Thread: Green Park
View Single Post
  #3   Report Post  
Old May 17th 04, 09:43 AM posted to uk.transport.london
TheOneKEA TheOneKEA is offline
external usenet poster
 
First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Nov 2003
Posts: 138
Default Green Park

Nigel Pendse wrote:
"Matt Ashby" wrote in message
om

Why are the Jubilee, Piccadilly and Victoria line platforms at Green
Park so far apart from each other. I understand why this is the case
at Charing Cross (two stations being merged) - is it the same thing at
Green Park?



It's a good point -- the two newer lines were built relatively recently,
by LU, so there are none of the issues of having to connect old lines
originally built by different companies. And, of course, the current
surface buildings aren't the original ones that were in operation when
lifts were in use. At other locations, great pains were taken to provide
very convenient interchanges when the Victoria line was built, but for
some reason, not at Green Park.


I suspect it had something to do with the orientation of the Piccadilly
Line - the planners must have assumed, and rightly so, that adding a
pair of 90 degree turns at Green Park to provide cross-platform
interchange with the Picc, or building the Vic platforms directly
underneath the Picc platforms, would have been dangerous and unsuitable.


I'm assuming it was because it was necessary to build the Vic and
Jubilee platforms under the park, whereas the Picc line runs under the
road. As it has single escalator flights, the Picc platforms are some
horizontal distance to the east of the station, rather than being more
or less directly underneath, which is what happens with other former
lift stations where the surface buildings remained intact. They did a
similar arrangement with two the newer lines, whose platforms are to the
south of the station, so all sets of platforms are away from the
station, and the two new lines are therefore not close to the original
Picc line platforms (but the Victoria and Jubilee platforms are quite
close to each other).


Close is relative - IMO all three platform groups are nearly the same
distance away from one another at crosspassage level. From my own
personal experience, it seems to take the same amount of time to do
Picc-Jubilee and Picc-Vic at the deep level, and Jubilee-Vic at
the deep level. And I walk very fast.

Besides, building under the park was probably the cheapest method of
construction, for both lines.

Brad