Welcome to Reconnections’ Friday Reads. This week’s list:
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- • Private Car problem not solved in Central London (BanPrivateCarsinLondon)
- • London’s Railways – Planning for Peace (ALondonInheritance)
- • 24 hour UK rail people (RailTechnology)
- • Fighting off the Waze Craze (CityLab)
- • Inside NYC MTA’s transit sign shop (UntappedCities)
- • The future of Seattle transit is Vancouver BC (SeattleTimes)
- • San Francisco DMU BART aka eBART (TransitUnlimited)
- • LA Metro deploying social workers for homeless problem (LA Times)
- • Hong Kong high speed express train nearing completion (RailProfessional)
- • World’s first passenger ship equipped with a rotor sail (PassengerShip)
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If you have something you feel we should read or include in a future list, please email [email protected].
A Flettner-Rotor passenger ship(!)
Even if it is only part of the propulsion system(s) … could well be worth watching carefully.
The maps in the Planning for Peace link are a crayonista’s dream! What is clear is that all of those routes drawn ~70 years ago are what is still needed today. Shame we can’t do long-term planning and building
The Viking Grace is not the first Viking ship to be sail assisted. I hope that they no longer require the passengers to lend a hand with the oars.
On a more serious note, will its captain be required to hold a master’s certificate in sail?
@Herned: Perhaps too much time is spent planning and not enough building?
At home I have a Crossrail mug with a class 465 in NSE colours, which does rather date the whole thing. No doubt someone will point out that this is a relatively recent version….
Re: Planning for Peace. Map 1 doesn’t show the same schemes as Maps 2 and 3. The concept in map 1, which is noted as being a 1943 plan, is to loop the various Southern lines through and around central London, then back out again to join another Southern line, not connecting to northern networks at all except for a single north-south Thameslink equivalent. This, I suppose, makes sense to preserve a balkanised 3rd rail land and as such I suspect it may have been more a Southern Railway plan more than something considered on broader scale. The other, presumably later, maps show a complete series of different schemes, all proto-Crossrails as we’d term them them today, although none follow particular routes built or proposed later I believe, except the north-south Thameslink axis which seems to be a recurring theme. The interesting change to the Thameslink axis on the later maps is a little wiggle via Waterloo. This clearly adds major connectivity to the whole south west quadrant of London and further afield along the LSWR network that is still missing from Thameslink’s interchange map today, despite the lines being so tantalizingly close just south of Blackfriars. I know there have been previous proposals for a set of Blackfriars platforms on the W&C to achieve this, dismissed as impractical for various reasons, but there might be another option to create a completely separate peoplemover connection between Waterloo and the South Bank entrance of Blackfriars, perhaps built above the existing tracks. Hasten to add I’m not doing a map!
A thought on those South London railway viaduct removal justifications to connect urban communities etc. It is quite likely that would all have been forgotten a decade or so later when highway planners were envisaging their vast new urban motorway network. It would have been rather handy for them to be able to get their hands all those nice clear ex-railway alignments to build on throughout South London!
I was interested in the observation that moving from 6-a-side seating to something with through access amounted to a significant decrease in train capacity. Correct for seated capacity, but now (a “seat for all” having been abandoned even as an aspiration within Greater London) through-access trains have actually resulted in increased capacity-per-train-metre.
@Malcolm – It must have already been recognised on the tube network by the 1940s that peak capacity included many standing passengers, hence hanging straps and similar devices. I remember riding in non-corridor compartment stock on the GN suburbans out of Kings Cross as a child in the early 70s but don’t recall ever travelling in or out of KX during peak hours, so I don’t know whether standing in those compartments was a common occurence. There was certainly far less standing room, but a single file of people would probably have fitted between the knees of those seated.
Mark: Yes indeed, standing on the tube has a very long history. I think standing in GN non-corridor stock probably did happen (my recollections of this are also vague). But I think it was probably considered as an exceptional response, and not taken into account in official planning. Certainly it would have been quite an intimate way to travel – due to the closeness of the cushions, seated knees tended to require interweaving, even before anyone tried to stand among them.
But my point was really that once you take standing into account, replacing some seats by gangways ceases to cause a decrease in capacity, causing instead an increase.
I certainly recall standing room only on compartment 4SUB stock into Waterloo. Mind you, even then it was quite common to be unable even to board trains at Clapham Junction in the morning rush.
As for the Tube, wasn’t it Charles Tyson Yerkes who referred to the straphangers as his profit margin?
Surely the reason for the Thameslink axis being a constant in the post war proposals was simply because, unlike all the other lines, it was already there?
As Timbeau says, standing in 4Sub compartments at peak hours was the norm, holding on to the edges of the luggage racks. It was a bit of a struggle to get out if you were on the non-platform side of the train, but regular commuters (most passengers) took it in their stride.
Those 4-Sub compartments (suburban electrics on the Southern) each held 6-a-side seating plus an intended 6 standing, the latter figure often being exceeded in reality. On a particular day of (di)stress, during a work-to-rule period, I counted 28 folk in a single compartment with two up in the luggage racks! The rest of the train leaving London Bridge on its outward trip was similarly laden.
