Two new Tube Stations? Well one new station and one new name. Shepherd’s Bush, on the Hammersmith and City line is to be renamed Shepherd’s Bush Market, one assumes for the sensible reason that the Piccadilly line Shepherd’s Bush station is about a mile away and causes a bit of confusion. All well and good.
But what’s this. Also on the Hammersmith and City line, a new spanking station called Wood Lane. A beloved address of old Swap Shop viewers, this station will seem to serve the BBC Television Centre in its entirety and nobody else. No wonder the BBC are reporting it. Note, this is the first time they’ve slipped a new station in for seventy years after the great rationalisation and ghosting of lots of existing stations in the twenties (British Museum, Dover Street and everywhere else on the Ghost Tube Station map…)
But wait, what is this we see. Wood Lane is NOT a new statation at all. There used to be a Wood Lane Station, on the Central Line (a mere hop and skip from White City). Here have a looksee at its building and everything. It only got knocked down three years ago, and now the new station will be plumped on the Hammersmith & City. See what a little bit of research can do. I guess this is because Hammersmith & City are the young tube trains on Underground Ernie (young and strangely a conjoined twins too – which I guess is a first for kids TV).