In article , John Youles
URL:mailto:mines.a.pint@localhost wrote:
On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 14:12:07 +0100 in uk.transport.london, Michael
Bell tapped out on the keyboard:


In the 19th century the railway companies made a plan to
have a huge central London station, but Parliament stepped in and
forced them to stop at the edge of the city centre and join them
all using the circle line. It would be a very different London
today if that had not happened. Would it have been better? An
interesting question!.

Michael Bell

Fascinating ! Would you happen to know any books, websites etc. on
the subject please ?

John

I'm afraid I don't know of any books about it that would be
likely to be available today, I learned of it from a history book when
I was at school. A long time ago! You might find references you could
follow up in histories of the Circle line - the Circle line was the
alternative to the Grand Central station - presumably the New York
station of that name was the sucessful implementation of that idea in
New York?

One of Colin Buchanan's books refers to a quite separate idea
of about 1900, put forwards by entrepreneurs, to create two
cross-routes, one East-West, the other North-South, with an overhead
railway for express traffic, a surface tramway underneath it (this
was 1900!) for short-distance traffic and massive property development
along the route, this is where they would recoup their investment. It
was to be simply chopped through the existing built-up area. Once
again Parliament wouldn't allow it, but it may also be that the
promoters didn't have the necessary money. Once again, it would
have made London into a completely different place. To think about
it is almost like a Sci-fi alternative future story. But we live
in the boring old world we have drifted into rather than the
exciting world we might have got into by planning and vision!

Michael Bell

On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 21:53:51 +0100 in uk.transport.london, Michael Bell
tapped out on the keyboard:

In article , John Youles
URL:mailto:mines.a.pint@localhost wrote:
On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 14:12:07 +0100 in uk.transport.london, Michael
Bell tapped out on the keyboard:


In the 19th century the railway companies made a plan to
have a huge central London station, but Parliament stepped in and
forced them to stop at the edge of the city centre and join them
all using the circle line. It would be a very different London
today if that had not happened. Would it have been better? An
interesting question!.

Michael Bell

Fascinating ! Would you happen to know any books, websites etc. on
the subject please ?

John

I'm afraid I don't know of any books about it that would be
likely to be available today, I learned of it from a history book when
I was at school. A long time ago! You might find references you could
follow up in histories of the Circle line - the Circle line was the
alternative to the Grand Central station - presumably the New York
station of that name was the sucessful implementation of that idea in
New York?

One of Colin Buchanan's books refers to a quite separate idea
of about 1900, put forwards by entrepreneurs, to create two
cross-routes, one East-West, the other North-South, with an overhead
railway for express traffic, a surface tramway underneath it (this
was 1900!) for short-distance traffic and massive property development
along the route, this is where they would recoup their investment. It
was to be simply chopped through the existing built-up area. Once
again Parliament wouldn't allow it, but it may also be that the
promoters didn't have the necessary money. Once again, it would
have made London into a completely different place. To think about
it is almost like a Sci-fi alternative future story. But we live
in the boring old world we have drifted into rather than the
exciting world we might have got into by planning and vision!

Michael Bell

Thanks, Michael, I'll keep a look out.

--
John Youles Norwich England UK
j dot y.o.u.l.e.s at n.t.l.w.o.r.l.d dot c.o.m
http://www.ukip.org/

On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 19:42:41 +0100, John wrote:

In article , Paul Corfield
writes
On 14 Jul 2003 14:15:59 -0700, (nmtop40) wrote:

[crossrail]

It's a connecting line around London we need, not more lines going
through the middle of it.

I agree with the orbital line idea in addition to Crossrail and I think
it could be done relatively cheaply if people employed some imagination
as to the execution of the concept.

People in favour of crossrail often quote people wanting to travel from
the GE lines to Paddington - but how many want to? Surely lots want to
travel from GE to Waterloo/Victoria - I do quite often, and others want
to go to go from Marylebone to London Bridge.

But that is not the whole story is it. Crossrail will relieve a lot of
other lines as well as provide very quick links across the centre. If
you live in Ilford and want to go to Oxford St you currently get a GE
train and then a tube. In future one train to TCR that is much faster
overall as the line speed will be far higher than the Tube.

Let's say you want to go Romford to Gatwick. In future one fast train to
Farringdon then one fast Thameslink to Gatwick. There are a myriad of
options opened up with Crossrail. I think people need to use the RER in
Paris to see how good a concept it is in comparison to the Metro (which
is good at what it does too but it is comparatively slow and nearly
always requires one change to get anywhere).

