168. Canon's Park

Saturday 17th February 10.50am

This station does the surprisingly common but still confusing thing of being at a different height to the one next to it - whereas Stanmore, where I'd just come from, involved stairs to ground level, this station is under a railway bridge and you have to climbs stairs to the platforms. The ticket hall bit is probably about as small as you can get but it's so quiet that one set of barriers are permanently closed. I do like these kind of stations, even if the fact they're elevated means they're the exact opposite of what the Tube is about!

Wikipedia entry here.

So that completes the Jubilee line, making it the third one to be completed. It's not really the most useful line for me and I felt like I had to go to most of the stations just to tick them off rather than having a legitimate reason to use them. And it really is a line of two halves - the north-western end of it, which was previously Bakerloo line and Metropolitan line feels exactly like that, but the new bits feel like the future even after all these year: all that metal and raw concrete, all those big spaces! Westminster was bound to impress as it was so close to Parliament, as was Canary Wharf as it's literally all about the money, but it's two of the smaller stations that really impress me most: Bermondsey, when you turn off the platform to the escalators and above it is a great big box of light, and Southwark, with the big cylinder over the ticket hall, the big blue wall, the curved openings to the escalators and the corridor between the platforms that somehow feels Russian. Both stations in areas with no obvious need for such great stations, which is the beauty of public transport surely? I'm hoping these sort of stations will be a template for Crossrail although I suspect that concrete is a bit last century and they'll be softened with tiling. Shame.

167. Stanmore

Saturday 17th February 10.25am

The end of the Jubilee line! There's a different feeling about these end of the line stations - the trains just waiting there, not poised to leave at any second take a bit of getting used to, and because it's in the middle of nowhere (relatively) it's not busy, and there's no need to run for a train. The sunny day made it feel more relaxed too.

There's parking beside it for lots of trains so I imagine that looks impressive when it's full. The station itself is up an unexpectedly long flight of stairs from the platform and the building itself looks like the houses in the surrounding area, which makes sense as it started life as a Metropolitan line station, before switching to the Bakerloo line and finally the Jubilee line.

Wikipedia entry here.

166. Kingsbury

Thursday 18th January 1.20pm

I approached this one on foot and nearly missed it as I'd convinced myself it would be on the right-hand side of the road and it wasn't. This wasn't some map-reading stupidity - I just felt that's where it ought to be. Instead it's on the other side of the road in a row of shops, and you'd easily miss it anyway.

Wikipedia entry here.

165. Queensbury

Thursday 18th January 1.00pm

For a suburban station you have to walk along quite a long corridor to get from the platform to the actual station building, or perhaps it just felt it as I was sharing the corridor with someone having a tedious conversation on their mobile. The station itself has toilets, which is something you almost never see although I didn't venture in.

Outside there's a roundabout with a roundel in it:

Although there's a footpath on the roundabout I'm not sure how you'd get to it as it's a roundabout and the inner lane is also a taxi rank. It's interesting to see they've put solar panels on it.

Wikipedia entry here.

164. Wembley Park

Thursday 18th January 12.55pm

This is the nearest station to Wembley Stadium but also to Wembley Arena, which means I must have been through it on my way to gigs at the latter but I not really sure I remember it as it is. At some point this century it's had improvements to help cope with the huge amount of people going to the new stadium,hence the fancy new front:

That lettering on the top looks like something they do on the Overground and really should have been blue so it stands out more. And those steps are a bit of a hazard. I can see how they're needed to get lots of people in and out quickly but they're steep and if someone fell it would be like dominoes. On the other hand they'd be great for a line of dancing girls to high-kick their way down.

Wikipedia entry here.

162. Dollis Hill

Saturday 9th November 10.25am

"Dollis" is an odd word isn't it that makes me smile for no good reason. The station is the exact opposite to the one I'd been to before (Neasden) in that its ticket office is underneath the rail tracks, with a subway to roads on either side. It's only little with two barriers and an office with a window opposite them to keep an eye on what's going on, and it was surprisingly busy when I was there.

