London Banter - View Single Post

Martin Underwood · January 3rd 06, 08:38 AM posted to uk.transport.london

wrote in
:

Martin Underwood wrote:

I didn't know that new lines were not built with a rising gradient
on the approach to each station and a falling gradient on the
departure from it. I'd have thought that the reasons for which the
humps were originally built (helping slowing down on arrival,
speeding up and reducing current consumption on departure) would be
as valid today as they were 150 years ago.

I think it was an innovation on the Central London Railway wasn't it,
with the earliest lines not having it? None of them quite 150 years
ago anyway. Maybe 105.

Ah, so it's only a feature of the tube lines and not the cut-and-cover
lines? I didn't know that. In that case, my approximate figure of 150 years
(actually 143 years if you take the first Underground line as being built in
1863) changes to 105 years (Central line built in 1900), as you say.