South London is a sparse area for any Tfl services, particularly by the London Underground with only 31 stations in this area. Fortunately, I have a plan to change it!
@@paulturner8372 First Bakerloo Extension proposal along the Old Kent Road was in 1898! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baker_Street_and_Waterloo_Railway#New_Cross_&_Waterloo_Railway_bill,_1898
The Metro train services south of London should be transferred from SouthEastern and Southern to London Overground and run on a turn up and travel timetable, like the Tube. It is shocking that areas in close proximity to central London have only a half hourly service with overcrowded trains.
Would it not make more sense to create an East-West tube line with one end at Heathrow Airport and going east to intersect at such places as Richmond, Southfields, Stockwell, New Cross (Gate?), Lewisham, and end at Dartford? Other communities in between those Tube stations would be connected for the first time, and the great volume of travelers going to and from Heathrow wouldn't have to add to the congestion on all the Tube lines north of the Thames?
Why split the tunnelling when tunnelling can be stacked as they are on the central line and Jubilee (at westminster). Patching, stitching together bits and pieces... when xRail2 and xRail3 would be a faster, high capacity, high frequency. The Northern Line already operates at near maximum capacity of 30tph. Morden is the Longest time a person is comfortable being on a crowded tube. Adding additional stops on the existing NL = Slower journey time than the already Long Journey. It is Faster, larger trains, with air con, more seating, up to 250m long trainsets from Reading can get into London FASTER than a person who has to 'Slogggg' it in bad air, crowded, hunched over, etc from Morden. You do not need 4 platforms for terminating trains... they can do as they do on the LizPurp westbound at Paddington... stop at usual station and then pull into a mid-tracks siding and reverse to join the line as an east bound service. The tube lines are heavily over crowded, running at peak times at well over 100% design capacity The Future of London Transport is to have Berne Gauge trainsets running across London getting people from Reading, Gatwick Ebbsfleet, Chelmsford, Luton, etc... into central London in under 20 minutes. Your patchwork is pretty but it does not get people door to desk in under 30 minutes when they work in the Heart of London (The City, The Westend, and Canary Wharf).
Fascinating stuff, great detail and enthusiasm. TFL need to sign you up now as your talent for future planning can only improve. Well done young Sir 👌 you have another subscriber.
Building tube lines through south London is more expensive owing to the ground conditions and all don’s notorious clay soil. A much better solution would be for TfL to run metro services throughout London and take routes over from SouthEastern, running a turn up and go service. South London is poorly served by rail with half hourly services being the norm for part of the day. Absolutely crazy.
Very nice video. On your proposed Northern Line Extension, I'm not sure why you would want to demolish property south of Morden Station, when you have a train depot there. Loose some of the land there, for tunnels, and avoid an expensive battle against local NIMBYs. Further south, it looks like you want to share track with National Rail lines. That's a non-starter. National Raiil platforms are set high and tube trains are much lower than that height. That makes it impossible to have level boarding compliance for both types of trains. However, I do think you can work around the problem by building a pair of elevated lines above the existing lines. And, to allow for cross-platform interchanges to work, you should move one of the Network Rai tracks up into the air so that both the northbound platforms are together on one level and both the southbound platforms are together. You did another thing I thought was weird, when you said that you would diverge the Northern Line to avoid going through a cemetery. While forcing living people to move is undesirable, if it can be avoided, moving dead bodies to a new cemetery, outside London, doesn't hurt people. The station you showed in your video, to the south of the cemetary had a bent platform. That is a really bad idea. London Underground already has too many "mind the gap" stations, and just like the height problem is dangerous, gaps between trains and platforms are also dangerous. Go look up some information on the risks caused by the "platform train interface" and I think you will be able to come up with much safer station designs that cause less injuries, as well as being better for passengers who need step free access to trains. If your current proposals are not already "illegal" under accessibility and safety laws, they should be. We really need to not saddle future generations with stations that need to be rebuilt to fix oblivious flaws. You have a good head on your shoulders, so I think a bit of research will help you future-proof your plans. Turning back trains before Croydon is also a major mistake. As is not extending the line beyond Croydon. As is not having a direct interchange with East Croydon and Tramlink. If you swing your line north, before it gets near Croydon you could have it go under both West Croydon and East Croydon and continue east towards the major "rail desert" east of Croydon. Shirley Park Golf Club would be a good thing to demolish and replace with a station. Having said that, an East-West line through Croydon would probably be better off being a London Overground loop around London to big important stations in Outer London. BTW, for the new infill Northern Liine Station you called Tooting Graveney, your business case should be both to connect the Northern Line to Thameslink and also to provide a Thamslink station for St George's Hospital. You should maybe even call the station St George's Hospital. On your proposed Victoria Line Extension, you mentioned that Brixton's National Rail Station was bad, but stopped short of saying that it should be rebuilt and passed over to TfL. The obvious thing to do is to demolish or partially the buildings above the Victoria Line entrance and build two platforms that connect London Overground to the Victoria Line. Anyhoo, nice work. I look forward to seeing more videos from you.
