180. Stonebridge Park

Friday 31st January 5.00pm

This has got the tiniest station building you could imagine, nestling beside the road with covered walkways to the platforms at higher level. The platforms are long, serving the Overground and national rail as well, with modern waiting rooms. But the platforms feel exposed, looking out over the surrounding areas, and I guess if it was light and you knew where to look you'd probably get a good view of Wembley stadium.

Wikipedia entry here.

179. Wembley Central

Friday 31st January 4.30pm

There are three stations serving Wembley and although it's a long time since I've been to the Arena (and I've never been to the stadium) I don't think this is one I've ever used. I may be confused as it seems to have been redeveloped and you come out of the front of the station into the middle of a sort of plaza with shops, restaurants and hotels all very nearby. It's all very modern, and busy which I guess is partly due to the station also serving the Overground and mainline train services. But it's not very memorable.

Wikipedia entry here.

176. Willesden Junction

Saturday June 8th 10.35am

That sign makes me cross. This station has had Underground trains going through it since 1915 but there are no Underground red roundels on either of the Underground platforms, just orange Overground ones. The Overground didn't exist until 2007 - where did all the red roundels go?! How annoying. Confusingly the Underground and Overground services are listed on the same arrivals board by the time they're scheduled to arrive and their destination, like in all train stations, but unlike all Underground stations where it just counts down the minutes to their arrival. There is no differentiation between what service they are, so unless you're used to it you don't know what's coming until it rounds the bend.

The platforms are old but the station building is mush newer, although not in any fancy or interesting way - it hardly looks much grander than a bus shelter, not helped by it's location just off a main road above the railway in what feels like a bit of a wasteland.

Wikipedia entry here.

175. Harlesden

Saturday 8th June 10.20am

It was certainly sunny at Harlesden but not busy at all. Turns out that almost nobody wants to head north on the Bakerloo line on a Sunday morning.

The station building itself was tiny, nestled between the railway and a surprisingly busy road but not on the same level as either. The barriers in the ticket office - one in, one out - were both open, which confused both me and my Oyster card.

Wikipedia entry here.

127. Kensal Green

Thursday2nd June 3.30pm

This station would have been easier to find if I hadn't been muddling it up with Kensal Rise, which isn't even a Tube station. It was easy to miss - the station building is tiny, perched on top of a bridge over the rail tracks, and because it's also an Overground station it doesn't even have a Tube sign outside. As I walked down to the platform I got a bit panicky that there might not be a roundel but thankfully there was. Interestingly I didn't even care that the train was cancelled.

I like the way the new Mayor of London sneaked into the picture too.

Wikipedia entry here.

126. Queen's Park

Thursday 2nd June 3.15pm

I'd heard of the football team that take their name from the area but if you'd asked me to find it on a map I'd be clueless. Turns out it in north-west London!

The odd thing about the platform was that all the roundels were small and above head height, which explains the slightly weird picture. There might have been platform sharing going on, or perhaps someone just went mad when they put them up? The station itself is so unremarkable I remember nothing about it!

Wikipedia entry here.

117. Kilburn Park

Saturday 27th February 10.10am

This made me realise that for years I've been confusing Kentish Town and Kilburn in my head, when actually they're sort of other sides of Hampstead. It's a small, practical station and the best bit about it is the huge window over the escalators which means you ascend to ground level bathed in light even on quite a dull day in February.

Wikipedia entry here.

80.Regent's Park

Saturday 14th February 6.40pm

I don't think I really even knew this station existed, for several reasons really: it's on the Bakerloo line, which I've never really got to grips with; it has no surface buildings so if I'd walked past I'd have assumed it was something to do with Great Portland Street station which is just up the road; and anyway, if I wanted to go to Regent's Park I'd walk from King's Cross. But no, there it is.

It's one of those stations with the name spelt out in tiles on the wall, which always looks great, although clearly they were put up before the apostrophe was invented:

Wikipedia entry here.

76. Elephant & Castle

Saturday 10th January 1.30pm

I'd been meaning to tackle this for a couple of months but was glad I saved it until the daylight as it's another one of those stations with loads of exits, which just comes out onto a roundabout with no visible landmarks. Despite having a map I wasn't confident I was going the right way until I came across a signpost. I didn't even get to come out through the old bit of the building (or even see it), so I feel like I had a disappointing experience of this station.

