- 16 hours ago
From the London Transport Museum explore the hidden, disused, and off-limits areas of London Bridge station and its deep-level subterranean spaces....
聚焦伦敦桥站（London Bridge station）的废弃结构与历史秘闻....
聚焦伦敦桥站（London Bridge station）的废弃结构与历史秘闻....
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TravelTranscript
00:04This is the Standardstock, the generation of tube train built in the 1920s and early 1930s.
00:11It was designed to be used on the deep level tube lines, and you can see that from the shape
00:16of the roof.
00:17One key feature is the doors. For the very first time they were pneumatic, they were powered by air.
00:24And that meant that not only did we no longer need a member of staff on every car to open
00:30the doors,
00:31but it was also faster for passengers. They could board the train more quickly.
00:35And it meant that passengers had to follow that tube etiquette that we still follow today,
00:41letting passengers get off before we get on. Welcome to Secrets of the London Underground.
00:49I'm Tim Dunn, and we're back to reveal more hidden parts of the tube network.
00:54I am so excited. I am standing on the wrong side of the escalator.
00:58The secret spaces with fascinating stories and incredible sights.
01:03Oh, wow! This is extraordinary.
01:06My fellow explorer is Sidi Holloway.
01:09This looks like marble terrazzo to me.
01:12She knows these forgotten time capsules inside out.
01:16We are now walking underneath one of the busiest places in London.
01:20And has the keys to open them up.
01:23Ready?
01:23And show me places hardly anyone gets to see.
01:26Look at this!
01:28Oh, this is magic!
01:30We'll explore the history of stations and lines at the London Transport Museum's depot
01:35and dive into its extraordinary archives.
01:38This is the good stuff, isn't it?
01:40Most of this stuff won't have been seen.
01:42It's crammed with the secrets of the London Underground.
01:45And people have no idea it's here.
02:03This sign is from Euston.
02:05And it shows, amongst other things, the bank branch of the Northern Line,
02:09which is where the electric deep-level tube began.
02:13And the very earliest stations are in the middle of this list.
02:16There were just six of them.
02:18From Stockwell, northwards.
02:20And gradually, over the years, the line extended both north and south.
02:25And today, the Northern Line has several branches.
02:28But the very first extension happened in 1900 as the line grew northwards.
02:34And the first new station on that route was London Bridge.
02:39It's actually my own local station.
02:41I use it all the time.
02:43So, when Sydney told me to get the keys and show me around, I jumped at the chance.
02:53I'm one of the nearly 220,000 people who use this tube station every day.
03:00And here's a fun fact.
03:02Of all the 272 stations on the underground, London Bridge is the only one with the word London in its
03:10name.
03:13Above ground, it was a mainline station first.
03:16And it remains the capital's oldest terminus, opening in 1836, before even Queen Victoria came to the throne.
03:25But today, it's the tube we're here to see.
03:33Well, here we are.
03:34South London.
03:36We're having a warm day out in London Bridge.
03:39I know.
03:39Today's going to be a real treat because this station has got such an interesting history to it.
03:44From its start in 1900 to the Jubilee Line extension in the 1990s.
03:49So, a century of change is hidden behind locked doors here at London Bridge.
03:53Attic pictures there pretty much every single week.
03:56It's quiet down there.
03:57So, do you know what?
03:58This is your territory.
03:59I need you to help me unpick this massive station.
04:03Let's do it.
04:08The first deep level electric tube railway in the world passed beneath this area in 1890.
04:13But there wasn't actually a stop here originally, despite the busy mainline station above.
04:22It wasn't until nine years later, when the City and South London Railway from Stockwell was rerouted,
04:28that the platforms were built at London Bridge.
04:31And evidence of that very first tube line to reach London Bridge is still here, just behind closed doors.
04:44Oh!
04:45It's really cold down here.
04:47Isn't it?
04:48I mean, normally, normally the tube is a constant temperature, right?
04:51But it isn't down here.
04:53No.
04:53It has completely dropped.
04:56Yep.
04:56It's properly freezing.
04:58Well, this is a ventilation shaft now, but this was the lift shaft of the City and South London Railway.
05:05Let's walk down there if it might be a little warmer.
05:07Tunnelling so close to the Thames comes with its own challenges.
05:12To deal with the extra moisture in the earth, engineers incorporated special design features to prevent flooding.
