What if Marylebone station had closed in the 1980s?

[Samuel88]

Apparently there were proposals in the 80s to close Marylebone station and convert it into a coach station. If this had happened would coach travel have become more popular? As the A40 Westway is just outside it would have sped up journeys significantly rather than having to crawl through Central London from Victoria.

 

[RPM]

It was never explained how coaches could safely pass in the tunnels, given the relatively restricted kinematic envelope (for a road tunnel). I suspect, once the practicalities had been properly assessed, the whole scheme would have ended up on the "too difficult" pile.

 

[3141]

In about 1985 the Editor of Buses magazine did a trip by coach from Aldgate to somewhere like High Wycombe. My recollection is that he started at about 4.30, slightly before the evening peak hour. He noted the time as the coach passed near to Marylebone station, and again somewhere to the west of Northolt airport, where he assumed the route from Marylebone would join the existing road network. It had taken about an hour. The proponents of the rail-to-coach-route scheme were claiming it would save at least an hour, but if the journey only took an hour anyway it couldn't save anything like that amount of time. Plus, as RPM says, they never explained how the coaches could pass safely in the tunnels. (There's a lot that the supporters of railways into roads schemes can't explain.)

Funny that on the same day we have a new thread about reopening the Great Central route and a look back at the proposed closure of Marylebone!

 

[Non Multi]

There was a London Reconnections article about this a few years ago https://www.londonreconnections.com/2014/near-terminal-case-saving-marylebone-rail-road-conversion/

The really big road schemes in London that didn't happen were the completion of the London Motorway Box (Ringway 1) and the Underways.

 

[eastdyke]

What if Marylebone station closed?
This would be (and probably should be now) a Buses & Coaches thread

 

[Sir Felix Pole]

Famously, one of the proponents of the Marylebone bus conversion scheme was Lance Ibbotson former GM of the Western Region and then the Southern. I remember the sheer fury amongst railway staff at the time, suggesting that he should be stripped of his pension and travel facilities. It is very pleasing to see today, therefore, Marylebone operating at full capacity with trains!

 

[markindurham]

Famously, one of the proponents of the Marylebone bus conversion scheme was Lance Ibbotson former GM of the Western Region and then the Southern. I remember the sheer fury amongst railway staff at the time, suggesting that he should be stripped of his pension and travel facilities. It is very pleasing to see today, therefore, Marylebone operating at full capacity with trains!

Just following in the footsteps of his WR predecessors, who were able to <help> get rid of the Somerset & Dorset and almost all of the ex-LSWR lines west of Exeter, once those routes fell into the clutches of the Western Region. Old animosities died hard...

(And yes, it's argued that the LMR did the same to the GC 'London Extension')

 

[Polarbear]

It's a good job Marylebone didn't close under those proposals in the early 1980's. The plan was that Baker Street & the Metropolitan line would have had to have taken on the loads coming in from Amersham etc., whilst the High Wycombe route would have been diverted into Paddington.

It would have given our present day planners something to think about, as both Baker Street and Paddington are pretty much full to capacity these days, without having the extra flows of passengers that these diversions would have foisted onto both stations.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

If Marylebone had been closed, by now a new through London tunnel would have been constructed enabling trains to run from Clapham Junction via a Victoria low-level station and a Marylebone low-level station to the Buckinghamshire suburbs. The current Chiltern line service would consist of one TPH from Paddington to Birmingham.

 

[yorksrob]

I would have missed at least one last train back to Kent (having had to catch an evening coach from Leeds in a hurry one night - I arrived at Victoria coach station with about 25 minutes to go).

 

[3141]

If Marylebone had been closed, by now a new through London tunnel would have been constructed enabling trains to run from Clapham Junction via a Victoria low-level station and a Marylebone low-level station to the Buckinghamshire suburbs. The current Chiltern line service would consist of one TPH from Paddington to Birmingham.

"Would have been" or "might have been"? Without the train service expansion from Marylebone developed by Network SE and by Chiltern, perhaps much of the housing and other development in Buckinghamshire and beyond would have been held back, reducing the economic case for the tunnel you envisage.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

"Would have been" or "might have been"? Without the train service expansion from Marylebone developed by Network SE and by Chiltern, perhaps much of the housing and other development in Buckinghamshire and beyond would have been held back, reducing the economic case for the tunnel you envisage.

