This is an exercise in purest whimsy, provoked by a recently constructed set of paths in Hardings Pits near King’s Lynn that I have dubbed ‘Roundel Path’ for their collective resemblance to London Underground’s classic symbol. Here is a photograph:
Before moving in to the main body of this post I re-emphasise that this a purely whimsical exercise, and not even I would actually recommend the adoption of these schemes.
TWO POSSIBLE METHODS
These suggestions are listed from most to least fanciful with even the least fanciful still fairly so.
- Over a decade ago I did a personal survey of the Piccadilly line, which among other things recommended a northwards extension from Cockfosters to Welwyn Garden City. Welwyn Garden City is a station that trains from London to King’s Lynn pass but do not stop at en route. Extending all the way to Lynn would require a lot of adjustments at every station that the line would stop at – ideal platform heights are very different for surface and tube stocks which is why I consider this possibility even more unrealistic than the other.
- The slightly less ridiculous possibility makes use of the fact that the older subsurface London Underground lines are built to standard railway specifications and would at least not require any platform adaptations. It would require one completely new section of track, from King’s Cross St Pancras (Circle, Hammersmith&City and Metropolitan line shared platforms) to Finsbury Park or some point further north, with an intermediate station at Highbury& Islington, giving some useful connections, joining the existing tracks as soon as it is practical for it to come to the surface. That leaves one further question…
WHICH OF LINE SHOULD RUN THE NEW ROUTE?
There are three possibilities:
- The Metropolitan line once extended over 50 miles out into the countryside, and is still much more like a mainline railway than other lines. The disadvantage of the Metropolitan getting this route is that from Baker Street onward trains would heading northwest, having come from basically due north (with a tiny fraction of east).
- The Hammersmith and City line, which could abandon the Farringdon to Barking part of its route, all of which is served by other lines.
- The Wimbledon-Edgware Road section of the District line could add the stations as far as King’s Cross to its existing route and take over the new route.
PHOTOGRAPHS
I state once again that the foregoing has been a piece of whimsy, not anything serious, before applying my usual sign off…
aspiblog 