I thought I’d try a different route to work this morning . No bus - just tubes and train. Via Paddington.
There is something really amazing about London’s mainline train terminals - and Paddington Station is just one of them. It’s not just the grandness of the elaborate and often ornate Victorian iron-work that makes up the huge covering and surrounds of the station - it’s the fact that the very “old” and very “new” seem to coexist in a quirky sort of harmony that you can only really witness in 21st Century London.
The magnificent 19th Century architecture of Paddington Station provides an incredible stage for modern 21st Century artefacts. Huge full-colour LCD and plasma screens advertising train arrivals and departures. A busy sushi bar. The really-slick looking Heathrow Express train snaking in alongside one of the platforms. People walking around talking into mobile phones. The sound of the computerised ding-dongs that precede announcements on the PA system. And so on and so on. All these 21st century sights and sounds echo around in the light “mist” that seems to permanently hang inside the station. A mist that in my mind seems to provide an everpresent reminder of a time long since passed.
A couple of British Transport Policemen walked past where I was standing. Their black ties signifying the civility of times gone by - tucked underneath the stark yellow of their modern-dayglo jackets.
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And Paddington Station seems to have more WiFi coverage than just about anywhere else in the UK.
Posted by: Nigel on March 10, 2004 05:47 PMI’ve never hanged around long enough at Paddington to try the WiFi there. In fact, come to think of it - the only places outside of my home and the office that I’ve ever connected to a (public) wireless access point is Heathrow Airport T2 waiting area and the lobby of the Hilton Hotel near Heathrow T4. The latter was free - the former was BT OpenZone.
Posted by: Jag on March 10, 2004 09:06 PMStrange how some of the London stations have a great bright feel to them and at the same time Clapham Junction remains un-updated. I wonder if Network rail will ever get onto it. I used to have this theory that every public transport executive should put asside 3 weeks every year to do the following: spend 1 week travelling around with a pushair complete with child (real or one of those plastic babies they use in sex education classes in schools) and paraphenelia, spend another week travelling with a disability or other (wheelchair or some of thoses glasses which simulate various visual impairments) and then another week travelling around during the rush hour on lines they do not normally use to see if information is up to scratch and how easy it is to get good service when the staff are under pressure. I bet if they did Clapham would be the first station to get an update: nothing like being greeted by welcome to CJ the busiest station in the UK when you have struggled to get up the stairs with a buggy and a toddler.
Hum, sorry about that, it was the rant of the day.
Copper 1: Guess which hand it’s in!
Copper 2: Right, err.…I mean left
No - you rant away - no problem at all. You know what: I’ve never been to Clapham Junction - even though I used to live in Clapham for a few years. Sure - I’ve passed through it many times - but never experienced the station proper. Strange that. So I can only imagine how bad it is from the description of your solution for transport execs.
Having pushed kids in buggies (on my own) for a good few (prior) years at weekends on the London transport system I know a little about how you feel. That’s why I’m always the one (and shamefully mostly the only one) to give a helping hand to people in the same predicament at the stairs at the stations I normally travel through.
Posted by: Jag on March 10, 2004 10:38 PMMan on phone: Quick get me an ambulance - my face has gone all blurry!
Posted by: vicky on March 10, 2004 10:39 PMNice one Vicky! :-)
Posted by: Jag on March 10, 2004 10:39 PMI love St Pancras and find it easy to imagine the Golden Age of Steam in that wonderful gothic Cathedral of engineering.
Posted by: Gert on March 10, 2004 11:35 PMHow wonderfully spanky new and gleaming, at the same time, preserving its “19th Century architecture”. Kindof gives the vicarious feeling of being there.
Copper 1 : Hey Blurry Face. Dont talk over there. Come here and talk.
Gert: yes - St Pancras is something special. I still think of it as “my” terminal - as it is the gateway to the Midlands - which is where I was raised.
Sat: It’s funny how a picture can evoke so many different stories and scenarios!
Posted by: Jag on March 11, 2004 02:28 PMI thought Euston is the gateway of Midlands!
Posted by: Chakra on March 12, 2004 09:21 AMHi Chakra - I think both Euston and St.Pancras are gateways to the Midlands - St.Pancras is moslty East Midlands I think - and Euston is for West Midlands and further up NW England too.
Posted by: Jag on March 12, 2004 12:05 PMI think the best example of old and new juxtaposed together wud be a bullockcart passing thru a cybercafe.….…and tht indeed happens in India.……cool na!!! Btw how r u?
Posted by: Shobha on March 12, 2004 06:07 PMWow Shobha - now I’d have to agree that that is something special! I’m fine (I think). How are you? Hope you are well.
Posted by: Jag on March 12, 2004 08:31 PMThat’s a great description of Paddington, Jag. I know it well, having spent a fair bit of time over the past decade travelling back to my homeland, Wales…it never used to be quite so modern and gleaming, you know…did you ever go there back in the early nineties? I remember it as a dusty, windswept concrete place, with maybe a grimy pub and a dingy cafe selling limp british rail sandwiches and tired congealed cooked breakfasts that had been lying on a hotplate for over an hour. The amazing victorian architecture was still there, of course, but it was covered in decades of sooty grime so it was easy to overlook. shudder It wasn’t a great first place to arrive in the city, back then…though, I agree, now it’s wonderful.
Posted by: sue on March 13, 2004 12:25 PMHi Sue - I think I do remember Paddington in the early nineties - yes it used ot be horrible - I especially remember the long walk between the Ham & City line tube platform and the Bakerloo tube platform - it used to be a really dirty, cold walk and all the clean and modern stuff you see oday just didn’t exist at all! Ha - I know exactly what you mean by limp sandwiches and congealed breakfasts!
Posted by: Jag on March 13, 2004 02:21 PM