Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2014 15:54:43 GMT
Greetings all, I am new on here and hope this is the appropriate sub-forum for this question...
I am wondering about the siting of Gower Street station and hope that someone on here may be able to enlighten me.
I find it strange, especially considering that one of the intended functions of the Metropolitan Railway was to interconnect main line termini, that while Paddington and King's Cross stations were sited so as to provide good interchange with the main lines, Gower Street was from the beginning some way away from Euston.
Google has not proved a useful resource; all I have been able to find was a suggestion that the siting of the actual platforms underground is such that if the exit had been constructed at the other end of the station (ie. east rather than west) it would be well placed for interchange with Euston - which only increases my puzzlement; if this is so, why was it not done?
I can imagine that in those pioneering times the modern expectation that an interchange between Underground and main line should take the form of a dedicated subway that connects the two stations and allows progress between them without leaving "railway land" had not developed, and a walk through surface streets was not seen as a problem, but it still seems strange that they should have made the walk longer than necessary, when (assuming the suggestion I found was accurate) it would have been (apparently) trivial to make it shorter.
Was there a problem with some landowner not wanting to give up the land for a better sited station entrance? Was there some source of traffic in Gower Street at the time which was of comparable importance to Euston?
Was there some lack of cordial relations between the Metropolitan and the LNWR? Euston also lacked a rail connection to the Metropolitan, unlike Paddington or King's Cross. I have never heard any suggestion of this though and don't know of any other reason to suppose it.
Does anyone here know, or was it just "one of those things"?
I am wondering about the siting of Gower Street station and hope that someone on here may be able to enlighten me.
I find it strange, especially considering that one of the intended functions of the Metropolitan Railway was to interconnect main line termini, that while Paddington and King's Cross stations were sited so as to provide good interchange with the main lines, Gower Street was from the beginning some way away from Euston.
Google has not proved a useful resource; all I have been able to find was a suggestion that the siting of the actual platforms underground is such that if the exit had been constructed at the other end of the station (ie. east rather than west) it would be well placed for interchange with Euston - which only increases my puzzlement; if this is so, why was it not done?
I can imagine that in those pioneering times the modern expectation that an interchange between Underground and main line should take the form of a dedicated subway that connects the two stations and allows progress between them without leaving "railway land" had not developed, and a walk through surface streets was not seen as a problem, but it still seems strange that they should have made the walk longer than necessary, when (assuming the suggestion I found was accurate) it would have been (apparently) trivial to make it shorter.
Was there a problem with some landowner not wanting to give up the land for a better sited station entrance? Was there some source of traffic in Gower Street at the time which was of comparable importance to Euston?
Was there some lack of cordial relations between the Metropolitan and the LNWR? Euston also lacked a rail connection to the Metropolitan, unlike Paddington or King's Cross. I have never heard any suggestion of this though and don't know of any other reason to suppose it.
Does anyone here know, or was it just "one of those things"?
