172. Plaistow

Saturday 16 February 11.30am

While I'd heard of this because of differing ways you could pronounce its name I would have assumed it was in a bit of south London not served by the Tube. I really am rubbish at geography.

The station sits on a bridge over the tracks and is quite imposing as you walk up the street to it. It appears to be cube shaped, with the two sides I saw being identical, but then inside it feels different with the passage from two doors leading to the ticket hall and the stairs to the platform all feeling a bit unsymmetrical. I'd like another look at that.

By coincidence I was in the area for an exhibition and two of the paintings were of this station. Here's one:

Wikipedia entry here.

171. Upton Park

Saturday 16th February 11.15am

I'd never heard of this station and if pushed might have assumed it was somewhere in suburban north London, when in fact it couldn't be more East End - just a couple of stops from Bow and the nearest station to West Ham's football stadium before they moved to the Olympic park

It's a very traditional station with just two platforms with stairs to the booking hall which leads directly onto a busy high street, which is a bit of a shock really as I was expecting something quieter and more suburban.

Wikipedia entry here.

170. Mile End

Wednesday 3rd October 4.25pm

Part of this station is an island platform with pillars in between which are benches. The benches are crying out for roundels on them, like lots of other places on the Tube but there aren't any - I walked the length of the platform hoping to find some but no, so we're left with modern metal ones which somehow feel a bit disappointing.

It has a surface building but it's really just an opening in a row of shops. It did have a pair of roundels sticking out from it, one with "underground" on it and the other with the name of the station on it. I'd have liked to get a picture of them but it didn't feel like the kind of street where you could stop and do that.

Wikipedia entry here.

160.Bow Road

Saturday 9th September 6pm

This is a nice little red brick station that's set back from the road so I you can't see it until you're right upon it, which is a bit confusing and was making me start to worry I was lost, especially as I'd just walked under a railway bridge that looked like it was an ideal place for an elevated station, and also a DLR station. The platform is downstairs, half in a tunnel half out.

As I walked her from Bromley-by-Bow I was reminded of the thing about Bow bells and cockneys but apparently that's a different Bow, although this is still proper East End anyway. How confusing.

Wikipedia entry here.

159. Bromley-by-Bow

Saturday 9th September 5.45pm

Another outdoor platform but this one is at ground level. The station building isn't though - it's on the bridge over the tracks, and is currently being refurbished so all you can see of the front is scaffolding, not that you could probably see much anyway as it's right next to a busy main road.

Slightly confused by the name though as I thought Bromley was in Kent.

Wikipedia entry here.

158. Parsons Green

Saturday 9th September 12.05pm

As I approached this it seemed so familiar I thought I'd been there before but I was just confusing it with Turnham Green - similar name, both near a park (green), elevated and with a bridge over the road. But not the same place at all. I like the wooden shelter on the platform.

Wikipedia entry here.

157. Putney Bridge

Saturday 9th September 11.45am

This roundel made me nearly squeal with delight - look at the red edging around the name bar, I've not seen that before! And the gap between the outer black circle and the big red ring. It's painted - enamelled? - onto metal so it's modern rather than vintage, and is therefore an exciting deviation.

As for the station itself, it's one of those elevated ones that there are quite a lot of in West London, which I'm rather fond of although I imagine if it had been wet and cold rather than sunny the exposed platforms would be a bit grim. There's stairs to ground level and a small ticket hall. I didn't pay any attention to the building as I was too busy getting lost.

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.

139. Fulham Broadway

Saturday 24th September 4.40pm

This is one of my least favourite types of station - you have to go through a shopping centre to get to it! It's been modernised and part of the platform was new concrete into which the roundels were recessed, which I've not seen anywhere else before, but I didn't get a picture of them as that part of the platform was taken up by a man and a woman arguing with policemen.

Wikipedia entry here.

138. West Kensington

Saturday 24th September 4.15pm

Another station build on a bridge that straddles the tracks with stairs down either side. A small and fairly simple station as only one line goes through it. The building itself is one of those nice pale stone - Portland? - ones, although it's hard to get a decent view of it from across a busy road.

Wikipedia entry here.

137. Turnham Green

Saturday 24th September 4.00pm

My first trips to London after leaving school were to visit friends who were at college in West London. We had to pass into this station on our way into the city, and without fail someone would exclaim, "Turnham Green with envy!" We though we were funny. We weren't.

This is one of those stations where the track is elevated so the entrance and ticket office are at ground level and you have to go upstairs to catch the train. It feels the complete wrong way round for the underground but it does mean you get a great view down the tracks and over the green itself.

