Ghost Tubes

A constant source of fascination and speculation to Londoners is the “Ghost Tube.” This is not the tube system at weekends but the unused stations and tunnels under London’s streets. There are 40 disused or abandoned Tube stations out there and some have found alternative uses – South Kentish Town is a massage parlour, Marlborough Road was a Chinese restaurant and Aldwych is often used for movies and has hosted a recent exhibition on the 70th Anniversary of the London Blitz during which it gave distinguished service.





Click on maps for larger image

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/11/blitz-on-underground.html

The system has many former stations, while others were planned but not opened. Services to some former stations ended when they were closed because they had too few passengers to make their retention worthwhile; some stations became redundant after lines were rerouted or replacements were constructed; others are no longer served by the Underground, but remain open to National Rail main line services. Many stations were planned as parts of new lines or extensions to existing ones, but were later abandoned without having been opened.



Some closed stations retain their original station building, converted for other uses or abandoned, while others have been demolished and their sites redeveloped. A number of stations, while still open, have closed platforms or sections, such as the Jubilee Line platforms at Charing Cross. The interiors and platforms of closed stations are among parts of the London Underground available for filming purposes.





The retro website Retronaut has picked up on Penney Design’s modified Tube art, which has redrawn old transport maps with new “ghost” symbols for long lost stations like North Weald and Ongar.

“Ghost-stations are those which are closed and disused. Many remain fairly intact and some even feature time capsule-like qualities, such as WWII propaganda posters hanging from the platform walls.”

- Penney Design

All map images (c) Penney Design.

Have a look at their site;

http://www.howtobearetronaut.com/2010/07/ghost-station-tube-maps/

An invaluable source of information on London’s abandoned Underground stations is Hywel Williams Underground History site;

http://underground-history.co.uk/front.php

For info on a whole underground railway abandoned under London see my Blog on London’s Other Underground;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/08/londons-other-underground.html

For details and a rather amusing video of an abandoned extension to the Northern Line see;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/01/northern-heights.html

As part of BBC Radio 4's "London: Another Country?" season, London Underground's David Leboff offers a guided tour round St Mary's in East London, one of the tube network's least well-known or visited disused stations.



This video takes you on a visual journey through Aldwych, a closed station on a now defunct branch of the Piccadilly Line.