Talk:List of former and unopened London Underground stations

Early comments

There are some grey areas in this list. I haven't included the following relocated stations:

• Park Royal & Twyford Abbey tube station (replaced by Park Royal tube station)
• Osterley Park & Spring Grove tube station (replaced by Osterley tube station)
• Uxbridge (Belmont Road) tube station (replaced by Uxbridge tube station)

...or a number of other minor resitings, but I have included "Tower of London" and "Mark Lane", which were arguably just previous incarnations of Tower Hill tube station.

Oh well, it'll do for a start. --rbrwr

Mark Lane was a distinct station - the building is now a restaurant, opposite All Hallows by the Tower church (above an archway can be seen "Mark Lane Buildings") Jackiespeel 22:47, 29 November 2005 (UTC)

---

It's good! :)

And what about Kings Cross? Same grey area I guess?? Nevilley 07:12 Apr 17, 2003 (UTC)

Yes, but complicated further by the fact that the old KXSP station is mixed up with Kings Cross Thameslink. The remains of stations that have been relocated are an interesting feature in themselves, and I can see why they might belong in this list. --rbrwr

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Discussion copied from the user page of Francs2000:

--- I think in London "tube" always means underground station - whether it is on the surface or not. Secretlondon 22:46, Dec 4, 2003 (UTC)

And its use is no worse than London Underground running surface trains. They happily refer to them as tube trains, also. Morwen 22:47, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Further, see Wikipedia:WikiProject_London, where we have a naming standard for Underground stations. If you want to change it, please get a consensus first to change the actual standard. Morwen 22:50, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

But they're not underground stations! They never have been! That is my point! Graham

Well, if they aren't they shouldn't even be on that list at all, should they then??? Also the article about Quainton tube station claims it was a London Underground station if only for a little while. You still haven't explained whether you want to move Watford yet, either. Morwen 23:00, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

1. Buckinghamshire is my area of expertise, not Hertfordshire. If someone from Hertfordshire should wish to move that station page that's up to them. 2. I have been a Buckinghamshire historian for 15 years and I have never heard of any of the Buckinghamshire stations referred to as tube stations. 'Tube' is a modern term, not a Victorian or Edwardian one, which is when these stations were in use. 3. The mistake was made by the creator of the page, and hasn't been amended since. I find it distressing that when I make the amendment in the interests of correctness I'm reverted because an earlier mistake is deemed as being correct. 4. The creator of the Quainton page (which has also been reverted) incorrectly referred to Quainton as being in London, which it is not: it is 40 miles outside London (look it up on the map) and the reference that a small Buckinghamshire village is in London I find offensive and proves that the creator of the page didn't know what they were talking about. 5. The Aylesbury, Stoke mandeville, Wendover and Great Missenden stations are not, and have never been, tube stations. Likewise when they were linked to the Metropolitan line the term tube hadn't been invented for the London underground. They are, and have always been, railway stations.

All that being considered, I believe they should be on the page because they were once terminuses on the Metropolitan line. However as the term 'tube' wasn't even invented until after these stations became unused it is not appropriate for describing these stations. Graham 23:23, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

Firstly, your assumption that 'tube' is 1960s slang seems to be unfounded. The TFL website has an example of it being used decades before that. Secondly, fine. We have had people try and claim that just because stations aren't underground they can't possibly be tube stations - which did seem to be what you were arguing. If you are saying that these aren't tube stations because they were never integrated with the rest of the tube network, fine. I just don't want to see stations operated by LUL today move to blah blah railway station. Morwen 21:55, 5 Dec 2003 (UTC)

So you aren't planning on moving Watford tube station, then? Morwen 22:54, 4 Dec 2003 (UTC)

I'm inclined to agree with Morwen on the age of the term 'tube': The Central London Railway (Central Line) was known almost from the outset as the 'Tuppeny Tube' and it opened in June 1900 making the term Victorian (just) or Edwardian. The Charing Cross, Euston & Hampstead Railway opened in 1907 and was soon known as the 'Hampstead Tube'. However, that said, the Metropolitan Line was a separate company from the rest of the Underground Lines until it was integrated with the other lines under the London Transport Property Board in the 1933 nationalisation. Before then, the Metropolitan managed its own branding and it is in probably unlikely that it would have used the term 'tube' in association with its services. Whilst, therefore, it may be necessary, for the sake of categorisation to include the Buckinghamshire stations as 'tube' stations, any articles written about them should place them in context with that term. DavidCane

Why is Heathrow T5 on this list?

