Streetcar or tram? In a quote commonly attributed to George Bernard Shaw, the United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language.
In the US (not sure about Canada) it's either streetcar or trolley. Yes, we do get confused occasionally when you call shopping carts "trolleys" (as in the Beatles' "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da"). A tram(way) is what the Emirates Air Line is (sometimes); do you call that an "aerial tramway", "gondola", "skyride", or something else. That said, I'm just going by the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway in California; I don't know if that's the standard term in North America, or if there even is one.
@@andyjay729 the Emirates Air Line thing would - in the UK - most commonly be referred to as a "cable car". I believe technically that's a term supposed to be reserved for large single cars shuttling in pairs rather than small ones on a continuously circulating cable loop, but common usage doesn't reflect that distinction.
@@peeky44 anyone who wants a really detailed discussion on this, and generally cable-powered-transportation nomenclature, see RMTransit with his explainer video
@@andyjay729 For me: Gondola: boxed in car suspended from a cable. Tram: the people movers you find in places like airports. Streercar: historic vehicles like you find on San Francisco's E and F lines. Light Rail: what Europeans call trams. Edit: Cable Car: The things in San Francisco.
I love how you manage to dig up all these abstruse facts, the wheeling and dealing and thickening plots. Sometimes I shake my head and wonder how it ever all came together. Good stuff.
There I was thinking, that the old boy had exhausted tales from the the tube, what with his wanderings into main line and purely loco territory, then he come up with this masterpiece. Not only fresh, interesting and informative, but also a bonus for the growing C. T. Yerkes fan club.
So when it comes to the word used to describe it in the US, it depends where you live. On the East Coast, they’re called trolleys. On the West Coast, they’re called streetcars. But the more recent tramways built are just called light rail. I used to live in Jersey City which has a pretty big light rail system that’s been in operation since 2000 called the Hudson-Bergen Light rail, it connects Jersey City with the rest of Hudson County (except Secaucus; but you can take a train to Secaucus from Hoboken) and soon Bergen County. The vast majority of people in Jersey City use transit and it doesn’t take long to see why. The light rail connects with different PATH stations, where you can go directly into Manhattan (buses are of course an option too; as well as NY Waterway ferries). It’s consistently ranked one of the best transit cities in the US. Even Newark has a light rail system, which they call the Newark City Subway. And like Britain, it too has abandoned tram history as there is an abandoned tunnel which the trams (and later buses used to get underground to the Newark Public Service Terminal (now PSEG headquarters) from the street. It hasn’t been in use since the 60s, but the tracks underground have been repurposed for use on the system’s Broad Street Station branch. If you don’t want to pay for a NYC apartment and don’t mind commuting, Hudson County or Newark are strategic places to live
Here in Toronto we call them streetcars but a light rail line is opening eventually, now 2 years behind schedule. The LRT will run in its own ROW and there is no street running.
There HAS to be a Charles Tyson Yerkes 'spin-off' series! Maybe one where CTY travels round in a van solving crimes - or 'Charles Tyson Yerkes Ghosthunter Extreme!' I'd pay good money to see that!
The map at 11:58 is most absorbing. I never knew that Belsize didn't have any "Park" suffix in its tender years, nor that the late South Kentish Town had a previous incarnation as Castle Road. But then maybe I haven't been paying attention to ALL the lessons in class. Nothing to do with the Piccadilly but then we don't always play by the rules.
Jago: If you've ever wondered why there are so many torturous curves on the Underground, that's why The property owners: *Everything that has transpired has done so according to my design*
Great work as ever Jago. I grew up very close to a Piccadilly station and have therefore always had a soft spot for the line- so this video is intriguing. As for the tram/streetcar thing- totally understandable!
A tale of multiple companies with many different ideas, in a complicated pile-up, and no one with the money to really get those ideas even close to working? Yerkes: *Now this looks like a job for me*
Although the only part of the Deep Level District to be built was the section between South Kensington and Hammersmith, its purpose in relieving the District Line has been acheived instead by extending the Piccadilly services over two of the District Railway's original four western branches, to Rayners Lane and Hounslow. Between Ravenscourt Park and Turnham Green the Piccadilly runs over track built by the London & South Western Railway, and only transferred to the London Underground in 1932.
It must have been sheer hell to research and to script in such a concise and entertaining fashion. And Yerkes appears every so often to bait our interest. I managed to keep up but don't ask questions.
