How the Underground was Built for Speed
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 17 เม.ย. 2021
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I know it doesn’t seem that way sometimes, but speed and efficiency were built into the very fabric of the London Underground. Let’s look at how.
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6:23 Jago: “in the fast paced world...”
Sign: SLOW DOWN
My favourite speed feature of the deep tube lines is that the tunnel dips down between stations so that the train accelerates and decelerates more quickly while using less energy. This happens on the Central and Picadilly lines as well as Crossrail.
also Victoria Line
The best bit is, that’s known as a Hump Profile 🤣
What a great idea. I hadn't realised
That is a clever trick indeed.
yeahi only ound out the other day when i was on the central line for a good 10minutes, i saw and felt it and it was cool xD
People used to talk of how they struggled to remember how they coped before television: then people struggled to remember how they coped with just three channels; then they struggled to remember how they coped without mobile phones: and similarly, I am now struggling to remember how I coped without my regular Jago fix 🤔
Great stuff as ever. Nice gratuitous shots of Piccadilly trains passing District trains too 🤓 👍🍻
"It really is an all in one _platform_ for all"
Good one
Lol
Multiple Units: “they were definitely the way forward”
And backwards...
Ah, the old multiple units never deciding where they want to go.
Not backwards, "other forward" 😉
@@Nick-kz6dg No reverse, just two forwards
Yup, I was sort of expecting the Jago to say just that. I was curiously disappointed when he didn't?
I like that the end-spiel about rapid transit is just a little quicker than usual.
Jago, are you planning on making a video about the Monument/Bank complex and how/why the stations were “combined”?
I’d rather the Bakerloo line didn’t try to go any faster. I fear those carriages may actually shake apart as it is. I’m looking forward to the day when I can finally say that the rolling stock is actually younger than me.
When I rode on the Bakerloo line, the rolling stock was older than my father!
This problem will be solved as time goes by...
It feels almost as if the rails are made of wood.
@@PopeLando For really old rolling stock, nothing in the UK comes anywhere near the Glasgow Subway in 1977. It was still using the original 1896 rolling stock and communications & signalling technology.
@@OofusTwillip Remarkable. Has it ever had a serious accident?
"London Transport" always sounded better than "Transport for London". I mean, do we really need that preposition?
Jago, how about a video on TfL and London Transport?
It was to signify a major structural change and the separation of strategic management from operations.
...and the awful LRT - London Regional Transport
On the flip side, if you said "LT" I think many people wouldn't have known what you meant, whereas everyone in London today knows what "TfL" is.
@@jimtuite3451 Which covered London, and argueably not the London Region, and definately less than London Transport did in 1935
Heya Jago, love the videos. How the hell do you keep pumping theses out at such speed!? Legend
His secret is no Weekend Engineering Works. 😉
His enthusiasm for the subject, perhaps? He's the Anton Petrov of the London Underground.
UER board meeting. Yerkes stands and clears his throat "Gentlemen. I feel the need...The need for speed."
Was that drug common at the time?
"And Greed." Awwwwww Yeah..!!
@@paulohagan3309 Amphetamine was developed in 1887 in Germany,
Methamphetamine was first synthesized in 1893 in Japan.
MDMA is also a German invention, made in 1912, patented in 1914.
We certainly love keeping ourselves up and running 👃
As much as squarespace will help you gain an online presence, a sponsorship by them seems to be the official sign that you are an established youtuber these days. Well done!
The only channel I like before watching the video. I do it because I like seeing another Jago video about the Tube or whatever London being posted.
Thanks for this. The Yerkes tubes are my Tube. They are the station styles I grew up with and have always loved. I lived on the Northern Line and preferred going through the Charing Cross branch. I never before realised how the separated lines yet joined stations were such a huge innovation. Nice work!
Must be noisy living on the Northern line!
Stuff like this is one of the reasons I wish I had grown up in a large city. I’ll never have “my Tube,” and silly as it is it makes me a little sad.
Northern line should be separated
I thought you might mention the slight gradients into and out of deep level stations which help the trains to decelerate and accelerate as they enter and exit stations. Reminds me of the first sneaky ‘drop’ which is apparent on some modern rollercoasters.
