After a long train ride back from Arbroath I headed down into King’s Cross Tube. I had been visiting family for five days for my brilliant godson’s graduation parties and I carried a small but heavy suitcase. Five days, five pairs of shoes, right? I also had a bag with laptop, chargers etcetera in it on my shoulder.
Leaning the weight of the case on my hip, I bent sideways to walk down the two flights of steps to get the escalator that leads to the Metropolitan line. The same platform also serves the Circle and Hammersmith & City lines. I thought I had read the arrivals sign correctly, but somehow got on the wrong train. I looked up from my playlist hoping I was almost at Finchley Road, only to see I was approaching Edgware Road instead.
Rookie error. But I thought: I can correct it; I’ll take the Bakerloo back to Baker Street and change on to the Met line or the Jubilee there. No I wouldn’t, because Edgware Road is bonkers.
Unless it was a mirage, this very beautiful Victorian station appeared to have four lines and two platforms all for travelling in the same direction, but none of them going back to Baker Street. I kept blinking and looking, blinking and looking, checking stops on maps. How had I managed to pass through Baker Street from King’s Cross but couldn’t just go back there? Had I passed through Baker Street at all? I must have! But whether it was the light Scottish jet lag, the madness of the Tube signs, me trying to make it home by eight, or a combination of them all, I simply could not figure out where to go.
I decided I had no choice but to go on to Paddington and take the Bakerloo from there, which would definitely get me to Baker Street. Again, I lugged the suitcase up multiple flights of steps to get on the right line from Edgware Road to Paddington (District line, one stop). But wait, isn’t Edgware Road on the Bakerloo line, too? Yes it is. So why did it seem I couldn’t go to Baker Street from there? What the hell had I done?
Then, on arriving at Paddington’s boiling hot, deep and airless District line station there was not a single sign to the Bakerloo to be seen. I followed “Way Out” up a ridiculous three more flights of stairs, cursing every shoe choice, one of which was a pair of heavy boots I had worn on my way to Scotland but which the weather was too hot for on the way back.
I did get home eventually and there sat on the couch with the dog wondering why I had been unable to correct my Underground error. The otherworldly Edgware Road station still had me baffled. I was dopey from the journey-after-the-journey. I was at the end of a line, literally and metaphorically. It felt like I had stepped through a portal and travelled back in time.
On further investigation it turns out there are TWO Edgware Road stations: one accommodates the District, Circle and Hammersmith & City lines and the other is on the Bakerloo. They have the same name, but there’s no passage linking them. Over 30 years of taking the Tube around London and I had no idea that two stations with the same name were not connected. That makes about as much sense as my shoe-packing.
Julie Hamill writes novels, appears on Times Radio and does lots, lots more. Follow her on X/Twitter. Support OnLondon.co.uk and its writers for just £5 a month or £50 a year and get things for your money too. Details HERE. Photo by Hiroyuki Nishioka.
Both the Edgware Rd tube station could be connected by underground subways that exist between them under the Marylebone flyover but alas TfL does not have the imagination to do so!
“Over 30 years of taking the Tube around London and I had no idea that two stations with the same name were not connected.” OK, I guess that’s just about possible if you’ve never had to go that way before – though as you were heading that way on that occasion….?! All you needed to do was get on the platform showing trains east to Kings Cross. Can’t recall if it’s Plat 1, but given there are only 2 physcial island platforms, it’s pretty easy (mind you I did it for 3 years every day)