TfL have now made public the details of the public consultation for the extension of the Northern Line to Battersea via Nine Elms.
As was indicated in the leaflet distributed last June, the chosen route is that which formed option 2 in the original Treasury Holdings Consultation. This will see a 3km tunnel constructed from Kennington to Battersea Power Station with a mid-station in south Nine Elms. The associated consultation documents confirm that cost and the high passenger levels already found on the Victoria Line are the reasons why an interchange at Vauxhall is not being pursued. Future extension to Clapham Junction is, however, acknowledged as a possibility and the tunnel layout is designed to support this. Although it is not indicated in the consultation itself, according to sources it is likely that the Kennington Loop itself will remain, in order to ensure that trains can still be turned at Kennington as part of the service pattern if required.
A Simplified Map of the NLE Work
The Detailed NLE Route
According to the consultation website the current intention is to submit a TWAO next Spring (which will also mark the point at which funding would need to be finalised), with the commencement of construction targeted at 2015. Construction would take approximately four years, with the drives for both tunnels likely starting from the power station site itself and then heading towards Kennington. The TBMs would be removed through the temporary shafts at Radcot and Harmsworth Streets, which would also be used for compensation grouting. TfL are also suggesting that spoil removal might be possible from the jetty at the power station site.
The website also features several factsheets which give a nice idea of possible station layouts and the likely closures required for the temporary shafts. The key images from these are reproduced below.
Potential Nine Elms Layout
Station Site at Battersea Power Station
Battersea Cross Section
Temporary Shaft at Radcot Street
Temporary Shaft at Harmsworth Street
In addition to the information on the site itself, those wishing to question TfL about the proposal can do so at the times and locations detailed below:
- Market Towers, 1 Nine Elms Lane, SW8 5NQ on Thursday 15 November at 15:00 to 20:00 and Friday 16 November at 8:00 to 18:00
- Sainsbury’s, 62 Wandsworth Road, SW8 2LF on Friday 23 November at 12:00 to 19:00 and Saturday 24 November at 9:30 to 13:00
- Gallery on the Corner, 155 Battersea Park Road, SW8 4BU on Thursday 29 November at 15:00 to 20:00
- The Kia Oval, Executive Box 56, Kennington, SE11 5SS on Friday 7 December at 12:00 to 19:00 and Saturday 8 December at 9:30 to 13:00
An interesting snippet in the latest Commissioner’s Report to the TfL Board.
The NLE received its Transport and Works Act Order (TWAO) from the Secretary of State on 12 November, taking effect on 15 December. A local resident has issued proceedings challenging the legality of the TWAO and the associated planning permission; both claims are being defended with DfT and TfL as an interested party. Subject to that, work can now start on building the extension, which will open in 2020.
Before Bank is rebuilt, is it feasible to provide a crossover on the NL at London Bridge to allow trains from Morden to terminate ? If so virtually all journeys could continue at existing frequencies with Bank reached by walking from Moorgate or London Bridge.
As I understand it, no.
The original one disappeared as a result of building the new platform on the Northern Line at London Bridge. This was done around the time of the Jubilee Line construction. So, to build a crossover you would need a new crossover tunnel and, because the lines are so far apart from each other, a short section of additional tunnel. This in itself would be a major task and would also mean another Transport & Works Act Order (or addition to the one proposed).
In that case would London Bridge to Kennington be closed ? The only other solution seems to be a one-train-working bi-directional shuttle on one or both of the tunnels. This would mean Morden trains would have to go to Charing Cross, so the problem with finding trains for Battersea remains.
@Anonyminibus,
This isn’t really the right place but anyway …
During the construction phase when the Bank branch is closed (40 days) both northbound and southbound the plan is to run 32tph on the Charing Cross branch. If the Battersea extension is open by then it will have 4tph and 28tph will go to and from Morden. If not then there will be 32tph between Morden and Camden Town via Charing Cross. There will be 16tph between Camden Town and Moorgate. Both northern branches would have 24tph – roughly as at present.
A lot of this information + additional stuff is on the TfL website here. All subject to change of course.
TFL have begun a consultation re over site developments at Battersea Extention station see link –
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/tube/nine-elms-underground-station-and-development/user_uploads/nine-elms-information-pack.pdf
The consultation re oversite development on Northern Line extension follow on Secretary of State giving go ahead to scheme see –
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/tube/nine-elms-underground-station-and-development
@ Melvyn – just had a very brief scan of the consultation document. Yet more wretched towers no doubt full of utterly unaffordable housing. The final page with the artists impression of the development shows how completely out of scale with the current neighbourhood the whole scheme is. Clearly the rest of the development area is full of towers too but that doesn’t make it right or acceptable. Whatever happened to sympathetic and “in scale” development? I note also that the station design looks extremely simple and “bland”.
@WW 29/01
Did the legal challenge to the TWAO go anywhere? Is there a support group for this brave individual?
This project is such a complete misuse of public funds it makes Airtrack look sane.
Answer=42,
Please enlighten us. What public funds are you talking about and for what purpose?
Just to clarify, this is a proposal for the station at New Covent Garden (Nine Elms), not the one at Battersea Dogs Home
@poP/ A=42
https://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/nl-factsheet-i-web.pdf
So in theory and fingers crossed and provided this can happen again
http://static1.demotix.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/a_scale_large/800-1/photos/1317087507-pink-floyd-inflatable-pig-flies-over-battersea-power-station-again_847751.jpg
the public funds to be spent building it will all be recouped by about 2045. A lot can happen in that time. How much of the JLE ended up being privately funded.
How much of the JLE ended up being privately funded?
Was it not zero percent? I would like to be wrong.
I should point out that I am not against private funding of transport infrastructure in principle.
Timbeau / PoP
Always good to have the facts. Financing costs, project (including funding) contingent risk, a portion (I won’t work it out) of S106 funds all from public purse. Hidden cost: non-monetary cost of poor development quality as described by others above.
The real issue is the opportunity cost of the lost benefits from a properly planned development. Which would almost certainly include an S106 funded public transport development.
The distinction between private profit and public benefit is often minimal. Business makes money because its products fulfill a need. The private capturing of public benefit is possibly greatest in construction / development. Which is why planning regulations exist, which are necessarily political.
JLE was promised hundreds of millions of pounds by Olympia & York the Canary Wharf developers. With their financial troubles, the amount they actually contributed was far less. Alas I don’t have the figures to hand.
