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Post by ducatisti on May 7, 2008 16:22:09 GMT
Sorry if this has been covered before, couldn't find anything by searching, but what happened to the planned deep-level express tubes? I presume it just fizzled out after the war.
Did anyone get as far as any concrete service specifications for it? What kind of stock was to go on it etc?
Thanks
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Oracle
In memoriam
RIP 2012
Writing is such sweet sorrow: like heck it is!
Posts: 3,234
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Post by Oracle on May 7, 2008 16:30:54 GMT
From memory, as we published details I think in UndergrounD mooooons ago, they were converted to deep level shelters etc. and now are used for storage in some cases.
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Ben
fotopic... whats that?
Posts: 4,282 
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Post by Ben on May 7, 2008 16:42:37 GMT
Theres a diagram in the book 'Londons Secret Tubes' by the subbrit team. If someone could do an imitation of it for posting on the internet it would be an invaluable addition to wiki or here!
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Deleted
Deleted Member
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Post by Deleted on May 8, 2008 5:53:01 GMT
I doubt that the express tubes were ever really a sound proposition. The existing tubes barely made a profit (indeed, they were subsidised by the buses), so it would have been madness to incur the huge expenditure to deal with an overcrowding problem that occurred for only a couple of hours a day.
By 1939, the overcrowding had been dealt with to some extent by lengthening Central platforms to take eight cars and by introducing 38TS on Northern and Bakerloo.
When WW2 started, the government wanted deep bomb shelters and contacted LT on the grounds that it was expert in designing and using tunnels. The shelters had to be put somewhere, so it was logical to put them where they might be used if the express lines were ever built.
By the end of the war, UK was broke and there was no money for even comparatively cheap projects such as Northern Heights.
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Post by ianvisits on May 14, 2008 19:29:59 GMT
There is a lot of myths about the deep level tunnels.
Basically, there never was a serious plan for a high speed railway - ever.
What happened is that even during the war, economic justification was neecessary for capital projects, and it was proposed that a series of deep level shelters would be constructed and in a classic example of Whitehall fudge - they justified the cost by proposing to have them later sold by the government to London Transport for a high speed rail link.
However, London Transport was completly uninterested in the idea at the time - being much more interested in other expansion proposals.
Even worse - most of them were completed around when the worst of the Blitz was over so they were not even particuarly popular - especially as you had to pay to use them.
After the war, several were used for army demob services and the large one at Goodge St which had been partly converted into Eisenhowers HQ was actually converted into a low-cost Hotel for people travelling to London for the Festival of Britain in the 1950s.
Now most are used for document storage - and in an ironic twist, London Transport finally agreed to buy most of them from the government about a decade ago.
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Post by ducatisti on May 14, 2008 20:59:40 GMT
Shame!
still, of course, if they now own them...
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Post by abe on May 15, 2008 8:54:41 GMT
They were used for the Northern Line Project, although the exact purposes have not been given.
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