And as a bonus the station can be built slightly less deep? Sounds good,
I think I'm right (it doesn't happen often) in saying that deep tube lines drop away from platforms to increase acceleration, and (of course) rise in approaching them to aid de-acceleration. I don't think this engineering was used by conventional railways. And I don't know if such as the Metropolitan (and other shallow lines) do that. I hope that's helpful. Simon T
You’re referring to the Hump Profile that was designed in to the tunnel on most of the deep tube lines 👍🏻
He knows 👍🏼
6.30 ...The tile paterns on the platform walls of the original 'tube' stations.
I read somewhere that one of the reasons for the unique paterns and colours for each station was the high level of adult illiteracy in Edwardian London. Not much point in writing the name of the station when a good number of your customers can't read!
Even on the 1930's Piccadilly line extension from Finsbury Park up to Cockfosters, every tube platform has different coloured and paterned edging (Manor House blue, Turnpike Lane yellow, Wood Green err...green, Bounds Green red and Southgate orange) which may have been for the same reason?
Would make sense. The traditional red and white striped barber's pole came about for the exact same reason.
“The multiple unit to my tube tunnel”. Does this mean you are at the head end?
I’ll get my coat…
Good evening? *checks watch* - worried I’d had a bit too much of a lie in!
A really informative and excellent video as ever - I hope they don’t speed the bakerloo up too much until it gets new stock - that’s a bumpy ride already!
I think I could set my watch to these videos. Saturday, Midnight, lets go. I really do enjoy these videos.
Funny but it’s Sunday, 8am here!
3 am where I am.
Having lived and worked as a locomotive engineer out of Nelson BC. CPR then shared various small pieces of track with other RR's. The main one remembered was, BN owned mainline of CP from Troup to Nelson Troup had a register box. Later we had orders for MBS. Nelson while lucrative is too far away from High Rail for signalling. Too few trains to make it worth expense. So yeah, shared track was a pain.... BN track there now abandoned. Walked sections of that roadbed several times... nice trestles, wild creeks and views of west arm Kootenay Lake...
It worked ok with BR & LU when I worked on the District line in the 80s. Admittedly we had extra regs for train protection and traction current when operating over the BR sections, we shared road on the Gunnersbury to Richmond section, while crossing Putney Bridge to you from LU to BR sections, the shared road was actually East Putney to Wimbledon, the other traffic on this road was generally empty BR units working to/from the depot at Wimbledon Park the signalling over these sections was BR, but train radio kept us in touch with our own line control at Earls Court control room.
Definitely need a video on the Bank/Monument station complex.
That was really interesting. I'm planning a day in London finding many of the places you have mentioned.🚆
The Central Line, especially really is really fast. It's noticeable to me as a railfan outsider. My first time to London, I was really impressed by that line in particular.
I know this is off topic for the video Jago, but have you thought of doing a video about the King's Cross fire? Grim subject matter I know, but still a fascinating part of the transport history of London.
Sweet juxtaposition at 6:22 of the poster and your commentary!
Nice work. 😉
For rapid alightment from the carriage, as the train came to a stop and the doors slid open, something should come from behind boot out the passengers. I do realise the technical difficulties involve, but I'm sure they could be overcome.
The cheapest and easiest would be getting the passengers behind to shove you out.
Well, isn’t the inverse of your fanciful suggestion a thing in Tokyo where gloved and uniformed platform officials shove boarding passengers into subway cars to facilitate door closings?
"...and exciting new forms of corruption..." Yerkes' contributions are not to be underestimated in *multiple* ways!
Another excellent and informative video JH. Nice crossover from other videos and the dry humour is always welcome 😊
Bloody brilliant as always fella. Just revisited the April first video for a chuckle.
Keep up the good work fella and stay safe.
Great video as always! Could you maybe do a video on the Metropolitan Railway's abandoned fringe line to Verney Junction, looking for remains and giving the backstory?
Enjoyed your video. They are well made and very well presented. Always look forward to them
I remember going on the old bakerloo red trains back in the 60s I used to go to the zoo a lot from Southall Middlesex via Ealing Broadway to regent's park then walk through the park loved it
Excellent as always Jago.
Regarding unique tiling in each station: I’ve heard Jago mention in a couple of videos that this was simply to help passengers recognise their station quicker, saving a few seconds.
My understanding (very possibly incorrect, given the disparity of knowledge on the subject between Jago and I) was while this is in essence correct, it was more fundamental than that. The reason for the unique tiling was because literacy levels at the time were far lower than now; many passengers wouldn’t recognise their station because they simply couldn’t read the station name. They needed a visual cue.
Nice! Been looking through the comments before I posted this info aswell
I also love the old standard tube stock the last if which ran on the Northern City line till 1966.
