London Underground Photos
Pictures showing aspects of London Underground
including stations and trains, with some historical pictures of trains. Each photo
has a full size view with a description.
Steps and Gaps
London Underground is obsessed with steps and
gaps, perhaps because, since they stopped having staff on platforms, the number of
reported accidents has risen. Here are some photos showing the problem.
 Fig 1: 1967 Tube Stock step at
Victoria. The step plate of the doorways on the Underground was originally designed
to cover the gap between the train and the platform. Introducing a level step between
platform and train will re-introduce a gap which wasn't there before.
Click on the image for the full size view
and description.
 Fig
2: 1973 Tube Stock step out at Ruislip. The platform here is higher than the train
floor because the platform has to accommodate both tube and surface stock trains.
Click on the image for the full size view
and description.
 Fig
3: A Stock step at Ruislip. This step is at the same station as shown in Fig 2
but the step is up from the platform to the train because this is surface stock.
Click on the image for the full size view and description.
Of course, these steps mean that LU does not comply with the
new disabled passengers requirements. They won't unless a huge amount of money is
spent rebuilding tunnels and stations. The cost would be beyond all reason to
satisfy the wishes of a few unfortunate persons. In Tubeprune's view, such
expenditure defeats the purpose of a "rapid transit railway" by turning it into
a huge ambulance service. Who would wish to spend huge sums of money straightening
out all the curved platforms in London, like those shown below?
 Fig 4: C Stock step at Monument.
Because the station was built on a curve, the track is canted (raised along the outer edge
of the curve) to minimise discomfort to passengers. The cant causes a vertical gap
between the train and the platform in addition to the horizontal gap caused by the curve.
Click on the image for the full size view and description.
 Fig 5: The reverse curve at Victoria (District)
with a D Stock in the station. This causes a step up at one end of the platform and
a step down at the other end.
Click on the image for the full size view
and description.
 Fig
6: 1996 Tube Stock at Finchley Road. Finchley Road serves tube and surface
stock trains but they have their own platforms. However, the station is on a serious
curve which causes the sort of step seen in this photo on the Jubilee Line SB
platform.
Click on the image for the full size view
and description.
It seems odd to Tubeprune that whilst the large majority of
Londoners say they would rather not have to use the tube, a few disabled people are
forcing others to pay for their right to use it. Strange world, isn't it?
Gaps between cars are also a source of trouble, again because
staff are no longer around to oversee platform safety. Most LU trains are now
provided with inter-car safety barriers as shown here below.
 Fig 7: C Stock barrier at
Whitechapel. The barriers are made of black canvas mounted on spring-loaded carriers
hung off 'blisters" at the corners of the cars. They are a niuisance to
maintain but now that people have to be protected from themselves, such expensive and ugly
precautions have to be provided.
Click on the image for the full size view and description.
 Fig 8:
1992 Tube Stock without barrier at White City. The "blisters" are mounted
ready for the barriers but they have not been fitted. The barriers have to be
removed when it is necessary to split up trains for maintenance and then someone has to
remember to put them back when the units are coupled.
Click on the image for the full size view
and description.
 Fig 9: 1995 Tube Stock with new type
barrier. The new barriers get over the problem of "coupling" the barrier
between units. Each car corner is fitted with a rubber tube. The gap
between the cars is reduced
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
To the Top of this Page
Stations in Tunnels
London Underground has some interesting stations
underground. The following photos show various places where there are some special
features.
 Fig 10: Baker Street Circle Line platforms (5 & 6)
showing the station as restored to close to its 1863 condition in 1987. The recesses in
the station walls were originally open to the street and provided light and ventilation.
The brick arched roof was a common form for the cut and cover construction used at the
time.
Click on the image for the full size view
and description.
 Fig 11: Great Portland Street has also been
restored. Further work is taking place now. The roof uses steel girders to
support the buildings above.
Click on the image for the full size view
and description.
 Fig 12: Gloucester Road (District) has had a very good
restoration with the original brickwork exposed and new lighting installed to represent
the original gas lit globes.
Click on the image for the full size view and description.
 Fig 13: This is a view of the disused
Metropolitan Railway platform at Gloucester Road, which is now used to display art at
various times. In this photo, Dinosaur models are used to advertise the Natural
History Museum.
Click on the image for the full size view
and description.
The photos above show the original station designs of the
1860s when the first sections of the Underground were built. Tunnels were in cut and
cover style and trains were operated by steam locomotives. In order to provide
ventilation, openings were provided at regular intervals and many of these still exist as
the photos of Notting Hill Gate (below) shows.