05:20So this tunnel was basically purposefully built in order to reach from the track over there and down to the
05:28sump of the lift.
05:30The sump is basically kind of the bottom of the shaft, which is where all water kind of gathers.
05:38Because you see, no matter what you build underground, in London in particular, there's always going to be some water
05:43that's going to seep in.
05:45And so they need an access shaft to it in order to be able to pump it out.
05:49Of course, we often forget this part of South London was once just pretty much all marshland, wasn't it?
05:57Groundwater is now removed by powerful modern pumps.
06:01The original line through here is what we now call the Northern Line, and it runs just metres away from
06:07this tunnel.
06:10But there's absolutely no train noise today. In fact, it's spookily silent.
06:17Normally, there'd be Northern Line trains running past every few minutes, but the Northern Line is closed at the moment
06:22between Moorgate and Kennington,
06:24because they are doing the bank upgrade work, so it's going to be closed for a few months. That's why
06:28it's so quiet.
06:29Isn't it lovely, though? And just here in London Bridge, completely silent in the middle of the working day.
06:42Now, there's another part that I really want to show you that's also part of the City and South London
06:46Railway,
06:46and it's going to be a little bit warmer, so let's go.
06:51Some sections of those very first City and South London tunnels from Borough to their original terminus at King William
06:59Street
06:59run surprisingly close to where we are now. And, of course, City knows the way.
07:05This feels a little bit different, doesn't it?
07:08It's also a bit like being in the Italian job, and those tunnels, they're racing with minis around.
07:14So, this is actually the tunnel of the world's first ever electric deep-level tube railway.
07:21That's it, yep.
07:22Oh, this is weirdly small.
07:26Mm-hm.
07:26So, why on earth is it so small? And what was it used for?
07:29The reason it's so much smaller is because they had tiny little locomotives that ran that original line.
07:36The ten-foot-six diameter of the tunnels restricted the size of the trains, so things got a little snug.
07:44At the peak of rush hour, up to 72 people could cram into each of the three coaches.
07:50These running tunnels may have had a short life, but they certainly had their uses 40 years on.
07:56It was used as a shelter during the Second World War, so it would be lined with people seeking shelter
08:03from the Blitz.
08:04You may have noticed when we were walking past earlier that they've cut into this tunnel,
08:08and they provide ventilation now for the northern line that's below us.
08:13The Southwark shelter opened just six days after the first bombing raids in 1940.
08:19It was estimated that 14,000 people could fit in all these tunnels.
08:26Queues formed three hours before the tunnels opened at eight o'clock every night.
08:31The press nicknamed this the Tunnelers' Parade.
08:36And, being so close to the river, floodgates were installed in case a bomb breached the tunnels and allowed the
08:43Thames water to flood in.
08:48So, if we walked down that way, we would get to the cut-off point to Borough Station.
08:55Oh, it's phenomenal. The Thames I walked down that, my local high street, and I had no idea these were
09:00still under my feet.
09:03These tunnels are not the only things left behind. As we move up, closer to the surface, there are still
09:09plenty of long-forgotten treasures to find.
09:13This staircase has been here since the City and South London Railway came to London Bridge in 1900.
09:20It used to lead from an old ticket hall in a station building near Borough Market, which now no longer
09:25exists.
09:29This is the emergency spiral staircase of the station, and this is the only original connection between the platforms and
09:37the surface here.
09:38Isn't it incredible? There's something down there that I just want to show you, because it's interesting. It's very City
09:43and South London Railway.
09:45This was one of six entrances into the Southwark Air Raid Shelter, and it could take 300 people per minute
09:53down these stairs.
09:54But what's fascinating to see is the original decoration from when it was constructed, still visible over a hundred years
10:01later.
10:04We've got some brick over here and some cast iron segments down there.
10:08But you know how in Lesley Green stations, their emergency staircases were incredibly ornate with tiles going all the way
10:15down to the platforms.
10:17But the city in South London didn't do that. It was presumably a cost-cutting measure or something like that.
10:23But I guess they just didn't think this very functional area needed to be decorated. After all, this was mostly
10:30for emergencies, if you needed to come up from the platform or down in case the lifts were, for some
10:35reason, not working.
10:36I genuinely had no idea this relic of the really early City and South London Railway was still here, right
10:43here at London Bridge.
10:47I thought I knew this station, and yet there's still so much to discover.