Wikipedia entry here.

70. Lambeth North

Saturday 18th October 6.50pm

This was another one of those one-stop-from-where-I-needed-to-be stations, which I should probably stop going to in the dark as they're surprisingly hard to find. I was just about to give up hope when I literally realised I was standing outside it - those ox-blood red tiles are less distinctive in the dark, and it there's an underground sign projecting from the building I failed to see it!

It was really quiet so I shared the lift down to the platform with one man and his dog. I'm not joking. Down on the platform it's all tiled, the usual kind of station for it's period, which I feel like I take for granted and should love more as they do what they need to do really simply and practically. It's the kind of place I'd like to be my local station.

Wikipedia entry here.

49. Paddington

Saturday 6th September 10.45am

This is my second go at this station - the last time I was there they were building on the platforms or something and it was too crowded to stop and take a picture, and of course if there's no picture it doesn't count. I recently saw a show at the Edinburgh Fringe by the man who currently holds the world record for getting round the whole Tube network in the quickest time and he seemed to suggest that Paddington was two separate stations, which confuses me as it's only shown as one on the map and all the lines seem interconnected even if there are a confusing amounts of entrances, including one outside the station on the other side of the road. But it's the same at King's Cross and that only counts as one. So I might be back here from another line, or I might not, who knows!

It is a bit of charmless maze of tunnels which is a pity as the mainline station above it has got quite a lot of character if you look hard enough, I have a fondness for it which it probably doesn't deserve as I associate it with a friend from Wales, and also Paddington Bear (yes I know that's the mainline station but they are inextricably linked).

Wikipedia entry here.

48. Marylebone

Saturday 6th September 10.30am

This is one of those stations that I forget exists and would find hard to place on a map, if pushed probably thinking it was a bit further round near Shepherd's Bush. I've never been as it's not near anywhere I've needed to go and the mainline station it's attached to doesn't go places I would need to go either. Like most of the Tube stations attached to mainline stations it's a bit of a horror, with too many people millinground not knowing where to go, but thankfully as it only serves one line it's easy to get round. It's probably a lot more interesting and historic than you get a sense of when you're in it.

Wikipedia entry here.

47. Baker Street

Saturday 6th September 10.10am

I have bad memories of this station from my early twenties, changing here from a Tube from Wembley and trying to find the platform to get back to King's Cross after gigs in Wembley Arena. The layout of the station doesn't help - too many lines on too many levels, and I just remember frantically running through it and crossing my fingers I was about to jump on the right train. Thankfully yesterday I wasn't changing so a repeat of that was avoided, although it does seem overly complicated to get out of.

I was on another of those lovely old brick platforms that really do give you a sense of how the Tube looked when it was first built, but it does mean I didn't get to take a picture of the tiles with the head of Sherlock Holmes on them that some of the other platforms have. But I did hum Gerry Rafferty's song of the same name to myself, even though it's about the street more than the station.

Wikipedia entry here.

36. Edgware Road (Bakerloo Line)

Monday 7th April 5.30pm

I needed to change from the Bakerloo line to something that would get me back to Kings Cross and the other options were all going to be too busy, so I thought I'd investigate the two stations at Edgware Road instead. They're not connected in anyway which is why they're separate stations on the map, and why they count as two separate stations towards the total number. But they are quite close together - just along the road, under a flyover and round the corner. They're probably actually closer than the interchanges between lines at some of the bigger stations (Paddington and Kings Cross spring to mind).

The station itself is a bit run down, just like the area itself. It's obviously used a lot and being right next to a flyover doesn't help. It feels very urban, but in a realistic way, in an every day kind of way. There's no glamour in the city really.

Wikipedia entry here.

35. Maida Vale

Monday 7th April 5.15pm

This is one of those lovely ox-blood red stations, which had an entrance and exit on separate sides of the building (although they only use one now). Inside there are stairs down, and disused stairs coming back up underneath them. At the barrier the member of staff watching over them complimented me on my beard, which made me so flustered I couldn't remember how to use my Oyster card and can now remember nothing else about this station!

Wikipedia entry here.

