What should we call the Northern Line now?

[andypurk]

Dec 29, 2012 1:46:38 GMT chrisvandenkieboom said:

Dec 28, 2012 23:30:01 GMT djlynch said:

Wasn't there a de facto split for a while after the Camden Town derailment? How well did that work (or not work) at Camden Town?

Giant overcrowding in the narrow tunnels between the High Barnet and Edgware branches.. of course, that traffic can also be recommended to change at Euston which is better designed to cope with the crowds, but Camden Town will be a big reason why the split won't happen for a long time... because they also want a new ticket hall, requiring cut and cover, which requires the demolishing of buildings. I'm not sure whether they already considered (possibly expensive though) a deep level ticket hall, but I'm not a tunnel engineering expert.

A new ticket hall, with expanded access from the surface to the platforms, is clearly needed, as the current station can't really cope with the number of passengers heading for Camden. This will need more space at ground level and it doesn't make sense to improve the interchange facilities without expanding the rest of the station at the same time.

[Deleted]

"Can't really cope" has to be the understatement of the century. Camden Market is like the overspill of a termites nest, the station being one of the worst sweatshops on the entire network as a result.

In the event of a split following a painful (but ultimately pointless) rebuild of Camden Town station it would seem logical to me to revert to the pre-Northern Line names for the two branches. As long as neither ends up as lame as "Wimbleware".....

[andypurk]

Dec 29, 2012 13:27:37 GMT @whistlekiller said:

"Can't really cope" has to be the understatement of the century. Camden Market is like the overspill of a termites nest, the station being one of the worst sweatshops on the entire network as a result.

In the event of a split following a painful (but ultimately pointless) rebuild of Camden Town station it would seem logical to me to revert to the pre-Northern Line names for the two branches. As long as neither ends up as lame as "Wimbleware".....

Crowding at Camden Town, at weekends etc., is still no worse than many other stations at peak times (Holborn for example) and the station can just about cope, so long as there are no problems with the service itself or with the escalators.

Why should any upgrade be 'ultimately pointless'? There were 20.96 million entries and exits in 2011, so the demand is certainly there.

[Deleted]

Dec 29, 2012 14:06:25 GMT andypurk said:

Why should any upgrade be 'ultimately pointless'? There were 20.96 million entries and exits in 2011, so the demand is certainly there.

Because it doesn't address the underlying and ever growing problem of too many people trying to live and work in too small a space. Unless that trend is stopped or reversed, no amount of station improvements or extra trains will ever succeed as it will always be playing catch up.

[andypurk]

Dec 31, 2012 0:35:51 GMT @whistlekiller said:

Dec 29, 2012 14:06:25 GMT andypurk said:

Why should any upgrade be 'ultimately pointless'? There were 20.96 million entries and exits in 2011, so the demand is certainly there.

Because it doesn't address the underlying and ever growing problem of too many people trying to live and work in too small a space. Unless that trend is stopped or reversed, no amount of station improvements or extra trains will ever succeed as it will always be playing catch up.

But the problem at Camden isn't the number of people living and working in the area, but the number of visitors. Unlike the normal peak commuting passengers, there is little problem with capacity on the trains, or on the platforms themselves.

Therefore, I don't think that any upgrade is pointless at all. The passenger numbers are little different from Covent Garden, which is in a similar situation. At neither station is platform capacity a real problem, the problem is access to/from those platforms. I don't see such problems mentioned at stations like Angel, rebuilt with a new track layout and with more than the number of passengers at Camden Town, despite only being served by one line.

[motorman]

Going back to the original topic of this thread keep the Northern Line title for both lines but make one Northern West End and the other Northern City. Keeps life simple!

[Deleted]

Is there any particular reason for the choice of splitting the Northern Line with Edgware Branch connecting to CX, and High Barnet to Bank? Why not the opposite? Is there perhaps an operational reason, or maybe because of usage patterns?
After the derailing 10 years ago it was split the opposite way...

Also, is it not possible to segregate the branches at Camden Town, to force people to change at Euston? Maybe force people who change at Camden Town to go above ground to change branches.