10:54Oh, that is cool.
11:08City and I are exploring the tunnels in London Bridge Underground Station.
11:14This busy part of the city has always had to adapt and innovate as more and more people come to
11:21live and work here.
11:23A century after the Northern Line arrived, the Jubilee Line Interchange opened here in 1999.
11:31And overnight, London Bridge suddenly became much busier.
11:37Today, while this section of the line is closed for even more developments, we can have a good snoop around.
11:46This is so strange, isn't it?
11:48Isn't this weird? I mean, normally I'm one of hundreds of people coming down here, getting off a train using
11:53these stairs.
11:54But today, it's completely silent. It's just us.
11:57Now, what's really interesting, seeing it like this without hundreds of people rushing past, is that we can really see
12:02how the layout of this has changed.
12:05The Northern Line here at London Bridge is actually really interesting, because when the Jubilee Line came to the station,
12:10they also reconfigured the Northern Line.
12:13So, the Northern Line over here, this is the northbound platform.
12:18That's the original City and South London platform.
12:21The southbound, however, was moved from where it was to the other side, so much further to make this concourse
12:29as wide as it is.
12:30But what's really nice is that even when we look around, that all this kind of modern aesthetic of the
12:37station, through a door just over there, there are some remnants of old London Bridge that I have to show
12:45you.
12:45Do you know, I've seen that door so many times and wanted to go through it for years.
12:56Because through this door remains part of that original southbound platform.
13:02Oh, that is cool.
13:08And, voila! Look at that!
13:11Oh, hello!
13:11Doesn't this date closure of this park perfectly to the 1990s?
13:16Yes!
13:17Here is an authentic enamel London Bridge roundel.
13:21A little bit scoffed, but, nonetheless, an original.
13:25And these gorgeous tiles.
13:28What's amazing about these tiles, they're from the 1920s.
13:30And you see them all around the network, particularly at Northern Line stations.
13:34So, this is from when the Northern Line was enlarged between 1922 and 24.
13:40OK.
13:41If you look closely, you see the green and the grey, they're ceramic tiles.
13:45And those are ceramic too, except...
13:49Look at that! There's rust on those ones over there.
13:52This whole section, the white section in the middle, is actually a sheet of metal with ceramic baked on top.
14:01Because it would save them time in tiling the entire station.
14:05So, to prove it, I brought a little fridge magnet from home.
14:09Green goddess!
14:11Ta-da!
14:12It sticks, yeah, because this is all made of metal.
14:15And actually, you can see them in several places still on the network.
14:20There are so many intriguing corners of this fascinating station.
14:25But one man who knows this place inside out is customer service manager Chris Intende.
14:32And while these Northern Line platforms lay silent, it's the perfect opportunity to learn just what it takes to make
14:40our journeys as seamless as possible.
14:43Chris.
14:44You must get to access not just the bits that you and I know about, and the public know about,
14:49but do you ever get to go down some of those hidden bits as well?
14:52Yes.
14:52You do?
14:53Yeah, so London Bridge is an old station.
14:55It's obviously a heritage station.
14:56We've got old track, new track and added on track.
14:59So we've got all these nooks and crannies.
15:01So, once a month, I do a thing called a planned general inspection, PGI.
15:05And we have to go into every single room of the station and every area that we asset manage.
15:11Yeah.
15:11To make sure there's no leaks, cracks, lights are working, et cetera, et cetera.
15:15There's a piece of old track on the old Northern Line track.
15:19And when you go down there, it's nostalgic.
15:21Straight away, you're taken back to that time and everything's still there.
15:26And it's just nice.
15:27I think that's why I love it as well, right?
15:28Because it's that mix of ancient and very, very modern as well, right?
15:32Coming together.
15:32Yeah.
15:32You look after it.
15:33So what's your favourite part of the whole station?
15:35You must have a favourite part.
15:37I like the Jubilee Line, central concourse area.
15:40For some reason, I feel like whenever I'm there and I'm running and I'm on the station,
15:43if I go out to manage to congestion manage, that's one place I always kind of put my energy and
15:49my concentration.
15:50It's cool though, isn't it?
15:51It is.
15:51The Jubilee Line bit is really just cool because it feels modern, it's bright.
15:55You see, quite often, I'll be one of the last people here at night on a Sunday evening,
15:59coming in afterwards to the pub or whatever, and everything's shutting down.
