Piccadilly Line extension to Waterloo

I don't think it has ever been on a journey planner or wall map. I have several books about the LT maps, and none of them mention it.

It would have been a fairly useless extension. It would not be possible to run through trains without a major reconstruction of Holborn station, so Picc passengers would have had to change at Holborn to get to Waterloo. That does not seem any better than changing at Leicester Square or Piccadilly Circus.

The extension has never appeared on a public map. The 1960s powers were kept alive for a while, and then lapsed - the worsening financial situation of the late 1960s killed off the extension, and instead the Brixton extension of the Victoria line occurred.

There'll be a book with the full history of the Aldwych branch coming out later this year. Lots of details, maps, and photographs.

Title hasn't been decided yet (there are a couple to choose between). Cost likely to be £19.95 (but again, not certain). It will be a hardback book with colour photos etc. Publisher is Capital Transport.

No, because the Underground didn't produce lots of speculative maps for internal use in those days, like they do now. There will be a geographically-accurate map of the extension showing platform and concourse tunnels, and the relation to the other lines. There will also be a excerpt from a hand-drawn map from the late 1950s showing a rather interesting plan for Aldwych.

Yep, I'd definitely be interested in that book too. abe, will you make an announcement when there are further details please?

I'll post on this forum as soon as I have date, title, cost etc. confirmed. It's been a long time in the making!

The 'code map' gives the British Reference System (BRS) references for each station and section of line. It's interesting that these values have been assigned to extensions that were proposed and rejected/abandoned (Northern heights, Aldwych - Waterloo, Camberwell, Streatham). It would be interesting to know the logic behind the choice of what is shown.

It's interesting that the Jubilee is shown as far as Aldwych, but no further. Why would they show that much and not any of the rest of the next phase of the line?

Probably not if passengers had to change at Holborn.

I wonder whether the 'F' prefix on that section indicates it was to be part of the Fleet Line, Chris?

Agree with the above, seems like a lot of money going on what is a platform change at Euston away anyway.

The 'F' seems to indicate the origin of each section of track. So you will see north of Baker Street on the Jubilee has a 'B' prefix, and south of Charing Cross has 'J'. First section was built as the Bakerloo, second as the Fleet Line, third as Jubilee Line. Pattern doesn't seem to repeat itself across the map though.

It would be very difficult, because of the levels. In effect, you'd be abandoning the bay platform at Holborn, and the constructing a new step-plate junction in the eastern (i.e., SB) tunnel south of the existing crossover tunnel, which would remain plain-lined. The branch from the step-plate would then need to descend around 20 ft into a new SB platform tunnel. Given that this would have to be level (H&S requirements), and the incline couldn't be too steep (as it would be for trains departing a station), the connection into the EB tunnel would probably be a fair way down the branch tunnel (although the general falling gradient towards Aldwych would help here).
A new step-plate junction would have to be built around the WB main line north of the station, which would be expensive and disruptive.
The existing branch platform (No. 5) at Holborn is now shorter than when built, because of various works at the north end, so full-length trains could never easily be operated.

None of the plans for extending the Aldwych branch to Waterloo (except for the Chelsea-Hackney proposal) ever proposed making a two-way connection at Holborn because of the difficulties described.

I was looking at the LCS Code map and it says version 11 on it. Does anyone have version 9 or 10 ?

I can only really seeing it benefiting traffic from Charing Cross to Liverpool Street and points east of there on the Central Line (and vice versa). Other Northern/Central interchange passengers would still change at Tottenham Court Road.

If you look at the back of "Mr Beck's Underground Map", you will see that a lot of his sketches included the Waterloo extension on them. His final full map (page 60) certainly seems to have been designed with the extension in mind.