York Road has always made me rather sad - you've got a lovely Leslie Green facade, but the building itself sits detached in a wasteland like some apocalyptic dystopia. Even if they don't reopen the station, it would be nice to see something done with the environment so that it feels like it is a living part of the city.
I've always thought that, but given how King's Cross has changed over the last couple of decades, it's only a matter of time before that area gets swallowed up by development. Although I think such things have been put back a decade or so thanks to recent and imminent events.
@@jax9574 I agree with you there! so many Flats and apartment buildings have now been built right across the road from york road station it would probably boom in use more than it ever did originally if it reopened! But given it's only a mile or so down the line from kings cross st Pancras I doubt it will sadly! LTF needs to where possible bring some of the old Leslie green stations that were closed back into use if the surroundings have been redeveloped like your road area is and has been! mind you if a closed station is in the way of new development they just demolish it! Or If the underground line station is a pain in the ass to operate or sort out just like they did with the old wood lane central line station that was built for the white city 1908 Franco-British Exhibition, they closed it down in 1947 BUT NOT THE DEPOT there and eventually demolished it for the building of the Westfield shopping center with a new depot being built under the shopping center they also have kept the engine house buildings (about the only original thing left) as an exhibition centre! can read more here ...en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wood_Lane_tube_station_(Central_line)
I do think we need to protect at least half a dozen of his station buildings. York Road seems to be one of the most typical buildings that hasn't been built on top of, or extended and redeveloped
@@MrBannystar it was still there the last time I looked, but I haven’t been there for a while due to the virus. It was due to be one of the later buildings to be demolished, possibly due to it housing a large ventilation fan for the station.
@@srfurley Ahh I see, maybe the virus delayed its demolition? I remember having a conversation sometime earlier this year about it and I seem to remember seeing a video about its demolition.
I love your videos. I'm an American who lives in a small rural town of about 5000 people. I've never even seen a Subway in real life let alone ridden one. Probably why I find it so fascinating. Thanks for your excellent and educational videos keep up the good work sir.
If you go to London and experience the Underground, especially the City Center stations and Canary Wharf, I promise you that you will feel like you have traveled to the Star Trek future. It's very hard to describe how amazing the infrastructure is, even though London people make it a sport to complain about everything.
Mr Jago Hazzard's little films have become my favourite events on RU-vid. His wry commentary wonderfully frames intriguing subject matter. During these 5-minute monologues, I barely noticed lockdown. And he has reawoken my love for London's built environment ephemera. Thank you!
I have to agree with Mr McIntosh. I discovered Jago's videos at the start of the year when surgery confined me to a sofa or bed for many weeks. What a delightful and interesting way to be reminded of the city I grew up in in Doctor Beeching's times. Like many things, London seems far less objectionable viewed from afar. I too feel a frisson of excitement when I am notified that a new video has landed. :-) But am I the only one who would like to know the face behind they voice? Please, one day. :-)
I've been able to give directions to people while there from all the random online things I've learned. Been twice and both times people needed directions to Waterloo from almost the same spot.
For my Architectural Thesis Project I proposed reopening York Way, to serve an ExCel sized Exhibition Hall located on the Railway Lands. The idea being to create a land use embracingbthe entire Goods Yard, as opposed to the piecemeal development afflicting the area with a pick-and-mix of unfortunate architecture. The station is beautiful, and could be refurbished with escalators retaining the glazed facade. There's no vision for London as a whole, so the area has become an enclave for professionals, rather than knitting together the fabric of Central London with the beginnings of suburbia.
Great vid. A lot of people don’t know or realise York Road is actually a storage facility for surplus London Underground parts. There are some amazing things in here all kept so that they can be repurposed: Oxblood tiles, station signage, light fittings, switches, seats, tables, etc. All manor of things that can be repurposed around the network. Inside is pretty grim and not well looked after which is sad.
There's not much that tugs on a weird sense of nostalgia like an abandoned railway station, that's for sure! Always love those old original tube stations, whenever I'm in London I'm always amazed that such places are still in use in the 21st century. Glazed tiles, arches, art deco... fantastic. Somehow part of me expects all stations like that to be abandoned, even though I should know better!
Love anything with the name of my city in it, also love anything with your channel involved. You have a certain particular dry comedy that never fails to crack me up.
Thank you. You have brought back two lines from my youth. I always wondered why the journey from Kings X to Caledonia rd took longer than most 1 station rides. I lived in Canonbury in the mid 1960s and one day a week I to the North London line to Camden Rd (day college). Happy it is now part of the overground, had a ride to Stratford from Highbury in 2018 on a visit. What an upgrade.