@Long Branch Mike
@answer=42
Great link here for the details of the JLE – http://www.lddc-history.org.uk/transport/tranmon3.html
also mention http://tubedreams.london/fleet-line-phase-iii-aka-river-line-almost-jubilee/ …
Answer=42,
So long as we have the facts. What I didn’t like was the misleading implication in your original statement – and that it was just an opinion that wasn’t backed up by anything whatsoever so was pretty meaningless.
And, to stay on that topic, Airtrack wasn’t going to involve public funds either (at any stage) whereas your statement rather suggests otherwise.
In any case a “misuse of public funds” implies something completely different and criminal as opposed to a “waste of public funds” and was a misleading emotional phrase to use.
When considering the
misusewaste of public funds I suspect you are looking at the scheme from a transport perspective. In reality it is a regeneration scheme that happens to be achieved by investing in transport. Personally, I never understand why enthusiasts for better public transport get so upset by such schemes as it shows what good public transport can achieve.LBM
I believe that the figure was £300mn. Did not O&Y go bankrupt?
Well, I didn’t have the facts but I was aware that the funding was part public, although I must admit that I thought that the proportion was larger.
My dig at Airtrack: sorry I should have been clearer. This was not only intended as publicly funded (though no doubt with a contribution from Heathrow) but also largely a local authority developed project. So I was trying to be even-handed in my condemnation of [poorly thought out] projects.
[We mods are being even-handed in snipping text that states or implies poor levels of intelligence. LBM]
Answer=42
Actually the original Airtrack scheme was a BAA (as was) scheme. Apart from the level crossing issue, they got very cold feet indeed when they were due to put in the TWAO application and that coincided with the downturn of the economy and the near collapse of the banking system.
Personally, as a truly privately funded scheme, I thought it would have been an extremely sensible project had it not been for those level crossings.
Nevertheless, I stand by my use of ‘misuse’ of public funds. In the context that the area will be developed, a properly planned development project would have made better use of public funds for transport. This is the opportunity cost argument.
The decision is political, which is entirely legitimate. What is less so is the manner in which it was made – no alternatives were able to be discussed. In effect, the developer gets a bigger say in the outcome than the funds committed.
I don’t think that the argument that ‘this supports public transport, so we should support it’ gets my vote. We on this site have called out poorly planned projects in the past. Of course, in this case, there will be differences of opinion on whether it is a ‘poorly planned project’.
I think you missed my point. “Misuse of public funds” is defrauding the public by using public money for personal benefit or a purpose other than for which it was intended. If there is a misuse of public funds who has misused it?
Spending it on a project you happen to think is not a prudent use of public funds is a different matter.
answer=42
Sorry but the project is a sensible use of funds.
It will allow more frequent services on the main part of the Northern Line.
If the segregation of the Northern Line at Camden Town goes ahead at a later date service frequencies will almost double as a result of the short extension.
@A=40 (accounting for deflation)
“I believe that the figure was £300mn. Did not O&Y go bankrupt?”
Yes that’s the figure I recall, and O&Y did go bankrupt, but I cannot recall the timeline of events of this payment, its conditions and the O&Y bankruptcy, so kept my comment very general.
@ Briantist Your link to extending the Fleet Line also includes plans to extend Bakerloo Line beyond the Elephant – an extension the Elephant has forgot !
JLE – I think the administrators (EY) offered £100m up front and £75m contributions later to make sure construction started.
British Gas were going to contribute £25m for the North Greenwich Station.
So £200m “developer” contributions?
Graham H is probably the right person I’m sure the number is already lurking in an LR post!
@PoP A=42.
I think answer=42 was suggesting public funds were being squandered or frittered away on vanity projects, rather than actual embezzlement.
@Chris Patrick
It is the proposed separation of the Northern Line which will allow more frequent services. The extension is not necessary for this to take place – Charing Cross branch trains have always been able to terminate at Kennington, using the terminal loop, without interfering with City trains running to Morden. Indeed, separation between the services has happened at both ends of the core – although never simultaneously at both Camden and Kennington as far as I am aware.
Moreover, the scissors crossover at Battersea will introduce a new conflict between incoming and outgoing trains, and thus a limit on frequency, which is avoided by the current layout at Kennington.
Please find a link to Hansard and parliamentary debate following O&Y bankruptcy which gives details of amounts to be paid towards JLE some of which was over a number of years –
http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/commons/1992/jul/16/jubilee-line-extension
@Melvyn / ngh / LBM / others
Thank you for the useful link to the JLE parliamentary debate, the core of which was that O&Y hadn’t yet paid any of the £400m sought from them. You may be aware that the original Waterloo & Greenwich Railway private sector scheme was costed by O&Y at £400m, hence the value of the proposed contribution to the alternative public sector scheme. (I have a copy of the W&GR deposited parliamentary plans at home. O&Y were less than a week from depositing the main Private Bill.)
The JLE scheme was conjured up in a great rush that week by the then Conservative Government to avoid the embarrassment [paradoxically ?!] of a private sector scheme overtaking transport priorities in London. This led to the binning of the Central London Rail Study and the urgent creation of the East London Rail Study to see which developer (Poplar vs Greenwich Peninsula) would offer the bigger sum for the JLE to go their way – British Gas won with a £25m offer. Graham H has plenty to say on this episode.
Apart from liquidity issues affecting O&Y cash flow, the primary reason why the £400m was never paid at the end of the day, was that it was conditional on the JLE being delivered on time and on budget. Which it wasn’t, by a long way. O&Y saved their money, and re-offered some for the first round JLE capacity upgrade. I don’t know if that was delivered on time or budget either.
That’s also why Songbird (the reconstituted Canary Wharf Group) have insisted on designing and building their own station at Canary for Crossrail 1. They reasonably wanted a project on time and to budget, and they’ve done that, quicker than the rest of Crossrail.
Re Jonathan et al,
The administrator offer was made 3 months after the debate linked to. The earlier May debate had yet another set of numbers!
So is it possible that the the £100m was paid but the £75m wasn’t?
@ngh
At the time of the debate, O&Y had financing problems but weren’t in administration, as you say. I was careful to refer just to a liquidity issue. I believe that nothing was paid over at the end of the day, because the funding agreement was conditional, and the JLE costs and timescales got totally the wrong side of the graph paper! However, if one had the relevant LRT Annual Reports for a number of years in the 1990s, it would be possible to check the small print at the back of the accounts to confirm the outcome.
@PoP
Yes, I did indeed misunderstand your point; timbeau has stated my position.