16:01What's it like being in that station or the whole station at night in these massive cavernous areas and there's
16:08nobody else there?
16:09It can actually be quite spooky.
16:10Can it?
16:11I was working a night shift once and I was coming up the stairs from the Jubilee Line.
16:16At night we have engineers that come on the station to fix things and I was about to walk up
16:20the, we call it the west escape stairs,
16:21and I've gone to the door and as I've pushed the door down and opened it, there's a guy standing
16:26there.
16:28Engineer, you know, doing his job.
16:31Oh my God.
16:32My heart dropped, you know, my legs went, I got dizzy, I saw stars, because I didn't expect to see
16:37them.
16:38Because it's so quiet and so peaceful, you don't expect to see no one.
16:41So things like that, out of nowhere, you can jump out your skin.
16:44I want to know, has a customer ever thanked you for the work that you've done?
16:49We've had so many nice loving letters from customers that we've helped over the years.
16:54I mean, I can tell you stories of when people have been lost.
16:57We've had another person who had a heart attack and he came back and, you know, sent flowers and biscuits
17:04and cakes.
17:04It's nice because it makes you feel appreciated.
17:07Yeah, you should think.
17:14We haven't explored any hidden parts of the Jubilee Line here. Not yet, anyway.
17:20But Sidi's got somewhere she wants to show me.
17:24Building the extension to this remarkable line was quite a tall order.
17:30Excavating tunnels underneath the Thames, the city and some of its most historic buildings involved a lot of planning, a
17:38lot of digging and an awful lot of mud.
17:41So how did the machinery get in and out? And how did the workers remove the spoil?
17:48Well, the answer lies in this section of blocked off tunnel.
17:53Pretty wild, right?
17:55OK, this is a slightly weird one. This is vast.
17:58Yes. This is a part of the construction tunnel for the Jubilee Line extension here at London Bridge.
18:05So all of this is from the 1990s and then has subsequently been sealed off.
18:11Oh, can you hear that?
18:17But it's all just a part of the changing of the atmospheric pressure in here.
18:23When construction on the extension started in 1993, huge boring machines were used to excavate the clay and sand.
18:32Parallel tunnels were built to allow machinery and spoil to be removed during the digging process.
18:38The construction tunnel is made of concrete, which may explain why it feels so much warmer down here.
18:49So how on earth did they get all the spoil out from the Jubilee tunnels out up there?
18:53Was it conveyor belts or diggers or what?
18:56Sounds like a Thunderbird-style kind of operation.
18:58Well, yeah, it basically was.
19:00There would have been a conveyor belt, diggers, lorries and even cranes to get all of that spoil out from
19:06the shaft that would have been just over here.
19:08As you can see, digging as deep as we are here, there is quite a bit of water that comes
19:14through these tunnels, even though they're brilliantly made.
19:16It's just that the area around London Bridge, as you said, was very marshy.
19:22So even though these tunnels were expertly constructed, you can see just over here that there's quite a bit of
19:30water seeping through.
19:31And so this green?
19:33Yeah.
19:34That's algae.
19:34So that would have come on the bottom of someone's shoe, doing some maintenance in here and then made its
19:41way to the wall.
19:41And you only really see these on the underground when they are opposite a light source that's continually on.
19:48So it's really quite interesting how life can creep into the most unlikely of places.
19:53It feels almost like another planet or somewhere on the moon.
19:57It does feel a little bit creepy in here, doesn't it, with all the sounds and everything.
20:02And if you look over there, those are some impressive-looking cobwebs.
20:07Yeah.
20:08You can keep that secret to yourself.
20:22As a daily user of the Jubilee Line, it's been fascinating to explore the secret areas of one of its
20:28stations, London Bridge.
20:32The line stretches over 22 miles and serves 27 stations.
20:38But I want to know, what's it like driving a train through them?
20:44To find out, Sidi and I are meeting Tube driver Kelly Grosvenor, who has a long-standing connection to the
20:51London Underground.
20:53Kelly, you drive Jubilee Line trains through London Bridge, I guess.
20:57Yes.
20:57What's it like coming into that station?
20:59It's amazing the amount of numbers that come through and how many people get on at that platform.
21:05But it's so weird to see the discipline of people queuing up at the platform edge doors, because you know
21:10every other station people are bundled on.
21:12Because the Jubilee is a little bit automated, isn't it?