These were then sent to the Isle of Wight.
Americans should be proud that no Yanks no tube trains.
We've got the New York Subway instead, don't worry lol
@@russellgxy2905 your right, but Yerkes was the American, the brainchild of the deep level tube lines that is the point I'm trying to make.
Also unlike most subway systems including the earliest underground lines in London, they were really conventional lines that were cut and cover.
The tube was bored deep level and the trains are much smaller.
Some stations are 120ft below ground level.
The Americans were at the cutting edge of trains and particularly electric traction.
Also the very device that bored the tube lines I believe was called the Gratehead shield as the inventors name was Gratehead.
Have you done a vid on the evolution of the tube train itself ,I seem to remember trains with some sort of louvres in the 50s/60s and very plush upholstery!
the last of the pre 1938 stock where the motors were still above bogie level, some were sent to the Isle of Wight
@@highpath4776 ...Where they eventually got replaced by the retired 1938 stock itself. And now _those_ have just been retired in faver of _newer_ old tube trains -- th-cam.com/video/DWuebB1zO18/w-d-xo.html
@Ross Bourne someone fetch me a needle and cotton I've split my sides.
Thanks Jago, really enjoying your videos!
I never realised it but watching videos about the London tube on TH-cam is appropriate.
"I picked a bad day to quit making TH-cam comments at 8a.m. on a Sunday morning.."
Thanks JH l.
I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue
@@GeorgiaOverdrive I picked a bad day to quit making Airplane references! :D
@@GeorgiaOverdrive For some unfortunates the day they stop sniffing glue is a terminally bad day...
I think there might be another reference at 2:17 "and exciting new forms of corruption, but that's not important right now".
He is a man of impeccable taste, either way 😁👍
@@josephkarl2061 That's why I made the reference in the first place. Did you think it was just random? :)
You have outdone yourself sir. Ten out of ten!
Wonder if we going to get a silver button unboxing video?
It’s a right of passage. An essential.
Back in the 1960's, we used to say that the difference between the express train & the slow train was the slow trains stopped at the stations while the express trains stopped outside them.
Another excellent and informative video, peppered with your wonderful, dry humour ("exciting new forms of corruption"). As someone already mentioned, a video on Yerkes would be fascinating.
Great content!
The perfect Sunday morning, a nice Jago,a mug of java and I'm set. Thanks.
Thank you, never knew about the tiles being different on every station, Londoner 68 years. Started Work, Old street. 1968.
Nice video Jago! Very interesting
We need a video about the Bank Monument thing
As a Lancastrian, I was pleasantly surprised by the efficiency and integration of your little public transport system in my visit to the village in the past week. Hopping between tubes was effortless, and the contactless payment cap really does make life easy, albeit somewhat disconcerting for the uninitiated. Every station reminded me of that scene in American Warewolf In London, which was nice.
Jago has turned me into a train nerd
Another good episode Jago!
The NYC subway developed much the same way as the London Underground, it was originally a number of competing, privately owned systems and one system owned and operated by City of New York. The IRT line (Inter-Borough Rapid Transit), BMT (Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corp.) where private lines while the IND (Independent Subway System) was owned by the city. In 1940 the city purchased the two private lines and incorporated them into one publicly owned system. Interestingly, even though the private subway lines ceased to exits 80 years ago, there are still people who until this day refer to the "IND line" or the "IRT line", etc.
And "Hello all" is back. I can sleep peacefully tonight, knowing the Mysterons have been vanquished and normal service has resumed 😊
😀 Captain Scarlet was my favourite of those tv series from the 1970s.
Some of your new "stock" footage is fantastic!
This was an excellent show on "How the Underground Was Built For Speed," about the world's best rapid transit system. Cheers to the Underground from the United States of America!
I'm always glad to learn more of Yerkes
Another Great video
The Metropolitan was no slouch. The A-stock trains held the land speed record for 4-rail trains of 70-odd mph and were intended to run at 70mph out to Harrow and Moor Park. But they ended up being limited to 50mph because they shock themselves to death
There aren't exactly many 4-rail systems around to make that much of a competition.
@@ashleyhamman that's not the Metropolitan's fault - if others don't want to join in that's their choice
First 4-rail system is fastest 4-rail system 🧐
So...they went so fast they burnt out their electronics??
