On Thu, 10 May 2007, alex_t wrote:

You could make it look right by distorting the lines to have them both
running through north-south, but after all the fuss we've had about
layout, that seems silly.

Oh, come on - what haven't I done with that map already? ;-) I will bend
Victoria as you described.

As you wish!

Camden Town's not cross-platform?

Is it? I thought it has two close, but separate "sub-stations"?

Not exactly. There are separate bits for the Barnet and Edgware branches,
but the southbound platforms for both are sunk below the northbound
platforms, and there are level passageways connecting each directional
pair. Hang on, i'll have a crack at some ascii art:

_____ _____
/ \______________________/ \
| NB Ew | passageway | NB HB |
\_____/----------------------\_____/
_____ _____
/ \______________________/ \
| SB Ew | passageway | SB HB |
\_____/----------------------\_____/

That's the cross-section you'd get if you made a vertical, east-west slice
through the middle of the station, looking from the south side. NB/SB is
northbound/southbound, Ew is Edgware, and HB is High Barnet. The crude
circles are the running tunnels, and the things labelled 'passageway' are,
er, passageways. So, although the platforms for each branch are right next
to each other in horizontal terms, the vertical separation means that
there's level interchange. I don't know if you'd call it cross-platform;
it's rather further between them than at Mile End or Finchley Road. Still,
better than stairs. Also, there are only two passageways for each pair (i
think), and since lots of people interchange here in the peaks, it gets
dangerously overcrowded, so it's hardly an easy interchange at those
times.

Poplar - you haven't given it a dot, but it has a four-track, two-island
layout, much the same as at Kennington, so perhaps you should.

Baker Street - i'd err on the side of understatement, and make the Met
platforms separate to the Circle.

What's wrong with just letting the confluence of lines in one circle
show cross-platformity?

It will look too similar to same track usage in many cases (check
Chiswick Park or Wembley Park on my map).

Chiswick Park?

I see what you mean, but i think there'd be an obvious difference between,
say, Ealing Common and Finsbury Park even without the dots - separate
lines vs lines that are actually stuck together. If you don't think it's
obvious enough, fair enough.

I'm intrigued by Alex's choice to represent Edgware Road as two
unconnected circles with a single name.

Well, that's because I was clueless to their "official" status. I will
name them both now.

No! I liked it that way. The two stations are just as close as at
Hammersmith (easier to get between, in fact). Don't let the whims of LU
put you off!

Here's another thing - you might consider somehow showing the four-track
nature of the Metropolitan north of Wembley Park; Clive explains it all:

http://www.davros.org/rail/culg/metr....html#features

But basically, if i've got it right, the line splits into fast and slow
pairs just after Finchley Road, with the slow pair going through Preston
Road, Northwick Park, Harrow on the Hill, and then heading to Uxbridge,
and the fast pair going past the first two stations and in to Harrow on
the Hill. After that, the fast pair splits again, into a second slow pair
which goes through all the stations up to and including Moor Park, and
then goes to Watford, and a second fast pair which goes straight to Moor
Park, and then off to Amersham. Except it's more complicated than this, as
there are all sorts of junctions where trains can switch tracks, and
various service patterns, etc. Oh, and the second fast pair also has NR
trains on it!

Anyway, i *think* you could just add fast tracks from Finchley Road to
Wembley Park, and then from Wembley Park to Harrow on the Hill, and then
from there to Moor Park. The first two sections would lie to the north of
the all-stations line, and the third one to the south; that's not
geographical, but it does, i think, show where the trains mostly go.

tom

--
I gotta handful of vertebrae and a headful of mad! -- The Doomguy