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    The Northern City Line with RM Transit



    The weird line from Moorgate up to Finsbury Park feels like it’s been unloved and lost forever, and you’re travelling along an abandoned line and stations – even though it’s not! And as RM Transit was on a visit to London, I thought I’d take him along to show him around all the stations …

    Reece’s Channel is RM Transit : @RMTransit

    21 Comments

    3. Tom Carter on

      I didn't know Essex Road Station existed. 28 years of totally missing it 😂

      A fully underground train station (with no tube links),.. can't be too many of them??

    4. John Smith on

      Moorgate to Alexandra Palace a very useful service and on almost empty trains, I wonder why Reece was surprised at the name Old street? my book shows original spelling Eald Street, a route from pre Roman times, so defiantly old.

    5. John Smith on

      Moorgate station I think of as Liverpool Street 2.0, a convenient short stroll station connection even before the Elizabeth Line foot passage was thought of.

    6. David on

      Two of my favourite rail transit YouTubers together again. Reece, dude, where was the Canada T-Shirt? Great to see you guys together again and will RM transit have something on your channel about this? Geoff, yes, come to Toronto, see the Subways, Streetcars, Double-Decker GO Trains and more. Oh and don’t forget the Halton Country Radial Railway!

    7. John Smith on

      An interesting choice to take Reece who appeared to be in culture shock, Toronto where the earliest subway lines must be from approx 1950s, to this much older infrastructure, not NYC but still different.

    8. John Smith on

      Some legacy Network SouthEast branding, a huge area Weymouth to Kings Lynn, inc London, integrated ticketing, common train and station liveries, even for lighting and bench seating.

    12. Ian McClavin on

      During the last few years of London Underground operation, Essex Road was closed at weekends. Although opening daily from the takeover by BR, the entire line was without a Saturday or Sunday service for many years from 1986. This was only reinstated 2 or 3 years ago .

    14. Ian McClavin on

      I also noticed that although re-tiling of the platforms was undertaken just before Covid about 3 years ago, at Old Street and Highbury & Islington, only the northbound platforms have been dealt with, the southbound platforms have had their existing tiling "patched up."

    15. Ian McClavin on

      At Highbury, the southbound Victoria Line platform is the original northbound Northern City Line platform. The current Northbound Northern City platform was buit in the 60s at the same time as the Victoria Line was added in, but purposefully constructed to the larger size tunnel specification, so as not to interfere with any future plans to run larger stock on the line.

    16. Nooticus on

      Nice video of course, but as a local on this line, you really should have gotten a regular user to show you two this line, because there is absolutely a significant amount of 'secret' stuff that you've missed. You also made some strange assumptions, such as the fact that its 'oddly underused'… its certainly not, you've just clearly not used it regularly at peak times!

      A little dissapointing showing for my local line I can't lie. ):

    18. Em Jackson on

      07:02 – He'd love Pelaw then on the Tyne & Wear Metro.

      I mean, its a dump of a station really but it does have cross-platform transfer for one thing (South Shields to Sunderland lines – mostly used by people coming up from SS or S'land to go the other way, people coming from the North of the Tyne more often x'fer at Heworth (which also has a pair of National Rail platforms although, ironically, the south-bound Metro service platform is backed onto the North bound railway platform as opposed to sharing the platform like Sunderland Central does, thus making the x'fer harder than it needs to be).

      BUT I digress – what it does have, because its a junction also is open views of the national rail lines that carries cargo toward Port of Tyne e.g. oil tankers etc. often hauled by DB Class 60's in all red livery; then every now and again one sees the Network Rail "Class 99" Departmental Trains being hauled by a Class 37 & a Drive Van Trailer or occasionally nuclear flask trains (seriously eery as they're standing at a red when one is waiting for their Metro).

      After that, its Northern Rail DMUs – Class 156s usually, the occasional 159 – as well as Grand Central's service through to London. If there's ever an ECML divert on then you'd also get to see LNER Azuma's and Lumo Class 800s there & pretty well too (or Felling right near the NER signal box).

      When the line to Shields was being upgraded I did get to see a Freightliner Class 66 at Hebburn Metro station and OMG, how weird that looked!

    20. John Smith on

      @2:01 “too many seats” a peculiar comment from Reece, the opposite of what we like, stock is 
      moved around busy commuter regions, high seating capacity is needed, how would Reece feel if he boarded a busy four coach Great Western train at Didcot and had to stand for an hour.

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