On Tue, 12 Oct 2004, Andrew wrote:

"Jim Brown" wrote in message
om...

If the Bank of England sacrificed its vaults (Very little use for them
now, with the gold sold off) and Cannon Street St was put underground
(Plus a new tunnel under the Thames), would a tunnel connecting
Moorgate and London Bridge be feasible? Or do the tube lines around
there make it impossible?

This is highly speculative and I'm sure the engineering feats involved
would be considerable, but how about connecting the Northern City / WAGN
line with the Thameslink spur into Moorgate, and restoring the 3rd curve
at Farringdon Junction making it a triangular junction again. Would
create more direct North-South journey possibilities without building a
second tunnel. However after Thameslink 2000 is complete this might
prove rather superfluous anyway as there will be a direct route from the
ECML through the new Kings Cross Thameslink station and on to
Farringdon. It seems a shame to abandon the Moorgate Thameslink route
though.

It does. I reckon it should be extended east from Moorgate, to Liverpool
Street, then Whitechapel, then turning north to a portal around the
Bethnal Green junction thing, where it could take over the West Anglia
slow lines. Doing that would decouple those lines from the mainline part
of Liverpool Street, which would relieve the station _and_ allow the line
to run more frequent trains. It would also give that line more reach into
town.

The western end would either be some new platforms on the existing track
at Farringdon (cheap, and still useful), or down into more tunnel to some
new deep platforms at Farringdon, and then off on some sort of Crossrail N
jaunt: i like Holborn, Embankment, Westminster, Victoria, then a bit of
Chelsea-Hackney action to Sloane Square, King's Road Chelsea, Chelsea
Harbour, Clapham Junction, then another portal to take over the slow pair
on the LSW main line as far as Hampton Court, plus perhaps the Leatherhead
(IIRC) line down to Epsom (with mainline trains through Epsom going into
London via Sutton, unless someone feels like four-tracking from Epsom to
the mainline).

Might be a bit expensive just to save a mile of track, though.

tom

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