Oct 23 - RCAF Surprise, Hidden Tube Station & Natural History Museum

Today's scheduled tour was the 'Hidden Tube Tour.'  I got to the meeting point early, so I looked at my phone/map and chose a walk around Lincoln's Inn Fields, a public green space near Holborn Tube Station.  It shows up on Google if you are interested.

It had a nice grass field in the middle, and this bust & description for John Hunter.

What really got me was the phrase in the second paragraph, "Why think, why not try the experiment?"    I dunno, I was one his table I might tell him "Uh, uh. Go experiment on somebody else."   The description referenced the Royal College of Surgeons, and there it is, across the road.  I don't think the museum there is high on my list.

Here is why I put 'RCAF Suirprise' in today's title.  At the next entrance to the Fields, I found this sign

I like the first (big print) line of the description - I've read more than once that Canadians 'elivened' social life during the war.

I hope you can read this in the blog as it is interesting.  If not, email me and I'll send you the original photo - Blogspot does not allow much enlargement.  (I'm starting to hate this version of Blogspot, but it's too late to change).

I didn't have enough time to go to the front door of the house, or to check on the Maple tree, so it was off to the tour.

HIDDEN HOLBORN

Holborn is the next Tube station down from Russell Square (which is the one closest to me).  I met the rest ot the tour group (16 people) and the 3 leaders (actually 1 leader: Tommy, 1 helper to open doors, and the other helper to follow behind and make sure nobody gets lost).

Holborn opened as a tube station in 1906 on the Piccadilly Line.  We are going to learn osme of the history of Holborn and also get into the tunnel of the the abandoned Aldwych Station and line.

  Holborn as it looked originally - the station entrance and platform

Poor lighting, wooden plank floors.  This is a fairly deep station; 40 - 50 meters underground (175 steps if you climb them instead of using the elevators).

Here's the Platform now

Todaynit still looks old, but nicer.

The Aldwych Line was a short line going from here to (of course) Aldwych,  It was abandoned due to poor use.

Some service tunnel (no finish on the cast iron frames)

The Abandoned Aldwych Tunnel now

This tunnel is used for testing - the graphics on the left were the test of a new design.  The white shack at the end is the original signal shack - long since abandoned and removed everywhere else as signals are all automated now.

More of the abandoned tunnel - at least the lights are on.

An abandoned stairwell.  The coloured tiles had different patterns from station to station to help identify the location. Look at all the electrical cables added for an upgrade to Holborn after it was abandoned.  

The current stairwells don't look much better, except for no visible cables.

One of the earlier line posters.  Tommy pointed out a clue as to it being outdated - it is now company standard for the direction arrows to only have 2 feathers instead of 3

OK - last two photos.  These tunnels were used as bomb shelters in WW2.  There was a kitchen and offices as well. 

I have more photos but they are the sort that only an engineer could love.

The tour took an hour and it was raining so I went back to the flat for lunch.  About 1:30 I headed for the Natural History Museum (NHM).  Still lots of crowd there, but thinning out.

NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM

I'll start with some of the obligatories:

The Main Entrance.  Note the lack of wall to wall people

The Blue Whale skeleton in the Hintze (main) hall

The 1300 Hundred Year Old Sequoia 

It was 1341 years old when felled in 1891

The descriptions correspond to historical dates:

It started growing in the year 640

It was 426 years old when the Battle of Hastings occurred

I missed the T. Rex model.  I'll get him next time.

Just wandering about:

Displays of 'stuffed' birds, according to type

These are the pheasant genre

Then the mineral exhibit hall.  This is a typical case, displaying related minerals

There must be about 200 or more cases like the above in the room.

One sample photo of the mineral cases is enough.  

The next (smaller) gallery was labeled 'The Vault,' I assume as the speciemns there are rare and / or expensive

 Here are a couple of a couple random 'rare' specimens  

One set of galleries I did want to see were the Volcanos & Earthquakes.  These were a more modern style of display with more hands on and interactive displays.

The first Earthquake detector

Earthquake simulation

The floor of the room shakes in order to emulate the 1995 Kobe Earthquake.  A hit with the kids.

I'll finish with a couple of dinosaur skeletons

And this is the 'Sophie' referred to in the above description.

Tomorrow is Shakespeare day.  More Stories afterwards

Greg