Certain stations on the Tube originally belonged to the "Mainline" railways, particularly the extremities of the Central (both East and west), and parts of the Northern Line. And one could argue, the Metropolitan (which was designed as a mainline railway that just happened to go underground) I think there are a few New York City subway stations originally like that, ditto some stations on the outer branches of Boston's green "T" line. With the ex-Great Eastern stops on the Central line, some of them (including Epping) did still share with "mainline" trains (by 1948, British Rail) at the start and stop of service, that is, a handful of commuter trains that shared tracks and platforms with the Underground (but branched off) , a couple of trains from Epping and Loughton ran to Stratford (Liverpool Street on Sundays) until 1970. And freight did last into the 60s. While the Central line extension was stalled because of World War 2, the "tunnel" part of the loop had its tubes done by this point, so part of it was used as an underground factory for aircraft parts! There was an even weirder part of the Central line. In a way, like part of Boston's red line, this part of London's red line was only part of the Central Line because they said so. Between Epping and Ongar, in 1949, there was a steam train shuttle that had the trains and staff provided by British Rail, but it was officially "part" of the Underground. In 1957 that part was electrified, but they did it on the cheap. Because of their "light" power plant, they ran half-length trains, just one or two, and seldom would trains from the rest of the line go there (exception: one Saturday a year, a half-length train ran the rest of the line to connect to North Weald, because there was a Royal Air Force airshow around there. Until 1981, North Weald had the last semaphore signal on the London Underground (was a passing loop, in 1981 it was removed and the line became a strict single track shuttle) And while no Tube service has passed Epping since 1994, Ongar is considered "point Zero" on the entire network, distance (in kilometres) is either distance from Ongar on the Central line, or "transferred" distance (using a common station or something similar as the "transfer point") on other lines. Generally when the British mention "depot", it means "yard" in North American usage. The term is used regardless whether it's outside (like many of them are), or has "sheds" or "garages" of some sort (such as the sheds on the Bakerloo line, the "North Sheds" north of Queen's Park are passed through by all trains, because of the layout of third and fourth rail due to the switches, the motors, lighting, and ventilation will go on and off), or even entirely underground (White City on the Central Line and Waterloo depot on the Waterloo and City Line are the only such depots)
Really great information and that looks so neat there! I noticed you were the only one in around when you were walking those stations. Were you the only one on the train? Looking forward to seeing more!
i’m already back! as i think i said in my stoughton video a couple weeks ago, i went to many places in europe this trip, and i’ll be posting european content until april of next year (interspersed with NY content!)
No and never been. London had mostly double decker trams, some are preserved non-operational, like in the London Transport Museum. PCC were built in Europe mostly for Belgium, The Netherlands, and Italy. In Italy also a significant number of Peter Witt Cars was running. Also you may want to count the Czech built Tatra cars and their derivates as PCC, although some moved quite far from the original over the decades. But at least up to the T6 series from the 90es you still can find several clues that they were developed starting from the real PCC license builds Tatra T1 and T2. Tatra T-Series of all ages ran and run in most of Eastern Europe.
PCCs are a uniquely American invention, although some do exist in Europe! stay tuned for my Prague videos, though, as a PCC-derived design exists there!
i am (and most of my audience is) north american, so “subway” is the generic term and what i’m going to call it - just like how i’d call a line in DC or Boston a “subway line” not a “Metro line” or a “T line”. of course london calls it the tube, but as a generic term, as was the goal here, subway is what i’ll use
its not the weirdest subway line because its not a fucking subway. sbway either means a place that sells sandwiches, or a foot tunnel, the undergeound in which, is neither
That's true but perhaps no need to be quite so harsh. He's clearly a young lad and North American (?) where they do call this type of system a subway. Yeah educate him that in London it's referred to as the tube or the underground (and of course tube only refers to deep level lines) but no need to swear etc. After all, it's only the London one that is called The Underground/Tube with 'metro' used for similar systems elsewhere in the country and Europe.
In America (where he is from) they will probably tell you that "underground" is either a shopping complex that is mostly located sub-surface. Or things called "underground" are illegal or dubious at least and covered up - but for sure not means "underground" a transport system 🤦♂
i have an american accent because i am american -- this is a video in my europe series, i'll be interspersing european content and NY content for the next few months i have a stutter (and i've had one since i was young) but i have worked to overcome it -- at times it can be hard but i never give up just because of this!