I have never been to london, but I find your videos weirdly interesting. It is the calm, well structured, yet useless in all practical regards (to me) informational format of your videos that I quite enjoy. These curiosities you present keep me watching, and coming back to your videos. Thank you, Jago Hazzard, for making content the way you do!
There were originally two Maiden Lane stations in King's Cross: the other being a temporary terminus for the GNR, located at the southern end of York Way opposite Copenhagen Street, before the present mainline station was built.
With TFL's finances now totally shot due to virus, and perhaps footfall never returning to pre-lockdown levels I think it's an easy call to say a lot of things TFL had plans for will be in limbo for a long time to come.
Is that why the hybrid buses have poor performance - continuously running in diesel mode and less in electric/reverting to burning diesel - and being adapted with particulate filters - Euro 6 compliant, (which we already know won’t work) and no new hydrogen/battery electric buses = for the time being London will remain polluted for the foreseeable future. ☹️
The odd thing is TfL’s finances have more than managed to find millions to use the Lockdown to construct cycle lanes throughout central London: and many having been built are already being ripped up because they have decimated the ability of motor traffic to move at all. I wonder who got the cream?
Another great video, I thought I knew a lot about LT as spent a big part of my life working for them.. You are giving more information then I knew and its interesting, the videos are entertaining and informative.. 😊👍🏽
As ever, thank you for uploading. I do enjoy these! I remember seeing the York Road platforms from a main line train out of Kings Cross. This would have been in the early 1970's and back in the era of Class 23 Baby Deltics hauling suburban, non-corridor coaches.
@@chrisinnes2128 Thank you for pointing this out, Chris. It was a long time ago and I didn't realise that there was this distinction. I do try to be factually correct in my comments as otherwise false information gets passed around and can become "fact" over time. This is one danger of the internet!
Fascinating. Never heard of Maiden Lane, looking on the map it's still a fair trek from Kings Cross though nearer the trendy area to its north. What's more staggering to me is that I'd never heard of the Caledonian Park clocktower before, that's something to add to my list of places to visit someday...
@@frankyw8803 it used to sit right at the centre of the cattle market but now has the park on one side and modern development on the other - the abattoir buildings that sat on the four corners are still in situ however. When the Olympics were on there were lots of strange happenings in the London arts scene, and I remember going to a big community theatrical performance there at night when the whole place was torchlit. It was surreal. I know they've opened the tower to visitors during Open House in some years, but not recently...
Maiden Lane possibly derives from Midden Lane. There was also a York Road station on the east side of KX Station, just north of the platforms, on the curve between the main GNR suburban lines and the MetropolitanRailway/Widened lines to Moorgate.
Hi Jago, thanks for this. I gather there was in fact breifly yet another station in the Maiden Lane area, it was a special one on the GNR main line for funeral trains going to the Great Northern London Cemetery in New Southgate - a rival service to the better-known SWR service from Watherloo necropolis station to Brookwood Cemetery. However, the service didn't last very long (about 1861-1870), and they later built a factory on the site of the station at the New Southgate end. There's a bit about it a little way into this article: ietarchivesblog.org/2018/02/23/standard-telephones-cables-stc-factory-at-new-southgate , but it doesn't say what happened to the station at the Maiden Lane end unfortunately.
I visited the sites both of King's Cross Funeral Station and New Southgate Cemetery Station (also known as the Great Northern Cemetery Station and Cemetery Station respectively) the other day. A contemporary description of King's Cross Funeral Station said it was surrounded by falling-to-bits houses and immediately next to it was "putrid piles of mud being used as a children's playground". The station is now a cement works. Interestingly there's a really charming little park with a children's playground in it just next to the site - must be the same playground! The New Southgate Cemetery Station is now the North London Business Park. Interestingly, York Road tube station (1906 - 1932) is almost right next door to King's Cross Funeral Station (1861 - c. 1873). If both stations had co-existed they'd have been a useful interchange - I wonder if they'd have supported each other's continued usage?
Some of these abandoned stations should be converted into mini-museums where they detail and talk about the history of the area and also part of the London Underground. I know TFL has two museums for these already known as 'The London Transport Museum' but having one specific to your area would be quite posh lol.
Absolutely. The Madrid metro turned Chamberí station into a museum called Andén 0 (platform 0) in this way and have artefacts preserved from the time it was open (1919 to 1966) and I definitely want to go to there if I'm ever in Madrid.
