Elizabeth Line and some additional bits about Transport for London

[JontyMort]

In the last few months I've regularly arrived at Heathrow and needed to get to Cambridge. There are cheap "Advance" fares involving an underground train to King's Cross and then a specific departure from there to Cambridge, but these are risky given the flight could be delayed and the queues at LHR border control are often very long.

<snip>

If you are lucky, your trip might coincide with the next phase of opening, which at the moment is simply penned in for "autumn 2022". At that point, the Shenfield - Liverpool Street and Paddington - Heathrow / Reading sections will join the main core through the centre of London.

Just a thought, but at that point your Heathrow-Cambridge run *may* well be best achieved by a combination of Elizabeth Line from Heathrow to Farringdon, changing to Thameslink from Farringdon to Cambridge. Not sure about the fares, though. The Thameslink improvements - through running to the ex-Great Northern route as well as the ex-Midland route via the grade-separated (underground) junction at St Pancras Low Level - haven’t had as much fanfare as the Elizabeth Line, but are useful.

With all these underground lines in New York, London, Paris, and other cities, it’s a miracle there is any room for foundations for new buildings. One of the engineering challenges for the new line was indeed threading it through the existing infrastructure.

 

[caravanman]

At the risk of "over egging the pudding", I found this item about freight trains on the Underground. It is astonishing how much niche knowledge is out there, if one can track it down. (Possibly, for the sake of sanity, one should not try to go down too many rabbit holes in the thirst for knowledge... )

https://www.lurs.org.uk/02 jan 17 FREIGHT ON THE UNDERGROUND.pdf

 

[JontyMort]

I think even today there are places where the District Line runs thru on mainline tracks. I think to Wimbledon but I'm not sure. The Bakerloo line also ran out onto the mainline at one time I think. At one time some of the Bakerloo fleet were actually owned by the LNER.

Yes, south of East Putney, the Wimbledon branch of the District runs on ex-LSWR metals, and the line is still available for main line stock as an alternative route to Clapham Junction via the spur just north of East Putney. Until quite recently - OK, when I was living in Wimbledon 40 years ago - the signage was main-line rather than LT roundel-style. The Richmond branch is/was similar from (?) Gunnersbury southwards.

The Bakerloo north of Queens Park runs on the “Watford New Line” put in by the LNWR in 1912 - also known as the Watford DC line, it was electrified from (almost) the start. The Bakerloo was extended from Paddington and Edgware Road to the surface at Queens Park in 1915, using the Watford DC line northwards - originally all the way to Watford Junction, but these days only as far as Harrow & Wealdstone.

The technique of grafting extensions of the Underground on to existing surface lines was used in several other instances. The (former) eastern arm of the Bakerloo was tunnelled from Baker Street to the surface at Finchley Road, enabling the Bakerloo to take over the slow tracks of the ex-Metropolitan’s four-track main line between there and Wembley Park,** plus the Met’s Stanmore branch. This became part of the Jubilee Line when that was extended south from Baker Street in the 1970s.

** For connoisseurs of quadruple-track operation, this section has an interesting and efficient layout - slows in the middle (using a single island platform at intermediate stations), fast tracks on the outside of the formation (no platforms at the intermediate stations), and twin islands for interchange at Wembley Park and Finchley Road.

The High Barnet branch of the Northern Line was a similar effort, with an extension coming to the surface at East Finchley, then taking over the ex-Great Northern branch line. Much more proposed extensive work in that area was interrupted in 1939, and never resumed after 1945. Some of the stations - notably High Barnet itself - retain very obviously 1870s Great Northern architecture.

Finally, the Central Line took over (or ran alongside) the Great Western out to West Ruislip in the late 1930s, and the eastern extension into the countryside at Epping (and originally Ongar) took over ex-LNER branches. This eastern part wasn’t quite finished on the outbreak of the war, and in fact some the tunnels were fitted out as aircraft factories etc, finally opening as the Central Line in 1946.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

With all these underground lines in New York, London, Paris, and other cities, it’s a miracle there is any room for foundations for new buildings. One of the engineering challenges for the new line was indeed threading it through the existing infrastructure.

Most of them, especially early subways, up to the deep level tube (I'm talking primarily about London, but it also is true for Paris and NY) were always under streets to avoid paying right of way (not sure that's the correct term) charges to property owners - hence the frequent tight curves and stations with platforms one above each other. Interestingly enough there are plenty of tunnels in the UK under towns on mainline RR's - some have collapsed under time and others are majorly reinforced to prevent collapse (and some have been rendered useless by adjacent construction). There are some pictures of the Stockholm subway in the suburbs where it runs on the surface but had to tunnel through a hill - it's a surprisingly thin amount of rock above the tunnel and there is a good sized apartment building perched above it (of course, it's granite and quite hard).

If they are deep enough or through bedrock it's not an issue - however, adding new lines and enlarging stations is complex when they need to meet up - there are videos about building new stations in London where they had inches of clearance and lots of monitors to ensure there was no movement.

