Kindness first:
My son got some sought after tickets to visit a disused Underground station in London. It has history and so the Transport museum opens it up once in a while. Luckily my son got hold of tickets which usually are sold out really fast. We went there the other Sunday. Waiting in the queue the tickets where checked and the man in front of me had 2 but his friend couldn’t make it. In our party were friends of my son and one had no ticket and intended to wait for us until we came out again. So I suggested we could ask this man with the spare ticket if he would sell his to our young man. I asked and the very kind man gave his ticket to our young friend for free. He said ‘of course you can have it for free’. How very kind of this man. Our young man was over the moon to get such a rare ticket and be part of the tour.
Aldwych, the secret station.
The station was built 1905 and was finished in 1907. It was built to get people easier to Theater land, the irony is though they had to demolish Strand Theatre to build the station. The station then was closed in 1940 to be used as a shelter for the public during air raids. It could accommodate 1500 people. It opened again in 1946 to be permanently closed in 1994, because only 450 people were using it daily.
After 1994 the station has been used to create full scale Mock stations, where London Transport tried out different tiles and looks for other stations for refurbishment.
Now the station is being used for filming work and many films scenes have been filmed there. 007, Superman, The Deep Blue Sea, The Imitation Game. It is also used as Training facility for the Underground’s Emergency Response Unit.
Opening the station platforms for regular tours is not possible because of safety concerns with no lift access to the lower levels ( yes we walked 160 stairs down and up again), so our visit was a rare treat.
It was a very enjoyable tour and recommendable when they offer it again some time!