Wikipedia entry here.

162 stations is 60% of the stations on the underground (270). This is what that looks like:

There's still a lot to do isn't there? Unbelievably I'm now in my fifth year of this foolishness and I suspect I thought it would all be over by now, but looking at the map and all those stations stretching beyond the M25 I can't help thinking it will take another five!

161. Neasden

Saturday 4th November 10.10am

Unexpectedly for a zone 3 station in the middle of nowhere - it's very adjacent to the North Circular - this is a station I've been through several times before, way back when, and could remember. There's an IKEA within walking distance and I went there several times about 25 years ago when it was one of the few in the country. How time's change!

The station is a small building perched on top of a bridge over the railway itself which really is a very practical way of building stations. I do like the roundels built into the seating, and actually despite its location it's a nice little station.

Wikipedia entry here.

156. Kilburn

Saturday 10th June 10.35am

[How annoying is that sticker on the roundel? I went looking for another one but it looked like someone had been round sticking them to all of them. Hooligans.]

The station after this (Willesden Green) is below street level so you have to climb stairs to get out of it - this is elevated above the street and you climb up to it, and yet the journey between the two doesn't feel like it's going up/down a slope. It also turns out to be very close to Kilburn Park (which I've already been to), on the Bakerloo line - opposite ends of the same street basically - and which of course don't anywhere near each other on the Tube map, which is one of the weaknesses of the map, but it must feel satisfyingly like you know the area when you realise. And it's not Kentish Town, which I insist on muddling it up with.

There are also flower beds on the platform too, which seems ridiculously charming for a huge transport system, and there's a waiting room with a curved glass end to it, very much like West Hampstead which is the next station along.

Wikipedia entry here.

155. Willesden Green

Saturday 10th June 10.10am

This station made me smile as they've got flowerbeds on the platform - this part of the Jubilee line is above ground, and actually used to be a Metropolitan station so it's older. It's also got two types of roundel on the platform, although this one is really badly positioned between the benches:

Apparently there's a very rare clock on the front of the station - I looked at it and wasn't impressed. Oops.

Wikipedia entry here.

145. Finchley Road

Wednesday 12th October 3.45pm

This is another one of those stations on a corner in a parade of shops so you don't notice anything about the building as you stumble across it and get sucked down into it.

Wikipedia entry here.

144. West Hampstead

Wednesday 12th October 3.30pm

What I liked most about this station was the waiting room with curved windows, which were also ridiculously clean:

Wikipedia entry here.

143. Canning Town

Wednesday 12th October 12.25pm

I like the way the roundel has been given a mohican to scare away the pigeons. It wasn't just this sign - it was all of them. I've not seen that anywhere else before, and there are plenty of other outdoor stations, so I guess this one is unusually popular with pigeons.

The station is very long and thing, squeezed in beside a main road and under a flyover, it's really just a long glass box. But sadly it's not as glamorous as that sounds.

Wikipedia entry here.

142. West Ham

Wednesday 12th October 12.05pm

It's nice to see some good honest brickwork on a modern station instead of concrete and steel, and it's all the more surprising as this is a Jubilee line station and the whole line is quite literally built of concrete and steel. There's the familiar large open spaces inside the building too, and I was so busy enjoying them that I completely missed the exit.

Wikipedia entry here.

119. Swiss Cottage

Saturday 27th February 10.50am

Another Bakerloo line station that got swapped to the Jubilee line without a makeover:

I really love these little tiles:

I've been wanting to photograph escalators with uplighters for ages and finally this was the place the was quiet enough to do it:

At the top of the escalator there's a roundel guiding you downwards that says "trains" on it, although stupidly I didn't take a picture.

There is no surface building - the whole thing is underground, under a busy junction, so there are five different exits to leave from, all labelled with street names which is of course the most practical way of doing it but completely confusing if you've forgotten the name of the street you're heading for and only have a landmark in mind.