Approaching St. Pancras you can see the remnants of Haverstock Hill station on the main line as you exit Belsize Tunnel. The only platform left is on the southbound Thameslink side (the 'up slow'). Also visible is what is left of where the staircase came out of the station above, albeit bricked up.....
Dear Jago, Maiden Lane looks like a painting by Renee Magritte, which gives me an idea for a new series of videos called: Railway Stations That Look Like Surrealist Paintings. Carry on, old bean, John.
Living in Dartmouth Park, the Victorian reservoirs are still listed as Maiden Lane Reservoirs by the water board, they are between Dartmouth Park Hill and Junction Road
Really interesting video, thanks Jago! I've lived next to Cally Road & Barnsbury station for years now, and have ventured past York Road countless times. It always felt like such a waste of a beautiful building -- it also would have knocked 5-10 mins off my commute, were it open still!
I was previously aware of the former York Road station but knew nothing about Maiden Lane, so that's another useful bit of new knowledge tucked away in the recesses of my grey matter !!
I was at York Road station a week ago. I can confirm that there is no ticket hall anymore, most of the original tiles have disappeared from the interior. The main part of the station has been converted into an office (in the 1990s, I assume by the way it is dated), which now seems disused itself. The roof of the main building is leaking and has covered mist the top floor in moss and damp. There is a small section of the station that is now acting as a vent shaft, emergency exit and grants track access to engineering craws, but this has lost almost all of its features with all stairs and walls gone, just a staircase in the darkness. I can imagine the millions quoted may just scratch the amount of money needed to bring this station back to life
I think it’s a bit silly to say reopening York Road would lead to congestion at kings cross when a lot of people who would use it would currently be using kings cross anyway. And reopening it with Maiden Lane in tandem as an out of station interchange may even help reduce demand for interchange at kings cross by opening up journey options that don’t need to change there, eg Wood Green to Camden
Time changes everything and York Road station was always far too near Kings Cross with it's multitude of connecting lines. It was quite rightly shut down like City Road and much later Aldwych. The Overground as they call it now has benefited from the exploding population it was always just called the North London. I remember I used to use the line in the sixties when I used to go rowing at school. My brother used to drop me at Camden Road on his motorbike on his way to work and I'd take the train to Gunnersbury and then get a trolleybus to Kew Bridge. The old trains were green with single slam door compartments the sort of things you could get murdered on. Sometimes I spent the whole journey on my own the whole line and stations was dreary and horrible at the time.
I beg to disagree. York Road is not that close to Kings X. It's one kilometre, which is a decently long station spacing for inner city mass transit. By your logic, should Russel Sq. close too? It's the same distance away.
@@___spiritofadventure___ There was little demand for access to York road. Trams were available too down Caledonian Road plus the 196 bus down York Road.. The area was always run down I grew up around the area before the explosion of development. Tube station closures were based on pure economics.
I first became aware of these two stations as a boy in the 1960s during sleepovers with my maternal grandparents who lived at Canonbury and would beg my nan to take me for a train ride on a Saturday morning. It didn't really matter where, as long as I got a train ride and one Saturday we went for a quick trip from Canonbury to Camden Road and back. Canonbury station was in a shocking state with unrepaired war damage but ironically this gave it tons of spooky atmosphere, especially after dark and with the entire Broad Street to Richmond line under threat of closure from the Beeching cuts, it was obvious at that time that not even a ha'penny was going to be spent on it. I remember passing what looked like a disused station on the way to Camden Road where, in those days, platform remains and buildings were still in evidence but it wasn't until I got hold of a 1964 copy of The Railway Magazine, I forget which month, which had an article on the North London Line by the renowned historian H.V. Borley that I found out the disused station my gran and I passed on that trip to Camden Road was Maiden Lane and that it had been shut almot half a century by then. I don't know when the platforms were actually demolished, they seemed to disappear gradually. As for York Road station on the Piccadilly Line, I first knew of this when my mum and gran dragged me kicking and screaming on one of their horrendous shopping expeditions to Oxford Street from Holloway Road station (which we reached by trolleybus from Highbury Corner) and nan pointed out the gap in the tunnel wall where the platforms used to be and which can still be seen today, having not been filled-in like some other abandoned tube stations. It actually closed on 17th September 1932, two days before the first section of the Piccadilly Line Cockfosters extension opened from Finsbury Park to Arnos Grove so it was never possible to travel on this line from York Road to stations north of Finsbury Park. And how many people remember the NLR's other abandoned station at Mildmay Park between Dalston Junction and Canonbury ? And where today only the two side platforms can be made out, the central island that was there, derelict and weed-infested and devoid of buildings in the 1960s, has long since disappeared. However, the fine street level building dating from the station's opening in 1880 (and just south of Newington Green where I was born) survived for many years after the station's 1934 closure, becoming a car repair workshop and welding factory, complete with the legends North London Railway and Mildmay Park Station engraved on the walls. But to my great disappointment and without any warning, it was suddenly demolished in February 1987 with no regard for its architecture nor its place in the history of London's railways. Kind regards, David, Crouch End, N8
It was splendidly run down in its final days. I wonder if a traveller ever confused Kings Cross York Road with the mainline terminus, and were shocked by the Penny Dreadful ambiance?
