One of the things I find strange about the tube is that they hardly
ever (i.e. everywhere except holborn) seem to attempt to correct the
lack of interchange between lines which cross each other (e.g. West
Ruislip), so that you don't need to make ridiculous journeys to get
between them. I have constructed a list of these, and wonder whether
any plans are in the pipeline to correct the problem, or ever have
been.


Acton and Ealing - this whole area is a mess, with multiple lines
crossing each other, but never interchanging - e.g. you could cut out
either the central line, or the district line, if you had an
interchange to the picadilly from the central just before ealing
broadway. Likewise, acton main line and west acton are very close yet
without interchange.

Aldgate - The trains from Tower Hill to Aldgate East, and from
Liverpool Street to Aldgate East, both pass extremely closely to the
south and north ends of the Aldgate platforms (respectively). Why
didn't they just add platforms in for these so that you don't need to
make awkward changes at this triangle.

Aldwych - The southern end of the platforms are close enough to Temple
for an escalator to join them together. As they were forever trying to
make Aldwych more useful, I am surprised they never considered this, as
a short cut from Holborn to the circle line would be very useful.

Bank - The Waterloo & City line is quite far from the other lines (the
platforms are actually half way to Mansion House), so why didn't they
just extend it, moving the platforms to somewhere like Princes Street,
so that it is a very brief walk to the other lines.


Blackfriars - The Waterloo & City line passes directly beneath here, a
connection to it would alleviate travel from Bank to Blackfriars (thus
rendered 1 stop rather than 4) and from Blackfriars to Waterloo
(currently 4 stops including interchange), assuming the frequency of
the line was changed to something more similar to the other tube lines,
so that it could cope with the number of passengers. A connection here
would be amazingly significant to journey times from this area, and
routes from more north that involve using thameslink, as well as
connecting the area up much better.

Earls Court - The station appears to have been placed in one of the
most awkward of locations - had it been placed to the east in the
triangle where the lines diverge, there wouldn't be so much trouble
getting to high street kensington or gloucester road. More
significantly, had the station been placed to the west, it would have
enabled a direct connection to the West London Line, allowing the
branch to Kensington Olympia to be scrapped (and resolve similar issues
with having to get a branch to West Brompton first) - in fact, if the
Kings Line (Chelsea-Hackney line) went ahead, it would allow the Kings
line to take other the southern half of the Wimbledon Branch, and the
West London line to take over the northern half (and thus increase the
frequency of the West London Line significantly, as it would have
dedicated track rather than share it with freight).



Edgeware Road - The connection between the nearby bakerloo and circle
line stations is via an increadibly scary mugging friendly set of
underpasses. It could be much better done, more directly, via a simple
escalator between the bakerloo and circle line platforms.

Euston Square - The eastern end of this station is near Euston, and an
escalator link would connect the two, although there is a problem due
to a huge sewer right next to and parrallel with the eastern end of the
station, which obstructs the potential path quite a bit. The western
end is fairly close to Warren Street - the distance is about the same
as the length of the travelator at waterloo, and an escalator between
the levels of the lines would reduce that (going to the northern line
directly would be the shortest route, although you would probably need
to go through the old lift shafts. At the moment, if you want to go
south on the charing cross branch of the northern line, you either need
to walk the distance to euston or warren street, or change at both
kings cross, and euston, which is hardly convenient if you have lots of
heavy luggage, or difficulty walking far for some other reason.

Hampstead - The North London line passes to the south, and is a very
useful line as otherwise you need to go back into central london if you
want to go somewhere east or west. If they put an exit from the
southern end of the platforms, it would meet the North London line at
Rosslyn Hill. Although this is comparably quite far south from the
northern line platforms, Hampstead is the deepest tube station in
london, and so the escalator distance from it would be the longest (and
due the length, they would probably be split into stages, pushing the
exit even further to the south).

Mansion House - The Waterloo & City line runs directly under here, and
the platforms for bank are closer to here than they are to bank, so why
did they never build an escalator connection between the bank platforms
and Mansion House (admittedly this would make bank station somewhat
bizarre - if you went from the waterloo & city line platforms to
monument via the central line, and then took a circle/district line
train to mansion house, you would get back to the same waterloo & city
line platforms, even though you have gone through an intermediate
station (cannon street)).

