The Second Victoria Line
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ส.ค. 2024
- They liked the first one so much, you see.
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"We were forced to close Victoria Station because so many people wanted to use it" - any standard British bureaucrat.
Or the classic Vietnam statement about having to destroy a village to save it.
Show how idiotic British Governments are when it comes to infrastructure.
Huh. Like the roads and the NHS, then.
@@neuralwarp
Mainly because like with Infrastructure, British Governments are unwilling to invest in either.
Yes Minister.
Jago is a veritable Wikipedia of long forgotten studies, reports and enquiries into London planes, trains and automobiles.
I read 'veritable' as 'vegetable' at first and thought that was a little harsh on Jago lol.
@@MrDannyDetail Oh, the pain!
img.rgstatic.com/content/show/50504462-4406-464b-8ac2-5f57ca36ef55/e2e30c89-edf1-4360-a80d-3fcf75dde5df/e9db7e5d-f814-49a8-ac38-9a27907a5904/screenshot-800.jpg
Mainly trains in this case, which I for one am not complaining about in the slightest!
"...take the heat off the Victoria Line.." now that's a good idea
yep...literally
Other Tube lines: *same* 😅
Air con scheduled for 2050!
@@williamday9628 2150* 😉
(and several times the original budget; naturally)
Missed opportunity to say: "You're the Victoria Line to my Victoria Line" 😀
VicTWOria
Victextra....?
no
@@apolloc.vermouth5672 god no
VVictoria ==> Wictoria
Lostoria
Ha, I just got off the Victoria Line and saw this.
Regular or secret?
Me and you both bro!
Same here!
I was on it yesterday
bet you were sweating. Place is basically hell in summer
For many years they ran "shorts" to cover the crowded section between Victoria and Kings X/Seven Sisters until the whole line became overcrowded and tipping-out was causing too many delays.
Problem was,the ROUTE of the Vic was just too well-designed...right down to the quick'n'easy cross-platform interchanges....
Ah yes, I remember that. A sudden hiss coming over the intercom, then: "Kings Cross station, Kings Cross station - this train terminates here. All change here please, all change". Blasted nuisance.
The fact that the Victoria line was built on the cheap but is still so useful and well designed deserves another video. How they designed the upgrade of stations to incorporate the cross platform interchanges with the Northern and Bakerloo on a low budget is something I'd particularly like to see more detail on.
Victoria Line 2: Electric Boogaloo
Aside from the very real issues discussed in this video, the Victoria line has to be one of London's most successful infrastructure projects ever built. High speeds, a huge number of cross platform interchanges, full automation, great reliability, and a bigger loading gauge than all other deep tube lines.
It took until about 2010 for some of those benefits to be realised, but the end result today is seriously impressive.
Yes the designers did a great job considering their restrictions. Unfortunately it may well be the last railway line in Britain to get air conditioning.
It was also, for some reason, the only line which - occasionally, anyway - kept running during Tube strikes.
@@Krzyszczynski as I understand it, because of the automation, the train operators on the Victoria line are more like guards than drivers, so generally belong to a different union. So train operators are mostly RMT on the Victoria line, mostly ASLEF on other lines
@@vincentlugthart4618 Thanks for that, Vince. Always puzzled me.
I've said it before in comment sections of your videos but, please, never quit making these.
They remind me of the time my wife and I spent in London using the tube and loving every minute of it.
She passed away, it'll be 3 years Dec 1 of this year and your videos give me some comfort in remembering her.
My condolences.
I have a similar reason (kind of). I used to watch JH a lot via TV with my [late] mother, as it's great viewing while having supper, and she always had an addendum from her own experiences of the Tube & London in general.
She passed away last year, but this channel - and others like Lockpicking Lawyer & Lindybeige that were regular shared viewing - help a lot re' focusing on the positives, and it's always heartening to see how many share the interest in railways she instilled in me 🙂 .
