Northfields TCA - any uglier LUL building?

I must admit that I'm not too keen on the wrapped power station building at Edgware Road: it looks disgusting and it's allegedly 'art'.

Conversely, though not strictly on LU property, the clouds at St Pancras are brilliant and add a little something to an already great station.

See also: the enormous new Morrisons distribution depot built on a greenfield site in Bridgwater, Somerset.





I suppose they thought green panels would blend in...

... and so soon after we were spared having to look at the old 2 Marsham Street and the former County Hall Island Block, too...

GH

ISTR that Northfields crew were not overjoyed to move to Bollo House and it was some considerable time before the last stragglers gave up booking on at Northfields. Now they don't want to return, there's no pleasing some people!

I actually quite like the look of that! The Morrisons building is quite nice too!

As a collector of old technology myself I appreciate those of similar mind who wish to preserve the architecture of the past. However, there really should be a limit upon how much of a modern city and particularly a capital city is listed. English Heritage is a great organisation but there really are far too many listed buildings in London these days and the idea of adding to them should be abhorrent to anyone interested in modern everyday life. If one wants to see past technology one generally goes to a museum but the listing of so much real estate within London is turning it into a living museum. That's good for tourism but probably is of little account to those who see it every day or live next door to it for years. Preservation of the past is costing Londoners dear in ways that most will never consider. Examples are narrow streets, longer than necessary journey times, additional costs associated with having to work around and beneath preserved buildings, less than ideal road traffic management, parking issues, services routing and maintenance access etc etc.

As much as I love history and tradition it does have an adverse effect upon modern daily life and work. Thus if every new building has to be some architectural masterpiece each will in time become a preserved and listed building simply further impeding work and life in the future. Personally I think the majority of new buildings should be of uniform construction, built quickly to standard functional designs using commonly available materials at the cheapest cost conforming to a standard building code of practice. In times of austerity such as we find ourselves these days and probably for at least another 50 years if not longer it is one way of saving money while having the potential to create thousands of new jobs in the basic trades.

In all honesty there is much of London that I would gladly see razed to make way for better planned wider thoroughfares and some of the preserved buildings really need to be culled as there are far too many. There is no need at all to have many dozens of tube stations listed for example. Mediaeval churches in their own grounds, the Houses of Parliament and such are worth preserving as is the BT Tower and Tower Bridge but there are many buildings that are just buildings and of course one does not have to own the actual building to secure its place in history unless it is one of very few examples of a type in existence. It is not uncommon for many listed buildings now to be little more than an old facade with modern interior, that being so there is no reason why many listed buildings in otherwise prime areas for redevelopment should not be relocated to a place where they will be better appreciated.

Me too! Perhaps I'm too young

Personally I feel that when EH want to specify materials for new work at locations it has listed it should pay the difference in cost between what LU specified and what EH requires. Back in the day, more than 30 years ago, I can remember having to do a job twice at Sudbury Town because it was listed and the cable specified for the platform PA speaker chains and which I installed as directed was subsequently rejected as being of a colour not in keeping with the building decoration as blue was visible against the cream.
Northfields station was a prime example of listing affecting installation work. It was determined that cabling should not be visible within the ticket hall area so I had to run it up and over the roof to get from one side of the ticket hall to the other.
There were occasions where we could have done much better without architects putting their 'stamp' on stations, Gloucester Road was one such location where the supplied cubby holes in the brick structure to take station to station telephones were simply too small. At other sites improper or no provision (cable ducts) had been made to connect the provided headwall equipment locations to the main cable routes.

Ah yes the late 1970s when I also joined LT and worked on the Picc, I recall the old TC depots.

Its been named Charles Holden House.

Well said North End.

I can remember voicing an opinion against them when they were being conceived, but I was told that I wasn't with future thinking - i.e. a dinosaur.

What goes around comes around as they say - I'd like to see South Harrow reopen, although realistically that wouldn't happen, nor places like Kennington or Euston. You could (and I did!) do wonders with the Picc Line Rayners branch service if you had a spare crew at South Harrow in times of disruption.

It takes a long time for a dinosaur to become extinct

Unless things have changed geographically since I last worked there nine years ago there's more than enough room for TCA on the plot adjacent to the south/west of the signal cabin. Better still build a TCA block right over the platforms.

What happened to the train crew accomodation that used to be at Oakwood?

out of curiosity what other crew depots were closed in the 1990's

With the crew logging on at Acton and all the trains stabled at northfields and the crew at acton how is start up and shut down of the service coped with?

Night shifts are used to deal with the "extreme" trains