A station in between.

Sitting proudly between and at the junction of Chalk Farm Road and Kentish Town Road, this is a typical Northern Line station of the period, clad in blood-red glazed tiles which have the amazing ability to:

• last around a billion years without maintenance (a useful feature for any Underground structure) and
• repel the London filth whilst doing so.

The station also sits on both the Edgeware and High Barnet branches of the Northern line, going north, and serves both the Bank and the Charing Cross branches going south. This unique placing makes it one of the most infuriating places to catch a train outside of Earls Court (or indeed most of the District Line). Two platforms serve each direction, and one of LRTs wonderful 'dotty boards' based at the bottom of the escalators spouts reams of mis-information about which platform the next train going whereever is going to be. In addition, in periods of high demand, an authoritive sounding Underground employee provides anyone who looks even slightly less than fully certain about their direction with further mis-information in a delightfully confident manner. The weary traveller is advised to simply pick a platform in the appropriate direction and stick with it.

Barriers to Entry

Camden Town Station is fairly unique in Inner London in that it does not have ticket barriers. Instead a full complement of the helpful and cheerful staff so typical of London Underground, check your ticket and allow you to proceed into or out of the gloom (or into the gloom in both directions most of the year). The reason for this is possibly the fact that Camden is overrun by tourists and ethnic-goods-bargin-hunters every weekend and the fitting of barriers would probably result in a total melt-down. As it is Camden is increasingly unavailable to locals, at least as an ajoining point; the station has been operating as exit only at weekends between 10 and 5 for some time now, and following the recent failure of one of the escalators, it was operating as exit only practically all weekend, requiring the use of the much more sedate Mornington Cresent or Chalk Farm stations (and their elevators) instead. During peak hours, visiting the station gives one a rare opportunity to jog down the spiral staircase provided for use in emergencies.

A load of old Tobias?

Tobias Hill has written a book called Underground which happens to centre around Camden Town Station. Although the book is no great shakes, it does have some interesting-if-true facts:

• Camden is a very deep station; there are underground shelters built during the war which stretch many metres below the platforms.
• There are unused platforms.
• South Kentish Town station (one of the so called Ghost Stations, see Ex-tube stations) is just up the road and may be spotted by the keen tube freak both above and below ground (the grill covering the entrance to the underground complex refered to by Mr.Hill is there, down the left site of Ca$h Converters, but I challange Mr.Hill to rip it off with his bare hands, however mad keen he is on the tottie that might be down there... ahh, artistic license in action).

Spare some change?

On emerging disorientated from the station, or alternatively after being denied it during the weekend, why not hang around and chat a while to the friendly vagrants outside the station and the HSBC bank? They are usually keen to share their Special Brew/life stories/dogs/language with the visiting hitch-hiker.

Other delights to behold are the fast food stalls immediately adjacent to the West exit, and the Half Way House Pub across the road to the East. Sitting, like the station, on the corner of two roads, it's a far easier place to meet up with friends than the crowded nearby World's End, and it's especially easy to meet up with people whom you didn't set out to meet up with, such as strange Scandinavians from Luton (at least in my experience...).