From 1979 through the late 1990s, I flew into Gatwick and needed to get to Bedford. The best way to do it was to take the Gatwick Express to Victoria and then the Victoria line to St. Pancras. Back then, long before Eurostar, it was an old station serving trains from London to the Midlands. Going inside, I can hardly recognize the interior today. I had no idea that the Victoria Line was relatively new/old, as it seemed to look as old as any other line. It was a good hike from the Tube station for "Kings Cross St Pancras" to get to St. Pancras. BTW, in the early days, I could never understand how they pronounced "St. Pancras")
The day I flew in, I would hop the Victoria line with my bags to St. Pancras and check my bags (at least before the bombings in London did away with bag checking). Then, I would tour London and catch a matinee show. Then, I would return to St Pancras and take the train to Bedford. Going back home, I would often stay at the Grosvenor Hotel over the station the day before I left so I could drop my bags, see London that day, and catch a train in the morning to the Airport in time to make my plane. Then, in 1997, Thameslink came along with a train that went from Gatwick to Bedford; it was simpler but not as much fun. I found it strange that before 1997 no "trains" traveled across London. I asked how they did Thameslink and was said that they opened back up a very old tunnel.
Building a tube line like it's 1899, it was never going to work well in 1968.
The history of the post war tube is basically "do we have to run a railway? Fine but we're going to complain and drag our feet to avoid building more"
All those who worked on building the Victoria Line should be massively proud of what they did.
The BBC have a 'free' documentary about how the Victoria Line was built; and how Oxford Circus was closed for just 65 hours for a steel road 'umbrella' to be put in so all the traffic could re-start on the Monday whilst navvies dug out the new station..
th-cam.com/video/GwRRSJ_wtIg/w-d-xo.html
The films shows the skilled and dangerous work that had to be done. Like the narration says: "They earn a lot of money! And they sweated their skill for every penny of it!"
This would all be impossible today, every single thing the workers did could result in a lost finger, hand, or life. That's what the 'Good Old Days' were; when Britain did everything on the cheap, but there was skilled labour ("Almost all from Ireland") who were willing to work 16 hour shifts for double time..
"Think of them when, you yourself, are riding in comfort through the shotgun tunnel of the new Tube."
This reminds me of that Japanese quick switch job for one of the station in Tokyo. Highly planned, highly choreographed work of art/ engineering… (and all with modern safety standards, I believe.)
Thanks for the link. That video was worth another watch!
I remember as a child seeing that steel umbrella at Oxford Circus, to me it seemed to be there for ages.
I recall as a child circa 1967 living at 515 Seven Sisters Road and feeling the vibration of tunnelling activities below us for some weeks. Our terrace had poor foundations to the point that the entire terrace leans forward and was structurally condemned in 1933, but WW2 put paid to demolishing still-standing buildings and amazingly, 90 years later and a tube tunnel later, it's still standing. I recall going on one of the first services through the tunnel and noticed even though quite young, how clean and fresh the air smelled. Not quite the same aroma now!
I’ve never been to the UK, I’ve never even ridden on a train whatsoever and yet I find these videos continually fascinating. I’ve watched every video on here since 2020.
I'm British, but have only actually ridden *The Tube* about eight times in over a third of a century 😂 .
(having rarely ventured into London from the East-Midlands)
Still fascinated by the Underground though, partially through many family tales from the tube in the '60's through to the '80's 🤔🙂
@@jimtaylor294 i’ve seen pictures and videos, that’s a pretty part of the country!
@@asheland_numismatics I'd agree with that 🙂👌
Oh the British disease: penny-pinch to build something barely adequate & then spend twice as much to increase capacity by 25% (see M1, M3 & M25 etc) DLR
In 20 years or so…. “See HS2”
I'm amazed where you get all your info from - you are one hell of a researcher. My hat is off !
Hello Jago, As I watched this video I thought of the “City Widened Lines” from 1866 in which the tracks of the Metropolitan Railway were widened from two tracks to four between Kings Cross and Moorgate Street.
Best wishes from Oxfordshire.
These days, virtually all trains start from Brixton and some trains only terminate at Seven Sisters instead of running through to Walthamstow because of the depot at Northumberland Park.. Originally, however, extensive use was made of the reversing sidings at King's Cross St Pancras, and after the Brixton extension opened, at Victoria, resulting in numerous short workings. Today, both these reversing facilities are seldom used.
Oh, I wld love a light green line
Thats the colour for the trams in Croydon.....