Would be nice but unrealistic. The Epsom ext may happen but definitely not the Croydon one. It’ll simply be too much under in some and over capacity in other sections of the northern line. Rather if the Victoria line was to be extended along the A23 via Streatham Hill/ Telford Av and either via A23 to Croydon or Crystal Palace then croydon it would benefit croydon more. This is purely because the Vic is faster, and more frequent as it has no branches
Completely agree with this extension. It is unfair how much further north the current TFL services go. If Southern wants to hold onto the contract they have got to increase time of trains to one every few minutes similar to TFL. They need to do the Sutton line first as it's a London Borough and pays for TFL through taxes.
Lets just say if the london underground extended. the district will extend to startford international. metropolitan line and piccdilly line will go to dartford airport. london overground could extend to gatwick airport. same to the district line and it will connect with the metropolitan line for the first time by adding a stop which is aldgate. and metropolitan line will extend to gatwick airport. plus with more lines we would also see many stops that will be cool! Note: these are just ny ideas so they are not real.
Nobody builds loops to turn trains around these days, as they require too much space, and if a driver is to take a break, the train has nowhere to be overtaken...
The District line was supposed to extend to Sutton from Wimbledon and the Northern line was going to join it. That's why it was extended to Morden in the first place! But in the end, the line from Wimbledon to Sutton was built as a main line railway leaving the end of the Northern line tantalizingly close to it, but never actually connecting with it!
what you propose would break the 1930s agreement for the tube to not encroach on the territory of the Southern electric - this is why the Northern line stopped at Morden and further south the Southern built on the alignment the Underground planned to use instead. The Bakerloo line to Lewisham is different as it will follow a route (Old Kent Road) that is poorly served by the mainline. The Victoria line can barely cope as it does, so extending further south is unlikely. The District to Wimbledon is very different - it dates from the steam train era and until 1941 both District and London Southwestern Railway (LSWR) / Southern served part of the route. Also, the running rights the LSWR gave to the District Railway to use their tracks to Wimbledon (and Richmond) included it (the LSWR) using District Railway tracks to High Street Kensington, although the LSWR never used this rights. Crossrail line 2 will see mainline trains crossing London in new tunnels, with the same status as the Elizabeth line.
Great video. Just a few gripes I have are the naming of some stations such as Laurel Gate and the hilarious sounding Nonsuch Park. Change them to the names of the main roads or the names of areas they serve so that passengers know what area they are going to (eg. Change Croydon Central to Fairfield Halls which everyone in Croydon knows). Also change the locations of the terminis to more convenient locations with already built connections like Bromley North/South or East Croydon. I also couldn't help seeing the huge gap of services in the Greenwich borough so another suggestion I have is to extend the Elizabeth line via a branch to places like Eltham, Mottingham and Chislehurst, as they do not have train stations near their town centres and would take commuter traffic off the roads and buses. These suggestions are very unrealistic and unlikely to be built but it is fun to brainstorm ideas of how to better connect South London.
