![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small}
All three of the stations for this post: Osterly, Boston Manor and Northfields are from the same European style from the 30s, with the same use of strong contrasting horizontal and vertical planes, brick and glass spires and turrets. I can't see that these rooftop details serve any purpose other than to give a dramatic skyline. Maybe it's because they are from the Golden Age of the Cinema, but I love the sweep of them: uncluttered, unfussy; a forward-motion thrust towards a glamorous future of fast cars and sky captains, cocktail parties and oceanliners, chrome plate and plate glass; a streamlined, clean-edged, stark modern world, free from class and gender division, jazz bright and exciting.
Annoyingly I've just discovered that there's an abandoned station about 300m to the East, but we were more concerned with getting a bit further along the line to Boston Manor to see the back of the Northfield Depot where all the Piccadilly trains go to sleep at night. We spot a platform roundel visible through a first storey window on our way back in, but once I get to the platform I realise it's the other side of the 'do not cross on danger of death' barrier, and another train is coming, so we totally fail to get platform shots at Osterley. Well, gives me an excuse to go back and look for the building for Osterly and Spring Grove.
So, one stop up to Boston Manor, which favours the white picket fence approach to platform design. The sun suddenly blazes forth again:
Goth Shun Sun!!!! Run! Run from the burny thing in the sky...
Goth Shun Sun!!!! Run! Run from the burny thing in the sky...
Over the road, the more Classical potbellied balustrades on the road bridge have been filled in to prevent people throwing things on the tracks below which lead to Northfields Depot. You can see Northfields from South Ealing station, and many's the time I've stared down the platform willing a train to come, watching them just sitting there, hibernating. Have been curious for a long time to see the other side of the Depot. Oh, what a spotterish confession!
Now this will be a good image to play with - all those wiggling lines...I am keen to start a drawing based on the shapes going on here. The train tracks run alongside the depot as we travel up to Northfields and more deco style station design.
