Sweat sweat sweat. Is anyone doing anything else on the tube at the moment? Furthermore, does anyone have any good tips as to how to kill the person who has just shut the window in your carriage because the wind is mucking up her hair? Despite the heat slowing the underground down considerably over the weekend, there are a couple of important tube notices that you should probably be aware of.
First up and it's a good one. Shut for over a year due to maintenance, Queensway finally reopened this morning. After modernisation and lift replacements, the station was meant to be back in action by May 9, but delays pushed it back to Monday and then finally today. The station opened originally in 1906 and was previously known as Queen's Road. It's probably all sparkly and clean at the moment, and the advert men haven't been round yet, so if you're quick it's probably well worth a photo. Central Line travellers don't get too comfy though - you're ears won't be free of the 'this tube will not be stopping at the next station' message for long, as Lancaster Gate will soon be closing for similar refurbishments. We've hardly ever seen anyone get on or off at Lancaster Gate so it's unsure quite how much it'll be missed.
Rock on over to the other side of town, and fancy hats, silly beards and pointy shoe lovers beware. Shoreditch station has shut... FOREVER! This isn't as bad as it sounds though. While the station lands you practically on top of Brick Lane, it had limited opening hours and was one of the least used stations on the entire tube network with around 1130 passengers each day. Currently sitting at the end of the East London Line, the station will be replaced by Shoreditch High Street station in 2010 during line extension. Old Shoreditch will be removed and the land filled in, leaving us feeling rather geekily sad that we never went inside. Darryl_SE7 has a rather marvellous set of photos of the station over on flickr as well as The Gareth who took the above photo.
