Tag Archives: Overground

Quiz, Railways, Tangential Topics, Transport

Metro Memory

This is very trivial and tangential but it does relate to the City and Docklands and is rather fun, albeit a thief of time.

How does it work? It tests your memory or knowledge of London’s public transport.

You type in, one by one, every ‘metro’ station that you can remember. This means Underground, Overground, Docklands Light Railway and Elizabeth Line. Out of town stations such as Reading on the Lizzie Line are included (there’s a free one for you!).

Tramlink and National Rail stations are excluded unless they are metro stations as well.

A map will show which stations you’ve entered. You can move the map around to see the blanks and (maybe) remind you of stations that you have missed. The map is geographic instead of schematic and it’s interesting to see where stations are in relation to each other.

A counter will indicate what percentage of them you’ve so far managed to remember. There are over 500 in total.

Find the quiz at london.metro-memory.com – and don’t blame me if you get engrossed and forget to eat or pick up the children.

You can play it on your phone but laptop or PC is better as you get a better view of the map.

If you don’t finish in one go then you can carry on from where you left off another time. This applies even if you’ve closed your browser or restarted your computer – provided you’ve not cleared cookies in the meantime.

The game will, not unreasonably, ask for a donation from time to time. You can bypass this and carry on or bung in a few quid as the quiz would have involved quite a bit of work.

Aficionados of I’m Sorry I Haven’t A Clue will, of course, finish at Mornington Crescent.

Test your METRO MEMORY

1800s, Creatures, Engineers, Railways, Shipworm, Tunnels

Wapping Tunnel and Station

Wapping station opened in December 1879 as part of the East London railway but its story began over 50 years earlier.

in the early 1800s there was a need to connect the north and south docks. There were two unsuccessful attempts to dig a tunnel but these were thwarted by the soft clay and quicksand which caused the tunnel rooves to collapse. The project was declared impractical.

A French engineer, however, believed that he had a solution. Although he he no record of tunnel building he persuaded investors to finance a tunnel from Rotherhithe to Wapping. One of those investors was Arthur Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington. That engineer was called Marc Brunel who had patented a device called the tunnelling shield.

How did this work? Brunel had chanced upon a marine creature called a Shipworm. This bored tunnels through wood but in its wake secreted a coating of limestone particles on the tunnel walls to stop them collapsing.

The shield had similar principles, a round framework accommodating a dozen or so men who would dig into the sand and mud whilst bricklayers reinforced the tunnel walks behind them.

Construction started in 1825 and progress was slow, about a foot per week. There were often leaks and noxious river water would poor through. Other hazards were methane which was inflammable and hydrogen sulphide which was poisonous.

In 1827 the roof was breached and Brunel’s son, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, repaired it using a diving bell lowered from a boat. Afterwards they held a dinner party in the tunnel to celebrate!

It was finally completed in 1843 at a cost of £630,000. Instead of being a thoroughfare between the docks it was ornately decorated and accommodated London’s second shopping arcade!

The tunnel was fashionable to visit, charged an admission fee of one penny to over 2 million people each year.

In 1865 is was purchased by the East London railway and became it’s northern terminus.

It is now the deepest underground station on the Overground network.

In the 1860s a young engineer called James Greathead, inspired by Brunel’s shield, developed his own version and used this to build the second tunnel under the Thames from Tower Hill to Southwark (if you want to know more, come on my Tower Hill walk). Greathead’s shield was subsequently used to build the first tunnelled underground lines including the Waterloo & City and Northern Lines.

The Wapping Tunnel is part of my Docklands North Bank walk.