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Updated WiFi Map

25th April 2014
 

With TfL now proudly proclaiming that WiFi is available at 137 Underground stations courtesy of Virgin Media and 56 Overground stations supplied by The Cloud we thought it was about time that we updated our WiFi map, as we like the ‘spread’ look that it has as opposed to the official TfL version.

The four ‘black holes’ remain in Zone 1 of Edgware Road and the three Crossrail stations – Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road and Moorgate, but it’s nice to see places like Monument, Baker Street and Southgate finally getting it.

West Ruislip is an oddity – no other stations out west on that branch have WiFi, no DLR station has it, but there are also reports of other stations (such as Brent Cross) having the tell-tale ‘BBConnect‘ named wireless network which is where the equipment is in place, but hasn’t been activated yet.

WiFi Map April 2014

WiFi Map April 2014

Click on map for full size (and now further updated/edited version that includes Surrey Quays).

Note: The blue coloured area at Heathrow 5 shows that there is full mobile coverage there from the major networks, despite the station being underground.

 


Tile Map

24th April 2014
 

How many Underground stations have classic tiles on the walls, then? As far as we can recall, it’s just the Piccadilly, Northern and Bakerloo lines that have wall tile patterns, and we can’t find anywhere online that documents which stations have which tile patterns which is why we’ve now started work on this – a tube map which shows you the tile pattern for that station.  Your life isn’t going to be complete without it is it?

tilemap


Hoth

23rd April 2014
 

No .. not the desolate ice planet from Star Wars, but an amusing abbreviation for Harrow on the Hill of course!

We have just finished the 3D map of the station, which takes our total to 260 out of the 270 Underground stations drawn; that’s 96% done with just ten more to go! The end of our massive tube station mapping project really is in sight.

Harrow-on-the-Hill

Harrow-on-the-Hill

 


Old Street Timetables

22nd April 2014
 
Old Street Timetable

Old Street Timetable

With thanks to Bjoern Draegert for spotting these at Old Street.

Due to some redecoration work being done on some of the modern day information panels, they revealed beneath them some really old Northern Line timetables from 1977 that show what the pattern and frequencies of the trains were like back then.

We’re slightly confused by the the two separate columns for trains to High Barnet and trains to Mill Hill East. Did there used to be a time when the service to MHE was not a shuttle and trains just ran directly through all the time?

This was when the Bank branch of the Northern Line was running a regular service – it wasn’t too long ago before this that Northern Line services only ran 3-car trains during the off peak hours, because there wasn’t the demand for the service when people weren’t travelling to the city.

The map at the bottom is a neat thing to see too, showing the Northern Line as it was almost 40 years ago.

Northern Line Diagram

Northern Line Diagram

 


W&C train being refurbished

21st April 2014
 

If you’ve ever visited the London Transport Museum Acton Depot, you’ll have no doubt seen the old Waterloo & City Line carriage that’s been kept – a class 487 train – that’s been salvaged, but is lying dormant with its paint peeling.

Being restored at the Museum Depot

Being restored at the Museum Depot

Well, peeling no more! We were down the depot last week, and got chatting to the lovely Paul here whose job it is over the next month (“One week per side” he reckons) to paint it and get it looking lovely in its original condition with full Network South East livery.

We even found a superb video online showing the trains still in action.


Unusual platform at Finchley Road

20th April 2014
 

finchleyroadWith major tunnelling works taking place on the Jubilee line over the Easter weekend, there are no Jubilee line services between Finchley Road and Waterloo.

We always like it when something like this happens, as it means you get to see an unusual working – in the case a Jubilee train departing northbound out of Platform 3, which is where they normally run through southbound.

Watching the movements for a few minutes revealed that the normal northbound platform for Jubilee line services (Platform 2) was closed altogether and trains instead were scheduled every 5 minutes to arrive into Platform 3, and then reverse out north again.

Interestingly on the hand-written sign though, we can’t work out why NEASDEN is so important as to be written all in upper case?

 


Bond Street Closures

19th April 2014
 

bondstreet3Normally TfL make quite a noise and give you a lot of advance warning about station closures, but it feels as if this one has crept up on us.

It was only when we saw something in the Metro two weeks ago that we became first aware of it, but now signs are springing up all over the place on the network – with quite a short period of notice.

bondstreet1

Another sign

Another sign

Bond Street is having a lot of work done to it for Crossrail meaning that there will be no Central Line trains stopping at it for three months, and no Jubilee Line trains stopping at it for six months! That’s a hefty amount of time for such a major station in the Zone 1 area.

The shutdown starts on the 23rd of April, which is Wednesday of next week. The full document from TfL can be found here.

 


Easter Bus

18th April 2014
 

That nice chap Tim Dunn created a rather fun picture doing the rounds on the internet yesterday which we rather like – although targeted towards National Rail services (and closure by Network Rail over the weekend) the Tube is having its fair share of replacement bus services (e.g. on the District Line) over the weekend.

Happy Easter everyone!

Easter Replacement Buses

Easter Replacement Buses


London’s Longest Pub Crawl

17th April 2014
 

We stumbled upon another Tube themed blog that we liked yesterday – that of the one written by Sam Cullen who is visiting one pub for each of the 270 stations on the network, and he’s just passed his 100th stop – West Ham.

The Mission (as he describes it) is to “Visit a pub for each of the 270 stations on the network.”

270 stops on this pub crawl

270 stops on this pub crawl

His journey started in March 2013 at Paddington Station, where the first train on what is now the Underground departed on 9th January 1863 and is progressing in the order each Underground station opened to the public.

Read more in a great interview with Sam over on Londonist.com

 


Professionally drawn maps

16th April 2014
 

We’re considering hiring John Cutts (@CEOJohnCutts) here at Station Master to help us draw up some of the 3D Station Maps.  He recently sent us a pictorial CV, as a demonstration of his work …

Nicely drawn map

Nicely drawn map