The Waterloo & City Line

[norbitonflyer]

My memory is vague now, but didn't the 487s (the 1940 stock) have raised floor over motor bogie, but standard tube stock didn't

T

 

[Tester]

Memories!

Airline seats - really unusual on trains then.

 

[Meerkat]

If you only want to know what streets the underground goes under (rather than exactly which building) then select ‘public transport’ under ’map details’ on Google Maps and it shows you.
I find that added on the satellite map is great for a flavour of how the network relates to streets and places I know.
Why did early deep tubes follow streets, did they still have to purchase the rights from the surface owners?

 

[Snow1964]

Why did early deep tubes follow streets, did they still have to purchase the rights from the surface owners?

No, other way around, was free under the streets, but had to pay under buildings, so where possible kept to streets. Some bits are even one tunnel partly above another as road too narrow to have them side by side.

I have found a copy of Waterloo and City Act 1893 which has been scanned as a pdf. The last page refers to various properties on deposited plans, so presumably these are affected (haven't found copy of plans).

There are some clauses to do with passing under District Railway see clause 79 etc

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/Vict/56-57/187/pdfs/ukla_18930187_en.pdf

 

[rebmcr]

If you only want to know what streets the underground goes under (rather than exactly which building) then select ‘public transport’ under ’map details’ on Google Maps and it shows you.
I find that added on the satellite map is great for a flavour of how the network relates to streets and places I know.
Why did early deep tubes follow streets, did they still have to purchase the rights from the surface owners?

That source is very, very inaccurate.

 

[MotCO]

That source is very, very inaccurate.

I must admit, on the map the Elizabeth Line seems to go quite a way south of Tottenham Court Road whereas I thought they had to carefully thread their way through multiple tunnels at TCR. So I assume that this is a misrepresentation.

 

[Vespa]

No, other way around, was free under the streets, but had to pay under buildings, so where possible kept to streets. Some bits are even one tunnel partly above another as road too narrow to have them side by side.

How is it done ? Annual rent or one off payment to the building owners ?

Is payment still being made, does it matter how deep, is there a depth level beyond which payments is not demandable ?

Thanks.

 

[AM9]

I must admit, on the map the Elizabeth Line seems to go quite a way south of Tottenham Court Road whereas I thought they had to carefully thread their way through multiple tunnels at TCR. So I assume that this is a misrepresentation.

Not at all. The episode of the TV series that dealt with the close proximity of the new Lizzie tunnel to the Northern Line station tunnel, called so ething like 'threading the eye of the needle' showed the checking for problems from one of the platforms. The Northern line platforms have their northern ends near the eastern end of the Central line's. Thus this crossing point was a short distance down Charing Cross from Oxford Street junction.

 

[Meerkat]

No, other way around, was free under the streets, but had to pay under buildings, so where possible kept to streets. Some bits are even one tunnel partly above another as road too narrow to have them side by side.

I have found a copy of Waterloo and City Act 1893 which has been scanned as a pdf. The last page refers to various properties on deposited plans, so presumably these are affected (haven't found copy of plans).

There are some clauses to do with passing under District Railway see clause 79 etc

https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/Vict/56-57/187/pdfs/ukla_18930187_en.pdf

That’s what I thought the evidence suggested. I don’t understand why you pay someone to tunnel deep underneath them - I assume it got changed as later tubes are more direct.

 

[SynthD]

That’s what I thought the evidence suggested. I don’t understand why you pay someone to tunnel deep underneath them - I assume it got changed as later tubes are more direct.

Yes, ownership of land back then was down to the centre of the earth. Now it is far less, connected with what you are permitted to build there.

 

[tyburn]

Was already suggested in post #25, but there‘s also the detailed map linked in post #26 sponsored by TfL.

Oh, did not see that, sorry I was reading these too fast!

 

[Adrian1980uk]

I used to work in the Waterloo area and in the morning at Bank, when the doors opened the passengers fell out. Going in the other direction there was only five of us.

It's the same today, I travel from Liverpool Street to Waterloo and there's very few going in the Waterloo direction.

Seems to me the only opportunity to extend the W&C is into south London somewhere, could be popular if it was Brixton or somewhere

 

[Peter Mugridge]

Seems to me the only opportunity to extend the W&C is into south London somewhere, could be popular if it was Brixton or somewhere

It might be a bit too shallow to be able to get anywhere easily without a serious gradient once you got past the depot, where you'd lose most of the space as the running lines aim square at the middle of it?