@@borderlands6606 I used it once in the sixties coming back from school football. I got on the train at Oakleigh Park and watched the train descend in the tunnel when I got off. The old "widened lines" always fascinated me as kid. Another train would have terminated on the other side of Kings Cross station in the local lines part of the terminus.
It would have been even more confusing at one time as there were a King's Cross mainline station, King's Cross metropolitan station King's Cross, York Road station, King's Cross Saint Pancras tube station, Saint Pancras mainline station and York Road tube station all with in walking distance of each other
Remember well catching the Piccadilly line late nights getting home in London in the 90s and picking up the 91 bus to Crouch End at Caledonian Road, which I always thought was quite a gap. Or sometimes I'd catch the bus from King's Cross, and I'd see York Road. Lovely façade, and great to know that at least Tfl do use it. Fingers crossed for some kind of redevelopment.
It's not listed. You can search for listed buildings in England on historicengland.org.uk, either by name or using their map search function, if you know where the building is. The map search is quite hard to read (it requires you to distinguish between a tiny dark blue triangle for listed buildings and a tiny purple triangle for preservation orders) but there's no marker on the York Road Station building. To find the station on the map, track up York Way north from King's Cross. The road curves very gently to the left but then the curve tightens and the road is briefly heading north-west. York Road Station is on the right, just before the north-westerly section, due south of the north portal of Gasworks Tunnel
We also had a York Road in Belfast, one of three termini in the city. Lovely classical design, blown to bits in WW2 and then decimated further in the Troubles. A real shame. At least you still have yours even if it isn't doing much
My primary school was temporarily housed just around the corner from Maiden Lane, whilst they removed asbestos from the permanent building (in Tufnell Park)
Very interesting to someone who has moved into the area. Agree, that Maiden Lane offers much more. The North London Overground is a very vibrant and well-used but generally not over-used line with a long gap between Caledonian Rd and Camden Rd.
Funny thing is that there are two more abandoned stations in King's Cross called York Road and Maiden Lane. They're both on the East Coast Main Line though and nothing remains of them today.
That's brought back memories of the 2 years I lived just off Caledonian Road in the mid 70's, so thankyou for that. Some people say that they found the 70's in London dangerous, but it never felt like that to me. I then moved to Bethal Green, which was very well behaved, a legacy of the Krays, I always felt, where any nonsense was only ever done to order. Any chance of something about the abandoned station under Hampstead Heath, where I believe pictures from the National Gallery were stored for a time during the war? Not sure if anything remains above ground, so that might be a very short video, perhaps verging on the impossible.
What a fascinating part of London, just oozing with railway-related history. One station I don't see in the comments section is Kings Cross Funeral Station(aka Cemetery station), a very short-lived station which. I think, is still in existence. I can't see much about it online, apart from this ........ stcnsg.org.uk/cemetery1954/index.htm
Among my favourite Underground Stations are those glossy glazed burgundy ones ... I can’t see how it couldn’t be reopened with express trains passing through and every second or third train being one that does local passenger pickup-drop off.
Toronto here. Haven't been to Buffalo in close to 25 years, but way back whenever we were there we always took a pass by BCS, just to have a look. Couldn't believe such a building was just allowed to ......... rot? away. I take it from your post nothing positive has occurred in the 25 years?
@@foamer443 en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffalo_Central_Terminal#Central_Terminal_Restoration_Corp._(1997%E2%80%93present) It seems that things are improving, though at a glacial pace.