@JR
The Wikipedia entry for O&Y says that JLE was late because of late payments from O&Y. But that can’t be the primary reason, can it?
Also, a late payments clause that removed all of O&Y’s requirement to pay would be somewhat unusual, would it not?
The very different structure of Crossrail Ltd would suggest that TfL have learned lessons from the JLE, I would suggest.
a=42 “Also, a late payments clause that removed all of O&Y’s requirement to pay would be somewhat unusual, would it not?”
Not necessarily. If a contract states time is of the essence, then late delivery means no payment. If the flowers for a 1 pm wedding are delivered at 5pm, the florist is unlikely to get paid!
tim b
I don’t know much about construction contracts but I would have thought that there would have been a diminishing obligation, the later the JLE was. Also, that any late payment by O&Y would would negate any delay clause. But then I would also have expected O&Y to have out-negotiated LT (as was).
@ Answer=42 – you might be surprised what people will sign up to if they are desperate enough! This is one of the problems of trying to “obtain” private sector funding – there are always conditions and both parties will “game” their obligations to some extent as neither side has perfect knowledge. In reality it’s a great big bet much of the time. Far more sensible to have a tax regime that claws back money afterwards or via a levy as we have for Crossrail. Oh and the public sector funding the work in the first place. It may not be popular but the criteria for a levy are usually straightforward.
One big difference today to when the Jubilee Line was planned is the way Canary Wharf Estate has grown into a multi billion pound estate from what was then still a small isolated development .
While Crossrail has allowed them to build a new station over which a major development has been built which is due to open in May and will thus start generating revenue payback several years before Crossrail opens. This development also brings forward the development of North Dock between the station and Poplar DLR station although Wood Wharf will come first with piling underway .
The Wikipedia entry for O&Y says that JLE was late because of late payments from O&Y.
Haggling over the O&Y contribution delayed the start of work, but the main delays in actually building the line happened because of a) the tunnel collapse at Heathrow meaning a long pause in tunnelling while the safety of the New Austrian Tunnelling Method was investigated, b) the choice of an unproven moving block signalling system that had to be abandoned late in the project and conventional signalling installed, and c) various shenanigans involving mysterious disruptions in the run-up to the new “deadline” of 31 December 1999, including electrical wiring which may have been deliberately sabotaged by contractors.
Just to muddy the waters, part of the deal with O&Y involved London Transport agreeing to rent a big chunk of office space at Canary Wharf, too. The LDDC history mentions a proposal to relocate DfT civil servants there too, which I can imagine would have been resisted tooth and nail.
WW 17/03/15: 20.22hrs
Back to Adam Smith, in fact – the government puts up monies &/or expertise for large capital projects & recoups the money in extra taxes later ( &/or takes a “cut” of the profits. )
Ian J
including electrical wiring which may have been deliberately sabotaged by contractors.
Err, I heard otherwise .. without reference to solid sources & relying on faulty memory, I think it was because, among other things, electricians came up/out of one site, to find they were in the centre of an “exclusion zone” of an IRA bomb-scare & no-one had bothered or thought to tell them. After which, their attitude was, understandably a little rebellious, shall we say?
Ah the Jubilee line. One of the clear drivers of cost was the governments decision to open the Millenium Dome with a very strict opening date of 1999.
It was that definite opening date that helped drive costs up as things began to go wrong.
Had the Heathrow tunnels not collapsed then much time and money would have been saved. But that opening date created real problems with the new moving block signalling. If there had not been such a deadline, I’m sure they’d have delayed opening the line until they had sorted it out, rather than jury rigging an older system on the fly to get it open on time.
Of course the ever increasing panic over the deadline was wonderful for the electrical engineering unions. I remember reading on the continual announcement of yet new highs on the rates of pay being offered to qualified engineers.
Consideration also needs to be given the change in the economy and the construction industry over the project. The contracts were let during the depths of the 90’s recession and there often articles about it creating jobs all over the country etc and it being part of investing in the future of Britain etc. But the ejection from the ERM ended our straight jacket of following German interest rates and economy started to boom within a few years, so you can imagine what happened to construction inflation in the meantime, as thousands of new projects started to compete for worker and raw materials.
Orders have been made for TBMs to build Northern Line Extension see – http://www.railmagazine.com/news/network/2015/03/17/contract-awarded-for-tunnel-boring-machines-for-northern-line-extension
Shame they can’t be left in situ in case extension to Clapham Junction occurs in a few years .
@Melvyn:
TBMs take time to build, ship, reassemble on-site, and start up. By the time they’ve started digging, there’s a good chance TfL will have made a decision on Clapham Junction.
An important point is that there have been suggestions for a complete rebuild and re-siting of Clapham Junction station itself (including from South West Trains), so there is that to consider: building an interchange at the present site effectively pins the present station to its existing location and makes it far more difficult to justify relocating it.
The present station is barely fit for purpose in its current form: the canted track through the curved platforms make ‘step-free’ access almost impossible to provide here at sensible prices, while the ‘fanned’ layout of the station makes it a poor interchange today, let alone after a future Tube station is added. Any Tube station here would link up with the subway, which clearly needs widening if it’s going to cope with the all the extra passengers. NR and TfL will also need to add lifts to each platform for that step-free access.
I suspect that it may be more sensible to rebuild the station on a more convenient site, but you’d need to work out where that is first, before you build an extension.
(I’d prefer a bi-level affair in the Stewarts Lane area, which is ripe for regeneration. This gives a more compact station that’s easier to navigate, and also allows the maze of junctions in the area to be tidied up.)
@ Anomnibus – I’ve just checked the project milestones for the B’sea ext. Tunnelling completes in 2017. I cannot see any decision being reached by then in respect of the Northern Line reaching Clapham Junction. While it is an aspiration for local politicians in Wandsworth it is nowhere on TfL’s list of priority schemes and would surely be rendered largely pointless by Crossrail 2 anyway. Feel free to come back and correct me if you’re proven correct but I’m not holding my breath that any such extension will see the light of day this side of 2045.
@Walthamstow Writer:
I agree that it’s unlikely an extension to Clapham Junction is going to happen in the medium term.
My point—and I use that term very loosely—is that, before you can build an extension to Clapham Junction, it’d be very useful to know if there’ll still be a station on the surface to interchange with before you build a new Tube station under it.
@Greg Tingey:Err, I heard otherwise
BBC, November 1998:
“There have been two recent incidents at the London Bridge site where cables were deliberately cut on escalator sprinkler protection systems after the work was completed and certified.
