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Post by westbound on Mar 24, 2007 18:56:46 GMT
On another thread today I was reading reference to the "Wall of Death" (which is the Wimbledon to Sutton via St. Helier line).
This was apparently built by the Southern to thwart plans by, initially the District Railway and then the Edgware and Morden lines to tap the imagined to be lucrative traffic of the developing LCC estate at St. Helier. (LCC being London County Council for the info of you young'uns out there). Had the (now) Northern Line been extended beyond the depot at Morden and climbed to St Helier and thence onward to Sutton I suspect that the line would have enjoyed a much greater traffic than it eventually did.
I remember seeing empty EPB emu stock trundling on that branch in the 1970's - the route seemed to miss the main traffic centres such as Rosehill (adjacent to St Helier Hospital and a major traffic intersection) and wind its way through 1930's built estates and green space. Had tube trains been running on this line would they have enjoyed greater traffic? I suspect that they would.
However, would the (mostly) affluent residents of Sutton preferred to use standard and latterly 1938 tube stock to travel all the way to the west end and the city via St Helier and Clapham Common. I doubt it. The distance would have been too long and the journey time much longer than the Southern Electric.
Extending the Central Line out to Epping (and Ongar) proved unpopular with Essex commuters in the late forties because they lost a huge chunk of their seating capacity and their through journey to the west end, while quicker, was often much less comfortable.
Would the Northern Heights extension of the Northern Line to Palace Gates and beyond Mill Hill East have been a success if the war hadn't killed it?
Opinions?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2007 19:02:48 GMT
Well I don't know about previous years, but certainly at the moment many people use bus routes 154/164 from Sutton and St. Helier to Morden, where they pick up the Northern. The First Capital Connect 30 min service round the loop is not the quickest, and the state of the trains and unstaffed stations put passengers off. I think currently a LU line would be very well used, especially with the Oyster which is not valid on NR (Presently).
As said, this is a picture of things as they are now, I do not know the old 'Southern Electric' routes or frequencies, or the state of play with local bus routes. As said, at this moment in time a tube line to Sutton would be very well used.
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Post by westbound on Mar 24, 2007 19:10:09 GMT
Interesting comment, Alex. However, as regards the "Wall of Death" via St Helier I suspect that it failed primarily because of the geographical location of the stations. Wimbledon Chase is quite good because it is on a main road but suffers from the more attractive frequencies at South Wimbledon (Northern) and Raynes Park (BR). South Merton is in the middle of a residential development but lacks identity. Also it suffers from being too close to Morden tube.
Morden South would, you would imagine, have potential. On the main road, next to a massive mosque......but also too close to green areas and historically closed on Sundays. St. Helier - named after the estate it purported to serve. But actually in one corner of it and very far from central. Sutton Common; fairly busy road but not trunk and purely residential. West Sutton; in the middle of an estate of houses well served by bus routes. I don't think that the tube would have made much impact here, sadly, although revenue would have been higher because the brand alone would have attracted people and, in the old days, who apart from city workers would have been lured by signs advertising fast and frequent trains to, er, Holborn Viaduct?!!!
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Post by westbound on Mar 24, 2007 19:17:11 GMT
Incidentally, my own personal opinion is that the biggest missed "what if" was the proposal to extend the Bakerloo Line south from the Elephant to Camberwell Green. For heavens sake Camberwell Green is a seething mass of humanity and a tube station here with perhaps an intermediate station in the vicinity of East Street market would surely have been a massive money spinner. I'm amazed that the authorities blew cold rather than hot about that one.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2007 19:19:32 GMT
I see what you mean WB, but can't help thinking that the tube lines status would depended on one major factor: If the Underground took up the alignment to Sutton before the SR, and the SR route was never built, there would only be one rail line in the area, and the Underground would have been successful. If the SR line had opened, however things could be different as you say. Am I right in thinking the Wimbledon - Sutton line opened in 1930?