This is not relevant to this video but I thought I would comment about my experience of the relatively new underground stations I have visited recently. There are not many that have escalators. Stairs, stairs stairs! The DLR for example was built for mountain goats! Yes I know that there are lifts. These are not always in working order. Also the distance between lines and platforms is exhausting. I am 70 and I find these stairs and distances so tiring that I avoid these stations. Canary Wharf, Canning Town and Stratford are good examples. How someone in a wheel chair would manage if the lift was out of order I don’t know.
It's noticeable how many stations have one lift and no ramps. That's just asking for trouble. Plenty of people over 70 keep active though, don't let age be a barrier to mobility!
@@hairyairey to be honest, can you imagine a ramp that long!!! if you for some reason started to lose control at the top, you will be a speeding missile by the time you hit bottom... the impact does not bear thinking about!
@@stanislavkostarnov2157 that's why you have assistance - Peterborough station has ramps to all platforms - way too steep for wheelchair users but they can be helped.
The Brompton & Piccadilly Circus Railway originally incorporated a branch to Walham Green but people and organisations in Chelsea campaigned against it so it was dropped. There are of course still people in Chelsea campaigning against any proposed railway today. Yerkes beating Morgan has deprived Hackney of an underground railway also.
after 2 years following your channel, i was beginning to think you were never going to cover the Piccadilly. i began to wonder if you had something against it or something. I always stayed in Russel Sq. during my visits from LA. i always enjoyed taking the stairs 😂
A lifetime ago, I had an academic exam at a Russell Square location. On the day of the exam, I got off at Russell Square tube station to discover that the lifts were out of order, so had to climb the spiral stairs. These days, that is not an option. 😔
The odd layout at South Ken, and the wriggly bit between there and the foirmer Brompton Road station, , are both legacies of the lash-up between the Piccadilly & Brompton and Deep-Level District projects. South Kensington was built with step-plate junction tunnels in anticipation of there being a junction there, but only the "branch" to Piccadilly and beyond was ever built - the need for the main line DLD was overcome by the improved frequencies possible with electrification of the original District. And the planned terminus of the P&B was near the V&AMuseum, parallel with the DLD, so a sharp pair of curves were needed to link up with the alignment of the District station at South Kensington.
Good morning, Mr Jago’s videos are always worth rewatching after a time, but this one needed an immediate rewatch just to makes sense of it all. Well done sir!
Thoroughly enjoyed on this warm morning in the Vienna woods, coffee and toast with marmalade and a very interesting episode 👌🏽👍🏽😊☕ thank you Sir for the time and effort on a superb history lesson.. 😊👏🏽
Jago, it makes perfect sense your not calling them tram lines. Ol' Jerkies ran streetcars not trams. i doubt you'd call an American boxcar a goods wagon !:-) 💜🙏⚡️
Amazing, thank you for getting to crips with all that and presenting it in a very logical way. When I visit London the Piccadilly Line always seems to the tube line I need to travel on! On one of your slides I noticed a tube station at the Albert Hall which having spent the last three evenings attending Proms concerts there would have been very handy - it has meant the long drag of a walk through that tunnel and back from ‘South Ken’. I can now reflect next year when I’m back attending concerts that somebody had thought of this!!
I appreciate how at 0:35min you say "it all began in 1890" and in the background to the right is a b/w photograph of a woman wearing a Victorian walking skirt - which is quite exactly what women in 1890 would wear 😃 I wouldn't have pegged you as a dress historian, Jago, but I like the (intentional?) nod towards it 😊
With all the underhanded dealings of the Underground, Yerkes might have made history and made the Tube work, but he is still a right, scheming Charlie.
Good ol' Mr Monopoly! Did you know that we're SUPPOSED to get angry and frustrated when playing the game with CTY's visage? It's supposed to highlight how we're kept in the relative gutter and have to slave for our masters, but the message has been lost over the intervening decades!
From your former colonies, the term TRAM is almost never used here. Streetcar was used for horse drawn as well as electric street railways. These were most commonly called TROLLEYS. One has to love all the variations in our common language. Or, is it?
When Americans say "tram", we're usually referring either to some kind of aerial cable car, or to a small trackless train that runs on rubber tires, such as at the Disney parking lots.
Think about the era of Yerkes and the GWR and all the others rail entrepreneurs of the time, it would make a brilliant board game in the style of Monopoly. Sure there's Railway Tycoon games galore out there, but this particular period is full of intrigue, risk, and strategy. And a touch of humour. All the best ingredients for a good old fashioned board game. Tube Wars!
