Going Postal

I’ve written about abandoned Underground stations before, and even entire abandoned lines beneath London’s streets. This one, however, is a real one-off. Whereas most of the abandoned spurs of the Tube were closed due to lack of passengers, this one never had any passengers at all. Despite this, it lasted seventy-six years. It ran through Central London and had eight stations. And it was never actually owned by London Transport.

Give up? Actually, some of you have probably already worked it out, and may allow yourselves a smug grin. I’m talking about the London Post Office Railway.

The London Post Office Railway was opened in 1927. It carried letters and parcels from Paddington in the west to the Whitechapel in the east. Its “stations” were sorting offices. At its peak, it was carrying over four million letters per day. Its trains were automatically controlled and electrically driven, operating for nineteen hours a day and 256 days a year.

It wasn’t the first such railway – it wasn’t even the first such railway in London, in fact. Inspiration came from the Chicago Tunnel Company’s freight-only subway system. Like the Post Office Railway, this was narrow gauge and electrically powered, opening in 1906. Yet while this was the most obvious source of inspiration, even this was a whippersnapper compared to London’s first post office Tubes.

The very, very first experimental postal railway was a short line in Battersea, built in 1861 and shown right. It was air-powered, built by the Pneumatic Despatch Company. The experiment was a success. The Post Office, fearing competition from the increasingly popular telegraph service, expressed a strong interest, as did the London and North Western Railway. The first ”proper” line was opened on 15th January 1863 – just five days after the Metropolitan Railway, the first underground passenger line – and ran from the LNWR’s Euston Station to the North West District Sorting Office. This was later extended to Holborn and later Cheapside and Gresham Street. The company had grand plans for an entire network of lines under the city, but as it happened, despite very favourable rates, the Post Office weren’t all that interested after all. The system went bust in 1875. At least one of the knee-high carriages survives in the Museum of London’s collection and the tunnels are now used for cables.

I’ve mentioned before that gridlock in the city is nothing new, and in the early years of the twentieth century this prompted the Post Office to take another look at the underground railway idea. Approval was given in 1911, construction began in 1915 and the system was open in time for Christmas 1927. As well as Paddington and the Eastern District Post Office in Whitechapel, the six-and-a-half-mile-long line called at six intermediate stops, including Liverpool Street station and the main sorting office at Mount Pleasant in Clerkenwell. The trains, if you can call them that, were stored and maintained at a depot under Mount Pleasant.

[PARENTHESIS: Mount Pleasant actually sounds like a rather pleasant place. In reality, the name derives from heaps of industrial waste on the banks of the River Fleet. This is the famous British sense of irony at work]

1930-built train, preserved at the National Railway Museum in York.

The railway, as I said earlier, was a great success, reaching its peak after the Second World War. Extensions serving Euston, King’s Cross, Camden, Islington, Waterloo, Southwark, Cannon Street and latterly Willesden were proposed but never constructed. It kept going through the War, despite one direct hit at Mount Pleasant in 1943, and like so many other Tube lines, served as an air raid shelter (albeit one used only by staff).

"What'll I tell the wife, Jess?"

The post office, ‘lack the day, isn’t exactly the most hip and with-it service, and with the coming of the Information Age had to make a few changes. This included cutting many post offices, several sorting offices and Postman Pat. I’m not joking about that last one, by the way. The Post Office used to sponsor Postman Pat, it doesn’t any more and in the most recent series he no longer works for them. As you can see in the above picture, he is a victim of red tape.

As a result of the cuts, by the late 1990s there were only four stations left on the Post Office Railway. The Post Office dynamically responded by renaming the system “Mail Rail” in 1997. In 2003, when it was decided that the Paddington sorting office would be moved, Royal Mail threw up their hands and decided to close the damn railway once and for all. There were protests of mismanagement from the Communication Workers’ Union, who argued that the line wouldn’t be so expensive to run if it was properly maintained and used to its full capacity. Nevertheless, it was decided that the post would go by road, which was cheaper. So on 30th May, it rattled off into the history books. It may be relevant to note that this was also the year when post trains disappeared from national rail.

Although the line was never as well-known or glamorous as its passenger-carrying chums, it’s had a couple of moments in the sun. In 1997, it was used in the BBC fantasy series Neverwhere (along with various other nooks and crannies of subterrainean London) and in 1990 it posed as a Vatican line in the flop movie Hudson Hawk, making Bruce Willis one of its fewpassengers. I’m told the latter film is alright if you suspend your disbelief, lower your expectations and have a sense of humour about it – beer helps.

