Central vs Northern post-WWII | District Dave's London Underground Site

Deleted
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Central vs Northern post-WWII Jan 4, 2010 2:39:26 GMT

Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2010 2:39:26 GMT

While reading the excellent Rails through the Clay, I was intrigued by the passages describing the withering and eventual death of the greater portion of the Northern Line works, in comparison with the completion of the Central Line works. The authors suggested that it was deemed more important to complete the Central Line works because of the known issues regarding Wood Lane, depot access, stock issues, and so on, and also described the potential for bemusement in north London at tube trains running all the way to Ongar in lieu of Alexandra Palace.

However, I am interested to know if the circumstances could have been reversed: could some of the outer ends of the Central Line been deleted, and the Northern Line works completed in toto?

IOW:

- could the West Ruislip branch of the Central have ended at Greenford?
- could Ruislip depot have become a Met/Picc depot or another bus works?
- could the Central Line have been curtailed east of Loughton and north of Hainault?

Having only read Rails through the Clay twice (so far) I am picking up newer tidbits of info each time, and each time I read these segments of the narrative I keep wondering about just how easily the Central Line's New Works could have been axed and just how easily the Northern Line's New Works could have been completed.

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Central vs Northern post-WWII Jan 4, 2010 11:13:52 GMT

Post by Deleted on Jan 4, 2010 11:13:52 GMT

The Central extensions to the east were regarded as essential to relieve gross overloading on the Great Eastern lines into Liverpool Street. The western extension was less essential, but much of the work had been done by the GWR before the war.

On the Northern, the works as they existed in 1945 had taken some of the pressure off the lines into Kings Cross by taking over the Edgware/Barnet trains. The extension out to Bushey had always been fairly doubtful in terms of the traffic it might generate, and it seems that the pre-war LT plans had been based on the assumption that a new depot at Aldenham was essential.

Experience during the war showed that the Northern could in fact operate from its existing depots, which removed a major basis for the extension. And then any traffic potential was pretty much eliminated when the area beyond Edgware was declared as Green Belt.

neilw

now that's what I call a garden railway

Posts: 284

Central vs Northern post-WWII Jan 4, 2010 14:20:48 GMT

Post by neilw on Jan 4, 2010 14:20:48 GMT

the LNER wanted to electrify the line from Stratford to Ongar and the Fairlop loop from Ilford round to Woodford to meet it, all at 1500 DC overhead. The existing Central arrangement was decided after arbitration between the proposals. There was a lot of pressure from the residents of N.Ilford. I think this is all in rails through the clay............

mikebuzz

Posts: 434

Central vs Northern post-WWII Jan 14, 2010 0:05:50 GMT

Post by mikebuzz on Jan 14, 2010 0:05:50 GMT

The tunnelled sections of the CL were largely complete before the war and the remainder only needed electrification. In the west only the area beyond West Ruislip was going to be Green Belt - hence the Denham section being dropped. The Green Belt in the east could have affected the Loughton/Ongar branch but maybe there wasn't the same pressure for it up to Epping as there was on the Northern sections, where the local activists really pushed for Green Belt. Beyond Epping was only electrified as the shuttle much later as an alternative to closure (which happened eventually anyway).