NYC and London: Comparisons.
 

"asdf" wrote in message

On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 14:19:45 +0200, "Alan \(in Brussels\)"
wrote:

Yes and no, because although those are indeed examples of what the
OP of the text meant, what he actually wrote (as he clarified
subsequently) referred to the construction of tunnels *to replace*
surface or elevated lines.

The Circle line through Barbican almost fits this description - it was
in open cutting before being rebuilt in tunnel when the Barbican
Centre was built.

Did they lower the level of the tracks when they built the Barbican
Centre? Or did they just use the valuable air space over the tracks in
the cutting? I assumed it was the latter. In which case, there are
many other examples of such exploitation of air rights, and not just on
the Underground.

The most recent, of course, is the tunnel fiasco at Gerard's Cross,
where the Chiltern line now runs through a (fragile) tunnel, without
changing its level in the slightest. Other fairly recent examples of
building over formerly open lines include Fulham Broadway, Gloucester
Road and perhaps South Ken to come.

NYC and London: Comparisons.
 

"Stephen Farrow" wrote in message
...
There's also a subway station (served by the 4, 5 and 6 trains) next to
the
125th Street Metro-North station.

Yeah there is, though the MetroNorth station is elevated, and truly separate
form the subway.

NYC and London: Comparisons.
 

On Thu, 18 Aug 2005 20:00:29 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:

I'm afraid i don't know my PEP from my Mk3; do you mean that the tunnels
are smaller than W6A gauge?

Ever so slightly, yes, I believe. I have no idea why this is the
case.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

NYC and London: Comparisons.
 

"Martin Underwood" wrote in message
...
"David Spiro" wrote in message
...
Having grown up in NYC and being a user of its subway for all my life, I
was
wondering about some of the differences between it and the London tube.
Both
systems are some of the first ever constructed, with London being the
oldest, IIRC. I have traveled the London tube, and found it superior in
some
ways to NYC, even with its problems, and not as good in others. (But then
again, what system doesn't have some degree of issues to contend with?)

As a history buff, I am curious as to how the London system started, and
where the first line or lines were. NYC's system started as a private
enterprise, the Interborough Rapid Transit system, and the only line it
ran
was from City Hall in Lower Manhattan up to 116th Street, in what is now
Spanish Harlem. Back then, (in 1904) this was the upper limit of urban
NYC,
at the end of Central Park.

Briefly...

The first underground line was the one from Paddington to King's Cross -

The first was the Pneumatic Tube Company in NY.



what is now the Metropolitan/Circle. This was opened in 1863. I believe it
was originally driven by steam locos which condensed the steam rather than
releasing it into the tunnel. I'm not sure what they did with the smoke...
This railway (and the rest of the Circle line) is mainly cut-and-cover so
it's only just below ground level. It was built by a separate company, the
Metropolitan Railway, with financial backing and rolling stock intially
coming from the Great Western Railway.

Most of the tube lines (built by boring through the rock rather than by
cut-and-cover) were built between about 1880 and 1910, though in many
cases the extremities, further away from central London, were not built
until the 1920s and 30s - for example the Northern Line beyond Clapham
Common, Golders Green and Archway.

The Victoria Line was built as recently as 1968-71 and the Jubilee Line is
newer still: the Baker Street to Charing Cross section was 1979 and the
"Jubilee Line Extension" from Green Park to Stratford was completed as
recently as 1999 in preparation for passengers to get to the Millennium
Dome.


There are a number of good books on the subject which go into far more
detail than my very brief summary he

- The London Underground: A Diagrammatic History, Douglas Rose, pub
Douglas Rose, ISBN 0-9507101-5-6 (Map showing all the lines that are or
were at one time run by London Transport, with opening and closing dates
of lines/stations or dates of transfer to/from LT)

- London's Underground, John Glover, pub Ian Allen, ISBN 0-7110-2416-2

-

NYC and London: Comparisons.
 

On Fri, 19 Aug 2005, Alan (in Brussels) wrote:

"Nigel Pendse" a écrit dans le message de
...
"Ian Jelf" wrote in message

In message , Tom
Anderson writes

Conversely, London never had the el-to-subway transition that built a
lot of the NYC system (there are one or two examples of this
happening in London, though).

I'll probably kick myself when you answer this.......but where are
there any examples of this happening in London?

How about where the District and Picc climb out of their subsurface and
deep level tunnels at Earl's Court to just below ground level at
Hammersmith and then up a steep gradient on to the viaduct by
Ravenscourt Park? Or where the Wimbledon Line climbs on to a quite
high viaduct in Fulham? And the Central west of White City?

