hello and welcome to cop4708 ignore even
by my geeky standards I'm a little bit
excited about this it's time to do
secrets of the Piccadilly line
there's a lot of stations on the
Piccadilly line 53 and daylight and time
was against us so he had to leave
straightaway believe Foster's take
a look at the station this is how to
make concrete look beautiful 26 out of
the 53 stations on the line
we're designed by Charles Holden a
famous underground architect but I have
all these amazing things to see in
composters before we leave Holden has a
massive design influence over the whole
line he built 47 stations for the
underground in total using simple brick
concrete and glass to build wonderful
looking stations you can see here
Oakwood and South Gate here are our
Musgrove bounds green and wood green
which by the way has got some really
nice iron work depicting rural scenes in
the ticket office area worth taking a
look at
oh and I forgot to mention back at South
Gate look on top of the station building
like a Dalek all the stations between
cop Fosters and Finsbury Park also have
their own unique colour scheme it's a
subtle but no worthy touch if you've
never realized it before it's similar to
how many stations on the line also have
their own unique tiling pattern and they
were used to give each station a visual
identity for those that were illiterate
and so loved is holding on the line that
a darkness Grove often seen as his ps/2
resistance they've converted the old
path meter in the middle of the ticket
hall into a display dedicated to his
life and works
a Regulus B Road station home of the
wool egde Wanderers Football Club you
might know them as Arsenal and if you're
not a fan of 22 men kicking a ball
around the money pitch then you've
probably never got out here which means
you've never seen this no I'm not in
jail which is what it may look like in
fact what it is there's a segregated
pathway so that on crowded football
match days depending on which way the
flood passages are going you don't get
congested between actual passengers and
those that are just here for the
football so we're at Holloway Road with
a something really cool to see you come
down the stairs there's the main lift
shaft over here but through here and you
can see there's a light we believe this
leads down to a second this shaft where
an experimental spiral escalator system
was installed in the early 1900s
unfortunately it didn't work and it
broke on its first day down there we
carried on south through Caledonian Road
the only deep-level tube station where
lifts go directly to platform level and
then to another favorite shortcut about
so rat Kings Cross that's the westbound
Piccadilly over there's the eastbound
there before we were here for the
Victorian line video and we showed you a
shortcut here's another one if you
turned down here there are some steps
down and there's a passageway which goes
under the eastbound Piccadilly line
platform and here's where it brings you
out the nine platforms
next time for another disused station
that's actually why we love the
Piccadilly line the most it's full of
them we're at Holborn station which has
a strict one-way system when trying to
get to and from the Piccadilly line
platforms also you've made notice that
you go up some steps across Down Under
there's lots of upping and downing the
reason why what you may not realize is
that you're actually navigating the old
platforms and there are two of them here
at Holborn that went down to all which
station they used to be behind like a
metal grill nowadays it's a door you
can't see through but trust me the other
side of that door there's a whole
platform and tracks that run down to
orbit if you're a regular commuter at
Hammersmith station here's the thing you
miss everyday Piccadilly line over here
which is blue and District Line trains
call here sure of course green on the
tube map and that's important because
the Tube map has been replicated in the
clock up here instead of numbers look
there's lines connector blobs and little
ticks and that's brilliant
so the glamorous world of underground
secret videos has brought me to car park
but there's a reason why over there you
might be to hear in the distance behind
a brick wall if the Piccadilly lines
because the trains used to run down here
and we're standing right near where the
old station used to be for Hounslow West
the history of the station's in Hounslow
is quite complicated and so we've made a
bonus video about it it's an animated
timeline of the history of underground
railways in the hands lo area don't
worry I'll be right here when you get
back and whilst you checking out that
bonus video I was checking out the roof
of the ticket hall at Hounslow West next
time you walk through there just to make
sure you look up it's beautiful
we went back up the line through Austin
Lee also making sure that we looked out
for the old abandoned platforms our
ostomy Park and Spring Grove and then we
went to find the old abandoned escalator
at our per tonne station and it's still
here today hidden behind this door which
is why there's all the warning signs
there's no desk later bricked up no
longer in use there's so many great
things about the Piccadilly line it's
hard to squeeze them all into one video
here's a quickie though the tower work
at Leicester Square station with the
letters L T but with time running out we
have to move on to our final stop so at
the end of the video and I very
deliberately saved the best til last
with an interesting question which I can
finally give an answer one thing that I
get asked
probably is what is your favorite
station Jeff I give you summary town and
there's nothing not to love about it
it's full of original features including
the old ticket booth this waiting room
and look is the only tube station that
has a barometer and I'll leave with the
best thing sub return is unique for
having a new Johnson Surry font so the
rounders look unlike any other on the
hold of the tube network