21:14It's fully automated, so the only time we drive is coming in and out of the depots.
21:19And if there's people working on the track, we have to drive in manual as well.
21:24Do you ever think to yourself, I just might go into manual just to, you know...
21:27I do.
21:27I do drive.
21:28It's like handle time, get practice, keep your concentration.
21:31It's nice to do, especially with the Jubilee extension, lining yourself up for the platform edge doors.
21:38So when you apply to be a driver, do you get to choose what line you're going to work on?
21:42No.
21:43You find out the first day you get to training school where you're going to be.
21:49Training to be a tube driver takes around six months.
21:53Nearly all new drivers are recruited from within TfL.
21:56But in the past, drivers came from further afield.
22:02You are second generation working for Transport for London.
22:06So your dad was a driver as well?
22:08Yeah, he came over in 1967 from Barbados.
22:11He was directly recruited from Barbados.
22:12When he was in his twenties, it was always about the motherland and to discover what it was like in
22:18England.
22:19They've been taught about it in schools, but didn't have any first-hand experience.
22:22And then they had recruitment agencies over there.
22:27In 1948, the Empire Windrush brought hundreds of Caribbean passengers to Britain to help fill post-war labour shortages, including
22:36in transport.
22:39But in 1956, with rising unemployment in Barbados, the Barbadian government approached London Transport to set up a formal recruitment
22:48arrangement.
22:51He came here in October 1967 and then had to face his first winter.
22:57Ooh!
22:58From the Caribbean to seeing snow.
23:01What was his reaction to turning up in London?
23:03I believe there may have been a little bit of disappointment.
23:07You hear of Paved of Gold, you've always heard of that, but literally that's not what they found.
23:12So when your dad came over and started working for London Transport, did he immerse himself in the London Transport
23:18life?
23:18There was a lot of sports clubs. Each line had their own individual teams for sports, and they used to
23:25have tours around the country.
23:27He did try out for the cricket team when he first came and was told, no, you'll never play for
23:32the team.
23:33That was a little bit of racism involved with that one.
23:35But then, eventually, my dad was one of the best batsmen that they had.
23:39So, yeah, he did get involved with the cricket side of things, definitely.
23:44London Transport became the first organisation to operate a scheme recruiting staff directly from the Caribbean.
23:52Paving the way for other public sector employers, such as British Rail and the NHS.
23:58Today, nearly a third of the TfL workforce is from ethnic minorities.
24:08Dad retired in 2000, went straight back to Barbados, and he's living the life of Riley.
24:16Oh, yeah. Yeah. I can imagine.
24:18Yeah, it was a family kind of orientated job.
24:22My two godfathers are actually on the underground, or were on the underground as well.
24:26So, everybody was auntie and uncle.
24:28I think my dad's ended up doing 34 years. Wow.
24:31Yeah. He says it's given him everything he's ever had.
24:34What do you think to say? That it's given him everything that he's ever had?
24:37It's the only ever job. Wow.
24:39He came here when he was 21, it's the only ever job that he's ever had.
24:42Your dad must be so proud of you, though, that you've followed into his footsteps.
24:45He is extremely proud of me, and he does give a lot of very good advice.
24:50Yeah, I'm kind of glad to have followed in a legacy of somebody like my dad.
24:55You've got a great job. Yeah, you do. I think so. I think so.
24:57I'm very proud of what I do. I think I've got that for my dad.
25:18As we rumble about on the Tube Network, sometimes it's worth taking in the aesthetics.
25:25I'm not just talking about the architecture of the buildings or the trains rushing through,
25:30but the poster artwork that's used to advertise and inform
25:34that spans the underground's 160-year history.
25:38At the depot, I'm once again exploring the archives
25:43with the London Transport Museum's Assistant Director, Chris Nix.
25:47These are beautiful. Every single one is just a joy.
25:50They are beautiful, but we should go back to the origins.
25:53We'll have a look at what posters were like
25:55when they were first appearing on the underground.
25:58So here's one from the Metropolitan Line.
26:001886, they've done their best with the colour, but it's quite functional, isn't it?
26:04It's just telling you the train times and where they go.
26:07This is so Victorian.
26:08One of the key things about posters is that you can use them
26:12for displaying information, functional information.
26:15We can use them to beautify places.
26:18But for that, you need an advance in printing technology,
26:22which is lithography.