Yes and no, because although those are indeed examples of what the OP of
the text

Is that me?

meant, what he actually wrote (as he clarified subsequently) referred to
the construction of tunnels *to replace* surface or elevated lines.

That's exactly what i meant - tearing down elevated lines and digging
tunnels along the route.

tom

--
Osteoclasts = monsters from the DEEP -- Andrew

NYC and London: Comparisons.
 

"Tom Anderson" a écrit dans le message de
h.li...
On Fri, 19 Aug 2005, Alan (in Brussels) wrote:

"Nigel Pendse" a écrit dans le message de
...
"Ian Jelf" wrote in message

In message , Tom
Anderson writes

Conversely, London never had the el-to-subway transition that built a
lot of the NYC system (there are one or two examples of this
happening in London, though).

I'll probably kick myself when you answer this.......but where are
there any examples of this happening in London?

How about where the District and Picc climb out of their subsurface and
deep level tunnels at Earl's Court to just below ground level at
Hammersmith and then up a steep gradient on to the viaduct by
Ravenscourt Park? Or where the Wimbledon Line climbs on to a quite
high viaduct in Fulham? And the Central west of White City?

Yes and no, because although those are indeed examples of what the OP of
the text

Is that me?

meant, what he actually wrote (as he clarified subsequently) referred to
the construction of tunnels *to replace* surface or elevated lines.

That's exactly what i meant - tearing down elevated lines and digging
tunnels along the route.

OK. Let's try again.
a) It was indeed the message by Tom Anderson that included:

The biggest physical difference between the networks is that London's
lines are mostly in deep tunnels - 'tubes' - in the clay layer (or
something) ~20 metres below the surface; only a few lines (the Circle
line, the lines coming off it at tangents, and the East London line) are
built at shallow depth using cut-and-cover. AIUI, New York's lines are all
shallow (except for PATH and such). This means that stations are rather
different in structure, and the tunnels, and thus the trains, are smaller
(i assume because digging wide deep tunnels was ruinously expensive).
Conversely, London never had the el-to-subway transition that built a lot
of the NYC system (there are one or two examples of this happening in
London, though).

that raised this issue. Another poster then asked for specific "examples of
this happening in London", on the assumption that Tom was referring to
"el-to-subway transition" in the sense of "tearing down elevated lines and
digging tunnels along the route", as he wasn't aware of any. Then a third
contributor offered examples of places where a UndergrounD train runs out of
a tunnel and onto a viaduct (or vice versa), and I intervened to try to
clarify the situation by giving examples of where a surface rail line in
London (whether on a viaduct, embankment or not) has been *replaced* by one
in a tunnel (see text extracts above).

b) Careful examination of the last sentence of the last quoted paragraph
above reveals that strictly speaking the last part is incompatible with the
first part (if "London never had..." there can't be "one or two examples of
this happening in London"), hence the confusion.

ISTM that this aspect of the comparison has now been exhausted.

Regards,

- Alan (in Brussels)

NYC and London: Comparisons.
 

"Moishe Lip****z" wrote in message
news:iYDNe.258$IG2.251@trndny01
"Martin Underwood" wrote in message
The first underground line was the one from Paddington to King's
Cross -

The first was the Pneumatic Tube Company in NY.

Not so. The Met opened several years earlier, and was a proper railway,
not just a short demo line.

NYC and London: Comparisons.
 

On Fri, 19 Aug 2005 20:42:25 +0100, "Nigel Pendse"
wrote:

The Circle line through Barbican almost fits this description - it was
in open cutting before being rebuilt in tunnel when the Barbican
Centre was built.

Did they lower the level of the tracks when they built the Barbican
Centre? Or did they just use the valuable air space over the tracks in
the cutting?

Neither - the line was completely re-routed, the new route being in
tunnel.

NYC and London: Comparisons.
 

The Circle line through Barbican almost fits this description - it was
in open cutting before being rebuilt in tunnel when the Barbican
Centre was built.

Did they lower the level of the tracks when they built the Barbican
Centre? Or did they just use the valuable air space over the tracks in
the cutting?

Neither - the line was completely re-routed, the new route being in
tunnel.

Contrariwise: they just used the air space over the tracks. See, for
example, this history from David Leboff's "London Underground Stations
abc":

# The original station building was a single-storey,
# light-coloured brick structure which was rather plain
# compared with many of the stations constructed at around
# that time. It was severely damaged during World War 2 and
# finally demolished around 1955, along with the standard
# overall roof which extended over the platforms and tracks.
# During the early 1960s, the entrance and a new sub-surface
# ticket hall were incorporated into an office development,
# which was subsequently rebuilt around 1990. At platform
# level, the station has kept its high brick retaining walls,
# which have been cleaned in recent years.

