replica food. Alternatively, go next door to the fantastic Old White Lion pub, and have a pint in a big armchair next to the fire.

Other highlights include the Phoenix Cinema (one of London's oldest, built in 1911) and the incredibly seedy Club XL which, despite its lurid decor and blacked out windows, resolutely fails to be a strip club.

South Kensington is on the District, Circle and Piccadilly line.
It is also the station for "the museums" - the Science Museum, Natural History Museum and Victoria and Albert Museum.
Consequently, it is always filled with crocodiles of school children from all sorts of places (France, Australia, Japan, England even - I have spotted so far) and also tourists.

There are a number of exits from the station

* one to a small set of covered shops immediately above. From here you can get a 49 bus going south to the Kings Road and Battersea (useful if you want to go that way, as tubes and trains don't cover that area very well). However the buses are normally very full before they get to South Kensington and there is always a large number of people wanting to board at South Kensington. It is better to get the 49 at Gloucester Road - one stop earlier on the map.

* and one to the subway leading to exits for the Nat Hist Museum and Science Museum
(for you Americans "subway" means a passage underground, not a train line)
This subway leads to the Museums and smells, is dark and scary in the evening or when you are one of few people in it. It also smells. Occasionally there are (poor quality) buskers and street vendors.

A lot of people I know prefer to walk overground, but then they risk crossing the Cromwell Road, which is a very busy road with 6 lanes (3 each way) and drivers that don't like the red traffic light.

I prefer Gloucester Road station, at which all the trains that go to S.Ken stop, is smaller, quieter, nicer, less scary, less confusing on the Picadilly side (although the District/Circle platforms are more confusing but better signposted) and, in my experience, has nicer staff (they even started saying "hello" to me after a while). It is only 5 mins walk away from S. Ken too!

Just never try to buy a ticket at either of these stations on a Saturday (or Sunday) morning. The queues for the machines can be 50 people long, the ones for the windows longer. Either have a carnet, or go to a newsagent - there are plenty by both stations at which you can get travelcards.

I've recently left London (I spent 4 years at uni there) and now (I never thought I'd say this) I really miss the tube - despite its shortcomings London Transport (bus and tube) at least goes to most places you want to go and gets you there, eventually.

Aendr

Morden is not just the end of the Northern Line... it is also the end of the world; or so it seems, if like me, after a good night out with a few (ok, lots) of beers, you wake up there on the last train south.

Not a problem, you might think. Just trot up the road home, not that far, surely? Well, when you live in Tooting it is just a little too far.

Perhaps a taxi would be the ideal solution on such an occasion - however, you'd better have (a) some money to pay the fare, because there's not a cash point in sight at Morden tube, and (b) the sheer good luck for a taxi driver to have strayed that far south and to pass you.

Thankfully, London's lifeline to the inebriated nocturnal Londoner - the night bus - stops at Morden, so after an hours wait or so you can continue your journey back the way you'd intended to go three hours earlier.

---------

I could offer similar words for the Mill Hill East, Finchley Central, Loughton and Manor House - all related by being unlikely places that I've woken up at, several sheets to the wind after the last tube.

But you get the gist...

Can anyone tell me ... is there a REAL Fenchurch station?

Ta.

yes!
in London, naturally.
it is on the Main Line and links with Tower Hill on the District and Circle lines and with Tower Gateway on the Docklands Light Railway.

look here for a map of the underground/overground
http://www.londontransport.co.uk/info/lul_index.htm

here for the DLR link
http://www.dlr.co.uk/tickets/map2.htm

here for buses that go to it
http://www.londontransport.co.uk/info/b_info20.htm
http://www.londontransport.co.uk/info/b_info04.htm

and here to find out routes and times to get there in UK
http://195.92.21.203/bin/query.exe/en

You're not kidding about claustraphobia. I work a couple of seconds walk from Covent Garden - although the elevator is the main form of rising for air, if you are fit you can take the stairs. Alternatively, Holborn is a 5 minute walk away and far less painless by virtue of escalators instead of lifts - although it too is insanely busy (posters all around begging you to use just about any other station because of the refurbishment work).

Finsbury Park station has three notable features.

1. It's a very swift change from the Victoria line to the Piccadilly line - just across the platform. However, this is only useful if your journey is all northbound or all southbound. If you were planning to go in a more complicated direction, oh foolish traveller, then you have to go up the stairs, and wander up and down aimlessly for at least fifteen minutes wondering which direction you are facing and which staircase you should be descending, only to find yourself back on the platform you originally came from. Hours of fun not guaranteed.

2. It has no automatic ticket gates, thus meaning it is sometimes possible to blag your way in without paying. This fact has made it a meeting place for all the resident nutters on the Piccadilly and Victoria lines. These unusual folk will surely brighten your day even further if you are one of the people who got lost at step 1 above.

3. If you really need something to stare at in a hurry, the mosaics of hot-air balloons adorning the walls are actually quite nice.

Another "interesting" feature is that although the station is in Zone 2, the bus depot outside is in Zone 3. So you can't get there on a Zone 1-2 travelcard by bus, but you can by tube.

London is full of such surprises for its visitors....

Yes, a common and very silly phenomenon. To whit: further up the Victoria line, both Blackhorse Road and Walthamstow Central are Zone 3 stations, but you can't get a bus between the two without passing through Zone 4. How "sensible".

Do you think this is just to give bus drivers something to get worked up about? ("'Ere! You're not getting on with that, mate...")

That smell is the whole Northern line, though, isn't it?