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[email protected] · April 29th 04, 11:42 AM posted to uk.transport.london

In article ,
(Clive D. W. Feather) wrote:

[utl added to newsgroups]

In article , Jonathan Morton
writes
I had to go from Euston to Liverpool Street today. As it was fine, I
walked
to Euston Square and took the Met rather than change at Bank. It
struck me
(after I had been surprised by how far ES is from Euston itself) that
this
is odd.

Some possibilities:

(1) The very original plans for the Metropolitan included a station
just east of Tottenham Court Road and another on the corner of
Eversholt Street. If there were problems buying up land for station
buildings, that might have led to these two being merged.

(2) Remember that the original King's Cross station was where the
present Thameslink station is. That sort of length walk might not have
been seen as a problem in those days.

(3) There was going to be a link from the LNWR main lines at Euston to
the Metropolitan, just like from the GNR and Midland. This may have
made the need for a station less obvious (only passengers heading for
Baker Street and Paddington would have needed it).

(4) One purpose of the Metropolitan was to provide *goods* access to
the City from the various main line termini. The LNWR had its own
outlet to the City in the form of the North London Line, so this access
was less important. That explains the lack of link, and may indicate
cooler relations with the LNWR. Which might also have led to problems
buying land - see (1).

(5) The LNWR was much less interested in commuter traffic than the
other lines in the area. So a station was less important.

--
Clive D.W. Feather, writing for himself | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Written on my laptop; please observe the Reply-To address

Euston Square used to be called Gower Street, which would be the correct
location name as it is effectively on Gower Street. I'm not sure when it
change, but the 1870 OS map shows it as Gower Street, as does the 1908
tube map. The tube maps from 1911 onwards show it as Euston Square.

There's probably information on the reason for the change somewhere,
possibly to try and attract passengers travelling to / from Euston.

Although some distance away if you're carrying luggage, it's not too far
to walk, probably no further than going from Monument to Bank or
Embankment to Charing Cross, especially if you come out of the pedestrian
subway at North Gower Street and go down Euston Street. I often walk from
Warren St station to Cobourg Street, which is probably about the same
distance or less, and it only takes me a few minutes. Obviously a station
with a direct walkway link to Euston would have been preferred.

Roger