On Dec 16, 10:38*am, 1506 wrote:
On Dec 16, 9:05*am, Paul Terry wrote:

In message
,
Stephen Furley writes

They were, briefly, before they were removed. *Marylebone had never in
it's history had more than four platforms before that time, and I
doubt if there was any reason to think that it wold need more in the
future. *The redevelopment didn't reduce the capacity of the station,
it just eliminated the very wide and unneeded cab road. *Why was it
built that wide in the first place?

I think it was just used to fill the space left when the original plans
for 10 platforms were scaled back to just 4, because of the escalating
cost of the GCR.

The Cab road was always intended to be such. *The other six platforms
were to be to the west of those actually built for the GCR. *That is
the reason for the very wide concourse.

I suspect that Marylebone is probably handling more trains, in and
out, now than it ever has in the past; does anyone know if this is
indeed the case? It now has 50% more platforms, and of course DMUs,
and even push-pull sets can be turned around more quickly than
conventional steam houled trains can be. The trains are probably
shorter today then when the station opened, but there are a lot of
them. How does the number of passengers compare as well?

If it had closed in the '80s as planned, would Paddington have been
able to cope with the extra trains from the High Wycombe line?

The closure of Snoww Hill also seems a bit odd. The fact that Moor
Street wasn't closed at the same time seems to suggest that New Street
didn't have the capacity to handle even the small number of trains
that served Moor Street at the time, and almost as soon as Snow Hill
closed there was talk of re-opening it.