“‘These are malicious, spiteful acts which can be carried out in a matter of seconds but could cost the project over a month,’ said the spokeswoman.
London bridge site manager Paul Gover said vandalism had been going on for several months.
And he said he believed that the latest attack on a number of cables at the site had been carried out by someone who ‘knew what they were doing’.”
See also references in Chris Mullin’s diary for the period.
The extension project is to design and build just that. The TBMs will drive away from Battersea.
Clapham Junction is not part of the deal and it won’t be.
Unless there is a radical reduction in construction costs or a big increase in tax raising powers, simple tube extensions are not on TFL priority list, unless finance can be raised through the uplift in land values.
As the forest of luxury high rises that is now rising in Nine Elms attests there are not that many sites in the capital where such value can be raised from low to high land value. And no one objecting to such a level of development, that councils can ignore.
From now on opponents of tube extensions will point to the Northern line and will say ‘this is what will happen here’.
The Bakerloo extension might be cobbled together from redevelopment on the Old Kent Road and network rail relief from removing the Hayes line.
Any funds that TFL / GLA can scrape together will be mainly focussed on Crossrails through the centre and orbital rail and tram schemes (maybe) in the suburbs.
Of course the other main reason is that there are very few parts of the Tube network that can be extended without overloading the centre of their lines.
It would take the simultaneous construction of three Crossrails and maybe a couple of extra tube lines to provide enough spare capacity for a major expansion of the tube network into the suburbs via simple extensions or extra branches. But until that day when an extra £10 billion a year is spent for ten years , we will never get ahead of growth.
Anomnibus
I suspect that it may be more sensible to rebuild the station on a more convenient site, but you’d need to work out where that is first, before you build an extension.
Yes, & you need to include platforms & internal interchange links for those services proceeding along the WLERly towards Willesden etc, & LOROL towards the Thames Tunnel, don’t you?
Um.
And widen the total track base to take not only platforms, but extra loops, so that non-stop trains can run through, esp on the ex LSWR lines, thus creating a through station with 18 platforms [note*] – which is going to be WIDE.
Err, um again.
Now, where did you want to put it – with decent road/bus links too?
[note*: 2 for the LOROL + 4 for Windsor + 4 for LSW fast + 2 LSW slow + 4 LBSC fast + 2 LBSC slow. Plus 2 dahn th’ole for WLERly services. Possible that 4 tracks but only 2 platforms for LSW & LBSC fasts, which might save a bit of width?]
Going further to Clapham Jn.
1. Wandsworth have a good track record in sorting and working constructively to get things done especially large redevelopments
2. I looks like Clapham Junction is staying where it is based on CR2 safeguarding (The SWT plan referred to were over a decade old)
3. The real issue with extension to Clapham Jn would be not getting in the way of CR2.
4. constructing a Northern Line station at the same time as CR2 makes a lot of sense as the pedestrian underpass issues can get tackled once thus potentially making an Northern Extension comparatively cheap if it can piggy back on the work needed for CR2?
5. Greg a lot of the platform issues will get sorted any way:
P0 is vaguely on the agenda – when they did the P1/2 work a set of points was put in beyond P2 to enable the siding beyond to serve P0 in the future as well.
There are plans for the Southern Side as discussed in the Sussex series
SWT had previous plans to sort the P7/8 issues will will no doubt surface again combined with NR’s various options along the lines of the 5 tracks to Surbiton plans
As much needs to stop at Clapham Jn as possible… The only reason to by pass is a capacity reduction from reduced tph.
I recall extensive discussion of re-siting the interchange not that long ago – a site between Falcon Road and Latchmere Road was suggested although squeezing seven island platforms within the available width would be a challenge, or a more compact tri-level interchange (BML (and possibly Chatham lines)/SWML/Overground) based on Queenstown Road, with some platforms retained at Clapham Junction to serve the local area. Neither would be cheap. The new Tube station at Battersea Dogs Home would be very close to this.
The suggestion of simply extending the NLE to the bottom of Lavender Hill by not stopping the TBMs when they get to the currently-planned terminus isn’t practical, because as I understand it the TBMs will be starting at that end and later breaking through into the Kennington loop. Thus an extension to CJ would require a new drive, either from the terminus or from a new launch site at CJ
ngh
As much needs to stop at Clapham Jn as possible… The only reason to by pass is a capacity reduction from reduced tph. I would dipute that, actually.
If it is going past Basingstoke, then surely the last stop should be Woking ( & not all of them, either ) Even for the Brighton fasts, last stop E Croydon is better?
This is the (IMHO) lunacy that has overtaken the ex-GWR main line, with everything to S Wales stopping @ Reading Often Didcot, Swindon, Stoke Gifford before Newport, rhather than an alternating half-hourlyu, where the first stop out is Stoke Gifford (sometimes called “Bristol Parkway”) – & etended jopurney times, reducing competitiveness with long-distance coach & internal airline travel.
timbeau
Looking at the bg enlargement possible on “Opnes Street Map” I would agree that “Behind ASDA” i.e. N of Falcon Rd & S of Fownes St is “possible” – adavntage – you could keep the present station open for all traffic until the new one is ready, slew line etc one at a time, with minimal (by the standards of these things) interruption & Dislocation.
However £COST$ & bcr would be?
Your proposal appears to be further East, so I assume the LOROL services from the WLERly would come in along the Latchmere no 3 spur – but would you not lose ex-LBSCR connections there? Or are you envisioning a station “up on stilts” for those lines?
Even more moolah required!
@timbeau:
The tri-level* option was mine (I think). Basically, it would mean redeveloping the area around Stewarts Lane, but if the Battersea Power Station redevelopment proves successful, I can’t imagine it would take long for developers to start making covetous noises. As you say, an extension to Clapham Junction would then be surplus to requirements.
An advantage of this option is that it also allows the maze of viaducts and junctions to be simplified and, in some cases, improved.
@Greg T:
All existing route options would be retained. In fact, the Overground would even gain a direct link between the SLL and the WLL, so you could run right through the new station and shift the southern section’s terminus to Old Oak Common instead.
It’s expensive, granted, but there is a lot of scope for simplifying and reducing the amount of land actually used by the railway here. There’s also ample space to allow phasing of the work. Queenstown Road Battersea and Battersea Park stations would close, but in compensation, Chatham services would also gain access to the new interchange station, opening up Overground services to those passengers.