Have they announced it will never open? Because, if not, I don't understand what it's doing here. The Tube site gives no such impression. Help! Nevilley 07:56, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It's a mistake, I'm sure. -- ChrisO 08:15, 1 Mar 2004 (UTC)

London talk tomorrow - also webcast

I'm very sorry about the short (~no) notice. I only just saw this myself.

At 1300 GMT tomorrow (Monday 8th March) Gresham College is doing a talk on this very subject.

If you are in central London and can make it I suggest you consider it. I have only been to one GC talk before and it was excellent. Free, by the way.

If you are NOT in central London then please note that there is a live webcast and then it gets archived on their site: I don't know what the delay is for this but there is an archive with plenty of old stuff in. Oh and using AOL Instant Messenger you can send in questions apparently.

All details are at:

http://www.gresham.ac.uk/

I do hope that someone else might find this interesting/helpful. If you are going to be there and want to say hello feel free to mail me from my user page - I might see it in time. Nevilley 22:23, 7 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. I am in the City today... unfortunately can not be in Holborn at 1pm. :(. Hope it is/was interesting. Pete/Pcb21 (talk) 09:44, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It was fine. The bloke (London Transport Museum boss) is a good presenter. There wasn't much in his material that you could not get from a dedicatedly nerdy reading of lots of books and web sites like what I have done BUT he presented it in an interesting manner and it would be great for the slightly less specialized audience. When they put up the webcast in their archive we should probably link it from the article. The College is great btw and has at least one more lecture on a subterranean London topic coming up. Or going down rather. It was PACKED btw. Nevilley 20:19, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Walford?

While I accept that Vauxhall Cross is a fictional closed station, I suspect that Walford is a fictional open station (I tend to be editing Wikipedia at 7.30, not watching EastEnders, so I wouldn't know for sure). Does it belong on a list of "fictitious closed stations"? --rbrwr^± 22:34, 16 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I've renamed the section Fictitious stations, instead of Fictitious closed stations. — OwenBlacker 23:40, Nov 16, 2004 (UTC)

But the article is called 'Closed London Underground stations'. If it isn't closed, it doesn't matter what the sections called, it doesn't belong in the article. -- Chris j wood 22:11, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Closed non-tube stations!

Can somebody explain what this section is all about?. As I learnt to my cost, the Wikipedia convention is that 'tube' == 'london underground'. Now I don't particularly agree with that convention, but if we have it we must stick to it. And if we stick to it, then anything listed in this section either doesn't belong in the section (because it is a tube/lu station) or doesn't belong in the article (because it isn't a tube/lu station). -- Chris j wood 22:21, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Heathrow T4

The opening line of this article is "For one reason or another, many London Underground tube stations have ended up permanently closed." (my bold) so I'd rather remove T4 from the page entirely. Otherwise you might as well edit the list every Saturday night to remove those stations that aren't open on a Sunday, etc. (yes, silly, but you get my point ...) --Vamp:Willow 23:47, 12 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Well; a planned closure of nearly two years is a bit different from a weekend engineering project. Indeed the way T5 currently seems to be marginalising T4, and considering the difficulties LU will meet in operating the proposed split service, I do wonder if this temporary closure may not turn out a bit more permanent. Obviously there is always going to be a judgement call on when something is really closed, rather than just suspended, but right now my judgement is that H-T4 really is closed, so I'd prefer to leave it the way it is.

Incidentally, I notice you have changed York Road tube station to indicate possible re-opening. Another judgement call then; should it be moved to the temporarily closed section or even removed from the article altogether. After all, there isn't any fundamental difference between a 20 month temporary closure with a uncertain future and a 73 year temporary closure with an uncertain future. :-). -- Chris j wood 02:24, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Given that they won't be closing T4 to passengers / aircraft (ie. T5 is not a replacement for T4) I don't see how TfL could ever permanently close the routes to T4, indeed iirc BA, whose services are mostly based in T4 paid for much of the building of the terminal and towards the rail link to Paddington. --Vamp:Willow 13:49, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

York Road is NOT reopening, I asked them this morning: please see its article and Talk page. 138.37.188.109 09:50, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

After seeing the above note re York Road, have checked and re-confirmed that York Road *is* reopening - see my reply on that talk page. --Vamp:Willow 13:47, 13 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Park Royal & Twyford Abbey tube station

I would say that this was a permanently closed station given that its original location was on the embankment close to the bridge over Twyford Abbey Road [[1]] about 600 yards to the north west of the current Charles Holden designed 1930s station. DavidCane

Should we list temporarily closed stations?