When the EPB’s came along with their saloons, there was still 5-a-side seating per door and the 6 per section standing but the narrow gangway along the saloon permitted significantly more standing to fit in between and around the ends of the seat backs in the middle.
@TIMBEAU 4 – May 2018 at 23:02
“Surely the reason for the Thameslink axis being a constant in the post war proposals was simply because, unlike all the other lines, it was already there?”
Very true, but in both illustrated proposals it would have been rebuilt in new tunnels in order to remove the Thames bridge. In the later maps, separate freight and passenger tunnels are shown, with different routing. Although originally having passenger services as well, the Snow Hill connection became a freight only route during WW1, until its initial closure in 1970.
If reading the ‘Waze Craze’ article at CityLab, another article there might be worth reading too: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/05/inter-korean-summit-rail-project/559652/
– looking at the possibility of reunifying the railway systems on the Korean peninsula and improving international connections, not just to China, but also to Russia and Europe via the Trans-Siberian Railway, and even reviving the idea of a rail tunnel between Japan and Korea.
The analysis of am peak arrivals at each London terminus between 1938 and 2010 is interesting, to see where there was growth or decline. But if we take these figures forward to 2016 (the latest available) the picture is one of uniform growth against 1938, albeit that the percentage growth varies from station to station with some, such as Kings Cross, which showed a decline from 1938 to 2010 showing amongst the largest growth between 2010 and 2016.
Quinlet & others
You have to remember that in 1938, the Central Line terminated at Liverpool Street.
But, after 4th December 1946, huge numbers transferred to the Central Line at Stratford & still do ….Which will change again, come May next year, of course.
The same applies to Kings Cross – how many passengers “vanished” from Kings Cross after 14th April 1940, when the High Barnet branch went to the Northern Line?
Ditto Paddington suburban to W Ruislip after 21st November 1948 …..
I would love to see comparitive figures for intermediate decades, to get a better picture, onece the “New Works” extensions had been completed. [ Say 1950, 1970, 1990 ]
…and the Moorgate trains after 1976 taking passengers from Kings Cross. Isn’t it the case that soon Kings Cross won’t have anything that could be described as inner-suburban?
2016 may be distorted on the SE network because of the temporary arrangements at London Bridge, with (I think at the time) Charing Cross trains not calling there, which might increase CX and reduce LB’s figures.
@timbeau
The DfT figures lump London Bridge, Charing Cross and Cannon Street together, so the fact that Charing Cross trains did not stop at London Bridge won’t affect matters directly. However, (a) this does not allow for larger scale diversions (eg to St Pancras) and, (b) it’s not clear where Blackfriars is counted in. Just the same, all the termini are now up on 1938. I agree with Greg, it would be interesting to see the progression from 1938.
I wonder why Vauxhall is always missed out of the list of London terminals in these kind of articles.
It is a London Terminal (with regards to ticketing) and it’s far busier than Canon Street. (22m NR plus 32m Underground).
In fact it is somewhere between 2/3 and 1 London Bridge, but has had nowhere near the level of investment.
It can’t be disqualified just because it’s not the last station on the line, otherwise London Bridge would be ruled out under the same criteria.
Vauxhall: Maybe something as simple as it not being the terminus of any scheduled services.
Malcolm
Well, after 11 July 1848, that is, when Nine Elms ( Also called “Vauxhall” at times ) closed to regular traffic. [ “Vicky” used it quite a bit as a private terminus, apparently ]
@GT And her Russian family. When the Tsar first travelled on an English train, it was stopped for a time at Vauxhall.
When he asked what this place was called he was informed “Vauxhall”.
This is why the Russian word for railway station is:
vokzal.
Note to mods – does this site support Cyrillic characters?
Mameless: I’ve always thought that story rather unlikely, since the first Russian railway was opened, by the self-same Tsar, in 1837, 11 years before Vauxhall (and the year before Nine Elms).
More likely is the story that Vauxhall was famous for its pleasure gardens long before the railway was built: a pleasure gardens in Tsarskoye Selo took that name, and it was the destination of that first Russian railway.
See https://londonist.com/2015/10/vokzal, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vauxhall#As_the_Russian_word_for_station_and_for_a_pleasure_garden and http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/yoursay/weird_words/russian/waterloo_and_vauxhall_vauxhall.shtml for more detail on this.
Nameless
Вокзл
There you go ….
Anyone who wishes to post in some foreign script, and does not have a suitable keyboard about their person, can do so using copy and paste from another site or program. (This probably applies to any platform, though I haven’t checked).
However, except for special cases, like answering Nameless’ query, we’d really rather you didn’t, on the simple grounds that those unfamiliar with the said script won’t know what you are saying.
GT: actually Вокзал – what you’ve written transliterates as Vokzl.
“those unfamiliar with the said script”
Would they be οἱ πολλοί ? It’s all Greek to me anyway.
“Вокзал” = 🇷🇺🚉➡️ 🤣
OK, I’ll ᓄᕐᒃᑲᕆᑦ and stick to just 🔡. 😝
@Betterbee
Thanks or спасибо.
The version of events you have quoted certainly seems more credible.
@Timbeau
Judging by this week’s comments I think Geek would be more appropriate.
The derivation of symbols and logos can also be interesting. For example you should be able to see where MTR’s logo came from – but perhaps that is for a different thread.