View Single Post
  #3   Report Post  
Old November 27th 07, 02:50 PM posted to uk.transport.london
Tim Roll-Pickering Tim Roll-Pickering is offline
external usenet poster
 
First recorded activity at LondonBanter: May 2005
Posts: 739
Default Lack of GOBLin connections

wrote:

I was wondering, was the GOBLin built after the tube lines? Does
anyone know the rationale behind its route?


That's a little tricky as the current route wasn't determined until 1981
when the western ending switched from Kentish Town (needed for what became
Thameslink) and routed to Gospel Oak (this is probably also why the platform
layout at Gospel Oak means any through service running onto the North London
Line can't actually call at Gospel Oak). At one stage the line used to run
down to Moorgate via St Pancras and the Widened Lines.

Have there ever been plans
to connect it with the lines it crosses? Which came first: the GOBLin
or the tube lines?!


Most of the GOBLIN predates the tubelines, but as noted above the actual
current GOBLIN route is modern. There was a Northern Line connection at
Kentish Town but this was lost when the end was switched.

There's a walkable interchange between Leytonstone High Road and Leytonstone
on the Central Line, but this has never to my knowledge been officially
regarded as a valid one. (Nor for that matter is Forest Gate - Wanstead Park
despite the two stations being in sight of each other.) Also the Central
Line at Leytonstone took over an existing railway line that predated the
GOBLIN.

Part of the problem with existing overground interchanges, quite apart from
the competitive nature of pre 1923 railways actively discouraging this sort
of thing, is that the GOBLIN was largely built through existing built-up
areas so often didn't have the luxury of being designed to join up the dots
of other stations. The Picadilly Line similarly was in private hands when it
was built and is also underground - again not conducive to interchange.