Morden - Tramlink, and other lines, pass half way between morden and
south wimbledon, which is a reasonably large gap anyway. A station
where they meet would provide useful interchange, enabling a more
direct connection to the district line (via tramlink/foot/bus etc.) and
it is odd that one was not put in here originally.

Paddington - Currently, there is an extensive walk between the circle &
bakerloo platforms, and the hammersmith ones. This could have been
resolved by an escalator from the northern end of the bakerloo line
platforms which would connect fairly directly with the hammersmith
platforms. Also, the circle and bakerloo platforms could be brought
much closer together by a short passage from the eastern end of the
circle line platforms. I am very curious why neither of these things
were ever done.

Shepherd's Bush - There already seems to be a staff exit at the east
end of the platforms (over a bridge), so are they considering a public
exit at the east end to connect to the new station planned for the West
London Line.

Shoreditch High Street - The new East London Line station will be
directly above the central line, near some half built WWII bunker
tunnels. I have always been puzzled why they never built a station here
in the first place on the central line, and now it would make a useful
interchange as well.

St Pauls - The west end of the platforms is quite close to the City
Thameslink station, so I am surprised that no link was made, especially
when there are already partly constructed WWII bunker tunnels from the
west end of one of the platforms. Alternately, I am also surprised that
they never considered a station at Holborn Viaduct on the original
central line, which would also have provided such a connection, since
this is quite a busy area, and the gap between St Pauls and Chancery
Lane is quite large.

Walthamstow - With a small extension to the victoria line, it would
meet the central line near woodford, making the journey to/from
Walthamstow from/to the east much simpler, rather than needing to go
via oxford circus (ignoring buses/private transport), which is a bit
silly.

West Ruislip - Connecting this station up to a new station on the
metropolitan would mean that you could make the connection to Uxbridge
quite easily, rather than needing to use local transport instead, or
having to go via acton, which is ridiculous.

White City - They are building a new station on the Hammersmith & City
line nearby, which could be connected up if they slightly extended the
platforms a bit south, and replaced the (very) ugly station building
with (a more useful) one towards the southern end of the site.

On 20 May 2005 01:34:22 -0700, lonelytraveller wrote:

One of the things I find strange about the tube is that they hardly
ever (i.e. everywhere except holborn) seem to attempt to correct the
lack of interchange between lines which cross each other

That's hardly fair. In the case of the last two lines built, Jubilee and
Victoria, it seems like a case of joining up the dots.
--
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p12028744.html
(TDB 975025 - the SR General Manager's Saloon at Weymouth in 1985)

lonelytraveller wrote:
One of the things I find strange about the tube is that they hardly
ever (i.e. everywhere except holborn) seem to attempt to correct the
lack of interchange between lines which cross each other (e.g. West
Ruislip), so that you don't need to make ridiculous journeys to get
between them. I have constructed a list of these, and wonder whether
any plans are in the pipeline to correct the problem, or ever have
been.


Acton and Ealing - this whole area is a mess, with multiple lines
crossing each other, but never interchanging - e.g. you could cut out
either the central line, or the district line, if you had an
interchange to the picadilly from the central just before ealing
broadway. Likewise, acton main line and west acton are very close yet
without interchange.

There's a plan to build an interchange at Park Royal between the
Piccadilly and Central lines.
http://www.alwaystouchout.com/project/33

In light of that, there's no need for a Piccadilly-Central interchange
in Ealing, as Piccadilly passengers can get to Ealing Bdy with a change
at Ealing Common already, and West Acton is within walking distance of
North Ealing, so once the Park Royal interchange is in place, other
journey possibilities are catered for.

Acton Main Line isn't really that close to West Acton, and even if it
were, interchange between the two wouldn't really make much difference -
appropriate interchange is already available at Ealing Broadway.

Aldgate - The trains from Tower Hill to Aldgate East, and from
Liverpool Street to Aldgate East, both pass extremely closely to the
south and north ends of the Aldgate platforms (respectively). Why
didn't they just add platforms in for these so that you don't need to
make awkward changes at this triangle.

1: Super expensive. 2: Extra journey time for passengers, with 3: no
benefits. If you're starting your journey near Aldgate and you want to
Hammersmith & City / District lines to the east, Aldgate East is barely
3 minutes' walk away. Otherwise, all changes between lines are possible
using either Liverpool St, Tower Hill or Aldgate East.