26:24When you move to lithographic printing, you can do all sorts of things,
26:29and it's then worth getting some artists in to create some beautiful things.
26:35And that is what Frank Pick sets about doing.
26:39Chief Executive of London Transport, Frank Pick,
26:42believed in good design to enrich life.
26:46He was in charge of commissioning many of the artists
26:49who created posters for the Tube, advertising its many benefits.
26:55Frank Pick set about using posters to drive revenue, behaviour,
27:01and to brighten up the travelling environment.
27:05Oh, look at this!
27:06This is from 1913, and it's giving you examples
27:11with these figures using the Tube
27:13of how the underground is an easy place for business or pleasure.
27:18And the other thing that's quite unusual about this piece of artwork for the time
27:23is this is by a female artist, Hilda Cowan.
27:26A female artist didn't get to do the kinds of work
27:30that were seen as a male preserve back then, but London Transport did.
27:34So was London Transport perhaps an early sort of equal rights commissioning body?
27:39I mean, were they conscious of this?
27:40Yeah, they absolutely were, but it was done based on who created the best quality work.
27:45And Frank Pick, he enjoyed studying art.
27:47He knew artists.
27:49He used the big art schools to source those great artists,
27:55and they just happened to be female artists.
27:57Another female artist which you may be familiar with here, Mary Coop.
28:02This is absolutely classic, very vibrant piece of artwork.
28:07This has been reproduced many, many times.
28:10Just look at the artist's vision here.
28:11London is known for being quite rainy and being on the tube.
28:16But here you go, brightened up. We've made rain a fun thing.
28:20The lines expanded, as did the technology.
28:23On the trains and in print advertising,
28:26something the London Underground wasn't afraid to show off.
28:30This one, for example, here.
28:32You've got something advertising the pneumatic doors.
28:36Lazio Mulholland Nagy has done this Bauhaus design poster featuring the door motors
28:43and the pneumatic doors.
28:45These pneumatic doors, we take them for granted now.
28:47But, you know, back then it required education.
28:50It's a public information film in a poster.
28:52It's splendid. It really is.
28:54One of the ones that I really love in the collection is this one here.
28:58It's by Montague Black.
28:59Done in 1926 with a vision of what 2026 might look like.
29:05What's remarkable about this is they did get some things right.
29:09If you look down at the bottom, you can see there's a very obviously recognisable emblem there.
29:14Yeah, the round blue is there.
29:15Yeah, the ground blue. Still shining bright.
29:16Above a station, which is proudly advertising that you can get the tube to Scotland.
29:24I guess it kind of does now, really, on the way to HS2.
29:27You know, tunnelling underneath the way.
29:30It's so interesting to see this evolution of design
29:33that's donned the walls of the underground over the past century.
29:37And, unsurprisingly, many of these are highly collectible.
29:42This is a mixed media poster.
29:45It's being done with a photograph.
29:47That was quite a revolutionary technique of using mixture of illustration and photograph together in a poster.
29:53Right next to it just happens to be the single most expensive poster in our collection by an artist called
30:00Man Ray.
30:01So, this is one of the posters, because there's a second version of this, isn't there, that goes together?
30:06That's right. So, just over there, you can see they're actually designed to be displayed as a poster pair.
30:11So, you have London Transport and then this one keeps London going.
30:15And a very treasured item in our collection.
30:17I know this is worth a lot of money.
30:20How much have you insured this for?
30:23Well, the last time one of these was sold at auction, it was about £140,000.
30:28Would you like a copy?
30:30Yeah!
30:30We'll get you a print in the museum shop.
30:33Great, thanks. I'll take that.
30:57We're exploring a dark corner of the depot and Sydney's got something she wants to show me hidden away in
31:03the recesses of the building.
31:06The depot is full of nooks and crannies, filled with treasures, but this one in particular I wanted to show
31:13you.
31:13Oh, Blake Hall, that is a name you don't hear very much anymore.
31:17Yeah, a lot of people won't remember it because very few passengers ever used it, but it used to be
31:23a part of the central line.
31:25That whole bit of track and all the stations shut down quite some time ago as part of the tube,
31:30but isn't it a heritage line now?
31:32It is, and it's where I've just been. The Epping-Onga branch.
31:40What's particularly unusual about this London underground adventure is it technically isn't in London and it's not even underground.