Sounds like the troubles on the Wearside metro BR(?) won't give up rights to allow an extension to Consett allow the track bed is still there. I've still got my Grandads 1949 Tube Map it's very interesting. M
Greetings XJ6. Hanging around the Kings Cross vacinity again eh ? No maidens there matey. My mate from Jamaica was in limbo for years btw. Do keep up the good work in the community. Best wishes from snowed-in Slovenia. 👍
Couple reasons I posit that Maiden Lane is unaffordable: Train lengthening and DDA compliance - new stations are required by law to fully accessible, even ones that are reopening; that makes reopening more of a challenge
In terms of platform reinstatement that wouldn't be too bad. The platform would have to be an island platform arrangement between the central 2 tracks (or in the 10 foot as we call that). That's because LO services use the inner tracks, whilst the outer tracks are essentially loops for non-pax services. The platforms need to be min 120m long. There is just enough space for that and the narrowest point at the western end would be around 5m wide. For comparison, the narrowest point at the western end of the island platform at Caledonian Road & Barnsbury is around 6m. The westbound track would be on a curve, which isn't ideal but that's okay because it's quite shallow. The platforms would fit quite well within the signalling overlaps. But, I don't know where you got those cost estimates from because they are well off! It would be 10s of millions to do such work and I wouldn't be surprised if it was 100+m to reinstate the station. Don't see it happening anytime soon.
I knew about York Road but not the other one! Thanks Jago. I doubt either is viable, TFL is committed to step free access and i doubt either is practical for conversion
A little New York trivia. The city has a Maiden Lane,unfortunately,it's not on the subway! But,there is compensation,as we have the Bowery,which located on both the Elevated,and the Subway,and it was notorious for drugs,prostitution,and sundry miscellaneous crimes! During the 1870's,to the turn of the last century,the areas of lower Manhattan also had the tenements,and other features of the,then immigrant population! It has radically changed since,parts of the cycle,and every area has it's up,down and sideways growth! There is a museum,(City of New York),that has all the information! For the equivalent London,remember the notorious East End,of Jack the Ripper,it was just as bad,as New York,and Chicago too! Thank you for an interesting duo of stations! York Road definitely has character,and that brick work,can't be duplicated! Thank you,again,Jago,keep it up,those nooks and crannies of London are fascinating 👏 👍 😀!
I feel Maiden Lane is a more a viable (and cheaper) option at this point in time than York Road. Though one would assume that with ongoing redevelopment and increasing residential density numbers would need both stations, one as an East-West route the other as a North-South route. In saying that though I would move York Road a little further North making it equidistant between Caledonian Road and Kings Cross, this would require a new station (upto modern standards) and demolition of industrial buildings. Leaving the original Leslie Green building to be used for other plans, such as the homeless centre (another much needed and underfunded service)
What would really make a reopened Maiden Lane Station viable would be reopening the disused two tracks that run alongside the two current Overground tracks between Dalston and Camden Road. The possibilties this would open up - sending trains that currently terminate at Highbury onwards through Primrose Hill and onto Watford Junction, thus taking local services out of Euston and making more platforms available for iong distance trains.... giving many more 'paths' for the goods trains that share the Overground route ...and killing off the awful 'skywalk' concept that the hipsters of Camden Town want the tracks for - would make it money well spent and give this oddly isolated spot a railway service once again
Extending the East London Line beyond Highbury would make the Shoreditch / Whitechapel bound trains very overcrowded by the time they reached Highbury and thus impossible to board at many stations.
@@craigthomson3621 I wasn't suggesting a simple extension. If the double track was reinstated, the overcrowding between Camden road and Dalston wouldnt be an issue as there would be two services running side by side
Back in the 1970s, when I was working in North Hertfordshire, I used to come into London on a Monday evening for a music rehearsal, and the most convenient train was a rattly old DMU working from Huntingdon to Moorgate via the widened lines, and of course it called at York Road Platform. This was part of Kings Cross BR, as I'm sure you know, and not to be confused with York Road Picadilly Line, which was miles up the road, and no use to me, even had it been open. Why am I telling you this? I think I must have left my marbles there; don't suppose you spotted them?
I seem to remember one KONE escalator with engineering solution (barrel construction, connections, etc) and a ten year maintenance plan comes in at £10m.
I don't know if I'd use any of the stations, but I wouldn't like to lose the currently abandoned stations. There's a charm in there that would be lost forever if they rebuild them. BTW, I didn't know there's a website dedicated to abandoned stations. Thanks!
I used to live within spitting distance of York Road, but had to walk to Cally Road. It's 2024 and much has changed. The area around York Road is no longer a post-industrial wasteland. It has tons of redevelopment and is looking more and more "city centre." My guess is it will reopen eventually, whenever someone has the foresight to see the potential.
Great video. What is the old (I assume tube) station next to Euston Mainline station, if you go out of the side exit near the bike racks where all the HS2 stuff is happening?
I attempted to find the old abandoned *_"Central Croydon Station"_* recently and discovered some selfish inconsiderate bastard had built Croydon Town Hall on top of it!
