I've used Finsbury Park Station a lot over the years, and was aware that there had been lots of switching around underground, so was interested to find out what the actual history of it all was.
The prevailing orthodoxy now is to make interchange long and tedious as a means of providing a buffer for passenger flow (hence the long corridors in the new layout at king’s cross). I guess the transport system is a victim of its own success.
On the flip side having cross-platform interchanges also meant the Victoria line had to use smaller & older tunnels & platforms previously used by older deep level Tube lines, imposing more constraints on its loading gauge
The Victoria line has many shortfalls (often only one entrance/exit, not enough escalators, drab stations, just lack of capacity) but it's a shame that cross platform interchanges are not the thing at the moment
@@grassytramtracks the problem of not enough entrances can be fixed (and has already happened at key stations like King-cross or Victoria). But the alignment of tunnels can mostly not be fixed later
It’s not often a London piece of rail infrastructure ends up being used for its original purpose after multiple go rounds. It usually gets down graded to a tram line or light rail. Nice to see all that work being put to its full potential. Also interesting to see that there is not a well maintained , generally accessible map of the underground features of London. Something that I would have assumed just existed.
There is a general map of the larger features - water / sewer / electric / gas, Developers are encouraged to re-survey and update any maps they have with their own surveys - cable companies did a lot of digging back in the 1990s for example at a rate faster than the paperwork was always completed to
Great video with fantastic graphics ! I travelled through Finsbury Park almost every working day for 29 years, but never realised its history was so complex.
Many thanks - I think this is the first time I've seen a really clear explanation of how Finsbury Park Underground station has developed. I look forward to more like this.
I'd forgotten I'd done that Northern Heights graphic. It was quite a surprise to see it pop up! The 3D plans of Finsbury Park were great and improved my understanding of how the tube platforms relate to the station above.
Thanks. Interesting to hear from the person who made the graphic- I hope I've cited the image properly as I'm keen to give proper credit when people are kind enough to publish under a CC licence.
Absolutely phenomenal video. As someone who is a huge nerd about the Northern City Line and a local commuter on it, this video is absolutely exceptional, the diagrams are SO GREAT! keep up the amazing work legend!
Your diagrams are excellent, and this is a good potted history of London's spookiest railway. I do hope it will be continued - what happened to the building site and the piles? Also please speak more slowly, nobody here is getting charged by the minute.
@@distractionbucket7454 Just s-l-o-w d-o-w-n mate, everything else is already ok. PS: YT just asked me for feedback on this video and I gave you five stars and max. praise ...
Not certain what happened to the building site. It was an unusual bit of a land transaction. The Railway owned ALL the rights below surface level, but never as such bought the surface of the land nor the land itself - normally a clear wayleave is drawn up but this bit was a different in the original transaction.. Somehow the land ended up with Islington? council, whom then did a general sell off of surplus bits they owned to raise money in one of the central govt cutbacks of funding. The purchasors never checked which land title they had actually bought (as the language of who owned what was written in a legalease that predated even the 1924 Land Act legislation), and then submitted a planning application, which was passed as the above ground only mattered as to what it looked like, and the below ground of course fell to the owner of such rights to object despite planning permission (which does not override other legal rights) . I never followed up what did happen above ground - I suppose it is/was possible to build a supporting raft which is supported on adjoining land below ground clear of the tunnel areas. The land itself for many years was a public highway, then the road junction was re-modelled and it became a sort of garden area then the land as stated was sold off
@@distractionbucket7454 Please don't slow down. You are speaking at a normal speed, and there is no reason to speak artificially slowly just because you are narrating.
@@distractionbucket7454 For a while the Weekend service was not operated, made getting to that bit of north london a bit tricky, there used to be transport collectors sales at Islington Town Hall and the station was handy for that
3:00 I wonder if in seventy years time, some commuter services into Paddington might make use of the mainline train sized Elizabeth Line tunnels to finally give everyone who lives west of Pad and works in the City, what we've all been dreaming of. A direct service from Exeter St. David's to Liverpool Street.
Oo, this was really, really good. Your diagrams are the best. You can afford to go a bit slower when describing them though as I had to rewind a couple of times to take it in. But this was excellent stuff.
Give it back to TfL. The only sensible option is to get some extended lines from the north to Finsbury Park and then connect Moorgate to the W'loo City Line at Bank, open platforms at Blackfriars and then at Waterloo continue the line via Elephant as the previously suggested Bakerloo Extension to Lewisham - that is really good way to connect important nodes between north and South East London.
Far more likely is that the inner suburban tier of service on the East Coast Main Line and the Hertford Loop will be transfered to TfL management as part of the 'London Overground' network. This happened to a range of services operating out of Liverpool Street, and has been suggested for other service groups at various termini around London.
While this case is especially dumb and avoidable, in general there are a lot of tunnels - mostly fairly old now - under London and we don't entirely know where they all are, even for some active ones
I'd love to see a video like this about the other end of this line: Moorgate. including 3d graphics! and showing how come they built it so this line goes no further than Moorgate even after all these years.
Next stop I think is the vaults of the Bank of England, and the Corporation of London tended to be a bit awkward, it might have been tricky to get parliamentary approval for a duplication of a line say to London Bridge and south as it might have been deemed the existing SECR route into Cannon Street and the City and South London Railway ( with whom there must have been an agreement to share at least Moorgate ) were sufficient. Additionally the Met had Moorgate area already on its books so a joint station there would be able to sell tickets via Widened Lines or Northern City Line,
@@distractionbucket7454 I dont think I recall what was on the platforms before network south east got branded everywhere. I assume LT roundels were removed , but there was quite an period of almost out of use - have some detail somewhere- probably the Connor and Butler magazines have a bit of detail
ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-bM_MwmIUrY8.html is a great video by the Hidden London team exploring the old tunnels mentioned in this video!
You don't mention the February 1976 Moorgate disaster, the worst peacetime accident on the Underground. A train failed to brake at the end of the line.
Yeah, I might have to do a follow up at some point- had meant to focus on Finsbury Park for this video but there's a few other interesting points about the line and the other stations to mention.
@@distractionbucket7454 I'm led to believe (perhaps incorrectly) that the railway switched from being a tube line to a normal railway in large part due to the accident. If so it does have relevance to your story.
Your voice sounds familiar, and if it is you, then this is not anywhere near the level of your usual output. This needs tidying up. With a yard broom. By the end of it id forgotten what it was meant to be about.