 Fig
14: Notting Hill Gate (Circle Line) showing the overall roof, brickwork and typical
tunnel construction used for the original Underground stations. To provide
ventilation for the steam locomotives, there were many short open sections as shown here.
Many of these have now been built over.
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
 Fig 15: Aldgate East gateline with a view
of the station platforms through the glass screen behind them. Many stations have
had to be altered to accommodate the automatic fare collection system.
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
Tube stations were deep underground and had a characteristic
design due to their circular construction. Some have survived in near original
condition. Belsize Park (below) is a typical example. Unfortunately successive
additions of cables and signs for new lighting, fire alarm systems and other paraphernalia
have spoilt the clean lines of the original design.
 Fig 16: Typical tube station platform of the
1905-7 era, as seen at Belsize Park (Northern Line). A number of similar stations
have been restored to show the original decor, tiled rings and mosaics.
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
 Fig 17: In this photo of the station headwall,
it is interesting to see that there is a 7-car stopping mark in place on the track just
inside the tunnel. There were a number of older stations on the Northern and
Piccadilly Lines where a 7-car train was too long for the platform. The only way all
passenger doors would be opened onto the platform was if the driver stopped with his cab
in the tunnel. The rear cab was also left in the tunnel. Some locations
require a pair of doors to be switched out so that they don't open into the tunnel. Click
on the image for the full size view and description.
 Fig 18: Victoria, Victoria Line where the numbers of
passengers have risen to levels where the platforms are too narrow at times. The
platforms widths on the Victoria Line were one of the victims of a cost cutting exercise
which took place in the mid-1960s when the line was being built.
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
 Fig 19: Modenised platform at Oxford Circus,
Bakerloo. The original station dates from 1906 but it was rebuilt for the Victoria
Line in 1967 and upgraded after a fire in 1984.
Click on the image for the full size view
and description.
 Fig 20: New Jubilee Line platform at Westminster.
All the new tunnel stations on the Jubilee Line extension are provided with
platform edge doors, as shown here, principally to prevent suicides and accidents,
currently running at over 100 per year.
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
 Fig 21: Canary Wharf, Jubilee - an excellent design of
station with wide, island style platforms and enough escalators.
Click on the image for the full size view.
To the Top of this Page
Stations Outside
The countryside around London has a number of stations with
rural or suburban features. There is a wide variety and some are shown below.
 Fig 22: Hillingdon, Metropolitan Line which was rebuilt in 1991as
part of the A40 road improvement scheme.
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
 Fig 23:
Ickenham, Metropolitan Line.
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
 Fig 24: Sudbury Town, Piccadilly Line dating from the
1932 expansion of the line.
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
 Fig 25: North Ealing, Piccadilly Line which
was built in 1903 for the District Railway extension to South Harrow.
Click on the image for the full size view and description.
 Fig 26: Ealing Common, District
Line, which was rebuilt in the early 1930s.
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
 Fig 27: Uxbridge, Metropolitan Line which
was relocated in 1932 and given a cathedral like concrete train shed.
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
To the Top of this Page
Rolling Stock - Historical
Here are a few photos of London Underground rolling stock of
the past.
Beginning with tube stock, perhaps the most non-standard
"Standard" stock in the world was used on the tube lines from the early 1920s
until the mid 1960s, when the last was withdrawn. The Standard stock was modern in
the 1920s but was replaced in design excellence by the 1938 Tube Stock. The
standard stock was actually quite inflexible, since it had three types of traction
equipment and various arrangements for door and lighting control which restricted the way
it could be coupled and made up into trains. In the 1950s, the Central Line had two
types of Standard Stock which were unable to couple together because of different battery
arrangements. The stock also suffered because the control equipment was mounted in a
compartment behind the driver's cab and, as a result, on a 7-car train with three motor
cars, 15% of passenger space was lost. It was also noisy to drive, because the air
compressor was mounted immediately behind the driver's seat.