[Ben]

Euston is likey due to be rebuilt far sooner than Camden. As long as a massive and convenient interchange is provided there a large amount of stress could be taken off Camden.

South Kentish Town?

[norbitonflyer]

Jan 3, 2013 10:25:43 GMT @yamor said:

Is there any particular reason for the choice of splitting the Northern Line with Edgware Branch connecting to CX, and High Barnet to Bank? Why not the opposite? Is there perhaps an operational reason

I understand it is indeed an operational reason: operating a High Barnet- CX- Kennington line would be rather difficult since the two depots on the Northern are at Golders Green and Morden.

[Deleted]

Jan 3, 2013 11:24:06 GMT norbitonflyer said:

Jan 3, 2013 10:25:43 GMT @yamor said:

Is there any particular reason for the choice of splitting the Northern Line with Edgware Branch connecting to CX, and High Barnet to Bank? Why not the opposite? Is there perhaps an operational reason

I understand it is indeed an operational reason: operating a High Barnet- CX- Kennington line would be rather difficult since the two depots on the Northern are at Golders Green and Morden.

Isn't there a depot at Highgate?

BTW, I'm new here, and actually, my interest in the underground is fairly new, I was wondering is there any good site which has diagrams of the precise layout of all the lines, with interchanges etc. shown?

[metrailway]

Jan 3, 2013 11:42:34 GMT @yamor said:

Isn't there a depot at Highgate?

BTW, I'm new here, and actually, my interest in the underground is fairly new, I was wondering is there any good site which has diagrams of the precise layout of all the lines, with interchanges etc. shown?

Welcome to the forum!

A good map of the railways in the London area can be found on this site:

carto.metro.free.fr/cartes/metro-london/

[Deleted]

Wow, looks good, thank you!

[norbitonflyer]

Jan 3, 2013 11:42:34 GMT @yamor said:

Isn't there a depot at Highgate?

I think it does not have full maintenance facilities, which is why it is marked on some maps as "Highgate sidings".

[Deleted]

I see. Thanks.

[rincew1nd]

Jan 3, 2013 10:25:43 GMT @yamor said:

Also, is it not possible to segregate the branches at Camden Town, to force people to change at Euston? Maybe force people who change at Camden Town to go above ground to change branches.

From what I remember, Camden is all connected underground with just a single escalator shaft up into the surface building. I have yet to see anything on the UndergrounD that actually stops someone who knows where they are going from walking the wrong way down a passage marked "No entry".

[suncloud]

Jan 3, 2013 19:37:02 GMT rincew1nd said:

Jan 3, 2013 10:25:43 GMT @yamor said:

Also, is it not possible to segregate the branches at Camden Town, to force people to change at Euston? Maybe force people who change at Camden Town to go above ground to change branches.

From what I remember, Camden is all connected underground with just a single escalator shaft up into the surface building. I have yet to see anything on the UndergrounD that actually stops someone who knows where they are going from walking the wrong way down a passage marked "No entry".

Some no-entries will lead you to a gate line you can't get through or an escalator going the wrong way... but yeah normally the only thing that is going to cause you any difficulty is the flow of foot traffic in the other direction... There are a couple of central london station I'll often follow a route other than the normal signposted route for interchanges...

[andypurk]

Jan 3, 2013 10:48:44 GMT Ben said:

Euston is likey due to be rebuilt far sooner than Camden. As long as a massive and convenient interchange is provided there a large amount of stress could be taken off Camden.

However, it is hard to see how alterations at Euston will make the interchange much easier than it is currently, without a lot of rebuilding. This is especially true for the Charing Cross branch where fitting escalators in looks tricky. There is the potential of using the old northbound City branch tunnel to get underneath the southern end of the Charing Cross platforms for connections to the southbound City branch (and Victoria line), but this doesn't help with connections to the northbound lines.

Camden Town looks an easier proposition, due to the layout. Only a few extra passageways would be needed to make interchange easier, as the northbound and southbound platforms are on separate levels for each branch. The problem here is as much to do with improving access to the surface, which needs a rebuild at street level.

[Antje]

If the split ever comes: Hampstead and Northern.

