Mon, Jul 26, 2021
Tim and Siddy explore the site of North End station (aka Bull and Bush) on the Northern Line in Hampstead. The platforms were built in the early 1900s but the surface-level buildings were never built and the station was abandoned because the planned housing development which would have used the station was thwarted by conservationists. It was planned that the subterranean parts of the station, in the deepest part of the London Underground system, would be used for controlling floodgates on the Underground during the Cold War period of the 1950s. In the London Transport Museum, transport historian David Bownes tells Tim about the American influence on the Underground and Chris Nix shows him some of the blueprints for early trains, signalling and stations. Siddy looks at the history of the District line along the north embankment of the Thames, and examines Embankment station (previously called Charing Cross). Actor Oswald Laurence had recorded the iconic "Mind the Gap" announcement for the tube. In 2012 this was replaced by a more modern female version of the announcement, but Laurence's widow was instrumental in having his recording reinstated, only on the northbound Northern Line platform at Embankment station, so she could continue to hear his voice. Back at the Transport Museum, a TfL engineer describes in more detail the Cold War floodgates that would have been controlled from North End station in the event of a bomb landing in the Thames.