I don't see the point of listing temporarily closed stations - it's hardly encyclopedic, and this is neither Wikitravel nor the TfL website. -- ChrisO 22:12, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree. --Frankie Roberto 15:16, 12 July 2005 (UTC)

Dubious Muswell Hill claim

Someone added the following to the list of "Stations that never opened", but I can't find any substantiation of it:

• Muswell Hill station, to be somewhere to the north of the lines, perhaps on the Piccadilly Line. The superstitious diggers came across a deep pit filled with the remains of plague victims; they would not continue digging the station out.

What's the source for this claim? -- ChrisO 20:21, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

I've never heard of it. They never build stations without lines there first.. Secretlondon 13:19, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Acording to this blog post this claim is made in a recent book, Underground London: Travels Beneath the City Streets by Stephen Smith (ISBN 0316861340 (hbk) and ISBN 0349115656 (pbk)). It still seems unlikely, given that there's no actual line there, but maybe there's some more actual information in the book. --rbrwr^± 14:00, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

I suspect that this is a confusion of information - the decommissioned railway line from Alexandria Palace High Level Station to Finsbury Park Station had a station at Crouch End (not to be confused with that at Crouch Hill), closed in 1954.

Jackiespeel

I posted the Muswell Hill paragraph in the first place. I found it in the Horrible Histories book Loathsome London, by Terry Deary, page 122. To clarify: I took my lines from the section in Loathsome London about the Tube; specifically about ghosts in the tunnels and such, and right at the end there is a 'Did You Know...?' Now, I've relied on Deary's series for a long time; while he writes a lot of gross stuff, I for one would be very confused if an educational history book series intended for youngsters with all it's weird facts did not tell the truth to them. Is there -really- nothing on the internet about it at all? Odd. Lady BlahDeBlah 20:57, 12 January 2006 (UTC)

For information on the station at Muswell Hill see Muswell Hill railway station and Edgware, Highgate and London Railway. There is also an article on the Alexandra Palace station referred to above at Alexandra Palace railway station (Muswell Hill branch). DavidCane 23:10, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

Right, and that Muswell Hill was a surface station, was open for over eighty years, and was abandoned for economic and public policy reasons. The question is, was there an underground station in that area which was abandoned during construction, and never opened, because of the presence of a plague pit? I remain unconvinced. I wouldn't suggest that Lady BlahDeBlah's source invented it outright, but in a section about ghosts you've got to expect a certain amount of rumour, urban legend, chinese whispers and the like… --rbrwr^± 10:42, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

You have a point there. Lady BlahDeBlah 14:11, 15 January 2006 (UTC)

OK, I now have Stephen Smith's Underground London in front of me, and he gives this story (the story in general, not Lady B's source) specifically as an example of a "tall tale" told about plague pits (pp. 177–8). --rbrwr^± 13:05, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Euston Northern Line

Under "Open stations with closed sections" we have:

The following tube stations have closed platforms:

...

Euston (both branches of the old Northern Line tunnels, before both were realigned for the construction of the Victoria Line)

...which I find a bit misleading. As far as I can tell, the Charing Cross branch platforms are exactly where they always were, as is the southbound Bank branch. The old northbound Bank branch track was taken up and covered over in the platform tunnel, and the northbound running tunnel was closed for a short distance to the west of the station (the part to the east remains in use as the "Euston Loop"). No significant part of the station closed, though one edge of the old island platform ceased to be an edge. Am I wrong? --rbrwr^± 21:29, 25 January 2006 (UTC)

Fates

It would be nice to add to the list (and perhaps turn it into a table) the fates of the buildings, platforms and track, i.e. what has been demolished/removed and what still remains. Nicholas 19:20, 27 January 2006 (UTC)

Quainton\Quainton Road

Should this be listed under permenantly closed railway stations? It does actually receive a service albeit a few times a year.

Also with the (although quite a way off) Varsity Line proposal, it may be reopened.

Simply south 23:16, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Fictional Stations (revisited)

I was very surprised to see the dates of the comments in Walford? above. Still not resolved?

Anyway, since that discussion started (and stopped!), a page called Fictional underground stations has been created. I have just moved across the details of the fictional stations that are not closed, but it would seem rather more appropriate for the whole lot to go there, as the situation is a bit messy at present.

Is there really a need for a detailed description of the stations here? Would it be better to move the detail to Fictional underground stations, and just have a name-only list here, with a cross-ref to the main article?

EdJogg 21:41, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

Incidentally, I have created a new cat called Category:Fictional London Underground stations, since the content of Category:Fictional rapid transit stations was entirely LU, and used to force the addition of all the stations, and the cat, to Category:London Underground. Hopefully this will be clearer.

