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Post by grahamhewett on May 1, 2012 17:39:23 GMT
Once upon a time, I prevailed on my NSE engineering colleagues to examine the scope for extending the W&C northwards. They reported that it was just possible to poke the extension between the Northern and Central at Bank on the way to Liverpool Street. The thought was that we could carry on to the Spitalfields/Shoreditch area where we had the promise of a new station from the relevant developer, and then press on to portal onto the (reinstated) Lea Valley slow lines. The business case was excellent - far better than the highly problematic alternative of extending a branch off the Victoria. At the southern end we had begun to think of pushing on to Battersea and Clapham, which badly needed relief (and still does). Alas, privatisation did for all that.
We also considered quite seriously the case for an intermediate station at Blackfriars (the line passes directly underneath) but the City preferred the Thameslink option and the proposal would have required an additional train for which funds were not available.
Graham Hewett
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Post by mrjrt on May 1, 2012 19:35:23 GMT
One alternative that seems interesting to me for the northern end is to straighten up the platforms at Bank by connecting up the W&C to the Central line to Liverpool St., then having the Central Line dive underneath the current Bank platforms and head on down toward Tower Hill & Limehouse en route to Poplar.
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Ben
fotopic... whats that?
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Post by Ben on May 1, 2012 20:41:19 GMT
Welcome to the forum, Graham, and thanks for an interesting and informative post.
Time and time again, it seems, that concepts derided and dismissed by the non-enthusiastic enthusiasts out there as pointless speculation and 'stupid' time wasting turn out to have at some point been seriously considerd/investigated/explored, just not necessarily done so in the full limelight of the public arena.
It seems that a lot of projects were just about to boil when privitisation kicked in. One wonders whether privitisation was a useful way to sidestep the capital expenditure on actual improvement.
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Post by revupminster on May 1, 2012 22:16:32 GMT
What privatisation. The Underground has been in public ownership since 1933. Only the name of the holding organisation has changed to suit succesive governments.
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v52gc
chatter
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Post by v52gc on May 1, 2012 23:50:45 GMT
What privatisation. The Underground has been in public ownership since 1933. Only the name of the holding organisation has changed to suit succesive governments. At the time being referred to the Waterloo &City wasn't part of the Underground but Network South East and such. Anyway, the East London Line was privatised! ;D |
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Ben
fotopic... whats that?
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Post by Ben on May 2, 2012 11:04:44 GMT
Indeed; my comment was more directed to NSE's project list at the time of privitisation.
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
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Post by castlebar on May 2, 2012 11:16:51 GMT
It must be remembered, that currently, due to a 110 degree turn just outside of Waterloo station, that the W&C platforms are pointing ESE towards a point just S of Borough Northern Line station. Any SE bound extension is going to have to burrow underneath both Bakerloo and Northern,and any SWwards extension will be the most kinked line of any on the LU system. It would be easier to build a new line which is why any extension from Waterloo is totally impractical.
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Post by grahamhewett on May 2, 2012 16:27:24 GMT
To pick up Ben's point, there were indeed a number of NSE (and BR, of course) projects that were shelved at privatisation - in fact, it could well be argued, as you say, that privatisation was intended to put a stop to that sort of capital expenditure. At the time, I thought it no coincidence at all that we (BRB) had just presented Ministers with a dilemma (trilemma actually) around investment, quality /capacity enhancement, and fares increases. Some of these projects such as extension of the fifth reversible line on the SW main line, were purely NSE; others would have affected the Underground, such as the extension of the Jubilee to take over one of the Dartford loops or the provision of a CrossRail branch to take over the Met and Chiltern lines (still a better option than terminating half the service uselessly at Westbourne Park for want of anywhere better.)
So far as the W&C is concerned, I take the point that exiting SW from Waterloo was always going to be difficult- we never took the engineering studies that far beyond noting that we would have to relocate the depot elsewhere if we did. I think if the extension plan had gone ahead, we would have had some difficulty in extending the units to - say - 6 cars although 5 looked feasible with perhaps SDO and very slight extensions to Waterloo platforms.
It was certainly the government's original intention to privatise the W&C as part of the SW franchise (I doubt if they were really aware of its existence...) but we convinced them of the desirability of "tidying up" the LU/BR physical interfaces such as Richmond/Wimbledon/ELL and managed to slip the Drain into the package - much to Railtrack's spectacular annoyance (but that's a different story...).
