Today's Transport Video

[chrishansenhome]

London would have been quite different if the plans of London Transport had been followed through 50 years ago. This really interesting video shows what might have been had they done so, and what's there now.

I think that this is close to trawnapanda's old stomping grounds.

Comments

[trawnapanda.livejournal.com]

now THAT's fascinating. I knew about the Northern Heights, and that Mill Hill East was as far as things ever got; but only by reading. The images and narrative provided are very interesting and fill in lots of other points I didn't get. (and I loved the humour in the "this is my gran's house")

Are there any others like this- the beginning sounds as if it's one of a series, and I'd be most interested to see more like this. Right at the end, he talks about other planning cock-ups, and I'd love to know what those pictures were part of (other than the piers of the old blackfriars bridge in the Thames) - not that the story there wouldn't be interesting, but the others I had no clue what they were.

this is somewhat west of my old stomping ground. High Barnet tube station is right across the street from my sisters' grammar school, and not far from the school where my dad and mum worked. High Barnet was about as far west/north as we went in our normal movements through the week. We lived in East Barnet, and the closest tube station was actually Cockfosters, top end of the Piccadilly line.

[chrishansenhome.livejournal.com]

Are there any others like this

I wouldn't be surprised. You might want to go to the YouTube site, which may have other vids, or just google "unfinished London" to see what you get.

The disused piers next to Blackfriars Bridge are going to be used for the expansion of the station in the next year or so.

[tim1965.livejournal.com]

Faaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaascinating!!!

To show how American I am: I had to listen to this once all the way through before my mind was able to catch up to his accent. Now I can understand him. But for several minutes there, I needed to adjust. :)

[chrishansenhome.livejournal.com]

Did you watch "Trainspotting"? I can't even understand that.

[tim1965.livejournal.com]

That's odd, because I can totally understand the accents in Trainspotting. They sound far more flat and less clipped to me than the "Unbuilt London" accent.

[chrishansenhome.livejournal.com]

I guess that since I live in London, I'm used to listening to that London estuary English accent. As I've only been to Glasgow once, and decided that it's the armpit of the nation, I didn't bother to "get" the accent.

[tim1965.livejournal.com]

I speak with Glaswegians all the time (there's a big vet school up there), and I find that accent very easy to understand. I often think it's because, coming from the West (where sibilance is uncommon and flat constants are used), I'm more attuned to it. The London accent, with its elongated, dipping vowels and clipped ending consonants, takes me a while...