Aldwych - The southern end of the platforms are close enough to Temple
for an escalator to join them together. As they were forever trying to
make Aldwych more useful, I am surprised they never considered this, as
a short cut from Holborn to the circle line would be very useful.

It's further than it looks on the map; it's certainly further than
Leicester Square to Covent Garden! Why would a shortcut from Holborn to
the Circle line be useful?

Bank - The Waterloo & City line is quite far from the other lines (the
platforms are actually half way to Mansion House), so why didn't they
just extend it, moving the platforms to somewhere like Princes Street,
so that it is a very brief walk to the other lines.

That would probably only save about 30 seconds' journey time, and would
be extremely expensive.

Blackfriars - The Waterloo & City line passes directly beneath here, a
connection to it would alleviate travel from Bank to Blackfriars (thus
rendered 1 stop rather than 4) and from Blackfriars to Waterloo
(currently 4 stops including interchange), assuming the frequency of
the line was changed to something more similar to the other tube lines,
so that it could cope with the number of passengers. A connection here
would be amazingly significant to journey times from this area, and
routes from more north that involve using thameslink, as well as
connecting the area up much better.

Well, getting from Thameslink to the Bank area is easily accomplished by
using the District line to Mansion House, Cannon St or Monument;
probably quicker than descending to a deep tube platform and then
returning to the surface at the other end. Getting to Waterloo from the
south is already catered for by the Bakerloo at Elephant & Castle, or
overground rail from London Bridge. Thameslink travellers from the north
can reach Waterloo from West Hampstead - probably more quickly than
sitting on a Thameslink service through the core section to Blackfriars.

For people arriving at Waterloo and travelling to the Blackfriars area,
there is a bit of a gap in provision, although the 521 Red Arrow service
already does quite a good job of delivering people to the area
immediately to the north of Blackfriars. Rather than an extremely
expensive new deep tube platform at Blackfriars, I imagine a new bus
service running from Waterloo across Blackfriars Bridge would provide
nearly as good a journey time at a fraction of the cost.

I also imagine that the thousands of commuters who use the W&C to reach
the City from southwest London would be highly inconvenienced by a new
stop at Blackfriars; the number of people who might benefit is probably
much lower.

Earls Court - The station appears to have been placed in one of the
most awkward of locations - had it been placed to the east in the
triangle where the lines diverge, there wouldn't be so much trouble
getting to high street kensington or gloucester road. More
significantly, had the station been placed to the west, it would have
enabled a direct connection to the West London Line, allowing the
branch to Kensington Olympia to be scrapped (and resolve similar issues
with having to get a branch to West Brompton first) - in fact, if the
Kings Line (Chelsea-Hackney line) went ahead, it would allow the Kings
line to take other the southern half of the Wimbledon Branch, and the
West London line to take over the northern half (and thus increase the
frequency of the West London Line significantly, as it would have
dedicated track rather than share it with freight).

Let's not forget that the main point of Earl's Court station is to serve
the area of Earl's Court; having it anywhere other than its current
location would be a pain in the proverbial for travellers to the area,
and patently unnecessary.

I'm not sure what this "trouble" is getting to HSK or Gloucester Rd that
you refer to - from any one station in the triangle you can get to any
other.

Providing interchange with the West London Line - rather than moving an
entire station and inconveniencing everyone who currently uses it, a
virtually zero-cost option is to permit out-of-station interchange
between West Brompton and Earl's Court, which are just under 5 minutes'
walk away from each other. The current Earl's Court station is in the
perfect location - if you move it anywhere, you are going to
inconvenience a lot of people.

As for the WLL taking over the northern part of the District line, I
really don't think that would be very popular with the denizens of
Fulham. Most of them want to get to central London, not Shepherd's Bush
or Willesden Junction.

Edgeware Road - The connection between the nearby bakerloo and circle
line stations is via an increadibly scary mugging friendly set of
underpasses. It could be much better done, more directly, via a simple
escalator between the bakerloo and circle line platforms.

For what purpose? Interchange is already available at Paddington and
Baker Street between these lines.