Graham H
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Post by mrjrt on May 3, 2012 10:44:38 GMT
It must be remembered, that currently, due to a 110 degree turn just outside of Waterloo station, that the W&C platforms are pointing ESE towards a point just S of Borough Northern Line station. Any SE bound extension is going to have to burrow underneath both Bakerloo and Northern,and any SWwards extension will be the most kinked line of any on the LU system. It would be easier to build a new line which is why any extension from Waterloo is totally impractical. Nonsense. The line heads south down York road where it sharply turns under the station to point south east. Simply removing the curve and continuing down York Road gives you the nice straight section of line you'll need for the new platforms. Obviously you lose the depot, but it was always going to be inadequate for anything more than a shuttle service. Personally, I suspect swinging the line gently south after the new Waterloo platforms would bring it close enough for a connection to London Road depot, which it could take over with the Bakerloo getting a new decent-sized one out on it's own southern extension to provide the comprehensive local stopping service between Waterloo, Vauxhall, Battersea and Clapham. Southward extensions of the W&C are the easy part that should have been done years ago. The only real debate is what to do at Bank. |
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Post by Guest on May 3, 2012 14:54:29 GMT
With Bank, 8 cars is the obvious option as you've said before, especially considering how crammed the line already is at times. How that would be accomplished without crashing straight through the gateline and a wall I don't know.
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Post by norbitonflyer on May 3, 2012 15:51:00 GMT
With Bank, 8 cars is the obvious option as you've said before, especially considering how crammed the line already is at times. How that would be accomplished without crashing straight through the gateline and a wall I don't know. Extend them to the west (you'd have to lose or replace the scissors crossing though) preferably with a second passenger access via the ticket hall at Mansion House. New platforms under York Road would be tricky to fit in as both the Northern and Bakerloo stations tunnels are under there, at right angles to the road and they would be expensive (stations are more expensive to build than running tunnels. If the new alignment drops low enough, there could be room to use the existing station tunnels for a Kingsway shuttle, by extending the line from Aldwych, plugging a large gap in the network Probably for less than the CRT project - in fact, why not let CRT use the tunnels! |
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Post by grahamhewett on May 3, 2012 18:43:39 GMT
At Bank, there really is no choice but to extend northwards and remove the travolator if the line were to go to Liverpool Street and be suitable for 6 cars (yes, 8 would have been nice but probably too expensive given the cost of widening station tunnels.) There is presently about enough room to accommodate a fifth car at the buffer end but I suspect our friends in H&SE wouldn't permit that. There are alternative access routes to the platform via the stairs and the connecting passage to the Northern and maybe the travolator machines could have been relocated into the existing stair shaft. If so, the extension of the platforms northward would become a simple task - just money! Interestingly, the Chief Engineer in charge of constructing the line remarked that he couldn't understand why they hadn't spent "the million sovs" necessary to project the line properly to Bank anyway; there was no technical reason for not doing so, and no one seems to know why it stopped short where it did.
Graham Hewett
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Post by mikebuzz on May 4, 2012 17:18:35 GMT
At the time there were no other stations at Bank and it probably saved them money/allowed more space for a small surface station just to the west of the convergence of roads - the station was called City so it wasn't specifically the Bank of England.
Most interesting to hear of an engineer's consideration of extension from Bank W&C. Of course in recent years deep tower foundations have restricted options. Further to Ben's point, there was a serious consideration in the 1930's of extending the W&C east/NE instead of the Central line.
It seems more logical to extend the tunnels from a little further along the route, between Mansion house and Bank, before the line rises in gradient and offering a number of options, including Fenchurch Street or Moorgate (particularly curving northward to the west of the existing Bank station). This would free up the existing W&C platform tunnels to be incorporated in an expanded Bank station that can interchange with the W&C. It also means the W&C can be quite deep as it heads through the City.
Extending south from Waterloo at the end of the line is probably impossible but if diverging from the existing tunnels just south of the junction of Cornwall Road and Stamford Street, the line is still deep and heading straight for York Road (it currently rises sharply and does a u-bend into Waterloo facing SE). The tunnels could quite easily gently curve southward under the Eurostar platforms at a good depth and still head SW to Lambeth then Vauxhall or Victoria.
From what I've read there is limited space at Blackfriars due to the curve and Blackfriars Railway Bridge pillars, but if it's (still) possible Such a station would justify itself if the W&C was extended to become a proper line with one or more new depots. Perhaps Wimbledon if the line goes to Victoria and follows the Chelney route to Parson's Green (leaving Crossrail to go Clapham Junction-Battersea-Victoria).
With new Bank/Canon Street, Blackfriars and Waterloo stations the platforms could be as long as is practicable, i.e. 6, 7 or 8-car and without the southern u-bend there is just one tight curve at Blackfriars. I see no reason why the service couldn't have high frequencies and for the most part good speeds.