Really interesting video, I noticed when you zoomed out your map, you had several proposals for Hertfordshire and Essex/ Romford. I hope you do a video on those too. Turning the Abbey Line into a crossrail for Hertfordshire would be a good idea, extending the central line to Harlow is actually seriously being considered by the town council and that branch off of Hainault to Brentwood via Collier Row would take a lot of pressure off of the Elizabeth Line. Also appreciate seeing Chingford being connected to Waltham Abbey by rail given there isn't even a direct bus between the two anymore!
Nicely thought out. However, when I lived just south of Sutton (in Belmont) it occurred to me that the branch ;line to Epsom Downs was rather poor. It might have made more sense for your Morden to Sutton link to pick up and reuse this line as an Underground line. The link beyond Brixton maybe easier to accomplish by reusing overground lines. One might observe that there are many old routes that are little used or abandoned by overground lines which might be brought back into use as Underground extension lines. If anything is likely to succeed in south London it will be routes that require minimal work to construct and while tunnels are not out of the question, they do tend to be expensive in this country. I like the thinking though. Maybe you will make it happen in due course.
You might want to look into the existence of the former london underground owned sports fields at north cheam. It seems that there was a plan to extend the northern line to terminate either there, or potentially at Epsom or Sutton, exactly as you said. It is both good and bad that this never happened. Really good videos by Geoff Marshall and Jago Hazzard about this too.
A Croydon station a lil further back from your station would be great since that site is currently a massive hole in the ground. It's interesting that your location is parallel to the old Croydon Central hence forth the sunken part of Queens Gardens. My mum would love this as we live in Thornton Heath and she works in the Stonecot area. Love the video, research and concept you've come up with.
The Northern line extension is a jolly interesting idea and you have put together a well put together set of proposals. I live in the area and so I await seeing if this plan comes fruition. Similarly I like the proposals to extend the Victoria line to Bromley. Well done.
They did not consider other options for those routes such as adding extra mainline trains, as well as they missed off some of the crossovers in their diagram of Epsom. Also, they did not seem to mention that they had considered the upgrades which where being made.
Ah! How I would have loved to have been able to get to school by getting on the tube at Nonsuch Park and alighting at Stonecot Hill! In the event the 93 (and then ultimatetely the 293 bus) had to suffice. There were plans for the District Line to get to Sutton by means of some kind of flyover at Wimbledon and then, as has been mentioned, the Southern thwarted the Underground plans from Morden to Sutton. I love your ideas but I fear that residents of Sutton and Croydon would not have chosen the tube over National Rail services unless they were doing purely local journeys. There are a number of key locations in south London that would have been ideal for the tube....one is Camberwell Green and the other is Rosehill at the heart of the St. Helier estate. I see that your tramline, briefly mentioned when you talk about Morden, seems to be heading in the direction of Rosehill....
Considering the Northern line needs to be split into two anyway, for capacity at Morden and the other terminus of the Northern Line, one of these two lines could take the branch to Croydon and the other could take the branch to Epsom, which would solve the Northern Lines capacity struggles and would serve multiple new areas of South London.
One of the major disadvantages of the existing rail routes from Croydon to central London is that they meander all over the place to get there. Really, I can't see anyone taking a new tube line from Croydon Central to London if the route takes them through Sutton and North Cheam before it even starts taking them in a northerly direction. Putting Croydon on the tube map would be better achieved by extending the Victoria Line through Herne Hill and Tulse Hill to Streatham, Norbury, and Thornton Heath Pond, to West Croydon, then following the line of the main road south as far as Coulsdon. Personally, I would hen extend it to serve Old Coulsdon and terminate at Caterham-on-the-Hill, although the last-mentioned is just outside the GL boundary.