Euston Square - The eastern end of this station is near Euston, and an
escalator link would connect the two, although there is a problem due
to a huge sewer right next to and parrallel with the eastern end of the
station, which obstructs the potential path quite a bit. The western
end is fairly close to Warren Street - the distance is about the same
as the length of the travelator at waterloo, and an escalator between
the levels of the lines would reduce that (going to the northern line
directly would be the shortest route, although you would probably need
to go through the old lift shafts. At the moment, if you want to go
south on the charing cross branch of the northern line, you either need
to walk the distance to euston or warren street, or change at both
kings cross, and euston, which is hardly convenient if you have lots of
heavy luggage, or difficulty walking far for some other reason.

A decent link between Euston Square and Euston mainline would be useful,
and I think there are plans somewhere to improve this interchange.
Permitted, well-signed out-of-station interchange between Warren Street
and Euston Square would solve the problems you mention at a miniscule
fraction of the cost.

Hampstead - The North London line passes to the south, and is a very
useful line as otherwise you need to go back into central london if you
want to go somewhere east or west. If they put an exit from the
southern end of the platforms, it would meet the North London line at
Rosslyn Hill. Although this is comparably quite far south from the
northern line platforms, Hampstead is the deepest tube station in
london, and so the escalator distance from it would be the longest (and
due the length, they would probably be split into stages, pushing the
exit even further to the south).

The cost of such an interchange would be absolutely astronomical - new
escalator shafters under Hampstead, and a brand new station build around
the NLL tunnel at Rosslyn Hill?! The distance between Hampstead
platforms and the North London Line isn't that short anyway - it would
probably be a 5-minute walk!

A more constructive solution (which has been proposed by some parties)
is at Camden Town, where a new exit from the Camden Town platforms could
create a decent interchange to Camden Road NLL station - although this
is a rival plan to TfL's.
http://www.alwaystouchout.com/project/62

If we really need a way for getting Edgware branch passengers to parts
of West London, an interchange at Chalk Farm with a reopened Primrose
Hill station serving ELLX/Orbirail service to Willesden would be much
cheaper than the solution you propose.

Mansion House - The Waterloo & City line runs directly under here, and
the platforms for bank are closer to here than they are to bank, so why
did they never build an escalator connection between the bank platforms
and Mansion House (admittedly this would make bank station somewhat
bizarre - if you went from the waterloo & city line platforms to
monument via the central line, and then took a circle/district line
train to mansion house, you would get back to the same waterloo & city
line platforms, even though you have gone through an intermediate
station (cannon street)).

Why bother building this link? In-station interchange is already
available with the Circle/District at Monument, and how many people
change from the W&C to the westbound District/Circle?

Morden - Tramlink, and other lines, pass half way between morden and
south wimbledon, which is a reasonably large gap anyway. A station
where they meet would provide useful interchange, enabling a more
direct connection to the district line (via tramlink/foot/bus etc.) and
it is odd that one was not put in here originally.

The lack of interchange between Tramlink and the Northern line is
apparent, but this is probably much more easily and cheaply solved with
a tram solution rather than a Tube one. Plans are already afoot for a
tram route linking the current line from Croydon to Tooting Broadway via
Mitcham town centre, and from Wimbledon via Morden station to Sutton.
http://www.alwaystouchout.com/project/19

However, this is more for people to travel between the Northern line and
Tramlink, rather than between the Northern and District lines. I
imagine most such journeys are more easily accomplished by direct buses
than by tube-tram-tube combinations.

Paddington - Currently, there is an extensive walk between the circle &
bakerloo platforms, and the hammersmith ones. This could have been
resolved by an escalator from the northern end of the bakerloo line
platforms which would connect fairly directly with the hammersmith
platforms. Also, the circle and bakerloo platforms could be brought
much closer together by a short passage from the eastern end of the
circle line platforms. I am very curious why neither of these things
were ever done.

Not sure about this one. I find the Circle-Bakerloo interchange at
Paddington OK compared to other interchanges (like Green Park or King's
Cross).

Shepherd's Bush - There already seems to be a staff exit at the east
end of the platforms (over a bridge), so are they considering a public
exit at the east end to connect to the new station planned for the West
London Line.

There will be a Central-WLL-bus-(possible tram) interchange here.
http://www.alwaystouchout.com/project/24

Shoreditch High Street - The new East London Line station will be
directly above the central line, near some half built WWII bunker
tunnels. I have always been puzzled why they never built a station here
in the first place on the central line, and now it would make a useful
interchange as well.

