Deep in West Kensington lies Lillie Bridge Depot, first used to stable Metropolitan and District Trains in 1905 and then by Piccadilly Line trains until its closure in 1932. Today the depot serves as an engineering base, but it will soon be pressed into stabling service once more when the S-Stock begins to make its presence felt on the network – the depot is long enough to stable the new trains, unlike some of the facilities currently used elsewhere.
Given its past and future importance, therefore, you could be forgiven for thinking that the depot represents London Underground’s main presence in the area. In fact though, it is the non-descript office block next door that is arguably more important to LU. That building is Ashfield House, named (unsurprisingly) in honour of one the Underground’s most legendary figures – Albert Stanley, or Lord Ashfield as he later became.
Ashfield House fulfils several vital functions for London Underground. Possibly its most important, and that which we will describe here, is as one of the key centres of training on the Underground, training Train Operators, Controllers and others in the key skills they will need on the network. In order to help fulfil these training duties there is something Ashfield House has that pretty much no other building can boast – West Ashfield, its very own Underground station.
A Station Without Passengers
Stepping out the lifts several stories up in Ashfield House can be a slightly disconcerting experience. Glance left and you’ll find yourself looking at a traditional office block, all fire doors and cream paint. All the little tell-tale signs that it is a TfL building are there if you know what you are looking for – signage in New Johnston and walls bedecked with the art (old and new) of the Underground. There are also a few unique attributes that suggest the building’s occupants have more affection for the Underground than your regular office worker – most offices can’t boast meeting and training rooms named after long-dead Tube Rolling Stock. All that aside, however, the corridors and rooms trailing off into the distance are no different from any other.
Look right, however, and the whole world changes.
It would be easy to think that West Ashfield station was simply a visual gimic – something to enliven training sessions – but this is not the case. West Ashfield isn’t just a decorated corridor, its a micro-station environment with a very clear purpose. It may contain a number of rooms and facilities that your average station doesn’t (more on those later), but it also places trainees, when appropriate, in an atmosphere that is as similar as possible to that in which they may find themselves working.
That this is more than simply set-decoration is hinted to by the presence of genuine Metro buckets (and discarded Metros) out front, and by the poster offering details of buses that can be caught from the station, and once inside this is soon confirmed beyond doubt.
Enter West Ashfield and you’re greeted by a fully functioning set of Oyster gates (although you may wish to avoid tapping in as apparently they have developd an annoying habit of wiping cards). Look right and you’ll also find yourself facing a ticket office, complete with virtual inhabitants.
Save for the presence of additional training rooms, the internal surfaces also carry the kind of acoutrements that you would expect to find in a standard station. Even the floor tiles, though carpetted, have been picked with the intention of adding to the station’s overall feel.
West Ashfield, it soon becomes clear as you head towards its single platform (passing the visual illusion that is its lift in the process), is apparently on the District Line.
That platform itself is obviously not the complete deal – few modern offices are designed with the foresight that would allow them to be reconfigured to contain an entire station platform – but it possesses all the key elements required to train staff in its operation.
As can be seen above, this includes a full set of points – perfect for instructing in the ways of the Scotch block and clip (although the creative swearing required when these have not been put back by the last engineering team to use them is apparently not on the curriculum).
The setup also includes signals, section boxes and, at track level, fully functioning train stops and a train tripcock tester. Unfortunately it appears that West Ashfield is also a bit of a SPAD hotspot.
A Model for Learning
As mentioned above, West Ashfield also contains some unique features that can’t be found elsewhere. The greatest of these is its incredible model railway.
Commissioned last October, this fully functioning line-in-miniature features S-Stock trains and has five stations – Hammersmith Bridge, Strand-on-the-Green, West Ashfield, Kensington Palace and Hobbs End (there’s a classic Sci Fi reference in there for the eagle-eyed).
The level of detail is impressive. The S-Stock units that run on its track come complete with their own car numbers and it appears that even model Underground Lines aren’t completely safe from taggers (although at least they’re apparently safe from Tox).
Of course the model railway isn’t a toy – it’s a learning tool. This accounts for its most impressive facet of all – it’s a fully signalled railway, and one that features three different control frames.
The first of these is a mechanical frame, built from scratch by Ride-on Railways (Westinghouse having reluctantly admitted it was beyond their skills). It includes a cut-away base so that its movements can be seen in full.
The second is a WESTRACE frame, as might be found on the Central Line.
The third, the ghost of Upminster-past, is a push button frame (which sadly this author seems to somehow failed to capture on film).
Finally, it is worth noting that whilst this modern model is impressive, London Underground have done this kind of thing before. White City was host to a similar signals practice setup back in the day (from which engineers were prone to pinch the odd fuse when needed for the real railway in an emergency) and this has not been completely forgotten – glance beneath the new model and there’s just a little reminder of the old
Overall, its an impressive piece of model engineering – and short of an unlikely invite to the lofts of Phil Collins or Rod Stewart, the best this author is likely to see.
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