@@ChilternTransportProductions Have you tried WALKING up the hill at Caterham - a nice Hampstead style deep level tube would be useful. But all extensions come with the implied intensification of densification of housing or workplaces. Of course if we say re-classify the Overground lines that pass through the Brunel Tunnel as a tube line ( SSL and repaint the rolling stock red) job done with a few easy extensions - West Croydon to Sutton/ Belmont doubling frequency alternating with Southern, Running a West Croydon-Wimbledon - Streatham via an expanded thamelink end loop
@@ChilternTransportProductions No. Caterham-on-the-Hill is a distinct centre from Caterham Valley and is perched right on top of the North Downs. Caterham station does not effectively serve it at all. Moreover, Old Coulsdon, similarly elevated, isn't served by rail either.
@@SeanSoraghan Of course you can, and should. Access to central London directly by the Underground from south London is already extremely irksome, entailing travel by National Rail to a London terminus and then changing to the Underground at one of the busiest stations. Those in the north hop on a nice empty train and go all the way to a central tube station convenient for any change they need to make. Extending the Victoria Line in the way I suggested would alleviate congestion on surface rail services to Victoria and pressure on the Victoria Line station at Victoria more than anything else.
Some great ideas. I think it will need to be split up into smaller phases. Unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much appetite for new investment in TFL (or any public transport) at the moment.
Actually there is plenty of appetite for public transport expansions in London; the only problem is serious lack of funding due to the poor state of our economy.
I am from New York. Limited London Underground service in South London reminds me of the limited to no New York City Subway service in Southeastern Brooklyn (Brooklyn), Eastern Queens (Queens), Central Bronx (The Bronx) and all of Staten Island but only worst, as there are no other rail networks to supplement these areas (you have to take a slow bus), and LIRR, Metro-North & Staten Island Railway and not a good option because of the headways.
Agree the Sutton loop of Southern (and arguably the Caterham line) as well as the three part loop of Southeastern and the Kingston/Sunbury and Chswick loops of South West should all really be tennis into TFL Overground style services. Probably the Orpington, Chesington and Hampton Court services too.
@@quintuscrinis8032 Whyteleafe, Whiteleafe South, and Caterham are all outside Greater London, so I don't see any justification for handing the line over to TfL.
@allenwilliams1306 Carpenters Park, Bushey and Watford are also all outside Greater London but the Watford DC lone was an original Overground route because it is a stopping service that mostly serves stations in Greater London.
@@quintuscrinis8032 i think it is wholly reasonable for TfL to manage all rail lines wholly within Greater London, but not to do so if they go over the boundary for more than, say, four or, at the outside, five route miles. It is bizarre, for example, that TfL manages any travel as far as Maidenhead and Reading. That really is none of their business.
Great idea but I can't see it ever happening. Look how long it took to build the east-west Elizabeth line. Also in addition the debacle of HS2 has scared many Westminster politicians away from any idea or concept of building any further railways even if we had the necessary skills and ability. Remember, most of the senior engineers working on the Elizabeth Line and HS2 were French and they left after Brexit and I don't think they will want to be coming back with the cost of an annual UK visa. Also, we're broke after 13 years of Tory government although we could always ask the Chinese to fund it as they are already funding much of our infrastructure anyway and it could make a good investment for them?
Really well-made video. If you could make the visual and transitions more professional to match the script, you'd be rivalling the likes of real life lore with the vdieo quality.
Northern lin e already so lomg see no us extending ? As the richmond extending along national rail is use less. Bakerloo might be, not the proposed scheme but camberwell elevated extension not to lewisham elswhwere and victoria take over some lines elevated south !
The northern line does not have capacity for Northern Line extensions even after being split into two. Also since it is deep level tunnel can run under cemeteries and be fine. Turnback Sidings would be cheaper and more efficient in terms of space of wise as well as allowing for better use. Also balloon loops are an issue operationally and maintenance wise since some of your trains are the wrong way around. Also, it would make more sense to extend Victoria line to Croydon rather than Bromley since the Northern line would be no use as well as the Victoria could take pressure off the Brighton Mainline which the Northern could not do. Also the Northern line should not be extended to Epsom becuase of Epsom Downs station and well as Crossrail 2 is going to deliver everything the Northern line could do but better.