[Dom K]

Can't you just call one Northern and the Northern City Line (via Bank)? Or is that too simplistic?

[Deleted]

High Barnet / Mill Hill East to Morden - City Line
Edgware to Kennington / Battersea? - Northern Line

That way each line has a depot and sidings

[Alight]

I very much agree that the Charing Cross branch will retain the name 'Northern line' as the Morden via Bank branch goes much further south! Hampstead line or City line sound perfectly reasonable as members have suggested above.

However, I disagreee with the perception that Edgware services run via Charing Cross and High Barnet/MHE services run via Bank just because the Underground map depicts it this way. I think it should be the other way round with HB/MHE via Charing Cross (Northern line) and Edgware via Bank (Hampstead or City line)

This is what used to be emphasised on old maps where High Barnet to Kennington was one straight line: www.flickr.com/photos/66669581@N00/5605544251/in/photostream/lightbox/

[norbitonflyer]

Jan 27, 2013 13:40:07 GMT Alight said:

However, I disagreee with the perception that Edgware services run via Charing Cross and High Barnet/MHE services run via Bank just because the Underground map depicts it this way. I think it should be the other way round with HB/MHE via Charing Cross (Northern line) and Edgware via Bank (Hampstead or City line)

As a previous poster has pointed out, this has little to do with lines on the Tube Map and everything to do with where the maintenance depots are and the layout at Kennington. City trains cannot easily be reversed at Kennington, (and will not be able to reach the proposed Battersea extension at all), so it is they which will have access to Morden depot. This means that, if the lines are to be independent, Charing Cross trains must have access to Golders Green.

You could build a new maintenance depot somewhere (where? - battersea? expand Highgate sidings?) but why bother when Golders Green is already there?

[Alight]

Okay, sorry I must have missed that point! Makes sense then.

[Deleted]

Indeed that way you have Golders Green (Northern Line) and Morden (City Line). Plus sidings at Highgate (City Line) and Edgware (Northern Line)

[Deleted]

I like West End Line and City Line.

Another issue with a split is CX commuters in the evening peak having to change at Kennington. If I can't get a Morden train on the CX branch, I don't bother at all, because I know that I'll have to stand the whole way home then. I suppose it is all inevitable with the Battersea extension.

[davethewomble]

It might be amusing to prolong the irony of the Northern line not being, and never having been the most northerly, by renaming the branches the Eastern and Western lines.

This would, unfortunately lose the ultimate irony that the Northern has for 90 or so years been the most southerly line.

[Deleted]

Why not just call other old City & South London Railway the "Southern line"?

[trt]

Feb 11, 2013 14:09:44 GMT davethewomble said:

It might be amusing to prolong the irony of the Northern line not being, and never having been the most northerly, by renaming the branches the Eastern and Western lines.

Feb 11, 2013 21:16:54 GMT stationless said:

Why not just call other old City & South London Railway the "Southern line"?

A little like the techniques used for visualising the processes in cells. The first technique was for DNA and known as a Southern blot, because it was invented by Professor Sir Edwin Southern. Subsequent developments for RNA, proteins, protein modifications etc became known as northern, eastern, western and southwestern blots!

Off topic drift there, I know.
I was wondering about Golden Line (Golders Green Northern Line) which automatically gives you a colour for the map!

[grahamhewett]

Off topic but perhaps worth a new thread altogether - does anyone know what the current list of available route colours is? (When I last saw it in 1994 for the transfer of the Waterloo and City, I seem to recall a dark chocolate, a deep orange and a purple as well as the turquoise we eventually chose).

GH

[mikebuzz]

Feb 12, 2013 12:22:04 GMT grahamhewett said:

Off topic but perhaps worth a new thread altogether - does anyone know what the current list of available route colours is? (When I last saw it in 1994 for the transfer of the Waterloo and City, I seem to recall a dark chocolate, a deep orange and a purple as well as the turquoise we eventually chose).

GH

With a bit of jigging around you could probably have about 25 different colours - different shades (dark, mid, light etc), mid-turquoise, magenta, gold, bronze and metallic versions of different colours.