A few of the trains have been preserved. The tunnels have been mothballed. Every so often someone suggests a use for them – while they’re very unlikely to ever see use for post again, they could conceivably be used for goods traffic. One idea is that they might be used for valuable or perishable items. I’ve even heard it suggested that it might be used for passengers, but this idea is frankly barmy – the trains were barely wide enough for one person, let alone enough for the line to pay its way, and rebuilding seems a little pointless given the extent of work needed. I fear that the London Post Office Railway is destined to remain one of those abandoned curiosities beneath our feet. Still, we can hope…

Further Reading

http://www.mailrail.co.uk/ - Excellent fan site from which I got much of the information in this entry. Not updated since the line’s closure, sadly, but otherwise very comprehensive.

Canal Penetration

I do not appear to understand the concept of a short walk. This fact was brought home to me on Sunday. Having attended a wedding on Wednesday, I was feeling somewhat guilty at the Elvis-level calorie intake I had managed that day, and therefore had resolved to behave myself with a little more restraint. Sunday, I thought, would be an ideal day to get a little exercise. I thought it might be nice to do some more of the Regent’s Canal.

The Regent’s Canal, if you’re not familiar with it (though you may have some passing acquaintance with it if you’re a regular reader of this blog), is a waterway running from the Thames at Limehouse to the Grand Junction Canal at Paddington. The canal was opened in two sections – from Paddington to Camden in 1816 and Camden to Limehouse in 1820. In those days, before decent roads and railways, canals were the arteries of industry. The Grand Junction Canal was the quickest means of transporting goods in quantity from the industrial Midlands to London. The Regent’s Canal therefore served an important economic purpose, as it formed the final link between the Midlands and the Port of London and therefore the rest of the world. It survived the coming of the railways and the roads, but by the 1930s was largely obsolete.

Today, although there is a small amount of cargo, it’s primarily used for pleasure craft. The warehouses and factories that once lined its route have either been demolished or repurposed (most notably, one major interchange between rail and canal is now Camden Lock Market and the Stables). The towpath is a popular route with cyclists, walkers and idiots (yo).

My original intention was to only walk a short section of the canal, say Camden to King’s Cross or Islington. But I have this tendency, once I start walking, to keep on going far longer than is perhaps wise. As a result, I ended up walking all the way to Limehouse Basin. As I had previously walked from Camden to Paddington (hence the photos you have been seeing so far), I can now say that I have walked the full length of the canal.

From a psychogeographical point of view, what’s interesting about this walk is that it let me see familiar places from a different point of view. Of course, I’d seen the canal at Paddington, Regent’s Park, Camden, King’s Cross, St Pancras, Caledonian Road, Islington, Hackney and Limehouse before. Indeed, I’ve written about it in at least two of those locations in this very blog. But it had just been a landmark then, with no sort of context. I had some vague awareness that this stretch of canal was the same as that stretch of canal, but only as a theoretical thing. To experience the whole thing from a boat’s eye view, as it were, was rather novel. I think I’ve been enlightened in some way.

Anyway, I’ve waffled on for far too long already, given that this was supposed to be a photo-ey entry. I shall keep the prattle to a minimum from here on in, and instead continue to present my (usual crappy) photographs in geographical order from Paddington to Limehouse. Camden Lock is a notable omission here,  due to the fact that on neither of the walks presented here did I actually intend to document the entire canal.

One last point I would like to make is the range of contrast as you go along the river, from affluent Regent’s Park and Little Venice to the post-industrial landscape of the Docklands. I’ll shut up now. For now.

Sorry, me again. At this point on the walk, the canal cut through the hill at Islington, and I had to leave the towpath. Some explanation may be needed for the following photos.

I snapped this because I had walked along this road once before, a couple of years ago, desperately hungover. I was leaving the Barnsbury flat of a friend we shall simply call The Monster early one Sunday morning. I attracted disapproving looks from pious souls. Anyway, to end up here again was rather surprising.

I eventually reached Angel – you may recall that my first paid acting gig was near here. Despite my familiarity with the area, I wasn’t entirely sure how to get to the canal. Fortunately, this sign guided me. It may also explain some of the stranger sights coming up.

Isn’t this just the dearest little owl?

Spitalfields already? God be damned.

And Shoreditch! How we are honoured!

This is a nice thing to do with a block of council flats. Photographic portraits of local folk. It’s like Eastenders, only without the death and unimaginable horror.

Hackney. If you feel a chill down your spine, that is because we are but a stone’s throw from the Last Tuesday Society’s sinister museum.

A dilapidated narrowboat advocating the cleaning up of canals. This would be that famous bargees’ humour I’ve heard so much about.

Some sort of junction. Further investigation is required, I feel – especially as there’s something familiar about this canal here.

Lo the Isle of Dogs!

