Sad Sprinter
Established Member
I think my reason for looking for interesting systems goes back to my childhood. Rarely a few weeks went by without my being taken to visit my maternal grandparents and the relatives they lived with. Until we moved, when I was six-and-a-half, this trip entailed using the Piccadilly Line between Hammersmith and South Harrow. Even at that age, I was incredibly fascinated by what went on at Acton Town, with the two Underground lines both branching, and the complex (to me) track layout. Add in the South Acton one-carriage shuttle, and I was hooked.
Yes I remember my first journey beyond Hammersmith on the District when I was the same age. I was amazed by the speed of the Piccadilly Line trains thundering through Turnham Green and thought it must be a main line railway! Also remember going to Acton Town at age 5 to go to the Transport Depot there and being amazed and the workings there too. Still have the photographs we took of the comings and goings of the Piccadilly trains
Then splitting would fail. The current service is pretty much up to the maximum, which on an urban Metro is principally driven by station dwell and reoccupation times. You can rebuild Camden for wide, straight, cross-platform changing as much as you like, but if half the train has to get out and another half get in, peak period dwell times there would go out of the window.
Yes, and the Edgware and High Barnet platforms aren’t exactly aligned like the cross-platform interchanges on the Victoria Line are. Changing at Camden Town for every journey would be unpleasant to say the least. I say keep the Northern Line as it is.
To be honest, down south what we’d really need is express tubes. Breaking the Kennington loop and running an express down to tooting as per the post war plans would have been great. Especially in the pre-COVID morning rush - which was truly an amazement in some ways. Trains stacked in the tunnel between Balham and Clapham South and still the platforms were full.