SF0 / getareaction / Katabasis

45 + 132 points

Katabasis by Charlie Fish

April 23rd, 2009 8:34 AM / Location: 51.512314,-0.115860

INSTRUCTIONS: Explore an underworld.

The London Underground is awash with disused stations. Over three dozen of them - that's more closed stations than, say, Rio de Janeiro's entire underground network.

A kind of creepy mythology hovers around these abandoned alveoli. If the Tube is London's artery, then the closed stations are unseen clots just waiting to be dislodged.

Stories abound of subterranean cannibals, ghosts, and tens of thousands of buried bones disturbed. The imagination conjures up haunting stories and soot-blackened terrors - Quatermass, Neverwhere, the Cross Bones Graveyard...

The network is 150 years old; in 1863, steam engines navigated the tunnel from Paddington to Farringdon. Its darker corners are oozing with congealed time.

Since the Home Office set the UK terrorist threat level to Severe, it has become nigh on impossible to explore these fossilized specimens of forsaken subterranea without seriously upsetting some fairly heavily armed perpetrators of the Crisis.

But I work for Transport for London, and I managed to befriend the Head of the London Underground Film Office. After some finagling, she agreed to show my wife and I around an abandoned station.

Very. Cool.

Aldwych tube station, formerly known as Strand, was built in 1907 as an offshoot of the Piccadilly Line. Because the branch is entirely self-contained, and was always closed at weekends, it has long been a popular location for film and television companies wanting to film on the Underground.

We were shown the defunct lift (elevator) shafts that spelled the station’s doom when their repair bill was deemed uneconomical, and then we descended the winding spiral staircase.

Aldwych’s remaining platform is used to test mock-up designs for new signage, tilework and advertising systems. The walls feature replicas of posters from decades gone by. The trackwork and infrastructure remains in good condition, and a train of ex-Northern Line 1972 tube stock is permanently stabled on the branch, which can be driven up and down the branch for filming and to keep the trackwork in good repair.

We walked through the train used in V for Vendetta; we peered into the tunnel used for The Prodigy’s Firestarter music video; and we imagined the wave of water through the corridor as depicted in Atonement (where Aldwych stood in for Balham station). That water, we were told, was CGI; film crews are expected to leave the station as they found it. Which isn’t always easy – goodness knows how the film crew for Creep cleared up after releasing hundreds of real rats into the empty lift shafts!

See photos for more.

- smaller

Hairy Fish

Aldwych closed on 30 September 1994.

Roundel

The roundel's current form was designed by Edward Johnston 100 years ago. It is one of the earliest, best, most familiar and enduring of all corporate logos - almost synonymous with London as a whole.

Ticket office

This particular underground station has a long history of film connections.

Film posters

The London Underground Film Office take a lot of pride in the assets and service that they can offer to film crews from around the world.

Atonement props

The foyer had leftover props from Atonement.

Stars

Tube stations have been used in dozens of films including The Bourne Ultimatum, V for Vendetta, Love Actually, 28 Weeks Later, Sliding Doors, Bridget Jones's Diary, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, The Edge of Love, An American Werewolf in London, Passport to Pimlico and many more. TV shows too - Spooks, Moses Jones, Primeval, Hustle...

Film stuff

It costs £1000 per hour to hire out Aldwych station, and a further £1000 per hour to rent an operational tube train.

Lift shaft

The station closed when the lift broke down. (That's elevator to you Americans.) Considering the low passenger numbers, it was deemed uneconomical to replace it.

Second lift shaft

A second lift shaft was built but never used. At least, not for lifts. A swarm of rats was poured down it by the film crew of Creep.

We descend.

With no lifts, we have to take the 119 steps.

Disused platform

There are two platforms at Aldwych. This one hasn't been used since 1917 - as you can see, part of the track has been concreted over.

Working platform

The other platform, however, has a working train on it. And, in this picture, it has my wife on it too.

Strand

Beneath the Station Closed signs, original 1907 tilework showing that the station was once named "Strand".

My beautiful assistant

My wife in the driver's cab.

Warning!

Me in the driver's cab. I should not be trusted with such things.

Dashboard

These are the controls of a tube train. The driver has to keep the "dead man's handle" on the left pulled down when the train is in motion - if he ever lets go the train will stop.

Carriage number

Destination code numbers, eh? No idea.

Old tube map

A time-worn station map of the Northern Line dating from about 1973.

Replica posters

The walls were lined with replica posters left over from the Atonement filming.

Old tube map

Again, left over from the Atonement filming, a (replica) 1940s tube map.

Replica posters

Women, know your limits!

1970s posters

There were also a bunch of original 1970s posters that had been put up, presumably for atmosphere.

1970s poster

One side

We weren't allowed to walk up here because we would eventually suffer electric death at the hand of the live tracks approaching Holborn station. Note the lack of "suicide pit" - modern tube tracks have a gap underneath them so if you fall on the tracks (and avoid electrocution) you can avoid being squished by a train.

Other side

Aldwych was the end of the line - so the tunnel on the other side ran out of track. We explored. Creepy, it was.

Further

This is the tunnel in which The Prodigy filmed their Firestarter video. Sans camera flash, it is very creepy. Boldly, we continued.

End of the tunnel

...Then the tunnel ended here, at a little door.

Other side

Through the little door was some steps back up to the disused platform. We felt silly for having been scared when the dark, calustrophobic bit of the tunnel can't have been more than about 100 metres long.

The end