I have a question about the waterloo & city line.

At waterloo, the station is under two of the arches of waterloo
station, and you can walk in from the street and just go straight to
the platforms after going down a slope.

At bank, you can either go down the travelator or the sloped steps, to
the platforms, from the street.

But at both of these, access is straight from outside to the platform,
and there doesnt seem to be any sort of booking hall before you get
there, or anywhere where one could have been.

So what I was wondering was whether when it was built over 100 years
ago, the line was free, or if they somehow had the worlds first (coin
operated) automatic barriers or something?

On opening day, 7th August 1898, apparently between 15 and 20,000 people
paid 2d single or 3d return, so there must have been some sort of barrier
control!

MaxB

"lonelytraveller" wrote in
message ups.com...
I have a question about the waterloo & city line.

At waterloo, the station is under two of the arches of waterloo
station, and you can walk in from the street and just go straight to
the platforms after going down a slope.

At bank, you can either go down the travelator or the sloped steps, to
the platforms, from the street.

But at both of these, access is straight from outside to the platform,
and there doesnt seem to be any sort of booking hall before you get
there, or anywhere where one could have been.

So what I was wondering was whether when it was built over 100 years
ago, the line was free, or if they somehow had the worlds first (coin
operated) automatic barriers or something?





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I have a question about the waterloo & city line.

At waterloo ...you can walk in from the street and just go straight to
the platforms after going down a slope.

At bank, you can either go down the travelator or the sloped steps, to
the platforms, from the street.

But ...there doesnt seem to be any sort of booking hall before you get
there, or anywhere where one could have been.

So what I was wondering was whether when it was built over 100 years
ago, the line was free, or ...?

"A History of London Transport" says that the opening of the line was
delayed by the need to complete the "subsurface booking-hall" at City
(now Bank) station. I guess this means it was at the top of the long
sloping passage, even if there doesn't seem to be a place there now.

I can't find anything about ticket issuing at Waterloo. Given that
the line was mainly intended for passengers connecting from LSWR
services terminating there, who would be using through tickets, it
seems entirely possible to me that the relatively few W&C passengers
originating at Waterloo would have had to buy tickets at the main-
line booking office.

As to ticket checking, there could of course have been a barrier at
any point before the platforms. The main Waterloo station actually
had no barriers until 1910 -- passengers on incoming trains had their
tickets taken at the last stop *before* Waterloo, by staff working on
the platform. But I doubt that ticket collection on the platform would
have been practical for the W&C.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "UNIX ... the essential partner for
| eyespot or rynchosporium control in barley."

My text in this article is in the public domain.

15,000 or 15?

According to "The Waterloo & City Railway" by John Gillham (Oakwood
Press 2001)in 1898 passengers were required to pay their 2d single or
3d return fares at the "turnstiles" (presumably at both "Waterloo" and
"City" ends). After about a year (also stated as "1900") the turnstiles
were abolished and tickets sold by travelling conductors on trains.
Plans for c1938 shows proposals for a booking office at Bank between
the two platforms at the buffer stops end and facing outwards towards
the stairs (and today's Trav-o-Later), plus ticket machines; whilst at
Waterloo, two narrow booking offices would serve the ramps of the
departure platform, with six ticket collectors' boxes installed to deal
with arriving trains. In any case on-train ticket sales ceased with the
introduction of new rolling stock in 1940. By 1964 Bank W&C was an open
station with no ticket selling or inspection facility of its own, the
booking office having closed a year earlier. At Waterloo, you could buy
a ticket for Bank from the W&C's own ticket office, then surrended it
seconds later before joining the platform, thence to ride to Bank
ticket-less! The W&C ticket office finally closed in 1967, replaced by
change-giving and coin-operated ticket machines. Though ticket
collectors at the Waterloo end remained for around another 20 years,
they were finally swept away by Network SouthEast when both ends of the
line became "open" stations, and revenue control was allegedly achieved
by frequent on-train checks (did the latter ever happen under NSE?).
More recently, LUL built a small ticket office at Bank to serve the
long corridor linking directly to the Central, Northern and DLR etc
after UTS gates were commissioned at its head, but it seemed rarely if
ever open, and for the W&C as a whole, revenue protection remains a
typical TfL example of hope over experience!

Thats a good point actually, I've never really understood why they
don't make the W&C platforms at waterloo part of the tube ticket hall,
with ticket gates at the top of the other slope.

They could take off the platform canopy as well, and show the waterloo
railway arches and vaulting, it would look much nicer, and quite
impressive.

On Sun, 08 May 2005 18:03:15 +0100, Barry Salter
wrote:



And the (single window) ticket office in the subway (and its associated
UTS gates) has now been removed, though I *think* I'm right in saying
there's a new gateline between the travelators and stairs and the
platforms.



Its odd that the new gateline does not include the Central line subway
as anyone 'in the know' without a ticket can travel to Waterloo
without having to pass through gates.



Dave

Thats a good point actually...

Sir or madam, as the case may be, please QUOTE THE PASSAGE YOU ARE
RESPONDING TO. Not the whole message, just the specific passage,
as here. Otherwise your messages look like nonsense.
--
Mark Brader, Toronto | "UNIX ... the essential partner for
| eyespot or rynchosporium control in barley."

Google groups won't let me do that.

As far as I know the passage is inside the gateline - as the gateline
blocks the travelator and the steps, and the other end of the passage
is inside the gateline for the rest of the tube station.

But, you could just get the DLR from limehouse or something and go all
the way to waterloo without passing gates..