34. Warwick Avenue

Monday 7th April, 1.15pm

I'd never heard of this station until I got a ticket for something that gave it as the nearest stop. And judging by the additional information on the sign it looks like I'm not the only one. It's right in the middle of a residential area although I missed the bit of it that looked like Venice. That extra wording on the sign though offends me greatly and seems to contradict their standard way of presenting themselves. It makes me shudder.

The station itself is all underground, with no building above ground at all, just steps down from the pavement:

This is fairly common in other countries but it's quite unusual for London, with the obvious exception of Piccadilly Circus. There must have been more room in London for surface buildings, or perhaps it was just easy to knock down existing stuff and put them up. They've become part of the Tube brand, especially all those tiled ones, and loads of them are listed. And I supposed it means you don't have to dig such a big hole if you put your ticket off and stuff above ground.

As I left the platform I saw this:

It's positioned between the platforms so I wonder if it was a ticket booth? It's nice that it's still standing.

Wikipedia entry here.

8. Oxford Circus

Sunday 17th March 6pm

This is the fourth busiest station on the network, which is hardly surprising as it's in the middle of the busiest shopping street in the country. But it's a useful place to change lines, and really you shouldn't be on the Tube if you're afraid of a bit of crowds should you?

Some of the platforms have interesting murals on the walls and yet I managed to pick the one platform that doesn't! Above ground the station is clad in the beautiful ox-blood red tiles they were mad for at one stage but it's hardly the best place to stand back and admire them.

Wikipedia entry here

Update 5/7/2015: here's a landscape picture. That feels better.

7. Charing Cross

Sunday 17th March 10.30am.

Firstly, how wrong are the words "for Trafalgar Square" across that sign?? This kind of location thing is something I don't think I've seen anywhere else, and it doesn't appear on pictures of the Northern line platform at the same station - I wonder what's so special about the Bakerloo line platform that it gets this kind of sign? Having just read a book about design on the Tube it seems to go against their whole way of doing signs, and it's also not really in the spirit of the underground: I always think there's a certain arrogance to the Tube - it expects you to know where you're going, and to know that some of the stations aren't quite where you think they are and you might be better using another one.

Charing Cross is quite an interesting station historically as it was two separate stations that were joined into one, which would explain why at one end there's an entrance on Trafalgar Square and at the other you can get to it from the railway station. And yet somehow I managed to find an exit that was neither, and was somewhere on the Strand and involved a walk to the station.

I wouldn't normally use the station, because coming from King's Cross it involves a change, so it would be easier to get off at Leicester Square and walk, but I was meeting someone at Charing Cross, it was raining and I had the time so I did (and added another station to my list at the same time).

Wikipedia entry here.

6. Waterloo

Sunday 11th February 5pm

The busiest Tube station on the network, attached to one of the unloveliest railway stations imaginable. Perhaps it was more glamorous when Eurostar stopped there but now it's untidy and unloveable. So although it's right behind the National Theatre and all that other stuff on the Southbank I usually find it easy to cross the river and travel from somewhere else.

The problem with the Tube station is that is has a confusing amount of exits, and it doesn't matter which one you pick it's always the wrong one, which I guess is what happens when you try and squeeze too many lines into one station. The Jubilee line section of it is of course magnificent - big and concretey, like the space-age future we were promised but never got. Pop fact: the ABBA song of the same name - key lyric, "I was defeated/you won the war" - is not actually about a commuter trying and failing to get out of the station.

Wikipedia entry here.

3. Piccadilly Circus

Saturday 1st February 11am

Despite giving its name to probably my favourite line it's not one of my favourite stations. I guess that's because above ground Piccadilly Circus is ridiculously busy and it's easier to get out at the previous stop - Leicester Square - and walk. But I'd arranged to meet a friend at the statue of Eros (although it's actually his twin brother Anteros) so I found myself there.

There are no parts of the station above ground, and below ground it has a round ticket hall which would be lovely if it wasn't build from a pale brown marble that manages to be bland and unpleasant at the same. And there are far too many exits, although I seem to remember that you used to be able to get straight into Tower Records from it without going outside, which sounds too fantastic to actually be true. There is a linear clock that looks interesting but I forgot to look for it.

The station appears in the title of a song by the wonderful Tracey Thorn - making her second appearance on this blog, which goes to show how much London is part of her music - which was inspired by a poem about Grand Central Station in New York:

Wikipedia entry here.