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Post by westbound on Mar 24, 2007 19:23:23 GMT
Yes, they ran trains as far as South Merton in 1929 but the whole line to Sutton opened in 1930; a mischievous plan to thwart the Morden and Edgware who had designs on Sutton or North Cheam. The "Wall of Death" name originated from the heavy gradients designed only for electric traction and the white concrete retaining walls visible at certain points which, at the time, may have reminded people of the Brooklands Race track at Byfleet (which has a concrete wall of death visible to this day from the train).
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2007 19:26:56 GMT
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Post by westbound on Mar 24, 2007 19:32:25 GMT
Haha! That little map addition could well have been reality although the small and select band of travellers from Wimbledon Chase and South Merton may have been writing in these forums today about "what might have been"  |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2007 19:43:24 GMT
Incidentally, my own personal opinion is that the biggest missed "what if" was the proposal to extend the Bakerloo Line south from the Elephant to Camberwell Green. For heavens sake Camberwell Green is a seething mass of humanity and a tube station here with perhaps an intermediate station in the vicinity of East Street market would surely have been a massive money spinner. I'm amazed that the authorities blew cold rather than hot about that one. AGREED!! And the naysayers can't even moan about lack of capacity - out of the entire collection of deep-level tube lines, the Bakerloo is the only one that actually has spare capacity in the peaks! At the moment I think it only runs, at best, a 3-minute service in the off-peak - that's 20tph. If you tried that on the Piccadilly Line you would be insane! An extension to Camberwell Green with a flying terminus at the station and a four-road siding complex pointing towards the Hayes line would be one of the best projects TfL could ever bestow on the Bakerloo. With the possibility of a return to Watford Junction as part of the London Overground shakeup, a flying terminus at Camberwell Green would allow the line to be run right up to the ragged edge in terms of train capacity, and would be beneficial to all. |
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Post by westbound on Mar 24, 2007 19:51:45 GMT
Yes, Camberwell Green with potential for extension would be, in my opinion, a prime example for a new tube line south of the river.
I'm amazed at the shortsightedness of planners in the past. I believe that there used to be a station at Camberwell Green on the national rail network a few years ago and that closed. Combining a re-opened national rail station there with links to a new tube line would be a kind of "Kentish Town" down south.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2007 19:53:04 GMT
I still reckon the Jubbly should have gone to Thamesmead and Abbey Wood.
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Post by westbound on Mar 24, 2007 19:58:03 GMT
Alex, perhaps. However, the tube link from Stratford to London Bridge and Southwark and Waterloo has been a boon to East Anglians and it must be said that Stratford is going to be very much "flavour of the first two decades of the twenty first century"! The Thamesmead Estate has good train services from Abbey Wood etc but, like St. Helier, in 1930, Abbey Wood is on the fringe of the estate. I would agree that Thamesmead deserves better.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2007 21:42:51 GMT
the northern heights; we can look at the statistics from the buses now...
the 43 and 134 have a combined frequency of 27bph in the peak... thus around 2300 passengers an hour.
the W7 has a 18bph in the peak so around 1500 people per hour
that would be around 3800 as well as the people going to east Finchley.
call it 4400 people per hour needing the Northern Line, the Northern Heights would relieve all of them.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 24, 2007 21:48:30 GMT
Yes, Camberwell Green with potential for extension would be, in my opinion, a prime example for a new tube line south of the river. I'm amazed at the shortsightedness of planners in the past. I believe that there used to be a station at Camberwell Green on the national rail network a few years ago and that closed. Combining a re-opened national rail station there with links to a new tube line would be a kind of "Kentish Town" down south. Indeed. A short extension south of the current terminus, with one intermediate station at Albany Road, beneath Walworth Road and pointing south beneath Denmark Hill would be a useful addition to the Bakerloo Line, and would offer an opportunity to go even further, possibly via Dulwich, Sydenham, Penge and Betts Park to join the Hayes branch, as was originally intended. Even if the line never went any further though, the construction of a flying terminus at Camberwell Green would actually make it possible to run lots of trains out to Watford Junction and actually have the capacity to reverse them all within central London. |
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Post by JR 15secs on Mar 25, 2007 11:51:41 GMT
I've seen some of the plans for Camberwell ext as planned and indeed it would have been a big winner the intermediate station was planned for Camberwell Gate quite near Albany Rd which was to have been a sub station amonst other things, at Camberwell it's self layout was to have been three platforms with siding capacity of 5 trains (some double) tunnels pointing in direction of Denmark Hill. A later proposal which was considered was an ext to Peckham with a loop this was altered with Bakerloo trains coming to the surface at Peckham with depot beyond all those buses which could have gone.