Would the line even be able to cope with additional passengers from somewhere busy like Brixton?

 

[AlastairFraser]

It might be a bit too shallow to be able to get anywhere easily without a serious gradient once you got past the depot, where you'd lose most of the space as the running lines aim square at the middle of it?

Would the line even be able to cope with additional passengers from somewhere busy like Brixton?

I was gonna suggest, post current rolling stock service lives, a light rail conversion and extension on one of the Cross River Tram southern branches towards Peckham

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I was gonna suggest, post current rolling stock service lives, a light rail conversion and extension on one of the Cross River Tram southern branches towards Peckham

That would work for the bit south of Waterloo easily enough... but wouldn't we then have the issue of having to re-bore the tunnels? I don't think a tube gauge bodyshell on a tram would be very popular with the passengers?

 

[Recessio]

Given the crowds we used to see pre-covid, and sometimes still do post-covid, I would be wary of any extensions for capacity reasons.

For example, the morning peak: Any extension would have to grab a lot of the City-bound traffic before it reaches Waterloo. Now given that most of the fastest SWR trains penultimate stops are Woking or even Guildford, it means a very carefully optimised route through the suburbs would need to be selected (as noone is seriously suggesting extending the W&C out to Surrey). Otherwise, if you induce new traffic from the suburbs on to the Drain, on top of the pre-existing City-bound traffic that already arrives at Waterloo, then the W&C trains will already be full by the time they arrive at Waterloo.

The W&C has a very specialised role, and does it well, I'd be wary of tinkering with it any further.

 

[AlastairFraser]

That would work for the bit south of Waterloo easily enough... but wouldn't we then have the issue of having to re-bore the tunnels? I don't think a tube gauge bodyshell on a tram would be very popular with the passengers?

It depends - how tight is the W and C loading gauge? I've only been on it once or twice, and I thought it wasn't particularly bad.

 

[Peter Mugridge]

It depends - how tight is the W and C loading gauge? I've only been on it once or twice, and I thought it wasn't particularly bad.

I'll defer to an engineer with experience of the line to answer that.

 

[AlastairFraser]

I'll defer to an engineer with experience of the line to answer that.

Fair enough

 

[D7666]

I'll defer to an engineer with experience of the line to answer that.

No worse than the Central Line on the basis 92TS are the same. Despite what interweb postings over the years will tell you, 67/72TS would fit there too. It is not about looking up how long / wide / high each car type is in the ABC Book Of Tube Trains but how engineers can make things happen. It was all schemed out in PPP days: there was a serious plan by BCV to take 92TS off W&C for the main Central fleet, and put refurbished 67/72TS on W&C. No matter what howls of protest you may read about all that, it was a hard plan, it was worked out, by engineers, civil and fleet, to make it work. In PPP days there was a set of delivery targets lumped under "capability" and the PPP contractors got extra money from LU for "capability" increases. Moving 92TS increased capability on Central (more trains), and for W&C as one scoring was 'ambience' - refurbishing stock improved "ambience" so counted - so no matter 67TS was 25 years older than 92TS - a refurbished train scored over unrefurbished newer trains. Dopey yes. Artificial yes. But that was how it was. It could produce quick but dirty answers. That one noever came to fruition as it required 09TS in squadron servcie first, and PPP collapsed before that was completed.

But.

Having said all that.

I do think any ideas of EXTENDING W&C anywhere will go anywhere. Nor trying to convert it to glorified trams or DLR. IMHO it will forever be an isolated tube line with tube trainsdoing what it does, and does well. As I said before, stop looking at this line in 2D like a dot-to-dot map and think in 3D.

One day, maybe, there might be some other direct rail link twixt Waterloo and Bank/City but I'll suggest either the current W&C would be closed outright and replaced, or, closed in advance and bits of its alignment massively rebuilt into something very different, so different it would not be recognisable. Part of a possible XR3, XR4, etc. But given XR2 is frozen, possibly dead, one can't really see any more XRs going anywhere.

 

[Busaholic]

Given the crowds we used to see pre-covid, and sometimes still do post-covid, I would be wary of any extensions for capacity reasons.

