Penny Travels - Page 8 of 12 - Travelling the world, near and far, one step at a time.

Tube Stop Baby: Upminster

April 3, 2019 by Penny Leave a Comment

Remember our plan to take a photograph of Tube Stop Baby with the roundel at each station we visited? Well, our trip to Upminster revealed a bit of a flaw in that plan. It turns out Upminster doesn’t have a roundel. Nor do Barking, Richmond and Wimbledon.

The “problem” is that these stations are all not owned or managed by TfL despite being served by London Underground, hence none of them have the classic TfL roundel signage at them! Yet another example of why I should do my research before we head out with our Oyster cards.

Not realising the lack of London Underground branding until we got there made Upminster seem like a bit of an anticlimax in our day’s travels. After the Art Deco feel at Upminster Bridge, Upminster just felt a bit anonymous if you know what I mean.

If you look carefully, there is one roundel to be found at Upminster though. One the side of the District Line signal box that you can see at eastern end of platform 5.

It’s not really positioned so that we could get a photo of Tube Stop Baby with it, so instead we made do with the roundel at the bus stop outside the station instead.

As well as being at the Eastern end of the District Line, Upminster is served by the c2c trains out of London’s Fenchurch Street (a station that has to be visited purely because it’s on the Monopoly board!) and also is the terminus for the Romford to Upminster part of the London Overground.

If you head up towards the ticket hall, there’s a nice old Lightbox indicator telling you which platform to go to next for an Underground train. There are a total of six platforms at Upminster, with three of them (platforms 3, 4 and 5) used by the District Line.

Despite not being a TfL station there is still a labyrinth to find. Number 76.

Tube Stop Baby Facts – Upminster

Date of visit: 29 January 2019

Underground Line(s) – District

Zone: 6

If you want to know more about our Tube Stop Baby Challenge then pop over here and have a read.

Tube Stop Baby: Upminster Bridge

April 2, 2019 by Penny Leave a Comment

One more stop out on the District Line from Hornchurch we came to Upminster Bridge. Yet another station where we only got to see the platforms and having done my reading up on the station afterwards I’m really kicking myself that I didn’t do my research beforehand.

Upminster Bridge station it seems is famous for what everyone walks over on their way in and out – a swastika pattern formed in the cream and brown floor tiles in the booking hall. Dated (as you’d expect!) before the Second World War, this was actually a popular decorative design when the Art Deco ticket office was built before its opening in 1934.

Despite not seeing the street level part of the station, which is incidentally is below the platforms which are up on an embankment with stairs between the two, the platforms themselves are with further discussion.

Continuing the Art Deco theme from the ticket hall, the platforms themselves have more than a slight mod towards the design of that era too. Especially with the seating on the platforms.

What I can’t yet get to the bottom of is whether these are original or not. Searching online I keep finding photos of the platforms at Upminster Bridge with different, more modern style, traditional TfL seats on them, but I can’t work out if these were taken away and replaced with the Art Deco style ones, or if they’re just at different ends of the platform and both are there. This really is why I ought to do so much more research before these trips so I can check all the facts out for myself whilst there! If you know any more about this though then please, please leave me a comment down below.

What I am sure about at Upminster Bridge though is the fact that there is a central island platform serving both East and Westbound on the District line, and then the c2c fast tracks run next to the Westbound District line track.

Tube Stop Baby Facts – Upminster Bridge

Date of visit: 29 January 2019

Underground Line(s) – District

Zone: 6

If you want to know more about our Tube Stop Baby Challenge then pop over here and have a read.

Tube Stop Baby: Hornchurch

March 29, 2019 by Penny Leave a Comment

After visiting Elm Park we decided to continue along the line, away from central London, and made Hornchurch our next stop. This was a station where we didn’t have time to head outside of the station, although in this case I’m not sure there was that much to see out there either.

There is no step-free access at Hornchurch, although I am told that there are a pair of disused lift shafts connecting the platforms and the booking hall.