For developers, it provides a much better interchange experience, and also means their properties are directly accessible from pretty much anywhere, including Ramsgate, Brighton, Portsmouth, Exeter, and even Cardiff.
* Technically four layers if you include the ground floor below. The routes to Waterloo and Victoria cross each other at about 90° here, so a mezzanine level needs to be sandwiched between the two layers of platforms to allow passengers to transfer easily between platforms.
Re Greg,
And I would dispute you dispute… because lot of passengers need to change and have to go well out of their way to do so which then causes loading issues elsewhere. The old model is dead, traffic patterns have changed…
(and even more will want to change at Clapham post CR2). Would you suggest reducing the number of fast services stopping at Stratford especially post Crossrail?.
For example having to got to Clapham Junction to change to get a train to Waterloo (or Basingstoke) to get train to Winchester or equally to have to go to Victoria to get a (Southern) train to Gatwick instead of getting on at Clapham. All of which increases the overall journey time.
@GREG
“Your proposal appears to be further East, so I assume the LOROL services from the WLERly would come in along the Latchmere no 3 spur – but would you not lose ex-LBSCR connections there? Or are you envisioning a station “up on stilts” for those lines?”
No further east, but a twelve car platform would extend a long way between Falcon and Latchmere Roads
The BML, SWML and WLL access to platforms 1 and 2 run side by side and on the straight there. Why would anything have to be on stilts?
As for the trilevel station, there wouldn’t be room for a mezzanine between the existing levels – direct access from each SW platform to each Brighton platform would create multiple interchange routes, with separate access to high and low level platforms from street level.
Chatham line stoppers diverted over the Battersea Park flyover.
Overground is actually at a similar level to the SWML, but currently the wrong side of QT Road. But that road might have to be diverted anyway to gain the extra width needed for three extra island platforms on the SWML. And yes, WLL and SLL Overground services could either make an end to end connection there, or run through, or the WLL could divert to the new station to interchange with the SLL which continues beyond to serve CJ.
forgot to mention – on the benefit side of the bcr for this, (aka “why bother?”), SWT’s original driver was the desire to squirt more trains through the fast lines. These are currently heavily speed restricted, and the sharp curvature and resulting large gap on platform 8 means up trains calling at CJ have to use platform 7 which has even slower approach speeds. (The history of this is that the SWML slow lines (platforms 10 and 11) are more or less on the original London & Southampton alignment, all other lines* were added on one side or ‘tother, with increasingly awkward curvature as you got further from the original alignment, (see in particular platforms 7 and 17). SWT’s plan was to ease the curves on the fast lines – which required demolition of at least platforms 7 to 10, and this in turn meant they would have to be replaced somewhere nearby.
*The Windsor Line platforms were rebuilt on a new alignment further north in, I think, the 1860s to allow the line to cross Plough Road by a bridge instead of a level crossing.
We desperately NEED a station link into Bushey Heath! Why not extend from Edgware on the old proposes ‘Northern Heights’ project which was put to a halt on the onset of World war 11. They could extend the underground. So many new homes are being built here, hence the need for commuting to be more accessible
@tricia – better ask Hertfordshire, then. (They may well feel, I guess, that they have spent as much as they can afford already on the Watford extension). Even in London, the GLA have been reliant on developer funding for NLE. The numbers are quite horrendous – for Edgware-Bushey, the Watford extension gives some idea of the cost range involved: £200-400m Given a typical s106 “take” of around 10 % on developers’ and a typical house price of £400k, you’d need 10 000 houses just to fund it (let alone all the other necessary things such as schools, roads etc)
@tricia: postwar revival of the original Northern Heights scheme was scuppered north of Edgware by the green belt. (Or so I always understood). So, apart from the significant money hurdle which Graham mentions, wouldn’t this still apply? I know there have been mutterings about limited housebuilding incursions into the green belt, but I don’t think the green belt is yet a totally dead duck. (Or is it?).
Malcolm
No,the Green Belt is very much alive and kicking….I own a small bit of it (in Bromley,don’t laugh) and I can’t put in a fence post without a planning officer’s site-visit at £1,800 a pop.
For reasons so off-topic it’d blow yer gaskets,I wouldn’t expect any substantial change in Green Belt rules for the foreseeable.
@Tricia/Graham H/Malcolm
Problem No 1
The part of the alignment nearest to Edgware now looks like this
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.620245,-0.2821721,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1stE9gKODesRe0hoc_MwtKdw!2e0!6s%2F%2Fgeo1.ggpht.com%2Fcbk%3Fpanoid%3DtE9gKODesRe0hoc_MwtKdw%26output%3Dthumbnail%26cb_client%3Dmaps_sv.tactile.gps%26thumb%3D2%26w%3D203%26h%3D100%26yaw%3D44.45591%26pitch%3D0!7i13312!8i6656
Problem No 2
The Northern Line is full. Adding three new stations at the end is not going to make that situation any better – people at Hampstead and Golders Green still need to be able to use it.
Bushey Heath is still Green Belt as I understand it. Surely the building work is in Bushey proper, which already has a station.
@Malcolm/slugabed -Hertsmere’s green belt is indeed still there. Their latest review (2014) states in para 8.9 “In a context where it is not generally necessary to release land from the Green Belt to accommodate identified development needs, any changes to the Green Belt should be very limited. ” The review recommends the deletion of just 5 minor sites from the green belt.
Even in the 1930s the Bushey Heath extension was predicated on having a second route south from Edgware via Mill Hill East, (and beyond there another route to Moorgate as well).
@Tricia…..Completely agree with timbeau there; I’m afraid that train has long since departed the station ?.
@Graham H….And people wonder why we have a housing crisis ?.
@Ian J…..You’re absolutely right, which explains why the Mill Hill East branch remains a rather awkward one-station stub on the High Barnet branch with no through service for most of the day. Without the Bushey Heath extension (AIUI, all trains from that branch were to run via Mill Hill and Finchley, rather than via Hendon and Golders Green), the impetus and rationale (or BCR to use today’s parlance) to convert and electrify the remaining stretch disappeared. Luckily, hardship was minimised thanks to Mill Hill The Hale station’s close proximity to Mill Hill Broadway, and the relatively short distance between Mill Hill and Edgware enabling buses to absorb most of the local traffic. I do sometimes wonder what would have happened if the barracks at Mill Hill had been located elsewhere, since it is for that reason alone the stub branch was converted and opened during the war!