3:14 I remember in ‘Going Underground’ about how Victoria Line stations were claustrophobic and windy.
Very informative video as always. What annoys me about this situation is that the Victoria run is running beyond capacity, yet at Walthamstow, Blackhorse Road, Tottenham Hale and Seven Sisters you'll find massive tower block residential developments that will encourage thousands more onto an already saturated service, and I'm sure there will be examples of this elsewhere along the line. There seems to be no joined up thinking when it comes to housing and public transport provision... 😑
There were problems on the Victoria Line this morning which oddly, made me appreciate how good it usually is. I whinge if I have to wait more than two minutes.
Maybe the crowding at Walthamstow has a lot to do with people disembarking for onward travel to less well served areas. An extension to Whipp’s Cross could help to alleviate that. Yeah I know, too expensive etc.
I remember a TV doco, must be at least 30 years ago now, which had a reporter secretly filming on the Victoria Line to show how crowded it was. He started his journey at Walthamstow Central, and that train was already jam-packed before it even left the station.
There is an amazing film on TH-cam titled "BBC: How They Dug the Victoria Line." I hope to see some clips of it on this fantastic channel.
Link above.
2:28 : The door with the sticker blocking the Victoria roundel while talking about the station being closed during rush hour.. Bloody brilliant, if you ask me!
Imagine if they started building Victoria Lines in the 60s and just never stopped. London's whole tube network would be efficient and modern, meanwhile other UK cities could have proper metros too...
Interesting. One notable feature of the Victoria line is the number of cross-platform interchanges - with Piccadilly at Finsbury Pk, GN & City at Highbury & Islington, Northern (Bank) at Euston, Bakerloo at Oxford Circus and Northern (again) at Stockwell. These must have an effect on usage figures - e.g. the quickest way to get from Charing X to Kings X is Bakerloo and Victoria, changing quickly at Oxford Circus. Actually the Underground already had quite a tradition of X-Platform Interchange, going back to when the Bakerloo (as it was then) was extended in parallel with the Met, and the Piccadilly in parallel to the District, and then subsequently with the Central line eastern extension - at Mile End with the Met & District, and Stratford with the GE Electric lines (now Elizabeth line). I have to say that if these projects had been done by the current TfL management or Elizabeth line designers, we would probably have ended up with few or no X-Platform interchanges - and they would have called it 'For the convenience of Passengers'!
Also Jubilee (Green Park) and Central (Oxford Circus)
@darganx
Those are interchanges, but not cross-platform interchanges.
All the lines at Green Park are somewhat famously far away from the others, and that is it faster to use the escalators up to the ticket hall and go down the line you want.
Crossplatform interchanges are good for quick changes, but the downside is there's no buffer and no way of controlling flow of passengers between the platforms.
They canned the idea of a spur line leaving/joining it a Seven Sisters and taking/running over the line (which is now overground) to Enfield.
Wow, never heard about that one! But which existing railway would it have (presumably) connected with? There's the Cuffley Loop to the west of town, Enfield Town terminus right in the centre, the Southbury Loop to the east, and finally the Lea Valley Line near the Essex border!
@@Krzyszczynski there was about 1962-3 time a green parliamentary paper (discussion purposes). The MacMillan-Home governments of the day (transport minister Ernie Marples) were all about minimum spending and took it no further.
The idea was slightly revived by the Wilson government of 1964-65. But again it was discussion only and that is when it finally died.
The idea centred around a ramp, I assume not unlike the central line at Leytonstone. The objective was to get the tube to Enfield Town. British railways at that time were heavily opposed.
Some talk in the 1980s I believe involved using the junction at Tottenham Hale to extend services to Northumberland park, mainly for football days and later tunnel to Wood Green, but that died as well.
It’s all long ago in a city far away for me.
Another +brilliant documentary - thank you once again. Historical note on re-routing stations at 04:05 - see ANGEL on the Northern Line in the very late 1980s (getting rid of the SERIOUSLY uncomfortable single platform between BOTH running Lines! It is also well-known that the narrow platforms on the Vic Line result from "on the cheap" or a civil servant getting his sums wrong! back in the planning days...
Thanks Jago, a summary of British Transport policies dating back to the victorian era (and possibly earlier with te canals);
Had it been done, then perhaps the Victoria and Albert lines ???