** For connoisseurs of quadruple-track operation, this section has an interesting and efficient layout - slows in the middle (using a single island platform at intermediate stations), fast tracks on the outside of the formation (no platforms at the intermediate stations), and twin islands for interchange at Wembley Park and Finchley Road.

Just like Metra Electric (haha)! That's a fun stretch to ride - many years of construction leading to the four track stretch with lots of Victorian engineering, both in use and abandoned especially as you get into Central London.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

Geoff Marshall is uploading like a video a day on each station with "special guests" - the "very special guest stars" being other transit oriented YouTubers!

Here's his latest- TRC:

 

[cirdan]

With all these underground lines in New York, London, Paris, and other cities, it’s a miracle there is any room for foundations for new buildings. One of the engineering challenges for the new line was indeed threading it through the existing infrastructure.

True that.

And it's not just the underground lines but there is a lot of other buried stuff as well, including sewers, storm relief channels, tunnels carrying power cables, WW2 bomb shelters, basements of buildings, archaeological sites and even the former post office railway. Fortunately most of that is pretty well documented, but any major construction project will undoubtedly run into some surprise or other.

 

[cirdan]

There was an incident in 2013 when construction workers were making pilings for a new building, when one of the piles breached a railroad tunnel below. Fortunately a train engineer noticed water pouring in through the tunnel roof and sounded the alarm, and so a potentially terrible accident on a busy rail line could be averted.

The cause was apparently that the construction company was using a map that showed the tunnel in an incorrect location.

https://www.constructionenquirer.co...m-all-foundations-pierced-london-rail-tunnel/

 

[BlackDiamond]

I think even today there are places where the District Line runs thru on mainline tracks. I think to Wimbledon but I'm not sure.

Wimbledon to Putney Bridge and the Richmond Branch as far as Gunnersbury.
The Metropolitan Line shares tracks with the National Rail Chiltern Line service to Marylebone between Harrow on the Hill and Moor Park. The Chiltern trains are Diesel powered and also have their own tracks South of Harrow which are unelectrified.

 

[Deni]

There is a very cool special issue about Crossrail by Modern Railways magazine. It's a British publication but you could find it in the U.S. if you have a specialty magazine shop in your area. I found it at a place in Chicago called City Newsstand. Great stuff in here, goes into the history of previous proposals, the technology, the trainsets, station profiles, interviews with several people involved in the construction and operations, etc.

 

[jis]

There is a very cool special issue about Crossrail by Modern Railways magazine. It's a British publication but you could find it in the U.S. if you have a specialty magazine shop in your area. I found it at a place in Chicago called City Newsstand. Great stuff in here, goes into the history of previous proposals, the technology, the trainsets, station profiles, interviews with several people involved in the construction and operations, etc.

View attachment 28571

In general you can order any Modern Railway publication over the internet at

https://shop.keypublishing.com
However, unfortunately, this particular item is currently sold out. It can be found under Bookazines->Transport

 

[John Bredin]

There was an incident in 2013 when construction workers were making pilings for a new building, when one of the piles breached a railroad tunnel below. Fortunately a train engineer noticed water pouring in through the tunnel roof and sounded the alarm, and so a potentially terrible accident on a busy rail line could be averted.

The cause was apparently that the construction company was using a map that showed the tunnel in an incorrect location.

https://www.constructionenquirer.co...m-all-foundations-pierced-london-rail-tunnel/

Sounds a bit like the Great Chicago Flood, where contractors driving piles to protect one of the Chicago River bridges punched through to one of the old freight tunnels, which were connected to the subbasements of a lot of older Loop buildings to (in previous decades) deliver coal and merchandise and take away ashes. I don't recall off the top of my head how badly the State and Dearborn subways (now Red and Blue Lines) flooded.

 

[JontyMort]

Wimbledon to Putney Bridge and the Richmond Branch as far as Gunnersbury.
The Metropolitan Line shares tracks with the National Rail Chiltern Line service to Marylebone between Harrow on the Hill and Moor Park. The Chiltern trains are Diesel powered and also have their own tracks South of Harrow which are unelectrified.

Yes, but in the Metropolitan/Chiltern case it’s not so much Underground on mainline tracks as the other way round. The Met had got its main line out from Baker Street as far as Aylesbury and indeed Quainton Road (over 40 miles from Baker Street) before the Great Central arrived from the north in 1899, and the GC’s original access to Marylebone was by running powers over the Met (and later the line became joint). Sir Edward Watkin had a finger in both companies, so it wasnt a total surprise. The Metropolitan section was not suited for high speed running, for various reasons, and the GC later (1906/1910) partnered the Great Western in a joint line which gave the GC an alternative route, and the GW a significantly shorter route to Birmingham. The current Chitern Mainline splices the GC’s access from London to this joint line on to the GW’s extension off the joint line to Banbury and Birmingham.