Down at platform level there are two platforms serving the District line that are positioned either side of the tracks – platform 1 for Westbound and platform 2 for Eastbound. There are also two disused platforms that used to serve the National Rail service through the station. This was withdrawn from Hornchurch in 1962, but the platforms remain physically there and you can see the c2c services passing through the station.

The District Line platforms do at least provide toilets and a waiting room on the Westbound platform, but otherwise there isn’t really much to comment on there. I believe the station was on a list of stations to be renovated by Metronet back before it went into administration in 2007. When responsibility moved back to TfL in 2008 Hornchurch was put into the “limited works” category, meaning that improvements would be made incrementally, following TfL’s need to preserve assets.

Tube Stop Baby Facts – Hornchurch

Date of visit: 29 January 2019

Underground Line(s) – District

Zone: 6

If you want to know more about our Tube Stop Baby Challenge then pop over here and have a read.

Tube Stop Baby: Elm Park

March 27, 2019 by Penny Leave a Comment

I’m not sure I even knew where Elm Park was until I took a good look at the Eastern end of the District Line on a tube map. Bonn had a job out that side of London and as Tube Stop Baby and I were at a loose end I decided to use it as an opportunity to tick a few more stations off our list. Elm Park jumped out as somewhere to start our adventure for the simple reason that it had step-free access. We manage to lift the pram up most staircases on the tube, but it’s nice not to have to!

I can’t lie about it. Elm Park isn’t exactly the most thrilling station I’ve visited on our tube travels. Opened in 1935 the station is situated between Dagenham East and Hornchurch and is in the London Borough of Havering.

The station has a central island platform, serving one track in each direction. There is then a long slope back up from the platforms to the ticket office (hence the stair-free access), which is on a road bridge over the railway line.

The slope leading down to the District Line platforms.

Outside the station we did spot a sweet addition in the form of The Hobby Shop Special. Looking like it may need a new coat of paint soon, this is the original work of Elm Park Primary School, with additional pictures behind from St Alban’s Catholic Primary School.

And for anyone keeping track of the labyrinths around the tube network, Elm Park hosts number 79, which is very easy to spot as you walk down the slope from the ticket office to the platforms.

Tube Stop Baby Facts – Elm Park

Date of visit: 29 January 2019

Underground Line(s) – District

Zone: 6

If you want to know more about our Tube Stop Baby Challenge then pop over here and have a read.

Race Across the World – Travel television at its best

March 26, 2019 by Penny Leave a Comment

I can pinpoint the moment that I was inspired to travel right down to watching one TV programme. It was the episode of Michael Palin’s Around the World in 80 Days (which was of course inspired by the book of the same title by Jules Verne) in which he visited Hong Kong. I can’t explain exactly what it was about that episode that got to me, but something did. From that moment I was determined to visit Hong Kong, see all the hustle and bustle for myself and in particular follow in Michael’s footsteps to the Happy Valley racecourse.

I’m delighted to say that years later I did just that. An old school friend lived in Hong Kong and when my ex-husband and I went out there we met up with her and I explained my possibly strange sounding desire to go to the races. As luck would have it, her and her boyfriend at the time where both members and so off we went to a night at the races. As I stood there in the stands, watching the horses race around and with the Hong Kong skyline behind it was one of those moments where I realised just how wonderful travel can be.

Since then I’ve watched plenty of travel programme on the television, and more recently travel vlogs on YouTube, but nothing has even spoken to me quite as much as Michael Palin did. Until now.

A couple of weeks ago, one of the trailers that you get on BBC iPlayer was for a new BBC 2 programme called Race Across the World. Intrigued, and with plenty of time on my hands sat on the sofa under a feeding baby, I found the first programme and was hooked. It’s rare that I watch live TV these days, but since discovering that we were still in the middle of the series, I’ve been making sure I’m tuned in on a Sunday evening. There’s only one episode left, which I’m gutted about, but I’m now so fired up to dust off my passport and make sure that Bonn and I show Tube Stop Baby the world.

