On 3 Dec 2004, Jonn Elledge wrote:

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
...

What used to be Essex kind of splits into three now I think: the home
counties bit in the northern half; the Essex girl joke bit in the South;
and the greater East End bit inside the M25, which is like a Londonized
version of the southern half of the county.

It's due to split further, to generate four more partitions. The county
plan was drawn up by some chap called Dante, i understand.

Thanks for describing Outer Essex as 'home counties', by the way; i would
have said 'country bumpkin' myself.

tom

--
I'm angry, but not Milk and Cheese angry. -- Mike Froggatt

In article , (Dave Arquati)
wrote:

Still, I would do almost anything to avoid a change at Green Park.

I change Victoria to Jubilee regularly. It's not a big problem.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Clive D. W. Feather) wrote:

In article , Ian Jelf
writes
Wow. Then I stand corrected.

It surprised me when I first came across the concept (the County of
Peterborough).

I wonder (perhaps I shouldn't for the purposes of this group!) whether
or not my earlier remarks about Southend (and apparently Thurrock)
being part of Essex for ceremonial purposes is true?

There is no formal definition, that I can find, of "ceremonial
purposes".

These definitional problems result from the way the Unitary Authorities
were created in the 1990s. They became (mostly District) councils which
are both Counties and Districts for most legal purposes. It was all done
by bolting on the missing bits to existing Districts (mostly). If you
search further you will find other legislation referring to the District
(or Borough) of Southend on Sea. The one Unitary which is the other way
round is the Isle of Wight, a county to which district functions were
bolted on in 1993.

Lords Lieutenancies and similar ceremonial stuff is one of the exceptions.
There are others, like combined fire authorities, which both Essex and
Cambridgeshire have.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Dave Arquati wrote:

David Marsh wrote:
begin Dave Arquati's quote in uk.railway


(snip)

How infeasible (read: costly) would it be to build an underground
travelator link between Euston Station (with access from the mainline
and the Underground) to St Pancras International (also linking with
King's Cross and King's Cross / St Pancras Underground)?

Whatever happened to the plan to run a shuttle bus between Euston and
St.Pancras, via Somers Town in the daytime, and via Euston Road at night
(when noise is more of a problem for residents, and the congestion
charge boundary road isn't so busy)?

It's only about 500 m on the surface, and given the nature of all the
existing gubbins underground, probably less than that in practice.

The existing gubbins underground is rather the problem. There's so much
down there, it would be difficult to find somewhere to put the tunnel

Oh, I know :-)

There's so much gubbins, they even ruled out surface works to run the
Cross River Transit along the Euston Road to reach St Pancras. Following
opposition from Somers Town residents, now it has to take a ridiculous
route via Mornington Crescent!

I hadn't heard about that. Is that the official plan?

Why don't they just divert the gubbins on a longer route instead?

Would it be possible for the travelator to go at roughly the same depth,
but parallel to the Metropolitan line?

On the northern side of the Met, I think that would foul the new Western
ticket office at King's Cross. As for the southern side, I've really no
idea. The foundations of the buildings might prevent it being built at
the same level as the Metropolitan.

At the Kings Cross end at least they won't, but the alignment is
reserved for Crossrail line 2 UIVMM.

Oh, and there are other things like the Thameslink tunnel and the
various other old railway tunnels (which aren't very deep) like the
Hotel Curve and the Maiden Lane Curve.

(I'm presuming all the other 'deep tube' lines are indeed, somewhere
deeper at this point - it must be quite a job for someone just keeping
accurate tabs on what, exactly, is all down there, and where exactly
they all are!)

Some of them aren't that deep. Victoria is closest to the surface,
Piccadilly is just underneath, and Northern is just underneath that.
However, all of them are over to the eastern side of the overground
station and the tube ticket hall.

How far down is the Fleet where they cross it?


(snip)
(And while I'm in tunnel-digging mode, why not merge Embankment and
Charing Cross Northern/Bakerloo stations into one station (on each line)
with travelators to shrink the distance/time from the existing entrances,
to save the time of an extra station stop? Or would that require an
incredible amount of underground reconstruction work?)

Ouch. Charing Cross Northern and Bakerloo platforms are miles away from
Charing Cross SET as it is, without merging them.

I know, that's why I was suggesting travelators from the existing
entrances to a *new* combined station which would be pretty much
underneath Charing Cross station itself, so that the station properly
serves the mainline station but is *also* still accessible to the street
in the original locations.

I don't think it would even be possible without making the exit at
Trafalgur Square a longer walk from the platforms than the walk between
lines currently is.

I know there are historical reasons, but it
just seems a little odd to have two stations (Embankment and Charing
Cross) in a relatively short distance.

Considering it's not much shorter than Charing Cross - Leicester Square
and longer than Leicester Square - Covent Garden, I don't think it's odd
at all.

Some kind of unification, like
Bank-Monument, would seem to be more sensible. But it'd be extremely
expensive, for relatively little gain, so it wouldn't happen :-)

Oh, I see what you mean now. You'd make interchange between the deep
tube and subsurface lines worse though.