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Post by Deleted on Mar 25, 2007 12:49:15 GMT
The Southern got its fingers burned big time on the Wall of Death.
The Bakerloo was lost as far as Camberwell was concerned by the austerity period , the need to rebuild and the desperate state of the BTC finances in the mid 1950s. Had it been built iot would be most useful and would give the Bakerloo a much better traffic load south of Waterloo.(was on it yesterday afternoon -and even with the Nthn suspended on the CX side - it was very quiet indeed.
North of West Ruislip towards Denham might have been useful had it not been culled in the 1950s also. Defintatly a time of retrenchemnt of ideas and plans in the suburbs / green belt.
Cricklewood - St Albans was mentioned in the early 1900s ...
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Post by Deleted on Mar 26, 2007 19:11:38 GMT
Cricklewood - St Albans was mentioned in the early 1900s ... One of the Victoria Line proposals in the late 1940's was for a line from East Croydon, all the way to Hitchin  |
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2007 1:05:26 GMT
The geology of the land pretty much prevents most underground lines south of what we already have (although modern tunnelling and methods may change that).
The St Helier loop is proof of pretty poor management by BR and more recently the TOC's.
Morden is heaving with people who transfer off a bus - just see the 93, 154, 157 etc. All these areas could be better served by a decent rail service.
A 30 min frequency, poor security and a slow ride exclude all but the most die-hard users (except to Wimbledon in which it's a useful link).
I always thought of the Northern Line being extended from beyond it's depot to go to Sutton and terminate at the disused platform at West Croydon.
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Post by tubeprune on Mar 27, 2007 16:33:48 GMT
The "Wall of Death" arose from the very steep cutting in a tight curve, lined in concrete between Sutton and West Sutton. In the mid 50s, us schoolboys from Wimbledon who lived south of Epsom, used this line on occasions to make a change from the route via Motspur Park. Trains ran on code 06 Holborn Viaduct to Holborn Viaduct. We also got to ride on brand new 4-EPB's which worked this line. The only other route using 4-EPBs in this area was the Guildford via Claygate code 42 services. *shuffles off to find Zimmer frame*
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Post by Deleted on Mar 27, 2007 21:28:19 GMT
Northern was to have another brance from oval to Streatham Common, proposed just before the Morden Extension... Also, Morden was not to be a terminus; the line was to go to Sutton, but the then Southern Railway, extending its network, got in a flap about its territory being invaded, so the line got cut back to its present terminus. The other side of this was that Morden was now on a direct route to the City anyway, so Southern lost lots of customers to the Feeder buses from outlying districts...
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Post by mandgc on Mar 29, 2007 10:20:59 GMT
Wimbledon and Sutton Railway.
This line was promoted independently in 1910 to extend the District Railway service to Sutton and the Underground Group subsequently obtained control.
In 1922 the CSLR promoted a Bill to extend from Clapham to Morden to connect with the W&S Proposal and run through to Sutton. The Southern Railway opposed this and agreement was reached for the C&SLR to be extended to Morden (without a connection ) and for the Southern to take over the Wimbledon and Sutton powers and open the line as one of their own.
I think,with their 'substandard' fares (compared to theSouthern's) and through bookings and Seasons with the Sutton buses, LU succeeded in siphoning off a considerable proportion of the Sutton passengers.
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Ben
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Post by Ben on Mar 29, 2007 14:35:12 GMT
The list of new ares served by even authorised but not constructed lines alone is staggering. Doubtless any extension south of Morden would have necessitated fast tracks.
Call me a cynic, but I think the line is being purposely rundown, so tramlink can take it over. A damn shame considering if the Northern and District did take it over, even with a slower journey time to central london, the vast increase in frequency would attract lots more punters.
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