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Post by Harsig on May 16, 2012 20:09:46 GMT
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Chris M
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Post by Chris M on May 16, 2012 23:42:44 GMT
Interesting. I suspect that the results regarding number of stations and distance bear some relationship to acceptable travel time, which is probably not going to vary hugely between networks.
How old is that map used to illustrate the article though!? Zones A-D haven't existing for several years.
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Post by causton on May 17, 2012 0:38:06 GMT
To give you an idea on the age of the map, Shoreditch is still there as a 'Limited service' on the East London Line... and the NLL is still there through Stratford to Canning Town etc!
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Post by grahamhewett on May 17, 2012 8:46:27 GMT
At first glance, the research makes sense, but only at a macro level. If you look at individual systems ans, even more, at individual lines, there are some marked differences. For example, station spacing on the Moscow and Petersburg systems is much more than we would be used to here. Station spacing on the central area stations of the Piccadilly and Northern lines is much closer than those on the Victoria or Jubilee, reflecting different approaches to services over time. Line 1 of the Paris Metro is basically an underground tram in terms of stop spacing, but the outer reaches of the 13 (don't go there) have very long interstation spacing - and the structure of lines is different in Paris, too. Because Paris lacks the same double city centre focus that we have in London, the lines in the central area are pretty snakey - the 8, for example - and the trunk haul lines which dominate in London, are missing.
The same point might be made about stop spacing on the surface networks - in London, at least, stop spacing on former tram/trolleybus routes is much closer than on bus routes - the 243 between Holborn and Old Street is a very good example of the former.
Graham H
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
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Post by castlebar on May 17, 2012 9:00:36 GMT
Graham has made a very profound point that l had forgotten. Trolleybus stops were much closer together than "motor bus", and l now remember one stop on the Uxbridge Road on the Hanwell/West Ealing border where the HW route 55 drivers often refused to stop, because in years gone by it had been a "trolleybus only" stop there, although the "stop flag" had long since been replaced with an "ordinary" standard bus request one.
As far as railways are concerned, the GW really lost interest in its (loss making) commuter network pre-1939, (when they failed to join-up their two Uxbridge branches), whereas the SR concentrated on it because of their high density, high capacity EMU units.
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Post by grahamhewett on May 17, 2012 10:40:50 GMT
Taking the opportunity of some incipient hoovering to reflect on Castlebar's comments, and at the risk of provoking the moderator's wrath about thread drift, there seem to be three separate issues here:
- why did stop spacing increase on modern metro construction?
- why was there a difference between motor bus and tram stop spacing?
- why was the GW so apparently indifferent to suburban traffic?
On the first of these, perhaps it represents a change in function: when metros were first built, they were essentially inner city people movers in competition with buses (early tube posters show the punters literally flying off the tops of buses into the tube stations) but maybe engineers and planners came to realise that that wasn't a market in which they could compete because of surface to platform access times. Amalgamation with their local bus and tram operators across Europe removed the need to compete. Even so, it has left us with major gaps in the central London network of tube stations - Fitzrovia, Mayfair,Belgravia, for example.
On surface stop spacing, I confess I have no obvious explanation. Horse buses stopped anywhere on demand and I suspect that in London motorbus stops only appeared around 1910. But electric trams had stops from the outset. Maybe the difference is that tram operators had readymade stop poles in the form of municipally owned street lighting masts (but did that apply to the LCC?) and so it was cheap to put up the flag as it were, whereas the LGOC had to pay for its own posts and therefore wanted fewer of them.
GW policy is even more obscure. Clearly, they remained interested in suburban/short distance traffic (they had the largest fleet of steam railcars, for example - and see also the parallel thread on through services from the Thames Valley over the Circle). Paddington was hardly more remote from central London than, say, Waterloo. I'm not sure whether it has anything directly to do with electrification - the LSWR had opened most of its suburban routes before that happened, although service levels certainly stepped up once that took place. Nor was the GW averse to taking a stake in the electrified H&C stock. A mystery at the moment?
Graham H
PS Castlebar - I think I recall the stop in question between the Lido and Ealing Town Hall? Trolleybus stop spacing was so close you could usually make it to the next stop once a bus had come into sight (not if it was a Q1, tho') and beating a Routemaster if you were between stops was no contest...
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Post by norbitonflyer on May 17, 2012 11:05:21 GMT
I've always understood electrification was the result, not the cause, of the southern companies' interest in suburban traffic.
That in turn was a consequence of geography - the southern companies could attract little lucrative goods traffic because the main industrial areas (particularly coalfields) were not in their catchments. The proximity of the south coast meant that long-distance passenger traffic was also hard to come by. Consequently, the southern companies (and the Great Eastern) saw suburban traffic as an opportunity rather than as the encubrance that the northern and western companies did.