Herons are basically the easiest birds in the world to photograph. How I managed to make this one blurry enough to shame the most avid Bigfoot enthusiast is therefore beyond me.

I feel this toy boat has a story to tell.

We are so close, me hearties, I can practically taste that lime!

Is that not the viaduct of the London and Blackwall Railway?

It is! Limehouse! We made it! Long live, long live!

I say “we” made it, but mostly you just looked at photos. I didn’t want to make a big thing of this.

The Thames as the sun begins to set.

The Docklands Light Railway at Westferry. Everyone wants to get on the seats at the front of the train, but for a novel experience I recommend the seats at the back as you enter the tunnel for Bank. It’s like disappearing down a giant oesophagus.

 

Further Reading:

http://londonparticulars.wordpress.com/2010/07/18/talk-about-burning-your-bridges/ - An earlier entry focusing on a particular part of the Regent’s Canal.

Great

Do you know what today is, me hearties? Actually, it probably won’t mean much to most of you, but today is the 175th anniversary of the founding of the Great Western Railway. And to commemorate this joyous occasion (for geeks like me), I think we should spend today’s entry continuing the series on London’s termini with the GWR’s grand station at Paddington.

Architecturally speaking, I think Paddington may be my favourite of the termini (though Kings Cross was not without its charms before that municipal bus shelter-style extension was put on the front). The decor is beautiful, reminiscent of Art Nouveau, although it predates that fashion by some decades. Sympathetic restoration and the relative cleanliness of modern trains have done much to enhance its beauty in the modern era. Honestly, I could write a sonnet.

For the grandeur of the station, we have two men to thank. The first was Isambard Kingdom Brunel, the legendary Victorian engineer and the mastermind behind the Great Western Railway.  It was he who designed the main structure. Matthew Digby Wyatt was the architect he hired to do the fiddly bits – it was not in Brunel’s nature to let anyone else do the lion’s share of the work.

Brunel wanted the very best for the London station of his great project. Initial ideas for the Great Western to share Euston Station with the London and Birmingham Railway must have made his blood boil. The site eventually chosen was not ideal for Brunel’s dramatic purposes. Being located in a cutting, it hardly made for a breathtaking monument to the steam age as one approached it. Wyatt, fortunately, came to the rescue and set to work ensuring that Paddington’s fiddly bits would be the fiddliest anyone had ever seen. He borrowed heavily from the Moorish style, experimenting with various different patterns around Brunel’s station-shell before settling on the final arrangement. The grandeur would be evident to anyone stepping off the train.

You may be wondering why I won’t shut up about “greatness” and “grandeur.” It’s sort of inevitable when you’re talking about a project where Brunel has been allowed to run wild. Brunel was perhaps the greatest exemplar of the short man syndrome – and I’m not just talking about his trademark top hat.

You see, Brunel, pictured right, was a man who always had to go one further, who always had to be a little bit different, no matter what the cost. I’ve already talked about the Great Eastern, the ship he designed that would remain the largest in the world for forty years (and whose problems would ultimately contribute to his death). When given the task of building a railway from London to Bristol, Brunel adopted much the same philosophy. He decided to throw tradition out of the window, ignore what the likes of Stephenson and Hackworth had been doing oop North and do things his way.

Iron Duke, a broad gauge express locomotive

Brunel’s great innovation was something called “broad gauge.” What this meant was that whereas most railways at the time were built to a standard gauge of 4 foot 8 1/2 inches between the rails, his were 7 foot 1/4 inch. The reasoning was that engines built to run on this gauge would be bigger, faster, more powerful and safer. You can’t argue with the physics, and frankly the man was right. The trouble was that he was two decades too late. Everyone else was already using standard gauge.

What this meant was that the GWR was incompatible with any non-Brunel-designed railway, which was most of them. Where two companies met, transfer sheds like the one on the left were built for goods and passengers to be transferred from one train to another. Eventually the GWR compromised with mixed gauge track, which you can see below the engine, compatible for both types of train and finally, in 1892, they were forced by Act of Parliament to switch completely. As a footnote, the first part of the Metropolitan Railway was constructed to use Great Western stock, and so the earliest London Underground line was broad gauge.

It’s fair to say that even after this embarrassment, the GWR retained a certain haughtiness, even bloody-mindedness. The name “Great Western” was not, in the eyes of the Company, an idle boast. After all, had it not been they who conveyed Queen Victoria from Slough to Paddington on her first train journey? And can there be a nobler act than conveying someone away from Slough?