 

[west point]

What loading gauge clearances does the line have?

 

[jis]

What loading gauge clearances does the line have?

One of the various British main line loading gauges I would presume since AFAIK Class 345s have standard main line static height and width and the line is electrified 25kV 50Hz OHE. They are not C1 since the cars are longer than C1 cars, but I am not sure whether they would fall under C3 or something else.

Here are the actual numbers for the Class 345

 

[JontyMort]

What loading gauge clearances does the line have?

It’s standard GB loading gauge - if there is such a thing. But in particular the trains run on main lines west of Paddington and east of Liverpool Street. Furthermore, the line is electrified at 25kV overhead, and I think they have emergency evacuation walkways throughout - so the tunnels are huge in comparison with, say, deep-level tubes.

As you probably know, loading gauge in Britain is very restrictive by North American or mainland European standards. The French managed to get double-deck trains on the RER, something which would never work in Britain.

 

[jis]

It’s standard GB loading gauge - if there is such a thing. But in particular the trains run on main lines west of Paddington and east of Liverpool Street. Furthermore, the line is electrified at 25kV overhead, and I think they have emergency evacuation walkways throughout - so the tunnels are huge in comparison with, say, deep-level tubes.

As you probably know, loading gauge in Britain is very restrictive by North American or mainland European standards. The French managed to get double-deck trains on the RER, something which would never work in Britain.

That is because the French built their RER lines to UIC standard loading gauge, which of course allows double deckers to run all over Europe.

 

[JontyMort]

That is because the French built their RER lines to UIC standard loading gauge, which of course allows double deckers to run all over Europe.

Indeed, the point being that double-deckers have never been viable in Britain, because of the restricted loading gauge. Every so often, some politician or other here gets the bright idea of doing some gauge clearance to permit double-deck working. The idea rarely survives first contact with the reality of price.

 

[jis]

Indeed, the point being that double-deckers have never been viable in Britain, because of the restricted loading gauge. Every so often, some politician or other here gets the bright idea of doing some gauge clearance to permit double-deck working. The idea rarely survives first contact with the reality of price.

I suppose they could at least theoretically run on HS-1?

But yes, they could certainly not run anywhere in the TfL area without enormous capital layout.

 

[JontyMort]

I suppose they could at least theoretically run on HS-1?

But yes, they could certainly not run anywhere in the TfL area without enormous capital layout.

Yes, HS-1 is GB+ - and the Channel Tunnel itself is even bigger.** The constraint on running duplex TGVs from Paris to London is the Tunnel safety regime.

** It will be recalled that a helicopter can easily fly through .

 

[Devil's Advocate]

Yes, HS-1 is GB+ - and the Channel Tunnel itself is even bigger.** The constraint on running duplex TGVs from Paris to London is the Tunnel safety regime.

Looks like gauge and signaling would work but fire suppression and emergency disembarkation would not pass?

** It will be recalled that a helicopter can easily fly through

Nothing in those movies ever made any sense to me. Might as well name them Comprehension Impossible.

 

[JontyMort]

Second Avenue subway or East Side Access might be slightly better comparisons.

Interestingly, London doesn't seem to get extensions to the existing lines but entirely new lines now that I think about it.

Funnily enough, London *has* recently had an extension. The Northern Line (Charing Cross branch) was extended last year from Stockwell to Battersea Power Station (redeveloped for residential use) with an intermediate station at Nine Elms, this being the closest station to the new US embassy.

 

[Metra Electric Rider]

Funnily enough, London *has* recently had an extension. The Northern Line (Charing Cross branch) was extended last year from Stockwell to Battersea Power Station (redeveloped for residential use) with an intermediate station at Nine Elms, this being the closest station to the new US embassy.

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that - it's even a new branch line, isn't it?

 

[JontyMort]

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about that - it's even a new branch line, isn't it?

It’s more of an extension of the Charing Cross branch than a stand-alone branch. Kennington has full grade-separation with four platforms - one platform for each branch (Charing Cross/Bank) in each direction - and cross-platform interchange (i.e. the physical junction between the two branches is south of the station). In addition there is a single-track loop allowing southbound trains from the Charing Cross branch to terminate and run round into the northbound Charing Cross branch platform. The extension to Battersea is formed with a westbound facing junction out of this loop, and an eastbound trailing junction into it, meaning that trains to/from Battersea can run only from/to the Charing Cross branch - it will be necessary to change trains to/from the Bank branch.
The loop at Kennington has also been made bi-directional, allowing a shuttle service to be run on the new branch.

 

[jis]

There is also an extension of the Bakerloo Line beyond Elephant and Castle in the works.

 

[Deni]

Second Avenue subway or East Side Access might be slightly better comparisons.

Interestingly, London doesn't seem to get extensions to the existing lines but entirely new lines now that I think about it.

Northern Line extended by two stops last year.

Bakerloo extension should be the next project they start. "Should" be.