@@highpath4776 Kennington loop is an optional issue hence the battersea power station extensions. Hainault loop is operated not as a loop, because it is a shuttle between Hainault and Woodford. Heathrow loop plans to get rebuilt out of the loop. The Watford Triangle is an operational issue hence the North curve is rarely used and only to trains to and from Rickmansworth depot and they have to return back to Watford to be the correct way around. Also Watford Triangle is going to be mainly for Chiltern Railways trains to Watford Junction. Balloon loops are getting removed. Also if Balloon loops are such a good idea why are they not being fitted to new lines, for example Battersea Power Station extensions and Elizabeth Line.
@@A-Trainspotter-From-Berkshire Kennington Loop needs to stay as route knowledge, there being no siding for Charing X services to short terminate when Batterseas are under engineeing work or otherwise - as it is it is probably used too much in present timetable but it is also something to do with pathing to the three northern ends in the north served on the running times to full and short trip lenghts. Woodfords do have peak run throughs (or did). You would only put a loop in where it makes some kind of sense particulary if there was a demand to travel from one side ot the loop to the other , which for present Wimbledons. Hounslows/ Dartfords (and Thanet services) there probably is , although a more frequent to ends with a change might be preferred. Most london bus services try to avoid loops enroute or end route
@@highpath4776 There is a siding at Kennington for the Northern Line Charring Cross branch. The Kingston loop is planned to be split into two when Crossrail 2 happens, the Southern Half will be replaced with an increased Shepperton Service and the Northern Half will be replaced by an enhanced London Waterloo to Kingston service. The Woodford loopers were withdrawn because it was operationally too complex which caused issues with late trains as well as they needed to free up trains to allow them to do the refurbishment program. Also, Woodford Loop exists for Historical reasons only, if it was built now then you would probably not have the section between Woodford and Hainault. The Hounslow loopers are first to be withdrawn whenever there is an issue which requires the cutting of services since the other services run similar services which makes the Hounslow rounders redundant. If loops are such a good idea then why was the Battersea Power Station branch, Elizabeth Line and quite a few other new lines built with turnback sidings instead of Loops. Loops make it so some of your trains are the wrong way around which means if there is a failure with a train it is harder to get a train to assist with recovery of the failed train because it could lead to the train trying to either rip its self apart or trying to compress its self. Balloon loops with only a single station station on make no sense, hence you should use Turnback Sidings because Turnback Sidings are more space efficient. The Northern line according to the Working Timetable, does not use the Kennington Loop in regular service since it runs at 24tph on both Branches and you have 24tph to Edgware, 4tph to Mill Hill East, 20tph to High Barnet for the northern end with the Southern end having 18tph to Battersea Power Station and 30tph to Morden. Thanet services either terminate at Margate or Ramsgate according to the Network Rail working timetable. I am not saying we should not have loops but the places where the loops are suggested in the video do not make sense because Turnback sidings would be able to deal with the services they want the trains to deal with.
@@A-Trainspotter-From-Berkshire I am sure the Thanets show (and driver change) terminations but the units run through. Last time I used northern Kennington terminations varied between 1in 4 , 1 in 3 and 2 in 3 trains described ( it was a sunday late afternoon). Given the green belt the north bit of the Hainualt area indeed would not get a train service, it barely gets a bus service. (Basically running the Mill Hills to Battersea is a relatively short distance thus the appearence of more trains per hour . Sorry I did forget the tunnel siding at Kennington was mainly on the Charing X side (I dont think it is accessible from Bank as I thought - I will have to check my long put away tube line map by age built inc non passenger connections. The loop problem really caused problems for electronic signalling where the front as the A and B ends of a unit would effectively swap places and the train to train software needed a means of identifing this (bit like model railway 2 rail electric switching).
