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No.60 July 2004 | Contex HOME AROUND LONDON WITH ANDY SIMPSON Transport, Ancient and not so Modern Art in the Subway A rather unusual opportunity to explore most of the remaining Kingsway Tramway Subway at Holborn recently arose due to some Arts and Design Students. Second-year BA students of Central St Martins College of Art and Design, part of the London Institute, used it on 23-29 April, 2004, as the venue for a one-week exhibition. Entitled Thoughtcrime it was based on George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four and how some of its predictions have come true today - "new work inspired by George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four showing the book's continuing relevance to the world today" to quote their Jntroduction. Exhibits included a re-creation of one of the Guantanamo Bay prisoner cages complete with bucket and mattress, photographs, a CCTV camera, film, animation and sculpture. It was actually quite thought-provoking, particularly the posters setting out rules of behaviour for corporate office dwellers and the large-scale store points-collection card application form showing how information on your shopping habits can be manipulated to reveal details of your life. One alcove had model human ears affixed around it and the display was titled "walls have ears". Somewhat unsurprisingly, George W Bush and his foreign policy did not come out of it too well! The subway structure itself seems largely unchanged from my last trip down some ten years ago. The ramp and twin tracks remain, the easterly track being intact but largely covered by portacabins and Camden Council Highways Department junk. The tracks remain traceable in the floor up to and beyond the site of Holborn Tramway station, which appears to have been cleared of the former Flood Control Centre buildings on the platform. The tiled walls remain at the station, complete with ghostly outlines of the former Holborn "bull's-eye" enamel signs; both staircases up to street level are intact, as are the former advertising hoarding surrounds. The crossover just south of Holborn station remains intact, this being the limit of exploration permitted on this occasion. The former conduit slot is very visible throughout the accessible part of the tunnel. Trams at Walthamstow Your scribe arrived at Tottenham Hale Station for the free Imperial Bus Co Ltd of Rainham RT operated connecting shuttle bus service, taking a few minutes to photograph the four surviving trolleybus traction poles on the railway bridge (the only such survivors I know of in North London). The turn-out of visiting vehicles was disappointing and could be counted on the fingers of barely one hand. The open yard ofthe Museum is rapidly filling up with a selection of rather deteriorated railway rolling stock-LMS Brake van, modified BR Mk.l Research coach, LNWR box van (roofless) and a couple of plank wagons; plus a couple of items of tube stock including District Line motor car. Under the aegis of the associated Museum of Transport in Essex Society it now also has a tramcar, with one or two more to follow. Already on site is newly arrived 1957 built metre-gauge Krefeld bogie motorcar 412, still wearing the legal lettering of one-time holder Leicester City Transport, who initially stored it on behalf of the City of Leicester, to whom it was originally gifted by twin-town Krefeld in 1981. It now bears sad evidence of more recent external storage on the Great Central Railway. Accompanying 1956-built four-wheel trailer car Krefeld 41 is due shortly from the same source. The Museum of Transport Society representative resident in the tram informed me that the group also have an option on Frankfurt- am-Main No 210, a 1956 Duwag built Grossraumwagon residing outside at Wythall's Birmingham and Midland Museum of Transport since 1985. Negotiations are also underway for a couple of other UK-resident privately owned foreign trams. Are there any other trams or trolley buses around London? Please let us know.
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