On 16 Oct, 22:57, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 16 Oct 2007, Clive D. W. Feather wrote:

In article , Tom
Anderson writes

Does anyone know if there was a route plan for the central stretch? Would
it just have slavishly followed the Northern line,

That was the 1946 plan. However, there was also an earlier plan floating
around in 1939 for the precursor of the Victoria Line.

Under this plan, the Northern Line would be split at Clapham Common. The
section north of there would feed into an express tube that called only
at Tooting Broadway and [Morden].

This surprises me. What was the point of this? It gets people from Morden
and Tooting Broadway into the City faster than changing at Clapham Common,
sure. People from South Wimbledon and Colliers Wood can take the local
train and change at Tooting Broadway, too. But this seems quite a small
benefit for an awful lot of tunnelling. Specifically, you get almost as
much benefit by only taking those tubes to Tooting Broadway, which would
be half the distance (ish).

I'm also surprised the split was that far North - it only saves you four
stops (taking Victoria as somehow level with Waterloo). Balham, i tell
you, it should be Balham!

All good points.


The southern all-stops section would be extended from Clapham Common to
Victoria (with no intermediate stations).

Stage 2 of the plan extended the Victoria branch via Green Park, Bond
Street, Great Portland Street, and Camden Town to Finsbury Park.

Like so:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2176/...3ca08395_o.png

Ah - very good. Always good to see it on a map.


A Finsbury Park - Camden Town link is something that i really do feel is
missing from the current network, like the Finsbury Park - Highgate link.
You may think that this is because i live in Finsbury Park, but i couldn't
possibly comment.

Of course you've got the 29 bus, plus at least another one... looks
at spider map ...the 253 (which, along with it's cousin the 254 are
pretty interesting routes).

Or a quick run down on the Vic line to High & I and change for the
North London Line to Camden Road - and very near from the station one
can descend down the steps to the canal towpath to get to Camden Lock
or, a bit further on, the delights of Regents Park.