I mean fair, the fastest steam record holder basically did the same thing :v
@@russellgxy2905 not quite. The fast track from Finchley Rd to Harrow and Harrow to Moor Park weren't the best maintained, and things got a bit bouncy. So it was more they shook themselves apart over 50mph.
The other interesting angle is station spacing, which was generally somewhat greater than on the Paris Metro, for instance. That also speeded things up. Some of the Piccadilly and Brompton stations were a bit closer together now, so we have lost Down Street and Brompton Road but still have Leicester Square/Covent Garden. I Paris they ended up building the RER line to give acceptable cross-town transit times; London equivalent Thameslink and Crossrail.
“A variety of things ... made for truly rapid transit” 6:38 - nice little edit here :)
Another reason for stations having different tile designs was literacy, back then a good propostion of the population couldn't read or write.
If you've ever read people's comments on Facebook, you may believe that's still the case.
i no wot u mean , tils not nneded anymor
what about the Tube Stops where the platform is only on one side.and your looking at a wall with an advisement just millimeters away from the train?.....guess it beats looking at a blank wall!
Is that correct? According to Lloyd, Amy J.: “Education, Literacy and the Reading Public.” British Library Newspapers. Detroit: Gale, 2007, illiteracy rates for men and women in Britain was down to 3% by 1900, having decreased rapidly in the latter half of the 19C.
@@atishghosh4682 only the illiterate could afford to give birth, my mother wrote me a letter in french to tell me I was illiterate ( I think thats whats she wrote I could not ask my dad he was not around )
with all its complexity and different companies i believe that the london underground is the most efficient system in europe if not the world.
BOSS no one does it better, thank you
It’s funny how each outro analogy he stretches more and more
Great video. ☺️
Just love These items.
Marvelous interior finishes on those old tube platforms, the black and white base supplemented by additional colors per station stop. Are there any remaining stations that still have their wood finished escalators? First saw those in 1972.
Wouldn't think so. They were all ripped out after they were found to be one of the causes of the King's Cross. Fire.
Charles Tyson Yerkes brought 3 things to the table.
-New thinking on urban transit
-New corruption
-Excellent facial hair
This is a really interesting topic
The Jubilee line is amazing because of how fast it goes. Take it if you're going to Stratford, even though the map makes it look like a circuitous route
Ah Yerkes, please don't forget those wonderful clerestory roofs, e.g. at 5:25.
Thank you, thank you and thank you
One thing that London didn't get from American was paired express and slow lines, but Yerkes' experience was from Chicago rather than New York. They were in Morgan's plan but whether these could have been afforded is another matter.
Another excellent and very watchable video - many thanks, Jago. While reading a 1930s novel recently, I noticed that in those days each railway had - amongst its general efforts - 'good' trains (i.e. pulled by its fastest engines, with its most comfortable carriages, and stopping at the least stations - before getting to the one the train was 'good' for); even the Metropolitan Railway had its 'good' trains - the ones using their Pullman coaches! Possible subject for a future video? Is there an echo of this in today's 'open Access' operators?
Brilliant........As ever.
"... And exciting new forms of corruption..." Brilliantly understated, there.
Well done for your 8th sponser!
Liverpool overhead railway = The dockers rocket.
The Dockers' Umbrella!
The currently ongoing 4LM (4 Lines Modernisation) will be the most recent effort to speed up the tube as is will allow the sub surface lines to operate at much higher average speeds and shorter headways than today! The Tube really doesnt stop evolving!
I can't help but wonder...if all of the players are in the game to make a fast dollar (or Pound) in their own self interest, would it require a scoundrel with vision to force them out (in his own self interest) and combine the separate companies? If so, then the question becomes...if Yerkes' vision is what ultimately led to what is good rapid transit (even if we don't like his methods), is he really a scoundrel or was he just better at the game than other players?
Good question. What about George Hudson?
@@roderickjoyce6716 That’s a good question also. I believe these men were simply products of their time. This was the age of the "robber baron" (was that term used in the UK?) and at the same period in the US, we had the likes of John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and J. P. Morgan. They're generally considered as philanthropists, though may have been criticized for monopolistic practices. George Hudsons' downfall resulted from borrowing at high interest rates, and the practice of depleting capital to pay investors, which led to the entire pyramid collapsing...so maybe he just wasn't that good a businessman? But the vision was still there, and the railroads too.
He did some under the table corruption, I'm sure. Even if in the end, it benefitted the public, I would doubt that was in is mind. He'd have done the same had it been a mess for the public, as long as he was the benficiary, I reckon. It's just lucky it was of benefit to travellers.
