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Kensington Olympia station in the 80s.

editor

editor

hiraethified
A few snaps of this rather quirky station.

kensington-olympia-02.jpg


kensington-olympia-03.jpg



Anyone use this station?

More: http://www.urban75.org/railway/kensington-olympia-station.html
 
editor said:
A few snaps of this rather quirky station.

kensington-olympia-02.jpg


kensington-olympia-03.jpg



Anyone use this station?

More: http://www.urban75.org/railway/kensington-olympia-station.html
Click to expand...

That's down the road from me as well.. they only put a ticket machine on the non Olympia side of the station in the past couple of years, which used to mean if you needed a ticket and were heading towards Clapham, you had to go over the bridge twice - with luggage for the Gatwick train was a pain in the..

As for having it as a local station when things like Erotica are on, you can sometimes be the only non leathered person there.. ditto the beer festival :D
 
One of the few stations in central London that I've never been to. Is it on the district line. Photos look as though it is an overground line. :confused:
 
One of my early childhood memories is being taken by my father to the Great Motor Extravaganza at Olympia. When we cam out we had a sandwich and a cup of tea in a cafe right on the bridge over the station, i just looked on Google earth and its still there, and we walked down to the station platform. There on the back of another train was the Flying Scotsman, it had recently returned from America.
 
toblerone3 said:
One of the few stations in central London that I've never been to. Is it on the district line. Photos look as though it is an overground line. :confused:
Click to expand...

it's a branch of the district line i think, I've only been there for the beer festival :)
 
It is a bit of a curiosity... I think I'm right in saying, it was the only "through" station with Intercity services in central London until the Crosscountry services were withdrawn last year (leading to the "ghost train" bus service; there's a thread on it somewhere).

Here it is in the 70s

2007952289_1f988bd5e7.jpg


As your article says, it was a motorail terminal for while, with trains to all sorts of places. The building is now a car park but it is still called the "motorail" car park.

When I worked in Shepherd's Bush a few years ago, I would occasionally get one of these

47747-Olympia%20-1.jpg


to Clapham Junction, shortly before their withdrawal.

A lot of freight trains go through there (then onto the line through Brixton); the West London Line is one of the main routes for freight from the North going to and from the Channel tunnel.
 
toblerone3 said:
One of the few stations in central London that I've never been to. Is it on the district line. Photos look as though it is an overground line. :confused:
Click to expand...

Does it only open for events at Olympia? Or did it only do that?

Shuttle service goes one stop from, err, the station on the mainline (it'll come to me in a minute).

I've used it when going to BETT (education IT fair thingie - they don't have no cream pies there iirc...), but tbh it's easier to walk from High Street Ken way or get a bus - too many people waiting at Earls Court (remembered!).
 
NIce shots - funny old place , used to have a service to Earls Court till the germans saw that off in 1940 or so , post war had a bit of modernism , had a thriving traffic in milk tanks from West Wales , Lyons cakes from Cadby Hall (where the blessed Margaret worked) , reinvented itslef as a Motorail terminal in the 1960's , trains to Fishguard for Ireland and Scotland , then the very limited Clapham - Kensington service "The Kenny Belle" - became an all day 30 mins service to Willesden Jct in 1995.

Used to be an Area Manager there at one time - as well as being the place you diverted Eurostar trains to Waterloo if anything happened there - which it did once when I was Ops Manager some time in the last 90's.

Pretty well thriving now - though that **** Ibbotson once put the line up as a road conversion scheme - about 30 freight movements a day through there by the way. :)
 
The Eurostar trains used to come through there on their way to and from the North Pole depot too, didn't they?

I've always wondered why the Eurostar depot was put on the opposite side of London from Waterloo (or St Pancras for that matter).
 
The Eurostar depot was there as it was the only place available (on an old marshalling yard) - which was (a) vacant (b) had space for the extra long trains - Clapham , the other contender was too full with other rolling stock and of course the EPS depot needed to be ultra secure and with the specialised equipment and staffing etc for the new trains.

Quite right - there were about 15 empty moves a day to and from North Pole depot to Waterloo International in its heyday - it will live again , and its owned by BR Board (residual) today !!!!
 
Have used it quite a bit in the recent past - was ideally for getting to west kensington for training courses from wembley without having to change 4 times on the tube! I'd guess from reading ed's article that the station is probably as busy now as its ever been, with regular london overground trains serving it from clapham junction to willesden/stratford, and the hourly(?) clapham-watford junction service that southern run. its always seemed quite busy at peak times whether there is an event at olympia or not.
 
Puddy_Tat said:
more on olympia station here - http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/stations/k/kensington_olympia/index2.shtml

the district line service (olympia - earls court - high street kensington) is now an all day thing - it used only to be when there was a big exhibition on.
Click to expand...

Actually there are loads of office blocks all along the street into Hammersmith, and it is a major commuter route, I know this because my own office is based there.

The West London line links West London with the North West and South London, saving money and time. I used to commute from East Croydon to KO everyday for a while, until I moved to Battersea.

Getting on a three carriage Silverlink train at 0905 on platform 2 from Clapham Junction with ten thousand other souls used to be hell, now with the Overground I think they have one or two more services an hour.

What annoys me now is that Battersea Railway bridge has no walking or cycling route across, and they closed Battersea Station which would have been right next door.

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/stations/b/battersea/index.shtml
 
Used to use it when I went to trade fairs at Olympia when I had the shop. I'd always try and have a look in the Bristol showroom round the corner when I was there too. :)
 
When I was child we used to get the Motorail sleeper from Kensington Olympia to my great-grannies in the highlands. Was a great adventure and almost compensated for having to spend a wet cold week in a drafty old house in the highlands.
 
PacificOcean said:
Finally?

They have been saying it was coming soon since about 2001.

Anyway isn't it just for the posh people in those fancy flats?

There is nothing else round there.
Click to expand...

I got off there the other day. Nice shiny new station for all the nice shiny (expensive) apartments nearby.

I literally had to pull myself off the pack to the limit train using the overhead handles it was so packed. And because nobody was getting on or off it was made 10 times more difficult.
 
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