If only the Northern line could get its act together. Last week saw further buffing of its reputation as the ‘Misery line’, with signalling problems that disrupted journeys for days and kept engineers baffled. But it could all be so different. The Northern could be famous for having the deepest station (Hampstead, 192ft), the highest point above ground level (the Dollis Brook viaduct, where the line runs 59ft above the road) and indeed the final station when the whole network is listed alphabetically (Woodside Park). It also has the only station with a single-syllable name. I’ll leave you to work that one out. Clue: it’s not, as someone once suggested to me, Oval.
In fairness, the line’s delays have sometimes been for more charming reasons. In 1946 a dog trotted happily along the tracks of the City branch between Angel and Clapham Common, where it jumped on to the platform, ran up the escalator (thereby disobeying the famous rule about being carried) and disappeared into the night. That tunnel happens to be the longest on the network, stretching 17.3 miles from Morden to East Finchley. The latter station has a statue of an archer on its roof, aiming his arrow into the tunnel’s entrance. There was a matching statue at Morden, until it got stolen. No comments about south London, please.
Tooting Broadway achieved fame when Robert Lindsay’s Wolfie emerged from it in the opening credits of Citizen Smith, but culturally speaking the line’s most notable station has to be Mornington Crescent. The pub over the road is now called the Lyttelton Arms. When Humph died, people left flowers outside the station. A rather different kind of broadcaster was born in Highgate station as his mother sheltered from a second world war bombing raid: Jerry Springer.
Look above the Cranbourn Street entrance to Leicester Square and you’ll see, moulded into the ornate tiling, two cricket bats leaning against a set of stumps. This is because Wisden (in the days when they produced equipment rather than the big yellow book) were one of the original tenants in the offices above the station.
The Northern is home to the two newest stations, opened in 2021: Nine Elms and its neighbour which, due to the landmark after which it is named, is Battersea Power Station station. Further back, The Spectator had its own link with the Northern line. When T.E. Lawrence was based at RAF Hendon he used Colindale station, and so, searching for a pseudonym under which he could write for the magazine, he chose ‘Colin Dale’.
Just to prove that Transport for London isn’t all incompetence and strikes, let’s finish with the story of Oswald Laurence. The actor was one of the first people ever to record the ‘Mind the gap’ announcement (there have been many over the years, including Tim Bentinck, otherwise known as David in The Archers). By 2013, the northbound platform of the Northern line at Embankment was the only one still using Laurence’s version. Then even that was discontinued. Shortly afterwards, TfL received a letter from his widow, saying she regretted the decision because she had got into the habit of going to sit on the platform just to hear his voice, of which she had no other recordings. Touched by her missive, TfL put Oswald back.
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