John Rowland wrote:
Its not unrealistic. Thats exactly how the NYC Transit
museum is set up. Its based in an old disused subway
station on a spur from the main line and in the platforms
they've got lots of old stock that you can wander around in.

I presume that is not a tube line, but a shallow skirt-blower line, from
which emergency exit could be made by the most asthmatic in about a minute.
The moribund Thameslink line from Farringdon to Moorgate could probably
become a museum, but for the deep tube Aldwych station with no lift or
escalator it is not practical.

From memory (and I only went there in December) you walk down one set
of stairs to get to the museum's mezzanine level, and then a further set
of stairs down to the platforms.

I think the station is called State, but I might be wrong - it is
directly below a big court house.

http://mta.info/mta/museum/index.html

The platform level appears to have one of each car for the history of
the subway, so you can start at one end and walk right through the whole
history of the trains. (What's rather more enjoyable are the photographs
of some of the old generating stations, which were in a temporary photo
gallery when I was there).

"Dave Liney" wrote in message ...
Considering how close Aldwych is to other tube stations and the good bus
links it has there is little loss to those getting to the area to the
closure.

Thats an argument used a lot but in reality its not so simple. The nearest
alternative tube is the district line which is east-west , not north like
the aldwych branch. And using the busses on the kingsway in the rush hour is
a joke , its quicker to walk which I suspect is what the people who would
otherwise have travelled to aldwych have to end up doing. Seems to me thats
rather a retrograde step.

B2003

(Boltar) wrote the following in:
om

"John Rowland" wrote in
message ...
"juvenal" wrote in message
...

Perhaps one might open up Aldwych Station as a
special undeground shopping mall or similar service,
with a dedicated rejeuvanated Underground shuttle
from Holborn.

Aldwych was closed because the lift was life expired, and the
passenger numbers couldn't justify its replacement. It will never
see another passenger train, unless a huge development occurs
around Aldwych which can fund the lift replacement.

No doubt the people who made that decision forgot that the
underground is a public service, not a for profit company.

It doesn't mean they don't have to make decisions about how to spend
their limited amount of money though.

For
somewhere like Ongar that only had 3 people and a dog use the
station each day I can understand closure but aldwych had
something like 500 people a day using it.

Ongar was the only tube station in the area. Aldwych is surrounded by
tube stations and has at least 10 bus routes that go past or near it. I
regularly travel to Aldwych but if the Aldwych shuttle service were
still running I doubt I'd use it much. There are other, much more
convenient ways of getting there.

Not a huge amount but
IMO enough to justify its being kept open given that there are
probably quite a few stations still open that probably get less
usage that that.

But it wasn't just a case of keeping it open. It would have needed a
big investment to keep it open.

The whole of the ELL springs to mind for starters
plus Mill Hill East on the northern line.

I very much doubt those places are as well provided for by other
services as Aldwych.

But I guess in this
country the bean counters rule.

When beans have to be counted I'd prefer it be done sensibly.

--
message by Robin May, succeeding at failure.
Enjoy the Routemaster while you still can.

Crime is confusing.

"Boltar" wrote in message
om...
"Dave Liney" wrote in message
...
Considering how close Aldwych is to other tube stations and the good bus
links it has there is little loss to those getting to the area to the
closure.

Thats an argument used a lot but in reality its not so simple. The nearest
alternative tube is the district line which is east-west , not north like
the aldwych branch. And using the busses on the kingsway in the rush hour
is
a joke , its quicker to walk which I suspect is what the people who would
otherwise have travelled to aldwych have to end up doing. Seems to me
thats
rather a retrograde step.

B2003

Distance by foot to alternative tube stations from Aldwych:

700m Holborn
235m Temple
835m Charing Cross
750m Covent Garden

Hardly a great trek from any of them. I'd worry if most of the users of the
old Aldwych station can't walk 700 metres twice a day.

As to your suggestion of closing the ELL or Mill Hill East then you would
leave people with longer walks to get to an alternative tube stations:

By foot from Wapping (to pick an EEL station):

1025m Shadwell DLR
2030m Tower Hill

By foot from Mill Hill East

1525m Finchley Central
2045m West Finchley

Dave.

(Boltar) wrote in message . com...
"Dave Liney" wrote in message ...
Considering how close Aldwych is to other tube stations and the good bus
links it has there is little loss to those getting to the area to the
closure.

Thats an argument used a lot but in reality its not so simple. The nearest
alternative tube is the district line which is east-west , not north like
the aldwych branch. And using the busses on the kingsway in the rush hour is
a joke , its quicker to walk which I suspect is what the people who would
otherwise have travelled to aldwych have to end up doing. Seems to me thats
rather a retrograde step.

The proposed tramway down the middle of Kingsway will be a better
solution than re-opening Aldwych.

"Dave Liney" wrote in message ...

Distance by foot to alternative tube stations from Aldwych:

700m Holborn

700m is quite a long walk when you're tired, its freezing cold and/or ****ing
down with rain. I suggest you try it sometime.

