Shoreditch

My second event last friday was to visit Shoreditch station. This station, on the east london line, was closing. The reason for this is because the new extension is on a slightly different alignment than this station. The line won't be fully completed until 2010, but they have to close this to build the ramp up to the flyover.

I should add that one of my hobbies since being in London is on disused and abandoned underground stations. I have collected several books on this subject and have even visited a disused station that closed in 1994 called Aldwych. I have also been on two walks along old railway lines that were either in use by London Underground or was going to be.

As this was an historic event for me, as I don't know if there will ever be another station closure, I wasen't going to miss it. I hopped on the bus from the heath and made it to the station in about an hour. When I got there, they were making speeches inside and I thought I had miss my opportunity to take pictures inside and on the platform. They finished their speeches and all came out the door. Then they did the ceremonial closing of the door for the last time. After that I noticed people filing in a side door. I slowly followed and found myself in the booking hall. I promptly took some pictures and went to the machine to buy a ticket to show I was there on the last day. I ended up getting the second to last tickets as they were closing the machine. After that I went down to the platform to take snaps of the last train. I then boarded and took snaps inside. After a little while, the whistle blew, the doors closed and the train departed. We arrived at the next station, Whitechapel, in a few moments. Everyone disembarked. I then went over to the adjancent platform where I met up with people I recognised. I might add that I knew about all this from a website I frequent and one of the people was the author of this site.

They then asked me how I ended up on that train. Confused, I said I walked on. They then told me that the "final" train was infact a special train intended for staff and the media and bigwigs. I was floored!!! I guess at the end they weren't too fussed who got on as there were a few other "normal" people on. So, I went from thinking I had missed it all, to experiencing the best of it all. I was well pleased. One sucky thing was that my camera switched to short focus at some point and some of my pictures are a bit blurry. But, you can check them all out on my pictures site under a new album called Shoreditch. Also, the website I frequent is: http://underground-history.co.uk.

All in all, it was a terrific friday that made me well happy. :)