Action stations

The travel writer Robert Byron called his book about Mount Athos The Station, so it was not all that surprising often to find it shelved in bookshops next to volumes for railway enthusiasts. Similarly, a chief glory of Battersea has for some decades been its power station. Now the London Underground has been extended to reach it, and bands played for the opening of Battersea Power Station station. No doubt WH Smith will soon open the Battersea Power Station station stationers. The new station is of more than parochial interest. Despite the depressing way transport is run for London, it is good news that the Underground has reached Battersea only 148 years after it first opened. One day the line might reach Clapham Junction, which already has direct services to Milton Keynes. That’s globalisation for you.