The 1938 Tube Stock was a big step forward in design for the
Underground. All the electrical equipment was placed under the car floor and
passenger capacity improved as a result. Over 1200 cars were built between 1938 and
1950 and their design was to last virtually unchanged for two generations of rolling stock
- over 60 years - being perpetuated in the 1959/62 Stocks. A new feature of the 1938
Stock was the "unit stock" formation, where several cars form a self-contained
unit which will not operate unless coupled. The older stocks were of "car
stock", where individual cars could and were often uncoupled to make up trains of any
required length. Unit stock train had fixed formations of, usually three or four
cars coupled to make 6, 7 or 8 car trains
 Fig 22:
Standard Tube Stock comprised various batches built between 1922 and 1934. The last
of the type ran in passenfger service in 1966 on LU and some went to work on the
Isle of Wight until they were replaced by 1938 Stock in 1988. The Standard Stock has
its control equipment behind the driver's cab which resulted in a loss of passenger space
amounting to 15% of the train's length.
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
 Fig 23: 1938 Tube Stock
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
 Fig 24:
1959 Tube Stock in original condition on the Piccadilly Line.
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
One of the best colour schemes to come out of the Underground
was the early 1920s livery used on the tube lines, which appeared again in 1990 on a 1959
Stock train on the Northern Line. Tubeprune understands that at least part of this
train is still around.
 Fig 25:
1959 Tube Stock (Heritage)
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
 Fig 26: Metropolitan Electric Locomotive with train at
Neasden.
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
 Fig 27: T Stock
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
The Metropolitan Railway was independent of the other
Underground Lines until 1934. This independence showed in its rolling stock, which
was more main line in character than the other Underground lines. It used
compartment stock for locomotive haulage and some EMUs. It also used saloon stock
(not shown here) for its electric services. This all disappeared in the 1950s.
The District also had a wide variety of rolling stock.
The first electric stock was built in 1903 as a trial for the main line electrification of
1905. The main batch of stock was the B Stock. Other types were added over the
years, examples of C and F Stocks being shown below. The District operated three
separate and incompatible types of stock from the mid 1920s until this was reduced to two
in the 1970s. It still has to operate two types of stock because the longer trains
of D Stock will not fit in the platforms between Edgware Road and Notting Hill Gate, so C
Stock has to be used.
 Fig 22:
District Railway A Stock, two 7-car trains built for testing in 1903.
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
 Fig 23: District Railway C Stock of 1910.
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
 Fig 24: F Stock of 1920 as running in 1963.
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
The District was the pioneer for the unpainted aluminium car
bodies, first introduced in the early 1950s on the R Stock. The various trials
carried out then led to the ordering of aluminium bodies for all the new stocks built in
the 1960s to 80s. The unpainted car replaced the red car as the symbol of London
Underground train design. In 1984, graffiti began to appear in London and attempts
to clean it off the unpainted bodies were usually unsuccessful. Cars began to look
very shoddy. Since the introduction of graffiti proof finishes, the painted car has
returned and now the D Stock is the only unpainted stock left in service.
 Fig 25: Q
Stock
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
 Fig 26: CO Stock with C Stock
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
 Fig 27: District Line R Stock
Click on the image for the full size view and
description.
Finally, a "new" old photo of an original
Metropolitan Railway electric locomotive as built for the original electrification of
1905. This photo was kindly supplied by "teckytony" from an orignal plate.
 Fig 28: Metropolitan Rly. British Westinghouse
electric locomotive.
Click on the image for the full size view
and description.
To the Top of this Page
Tunnel Mouth
This picture by "Tube Troll" shows what the
entrance to a tube tunnel looks like as you approach:
 Fig 28: Driver's view of the approach to Southgate Tunnel
Mouth. Photo by Tube Troll.
Click on the image for the full size view
and description.
The entrance to the tunnel is actually
bell-mouthed in order to reduce the pressure change as the front of the train
enters. However, this does not stop your ears popping as the train hits the opening
at speed. The approach to Southgate is quite fast - about 45 mi/h - and an
understanding of where the station is in advance is essential to enable the driver to stop
the train in the right place. This is an example of why drivers are required to
undergo a period of "road training" for each line they work on.
To the Top of this Page
Underground at Night
For an alternative view, here are some pictures
of the Underground at night
 Fig 29: The early morning line-up of trains in
Cockfosters Depot, Piccadilly Line. Photo by Tube Troll.
Click on the image for the full size view.
 Fig 30: Wimbledon in the wet. An damp evening
view of a C Stock ready to depart for Edgware Road. Photo by District Dave.
Click on the image for the full size view.
 Fig 31: Driver's view of the approach to Acton Town,
EB Piccadilly Line coming from Rayners Lane. Photo by Tube Troll.
Click on the image for the full size view.
Photos are being collected to go here. Would you like
to contribute some? Many people already have. Please e-mail Tubeprune.
|