31:49But I promise you won't be disappointed to have made the journey to this unusual outpost.
31:55I'm at Onga station today and I'm so excited because I've never been here before.
32:01Now this used to be the furthest point of the central line of the London underground, but it closed in
32:061994.
32:07Tucked away in the very top corner of the old tube map and 25 miles away from central London, rural
32:15Essex is where you would have found Onga and its London underground link to Epping.
32:21But Onga's story starts long before the arrival of the tube.
32:26The first tracks to this place were laid in 1865 by the Great Eastern Railway Company and connected Onga to
32:34Loughton.
32:35Nowadays it operates as a heritage railway and I'm lucky enough to get to explore this beautifully restored old station.
32:45Oh, these architectural features are so lovely. This is an original station from 1865 and they've done such a brilliant
32:53job at just restoring it to its former glory.
32:57It's just incredible that this used to be a part of the London underground.
33:00But look, just over here, we have got the shadow of a roundel coming through, proving to us that this
33:14used to be an underground station.
33:19And there's that very roundel in position.
33:24To find out more about the story of this curious station, I'm meeting Dean Walton, who manages the Epping Onga
33:31Heritage Railway line.
33:34It's amazing to think that the central line served this place.
33:39It does feel quite rural here. It feels quite far out of London.
33:43It is a long way out from London.
33:45Yeah.
33:46And you get that sense of it when you're travelling up to Epping and suddenly you see the open fields
33:52around you.
33:54It was a single track that connected Onga to Epping and onto the City of London.
34:00And this rural station had its benefits.
34:03In 1911, daily milk trains began running from Onga to Stratford.
34:08And by 1918, the station was sending 22,000 tonnes of milk every week.
34:15When all of London's transport infrastructure was brought together in 1933, huge expansion of the tube was planned.
34:23And it was coming to Onga.
34:26The central line gets that permission to extend in the 1930s, then gets halted because of the Second World War.
34:33And then finally, this becomes part of the central line.
34:35That's right. That's right.
34:36The central line services were run as a steam shuttle.
34:39Then in 1957, the light electrification scheme was completed.
34:44And at that point, the steam service is finished and electric trains were brought in.
34:49How frequently is this service being used?
34:52It has a varied history.
34:54And at one point, I think we're looking at about, you know, perhaps two, three hundred people a day using
34:57the service here.
34:58That patronage dwindles and then we get to the point where the underground are starting to question the financial viability
35:05of the branch as a whole.
35:07And therein, should we say, the rot starts.
35:13By 1970, it was losing £100,000 per year, and the line was threatened with closure.
35:22The branch survived at that time, but by 1981, the writing was on the wall for a stop that was
35:28just a mile down the line, which had an unenviable reputation on the London Transport Network.
35:35I'm at Blake Hall Station, which was the least used station on the London Underground.
35:42Only between six to 17 people would use the station daily.
35:46So, in 1981, they closed it.
35:49However, drivers would often sneak to let passengers off at this point.
35:54So, to stop that from happening, they had the platform removed.
35:58Now, today, the station is a private residence, and the current owner has had the platform reinstated.
36:04It's so peaceful and quiet here, and all we can see is fields.
36:09It's unbelievable that this used to be a tube station.
36:18Back at Onga, the final death knell came on the 30th of September, 1994.
36:24By this point, just a measly 85 passengers were using the service each day, and the station was reported to
36:33be in a rundown state.
36:35So, on that day in 1994, when the last underground train ran through the station, what was the general sense?
36:44The local community were particularly disappointed to have lost their service.
36:47If you look at the last day, the pictures you see are of tube trains absolutely wedged with people wanting
36:55to be on that train.
36:56And the story obviously is, well, if only they'd come before this last train, then perhaps the service may never
37:03have been withdrawn.
37:05Today, trains once again graced the tracks at Onga. After years of restoration work and helped by an army of
37:12volunteers, it reopened in 2012 as a heritage railway.
37:17And what a job they did.
37:26Here we are in the ticket hall. Now, I love the fact that they restored this to its former glory,
37:32but this ticket window could have sold me a ticket to ride on the London Underground until 1994.
37:40But my favourite thing, I think, of this restoration is this. This beautiful Great Eastern Railway fireplace.
37:50Imagine coming in here on a cold winter's day, and there's a roaring fire in the ticket hall as you
37:56buy your ticket and wait for your train.
