South Kentish Town station was closed in 1924 because it was too close to the Kentish Town station and never carved out its own identity. People might think it’s a closed down Northern Line station, but poor old South Kentish never got to see the Northern Line days. It lived and died as a station of the Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway, one of the component elements of what became the Northern.
I don’t think it should have been closed, but then I don’t think any station should have been closed. If it had been kept open, NW5 would have had a Tube service these past months while Kentish Town station has been shut for escalator replacement. And Camden Town station, a little way to the south, wouldn’t have to keep being ‘exit only’ on weekends, because of the press of people coming and going from Camden Market. On those occasions, people are directed to Chalk Farm station, but South Kentish is much closer.
When, the other day, I asked two LU employees at Camden Town if they thought South Kentish Town should reopen, they didn’t seem to have heard of it, but I don’t suppose TfL training schemes are much concerned with the closed down stations. The focus will be very much on the ones which are not closed down. When I mentioned that South Kentish was only five minutes away, one of the two did mention the plans floating around for decades to open a new entrance to Camden Town, some way to the north. ‘No need for that,’ I said, ‘they can just re-open South Kentish; they could call it Camden Town North if they really want.’
The LU people nodded politely.
Of course, if South Kentish were re-opened, the Cash Converters shop that currently occupies the surface building would have to be kicked out. A few years ago, the manager of that shop told me. ‘Every year, a team from TfL come in. They go through a trapdoor to the old station and kill all the rats.’ This week, I dropped into the shop to ask the present manager (a different guy from last time) whether the annual rat cull was still occurring. He laughed at the very idea. ‘I know it was a Tube station, obviously,’ he said. ‘Sometimes people walk in thinking it still is, but we never have anything to do with TfL.’
Was it possible, I wondered, as I cycled away, that the previous chap had been having me on?
About a year ago, I noticed that, on the line diagrams in Northern Line carriages, a maroon bar appeared under Euston, implying that you could change there for the Metropolitan Line, which you can’t, unless you get out and walk to Euston Square. I mentioned this to man at the Euston ticket gate, and he said: ‘Good point. I’ll enquire about that.’ I notice that the maroon bar now carries the footnote ‘Euston Square 320m’, acknowledging that you must walk that distance in the open air before making the change.
I doubt that my enquiry brought about this refinement, but if it did, it would be the second time I have affected LU presentation. The first was in 1996, when I wrote, in the Evening Standard, that, on the Tube map, all the Tube lines crossing the Circle Line were depicted as going under it (ie the Circle was uninterrupted) except one, the Central, at Liverpool Street, which was shown as going over, the red trouncing the yellow. This led to a meeting with an LU high-up, who assured me this would be corrected. It was, and I think it has remained corrected ever since.
A recorded announcement I heard several times a couple of Sundays back, seemed to go as follows: ‘If you are travelling with children or a puppy, please consider using the lifts’, which struck me as a kind thought, albeit (given that second specification) narrowly focussed. It turns out, the announcer is not saying ‘puppy’ but ‘buggy’, a realisation that came too late to prevent the old joke recurring in my mind – the one about the Underground escalator sign that supposedly counselled ‘Dogs Must be Carried’, prompting an out-of-towner, havering at the start of a descent, to say, ‘But I don’t have a dog!’
I was on the Bakerloo, the other day, whose trains date from 1972, making them the oldest on LU and possibly the whole of British public transport. It’s like being inside a white tin can, although I like it the way the seats have a darker (a nocturnal, as it were) version of the Barman moquette depicting London landmarks. The 1972’s, alone of the Tube trains properly so-called, have some transverse seats: that is, seats side-on to the window, the traditional railway arrangement, and once common on the Underground. But, from my observation, most of those bench-type seats-for-two accommodated only a single individual. I suppose people – women especially (but I include myself here) – are deterred by the enforced intimacy on these stubby seats, which perhaps reflect the smaller body size of the average 1970s Londoner.
Or it might be that we’ve just got out of the habit of using transverse seats on the Underground. The only other ones are on the S8 trains of the Metropolitan Line, a concession to the fact that the Met runs through countryside that people might want to look at with a slight head swivel, rather than having to turn right around.
Another beauty! I have a dog but I'm not taking it to London just so she can have the benefit of being carried when I use an escalator. She'd disown me for a start.
I walk between Euston Square and Euston regularly but due to some quirk in the spacetime continuum the distance varies between about 100 yards and 3 miles. Or that's how it feels. I think it's an "out of station interchange" which means you're only charged for one journey if you tap out/in within a certain time. Apparently they are going to build another subway under Euston Road which is good for those of us who prefer the not-getting-run-over option.
I've been permanently banned from all TfL escalators for willfully and knowingly not carrying a dog.