I think the only reason why the Victoria Line is still able to run is because of how frequent the service is now. Though that frequency is causing massive overcrowding at other intermediate stations, such as Seven Sisters on the London Overground platforms. Constantly pumping out passengers. Bit of a nightmare to be honest!
With a modest increase in the size of Northumberland Park depot, the first trains of the day could head via the Victoria Line 1 to a junction with Line 2 at King's Cross and return later. The additional trains needed would only be enough required to cover the King's Cross-Victoria section.
Another possibility would be like the previous arrangements on the Glasgow Subway, where trains stayed on the line overnight (a necessity at that time)
I thought it was going to be "you are the Line B to my Line A" (or the other way round) but he went with "You are the depot to my Brixton" instead
We're all watching Jago videos trying to figure out the ending before it is actually delivered. I also went with the, in hindsight obvious, line A/B. But Jago is playing games with us, and here we are with our pants down! He's the non-existing belt to our failing braces..😊
The Victoria line is very well designed despite its low budget. It covers good distance between *most* stations (except maybe Tottenham Hale - Seven Sisters and King's Cross - Euston - Warren Street), in rush hour a new train pulls in literally 30 seconds after the first one leaves, every single station except Pimlico has either a connection to another line, an Overground connection, or a National Rail connection, there is a slight uphill ramp into most stations to allow the train to slow down naturally, and a ramp down when leaving to allow it to speed up easier and lastly, keen observers will notice that the two lines do not actually run parallel, but cross each other at various points (notice the doors opening on different sides depending on stations), this I believe is done so that at certain stations the most obvious change over is directly in front of you when leaving the train (Euston to Northern Line), which is very well planned.
Crossrail 2 would be like the Victoria Line and Northern Line with extension from Wimbledon to Chessington South, Shepperton, Epsom and Hampton Court and extension to New Barnet and to Hertford East, Harlow Town & Stansted Airport.
😮I used the Victoria Line daily between Warren St. and Victoria for 28 years and wholeheartedly agree with you. At the very least the platforms at Victoria should have been double width combined with 5 escalators and double sized circulating areas. Nobody seemed to have foreseen that Victoria was actually an international station as well as a major commuter station by virtue of its direct connection to the UK's second largest airport , Gatwick. It's a wonder that there were no major pile ups of passengers on the crowded escalators with international travellers fiddling around with luggage while commuters piled up behind them off the escalator.
When the line opened Victoria was also an international station by virtue of it being the terminus of the boat train to and from Paris Gare du Nord.
I don't know about now, but in the late 80's early 90's, on Sundays, trains from Brixton often terminated at King's Cross. Maybe this was an experiment.
Sunday services on the Victoria Line in the 1980s were less frequent than Monday to Saturday services. However, on Sundays, there was (and is) considerable demand for travel between Victoria, Euston and King’s Cross / St Pancras. Therefore there was a Victoria to King’s Cross shuttle added to the Sunday schedule.
"You are the depot to my Brixton" should be on Valentines day cards
I seem to remember that following the opening of the Victoria Line, going to see an exhibition complete with a temporary cinema showing a film about the construction at St.James's Station, London Transport's headquarters. Was this the film people refer to being shown latterly by the BBC?
Am I the only who is fixated on Jago's 'you are the X to my Y' outros where he thanks his sugar mommies and daddies? I thought for sure I had the right guess in this video, but again I was wrong...😢 One day though, one day.
I love the conclusion you came to about not being so cheap when they built the first line then they wouldn’t need to build a second.
My town did something similar; there is one major artery road from one side of town to the other. They started building a bunch of new suburbs at one end of town to the road needed to be extended to meet the new housing, but they cheeped out and built it with one lane each way.
The extension was ten years overdue by the time it opened, so not six months later they were back building the second half of the dual carriage way, and some of bridges and fly overs required major changes due to their small size from the build the first time around.
"There's never enough time/money to do it right, but there's always enough time/money to do it over" said someone clever
so...
I'm hearing "build Crossrail 2".
which is obviously the way forward, yes. As in Build the *full* HS2. And the Pic-Vic tunnel. And HS3. and so on. A rolling program of major projects, always a few in planning, always one or two using TBMs, always one being outfitted, always one in testing. Same as should be done for electrification, really.