The real crime was to not complete the conversion of the Finsbury Park to Ally Pally branch as part of an extended Northern City line post-WW2 (even if it meant safeguarding the closed branch for 10+ years to acquire enough finding for this; remember that Ongar only got its Tube trains in 1957!). I’m still awaiting the LR article about what happened to this part of the Northern Heights so I rant and get it all out of my system ?…….
@Anonymously – I suspect we would be – rightly -snipped if we now debate whether building on the Green belt is the solution to the housing crisis. Opinions (and facts) are at odds here – said with some feeling as the debate within my own local authority (and parish council) has been conducted entirely in terms of uninformed factoids…
@IanJ/Anonymously – if people complain now about the the operating pattern for “complex” Northern Line, the full Northern heights programme would have been a nightmare/delight/work of art – doubly so as the whole circus would still have converged on the one southern limb.
Anonymously,
I’m still awaiting the LR article about what happened to this part of the Northern Heights
Why should we write about this? Could we add anything that is not already available in books? Actually Jonathan Roberts probably could if he had the time. All that can really be added, or at least emphasised, is that the works were much further progressed than were generally appreciated. The was also, along with green belt policies, a desperate lack of money and steel available immediately after the war – something all the looking-back-at-it conspiracy theorists don’t seem to appreciate.
There you are. You have had the short version.
@Anonymously -the best account of the Aldenham/Bushey Heath extension is probably Tony Beard’s “Beyond Edgware” published by the ever useful Capital Transport.
@PoP
Thank you for getting me out of that one! Just a few extra points then.
Northern Heights works were about 75% complete at the start of WW2. Electrification was under way to Alexandra Palace, High Barnet and Edgware. I have a nice aerial photo of 31 Aug 1939 of Mill Hill Page Street substation with power rails on one line and the other line under construction (sourced from Aerofilms, now Hunting). I also have engineering route plans for the sections that ended up uncompleted, showing in detail the proportion of civils, mech, electrification, signalling etc that had been done on each section of line.
The Northern Heights scheme was a rush job. It had only been included after vigorous lobbying by MPs and local authorities for areas such as Finchley. In being included, it displaced the Bakerloo Camberwell extension from the 1935-40 New Works Plan, and also bumped up the overall Plan costs from £30m to £35m (multiply that by about 200, I would guess, for works at present prices!). As a precaution, the scheme costs were given a £5m margin, and £40m of Bonds issued with Government backing (so cheap capital finance, eventually to fall on the operating companies after 15 years, once the works had ‘fructified’, so also not public sector borrowing…).
• The lobbying also meant that the scheme was not fully thought through. It turned out there wasn’t a depot site large enough south of Edgware for the new train fleet, which led to the Bushey Heath extension.
• Experience early post-War showed the required train fleet had been underestimated by 15-20%, while, even pre-war, re-armament and construction inflation meant that £40m wasn’t going to be enough (there would need to be another Bond – associated with a 1940-50 New Works Programme – to balance the capital books).
• The LNER had nearly reneged on the contract because its share of the scheme could scarcely be afforded within the company’s hopeless finances. They and LPTB agreed on a variant scheme in 1937, to remove the tube from High Barnet, 4-track East Finchley-Finchley Church End, and keep the tube towards Edgware, with LNER just electrifying the remaining lines to Alexandra Palace and High Barnet with operation from a London terminus. However the lawyers then concluded that it wasn’t possible to vary the contracts and Acts in that way, so the LNER was stuck with the original scheme.
• Post-war, the LPTB and LTE priority was re-engaging with the Central Line works, not the Northern Heights.
• The LTE was a subsidiary of the BTC behemoth, and had significant problems securing resources, materials and funding for its own essential renewals and repairs, while the rest of Britain’s railways were also queuing for the same, so that only the most critical new scheme elements were taken forwards.
• The BTC and LTE then took a critical look at the merits of each uncompleted project element that made up the Northern Heights, and concluded that each of them wasn’t justified, partly for the reasons that PoP says. (There could be a very complex discussion on this, which I won’t go into.)
So what lessons do we learn for now and the future. Politically-motivated rush jobs will continue to arise – the Government’s struggles to flesh out the aspired Northern Powerhouse infrastructure are a good current example. However there is no substitute for a well planned scheme with a strong business case, and with a land-use and accessibility strategy to match – which the Northern Heights certainly didn’t have!
Tubes in London can be very good for the inner suburbs, and there remain a few sectors with some spare capacity, such as a Bakerloo extension to Lewisham. The Northern to Battersea is discussed in this article. Even the Northern City will eventually find its destination with higher intensity services along the GN Inners. But the economic and population growth in the ring beyond Greater London requires a separate solution focused on main line capacity and excellent feeder services to railheads – the latter however requires quality bus services, which is a variable feast because of bus deregulation and changes to subsidy levels.
@PoP…..Sorry, but I wasn’t ‘demanding’ an article on the topic! The last paragraph of this article on the ECML (https://www.londonreconnections.com/2013/east-coast-mainline-routes-branches-part-2-hertford-loop-northern-city-line/#comments) said that there was going to be a future article on this very topic. That’s all I was waiting for……I’m a patient man, so happy to wait for as long as it takes ?.
@JR….Thanks for that insight. I’d love to discuss this more, but am afraid of going too far off topic. Which is another reason why an article on this subject would be helpful (as well as very interesting….I’m fascinated to find out why the Ally Pally branch was abandoned when the project was reassessed in the 50s; as I said earlier, the reasons for abandoning the Bushey Heath and Mill Hill extensions are not hard to work out).
Re PoP
“There was also, along with green belt policies, a desperate lack of money and steel available immediately after the war – something all the looking-back-at-it conspiracy theorists don’t seem to appreciate.”
The lack of money was also behind many of the steel issues, the industry still had lots of pre-war issues that hadn’t been addressed (similar to the railways!), they only started to be address when the Marshall Plan money started rolling in (’48 onwards) and it then took several years to start sorting the problems. (UK steel industry productivity has improved by over an order of magnitude since the war, about half of which occurred pre nationalisation in ’67).
There is an informative and entertaining short video by Jay Foreman:- Episode 1 of the series “Unfinished London” on Youtube to add further insight to the Northern Heights project.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjuD288JlCs
Wonderful video. The arches at Brockley Hill / Edgewarebury were blown up one November 5th, according to local lore.