EdJogg 01:10, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Question

Does anyone know what happens to all the space down there? I know the entrances get blocked up but what happens to all the space. Is it left as it was before it was closed? The underground space isnt put to any use then? Thanks for answering! --81.179.72.241 18:52, 22 August 2007 (UTC)

I think most of it is left as open space and periodically inspected for safety. There would be no reason to fill it in as the tunnels are built to last and are not going to collapse any more than at an active station. If you check out the individual articles for the stations you will see that some of them are used for various purposes. --DanielRigal (talk) 13:45, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

I think there might be a duplicate artical issue here; one redirects to the other, but the two arent the same. Will the offending artical be updated? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_closed_London_Underground_stations http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Closed_London_Underground_stations 91.106.55.141 (talk) 06:57, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

List of closed London Underground stations redirects to Closed London Underground stations and hence the content is the same whichever link you use. If you are seeing any differences in content then I guess this must be a caching issue with your web browser.Please check it again and if you still think there is a problem please post some more details so it can be looked into. --DanielRigal (talk) 13:41, 22 March 2008 (UTC)

Lines and stations that received royal assent but were never constructed.

Having read the excellent book by Antony Badsey-Ellis about Londons Lost Tube Schemes, there are a few tube schemes that over the years have been approved for construction, but due to lack of finance never got off the ground. Noteable examples include the North West London Railway (Victoria-Cricklewood), The North East Suburban Railway (Monument-Waltham Abbey), and the City and Brixton Railway (Monument-Brixton).

I have produced line diagrams for each of these. Would it be worth starting articals on them, and even uploading the diagram? If so let me know so I can create an account. Also, where would such a topic go, since its not quite 'closed underground stations', yet I can't see a topic which covers it.

Thanks!

albanianposse at hotmail dot co dot uk

Ben 91.106.13.79 (talk) 05:26, 7 April 2008 (UTC)

I think there should be a seperate page Unconstructed London Underground Lines or something. I think this article should be limited to those stations that were actually built, or at least in an advanced stage of planning, but there should be a page on projects which received approval, but were never built. Lord Cornwallis (talk) 23:56, 27 April 2008 (UTC)

Badsley-Ellis's book is indeed an excellent read giving a detailed historical, political and business background to the planning of the numerous tube schemes that were proposed during the 1890s-1900s and also contains much useful information on those lines that were built. The "Morgan tubes" deserve an article and a consolidated article as suggested could be a good starting point for others. The City & Brixton Railway was one I also have on my to do list as it is closely related to the City & South London Railway article I rewrote last year. In the absence of articles you could create templates for the route diagrams in the same way that has been done for the Piccadilly Line or the Central Line for instance. DavidCane (talk) 18:18, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

List vs Start

This article is a List and not a a Start Class as it lists all the different stations. Remember that not all lists have "List of..." in their name. Although it gives extra information, most is provided in tables. Simply south (talk) 11:04, 2 June 2008 (UTC)

Tunnels for sale

Seen on our news here in Oz (http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/10/18/2394715.htm) a story about part of the UndergrounD used during the war and latterly by BT but never used by trains - anybody know where it is? My guesses - the unused tunnel between Holborn and Aldwych, or part of the proposed express tube under the District between South Kensington and the City. Thanks Shrdlu junction (talk) 05:05, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

(Moved here from top of page as new section per talk page guidelines) - BulldozerD11 (talk) 17:02, 24 November 2008 (UTC)

The article is quite clear where it is - under Chancery Lane tube station, which is on the Central line. See London deep-level shelters and Kingsway telephone exchange for more information. --DavidCane (talk) 22:47, 2 November 2009 (UTC)

Surveillance/service

Any info on how often they check them or if they have CCTV to make sure there aren't tramps etc. in there? User:LaFoiblesse 2008-12-08 22:17 (GMT)

The "current condition" column

In the "current condition" column, many stations are listed as "demolished". That is fine for surface stations, where it unambiguously means that neither the station building nor the platforms survive. But an underground station involves an underground space where the platforms were, and the word "demolished" does not make sense. All stations below ground where the word "demolished" is used (about six of them, I think) need their descriptions reviewed.

Also in this column, many other stations are listed as "operated by National Rail". This is nonsense; National Rail is not a train or station operator. These descriptions should either say something like "part of National Rail network", or (perhaps better) name the applicable operating company, or both.

--50.100.189.198 (talk) 05:47, 27 June 2013 (UTC)

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