Lets put the to the signals to red here for a minute.
Isnt this plan what the have effectively planned for the division of the Northern Line once the "Camden Issue" has been dealt with, just splitting the thing via the branches.
Id argue that the best way to deal with the congestion on the Victoria line is as you say the Cross Rail 2 project but looking at how long the Purp/Liz Line took, would it also not be prudent to expand Victoria Line platforms and extend stations at both Northern and Southern ends to deal with numbers, one could also argue that extending the Victoria Line south from Brixton as part of this plan could also help, with interchanges at Loughborough Junction, Herne Hill, West Dulwich, Crystal Palace and Norwood Junction. One could also imagine a case then being put forward for the trams being extended upto Norwood Junction and Crystal Palace for better interchange with the Underground and the Overground.
But then again I would also advocate in the long term for the DLR to extend beyond Lewisham and link in with the Trams as well as the Bakerloo taking over the Hayes branch via Catford bridge and Beckenham.
Apparently, way back in the early 1960s, the crucial factor leading to the Victoria Line getting the nod from central government was not the perceived need of London commuters, but giving support to the depressed iron and steel industry of the north of England.
And yet they still built it to the deep-level tube standard instead of using a larger diameter compatible with sub-surface line stock 🤦♂️
Wasn't the Victoria line supposed to terminate in Croydon, where Queen's gardens are, but no money? I can't decide if that would've been good or not.
Brilliant as always!
I first used the Victoria line shortly after opening in 1968, when it was shiny new and a very slick act. How did we ever live without it?
Penny wise pound foolish. It happens here in the USA as well.
We don't have pounds though. Well, not that kind.
@@emjayay ok, penny wise, dollar foolish
A second line between Kings Cross and Victoria would be nice but what's really needed in my opinion is Kings Cross and Liverpool Street to Waterloo.
Crossrail 2 is supposed to be that line, unfortunately the Tories were too incompetent to actually get it built and Starmer is too stupid to have the courage to get it done.
@MrSmith1984 I don't think that's true, crossrail 2 plans were for Kings Cross / Euston to Victoria. Might have been some alternative ideas some people had, but the official route was settled.
@@mrgreatauk
What I meant to say was that while the Current Crossrail 2 Proposals are indeed a Kings Cross to Victoria Line, it could also work as a de facto Liverpool Street/Kings Cross to Waterloo Line as well.
Especially when one could go from Liverpool Street on the Elizabeth Line to Tottenham Court Road to link up with the Crossrail 2 Line, which in turn links up with various Waterloo Suburban Lines as well.
Admittedly a better solution would be a Liverpool Street to Waterloo "Crossrail 4" Line.
@@mrgreataukwaterloo sort of covered in that most (all?) trains leaving from Waterloo stop at Clapham Junction which Crossrail 2 is meant to serve. If you just want to get to Waterloo area and not get a train use Thameslink to Blackfriars and a short walk.
@@MrSmith1984 a future Liverpool Street to Waterloo Crossrail would be pretty cool, and make a lot of sense too... If it went through Clapham Junction too could have the mother of all cross platform interchanges between it and Crossrail 2...
I think this actually would’ve made the problem worse. In order to get to North London from South London, you would have to change at Victoria or King’s Cross. This would only add more pressure on already overcrowded stations.
Shutting the gates to tube stations is very common to prevent platform overcrowding. Hindsight always has the right answers, foresight often the wrong ones.
Yes, exactly. And I don't know about anyone else, but those grand tunnels and never changing vistas at Elizabeth line stations make the walking seem very long indeed.
Fascinating. It's great how you dig up this material for us, Jago.
Much appreciated, as always Mr.H 👍
Did anyone else listening to the first half of this tale from the tube have the theme tune to 'Soap'* running around their head?
* Too young? Google search is your friend!
Two branches through Central London? Sounds like a Nor-toria line to me!
Another fascinating video. Thank you!
I remember reading about this at the time and it was refered to as the Albert line
Why not extend it to Woodford so you can exchange with the central line for local journeys
A bit like how the Northern Line is split in the centre of London.
