Kingsway Tram Subway open to the general public
 

"MetroGnome" wrote in message news:gARjc.72$xm2.30@newsfe1-win...
Just found this on a bus mailing list:

The Kingsway Subway has been open to the public for the past few days.
The occasion is an art exhibition organised by the St Martins College
of
Art just across the road from the entrance. It runs from 23-29 April I
believe. While the LT Museum has organised a few prebooked visits to
the
subway in the past, and I faintly recall Ian Allan advertising a visit
many years ago, this is I believe the first time, since the trams
went,
that members of the public have been able to simply walk in off the
street,
free of charge, down the slope and explore the subway, as far
as I think halfway down Kingsway.

JFYI, I went and had a look at the Kingsway tram tunnel today. The
entrance is sealed again, and blocked with a lot of miscellaneous
building materials, as well as a crane-on-a-truck and some heavy
plant.

Brad

Compulsory stops (was: Kingsway Tram Subway open to ...)
 

On Tue, 04 May 2004 18:59:41 +0000, Charlie Pearce wrote:

What the bus you want comes along and somebody next to you waves it
on??

Generally, if a stop has several people at it, the bus will stop anyway
momentarily, and proceed on noticing that no-one is moving towards it.
Also most Germans have more sense than to wave it on if someone else may
want it, unlike the typical British public transport user.

The situation, however, is pretty rare, as Hamburg's bus network (yes, one
of those, not a typical British motley collection of unrelated routes) is
very highly rationalised, and few stops have more than a handful of
services.

Neil
--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
Mail me on neil at the above domain; mail to the above address is NOT read

Kingsway Tram Subway open to the general public
 

"Ian Jelf" wrote:

Neill Wood writes
I presume that the ceiling comes down to meet the access ramp
of the underpass somewhere up ahead

Yes but that would be quite a long way ahead, around two "bends, more
or less on the site of the former Aldwych tram station.

No, it would be much closer than that. The road exit ramp is on the site of
Aldwych tram station. However, the road *entry* ramp must only be a couple
of hundred metres behind the Embankment entrance, as it comes down off of
Waterloo Bridge in Lancaster Place (just south of Strand).


(I've always assumed - albeit without any form evidence) that the Subway
followed the Aldwych then turned sharp(ish) left under Kingsway?)

Correct. It follows the line of the streets above, and indeed was built as
an integral part of them . (Aldwych and Kingsway were new roads, built as
part of a slum clearance scheme a century ago in which the old street
pattern disappeared.)



--
MetroGnome
~~~~~~~~~~

Kingsway Tram Subway open to the general public
 

In message fBqmc.46$074.38@newsfe1-win, MetroGnome
writes
"Ian Jelf" wrote:

Neill Wood writes
I presume that the ceiling comes down to meet the access ramp
of the underpass somewhere up ahead

Yes but that would be quite a long way ahead, around two "bends, more
or less on the site of the former Aldwych tram station.

No, it would be much closer than that. The road exit ramp is on the site of
Aldwych tram station. However, the road *entry* ramp must only be a couple
of hundred metres behind the Embankment entrance, as it comes down off of
Waterloo Bridge in Lancaster Place (just south of Strand).
Of course it does! I don't know what on *Earth* made me write
otherwise. Maybe it was late or something! (I seem to be doing this a
lot on this group lately!)

(I've always assumed - albeit without any form evidence) that the Subway
followed the Aldwych then turned sharp(ish) left under Kingsway?)

Correct. It follows the line of the streets above, and indeed was built as
an integral part of them . (Aldwych and Kingsway were new roads, built as
part of a slum clearance scheme a century ago in which the old street
pattern disappeared.)
Indeed.
--
Ian Jelf, MITG, Birmingham, UK
Registered "Blue Badge" Tourist Guide for
London & the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

Compulsory stops (was: Kingsway Tram Subway open to ...)
 

On 01/05/2004 21:52, in article , "Mark
Brader" wrote:

Do British bus companies outside London generally *have* the distinction
between request and compulsory stops?

Birmingham certainly used to have that distinction, but since I no longer
live in the city I can't check right now. Ian Jelf might be able to tell us
if he's around ?.

Compulsory stops (was: Kingsway Tram Subway open to ...)
 

"Bob Watt" wrote in message
...
On 01/05/2004 21:52, in article , "Mark
Brader" wrote:

Do British bus companies outside London generally *have* the distinction
between request and compulsory stops?

Birmingham certainly used to have that distinction, but since I no longer
live in the city I can't check right now. Ian Jelf might be able to tell
us
if he's around ?.

Back in the 1950s the East Kent had compulsory and request stops. If you
rang the bell before a compulsory stop, the driver was liable to take it as
a "Don't Stop" signal and carry on past. One of the few occasions when a
fusilade of bells was needed to correct the error by the passenger.

On the other hand, I don't think that Red & White or Bristol Tramways had
any compulsory stops.
--
Terry Harper, Web Co-ordinator, The Omnibus Society
75th Anniversary 2004, see http://www.omnibussoc.org/75th.htm
E-mail:
URL: http://www.terry.harper.btinternet.co.uk/

Compulsory stops (was: Kingsway Tram Subway open to ...)
 

In article , (Bob Watt) wrote:

On 01/05/2004 21:52, in article , "Mark
Brader" wrote:

Do British bus companies outside London generally *have* the
distinction between request and compulsory stops?

Birmingham certainly used to have that distinction, but since I no
longer live in the city I can't check right now. Ian Jelf might be able
to tell us if he's around ?.

I can't say I remember then from over 30 years ago when my brother was a
student in Brum.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Compulsory stops (was: Kingsway Tram Subway open to ...)
 

Birmingham certainly used to have that distinction, but since I no longer
live in the city I can't check right now. Ian Jelf might be able to tell us
if he's around ?.

The only stops which seem to be compulsory in Brum are (a) termini and
(b) bus stations. Everywhere else (yes, even things like the stop
right in the middle of King's Heath where half the people want to get
off, another 30 people want to board and there's a hell of a lot of
slack in the timetable anyway) gets by-passed from time to time.

Compulsory stops (was: Kingsway Tram Subway open to ...)
 

In message , Bob Watt
writes
On 01/05/2004 21:52, in article , "Mark
Brader" wrote:

Do British bus companies outside London generally *have* the distinction
between request and compulsory stops?

Birmingham certainly used to have that distinction, but since I no longer
live in the city I can't check right now. Ian Jelf might be able to tell us
if he's around ?.
He's just back as it happens.............

All Birmingham stops are now "by request", other than at termini
(obviously).

In PTE days (that's to say the PTE as an operator), timetables even used
to include an occasional exhortation that all stops are by request"
before asking passengers to "give a clear signal" to the driver.
--
Ian Jelf, MITG, Birmingham, UK
Registered "Blue Badge" Tourist Guide for
London & the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

Compulsory stops (was: Kingsway Tram Subway open to ...)
 

Brader" wrote:

Do British bus companies outside London generally *have* the distinction
between request and compulsory stops?

I live in the countryside 30 miles from Glasgow. Basically, if there's no
one at the stop (and no one wants off there), the driver won't stop.

When getting off a bus, I can stop the bus right by my street, some 300m
from the stop. [The bus operator is Stagecoach Western]