"Recliner" wrote in message
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"michael adams" wrote in message

wrote in message
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Recliner wrote:
I had a few minutes in Bayswater to kill yesterday and decided to
take a look at the famous dummy houses in Leinster Gardens. I must
say that the false facades still work well, and are maintained (by
LU?). Even the pigeon deterrents are in place, exactly the same as
on the adjacent properties. In fact, I actually walked right past,
distracted by the building work next door.

But I wonder why the gap has been retained in the century plus
since the lines below were electrified. It's no longer needed for
venting steam engines, and I'd have thought there would be pressure
to reconstruct genuine buildings over the tracks, just as happens
over stations. Have there been such plans, or is there some major
technical/financial reason for not doing so?

wild guess

Assuming they could ever come to an amicable financial arrangement
between themselves and LU, the owners\residents of the adjacent
properties would
suffer considerable disruption during the course of any construction
work for a start. Without sufficient clearance at the sides of the
track
for supporting pillars at that point, its likely part of the existing
properties
would need to be remodelled maybe losing half their existing ground
floors so to accomodate the ends of a concrete platform to straddle
the
track.
They would probably also lose their basements. While any new property
would probably require extensive sound proofing on the lower floors
for them to be habitable.
The loss of amenity in the adjoining properties in financial terms,
combined with construction costs given the difficult site, is
probably far greater than
any gain to be made from a new property especially given it would be
need to be split three ways. If not necessarily equally.

Yes, those are very good points. I had sort of assumed that the new
building might be constructed in conjunction with or by the owners of
the neighbouring buildings, perhaps as an extension. I think at least
one of those buildings is a hotel, so it could use the new space as an
extension.

There again, assuming that all the land over say District line track belongs
to LT there are probably plenty of places where they could build over the
track with far less problems on sites with easy road access and equally
high property prices.

If you're interested in buildings affected by the growth of the railways
here's another one, this time on the District and Circle Lines, which I came
across purely by chance one day.

http://i47.tinypic.com/2rdet8i.jpg


michael adams