Alternate Piccadilly Line

[q8]

Just been nattering to a friend on the phone who works in public records somewhere. He told me a curious thing. When the Victoria line was being considered in the slow and ponderous machinations of Whitehall the LT plans were closely examined on the gorund of cost which gave them the jitters. The route was the perused and it was seen that alot of the places the Victoria called at were also served by the Piccadilly line (Finsbury Park, Kings x etc)

On seeing this someone in WH suggested that instead of building a complete new line an eastern branch of the Piccadilly should be constructed from Kings Cross and follow the present Victoria to Walthamstow. This idea was apparently given serious thought before being rejected.

Now that is news to me. Has anybody else ever heard of anything similar?

[Bill]

i heard the picc between earls court and south ken was originally meant to be a high speed deep level district line. there were also plans for a northern line express made up by linking the deep level wartime bomb shelters under a lot of the northern line stations. a bakerloo extension to camberwell and peckham was kicked around for years and never got done. rumour has it elephant sidings continue to camberwell but are plugged up, keen to find out more i walked over the sand-drag into the darkness over years of unpleasantness (a la kennington loop) to find the tunnels do in fact well and truly stop dead and the rumour is false...

[Deleted]

There definitely was a plan to extend the Bakerloo line to Camberwell in the 1940s - it even appeared on the pocket tube map - but I have no idea whether any physical work was done.

[Deleted]

q8 said:

Just been nattering to a friend on the phone who works in public records somewhere. He told me a curious thing. When the Victoria line was being considered in the slow and ponderous machinations of Whitehall the LT plans were closely examined on the gorund of cost which gave them the jitters. The route was the perused and it was seen that alot of the places the Victoria called at were also served by the Piccadilly line (Finsbury Park, Kings x etc)

On seeing this someone in WH suggested that instead of building a complete new line an eastern branch of the Piccadilly should be constructed from Kings Cross and follow the present Victoria to Walthamstow. This idea was apparently given serious thought before being rejected.

Now that is news to me. Has anybody else ever heard of anything similar?

There was a plan in the earlier stages to build the Walthamstow branch as the Piccadilly east end terminus, the Cockfosters branch of the Picc would become the north end of the Victoria line. This would have saved building the Depot at Northumberland Park, as the line would use Cockfosters Depot and Arnos Grove sidings. The Picc branch would only need a number of sidings built instead of a big depot. The plans for ATO scuppered that idea, as converting an existing line which is also partially in the open was too big of a step in the 1960s.
I got that from a book called "The Victoria Line" by MAC Horne, if anyone is interested.

[q8]

rumour has it elephant sidings continue to camberwell but are plugged up, keen to find out more i walked over the sand-drag into the darkness over years of unpleasantness (a la kennington loop) to find the tunnels do in fact well and truly stop dead and the rumour is false.
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Well Bill it must have been bunged up since the 70's as there WAS a gap at the bottom of the southbound siding plug thet me and my mate knelt down and shone our lamps through. The tunnel DID go onward beyond the plug but for how far I know not. It was the abode of our furry friends as eye reflections could be seen too.

[Bill]

thats interesting, i'll have a closer look next time i'm down there....