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In article , Jonathan Morton
writes
I had to go from Euston to Liverpool Street today. As it was fine, I walked
to Euston Square and took the Met rather than change at Bank. It struck me
(after I had been surprised by how far ES is from Euston itself) that this
is odd.

Some possibilities:

(1) The very original plans for the Metropolitan included a station just
east of Tottenham Court Road and another on the corner of Eversholt
Street. If there were problems buying up land for station buildings,
that might have led to these two being merged.

(2) Remember that the original King's Cross station was where the
present Thameslink station is. That sort of length walk might not have
been seen as a problem in those days.

(3) There was going to be a link from the LNWR main lines at Euston to
the Metropolitan, just like from the GNR and Midland. This may have made
the need for a station less obvious (only passengers heading for Baker
Street and Paddington would have needed it).

(4) One purpose of the Metropolitan was to provide *goods* access to the
City from the various main line termini. The LNWR had its own outlet to
the City in the form of the North London Line, so this access was less
important. That explains the lack of link, and may indicate cooler
relations with the LNWR. Which might also have led to problems buying
land - see (1).

(5) The LNWR was much less interested in commuter traffic than the other
lines in the area. So a station was less important.

--
Clive D.W. Feather, writing for himself | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
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