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Post by grahamhewett on May 5, 2012 16:10:50 GMT
Mikebuzz is right in that if you relocated both Bank and Waterloo stations then the line could be upgraded to conform with the other tubes. (The thread elsewhere on this forum about the Armstrong lift's fate is perhaps relevant to an alternative site for W'aterloo, although the tunnel to the lift is/was single track.) However, the attraction of the NSE plan was that it avoided the (horrendous) cost of a completely new tube station at either location. The cost of plain tunneling is quite cheap, but new stations as is well known tend to cost around 200m a pop - more if there are expensive escalator shafts that have to be dug by hand.
I wasn't aware of the 1930's plans, although one can see that the Big Four might well have preferred to replace their own services to Epping with their own tube.
As a Lea Valley-Bank-W'loo-Clapham route would have torpedoed the business case for Chelsea-Hackney, I suspect we would have had real difficulty with LU - for example, in relation to Bank remodelling.
Graham H
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Post by anthonyfendall on Jun 6, 2012 21:16:44 GMT
Enfield Town .... Hackney Downs .... Bethnal Green (Shoreditch High Street) Aldgate East Aldgate Bank Why go to Aldgate/Bank from Enfield? Mainline trains already go there, and you can't completely take over the mainline route through London Fields/etc. because the trains from Stanstead take it. So why would people not just change to a mainline train at Hackney Downs, and then just go to Liverpool Street (and walk the few yards from there)? It might perhaps not make much difference, but it wouldn't really be much of a gain. Wouldn't it be much better to take the route from Enfield - Hackney Downs / London Fields, to somewhere else, like perhaps the west end (via a modified Chelney, or a new line through perhaps Camden)? People going to the city can change lines at Hackney (and the interchange traffic would cause slight regeneration to the area around central hackney, which would be a good thing). Might be extremely difficult, due to very tall buildings, with very deep foundations (most of the very tall buildings in the city are in this area), several bank vaults, and a high concentration of very important archaeology. Especially around the area between Aldgate and Bank (which includes the old Roman Forum, inconveniently under a major road junction - making it a bit of an issue even when you're just under the roads, which helpfully is also where there are a large number of very tall buildings very close together). Waterloo (Vauxhall) Pimlico Why avoid Victoria if you're going via Pimlico? Linking Waterloo and Victoria would relieve passenger congestion at Clapham Junction (where most of the Waterloo and Victoria routes cross over), and on the circle line / northern line / jubilee (for passengers that don't know you can change at Clapham Junction). And if you go to Victoria, then Vauxhall is a bit out of the way for the route - its more direct to just cut across millbank. Its worse if you go to Pimlico - that's quite a turn you'd need - more tight than a sharp right turn - if you go to Vauxhall as well. But Vauxhall would otherwise be good - congestion relieving - for Waterloo traffic. So if the route went west, or south west, instead of north (pimlico), from Vauxhall, it would work. And if you go to Vauxhall, you don't need to go to Pimlico, because you've already met the victoria line. Pimlico is only over the river. Pimlico (Ranleigh Gardens) Chelsea Kings Road Fulham Broadway (Parsons Green) So this, basically, is the western part of the Chelney. The congestion relief / route simplification produced by the central section of the Chelney (via TCR) is enough to ensure that at least the central part of the Chelney would probably be built eventually. So if your route takes over one end of the Chelney, where does the rest of the Chelney go instead? (and why doesn't your route go there instead of the Chelney?) (Parsons Green) (Fulham) Barnes North Chiswick Richmond (Petersham Meadows / Richmond Park) (Ham Common) (Richmond Road) Kingston Surbiton Tolworth Chessington This is interesting, certainly an alternative option for the Chelney, rather than just sharing the end of the Wimbleware. Perhaps as a later phase of the Chelney. But to get to Richmond would involve quite a lot of tube. The areas aren't poor, or deprived, though, so I'm not sure whether that would be justifiable. But Kingston, certainly, would be worth reaching. Perhaps a new london plan that moves the people on the council house waiting lists in london to new buildings in Kingston would justify it; or some other major housing "intensification" round there (without encroaching on the historic and protected nature of richmond itself, and its immediate environs). And Barnes North - is there that much housing around Barnes? I thought that much of it was water treatment works, and reservoirs. And the other side of the river is more easily reached by the district line, isn't it? So maybe a sort of Richmond express, from Victoria or so, at least until you'd get to Kingston. But Chelsea - Fulham Broadway - Richmond has the unfortunate appearance of a "posh rich boys line". Obviously there are such people in london, and its unfair to ignore them, or fail to do anything for them in particular, but I don't think it would be politically easy to put a route like that through. And resistance to new lines through an area often comes from the wealthier end of society who live there and worry about their house prices. And I'm not sure about Richmond Park or Ham Common. These are important open spaces, and I don't think hardly anyone would take too kindly to shoving a railway track or viaduct through them. And they are quite hilly anyway. So really, that may well end up being tunnel, which would be a quite extravagent expense that far out of central london, when you're only going to chessington. |
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