I commute to Kings Cross from the GE - it would probably ease my travel
a bit, but I am not convinced by the plan - given the number of people
or orbit the M25 I can see advantages in an orbital line linking key
interchanges.

so in future you get one direct train to Farringdon and then Thameslink
or a Tube one stop. Sounds fine and dandy to me (assuming it all works,
of course).

I'd like to see Thameslink 2050 (!) built, Crossrail 1 then something
doing KX- Victoria (Crossrail 2) and then Waterloo / Vauxhall - Euston
preferably linking into Holborn / Aldwych. The only really difficult
option would be whether we could create a London version of Chatelet Les
Halles (Paris) with (nearly) all the lines linked or whether you'd have
a couple of big Central London interchange stations.
--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...
On Tue, 15 Jul 2003 19:42:41 +0100, John wrote:

In article , Paul Corfield
writes
On 14 Jul 2003 14:15:59 -0700, (nmtop40) wrote:

[crossrail]

It's a connecting line around London we need, not more lines going
through the middle of it.

I agree with the orbital line idea in addition to Crossrail and I think
it could be done relatively cheaply if people employed some imagination
as to the execution of the concept.

People in favour of crossrail often quote people wanting to travel from
the GE lines to Paddington - but how many want to? Surely lots want to
travel from GE to Waterloo/Victoria - I do quite often, and others want
to go to go from Marylebone to London Bridge.

(snip)

I commute to Kings Cross from the GE - it would probably ease my travel
a bit, but I am not convinced by the plan - given the number of people
or orbit the M25 I can see advantages in an orbital line linking key
interchanges.

so in future you get one direct train to Farringdon and then Thameslink
or a Tube one stop. Sounds fine and dandy to me (assuming it all works,
of course).

I'd like to see Thameslink 2050 (!) built, Crossrail 1 then something
doing KX- Victoria (Crossrail 2) and then Waterloo / Vauxhall - Euston
preferably linking into Holborn / Aldwych. The only really difficult
option would be whether we could create a London version of Chatelet Les
Halles (Paris) with (nearly) all the lines linked or whether you'd have
a couple of big Central London interchange stations.

The problem already with that is that Crossrail 2 is currently proposed to
run Victoria - TCR - KX... so you already have three interchange stations
(KX, Farringdon, TCR) in a triangle for TL2K/XR1/XR2. Crossrail 2 could be
changed at this early stage but it wouldn't be sensible to run it via
Farringdon just for ease of use. I'm not sure of my Paris geography - does
it have several main centres like London's West End, City & Canary Wharf -
or just one main one at Chatelet?

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7

In article , John Youles
writes
In the 19th century the railway companies made a plan to
have a huge central London station, but Parliament stepped in and
forced them to stop at the edge of the city centre and join them
all using the circel line. It would be a very different London
today if that had not happened. Would it have been better? An
interesting question!.

Fascinating ! Would you happen to know any books, websites etc. on
the subject please ?

The above isn't quite right though it grasps many of the essentials.

There were many proposals for a central London interchange/terminus.
However, Parliament refused to allow railways to enter from the north
nearer than the "New Road", which is why Paddington, Euston, King's
Cross, St.Pancras, and Liverpool Street are where they are. The lines
from the south were given more leeway.

The Metropolitan was conceived as a way to link all these stations and
lines, at the same time carrying passenger and goods trains from the
first four to the City. The Euston link never happened, but the others
all did. Permission was granted to link the LC&DR in from Blackfriars as
well, forming what is now Thameslink.

The District (and later the Inner Circle) was based on a later proposal
to extend the Metropolitan south from Paddington and then east along the
north bank of the Thames to Liverpool Street to link the southern
termini into the Metropolitan (though with no connecting tracks).

--
Clive D.W. Feather, writing for himself | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8371 1138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Written on my laptop; please observe the Reply-To address

In article ,
(Michael Bell) wrote:

One of Colin Buchanan's books refers to a quite separate idea
of about 1900, put forwards by entrepreneurs, to create two
cross-routes, one East-West, the other North-South, with an overhead
railway for express traffic, a surface tramway underneath it (this
was 1900!) for short-distance traffic and massive property development
along the route, this is where they would recoup their investment. It
was to be simply chopped through the existing built-up area. Once
again Parliament wouldn't allow it, but it may also be that the
promoters didn't have the necessary money. Once again, it would
have made London into a completely different place. To think about
it is almost like a Sci-fi alternative future story. But we live
in the boring old world we have drifted into rather than the
exciting world we might have got into by planning and vision!

Arguably the Kingsway scheme of the LCC was a partial implementation of
these ideas. It had major redevelopment, a new street and a tram tunnel.

--
Colin Rosenstiel