Recent content by Tangent

I have always thought it would be useful to have Cannon Street as a terminating point for Thameslink trains if there is line disruption; northbound trains from Rainham or the Brighton Main could use it more easily than the Blackfriars bays, and you could take southbound trains over Metropolitan...

As a result of something else I have been working on, I have found myself led down a seductive sidetrack. I have imagined an alternative history of Britain. In this alternative history, the railways were not consolidated into the Big Four in the 1920s, but were nationalised. In this history, as...

I recall one incident during the London Bridge rebuild; I think it happened when Cannon Street trains could not call at London Bridge. An Up train for Charing Cross was given the wrong road at St John's Junction, and continued regardless on its way to Cannon Street. I noticed we were on the...

My preferred name would be Newgate-Ludgate: signage could make clear that you use the Newgate end for Holborn Viaduct or the Oid Bailey, or the Ludgate end for St. Paul's or Fleet Street.

Another vote for the 1959 Stock. That's the first stock I remember travelling on. Certainly, they suffered from being associated with the dirty, dingy LU decades of the 70s and 80s, but I did enjoy them. For the SSL, A stock is the clear winner, despite the rough riding they could give towards...

And, of course, the vast majority of all passengers are heading to and from the Charing Cross platforms, which concentrates the problem. London Bridge is easy and pleasant to use if you're changing trains and have less then ten minutes to wait. If you have to wait more than 10 minutes, it's...

One of the more depressing features of the new timetable for me is the unnecessary underutilisation of Cannon Street. I am waiting for a train there to take me to London Bridge now: only thrrr rains are currently in the platform,, and only two of them are in service. There are eight or so trains...

I am surprised that this didn't end up as a RAIB investigation: Evening Standard article today: https://www.standard.co.uk/news/transport/london-underground-tube-driver-sleep-fatique-shifts-metropolitan-line-b1058824.html TfL response to FOI request, November 2022...

Indeed; I was travelling at around the same time. Very occasionally, Down trains from Cannon Street may be suddenly switched from P1 to P2.

Yes: both AccuWeather and the BBC forecast supplied by MeteoGroup gave a more accurate picture of the time range and extent of the snowfall, and I think it was the same the last time we had snow. I knew I had no chance of getting to work easily when I looked out my bedroom window last night...

Not least, I suppose, the remnants of GPO's empire, including vital telecomms infrastructure and the Post Office railway.

A route to the west would have slightly less chance of hitting infrastructure - something closer to St Paul's. Then, you could extend by either heading to Waterloo and replacing the drain, or by following the Fleet Line route as far as Charing Cross. In either case, once you got to the end of...

There is a contrast to be drawn with the Central Line extension, which actually cut capacity on the old LNER stations beyond Leytonstone - a situation which would have been much worse had the suburban expansion of the 1930s bot been halted by WWIi and the Green Belt.

And the Mill Hill shuttle runs entirely within Barnet.

Harold Macmillan was painfully aware of the relative decline in British economic performance, which is why his premiership saw a sudden impetus to modernisation and change in many areas of government: Beeching, NEDC, the Plowden report on the planning of public spending, the Robbins report on...