WI: Expanded / Improved London Underground

What would happen if the London Underground expanded to other parts within the Greater London area (particularly in the south) as well as including Lines that allowed people to easily travel to other parts of London (East to North, North to West, West to South and South to East) while completely avoiding Central London unlike today?

Additionally, how could the London Underground (along with Transport for London in general) be further improved?
 
What would happen if the London Underground expanded to other parts within the Greater London area (particularly in the south) as well as including Lines that allowed people to easily travel to other parts of London (East to North, North to West, West to South and South to East) while completely avoiding Central London unlike today?

Additionally, how could the London Underground (along with Transport for London in general) be further improved?

Its only about London in a minor way, but "The 12:08 service to.." by Devvy has some.
 
IIRC the development of the Channel Tunnel to tie in with the lines owned by whoever owned the Met Line (my memory is shit) would have tied a whole lot of lines together in a strategic paertnership that would have provided an impetus for achieving this

Best Regards
Grey Wolf
 
What would happen if the London Underground expanded to other parts within the Greater London area (particularly in the south) as well as including Lines that allowed people to easily travel to other parts of London (East to North, North to West, West to South and South to East) while completely avoiding Central London unlike today?

Additionally, how could the London Underground (along with Transport for London in general) be further improved?
Well the one problem with expansion south of the river is geology. North of the river the ground is mostly soft clay IIRC which makes tunneling rather easy. South it's much less so. Luckily though it's not that big of a problem. We have very developed over ground rail systems, particularly the London Overground now that the new orbital expansion has been completed.
 
South of the river had a very well developed conventional local rail network too. No need to build expensive metros if you handle that properly.
 

Devvy

Donor
Missed this earlier! :)

It can be extended a way out, and probably an extension would take the form of tunnelling under the river and then taking over a line or two of the rail network.

The biggest problem is central London capacity - more tunnels and lines needed to have enough. That's more difficult to manage. Also, Underground lines were rapidly being judged to have too little capacity, with planners starting to advocate for full size Crossrail services with higher capacities. How do you define the "London Underground network"? :)

If it's anything TfL (or it's predecessors), then I'd suggest an earlier push for Crossrail schemes would do wonders to push the network out. Also you could do Thameslink a whole lot better then OTL, with much greater capacity and bigger range of destinations.
 
I was thinking of something like the following admittingly amateurish examples of 4 Main Underground Lines that avoid Central London and allow the potential for other existing Underground Lines or smaller alternate Undergrounds to cover the remaining areas, where the Underground is currently not present and making for a more integrated and wider reaching London Underground network with people being more inclined to use public transport.

Northeast to Northwest London - Woodford (Central) to Moor Park (Metropolitan) via the areas (Not Stations) of Chingford, Enfield, High Barnet, Borehamwood or Radlett and Bushey where the Underground currently does not extend to.

South to Outer East London - West Croydon (Overground) to Harold Hill via the areas (Not Stations) of New Arlington, Orpington, Swanley, Dartford, Purfleet, Rainham and Romford.

Northwest to Southwest London - Moor Park (Metropolitan) to Epsom (proposed Crossrail 2 station) via the areas (Not Stations) of Harefield, Denham, Uxbridge, Hillingdon, Hayes, West Drayton, Hounslow, Twickenham, Teddington, Kingston upon Thames, Surbiton and Chessington.

Southwest to Inner East London - Dagenham Dock (proposed DLR station) to Epsom via the areas (Not Stations) of Belvedere, Bexleyheath, Sidcup, Chislehurst, Bromley, West Wickham, South Croydon, Purley and Banstead.

At the Moment if someone wanted to go from Woodford to say High Barnet for example they would have to journey via Central London on the Central and Northern Lines, putting up with long journey times and overcrowding at rush hour when the Woodford-Moor Park Line would potentially cut journey times by about 50 mins to an hour and greatly ease overcrowding during rush hour.
 

Devvy

Donor
I was thinking of something like the following admittingly amateurish examples of 4 Main Underground Lines that avoid Central London and allow the potential for other existing Underground Lines or smaller alternate Undergrounds to cover the remaining areas, where the Underground is currently not present and m[/FONT]aking for a more integrated and wider reaching London Underground network with people being more inclined to use public transport.

Northeast to Northwest London - Woodford (Central) to Moor Park (Metropolitan) via the areas (Not Stations) of Chingford, Enfield, High Barnet, Borehamwood or Radlett and Bushey where the Underground currently does not extend to.

South to Outer East London - West Croydon (Overground) to Harold Hill via the areas (Not Stations) of New Arlington, Orpington, Swanley, Dartford, Purfleet, Rainham and Romford.

Northwest to Southwest London - Moor Park (Metropolitan) to Epsom (proposed Crossrail 2 station) via the areas (Not Stations) of Harefield, Denham, Uxbridge, Hillingdon, Hayes, West Drayton, Hounslow, Twickenham, Teddington, Kingston upon Thames, Surbiton and Chessington.