Although of course that came about for a different reason... joining two originally separate lines together.
Love the victoria line
Oh huh, they basically wanted to retrofit express tracks...but not enough of them for throughrunning to be possible, forcing a weird split defeating the purpose. Interesting! I suppose Crossrail 2 is the nicer version of that whole idea that doesn't overcompromise like that!
I found the lack of a connection between the two halves really odd.
Finsbury Park is effected worse then Walthamstow Central in my experience. I can't speak for Victoria, I never went that far, but I used to use the line every day from Walthamstow to Finsbury and Finsbury was by far the worst for overcrowding issue (Amplified to a ridicuously degree on match days).
Friday JAGO viewing ❤
When I lived in Walthamstow, local historians told us that it was meant to terminate at Wood Street but was scaled back due to cuts.
New trains on the Piccadilly line might make it quicker and mean less changes over to the victoria line at finsbury park
Thank you for a great informative video sir!
I mean, these tiny trains in narrow tunnels... what were they thinking in the 20the century?
Building the Victoria Line on the cheap was an expensive mistake.
We need to ban construction of new deep level tube lines and require that any new lines come up to the Crossrail standard.
Eventually, all the existing tube lines will need to be upgraded to take full-size trains. This will not be an easy thing to do. But it is the only way to make the Underground work for the next century.
In the meantime, we should probably be focusing on building networks like London Underground and London Overground in the various other cities in the UK.
So wish they had built this. Would end having having to change at Green Park to get to everywhere i usually go.
For passengers, the Victoria line is hot, noisy, overcrowded and generally unpleasant. But I admit it's normally very quick & efficient, with trains every 90 seconds or so.
But I travel from my home in SE London to NE London several times a month, and I now do my best to avoid it, even if my journey - which then usually involves Thameslink and/or Overground - takes a bit longer. If we can't afford Crossrail 2, let's at least have air-conditioned and sound-proofed trains.
Air conditioned, uh, carriages don't magically disappear the heat. They move it from inside to outside: tunnels and stations. And they pick up heat on sunny days in the outdoor parts and then stick some of it into the tunnels. New York City air conditioned all its subways by about forty years ago without doing much about the ventilation part. It can get up to 115 F (46 Celsius) on some deep platforms. So it's not so simple. London of course has the early stations with openings and outdoor bits for ventilating steam trains. Aren't those getting AC already? Fortunately I've only been in London around springtime.
We can afford to build Crossrail 2, it's just that certain governments don't want to spend money on infrastructure.
ভিক্টোরিয়া লাইন
(Victoria Line in Bengali)
I clicked translate and it works 😃
Well done Google AI. (I consider it prudent to let AI think I like it. You never know . . .)
I think the solution to over crowding is to raise ticket prices to match capacity . BRILLIANT ! I have always matched my use to slow periods of the day because I like trains but H..... the others , passengers that is , so what's the difference ? I actually ended up earning more money that way but that is another story . It's called adaptation . Anyways I used the Victoria line allot at times and wonder how people lived without it . But they did .
During construction there was a problem in Blackhorse Road. Blackhorse Road, in the bottom of the Lea (or Lee) valley kept wanting to visit the tube workings underneath. That was the reason given out locally for the late opening.
I just want to hear, see you again soon for another taaale from the tuuube! I mean it snuck in there but I beg of thee o lord Jago!
1:04 OH MY JAGO😱 thought I clicked on Second Avenue Line video, let me sink through this video first... 🚂 :3
No surprise, this B A-nother educational video, jago.
The victoria line is so efficient and reliable that literally everyone who needs to get from north east to central/south (and vice versa) floods it. In rush hour it is most definitely the worst for overcrowding.
Jago, central city terminal stations are the great inefficiency of rail networks. National and city governments must work together to link up city terminal stations underground and cut Tube demand and tube trains by a third. Outer metropolitan and rural areas are the place to depot and turn around intercity trains, after they have passed through the city. In doing this, the islands of Great Britain and Ireland need rail grids that cover the islands with the spacing of the grid lines determined by population density. The grid lines should string together cities and towns and run automated at high frequency so people can get door-to-door quickly with little waiting. People hate interchange, but interchange is efficient and delivers faster door-to-door for most people.
