"Clive D. W. Feather" wrote in message
...

This was certainly the plan around the time of WW2.
People in authority thought the railway bridges across
the Thames were ugly, and so the plan was to
remove them and put the SR routes underground.

Amazing. Surely it would have been cheaper to just replace the bridges with
prettier ones.

--
John Rowland - Spamtrapped
Transport Plans for the London Area, updated 2001
http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro...69/tpftla.html
A man's vehicle is a symbol of his manhood.
That's why my vehicle's the Piccadilly Line -
It's the size of a county and it comes every two and a half minutes

In the message de ...
Stuart" wrote :

Michael Bell wrote:
It is a fairly obvious feature of railways south of the river that
many run at roof level.
I once got into correspondence with somebody who said "It is the
long-term objective to put these routes underground".

I felt like asking "Are you on the same planet as me? The cost
would be astronomical, and for what benefit?", but I let it drop.


Well yes and no, they run at a relatively flat uniform level it's the
land around it that determines whether the line is level with roofs. SO
most railways I can think of alternate between being on embankments and
in cuttings

SNIP

Surprisingly, perhaps, railways in notoriously flat countries like the
Netherlands and northern Belgium have numerous 'roof-level' and underground
sections. In many cases these replace tracks that were previously at ground
level, so as to eliminate the nuisance of frequent level crossings. To avoid
long interruption to train services, the new tracks may have to be on a
different alignment.

An interesting example in this context is Antwerp, where the original
ground-level approach to Central station was replaced by a viaduct circa
1873 (when Central station became a terminus and its northern approach from
Antwerp Dam was diverted to run on viaduct alongside the city's eastern
wall).

Now new twin tunnels have been excavated or bored beneath the southern
approach viaduct and onwards to Antwerp Dam, in the context of the work on
the Antwerp - Amsterdam high-speed line; they will be used by all the
passenger trains that now run on the viaduct, thereby saving about 2.5 km.
For details, see my Web page at the URL:
http://home.scarlet.be/~pin02722/antwerp.htm
--
Regards,

- Alan (in Brussels)

In message , at 20:20:01 on Tue, 14
Dec 2004, Brimstone remarked:
Although it did happen in the 1980s at Ludgate Circus

Except that the "underground" line was already there.

No it wasn't. The lines went over Ludgate Hill on a bridge, and only
(some of them) went underground north of that. All the route between the
north end of Blackfriars station and the north end of City Thameslink
station is newly constructed.

http://www.pendar.pwp.blueyonder.co....rnViaduct.html
--
Roland Perry

I thought the reason underground tube lines were less common south of the river
was the number of underground streams?
(Please don't tell me this was an urban myth!)
It might be less of a problem with more modern tunneling techniques and deeper
lines, but the cost would surely not be justified by any useful purpose?
Don't know about you but I prefer riding at roof level - you can look out of
the window, and get some ventilation.
Regarding consideration at the time of World War II, there might have been an
obvious reason then for wanting to put everything underground.

In article , CharlesPottins
wrote:
I thought the reason underground tube lines were less common south of the
river was the number of underground streams? (Please don't tell me this was
an urban myth!)

I always thought it was because the Southern Railway was so efficient at
surface transport.

Michael Bell
--

In article , Michael Bell
writes
In article , CharlesPottins
wrote:
I thought the reason underground tube lines were less common south of the
river was the number of underground streams? (Please don't tell me this was
an urban myth!)

I always thought it was because the Southern Railway was so efficient at
surface transport.

Michael Bell
Reading Christian Wolmar's book, he suggest the reasons were that land
was cheaper south of the river and there were no interested parties to
insist on deviations, etc. Additionally, the ground was less suited to
the cut and cover method of the early underground lines.

--
John Alexander,

"CharlesPottins" wrote in message
...
I thought the reason underground tube lines were less common south of the
river
was the number of underground streams?
(Please don't tell me this was an urban myth!)
It might be less of a problem with more modern tunneling techniques and
deeper
lines, but the cost would surely not be justified by any useful purpose?
Don't know about you but I prefer riding at roof level - you can look out
of
the window, and get some ventilation.
Regarding consideration at the time of World War II, there might have been
an
obvious reason then for wanting to put everything underground.

According to a couple of TV programs I saw recently the problem is the soil
through which the tunnels would have to be excavated. Apparently it had no
structural integrity and would crumble too easily compared with London Clay
which stays in place long enough for the tunnel segments to be fixed in
place.
Cheerz,
Baz
Happy New Year !!

In article ,
CharlesPottins writes
I thought the reason underground tube lines were less common south of the river
was the number of underground streams?

No. Three main reasons:

(1) The Blue Clay is not such a convenient layer south of the river,
though it does exist (see the Northern Line as an example).

(2) The various surface railways south of the river were much more
interested in competing for local traffic compared with those to the
north.

(3) Parliament created a "no-go zone" for surface railways; this covered
roughly the area inside the present Circle Line. While there were
exceptions - termini for routes extended over the river, and of course
Thameslink - to a large extent it left a region for the tubes to develop
with no effective competition.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
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