Tim Dunn
@MrTimDunn
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Historian, geographer, team #Railway200. Presenter @UKTV #TheArchitectureTheRailwaysBuilt & #SecretsOfTheLondonUnderground, Trainspotter &🏳️🌈. Own views, obv
London, UK
Joined February 2011
I have been asked an interesting question. Why does London’s Moorgate tube station have a mix of “traditional” bar-and-Circle roundels. and weird diamonds? Well. (1/6)
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“I MUST tell you,” said a lady with breathless excitement, stopping us suddenly as we walked down Bermondsey Street last night, “I MUST tell you that you are wearing the same clothes as that building.” and skipped off
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The @Moma released this haunting 1902 film of the Wuppertal Suspended Railway in Germany - but now it’s been colourised and upscaled to 4K and it is incredibly beautiful
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This week, 7 years ago in the Netherlands, the overhead wires on the mainline were damaged - stranding a modern electric unit near Hoorn. In a somewhat Thomas-The-Tank-style surprise, it was rescued by a tiny 1922-built steam loco, normally confined to an adjoining museum railway
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Ugh. Cannot WAIT until this current obsession by developers in turning perfectly decent homes into giant grey appliances is over
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I’m at @londonwaterloo to observe genuinely extraordinary scenes tonight as 6,000 armed forces staff arrive for #Coronation rehearsal. Scenes not seen for a generation and EXACTLY reflect Helen Mckie’s 1948 famous ‘War & Peace’ paintings pair. Some kind of glorious coincidence?🤔
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The gothic West Front of Wells Cathedral - with c.300 carved figures - in medieval times was painted vibrant colours. Also I learned today of the “Singing Galleries” behind the sculptures: so that trumpets & choirs could play thru apertures, amazing the citizens below. Incredible
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UPDATE: Reason to still love Twitter №1,999:.
Hi Tim - I was that slightly odd stranger who had just come out of Eames art gallery. I thought I recognised you, but now I realise who you are! I am a massive fan of both your work and your ability to dress as Bermondsey Street. Hope you had a lovely rest of the evening.
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I am never not *astonished* when I walk thru Lutyens’s Page Street flat blocks in Pimlico, (1) ‘cause BLIMEY that chequerboard effect is *dazzling* and (2) they feel so modern yet a design of 1928. Social housing; but fine housing. Even the balconied courtyards are great spaces.
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There was something extraordinary about the moonlight tonight: it compelled me to venture up Borough High Street and along London Bridge, so that I might see it reflected on the Pool. As I stood, a clock on one of Wren’s churches struck nine. Perfect, I thought. But before I
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As often found on London’s housing estates, these fences are made from WW2 Air Raid Protection stretchers. 600,000+ stretchers were made for civilian use in the Blitz; but surplus after the war. Estates’ railings had gone for War Effort: stretchers were recycled to replace them.
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(What she didn’t tell me, and my bf only casually dropped into chat as we reached home, was that I was wearing my jumper back-to-front, so thanks, guys).
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An almost perfect reflection at @TowerBridge!.The combination of a very high tide on the turn & low sun just now meant that suddenly -briefly- the old Thames TV ident appeared.
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Good morning from London, where at 9 o’clock the low winter sun was splendid and the Thames* was calm as a millpond.
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Oh no this is embarrassing I’ve come along today wearing the same outfit as the train
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#OTD 10th Jan, in 1863, London’s first true Underground Railway opened: the Metropolitan. So I went to have a look. Behold!.Baker Street then (1863) vs.Baker Street now (2018)
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Gosh. A forgotten London street has today reopened beneath @NetworkRailLBG. Stainer St, which was tunnelled beneath London Bridge railway station platforms back in 1836 is now open once again. It is a little bit magical.
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It is 1968 and Peter Lepine-Smith has built a miniature 1/3 scale trolleybus & circuit to ride around in his Surrey back garden.
