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New Northern line (London Underground) depot

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A S Leib

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According to a London Reconnections article from last year, if the Northern line is split to enable 32 tph on each central London branch, far more stabling room would be needed, matching Morden's current capacity. Where could that be found?
If it were a simple case of replacing the rolling stock, this would not be a big deal, although the sheer number of trains (currently 106 6-car trains) would make it a big project. What makes this replacement a particularly big deal is the long-standing desire to increase capacity in central London by effectively running the Northern line as two separate lines, which would be High Barnet – Morden and Edgware – Battersea Power Station.

To make best use of the opportunity presented, you would need to run many more trains in order to get a service of at least 32tph in central London and all the way down to Morden. More trains mean more stabling sidings and more workshop space. Finding stabling sidings for the extra trains, should this upgrade take place, is going to be extremely challenging and would probably call for some inventive thinking.

The level of the challenge was put into perspective by a comment on the District Dave website. To fully upgrade the Northern line to run in two sections with significantly more frequent trains would require sidings to match the number currently at Morden depot. And Morden depot is currently the largest depot on the Underground serving just one line. For that number of trains it wouldn’t be sufficient just to build more sidings. The trains would have to be serviced. So, effectively, you would need the equivalent of a new depot the size of the existing Morden depot to provide facilities for the new trains to be maintained. To a find a space for such a depot or depots would be a considerable challenge and the cost would also be significant – for the land if nothing else.
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  • The article states that servicing, not just stabling, would be needed; dispersal around the Northern('s successor) line(s) wouldn't be sufficient.
  • Looking at cartometro.com, the only direct rail link to another line seems to be with the Piccadilly west of King's Cross. I don't know if Cockfosters depot or Arnos Grove sidings have any spare capacity or space to expand; even if they do, that wouldn't seem practical.
  • I'm not sure how much room there is to expand current sites (Morden and Golders Green depots, and Edgware, Highgate and High Barnet sidings). Looking on Google Maps satellite view, Highgate and High Barnet seem to have a little room to expand if green space could be sacrificed, and none for the other three without demolishing buildings.
  • I suspect the least bad option would end up being at the far-northern end of the Northern line; is there anywhere around Mill Hill East, or north of Edgware or High Barnet, which could be feasible?
 
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The Pelican

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There are plenty of completely underground depots- find a large area being redeveloped somewhere alongside the Northern Line, build a large basement for tube storeage, etc. Secondly, they could consider double, or even triple decking one of the existing depots. Singapore is opening it’s “East Coast Integrated Depot” soon, which will have one underground, one surface, and one elevated depot, each for a different MRT line.
 
bramling

bramling

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A S Leib said:
According to a London Reconnections article from last year, if the Northern line is split to enable 32 tph on each central London branch, far more stabling room would be needed, matching Morden's current capacity. Where could that be found?

  • The article states that servicing, not just stabling, would be needed; dispersal around the Northern('s successor) line(s) wouldn't be sufficient.
  • Looking at cartometro.com, the only direct rail link to another line seems to be with the Piccadilly west of King's Cross. I don't know if Cockfosters depot or Arnos Grove sidings have any spare capacity or space to expand; even if they do, that wouldn't seem practical.
  • I'm not sure how much room there is to expand current sites (Morden and Golders Green depots, and Edgware, Highgate and High Barnet sidings). Looking on Google Maps satellite view, Highgate and High Barnet seem to have a little room to expand if green space could be sacrificed, and none for the other three without demolishing buildings.
  • I suspect the least bad option would end up being at the far-northern end of the Northern line; is there anywhere around Mill Hill East, or north of Edgware or High Barnet, which could be feasible?
Click to expand...

There would be some scope for redeveloping both Edgware and Highgate, though Highgate has lost some space to the control centre which would be very expensive to relocate.

Aside from that, High Barnet has space for 3-4 more trains, and there have been proposals at various times to utilise the station car parks at Totteridge and Finchley Central. Difficult to envisage anywhere else.

I think a total redevelopment of Highgate would be the first thing to be looked at. Good road access from the A1, and space enough for a fairly blank canvas. I suspect there could be a lot of local opposition though.
 
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A S Leib

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The Pelican said:
There are plenty of completely underground depots
Click to expand...
I assumed that wasn't an option because of the Victoria and Jubilee lines having above-ground depots; in the latter case, I may have underestimated how much space was available at Stratford at the time.
 
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The Pelican

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I think both the Victoria and Jubilee lines managed to find particular overground sites near the end of their routes, the latter having formerly been Stratford Market freight depot. It’s interesting to imagine a short extension from Battersea Power Station to a suitable depot site, although I don’t think it helps much- you could possibly dig a tube depot out under Clapham junction Yard, to have trains at ground level and tubes underground. On the other hand, the lack of movement of the Crossrail Depot away from the Old Oak Common sure, and the fights around the plans to move the Heathrow Express depot to Langley ten years ago, shows that it can be hard to site them.
 
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