I think it would be far better to build a proper second entrance at
Charing Cross mainline station, to give it interchange not just with
Embankment station, but also with the boat services.

It would make more
sense to split them back into what they used to be before the Jubilee
Line arrived - Trafalgar Square (Bakerloo) and Strand (Northern). The
Bakerloo platforms are certainly more suited to Trafalgar Square than
Charing Cross. After all, Embankment used to be called Charing Cross...

Yeah, it's quite clear from the plans on John Rowland's site that if it
hadn't been for the Jubilee line, then they probably would still have
remained as very discrete separate stations..

But am I right in thinking that research has shown that people don't
"mind" so much the walking between parts of interchange stations?
That people regard themselves as "on the Underground" as soon as they've
passed the ticket barriers, and that a couple of minutes spent walking
(or travelating!) through the tunnels is better than the same couple of
minutes waiting impatiently on the platform for a train (ie, the feeling
that you're in control of your actions, or not) - and, in this day and
age, a useful bit of exercise, too!?

I haven't heard that research. I can understand the "on the Underground"
mentality though; that extends to finding your way to unfamiliar places
too. I met two Imperial students on the Circle line yesterday who were
on their way to High St Kensington... having walked from Imperial to
Gloucester Road and boarded there, as they didn't know the way to
Kensington High Street.

I'm surprised they didn't use South Kensington, as it has quite a long
tunnel linking it with remote entrances (albeit entirely outside the
ticket barriers). What (if anything) does the study have to say about
that kind of tunnel? I remember thinking the one at Charing Cross would
be better if it went all the way to Covent Garden.

Still, I would do almost anything to avoid a change at Green Park.
(Except perhaps having to use the Circle line; then it's a case of
balancing the relative evils.)

It would be worth using the Circle Line if only the lifts at Westminster
were available for general passenger use...

As it is, once at Green Park I was in a hurry, I took a wrong turn and
went via the ticket hall - and still reached the Piccadilly Line faster
than I would've done going via the normal passageway!

Huge wrote:

(Aidan Stanger) writes:

[13 lines snipped]

Whatever happened to the plan to run a shuttle bus between Euston and
St.Pancras, via Somers Town in the daytime, and via Euston Road at night
(when noise is more of a problem for residents, and the congestion
charge boundary road isn't so busy)?

What on Earth would be the point?

Shifting passengers from one to the other, of course. There's expected
to be many passengers arriving in Euston who want to get a Eurostar from
St.Pancras, but the tube journey is rather inconvenient (especially
since the tube station's under Kings Cross rather than St.Pancras). It's
also rather inconvenient to walk between them (though many people have,
myself included) but a travelator link between them would be too
expensive, and the tram is unlikely to be built any time soon.

Therefore, if they're going to do anything, they'll have to use buses.

I expect they'll do nothing, but I wondered whether the bus link plan
had got anywhere.

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 16:37:10 +1030, (Aidan Stanger)
wrote:

Therefore, if they're going to do anything, they'll have to use buses.

What's wrong with the normal service bus?

Neil

In article ,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On Sat, 11 Dec 2004 16:37:10 +1030, (Aidan Stanger)
wrote:

Therefore, if they're going to do anything, they'll have to use buses.

What's wrong with the normal service bus?

Is there one that goes other than straight along Euston Road, stopping in
front of King's Cross?

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 11 Dec 2004 11:20:37 GMT, (Huge) wrote:

Inconvenient, maybe, but it's far quicker than a bus could ever be.

Not by the time you've walked to the Tube and back up from it.

My choice of transport between the two would probably be to walk,
unless I was carrying an impossible amount of luggage, in which case a
taxi or bus (depending which arrived first) may be in order.

Neil

In article ,
(Neil Williams) wrote:

On 11 Dec 2004 11:20:37 GMT, (Huge) wrote:

Inconvenient, maybe, but it's far quicker than a bus could ever be.

Not by the time you've walked to the Tube and back up from it.

My choice of transport between the two would probably be to walk,
unless I was carrying an impossible amount of luggage, in which case a
taxi or bus (depending which arrived first) may be in order.

I agree. Walking is almost always quickest.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

Aidan Stanger wrote:
Dave Arquati wrote:


Oh, and there are other things like the Thameslink tunnel and the
various other old railway tunnels (which aren't very deep) like the
Hotel Curve and the Maiden Lane Curve.


(I'm presuming all the other 'deep tube' lines are indeed, somewhere
deeper at this point - it must be quite a job for someone just keeping
accurate tabs on what, exactly, is all down there, and where exactly
they all are!)

Some of them aren't that deep. Victoria is closest to the surface,
Piccadilly is just underneath, and Northern is just underneath that.
However, all of them are over to the eastern side of the overground
station and the tube ticket hall.


http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Acro.../stations.html

Has a basic map of the area.

Does anyone know of any other maps like these on the web? They're quite
useful for getting you head round these things.

Chris