If one stands at the east end of the eastbound Piccadilly Line platform at South Kensington it will be noticed that the station diameter tunnel continues beyond the end of the platform. Looking down the tunnel, the step plate junction that would have permitted access to the District express line is visible. To avoid the easement fees Jago mentions, the Piccadilly goes through two very tight reverse curves, 16 chains IIRC, before arriving at Brompton Road. Or rather not arriving as Brompton Road closed in 1932.
It's not just the easement fees. The B&P's authorised alignment ran under Cromwell Road, past the Victoria & Albert Museum. To connect to the Deep Level District at South Kensington required either a realignment - expensive in legal and planning fees, plus the need to omit or re-site Brompton Road station - or an S-bend to join the two together. They went for the latter
I'm amazed anything coherent ended up getting built after all that. What a crazy time it must have been. So different to today's centrally planned affairs. How boring!
Wow! I thought I was pretty up on Underground history, but most of this was either new or forgotten to me. Yerkes may have been a dodgy character, but you can't help wondering what the 'Tube' would have been like today without him. Foreigners are often puzzled by the way the British railways system was built - rivalry and non-cooperation (and often, outright insanity) , rather than central planning, and (mostly) they are quite right. But the London Underground is much more sensibly laid out (compare and contrast with New York!) - and most of that seems to be down to Yerkes and his influence. So, whatever we may think of him as a character, thank God he was around. Pity someone like him wasn't involved a few years earlier, during the 'Great Railway Mania' period - then we might have ended up with a much more sensible national railway system. No need for 'Beeching' and now enjoying an efficient, functioning, even possibly profitable, railway.
Always found the story of how the Piccadilly line came to be built one of the most interesting parts of the early history of the deep tubes. I remember reading that the reason for the takeover of London United by Yerkes (as well as the bonus of the trams acting as feeders to the District and Piccadilly) was specifically that with the requirement for a full west - east line, the LUER proposal could simply be dropped which would then see off the Piccadilly, City and North East London, leaving the GNP&BR with no competing scheme. So although the LUER certainly played a part in the story of not just the Piccadilly but the whole Underground group, the original section of the Piccadilly tube only consisted of the other three proposals and connecting sections (minus the deep level District east of South Kensington, of course)
Whew ... the Jago Hazzard - Charles Yerkes drinking game was quite intense today. With all the appearances of "Charlie", I think we'll all need to order a THIRD round of pints. (Thank you for the best part of my Sunday mornings). CHEERS!
Another fascinating tale. I see there is a picture memorial to Mr Yerkees in Oval tube station - but was he a hero or a villain? - he was unscrupulous and was imprisoned for embezzlement in Chicago but later played a vital role in the development of the London tube.
Canada generally calls trams "streetcars" or "LRTs" (light rail transit). Confusingly, at one time, Toronto had "trolleybuses' that connected to the same overhead wires as streetcars did. The USA generally calls trams "trolleys", as in "The Trolley Song" that Judy Garland sang in "Meet Me in St. Louis". San Francisco has "cable cars", referenced in the song "I Left My Heart in San Francisco".
A tramcar running along a street can rightly be called a streetcar. On the other hand, if it operates a roadside tramway in some thinly populated area, such as the Brill tramway, it's definitely not a streetcar.
Ooh, I like that sales pitch at 4:47 or so about not having to _worry,_ not to mention that idea that there are copious staff there to _help_ you in a process that's designed to succeed. I don't know if it was ever true, but I think that's a universe I'd like to live in, please. I was once from Enfield (life is long and complicated), so unsurprisingly I have memories of getting on at Heathrow and dozing until it all stops moving, going to see those who were still there. You'd think I'd have paid attention to the ride, but after the time spent crossing the water it's generally just a blur, with nothing but a sort of vague ambience of Englishness soaking in. Er, what was my point? Oh, right, so thanks for doing the pretty blue one!
I always love the brutal business bitchery of the everyday part of history that most people leave out... And you feature! Thank you! Because let's face it these petty squabbles are what always keep really good ideas from getting off the ground... And yes in some cases do get solved and things get built. Well done as always! 12 points from Canada! ;-)
It’s been 20 years also since I was last in London, but when I watch this footage of the trains entering and departing underground stations, it all comes back to me so vividly, right down to the smells and the rush of ram air. Oh, to be in London, once more!!! Thank you for your excellent and well researched videos.
If we are still playing the drinking game when you mention dodgy Charles from Chicago there will be an awful lot of extremely drunk people after watching this marvellous video.
Still love the word moribund. However, through you, Jago, these pre-cursor lines live on, and we can remain enthralled by your tales about them. Thank you!