For example, the morning peak: Any extension would have to grab a lot of the City-bound traffic before it reaches Waterloo. Now given that most of the fastest SWR trains penultimate stops are Woking or even Guildford, it means a very carefully optimised route through the suburbs would need to be selected (as noone is seriously suggesting extending the W&C out to Surrey). Otherwise, if you induce new traffic from the suburbs on to the Drain, on top of the pre-existing City-bound traffic that already arrives at Waterloo, then the W&C trains will already be full by the time they arrive at Waterloo.

The W&C has a very specialised role, and does it well, I'd be wary of tinkering with it any further.

I totally agree with you. The only feasible tinkering would be to introduce an intermediate Blackfriars stop, which I believe is theoretically possible but has many other things stacked against it. Extending beyond Waterloo would be even crazier than the onetime plan to extend the DLR to the West End, hopefully now binned. Anyway, Surrey is supposedly getting Crossrail 2, maybe in a century or two, government permitting.

 

[AlastairFraser]

No worse than the Central Line on the basis 92TS are the same. Despite what interweb postings over the years will tell you, 67/72TS would fit there too. It is not about looking up how long / wide / high each car type is in the ABC Book Of Tube Trains but how engineers can make things happen. It was all schemed out in PPP days: there was a serious plan by BCV to take 92TS off W&C for the main Central fleet, and put refurbished 67/72TS on W&C. No matter what howls of protest you may read about all that, it was a hard plan, it was worked out, by engineers, civil and fleet, to make it work. In PPP days there was a set of delivery targets lumped under "capability" and the PPP contractors got extra money from LU for "capability" increases. Moving 92TS increased capability on Central (more trains), and for W&C as one scoring was 'ambience' - refurbishing stock improved "ambience" so counted - so no matter 67TS was 25 years older than 92TS - a refurbished train scored over unrefurbished newer trains. Dopey yes. Artificial yes. But that was how it was. It could produce quick but dirty answers. That one noever came to fruition as it required 09TS in squadron servcie first, and PPP collapsed before that was completed.

But.

Having said all that.

I do think any ideas of EXTENDING W&C anywhere will go anywhere. Nor trying to convert it to glorified trams or DLR. IMHO it will forever be an isolated tube line with tube trainsdoing what it does, and does well. As I said before, stop looking at this line in 2D like a dot-to-dot map and think in 3D.

One day, maybe, there might be some other direct rail link twixt Waterloo and Bank/City but I'll suggest either the current W&C would be closed outright and replaced, or, closed in advance and bits of its alignment massively rebuilt into something very different, so different it would not be recognisable. Part of a possible XR3, XR4, etc. But given XR2 is frozen, possibly dead, one can't really see any more XRs going anywhere.

So technically possible, but functionally not perhaps. That's a fair answer.

 

[Nym]

No worse than the Central Line on the basis 92TS are the same. Despite what interweb postings over the years will tell you, 67/72TS would fit there too. It is not about looking up how long / wide / high each car type is in the ABC Book Of Tube Trains but how engineers can make things happen. It was all schemed out in PPP days: there was a serious plan by BCV to take 92TS off W&C for the main Central fleet, and put refurbished 67/72TS on W&C. No matter what howls of protest you may read about all that, it was a hard plan, it was worked out, by engineers, civil and fleet, to make it work. In PPP days there was a set of delivery targets lumped under "capability" and the PPP contractors got extra money from LU for "capability" increases. Moving 92TS increased capability on Central (more trains), and for W&C as one scoring was 'ambience' - refurbishing stock improved "ambience" so counted - so no matter 67TS was 25 years older than 92TS - a refurbished train scored over unrefurbished newer trains. Dopey yes. Artificial yes. But that was how it was. It could produce quick but dirty answers. That one noever came to fruition as it required 09TS in squadron servcie first, and PPP collapsed before that was completed.

But.

Having said all that.

I do think any ideas of EXTENDING W&C anywhere will go anywhere. Nor trying to convert it to glorified trams or DLR. IMHO it will forever be an isolated tube line with tube trainsdoing what it does, and does well. As I said before, stop looking at this line in 2D like a dot-to-dot map and think in 3D.

One day, maybe, there might be some other direct rail link twixt Waterloo and Bank/City but I'll suggest either the current W&C would be closed outright and replaced, or, closed in advance and bits of its alignment massively rebuilt into something very different, so different it would not be recognisable. Part of a possible XR3, XR4, etc. But given XR2 is frozen, possibly dead, one can't really see any more XRs going anywhere.

