The purpose??

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What is the purpose of The W&C exactly??

It serves 2 stations!! thats..... about 1.5miles if i remember correctly?

Whats the point in having another line altogether? - Why not have it joined on to another line (cant think which, but i'm sure someone will help me out) ?

As, say, the Northern does? (Splits into two branches)?

Its the same with the H&C i guess - serves.... 8 stations? Why?

Ok - rant over!

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The W&C is actuially an extremely popular line with commuters! That's why there's so much fuss about the line being closed for refurbishment for so long!

According to the LUL website, 37,173 people use the W&C every weekday!

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I realise that...... but my question was, why is it in a line all on its own - why isn't it used as a seperate branch of a different line? (that runs parallel to it?)

Surely it would be cheaper for LU and LT do that than to build a line for 2 stations??

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Well, it's done now, so it's pointless worrying about it! ;D

In fact, the W&C wasn't the responsibility of LT when it was opened. From the LU website line facts:

The Waterloo & City Line (or 'Drain'), London's second deep level tube railway, opened in 1898. It was promoted by the London and South Western Railway whose trains terminated at Waterloo and was intended then - as now - to offer commuters a direct rail link to and from the City of London.

The original wooden-built trains survived until 1940 when they were replaced by specially designed tube-sized cars embodying the relatively unrefined technology of the Southern Railway's surface stock, which had been superseded on the Underground several years earlier. These trains were to survive until 1993.

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What interests me is what the Sou' west didn't do:

- they didn't buy the Metropolitan District Railway (which would have achieved the goal in an arguably better way);

- they didn't extend the "Drain" to link up with their own lines at (say) Vauxhall. Since they owned all the land, I'm not sure that a Parliamentary Bill would have been needed (and possibly the Light Railway Order procedure might have been used).

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1. Not much point in buying the District: it doesn't go to Waterloo. And there would not have been paths available for the LSWR to run extra trains via Wimbledon onto the District to go through to Mansion House.

2. If the W&C had joined onto some other LSWR line, then either the W&C would have had to be built to main line clearances (prohibitively expensive) or the connected LSWR line would have had to use tube-size stock (very unpopular with the punters, because of limited accommodation) and it would also have had to be electrified.

Tube railways are extremely expensive to build, and have always been only marginally profitable. The LSWR very sensibly built the minimum needed to achieve their aim of a link between Waterloo and the City.

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Silly me, I forgot the L&SW wasn't electrified at the time the Drain was built