This was considered, but it failed a cost-benefit analysis - the cost of
construction and extra journey time for the thousands of passengers
travelling into the City from the eastern Central line wasn't worth the
benefits of having the interchange there.

However, Crossrail's Whitechapel station will allow interchange between
ELL services and services to parts of east London, the City and West
End; passengers between the ELL and the eastern Central line will be
able to interchange via Whitechapel & Mile End (cross-platform),
Whitechapel and Stratford (cross-platform?) and Canada Water and
Stratford. Although obviously a two-change journey is not as convenient
as a single-change journey, the possibilities will exist.

St Pauls - The west end of the platforms is quite close to the City
Thameslink station, so I am surprised that no link was made, especially
when there are already partly constructed WWII bunker tunnels from the
west end of one of the platforms. Alternately, I am also surprised that
they never considered a station at Holborn Viaduct on the original
central line, which would also have provided such a connection, since
this is quite a busy area, and the gap between St Pauls and Chancery
Lane is quite large.

Pass. Perhaps it's difficult to build a station here, as the Central
line has to dive underneath the river Fleet.

Walthamstow - With a small extension to the victoria line, it would
meet the central line near woodford, making the journey to/from
Walthamstow from/to the east much simpler, rather than needing to go
via oxford circus (ignoring buses/private transport), which is a bit
silly.

I doubt anyone would ignore buses/private transport and travel via
Oxford Circus. The Victoria line can't be extended at the moment as it
is already full to its capacity; the only possible extension is a loop
from Brixton to Herne Hill and back, as this would permit a frequency
increase on the line by avoiding the scissors crossover at Brixton which
limits capacity. The future relief promised is Crossrail 2, which could
drastically reduce Victoria line overcrowding - but don't hold your
breath for it to be built any time soon.

West Ruislip - Connecting this station up to a new station on the
metropolitan would mean that you could make the connection to Uxbridge
quite easily, rather than needing to use local transport instead, or
having to go via acton, which is ridiculous.

This area is far from densely populated, and a new station would never
pass any cost-benefit analysis. If you're travelling from the Central
line to Uxbridge, the proposed Park Royal interchange may help - but
otherwise, the demand isn't really there.

White City - They are building a new station on the Hammersmith & City
line nearby, which could be connected up if they slightly extended the
platforms a bit south, and replaced the (very) ugly station building
with (a more useful) one towards the southern end of the site.

Interchange between the two stations will already only be about a
3-minute walk; the current White City Central line station serves the
are to the west and north, so moving it south would be inconvenient to
current users, and probably more so than the benefits gained by a
slightly-reduced interchange time. However, if the White City
development is very successful, it's conceivable that a new southern
entrance to the station might be built.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

and isn't the Piccadilly Line directly under Harringay station. How
many lines does the North London line cross without interchange.

On Fri, 20 May 2005, Chris Tolley wrote:

On 20 May 2005 01:34:22 -0700, lonelytraveller wrote:

One of the things I find strange about the tube is that they hardly
ever (i.e. everywhere except holborn) seem to attempt to correct the
lack of interchange between lines which cross each other

That's hardly fair. In the case of the last two lines built, Jubilee and
Victoria, it seems like a case of joining up the dots.

That's true, but Dr No Context is talking about improving connectivity
between existing lines, and he's right about that. The answer, of course,
is that the cost of the improvements would sadly be disproportionate to
the benefit they would bring. Except at Park Royal, apparently. The
ELL/Central opportunity at Shoreditch High Street is an example of this -
it was considered, and not found to be worth it, given that the extra stop
would delay travellers from the east as well.

I'd take issue with some of the suggestions, though, like Aldgate; the
current layout is like this:

---+-\
| \ # AE
A #| +---
| /
---+-/

Where lines are, er, lines, pluses are junctions, and # is a station; A is
Aldgate, AE is Aldgate East. Lonelytraveller doesn't like the A to AE
change, so he'd rather have:

---+-\
# | \
A #| +---
# | /
---+-/

Or something, so you can do it all at Aldgate. This, however, would be
awful for anyone who just wanted to head east - you'd have to choose
between two platforms and hope you picked the one with the first train,
whereas at present, you just have one. I'm not really sure who it would
make life easier for; the stations on either side provide easier changes
from the District and H&C to the Circle.