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Why yes of COURSE I made face coverings to match the seat moquette fabric on relevant London tube lines & bus routes when I travel 🤓
🚆 @MrTimDunn historian, writer and TV presenter, uses the railway for work a lot! . Like Tim, make sure you’re wearing a face covering when travelling on public transport (exemptions apply). 😷. Full details here 👉 #TravelSafely #EnjoySummerSafely
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I joined @TfL for Elizabeth line trial operations today. I’ve visited sites a couple of times (this is 1st I’m allowed to share pics of) but I must say: Britain might’ve waited a long time for it, but WOW this is urban transport done *right*. It will have been worth the wait.👏
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I have also just realised that this occurred, with some irony, almost outside @FashionTextile museum.
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Penny. Just. Dropped! There’s a 1937 London Underground photo (by E.O.Hoppé) which circulates on social media, often without exact location. BUT I’ve just realised that it *is* where a brief description sometimes claims -“British Museum station” - tho it closed down four year
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@AnnaCKenyon @se1 Oh my GOD. I *THOUGHT* you’d have been in @EamesFineArt to see @paul_catherall as we were quite close and you looked a woman of fine taste :-)) This is amazing. As you walked off I knew we had to walk back to take a picture: it was the most perfectly timed observation. Thank you!.
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Nobody changing trains at Blackfriars means a v pleasing near-symmetrical moment
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On Poole Quay, Dorset, there is a fab & rare example of a pub with an entirely green-glazed tile elevation. The Poole Arms is one of Britain's finest faience-fronted pubs: perhaps because this town was once an important ceramics centre. It is extraordinary, and listed, Grade II.
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Dear @NetworkRail and UK rail industry. Your leaves-on-the-line problem days are over: there's a new hero in town. And they call him. Henry.
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#OTD 10th Jan, in 1863, London’s first true Underground Railway opened: the Metropolitan. So tonight I’ve been to have a look. Behold!.Baker Street then (1863) vs.Baker Street now (2018, tonight)
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Worst steps in London. Every time I watch another person gingerly ascend or descend grabbing the handrail, I wonder if the architects & clients responsible for this particularly execrable piece of London Bridge’s public realm ever realised just what a truly shit job they did here
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I regret to inform you that a crime has been committed at St James’ses Park’s station
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This afternoon, a walk up to St Pancras and back. Poked my head in to see just a single lonely Eurostar train sitting here. But, still, the sinking winter sun was gently warming Barlow’s great trainshed roof – just as it’s always done since 1868.
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As I walked home along the river tonight, the rain paused, so I paused too. We – a handful of strangers – watched in silent awe as Golden Hour magic swept over the Square Mile; and a defiant red double-decker sailed across the bridge, off into the dark canyons of the City beyond.
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The @MuseumModernArt released this haunting 1902 film of the Wuppertal Suspension Railway in Germany – but now it’s been colourised and upscaled using AI to 4K by @Dostoevskiy – and it is incredibly beautiful
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There goes my evening. The "Britain From Above" archive is now FREE in high resolution and it is *incredible*. 96,000 photos of landscapes and buildings - many long-lost, from the air. Just wow.
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Sometimes all you need on a Sunday morning is a cup of coffee and two minutes of Ivor The Engine.
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#OTD 10th Jan, in 1863, London’s first true Underground Railway opened: the Metropolitan. So I went to have a look. Behold!.Baker Street then (1863) vs.Baker Street now (2018)
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It is my birthday. 39. Hurrah! I made it. I cannot do today what I adore: travelling by train. But I will, sometime again. So here are four of my #travelbytrain window views of the last yr– so that I might recall my favourite trips. It is a joy to have you on the journey with me.
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Happy Birthday King’s Cross station, opened this day back in 1852! I’ve popped up to the hotel roof opposite for this pic and gosh, you don’t look a day over your 169 years. Must be your timeless design by architect Lewis Cubitt. So three cheers to him, & three cheers to you.🍸
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I’m in Shrewsbury. This is Britain’s largest & finest historic Tudor Multi-Storey Shoppinge Centre, compleat with authentic 16th Century Jettied Lorrye Loading Bay and Ye Olde 920 space Wagon Parkinge Experience. It seems it was discovered by John Laing Dvlpmt in 1989. Incredible
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I reckon that if the teenage me knew that one day I’d take a train – liveried to counter homophobia – directly to a national model railway festival where 10,000 ppl happily chatted & enjoyed our shared hobby of model trains, I’d probably have worried a bit less about the future🤷
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Gosh that tweet “blew up”. So. Turns out we were both on @BermondseyStLdn (incredibly) because we are both fans of the same artists with exhibitions on at @EamesFineArt: @paul_catherall & @gailbrodholt. May I politely promote their work into your timeline? Happy Friday, all.