Southwest to Inner East London - Dagenham Dock (proposed DLR station) to Epsom via the areas (Not Stations) of Belvedere, Bexleyheath, Sidcup, Chislehurst, Bromley, West Wickham, South Croydon, Purley and Banstead.

At the Moment if someone wanted to go from Woodford to say High Barnet for example they would have to journey via Central London on the Central and Northern Lines, putting up with long journey times and overcrowding at rush hour when the Woodford-Moor Park Line would potentially cut journey times by about 50 mins to an hour and greatly ease overcrowding during rush hour.


There are a few problems with this. Mainly that going around London rather then through it wasn't really a well supported or well utilised travel plan until TfL started in 2000. At that point the Tube was absurdly busy in the central area, hence the desire both on TfL's side and passenger's side to avoid the central area. TfL have even gone as far as installing Oyster route validators to allow you to check in at some stations to "confirm" the route you've taken if it avoids Zone 1, and therefore pay a cheaper fare for doing so.

There's also a lot of green belt/outer suburb towns listed there - not the kind of place that typically supports having a railways dug through their town unfortunately. Which means you'd have to do it underground....which means that it would be expensive and would therefore have to be well utilised in order to justify it. Unfortunately the lines are too far out to attract high levels of passengers unfortunately.

Only way I can see this happening is if the London green belt doesn't come into being, the suburbs therefore continue expanding out, which makes the population density high enough in those suburbs to justify.

If you come in to the middle a bit more, and talk about Zone 2/3, then orbital routes are doable post 2000. Check out West London Orbital. If there's no Tramlink, this could run into Wimbledon instead of Surbiton, and then run on to West Croydon. That's a large circumferential route covering a lot of strategic interchange points.
 

Nick P

Donor
I'd start with finishing off the 1935 New Works plan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Works_Programme

The Central Line to Ongar is both electrified and double tracked with a regular London service. Post-war Ongar becomes a New Town (it was proposed) and you see a large rise in commuters guaranteeing the existence of the line.

As payoff for all their work during WW2 while building airfields, army barracks and port facilities, British construction firms are granted plots of land in a new Metro-Land scheme. This area stretches 5 miles north of Edgware on either side of the now completed Northern Line to Bushey Heath. There are plenty of jobs at the Northern Line's newest depot at Aldenham which is converted from bus repairs and aircraft manufacturing.
Locals can now travel into London via Edgware and Mill Hill as the link is kept open. http://underground-history.co.uk/northernh.php

The Deep Level Tunnel http://underground-history.co.uk/shelters.php paralleling the Northern Line is finished in the 1950s. They form a high-speed link from Edgware in the north to Croydon in the south enabling faster journeys with less stops. As these trains are larger than the tube they carry more passengers. The depot at Aldenham is adapted for this line.
There follows years of discussions about a new line paralleling the Central Line on the same scale. Eventually this is approved as CentralRail ;)

Overall, I think the best way to improve the London Underground would be to bore out all the smaller tunnels (Central, Northern, Piccadilly, Jubilee Lines) and allow for larger trains such as on the Met and District Lines. That would allow more comfort until such time as it fills with too many passengers...
 

Devvy

Donor
I'd start with finishing off the 1935 New Works plan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Works_Programme

The Central Line to Ongar is both electrified and double tracked with a regular London service. Post-war Ongar becomes a New Town (it was proposed) and you see a large rise in commuters guaranteeing the existence of the line.

As payoff for all their work during WW2 while building airfields, army barracks and port facilities, British construction firms are granted plots of land in a new Metro-Land scheme. This area stretches 5 miles north of Edgware on either side of the now completed Northern Line to Bushey Heath. There are plenty of jobs at the Northern Line's newest depot at Aldenham which is converted from bus repairs and aircraft manufacturing.
Locals can now travel into London via Edgware and Mill Hill as the link is kept open. http://underground-history.co.uk/northernh.php

The Deep Level Tunnel http://underground-history.co.uk/shelters.php paralleling the Northern Line is finished in the 1950s. They form a high-speed link from Edgware in the north to Croydon in the south enabling faster journeys with less stops. As these trains are larger than the tube they carry more passengers. The depot at Aldenham is adapted for this line.
There follows years of discussions about a new line paralleling the Central Line on the same scale. Eventually this is approved as CentralRail ;)

Overall, I think the best way to improve the London Underground would be to bore out all the smaller tunnels (Central, Northern, Piccadilly, Jubilee Lines) and allow for larger trains such as on the Met and District Lines. That would allow more comfort until such time as it fills with too many passengers...

Nice - it all rests on the Green Belt being cancelled or not passed though. As soon as it passes, the business case for extending the Tube further out evaporates.

As for the express lines; while they were built with good intentions, I doubt they'd be worth using post-War. The amount of tunnelling and work that would need doing would remain enormous, and it'd be far cheaper to massively overhaul what is now the Thameslink route to do the same thing.
 
People have been complaining about the greenbelt. But wouldnt that be a great place to put a ring connector around London with easy excavation, and no NIMBY towns? Yes, it would be on the outside of London, but it could connect to park and ride parking lots and bus services beyond the belt.
 
Top