The Underground Overground

This year was the 150th Anniversary of the opening of the London Underground Metropolitan Line and the Royal Mail issued a set of stamps exactly 150th years to the day on 9th January.

I move forward some years to the Russell Square Station which for any lover of tiles or fonts is a great one to visit, that and the fact that it is near the British Museum.  One of many surviving stations designed by Leslie Green in an Arts and Craft style it opened in 1906 and although the upper ticketing areas have been altered some of the station level tiling survives

The last count was 1.2 billion passenger travelling on the various lines every year.

Although I'm not going to show you any of them because I had a bit of a camera glitch so here are the approaching train lights

Goodge Street station built in 1907 was closed for alterations when we were in London but it is one of the rare stations that has a different exit to the entrance. It is also one of eight London stations that had a deep level air raid shelter built underneath it.  Unlike this one

A postcard of a 1940s book cover with everybody carrying their gas masks in a sort of idealised blitz spirit kind of way, although perhaps reality was more like this

 

which looks rather more uncomfortable.  The Aldwych*  Station in 1940, one of 79 Tube stations used as air raid shelters

*UPDATE:  By one of those strange coincidences of life I just noticed that one of my favourite bloggers has written about his recent visit down to the long closed Aldwych Station (pictured above)  here (with pics and Doctor Who references).

An entry to ABC Wednesday, a journey through the alphabet this week sojourning at U