Wikipedia entry here.

136. Chiswick Park

Saturday 24th September 3.45pm

This is one of those stations that Piccadilly line trains go through but don't stop, which is confusing if you just look at a Tube map quickly and aren't paying proper attention.

The building is rather brilliantly circular, to suit its position on the bend in a road:

Rubbish picture but you get the idea. We don't really do many circular buildings in this country, although there are a surprising amount of circular Tube stations.

Wikipedia entry here.

134. Ealing Broadway

Saturday 24th September 3.00pm

This is the western end of the District line, but it's also a National Rail station. It has a confusing amount of exits, or just bad signage, which meant that I ended up swiping my Oyster card in two different places before I left the station, which makes me look like a complete beginner. To add insult to injury it then throws you out into a busy shopping street, which is confusing when you have no idea where you're going.

Wikipedia entry here.

133. Ealing Common

Saturday 24th September 2.50pm

This is one of those stations whose ticket office is built on a bridge over the tracks with stairs going down either side to the platform. An entirely practical if slightly unmemorable arrangement.

Wikipedia entry here.

132. Acton Town

Saturday 24th September 11.00am.

This is one of those stations that has nothing interesting going on at platform level because all the good stuff is on top - above the ticket office is a huge box with loads of windows in it so on a sunny autumn day it was flooded with light in quite a beautiful way.

Wikipedia entry here.

131. Kensington (Olympia)

Saturday 24th September 10.30am

Yes I know that's an Overground roundel but no matter how hard I looked I couldn't find an Underground one, so I assumed there isn't one, only some smart-arse put one on Wikipedia which means I'm going to have to go back for another look. Damn. It was hard enough getting to this station in the first place - Tube trains only go to it when there's something on at Olympia, which isn't very often. Aren't they planning to knock down Olympia? Or am I muddling it with Earls Court? Anyway, the station building is tiny - barely big enough to house the barriers - but there's an awful lot of platform. It feels a bit windswept.

Wikipedia entry here.

129. Hammersmith

Tuesday 23rd August 6.30pm

Hammersmith has frustrated me - I've been through it twice since I started doing this and both times forgot to take pictures. In my defence I was on my way to gigs - Kate Bush, John Grant - so I had other things on my mind. But that doesn't stop me disliking this station, because you have to leave it through a shopping centre which is just about the most stupid idea ever! Except it turns out you don't have to - when I came out of it this time it was just a very short walk before I found myself in front of a statue of three naked men. As you do. Then on the return journey I was straight through the barriers and onto a train. But that was using different lines, which confuses me further - the District and Piccadilly lines come out through the shopping centre, the Hammersmith & City line is across the road in an older, more civilised building. There's no below ground connection between them - you have to go outside and cross the road, which to my mind makes them two separate stations, just like Edgware Road, but on the map they only count as one. It's mystifying. Which is a shame as there are a lot of reasons to like Hammersmith itself.

Wikipedia entry here and here - see, they think it's two stations as well!

106. Barons Court

Thursday 12th November 7.40pm

First things first: it really does look like it needs an apostrophe doesn't it, but apparently there's a good reason why it hasn't (have a look on Wikipedia).

There's some nice extra signage on the platform seating:

The ticket office is tiled with gorgeous green tiles but there were staff loitering an I didn't want to look like some mad tile fetishist so I didn't get a picture. Really lovely they were too.

Wikipedia entry here.

105. Ravenscourt Park

Thursday 12th November 7.30pm

This is the next stop along from Stamford Brook and is unsurprisingly very similar. The only difference is that this has a much larger building at ground level although weirdly it's an empty space with an extra exit, so I'm not sure what purpose that serves.

Up on the platforms there are signs for the Piccadilly line but the electronic train indicators tell you that Piccadilly line trains don't actually stop there, which is frustrating when you're waiting for a disrupted District line service and one flies straight past you.

Wikipedia entry here.

104. Stamford Brook

Thursday 12th November 6.15pm

This is one of those stations where the track is actually elevated and looks down over the houses, and the platforms are open air with white wooden roofs, with the ends of the wooden strips cut to triangles (like a picket fence but upside down). Then you walk down stairs to get to the ticket office, which is plain and practical - just brickwork. There's something about these kind of stations I like, which is weird as they're the exact opposite of underground - I think it's something to do with the fact that they're more "everyday" stations, which people use for commuting rather than pleasure, so they're functional and useful

Wikipedia entry here.