So, what is this programme that I’m making such a song and dance about?

The main premise of Race Across the World, and what probably caught my attention the most, is that it’s about travelling by land and water, rather than by air. Five couples are in a race to travel from London to Singapore. Not flying anywhere, and not spending more than the cost of a single airfare between the two locations. That money has to cover all their travel, accommodation and food. Oh, and they’ve also had their smartphones taken off them!

The logic behind the programme is that Singapore is the furthest place that you can get to via land (ignoring the need to cross the English Channel from the UK to France!) The teams are given a number of checkpoints en-route, which determines a little bit which way they go, but otherwise how they travel is up to them. They can work during their travels to earn some extra money, and can accept any gifts from people they meet, but otherwise things are up to them.

What I’m loving about the programme is how it puts the focus on the journey part of travelling, rather than just the destination. To me, especially as a bit of a train fan, the getting somewhere is just as important as where you’re going. Someone once told me that you get to find out a huge amount about a country or city by using their public transport system. This is exactly the case in this programme. When you see some of the teams on long train journeys, chatting to the people travelling along side them you can see them learning so much more about the local people and their cultures than they would have ever got from just flying over in an aeroplane.

When it comes to the contestants, I have to admit that I don’t really care who wins the race. I just look forward to seeing how they all make their way to the final checkpoint in Singapore and what adventures they have on the way!

The final episode of Race Across The World is this Sunday (31 March 2019) at 9pm. You can currently catch up on all previous episodes on the BBC iPlayer.

Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links to products that I have previously bought with my own money.

Tube Stop Baby: Kensington (Olympia)

March 17, 2019 by Penny Leave a Comment

Did you know that if you want to do the challenge of visiting all 270 London Underground stations in the shortest time possible, there are only certain days of the year that it is technically possible? This is all due to the slight anomaly that is Kensington (Olympia).

Situated at the end of a tiny little branch on the District line that goes up from Earls Court, Kensington (Olympia) station is situated right next to the Olympia exhibition centre. This is in fact the reason that Tube Stop Baby got to visit the station so early on in the challenge – I was going to Olympia for the Toy Fair as part of my work over on Penny Plays.

These days Kensington (Olympia) is only served by District line trains at the weekend, or when there are certain events on at neighbouring Olympia – the Great British Beer Festival being one of the most noteworthy reasons! This makes it the least served station on the whole of the London Underground. I could probably waffle on here about exactly when it is served, and why, but there’s a tube expert (and former world record holder) who can do that far better than I can!

It does pose a whole tonne of questions about just how long London Underground might keep serving Kensington (Olympia) or whether they might just leave it to the National Rail services that run to the other platforms there.

It’s a bit of a sad decline really for a station that in the early 1970s was planned to be the main London terminus for Channel Tunnel trains! Over the years services have run from there to Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh and Glasgow. The station was served by milk trains and was also part of the Government’s Cold War plans in case of a need to relocate Government away from London. When Eurostar used to run into Waterloo, their trains used to pass through Kensington (Olympia) on their way to the North Pole depot and the station even had basic back up immigration facilities in case of an incoming train having to be diverted away from Waterloo for some reason. Up until 1981 the station was even a terminal for Motorail trains. These moved to Paddington, Euston and Kings Cross before being finally being withdrawn in Summer 2005. There’s still a small reminder of Kensington (Olympia)’s role in this part of British Rail history though as what was the terminal is now a car park and named “Olympia Motorail Car Park P4”.

For the sake of completeness I should note that we arrived and departed Kensington (Olympia) on London Overground seeing as the District line wasn’t running that day!

Tube Stop Baby Facts – Kensington (Olympia)

Date of visit: 22 January 2019

Underground Line(s) – District

Zone: 2

If you want to know more about our Tube Stop Baby Challenge then pop over here and have a read.