(The changes of name are mentioned in a separate paragraph.)
--
Mark Brader, Toronto "I seem to have become a signature quote."
-- David Keldsen

NYC and London: Comparisons.
 

On Sat, 20 Aug 2005 23:01:35 -0000, (Mark Brader) wrote:

The Circle line through Barbican almost fits this description - it was
in open cutting before being rebuilt in tunnel when the Barbican
Centre was built.

Did they lower the level of the tracks when they built the Barbican
Centre? Or did they just use the valuable air space over the tracks in
the cutting?

Neither - the line was completely re-routed, the new route being in
tunnel.

Contrariwise: they just used the air space over the tracks. See, for
example, this history from David Leboff's "London Underground Stations
abc":

I've just checked, and it looks like I was wrong in saying "the line
through Barbican" - it appears the station itself was not affected.

CULG[1] says the following:

"Between 1963 and 1965 a new shorter route was built for the line
between Barbican and Moorgate, south of and lower than the previous
alignment. While the old route was in the open, the deviation line was
placed in tunnels ready for the Barbican Centre to be built over it."


[1]
http://www.davros.org/rail/culg/hammersmith.html

NYC and London: Comparisons.
 

I've just checked, and it looks like I was wrong in saying "the line
through Barbican" - it appears the station itself was not affected.

Ah. Okay, that clears that up, then.
--
Mark Brader | "Are you finding it frustrating when everything works on minix?
| No more all-nighters to get a nifty program working?"
Toronto | -- Linus Torvalds announces Linux, 1991

NYC and London: Comparisons.
 

"asdf" wrote in message

"Between 1963 and 1965 a new shorter route was built for the line
between Barbican and Moorgate, south of and lower than the previous
alignment. While the old route was in the open, the deviation line was
placed in tunnels ready for the Barbican Centre to be built over it."

Presumably the Widened Lines were moved in the same way at the same
time?

NYC and London: Comparisons.
 

In article , Tom
Anderson writes
Also, of course, the underground lines all run under the centre,
whereas the railways all stop at termini just outside the city centre
(apart from Thameslink). You might think that's a physical thing -
after all, you can hardly drive surface railways through central London

Of course you can, if you have the will.

The reason they all stop at the Euston Road is that Parliament said so:
no main line railways from the north were to cross it. Note that
railways from the south and east *do* enter the city.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

NYC and London: Comparisons.
 

In article , Nigel Pendse
writes
"Between 1963 and 1965 a new shorter route was built for the line
between Barbican and Moorgate, south of and lower than the previous
alignment. While the old route was in the open, the deviation line was
placed in tunnels ready for the Barbican Centre to be built over it."
Presumably the Widened Lines were moved in the same way at the same
time?

Yes. In fact, the Widened Lines had to be moved first (think about it).

The connections from old to new alignments were each slewed over a
single weekend. Given that the *vertical* move was something like 2m,
this was quite a feat.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

NYC and London: Comparisons.
 

In article ,
(Clive D. W. Feather) wrote:

In article , Nigel Pendse
writes
"Between 1963 and 1965 a new shorter route was built for the line
between Barbican and Moorgate, south of and lower than the previous
alignment. While the old route was in the open, the deviation line
was placed in tunnels ready for the Barbican Centre to be built
over it."
Presumably the Widened Lines were moved in the same way at the same
time?

Yes. In fact, the Widened Lines had to be moved first (think about
it).

The connections from old to new alignments were each slewed over a
single weekend. Given that the *vertical* move was something like
2m, this was quite a feat.

Yeah. It would have taken a six month blockade these days. :-(

--
Colin Rosenstiel

NYC and London: Comparisons.
 

Did moorgate station have to be completely rebuilt? If not how
did they get the new tracks into alignment with the old platforms
in such a short distance?

B2003

NYC and London: Comparisons.
 

In message .com,
Boltar writes

Did moorgate station have to be completely rebuilt? If not how
did they get the new tracks into alignment with the old platforms
in such a short distance?

Although the line had to be sunk, the lateral deviation was really quite
slight, simply straightening a slight kink in the original line's
entrance to Moorgate, which you can see in the following photo:

http://www.barbicanliving.co.uk/imag...dsiteplan1.htm

The following URL shows both the original line and the deviation (which
runs pretty much underneath the two lakes):

http://www.barbicanliving.co.uk/crea...ay_cutting.htm

As you can see, the approach to Moorgate was only minimally affected,
although I guess there could have been some slight realignment at the
outermost part of the platforms.

--
Paul Terry