@Anonymously
At least part of the answer to that question is that there wasn’t a case found to retain any sort of train service on Finsbury Park-Ally Pally in the 1950s, on the criteria then used. Most passengers had found other ways of travelling, using railheads further afield. Most LTE memoranda I have on the matter pointed towards a negative or at best (at one stage) compromise outcome, maybe keeping an East Finchley-City service, but with minimal prospects for the Alexandra Palace line (as referenced in a 18 Dec. 1951 memo, for example.)
If a case had been found, then even if electrification hadn’t occurred, maybe it might have featured later in the 1970s GN inner electrification scheme (Phase 2 of course, as the Northern Heights was to have been Phase 1!). But that is speculative.
The line was still preserved in marginal use at least towards East Finchley until Northern City stock transfers ceased in 1969 via that route – but we are then in the bleak period of falling passenger demand, Ringway design prominent, and indeed the Archway Road widening then slated to use part of the railway alignment. So really no chance.
The GN suburban electrification proposal to the BRB, on 19th February 1969 (ref WM.2767/41), says that in addition to 18 tph to Moorgate with through services, there would be an additional 3 tph from Finsbury Park to Moorgate in peaks. [Note 21 tph desired at Moorgate.] How those would reverse North to South at Finsbury Park is not stated – possibly via a reversal on a stub of the Northern Heights, as this would make most passenger usage sense.
@JB……Thank you for that valuable insight, which does though raise a lot more questions in my mind than it answers. It sounds as though you have access to quite a lot of archival material on the subject, so if you were ever to find time to write an article for LR about this topic with the blessings of the moderators, I’m sure it would much appreciated by everyone on here ?.
My own view (based on information gleamed from Subterranea Britannica and other sources) was that the line was an early (albeit entirety accidental!) example of ‘closure by stealth’, due to a combination of the rubbish service provided on the remaining line post-WW2, and the upgraded section of the line from Highgate onwards sucking away passengers due to its more frequent and reliable service. It doesn’t then take much imagination to realise that in only slightly different circumstances, all of the line (or at the very least the section between Finsbury Park and Highgate) would probably still be open today, either as part of the Tube or NR networks.
Another factor in the relatively light use of the Alexandra Palace branch was the long way round. Added to the infrequent service, it meant that competing trains (from then-named Wood Green), tubes (from Bounds Green and Wood Green etc) and buses (to Finsbury Park or Highgate) were a much better choice off-peak, and well worth considering even for peak travel, particularly if your destination was not within easy reach of Kings Cross (or widened lines in the peak). In fact a similar set of arguments might apply right now in respect of any (highly hypothetical) re-opening.
Malcom
Have you SEEN the road traffic around the top of Muswell Hill …. ???
Greg: Yes. Awful. But if we built a railway everywhere in Greater London where the traffic is awful, we’d have to recruit everyone of working age in the country into the railway building trade, and then some.
(I’m not saying that that line, or any other closed line in Greater London, wouldn’t be jolly useful now if it had survived. But it didn’t.)
There is of course a way of getting a new railway to Muswell Hill, which is the real town centre and passenger railhead opportunity in the area – take CR2 there in tunnel instead of New Southgate…
Plenty of hearty discussion of pros/cons of a Muswell Hill extension from this comment onwards on the LR Crossrail 2 article.
I suspect the main political point against an extension/route via there is the lack of a local pressure group either for or against. If you contrast this against the Chelsea station bun fight & the local Tooting vs Balham debate, the apathy is quite something.
A station at Muswell Hill would be a very expensive build. The clue is the word “Hill”.
Ground level there is as high as at Hampstead (just over 100metres). Less than a mile away, ground level where CR2 would cross the ECML is at about 25m altitude. A station near Muswell Hill Broadway would require very deep lift shafts or even longer escalator shafts. A 1 in 30 gradient from Alexandra Palace station (in the valley) to Muswell Hill could halve the depth of the station below ground level, but that is still quite substantial.
And, I suspect, the denizens of Muswell Hill may actually be quite happy not having a station. (Look at what is happening in Chelsea)
The “Hill” part of Muswell Hill is also the reason why, when it had a railway, it went a long way round, sneaking up on it from the west. Yet another reason for not terminating CR2 there (if one were needed) is the need for depot space.
An underground terminus would cost a lot more than an open-air one. I suspect that the difference between a deep (think Hampstead) and a shallow (think Southgate) (not that either of these is a terminus) would not be quite so significant. But as Snowy says, much has been said on this already.
There is, regardless of all these factors, still the point which PoP mentioned when we were discussing Uckfield. It’s the same thought that my father had when he first saw the bed of a closed railway, in the thirties. “That would be a splendid place to build a railway”. It’s as if, by reconnecting Muswell Hill to the rail network, we can somehow bring back the past.
If we just want to give CR2 a station in a rail-unserved area, then Stoke Newington would probably be better. But that wouldn’t bring anything back.
The Chelsea saga is perhaps one of the worst examples of NIMBYISM that I’ve ever seen, and it doesn’t take more than a cursory look at their arguments to realise how flawed they are, based upon nothing more than the snobbery and selfishness of a vocal minority. You’d think that TfL are planning to demolish the whole area and/or build an urban motorway through it for all the fuss they are trying to create!
Hopefully TfL and the next mayor have the political balls to face this down by exposing the flaws in their arguments, or else this will set a worrying precedent for future projects.
@Malcolm…..But Stoke Newington already has a station, which thanks to the LO is now even on the Tube Map!!!
Is it possible to demonstrate that the Muswell Hill and Crouch End areas need a rapid transit line linking into the TfL network? If local traffic is as bad as Greg Tingey suggests, I think it might be. Would the existing Parkland Walk alignment (at least those parts which haven’t been built on) be the best method of addressing this? Who knows…..I suspect though that we are never going to learn the answers to these questions, unfortunately ?.
If it’s really the case that no-one in Chelsea wants a station, then it doesn’t matter how specious, snobbish, illogical, selfish or daft their reason is, we should put the station in one of the many places where people do want one.
The only acceptable reason for outfacing the NIMBYs would be a real desire and need for a station from other so-far silent people in the area. That may well exist, but good evidence would be required.
Except Malcolm you and I know very well that if TfL do cave in, they will just use this as an excuse to save some money and just run the line direct between Clapham Junction and Victoria, meaning that far more people would lose out than would gain from this situation. That wouldn’t be hard to provide evidence for, I hope.
Pimlico station on the Victoria line extension was a late addition to the project AIUI, and I assume this was a result of campaigning from the locals (in an area that was reasonably affluent even in the 60s)? Boy, how times have changed where locals seek to campaign against improving public transport access to their area, even where the planning aspects are relatively modest (cf HS2 effects on Camden for comparison)!