235m Temple

That stations a fat lot of use if you want to go north and don't fancy
to change onto 3 lines to do it. Incindetaly I'd love to know where you
got your figures from, I mean are you sure its 235m and not 236 or 234.5?

Hardly a great trek from any of them. I'd worry if most of the users of the
old Aldwych station can't walk 700 metres twice a day.

Using that logic you might as well close covent garden station, after all its
only 200m from leicester square. Whats the point of having it eh?


As to your suggestion of closing the ELL or Mill Hill East then you would
leave people with longer walks to get to an alternative tube stations:

Well since LU appears to be driven by purely financial constraints these
days I'd doubt they'd even care how far people have to travel to an
alternative.

B2003

(Hywel Williams) wrote in message . com...
"juvenal" wrote in message ...
"TheOneKEA" wrote in message
om...
"juvenal" wrote in message
...
Perhaps one might open up Aldwych Station as a special undeground
shopping
mall or similar service, with a dedicated rejeuvanated Underground
shuttle
from Holborn.

That sounds like a really good idea - they could renovate the
half-remodelled platform 6 at Holborn and the half-destroyed platform
2 at Aldwych and turn it into a super-modern Underground store where
they sell more Underground stuff.

Too bad it would be prohibitively expensive to repair the lifts -
they'd never get their investment back.

If you restored the disused station as an early Yerkes station, used the
station and the second tunnel to Holborn as a Tube museum, and redeveloped
the parts of the station that were never used as larger tunnels with small
retail outlets (along the lines of an undeground Covent Garden) with a
second Strand entrance, then you might have enough passengers to restore the
lifts (although it would be shame to remove them). If it really took off,
you could even put platforms on the JL oveerun from CX to Aldwych!

Beack in the realms of reality, though, you're probably right in thinking
that it probably wouldn't be able to pay it's way.

The problem with all of these ideas is lack of fire escape. On
several occasions I've been asked about the possibility of converting
Aldwych into some form of themed night club. The problem is that
health & safety would be a nightmare as the only access (currently) is
the spiral stair case and the lift shafts are in the same section as
that.

Currently, the only alternative exit is down the tunnels to Holborn
and this would mean crossing potentially live rails - again a big
no-no!

Couldn't they gap the rails at the Holborn end of the shuttle tunnel?


Conversion into a museum would be a grand idea, though I suspect
providing it with a special train only to serve the museum would
porbably be prohibitively expensive. I believe something similar
actually exists on the New York Subway, where Court Street station now
houses the New York Transit Museum.

Coincidentally, just this sort of conversion is about to be applied to
a tunnel that runs in parallel with Aldwych immediately above - the
Kingsway Tram Tunnel. I've been told that this (or at leas part of
it) is about to be converted into an art gallery which will open later
on this year.

Is this the same tunnel that had all of the road signs in it? The one that
was going to be remodelled at the Strand/Aldywch end?

Brad

Unless I'm very much mistaken, it was Boltar ),
in message who said:

Aldwych was closed because the lift was life expired, and the
passenger
numbers couldn't justify its replacement. It will never see another
passenger train, unless a huge development occurs around Aldwych
which can
fund the lift replacement.

No doubt the people who made that decision forgot that the
underground is
a public service, not a for profit company. For somewhere like Ongar
that
only had 3 people and a dog use the station each day I can understand
closure
but aldwych had something like 500 people a day using it. Not a huge
amount
but IMO enough to justify its being kept open given that there are
probably
quite a few stations still open that probably get less usage that
that.
The whole of the ELL springs to mind for starters plus Mill Hill East
on the
northern line. But I guess in this country the bean counters rule.


It is indeed a public service, and therefore it's ludicrous to expect
everyone in the public to pay for a station used only by a tiny fraction of
people who had alternate route options available to them.

Mill Hill East and Shoreditch may well have bitten the dust long ago if they
had lift mechanisms to repair for £3 million - but they don't. It doesn't
cost a great deal to keep them open.

BTN

Unless I'm very much mistaken, it was Boltar ),
in message who said:

Hardly a great trek from any of them. I'd worry if most of the users
of the
old Aldwych station can't walk 700 metres twice a day.

Using that logic you might as well close covent garden station, after
all its
only 200m from leicester square. Whats the point of having it eh?


Because that area easily has enough traffic to justify the two stations?

Leicester Sq is overcrowded enough already, and Cov garden relieves pressure
on it significantly. It's utterly inconceivable that it could close under
present conditions.

The extra 500 passengers from Aldwych, OTOH, would've made very little
difference to the crowds at Holborn, Temple etc.

BTN

"Dave Liney" wrote in message
As to your suggestion of closing the ELL or Mill Hill East then you would
leave people with longer walks to get to an alternative tube stations:

By foot from Wapping (to pick an EEL station):

1025m Shadwell DLR
2030m Tower Hill


which makes it a shame that they really are planning to close Wapping
as part of the ELL extension!