I’m sure the Epsom extension could be built at surface level alongside the A24. Tunnels make it unnecessarily expensive Croydon would be better served by a Victoria Line extension as described in other comments, Bromley could easily be served by a Bakerloo Line extension. There’s been limited mention of one but no concrete details though. And if you are going to turn back trains at stations like Crystal Palace, it would be cheaper to build 3 or even just 2 platforms instead of 4 and use only a turn back siding in the middle, there’s no need for a loop. More unnecessary expenses! Although the Anerley depot idea isn’t bad, that’s the only sensible thing you’ve come up with Why change Seven Sisters at all? Don’t fix what isn’t broken! And what makes you think REDUCING the frequency is any way a good idea?!?
I would personally say extend the DLR from Lewisham to Bromley and take over the Bromley North Branch which would make the layout a more efficient layout.
@@A-Trainspotter-From-BerkshireThe DLR can't extend any further than Lewisham currently because of the new developments and road layouts. Its an unnecessary extension anyway since Southeastern or tfl could just run a service via Lewisham to Bromley South and beyond using the Beckenham curve from the Hayes line to the Chatham main line. In fact Southeastern actually ran this service last Christmas due to engineering works so it's very possible. Just double the tracks at the curve and you're good to go!
@nathanw9770 The Bromley North branch is an operational operational nightmare currently, and so an extension of the DLR from Lewisham would remove the operational issues. You can modify the road layout and also you can rebuild the station for the extension as it wouldn't be the first time it has been done for example when they extended from Island Gardens to Lewisham they rebuilt Island Gardens and Mudchut Stations. The curve at Beckham Junction is rarely used because of lack of paths for its use and also enhancements to Bromley South just make Bromley North more of an operational issue rather than helping and also if you extended the DLR to Bromley North you have shortened a number of journeys and restored a lost link to Central London which can not be restored with mainline trains withoit massive works anyway and it would make sense to convert to DLR since DLR could make better use of the buildings.
@@A-Trainspotter-From-BerkshireYes stations can be rebuilt but Lewisham station would be a huge challenge since there is limited space around where the DLR goes between Elverson Road and Lewisham due to the high density of buildings and unless you are suggesting tunneling all the way to Bromley North via Grove Park you'd also be creating more operational issues by using the Bromley North branch since you'd have to deal with crossing over the SEML where the fast lines are on the Bromley North side, hence the reason why a shuttle can only be operated between Grove Park and Bromley North. The pathing issue at Beckenham wouldn't be as much of a hastle since trains in the area operate every 15-30 mins currently so you could easily either divert or slot in more services going to Orpington via Lewisham and Bromley North and to save time some trains could run fast. You could also have services terminate at Blackfriars going via Nunhead to provide an easy connection to Thameslink and the tube and alternatively you could connect it to the Overground at New Cross. Grove Park is gaining the SL4 Superloop bus soon and an extension of that route to Bromley North would be a way more feasible option than extending the DLR.
@@nathanw9770 I know there is limited space in Lewisham but DLR can climb steep grades of 6%. I would not be creating more operational issues because there is enough space between the fast lines and railway boundary for a dive site for the DLR. The curve your talking about on the Hayes line is not an option because of the plan to extend the Bakerloo line which would be running every few minutes meaning there is no paths for the service you have suggest using the curve. The superloop is not a real good option because even though the trains are quite they would overwhelm the buses. Bromley North station is not a through station. The route through Nunhead is already a bottleneck so you could not fit the extra trains in. The DLR extension would have a better BCR than SL4. The superloop is worse for the eviroment than the railway since you are using three times the engery to move the bus than the train and also you have a greater fire risk from the bus than the train as the train does not carry massive batteries for traction whereas the bus does and the massive batteries catch fire easily, and the battery buses have been withdrawn after a fire a few days ago.
South London is basically a pile of houses once you get beyond the riverbank. It has loads of railways so why waste money on tunnels that no-one needs? It tells you all you need to know that the newly-built Elizabeth Line largely avoids South London - as do most of us.
it has bunch of railways...which are all shit and have poor connectivity. the reason why the elizabeth line was such a success is because it amalgamated two poorly performing suburban lines and gave them direct links to central and outer london on the other side without having to change for the tube
You mean just like Everywhere else in London and every town in the UK? And how exactly do you think the people in those bunch of houses get to their jobs just to be able to afford them?