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A silent Green Park tube station interchange on my way to work just now
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I think about this photo - of a bloke going out for a casual ride behind his model tugboat on the Shopshire Union Canal - really quite a lot.
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There's an Open Railway Map of the world and the level of detail is incredible.
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A handy comparison showing difference in size between:.(a) London Underground's sub-surface trains.(b) London Underground's deep tube trains
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Stop the hunt. I have just found the greatest wrapping paper ever created and is by @NickSellek
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Tonight in town the mist hung low, the streets were quiet and as the Thames tide turned, the river was completely still.
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As I took my symmetrical window shot at 125mph, another @LNER train passed, it too at 125mph. UGH. But then I realised I’d shot thru my train’s window AND the next train’s TOO to fields beyond: a closing speed of 250mph. #travelbytrain – the “what are the odds of THAT?!” edition.
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A tale of the railway doing a good thing. The other night, floods stopped all trains from Paddington, so my Devon train was late; hours late. We made up some time haring through the Somerset night but too late: the on-time stopping-train which was to become my Paignton branch
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In 1955, this tiny electric narrow gauge train was installed in New York's Holland Tunnel, driven by traffic cops to monitor & slow vehicles
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This morning I pootled along the St Ives branchline, hugging bay by clifftop. The Caribbean blue of sea I’ve not enhanced; nor the golden sand. It is a line I’ve been on often, but the noses pressed to glass and exclamations of delight never fail to bring me joy. #travelbytrain.
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Abandoned and rediscovered:.Russia’s incredible 1970 jet-powered turbojet train - built to travel over 250km/h - has been found rusting outside a railcar factory
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I regret to inform you that the horrific crime at St James’s’s Park tube station remain’s on view.
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Your annual reminder that there's an interactive historic map of almost *every* railway station & line that's *ever* existed on the British & Irish Isles. It is BRILLIANT, it is by @Railmaponline, I guarantee that you will lose hours on it AND IT IS HERE:
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Londoners! If the security guards of One New Change shopping precinct get overzealous and demand a booking for its overpriced bar, just gently remind them that Roof Terrace access was a condition of @cityoflondon Planning Consent 05/00431/FULEIA (2006) & you too can get this view
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Good morning from London, where the sun rose *precisely* where I’d hoped. Standing right on the corner of Tower Pier, the nice @TfL lady and I watched it slide straight up through the centre of @TowerBridge’s bascules; with a red double decker crossing too, as if to celebrate.
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Tonight I had my first experience of nasty physical assault by a fellow train passenger (ugh). I’m fine (rly!), so my tweet is a public THANK YOU to @AvantiWestCoast’s ace TMs Jamie & Graeme who acted swiftly, confidently & kindly. Report filed, they knew which medication works🥰
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I regret to inform you that a crime has been committed just south of Reading town centre
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A surprise. Lucky access to see this view of London King’s Cross & St Pancras tonight. Cor.
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I live here for moments like this. Early yesterday morning, before the rest of the world arrived, fog rolled along the Thames and the modern sights & sounds of my city vanished – in a few seconds flat. Then, just when I least expected it, Old London briefly reappeared… (1/5)
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Paddington station just now. A spectacular reminder that the railway engineering and architecture that doesn’t move is just as wonderful as the engineering that does.
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1958 vs 2018.Two years ago today the good people at @Southwarkcathed let me climb to the top of the tower to re-stage this old photo just ‘cos I asked nicely and was interested in what it looked like. People are kind.
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London Bridge Underground is at its best when it feels that nobody else is down here
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Good morning from Edgware Road Bakerloo line tube station but *especially* good morning to the member of @TfL staff who saw my interest, keenly explained his happiness at working in such a historic building and pointed out several features. An enjoyable start to a Tuesday.
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91 years ago, Tom Purvis designed six posters for the London North Eastern Railway - each depicting “East Coast Joys”, reachable by train. But what’s *really* delightful is something that many people have never realised: each joined the next, forming this six-piece seaside vista.