37:59And it's got the Great Eastern Railway coat of arms.
38:09But it's not just inside this old station where there are traces of relics from a time gone by.
38:17So this is something you don't often see on the underground.
38:20But this is one of the few examples of a foot warmer hut.
38:26Back in the day, there wasn't any heating on trains, and so first class passengers were offered something called foot
38:33warmers.
38:33Essentially, boiled water was put into bottles, which was put into canvas bags and given out to the passengers to
38:40warm their feet.
38:42But in the 1920s, when heating was introduced to trains, this became redundant.
38:48But inside here is where they kept the boiler, the bottles and the canvases for this purpose.
38:54And there's one final fun fact I have to share with you about Onga and its unique place in tube
39:00folklore.
39:01And we have to go to the very end of the line.
39:04Now, Dean, what is that?
39:08That is a 0.0 kilometre post.
39:12And it's essentially the starting point for the measurement of distances on the underground.
39:17In 1972, the underground undertook a new referencing system for distances and the like on the underground.
39:25So the next marker from here would be further down the line over there.
39:29And what would that say?
39:310.2 kilometres.
39:32These posts are repeated every 200 metres or so.
39:38Now, what's lovely is that all of these markers are out there on the network, but they all look the
39:44same, of course, just with different numbers to them.
39:46But there's only one of this one.
39:57Underground trains may have stopped running on the Epping Onga branch in 1994, but the line holds many memories.
40:07Two people who remember it fondly are Colin Dye, who was the stationmaster at Blake Hall in the early 1970s,
40:14and Geoff Porter, a retired central line driver.
40:19It's an intriguing railway. What made it special for you to work there?
40:22Going through the centre of London, especially in the rush hour, I mean, it was just nuts.
40:27Once you got past Loughton, you were lucky. You'd gone back 30 years.
40:30You must have got to know some of the people who came and used that station fairly well.
40:34Within a week, I was on first name terms with every passenger that used the station.
40:39All eight of them.
40:41So how many staff were at the station when you were working there?
40:45One on each shift.
40:46So it's just you by yourself?
40:48Yes. It was the one and only station on the underground where the station foreman actually manned the ticket office
40:55as well.
40:56Working by yourself?
40:57Yes. But an interesting fact about Blake Hall is that all the lighting on the station, apart from one light
41:04bulb in the ticket office,
41:05Yes.
41:06Was fed off the track.
41:07That is unusual.
41:08The point about it was that depending on how the lights were, I could tell you precisely where that train
41:13was.
41:14You're joking.
41:15No, no, no. Not at all.
41:17As it left North Weald, the lights went dim because it started to climb the gradient.
41:23Then when it went past Marconi Bridge, it's on the way down.
41:27So the lights all come back up because he's coasting.
41:30He came into the platform.
41:32Everything was fine until he started off again.
41:35And then everything went black.
41:38Because the train took what little power there was.
41:40Well, there is a story, but I'm not sure if it's just apocryphal or if it's really true, that they
41:46used to recycle the newspapers.
41:48The commuters would buy their paper at Onger and read it by the time they got to Epping.
41:52And then the staff would then collect them up, take them back to Onger, where they would iron the papers
41:55and resell them again.
41:56But whether that's actually true or not, I couldn't...
41:58It would surprise me.
41:59I was told that, but I don't know if it's true or not.
42:03Colin and Geoff's connection with this stretch of line didn't end with their retirement from London Underground, because they both
42:10now volunteer for the Epping-Onger Heritage Railway.
42:14Well, I first heard that the line was closing.
42:17So I thought, well, I don't know what's going to happen to it.
42:21Is it going to become a preserved line?
42:22That was the plan I heard.
42:24So I thought, I'd like to get involved with that.
42:27Because when I'd left it all those years before, I never thought I'd see it again.
42:32So I went back.
42:33And what do you love about it now, the railway?
42:36Well, I like driving up and down it. It's a lovely piece of line.
42:40I didn't drive on it before, but now I do.
42:43It's a real tripping out into nature.
42:45And it was when it was running and it is still now.
42:53Next time, an underground tour ends on the rooftops of London.
42:58Oh, my goodness. Look at this.
43:02And Sidi pays homage to a Metline classic.
43:06It really has like an abandoned temple feel almost, like something out of ancient Rome or Greece.
43:38It's sort of just a common stock.
43:43You
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