Old Oak Common – Spaceways (1953)

Spaceways (1953) | Old Oak Common

Murder, intrigue and infidelity, hamper a group of Brit scientists on the first space mission. “A lukewarm murder mystery in a science fiction setting” according to one review of a Terence Fisher directed Hammer film. The line from the Old Oak Common depot to Greenford is visible in one scene.

Old Oak Common station is the centre of a “£5 billion” regeneration scheme to make the area west London’s Canary Wharf. The depot housed Crossrail trains when it was a scheme for frictionless travel to Europe and is now meant to be a HS2 hub. Will it connect HS2 to Crossrail? “Lug your heavy bags down a couple of escalators along 600m of corridor and then change trains at a wet suburban station somewhere in north west London. That is not an option,” Philip Hammond enthused when he was Transport Secretary. Boris Johnson was said to be lukewarm on plans to make Old Oak Common an interchange between networks. If you want to see ‘Spaceways’ as a metaphor for another clique scuppering space age plans for progress, be my guest…