Wikipedia entry here.

118. St Johns Wood

Saturday 27th February 10.45am

Does that need an apostrophe?

Surely the only station on the underground whose ticket building includes a Beatles cafe, because of the station's proximity to Abbey Roads studios. Interestingly it's also got flats built on top of it, which must be a mixed blessing for the owners.

It's a Jubilee line station but it has none of the modern elements to it, and is entirely vintage:

Turns out it used to be on the Bakerloo line and was swapped when the Jubilee line opened. I've got a 1953 Tube map on my landing which shows the Bakerloo line splitting with two lines heading north, the kind of thing that makes it tricky to navigate so it was probably for the best.

The down escalator is currently being replaced and having to walk down the stairs makes you appreciate the escalator more.

Wikipedia entry here.

107. Canada Water

Saturday 28th November 7pm

This is another one of those enormous Jubilee line stations that looks a bit oversized for the area and probably makes more sense when it's busy. There are big underground spaces, then the escalators go up into a huge cylinder which forms the surface building and lets the light in - it's all very impressive. The only problem I had with it is that it's relentlessly grey - there is no other colour, apart from the people, and it begins to look a bit drab.

This station has the distinction of being the only one that has taken sponsorship money to change its name: on the day of the London Marathon it became Buxton Water (one of the sponsors of the marathon) for the day, and as I was in the city that day I went and took a photograph:

I can't imagine what other stations that would work at, which is a relief as it's a trend I don't think I'd like.

Wikipedia entry here.

89. Canary Wharf

Saturday 6th June 9.50am

I've actually been here before, two years ago, but drunkenly deleted the picture so couldn't count it. This time I actually had a legitimate reason to be here rather than just making up a reason, and thankfully it was on a Saturday morning when this part of the city is deserted because nobody works round there at the weekends.

It's one of those stations that makes everyone go "wow!" although I have to admit that as I left it, heading up the escalator I felt a bit underwhelmed by it. Yes it's big, but I can't help thinking that since it was built a lot of other big stuff has been built in London and somehow this doesn't impress as much as it did. Like the new Crossrail station which they've built round the corner, which I was there to visit and which has its own roof garden. Now that's a proper "wow!"

Wikipedia entry here.

73. Bond Street

Monday 22nd December 5.20pm

For once I actually need to be at this station to go somewhere, and hadn't just come through it to ticket it off my list unlike most of the other ones I've visited lately.

It's a dreadful disappointment: Bond Street suggests glamour and expensive shopping, but the entrance is actually through a rather dated shopping centre on Oxford Street. Stations with shops are my least favourite, particularly the hell that is Hammersmith but this comes a close second. It's also been a building site recently because of the Crossrail development, and whatever they've done to it doesn't appear to have made it any nicer, which is a real shame as it could certainly do with it.

Wikipedia entry here.

68. Bermondsey

Saturday 18th October 2.45pm

This is another one of those stations that seems too modern for the area it serves - it's not even in the fancy bit of Bermondsey where the White Cube is, just on an ordinary street with lots of housing. It's a deceptive station - you get out of the train and it's got those glass barriers all the way along the platform so it feels quite cramped and dingy, but then you leave the platform and it suddenly gets very light at the bottom of the escalators. They're only average height so you can see how close to the surface the tunnel actually is, and above the escalators is a huge glass roof through which streams loads of light, even on a grey day. It really is quite lovely.

Wikipedia entry here.

60. North Greenwich

Tuesday 1st October 10.45pm

I actually went through this station last summer but had been drinking and forgot. This time round I had my wits about me, which you need anyway after coming out of a gig at the O2. It's another of those huge, spacious Jubilee line stations although this one seems less spacious quite quickly when you get underground, on a funny mezzanine level between the station and the platforms. Down on the platforms there are big columns covered in blue mosaic tiles, which you can see in the picture, which is an unusual splash of colour as the rest of the Jubilee line stations are almost exclusively concrete and metal.

Wikipedia entry here.