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castlebar
Planners use hindsight, not foresight
Posts: 1,316
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Post by castlebar on May 17, 2012 11:27:27 GMT
@ graham
No, the 55 stop in question was in the Uxbridge Road, yes, but much nearer Hanwell Broadway. Only about 150 yards (max) from the junction with Chuch Rd Hanwell. The next stop the 55 used was yet another 150 or so yards further east, just at the very edge of the West Ealing shopping district. Locals "knew" which were trolley stops and which were bus even though they were by then (1950s) standard stop flags, apparently when the trolleys started, they did have "unique" stop flags which were soon replaced. A photo exists of one in the Uxbridge Road at Hayes, similarly on the 607
But it does add to the point that with any form of electric traction (so no thread drift here) stops were initially closer together than with motorbus or steam railway. A relic of that could be services out of Baker St/Marylebone today. First Chiltern stop is Wembley, whereas the Met skips most of the Jubilee line stops, which gives the more "local" service.
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Post by grahamhewett on May 17, 2012 11:54:54 GMT
castlebar - my apologies - I was thinking about a similar "event" on the 97 norbitonflyer - I agree that the southern companies had every incentive to develop suburban traffic early - that makes the GN the odd one out showing a decided interest in suburban traffic and even toying with electrification despite its long/medium distance passenger and freight traffic. Even the Midland seemed quite keen - to the extent of buying LT&S - despite having the heaviest coal traffic towards London. It's an interesting point as to whether electrification led or followed the growth in commuter traffic. Certainly, after the War, the electrification of the GE and the Kent outers led to an enormous increase in commuting perhaps because of significant reductions in journey times made possible by faster acceleration. Thameslink and the LNW suburban outers are more recent cases. But before World War I, it's less clear - Metroland was designed to fill up steam trains and Met electrification to Harrow was a byproduct of having to do something about the Circle. LTS seemed content with steam for commuter traffic for many years after electrification would have been possible. Another factor driving commuting(see Metroland!) is the relative gradient in property prices between inner and outer London compared with the cost of commuting - the balance has changed back and forth quite a lot over recent years, but I suspect that up till about 1990, the balance was greatly in favour of commuting. Why! We even had people commuting from Bath and York by the mid '90s (the chap who came in from Wem daily, however, can be ignored as he was travelling on a staff pass...)
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Post by norbitonflyer on May 17, 2012 14:00:09 GMT
Most of the northern companies were only too keen to offload their suburban traffic onto London Transport and its predecessors - look at the District taking over inner suburban services to Upminster, and the Bakerloo to Watford Junction, and the various plans of the Great Northern (GN&City, GN&Strand) to get suburban trains off the Kings Cross approaches. The Met was unusual in a northern company as it didn't go very far out, until Watkin used it as a way to get the Great Central into London.
Neither the Midland nor the Great Western had extensives inner suburban networks, and the Midland's interest in acquiring the LTS was probably more to do with access to the docks.
Electrification certainly boosted ridership, whether there was a pre-existing commuter traffic or not. But it was prededominantly the companies to the south and east which encouraged the commuter - which is in turn a factor in why there was more scope for the underground railways (Met, District and Tube) to expand to the north and west: places like Edgware, Harrow and Ealing. Look at the opposition the Southern put up to the District's proposed extension to Sutton, wheereas the LNWR were positively delighted to have the Bakerloo go to Watford Junction!
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Post by grahamhewett on May 17, 2012 18:54:15 GMT
To come back to the exam question as set - why didn't the GW develop its suburban traffic - it may be - and we are handicapped here because Victorian railway companies didn't leave many public documents about their planning policies - that they didn't need to. The bulk of the commuter network south of the Thames appeared long before commuter traffic existed and was often built so as to shut out rivals from building competing lines to the 4 southern companies' trunk routes (Brighton/Solent/Dover). The Brighton was the most aggressive of these and was clearly afraid of rivals stringing together a number of local lines, each justified to Parliament as serving a local need but which, eventually formed a competing route. [It's the same technique as Watkin used to insert the GC and Met into the mainline network.]
Having built these networks, filling them up with commuters was one way of attracting traffic and revenue. The companies to the West and NW of London didn't need to build lines in the London area to protect their core routes - the chance of anyone stringing together enough local lines in the London area as the basis for competition on trunk routes to Bristol was pretty slim so the GW didn't have to wash its territory clean, as it were.
It's virtually impossible to prove this explanation but the timing and observed company behaviours seem right.
Graham H
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