@@paulohagan3309 There's no doubt that there were some shady dealings going on. I don't know about his time in London, but in Chicago, he was not above bribery and/or blackmail...again, not uncommon in the 19th century. The thing about Yerkes is that...while many others were not able to make a go of rapid transit...or were barely able to stay afloat...his ideas were correct. His companies did not disappear as some did, but grew from his plans. He was all about making money, and you don't make money if your plans don't work.
@@stevenflebbe Ok but he was still a scoundrel.
GETTING THAT SQUARESPACE CHEQUE ! Let’s go
Jago Expects every fan to do there duty
'Multiple units to my tube tunnel' 😂
Where would London be without Yukies.
Bank/Embankment sounds like one of those eyes going in different directions episodes.
Yes, if it hadn't been for the Yuckies and the Great Stink of 1858 the embankment wouldn't have been built for Yerkies to build his station.
Without Charles Tyson Yerkes there would be no Hampstead Heath.
Nothing beats the Standard Stock (brief shot in the Acton Museum?). I am just old enough to remember it on the Northern Line before it was replaced by 1938 Stock (some with the odd Standard car). The looped leather straps for standing passengers, the clerestory roofline and the strange sound of the compressors which to a child was both a mystery and somehow comforting.
Soon, I’ll be fan of ‘this man again’ Charlie Tyson Yerkes. On speed indeed.
The Bank/Monument situation is perfectly simple. The Metropolitan Inner Circle Completion Railway opened Monument in 1884. The Waterloo and City opened Bank in 1898 as "City". In 1933, to save city gents having to unfurl their umbrellas, the escalator link between the two was opened. This was only possible because the southern end of the Waterloo & City platforms are close to Monument station. Thus they are two stations connected only by a moving staircase.
Now, if you were to grumble about the Trafalgar Square/Charing Cross née Strand mashup I would very likely agree with you.
4:32 careful now, somewhere in the north east someone's designing the worlds most awkward looking tank engine to prove you wrong
Good evening? I was worried when I saw broad daylight outside 😂
I recall the excruciating pain last time I twisted my yerkes.
The Underground is like the Internet, it's a series of Tubes.
The unique station tile patterns would also greatly aid the illiterate, as did varied coloured lights above tram route indicators or even different liveries for different routes. Not much help for the colour-blind like me, though!
Something they do in Mexico City which is really cool is they give each metro station its own logo, which is then used on the signage and maps. Handy for tourists, but presumably designed for the illiterate and those for whom Spanish isn't their first language.
@@andrewgwilliam4831 not each station, but they did the same for the metro lines in Lisbon, I believe.
It's such a pity about Yerkes. A man with good and pioneering ideas, but with such an overdose of self-belief that he felt his own success mer important than any consideration of probity. Maybe in the stuffy old London of 1900 dodgy dealing was the only way round the vested interests? Betjeman's poem on the death of George V gives a flavour.
Another great video, thank you. Do you have any information on the double deck trains that were tried but didn't take off in England, possibly in the 1960 I think?
They ran on the Southern Railway, later Southern Region BR. “SR 4 DD” is the class to look up
@@SportyMabamba many thanks for the information
Honestly I thought from the title that this video would be talking about the acceleration/deceleration gradients on the Victoria and Jubilee lines.
Isn't it possible that the unique tiling on the platforms was to aid the illiterate? Like most cities, the image that has been passed down to us is of a city being "paved with gold" and whatnot. What you have illustrated previously is how many manual workers were involved keeping the city moving. Add to that the vast number of domestic servants, and universal literacy being a late 20th century thing, how else would they tell where they were?
The poorer walked, the less poor by Tram, those with a dab of cash by Bus, the more well off by Tube or Rail, the better off by Cab / Taxi, the really well of by a Chaffeur.
I have noticed delays down to a minimum while fewer passengers are using them.....
You could run a perfect railway if not for passengers
Don't be a Yerkes, give Jago's video a like.
@2:55, what way did he pass? Was it the Great North Way, the Icknield Way or even down Mexico Way? Sorry, but I HATE "passed away" for died. @4:37, that gap is scary and is one of the reasons why I avoid using Bank for the Central line.
Yerkes brought one other thing with him to London - his "ward" Emilie Grigsby. She had more success in high society in London than in the US and the V+A has some of her belongings. Maybe you'd like to research this for a future video.