I don't think there's any way to arrange this so that everyone is happy.
Not just by building new platforms, at least; i did at one point work out
how to arrange a station at the junction of three lines so that there's
one platform per destination direction, but it was a bit complicated.

What i'd do, if we were going to dig up bits of the City, is rearrange
Tower Hill - possibly with an extra bit of track from Minories junction -
so that Metropolitan trains could terminate there instead of Aldgate. Oh,
and link the station up with Fenchurch Street and Tower Gateway properly
while i'm down there.

Many of the other suggestions are sound, though. I share his frustration
over Earl's Court - it (or the WLL, depending on how you look at it) is
just in the wrong place for interchange with the WLL (and concomitant
extermination of the Kenny O stub, which i find really irritating).

tom

--
20 Minutes into the Future

On 20 May 2005 01:34:22 -0700, "lonelytraveller"
wrote:

One of the things I find strange about the tube is that they hardly
ever (i.e. everywhere except holborn) seem to attempt to correct the
lack of interchange between lines which cross each other (e.g. West
Ruislip), so that you don't need to make ridiculous journeys to get
between them. I have constructed a list of these, and wonder whether
any plans are in the pipeline to correct the problem, or ever have
been.

If you stop and think about it for a moment it is possible to get
between the vast majority of tube stations with one change. Admittedly
these interchanges are in the centre of town but the tube is essentially
a radial transport network not an orbital one. That's what buses, some
rail lines, DLR and trams are for. The Tube is not the totality of
London's transport network and never, ever will be.

Walthamstow - With a small extension to the victoria line, it would
meet the central line near woodford, making the journey to/from
Walthamstow from/to the east much simpler, rather than needing to go
via oxford circus (ignoring buses/private transport), which is a bit
silly.

Why would anyone want this extension to be built? The Victoria Line
overrun tunnels just about reach Wood Street and Woodford is much higher
up than Wood Street is. Even if you were to continue in Tunnel the
construction costs would be huge and the benefit incredibly marginal.
Anyone want a station at Waterworks Corner or in the middle of Epping
Forest?

The true test is what level of demand is there for buses between
Woodford or possibly South Woodford. The number 20 runs to Woodford
every 15 minutes and is rarely packed out. The W12 minibus runs every 20
minutes to South Woodford and is reasonably well patronised but the
vehicles are small. If there is no justification for very frequent bus
links then there can never a case for a deep tube extension.

Now between Walthamstow / Chingford and say Stratford or Canning Town
for interchange to Docklands - yes please build a few metres of track on
an old alignment to connect the Chingford Line to the Lea Valley Line
and please provide a service over that link. That would genuinely
improve connectivity in East London and take traffic off the roads.

I harbour secret dreams of DLR extending up the Lea Valley and taking
over the Chingford Line so the much needed extra stations at Forest
Road, Fulbourne Rd and Chingford Hatch could be built and we'd have a
really effective rail corridor up to Chingford that served the community
rather than whizzing past it. I accept that commuters into the City
would howl if they lost their direct train link but I can dream :-)

West Ruislip - Connecting this station up to a new station on the
metropolitan would mean that you could make the connection to Uxbridge
quite easily, rather than needing to use local transport instead, or
having to go via acton, which is ridiculous.

What is ridiculous about catching a bus? - they are part of London's
integrated transport network.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Fri, 20 May 2005, Chris Tolley wrote:

On 20 May 2005 01:34:22 -0700, lonelytraveller wrote:

One of the things I find strange about the tube is that they hardly
ever (i.e. everywhere except holborn) seem to attempt to correct the
lack of interchange between lines which cross each other

(snip)

Many of the other suggestions are sound, though. I share his frustration
over Earl's Court - it (or the WLL, depending on how you look at it) is
just in the wrong place for interchange with the WLL (and concomitant
extermination of the Kenny O stub, which i find really irritating).

Earl's Court is in exactly the right place - between Earl's Court Road
and Warwick Road, with the former exit serving the busy shopping area
and the latter exit serving the exhibition centre. There's no better
location of Earl's Court station.

To provide a comprehensive interchange to the WLL without greatly
inconveniencing the people who travel to the Earl's Court area would
require new platforms underneath the exhibition centre, with a
passageway linking them to the existing station. But these platforms
would be tens of metres away from West Brompton! So, why not just
signpost and allow out-of-station interchange between Earl's Court and
West Brompton? It would have much the same effect.