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There is something immensely satisfying about being on trains running in parallel.
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brb just going to be staring longingly at this colourised photo of the New York Central's streamlined "Mercury" train set of 1936. Designer: Henry Dreyfuss.
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My LNER train north tonight has taken a vast easterly diversion, avoiding engineering works. The Fens nr Ely have spectacularly flooded; and these vast watery views from our Azuma train have rather distracted me from my laptop. Anyway, I thought you might like to see them too.
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London’s tube map if viewed from a plane - now including most of the DLR & Overground too! Photo by @djsantero, map plotted by @MartinBangratz.
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PM in lots of shit? On my walk today I discovered that somebody has stuck tiny decomposable portraits of Boris Johnson in all the cowpats along the footpaths that surround Chequers, the PM’s Buckinghamshire residence
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The island of Nordstrandischmoor is connected to mainland Germany by a tiny narrow gauge railway. Several residents have their own private railcars, and many households have their own little wagon. “Drivers must be 15 yrs old & hold a moped licence”
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Today I learned that Mr Bean's intro theme lyrics are: ."Ecce homo qui est faba" – "Behold the man who is a bean".and the final credits are:."Vale homo qui est faba" – "Farewell, man who is a bean". –– and *that* has made my day even better.
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The scaffolding’s off… revealing that Findlater’s, one of London’s most prominent derelict buildings, is BACK! The old wine merchants in once-unloved London Bridge rly arches is an essay in Doulton Carrara Ware: tonight the faience GLEAMS. Clock’s repaired & ready to go too(1/3)
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On way to tonight’s work site, hopped off briefly to check that Southwark tube still looks like an abandoned space station. It does.
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How welsh slate quarrymen got down the mountain each night:.Sliding down railway inclines on tiny boards w/ wheels:.
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So I’ve been thinking quite a lot about David Hockney’s new tube roundel poster. I’ve looked at the vast archive of great tube posters from 1905-2021 by talented artists like Edward McKnight Kauffer, Abram Games and Man Ray. and I have decided that I think the new one is crap.
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OK an extra bonus (or spam, depending on your POV) tweet:.If you know where to look, you’ll find old Metropolitan Railway company evidence. I’ve just been here, at its former Farringdon station. Check out the Met red diamond & bar frieze! Buildings find it hard to forget.♥️♦️
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A Brio-style train tabletop for grownups. Seven years after this prototype was created it seems still nobody has yet successfully produced it. Will someone please sort it out and make 2021 better.
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Whenever I come here to York station I look up at that little observation room cantilevered out over Platform 8 – and have very strong desire for it one day to become my office
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Delighted to report today that the splendid erection that is Westminster Bridge is still covered in hundreds of cocks and balls.
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Your annual Boxing Day reminder that Terry's Chocolate Orange was predated by:.Terry's Chocolate Apple (1926),.Terry’s Chocolate Greengage,.and in 1970. Terry’s Chocolate Lemon.
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Walked home from pub in East London to South tonight. 01:00am, stopped off to gawp at the City, silent in the low cloud and reflected in a near-still Pool of London. Magic. But then I have had some wines
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👀 @railwaymuseum’s Mallard has escaped the nest. Repeat: it has escaped the nest. This is not a drill. #azuma
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In 1971, one of Britain's most brilliantly bonkers pubs was constructed for Schooner Inns in Dunstable. Behold - The Windsock. It was demolished, alas, in 1984.
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The beauty of my trip at night on @tfl DLR. Weaving aloft silent electrickery through ancient former docklands - we press on to Canning Town. Then a spin 180; we zip eastwards on to distant Beckton – dawn breaks ahead. And yes, I pretended I was the driver. I am 42¾ years old.
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Usually, I think of fog as an outdoor event. But this morning, it rolled off the Thames and in through the open end of Hays Galleria, making David Kemp’s ‘The Navigators’ sculpture almost look ready to set sail from the old Wharf, into the mist.
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With 54 minutes between my arrival and departure at Edinburgh Waverley, I have done what any sensible fellow would do: I have come to look at the trams. I bloody love trams. #trams
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