You could fit a 67/72TS down there. Once.

The jumper design on the 1967TS does not support the curves on the Central and W&C line, even if the design of the body ends and the inter-car couplers do.
When it was investigated to return some stored 1967TS to service for the W&C line to free up 1992TS for the CLIP project, jumpers and hoses were highlighted as the most significant hazard.

 

[Central]

67TS used to travel between Northumberland Pk and Hainault with no problems,72TS as well acting as pilot unit for ETT 73TS.

 

[norbitonflyer]

I totally agree with you. The only feasible tinkering would be to introduce an intermediate Blackfriars stop, which I believe is theoretically possible but has many other things stacked against it.

Not least that no-one would ever be able to board at Blackfriars (at least in the peak dierection) as it is already crush loaded from the termini.

How is it done ? Annual rent or one off payment to the building owners ?

Is payment still being made, does it matter how deep, is there a depth level beyond which payments is not demandable ?

Thanks.

It was usually a one-off payment to buy the wayleave. An interesting example of this was published in the accident report on the Old Street incident on the Northern City Line in 2013. https://assets.publishing.service.g...0f0b60241000157/R032014_140213_Old_Street.pdf
See paras 33 to 35
33 In 1902, two years before the railway opened, a conveyance transferred the sub-soil required for tunnel construction to the Great Northern and City Railway (GN&CR) who were building the line. This transfer means that the current Land Registry register of title for the site on East Street includes the phrase: ‘So much of the sub-soil as was vested in the Great Northern and City Railway is excluded from the registration.’
34 The GN&CR tunnels generally followed public highways, but a bend in East Road required a 280 metre length of the tunnels to be constructed in part beneath private property, and in part beneath Fairbank Street (figures 12, 13 and 14). This is one of the few locations on London’s underground railway network where the early tube tunnels (designed and constructed between 1884 and 1907) passed for some substantial distance under private property.
35. The conveyance meant that the railway company had no other property rights or interests relating to surrounding land. In particular, land ownership documentation for land above the tunnels included no requirement for land owners to consult the railway company before undertaking works"

When ownership of the land in question changed hands in 2010, the conveyacing solicitors failed to appreciate the significance of the Land Registry entry, (and nor, it seems, did Hackney Council when considering Planning Permission - see para 79), with the result that, three years later, a driver on the GN&C discovered a drilling auger emerging through the tunnel roof, followed by a major redesign of the building being constructed on the site above.

 

[Snow1964]

Just come across an extension proposal in a book, apparently the then new London Transport in 1934 made a serious proposal to extend the line to Shoreditch via Liverpool Street.

As far as I can gather, the book suggests it failed to proceed because of who owned it and associated legal problems. Suggests it was all related to the agreements of who can extend where, which were made regarding no Northern line extension beyond Morden, and Southern to build Wimbledon-Sutton line, and no District trains beyond Wimbledon.

 

[D7666]

You could fit a 67/72TS down there. Once.

The jumper design on the 1967TS does not support the curves on the Central and W&C line, even if the design of the body ends and the inter-car couplers do.
When it was investigated to return some stored 1967TS to service for the W&C line to free up 1992TS for the CLIP project, jumpers and hoses were highlighted as the most significant hazard.

jumpers and hoses are hardly a major permanent blocking point are they

that can easily be resolved, re-route, re-locate, they are, after all, flexible connections; pretty sure that work could be done at cost per car less than hiring one of those massive cranes to lift out and lift in 92TS and 67TS

if that were out forward as the reason not to do it, then that sounds like deliberately looking for such reasons to not do it

 

[Rick1984]

I Notice the access hole seems to have a cover now

I'm also impressed vandals managed to get down into the depot to graffiti

 

[Peter Mugridge]

I think that cover has been there for some time now; it's a good idea - keeps the rain off the depot...

 

[Nym]

jumpers and hoses are hardly a major permanent blocking point are they

that can easily be resolved, re-route, re-locate, they are, after all, flexible connections; pretty sure that work could be done at cost per car less than hiring one of those massive cranes to lift out and lift in 92TS and 67TS

if that were out forward as the reason not to do it, then that sounds like deliberately looking for such reasons to not do it

Easy, sort of. Cheap, no.