I think you'll find that most of the houses in South Buckinghamshire were built long before Chiltern Railways appeared on the scene. The Metropolitan Railway a hundred years earlier had stimulated the urbanisation of Buckinghamshire.

 

[Mikey C]

I think you'll find that most of the houses in South Buckinghamshire were built long before Chiltern Railways appeared on the scene. The Metropolitan Railway a hundred years earlier had stimulated the urbanisation of Buckinghamshire.

A lot of the housing along the Chiltern route further north is much more recent, the M40 extension to Birmingham really opening up the area, also driving and being driven by the rail improvements. Towns like Bicester have massively expanded in recent years

 

[3141]

I think you'll find that most of the houses in South Buckinghamshire were built long before Chiltern Railways appeared on the scene. The Metropolitan Railway a hundred years earlier had stimulated the urbanisation of Buckinghamshire.

I know that. The point is that thirty years ago rail usage was low enough for it to be feasible to contemplate re-extending the Metropolitan Line to Aylesbury to replace what went into Marylebone, and to divert the trains through High Wycombe to Paddington. The areas Marylebone serves today would have been less attractive to live in if it had closed and journeys into London were slower or less frequent, so at least some of the development over the past 30 years would not have happened. Maybe there would have been much more on the East side of London. Then the case for the tunnel you described wouldn't have been so strong.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

A lot of the housing along the Chiltern route further north is much more recent, the M40 extension to Birmingham really opening up the area, also driving and being driven by the rail improvements. Towns like Bicester have massively expanded in recent years

No argument about that. Much of southern England has experienced a considerable increase in housing in recent years. But the idea that Buckinghamshire was exclusively a rural backwater until Chiltern Railways started operations is very wide of the mark.

 

[3141]

Absolutely true. But who has suggested that Buckinghamshire was exclusively a rural backwater until Chiltern Railways started operations? Surely you didn't misinterpret my earlier comment in that way?

 

[Railwaysceptic]

I know that. The point is that thirty years ago rail usage was low enough for it to be feasible to contemplate re-extending the Metropolitan Line to Aylesbury to replace what went into Marylebone, and to divert the trains through High Wycombe to Paddington. The areas Marylebone serves today would have been less attractive to live in if it had closed and journeys into London were slower or less frequent, so at least some of the development over the past 30 years would not have happened. Maybe there would have been much more on the East side of London. Then the case for the tunnel you described wouldn't have been so strong.

We're in the realm of conjecture and there's a danger we'll all end up dancing on pinheads.

There is no reason to suppose that Buckinghamshire would not have experienced some housing growth even if the route out of Marylebone had closed, because many areas with no railway have also been developed.

With the huge change in attitudes to public transport, it is likely that sooner or later someone would have suggested reopening the line. Someone else would have noticed the capacity problems at Waterloo and Victoria and would suggest a Thameslink-like solution by building a Crossrail 2 tunnel from Clapham Junction under the West End to St. John's Wood Tunnel which would probably have been lying idle, boarded up.

 

[3141]

A very uncomfortable place to dance, I agree. My point is that if we imagine something having happened differently, many other things would gone differently as well. It is of course very difficult to identify all the things that would have happened differently or estimate by how much they would have changed. The same applies to our personal situations.

 

[Wirewiper]

I did once have the heretical thought that, once Crossrail was up and running, GWR HST services could be diverted to run into the disused Waterloo International platforms and Paddington closed. Of course it would never happen.

As for the Marylebone Coachway idea, well the early 1980s were heady days for coach operations with the new freedoms offered by Deregulation in 1980, and the surge in demand that followed the damaging 3-week 1982 rail strike when many former rail travellers transferred their allegiance. However I doubt National Express and other coach operators would have wanted to be saddled with the cost of building and maintaining such a facility, or of paying the high tolls that would have been required for such a scheme to be a profitable enterprise. And by 1985, the railways were beginning their long fight back.