As a native of 'ull, I am sure Philip Larkin wrote
"Interchange... began for me
In nineteen hundred and sixty three."
A true Paragon of Interchange!!
Huh, that A and B line sounds a bit like the changes that are currently being made to the Stockholm metro (to be completed around 2030), where the Blue line is going to duplicate a section of the Green line, and take over one of the three Green line lines.
Interesting video - I used to commute into Victoria station in the mid 2000s and the tube station was being rebuilt then - I think that took 15 years in the end - imagine how long it would take to build a new line there!
My memory from the time (probably unreliable, but possibly not...) is that the original plan for the line was that it terminated at Victoria.
So there was no intention to serve south London in the original planning (south of the river wasn't really seen as part of London in those days).
But then there was a lot of political pressure to extend the line to Brixton, so a southern extension was added.
But (again from my memories of the time) there was never any intention to have an intermediate station. Pimlico was added as an afterthought (again after much lobbying).
We couldn't understand this at the time - why Pimlico? But the consensus of opinion was that a lot of rich people lived there (including Tony Benn's family) and money talked loudly.
There was also the fact that the new station gave easier access to the Tate. So much for cost benefit analysis - is there any other station on the Underground who's justification was to give easier access to an art gallery?!
Basically a lot of politicians have their London home in Pimlico, so the lobbying wasn't too difficult :)
Capacity seems to be an increasing problem..A network of railways and tubes , built mostly in the early 1900s is not going to cut it in the 2020s and beyond..But is there space for more up to date railways in our crowded city?
This is exactly how we got line 14 in Paris : RER A (opened in 1977) was overcrowded so we just decided to build a new automated subway next to it, although it follows a slightly different route. Now it has been extended at both ends line 14 is to become the most patronized line in the network, so with the benefit of hindsight that was a great idea.
What about extension of the Victoria Line from Brxton to Croydon?
I frequently use the Victoria Line between Oxford Circus and Victoria and I have to say, when it comes to the Northbound platform at Victoria, it is way to narrow. Even off peak it fills up quite quickly. Even though often the headway between trains is less than two minutes.
I love the interchanges with the Northern Line, makes the Victoria Line my line of choice, to that part of London. However, as a suggestion, how about the two really rather sensible extension proposals. One at the south, one stop, to Herne Hill, for the British Railways station, and the other, which is far more likely, using the depot for a new station to serve a football stadium there, at Northumberland Park
The line is going to be extend for passengers to northumberland park on spurs match days.
Waiting for stadium sponsorship
What a great idea! Duplicate the Victoria Line, except make it run to different stations and call both parts "the Victoria Line". Not at all confusing for people who visit London, I mean no one has ever been thrown by the Northern Line.
One often suggested plan to improve the through put of trains on the Victoria line is a loop south of Brixton to Herne Hill which would enable to trains to turn around without reversing. It would also mean Herne Hill would be a much more important interchange. Excuse to use any footage of Herne Hill station i think...
What a great video
I do like these tales of UK rail/metros futures past...
Wonderful ❤
Money. (or lack of) coupled with that evergreen "shortsightedness" has always been the bugbear of big projects. "You can have this if its quick and cheap"... As an example elsewhere:-
35 years ago I was moved to a new office in Hamburg. There were 4 of us for software group that should have had 20+. My boss (one of the 4) applied to the board for new people and new computers. "You can have one or the other" he was told. New computers with nobody to use them or new people unable to do work. To be fair, two of us had seen the writing on the wall and working out our notice, but when my boss was told that he resigned too. I mean, how do you get to a position where the logic of what you are saying makes no sense.?
"I want it quick, cheap and right." "Now pick any two."
Lovely video. I don't buy the Northumberland Park depot issue. The lines would be conceptually distinct but connected at Victoria and Kings Cross, wouldn't they?
With regards to matchday crowds at Finsbury Park and Highbury & Islington, would it be possible to build a Victoria Line station between the two at Arsenal?
I think the line runs almost adjacent to the Piccadilly Line at that point.
Possibly the 'Mona Lisa' of Minimalist Linear Cartography?
Fascinating 😊
just how much can be built underground
You mean how much earth and rock can they dig out before the city collapses?