(The Only Living Boy in New Cross) wrote in message om...
One of the commonest explanations you hear for the lack of tube lines
south of the river is that the soil is unsuitable for the tunnelling
equipment in use in the early years of the 20th century. If that's
the case, though, how did the Morden end of the Northern Line get
built?

Patrick

According to our friend Clive, http://www.davros.org/rail/culg/northern.html
says that services between Clapham Common and Morden were inaugurated in 1926.
IIRC there were tunnels in the King William Street area, of a size for Tube
stock in the 1890s (I may be very wrong on this), so the tunnelling equipment
itself may not have been an issue.

Checking this site, http://www.btinternet.com/~ptaffs/pe.../personal.html,
shows that Morden is located near a narrower portion of the Thames, which meant
that sending tunnels under the riverbed would have been a bit easier due to
simply having less water to worry about.

Either way, this won't be much of an issue for south/southeast London much
longer - as long as no one else tries to screw things up, the East London Line
extensions will be open in 2005 (?) and those parts of London will have tube
service. http://www.ellp.co.uk/route_map.htm is a map of what the line will
look like when it opens.

Hope I helped,

Brad