Slightly off topic, but I agree that "streetcar" is not a good name for trams. I get where it comes from, it's a railway car or carriage, but it runs on the street. But since the coining of the term, the word "car" has become associated with the Automobile, so in English of the 21st century, the word "streetcar" seems a bit odd. Also, "tram" is shorter and much more fun to say.
By the bye, a thought came to me as you mentioned proposals for lines that went nowhere, and were just a way of making money. George Hudson, the infamous railway king, may have been a fraud in the end, but by God, he built the lines. How much of Northern England is still connected by lines he had a hand in. I'd love you to do more on Hudson
Jago Hazard: Cutting the Gordian Knot of London Underground/Architectural History, making it as easy to understand as my 1982 London Underground® tea towel and far more entertaining !:-) 💜🙏⚡️
A lot of your videos make me realise how much nicer London looked decades ago - before the blitz and the 60s fad of tearing down beautiful old buildings and when London looked and felt like an English city.
Very interesting video. The Piccadilly is actually my least used line on the Tube, having only done the stations in Zone 1 plus one trip to Heathrow Terminal 4 in 2013. Gonna try doing all the stops I need in one day in maybe september, leaving Aldwych for a day trip with my girlfriend.
You should contact Julian Fellowes (the creator of Downton Abbey), about the potential for a historical drama that covers the building of the Underground lines. With what you covered here, the Metropolitan/District rivalry, and Charles Yerkes, there is plenty of material to start with. Plus I'm sure there's more.
Thank you, excellent video. The picture of Alperton brought back memories of going to school in the 1970s - trying to avoid catching pneumonia while waiting on the platform every winter!
Having had my mind boggled at the complexity of all this, not to mention getting thoroughly drunk, thanks to the number of times CTY got mentioned, I wonder if there's any mileage to be got from the creation of a board game based on "Monopoly", but instead, the aim being to build and control a successful network of underground railways in London. Bonuses to be had from successfully raising large sums of capital, whilst having no intention of building anything, or forcing your competitors to build hideously unprofitable blocking lines.
thks Jago. Parliament is always a player in these tales but I don't think you've done one that focusses on the role of parliament - committees, mates' and old school networks ... and of course Yerkes...
1:35 Understandable and respectable. I am from the United States and sometimes on the social medias I do the same when talking about Britain's rail infrastructure.
I tell you what, it's a good job the redoubtable Chicago gangster didn't buy up a tube to Arsenal as well, or you'd never have been allowed to have the video online, given its northern terminus.
I've noticed that sometimes your maps are a little bit, well, weird. For example, in this video (7:10) you show a map of a planned line. But your "Chelsea" station is in a very strange place relative to South Kensington! I've noticed this on other maps, too (one showing the district line to Wimbledon). Some sort of map dyslexia going on?
Er...wha...um...right. Could you repeat the part just after - um, well, all of it? Wow, and I thought, growing up, that the Piccadilly Line was just my simple way of getting to and from Ruislip.
My head was spinning, with that lot. And that's with already having heard that Strand Station was the through station, built with two platforms, that was originally hoped to be extended to Waterloo. I think I would have been more confused, if you had not included all those useful maps. Next time you do one of these, I think you might need to put all the maps on screen together, and play Dad's Army Music, while the railway barons fight it out and their railway lines merge or vanish. ;)
Thanks for this. I was brought up in north London and the Piccadilly, which was always my way of accessing central London, will always feel like 'my' line (even though I don't live in London any more).
All these mentions of Charles Yerkes led to me looking him up and determining that, yes, he *was* the Yerkes who funded Yerkes Observatory, but he was *not* the Yerkes of the (former) Yerkes Primate Center (that was the apparently unrelated psychologist/eugenicist/primatologist Robert M. Yerkes, whose reputation is rather in eclipse these days). Charles T. Yerkes is the one who has a crater on the Moon named after him. This is what you get for funding astronomers.
The Piccadilly Line used to operate a shuttle service from Holborn to Strand. And would of extend from Strand to Waterloo. And to South London (such as Clapham Junction, Clapham, Croydon or Wimbledon). As the shuttle service from Holborn to Strand is not in service any more. And there are future plans to reopen York Way tube station that would become a out of station interchange with Maiden Lane railway station on the London Overground North London Line. If both York Way and Maiden Lane stations to reopen.
I think this video needed a few more diagrams and annotations to clarify which track and which company you're talking about at any given point. You may need to spell it out to keep us [or at least adhd me] engaged. This video had a problem of raising a few visual questions but not giving immediate answers, and what I mean by that is showing those abandoned and re-purposed stations like York Road. It appears on screen and I'm like what happened here? before vanishing and going somewhere else.
