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On 10th August 2003 I was fortunate to be able to participate in a visit to the abandoned London Underground Railway station 'Wood Lane' with the railway enthusiast group Craven's Heritage Trains. The history of this and other stations on the London Underground is fascinating and worth investigating. I readily admit that I am no expert in this subject but a quick summary of the history of Wood Lane follows.
London Underground as it currently exists is a relatively modern innovation. Many of the individual lines that comprise the tube network started life as independent companies, established by entrepreneurs at the tail end of the nineteenth century and the dawn of the twentieth. The Central London Railway was opened in 1900 and ran a fleet of locomotives unusual in that it was not steam powered but rather powered by electricity. Perhaps in celebration of this fact the main colour scheme of the line comprised white tiles that on many other lines would have been blackened by the soot from the engines. However another claim to fame for the CLR was that it was the only deep tube line with steam engines for emergency use!
Wood Lane station was opened on 14th May 1908, part of an extention to the Central London Railway designed primarily to bring visitors to the 1908 Franco-British Exhibition, an international exhibition and trade fair, comparable with the Great Exhibition of 1851 and intended to underline the entente cordiale that marked the end to centuries of open warfare between the two countries and their new status as allies against the rising power of Germany and throughout the twentieth century.
The exhibition was a huge affair and the entire area became known as 'White City' for the large number of white-plastered exhibition buildings on the site. Wood Lane station was intended to remain open only for the duration of the exhibition but remained in use due to the large number of sporting events and exhibitions subsequently using the White City site.
The station remained in use until 22nd Nov 1947 when the new Central Line station at White City was constructed to serve the 1948 Olympic Games which were held at the White City Stadium - part of London's decleration that with the war over life would continue, and as part of an ambitious scheme to combat unemployment and urban decline in the area. The stadium has since been redeveloped for housing.
Wood Lane station has several interesting and unusual features.
Since the Central Line of London Underground still runs through the eastbound platform of the old station, and the approach to Wood Lane depot runs through the main westbound platform, both platforms have escaped redevelopment and have been used mostly for the storage of maintenance materials. As a result, a number of original items of decor and advertisements remain in situ from the time of the station's closure in 1947. In addition the red station facade has remained little touched by the passage of time. Unfortunately, however, in recent times these have suffered at the hands of many graffiti artists and the above-ground elements of the station are now scheduled for demolition as part of a scheme to redevelop much of the White City area. At the same time London Underground plans to straighten the running tunnels in this region and this is expected to lead to the destruction of the underground portions of the station. The London Transport Museum has already removed a number of items of historical interest to safety, including the red brick facade of the station which has been removed to the museum's Acton Town depot for conservation.
In addition this station has been used as a set for a number of television programmes including the BBC Television Series Doctor Who (filmed just across the road) and the Thames Television series The Tomorrow People. It's generally delapidated condition, combined with its unmistakable nature as a London Underground station made it perfect for filming both the deserted post-invasion London and the home base of a group desiring both privacy and security.
Interestingly, at Wood Lane (and White City) the east and west-bound platforms swap places with respect to those in other stations on the line. It is a feature of English property law that individuals must be paid a 'way-leave' if a railway line passes underneath their land. In order to avoid making such payments, many of the older lines turn through near right-angles in places in order to remain below wide public streets. At Wood Lane, the avoidance of way-leaves led the architects of the line to cross one line above the other and so trains running through this station were running right, rather than left, handed.
Slightly more randomly, the large brick buildings on Wood Lane that once housed the generators that powered the Central London Railway, and which still stand, were used more recently for the filming of the climactic scenes of the movie Who Framed Roger Rabbit? and these listed buildings are expected to escape demolition as part of the redevelopment. They are in fact expected to be used for a supermarket!
The Central Line is still run from buildings on Wood Lane, each train on the line identifiable and directable from an impressive central control room. The Wood Lane / White City train depot also remains in limited use, lending continuity both to Wood Lane and to London's busiest Tube line.
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