 

[mr_jrt]

I'm sure I'm one of many that have had fanciful ideas over the years of what could be done with Marylebone, the problem is, as ever, that it's so poorly located - Paddington is bad enough, but Marylebone is even worse. If you were to ignore that issue though, and for some reason you also wanted to ignore the fact terminal capacity is a waste, hence through tunnels being so in-vogue) the best I could come up with was to do a redevelopment deal with BNP Paribas to re-acquire the land on which their HQ sits, expand the station over it, and pull down the existing train shed and have a massive joint oversite development replacing it to compensate them. You would need to also pull down several buildings blocking the former gaps between the second set of tunnels out to Finchley Road, and then finally figure out how to get more tracks between Finchley Road and Neasden Junction. Gawd knows if the Chiltern mainline beyond that would have capacity for more trains though.

No, I suspect the best options would be to serve the suburban Chiltern services as part of Crossrail 1 from OOC (to get them out of Marylebone completely), then to operate the short remaining suburban services (such as Aylesbury via Harrow) using the 3 short western platforms, and the longer mainline services using the 3 long ones. Even better would be to run all the mainline services into Paddington's freed-up surface platforms, but I suspect platform demand there would put the kibosh on anything like that.

 

[bbrez]

There was a London Reconnections article about this a few years ago https://www.londonreconnections.com/2014/near-terminal-case-saving-marylebone-rail-road-conversion/

The really big road schemes in London that didn't happen were the completion of the London Motorway Box (Ringway 1) and the Underways.

This has just reminded me of one of my favourite YT series.

 

[philabos]

Stayed very near there in the early 80's.
Quite the sleepy place at that time. I can well understand why alternative uses were considered but glad to see it come back.
I vaguely remember BR offices there at the time, is that correct?

 

[CyrusWuff]

Stayed very near there in the early 80's.
Quite the sleepy place at that time. I can well understand why alternative uses were considered but glad to see it come back.
I vaguely remember BR offices there at the time, is that correct?

What is now the Landmark Hotel was BR's Head Office for nearly 40 years after WWII, before being turned back into a hotel and reopening in 1993. Chiltern and Network Rail use most of the office space in the station, with the rest being used by The Office Group as shared offices, meeting rooms and the like.

 

[philabos]

Thanks for the confirmation.
Vaguely remember a few elderly local trains as the total traffic at the time.
The comeback is amazing.

 

[70014IronDuke]

Thanks for the confirmation.
Vaguely remember a few elderly local trains as the total traffic at the time.
The comeback is amazing.

<Pedantic> point of order: I don't think you've quite got it because it never 'went' or 'came' in the first place, IYSWIM.

Maybe during the wars, at odd nights when they used to run "Starlight Specials" in the 1950s and at times when trains were diverted from Euston c 1962-66 for electrification work - Marylebone could be considered busy* - but I think for much of it's existence it was a backwater of a London terminus. So this is more of a 'coming' than a 'comeback' Though it is amazing, I agree.
* Some might argue Marylebone was at it's busiest when it was used to shoot some scenes in the first Beatles feature film "A Hard Day's Night". (Should you wish to view them, these scenes are early in the film - fortunately - saving you the ordeal of watching a movie so inane it makes Elvis films look deeply intellectual.)

 

[Railwaysceptic]

I'm sure Marylebone was used in several films.

 

[70014IronDuke]

I'm sure Marylebone was used in several films.

I can quite believe it has been. (That only goes to strengthen my point - why was it repeatedly chosen for shoots?]

But not with 657 teenage screaming schoolgirls acting (badly) as crazed fans desperately running to - well, to do we don't know what - to the Fab Four.

 

[snowball]

<Pedantic> point of order: I don't think you've quite got it because it never 'went' or 'came' in the first place, IYSWIM.

<Pedantic> Like most of the so-called points of order in this forum, that's a point of fact, not a point of order.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

I can quite believe it has been. (That only goes to strengthen my point - why was it repeatedly chosen for shoots?]

First, because until Chiltern Trains, Marylebone was not a busy station! Second, much of Marylebone Station is unchanged from when it first opened, so it's ideal for a period drama.

 

[urbophile]

John Betjeman likened it to a public library from Nottingham. Probably the library would have been busier and less quiet.