You may find the Olympia stub irritating, but many others find it useful
- it has good interchange at Earl's Court across the platform to
services towards Victoria or Edgware Road, and is relatively reliable
compared to the WLL.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

Dave Arquati wrote:

I doubt anyone would ignore buses/private transport and travel via
Oxford Circus. The Victoria line can't be extended at the moment
as it is already full to its capacity; the only possible extension
is a loop from Brixton to Herne Hill and back, as this would permit
a frequency increase on the line by avoiding the scissors crossover
at Brixton which limits capacity. The future relief promised is
Crossrail 2, which could drastically reduce Victoria line
overcrowding - but don't hold your breath for it to be built any
time soon.

A loop at Herne Hill is not the only way to increase capacity on the
Vic - a flying terminus would do the job just as well, without the pain
of turning trains around.

Interchange between the two stations will already only be about a
3-minute walk; the current White City Central line station serves the
are to the west and north, so moving it south would be inconvenient
to current users, and probably more so than the benefits gained by a
slightly-reduced interchange time. However, if the White City
development is very successful, it's conceivable that a new southern
entrance to the station might be built.

A southern entrance would indeed be useful to make it easier to reach
the western side of the White City development; however, it would be
expensive, and disruptive to the Central Line as well - there is
literally no ground space for the supports needed for such a structure,
as all available ground space is occupied by the scissors crossovers to
the east of the station. Building an access between the eastern edge of
the platforms and the nearby bridge would be interesting...

On Fri, 20 May 2005, TheOneKEA wrote:

Dave Arquati wrote:

The Victoria line can't be extended at the moment as it is already full
to its capacity;

I might have lost the plot, but that seems to make no sense whatsoever -
making the line longer wouldn't have capacity implications. You could run
trains at exactly the same frequency (if you had a few more), so as far as
Brixton is concerned, it wouldn't be any different. Or am i being stupid?

However, what i really want to know is ...

the only possible extension is a loop from Brixton to Herne Hill and
back, as this would permit a frequency increase on the line by avoiding
the scissors crossover at Brixton which limits capacity.

A loop at Herne Hill is not the only way to increase capacity on the Vic
- a flying terminus would do the job just as well, without the pain of
turning trains around.

What the hell is a flying terminus? I'm getting visions of some sort of
Hayao Miyazaki sort of affair ...

tom

--
Sometimes it takes a madman like Iggy Pop before you can SEE the logic really working.

On Fri, 20 May 2005, Dave Arquati wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Fri, 20 May 2005, Chris Tolley wrote:

On 20 May 2005 01:34:22 -0700, lonelytraveller wrote:

the lack of interchange between lines which cross each other

I share his frustration over Earl's Court - it (or the WLL, depending
on how you look at it) is just in the wrong place for interchange with
the WLL (and concomitant extermination of the Kenny O stub, which i
find really irritating).

Earl's Court is in exactly the right place - between Earl's Court Road
and Warwick Road, with the former exit serving the busy shopping area
and the latter exit serving the exhibition centre. There's no better
location of Earl's Court station.

That is one conclusion. The other is that the shops and the exhibition
centre are in the wrong place.

That isn't an entirely facetious comment - the location of the station
probably had a lot to do with the structure of development in the area.

It is a mostly facetious comment, though.

To provide a comprehensive interchange to the WLL without greatly
inconveniencing the people who travel to the Earl's Court area would require
new platforms underneath the exhibition centre, with a passageway linking
them to the existing station. But these platforms would be tens of metres
away from West Brompton! So, why not just signpost and allow out-of-station
interchange between Earl's Court and West Brompton? It would have much the
same effect.

I think that's a great idea. I'm not suggesting a new WLL station on the
existing line; that would clearly be madness. I'm just a little irked that
they didn't build the stuff in that area a bit more smoothly when they had
the chance (with the WLL further to the east, for example). I'm not too
hot on my history, though; the WLL probably predates the District line.
Still, if Earl's Court is a good place for a tube station, it's also a
good place for a railway station.

That said, perhaps the fact that the Wimbledon branch follows the WLL
alignment means Earl's Court has to be well to the east of it.

You may find the Olympia stub irritating, but many others find it useful

DESTROY KENSINGTON OLYMPIA.

tom

--
Sometimes it takes a madman like Iggy Pop before you can SEE the logic really working.