In that case TfL should call their bluff and cancel the station.
Has anyone considered rebuilding the old Chelsea station at Stamford Bridge? It would go some way to relieving traffic in the area.
@Anonymously
Saving money for all London/UK and faster journey times for the thousands from SW/Clapham – seems like a lot of people benefiting from CR2 not serving Chelsea!
Over a £1bn is being proposed to be spend to give Chelsea a station, despite such adding a not insignificant number of minutes (4?) to the vast majority of people who will pass through it (on the trains) on the longer line (unlike Pimlico, which didn’t change the route). That a very vocal sizeable minority are vehemently opposed (whereas support for the station is a mostly-silent majority that needs to speak up) is just making serving Chelsea more trouble than its worth.
Hedgehog
I seem to remember quite a few years ago (1990s?) Chelsea Football Club supported a proposal to open a station approximately on the site of the old Chelsea and Fulham station.This was turned down on the grounds that it would adversely affect capacity.
Since then,of course,Imperial Wharf,Shepherds Bush and West Brompton have opened on the same twin-track railway.
Slugabed, the capacity issue at Stamford Bridge was more about whether a station could be built that would accommodate the length of trains necessary for Premiership crowds, the stations along the West London Line being short. Short trains would have led to dangerous overcrowding on trains and station on match day as well as bringing long dwell times with a knock on effect on the rest of the line.
Anonymous
Ah…thanks for the clarification.
Malcom
The NIMBYS in Chelsea have been shouted at in public by an other grouping demanding that said station be built – includes the local Hospital Trust the local higher Ed colleges & a lot of “ordinary” residents.
Indeed, the mud-slinging is getting quite amusing, from a bystander’s p.o.v.
[Judgmental language snipped. LBM–>
@anonymous
This is exactly the situation they have at the new station at Coventry Arena. Right next to the [insert name of sponsor] football ground, home to Coventry City AFC and Wasps RFC, but it has to be closed on match days because the rolling stock is not available to cope with the crowds. Its main function is to provide a park and ride facility into the city centre, using the stadium’s car park, on non-match days.
and see also Drayton Park, in the shadow of Arsenal’s stadium
@Hedgehog
Has anyone considered rebuilding the old Chelsea station at Stamford Bridge? It would go some way to relieving traffic in the area.
Some way, yes, in that it is close to the Chelsea and Westminster hospital. But it’s a couple of kilometres away from the proposed Crossrail 2 station, so useless for anyone wanting to shop in the King’s Road, or for that matter anyone working at the Royal Brompton or Royal Marsden Hospitals.
As has been said before, a new mayor of a certain persuasion may be able to force the Chelsea Crossrail 2 station through. The station would benefit those who work in Chelsea more than some of those who live there, so the fact that a vocal collection of residents don’t want it isn’t the only factor.
‘That a very vocal sizeable minority are vehemently opposed (whereas support for the station is a mostly-silent majority that needs to speak up) is just making serving Chelsea more trouble than its worth.’
That is a very strange argument, which could equally apply to *any* infrastructure project! It’s not as if TfL are proposing to compulsory purchase and demolish hundreds of people’s homes and businesses to build the station!
Greg’s essentially correct; in fact were the opposition not led by “national treasures” I doubt if we’d have heard so much.
@Anon
But National Treasures can never be wrong.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hNEfI6JnMJI
I’d hardly call Felicity Kendal a national treasure when most people under the age of 40 have probably never heard of her ?….
On the contrary, one becomes a national treasure because old fogeys remember them. Look at the way politicians fall over themselves to subscribe to the pet projects of the actress who played Purdey in the Avengers forty years ago.
@timbeau – they actually started a limited train service to Coventry Arena in January – one train per hour in each direction but no trains within an hour of final whistle. They are also trialling charter trains for a couple of games in February and March.
http://www.wasps.co.uk/news/article/2016/02/25/rugby-special-charter-trains-to-run-this-sunday
Assuming the overall economics work for the club, chartering trains seems a sensible solution. Given the scheduling of games is at the behest of sports broadcasters and their primary concern is the viewer at home, not the travelling public, I think it would be difficult for any timetabled service to meet peak demand.
@Anon
” one could argue her campaigning is for a worthwhile cause (Gurkhas, not the Garden Bridge”)
I was not referring to the merits or otherwise of her various campaigns, (and I might even be persuaded for the latter in its original guise
http://www.itv.com/news/london/2015-02-04/handwritten-note-from-joanna-lumley-reveals-cycle-path-in-original-garden-bridge-plans/)
but the way politicians (of all parties) allow themselves to be browbeaten by her.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8037181.stm
Note that debating the definition of a celebrity ‘National Treasure’ is outside the remit of this site. Any further examples will be pruned. It’s best to think of ‘Principles, not personalities’. LBM
@LBM – and definitely not Principals!
@LBM
Point taken – but, back on topic, if the new NLE results in a split of the Northern Line maybe such a person could lend their name to it (I know naming lines is being discussed on another thread!) – the Crossrail 1 renaming sets a high standard, but I rather like the idea of a Felicity Line!
Timbeau et al…..the split in the Northern Line services was mooted long before the extension to Battersea Park was ever thought of. Edgware to Kennington/loop was/is perfectly feasible. … the constraint was/is still interchange at Camden Town. (I suspect I am teaching Grandma to suck eggs).
@100andthirty – at least as far back as 1988, when I recall the Secretary of State coming out of a meeting with LRT saying “I seem to have abolished the Northern Line”..
@100andthirty. I can go back to 1987, where for a summer job I was sent to various Northern Line Stations to work out why train dwell times were too long. Mostly weight of passengers, with even then the Morden Branch blocking back from Stockwell to Clapham Common at the height of the morning peak. Euston City Branch southbound was the outlier, as most trains did not quite stop as far forward as possible meaning the rear set of double doors on coach 7 stayed shut. This meant a carriage had to be unloaded/loaded through a single set of double doors (remember there were guards then). Dwell times were horrible.
Back to the Northern Line the split was being looked at, and being decided against because of Camden Town.
Graham H…..another SoS who has been ahead of him/herself!
@ R Butlin – and I can recall receiving a “secret” tube map at work which showed the Northern Line as a split service. IIRC the Edgware – CX – Kennington line was shown in a rather vivid green colour.
@WW:
The Lime line?