Eventually they would build a branch to Windsor, largely for the purposes of serving the Castle. They also, in time, served such notable destinations as Oxford, Bath, Bristol, Plymouth, Truro, Cardiff, er, Slough. They were a holiday line, taking passengers to Devon and the Cornish Riviera (I recommend the St Ives branch for all fans of scenic gorgeousness). They were technologically forward-looking and yet, in a strange way, rather conservative.

Take the engine on the left, perhaps the most famous Great Western engine, Hogwarts Castle (or Olton Hall, to use its civilian identity). It has a rather Victorian look about it, would you not say? Yet it was built in 1937, while the other companies had wholeheartedly adopted ultra-modern streamlining. So it was with all the GWR’s locomotives. Even the ones they acquired from other companies soon gained typical Western trimmings – a process known to railway enthusiasts as “Swindonising” after the GWR’s main works at Swindon.

Indeed, when all the railways in Britain were Nationalised in 1948, the GWR seemed determined not to go down without a fight. Its works still turned out pseudo-Victorian engines. Its engines retained their numbers and their Brunswick green paint. Its coaches would soon be repainted in their old (and rather yummy-sounding) chocolate and cream livery. The independent spirit is still, to some extent, in evidence even today. What’s the name of the company operating passenger trains out of Paddington? Why, First Great Western!

The station itself has always remained in the Premier League of termini, never under threat of closure like Marylebone or St Pancras. These days it has another claim to fame in the form of Michael Bond’s creation, Paddington Bear. I’d be churlish to write an entire entry on Paddington without even mentioning him. Yr. Humble Chronicler was a great enthusiast for the adventures of this particular ursine back in the day. Apparently in his most recent book, Paddington gets done by Immigration. Oh well.

Further Reading

http://londonparticulars.wordpress.com/2010/06/16/what-a-big-ship-ive-got/ - This blog on the Great Eastern.

Achey breaky feet

Yesterday was a bit of a mistake. See, as part of my weight loss programme, I’m trying to exercise more. Therefore, yesterday I decided to go on a nice long walk. No particular aim other than to burn some calories.

I find most forms of exercise a bit of a pain in the old behind. Not  because they’re tiring, but because they’re so dull. Lifting weights? Well, why did you put them on the floor in the first place, idiot? Football? Well, if you’d just stop running around and took it in turns to kick, you could score a lot more goals. Walking, on the other hand, is great. I get to know the city better and I can find lots of interesting things on the way.

There’s a funny little alleyway near where I live. In nearly four years of being in Colliers Wood, I have never been down there. So that’s what I did. I discovered that it brought me out alongside the river Wandle. It’s not a bad walk, if you don’t mind hideously ugly industry and relative isolation. Which most people do. So, er.

After walking for simply aaaages, I came back to the main road, and found myself in Earlsfield. “Well,” I thought, “this isn’t far from home at all. I shall keep walking… TO THE END OF THE WANDLE!” Lightning flashed at that point for reasons I am at a loss to explain.

So I followed the back streets and came to King George Park, where the path rejoins the river. This brought me out in Wandsworth, where the river ends. I had a bit of a stroll around, a bit of an explore. And then I saw a sign pointing me to Fulham. Now, I’ve passed through Fulham several times, but not on foot.

So, out of curiosity, I crossed Wandsworth Bridge. I found… well, mostly what I found was suburbia. I did find a wicked-awesome derelict factory, though, and took several photos. I won’t subject you to all of them, fear not, but you can have some of them.

And I just sort of ended up walking on and on. Through Fulham, on to Hammersmith and ultimately on to Shepherd’s Bush. I have a couple of chums here who have appeared in these pages before, and gave them a bell to suggest meeting up. I suspect I did not present the best picture, being completely sweaty and ‘orrible, not to mention babbling insanely due to endorphines (incidentally, excellent way to get high if you’re into that sort of thing).

We had dinner at a place called Fire and Stone in the Westfield Centre. If you’re not familiar with Fire and Stone, it’s a really rather far-out pizza place where more-or-less anything edible can end up on your pizza. For instance, I went with the ‘New York’, which included crispy smoked bacon, roast potatoes, caramelised onions and sour cream. Another that caught my eye was the ‘London’, featuring bacon, egg, sausage and black pudding. Yes, basically breakfast on a pizza.

I resisted dessert and took the last Central Line tube from White City, the idea being to change at Notting Hill Gate on to the District Line to Wimbledon and bus it from there. Except that Notting Hill Gate was closed for refurbishment. It’s all very well telling people to consult the TfL website when planning their journey, but I rarely know where I’m going to end up. So I got out at Holland Park and walked up to Paddington. From there, a couple of night buses home. Ooh, me aching feet.

Anyway, here are some random psychogeographical-type photos documenting the journey from Shepherd’s Bush on.