Northern Line Extension Consultation

[lancastrian]

Couple of factors I guess. One is the decision between serving a new area and linking to an already-served area. In this case I guess that serving a new area won out (Nine Elms's main draw is New Covent Garden, which will be very popular).

The second, and more obvious, is that it's far quicker and cheaper to build a new station from scratch than add an interchange to an existing one, being as you don't have to modify, rebuild or disrupt anything.

I was looking at the map provided in Modern Railways about this extension. One thing that struck me was that both tunnels off the loop at Kennington actually go very near if not under the station at Oval. Was a interchange here ever considered, especially as looking at the rational of the two 'new' tube lines, Victoria & Jubilee lines. This was to make as many interchange stations as possible, whether with other underground lines and/or Main Lines.

The argument that Oval & Kennington are adjacent stations, falls flat when you look at such adjacent interchange stations such as Warren Street & Euston, both next to each other on both the Northern & Victoria lines. Not excluding the following three, Charring Cross, Embankment and Waterloo, on both the Northern & Bakerloo lines.

My point is, that it makes sense to me to make as many potential interchanges as possible to give the best alternative options when there are problems.

Which is why I agree with the comments about a potential interchange with the Victoria line & Mainline at Vauxhall.

 

[si404]

The argument that Oval & Kennington are adjacent stations, falls flat when you look at such adjacent interchange stations such as Warren Street & Euston, both next to each other on both the Northern & Victoria lines.

Warren Street gives decent interchange with the Charing X branch, which is one of the routes which the Victoria is designed to relieve. Euston gives a same-level interchange with the Bank branch, an OK interchange with the train station and a poor interchange with Charing Cross branch. Charing Cross branch Euston station is really only for interchanges with the mainline station - the tube interchanges are better done elsewhere.

Oval and Kennington would be serving the same route twice - is Oval a massive traffic generator? Does it provide additional rail interchanges? Would the interchange be cross-platform like at Kennington? No, No and Unlikely - so it would be a waste of money. It's the reason why Manor House Victoria line station was ditched.

A box at Vauxhall at least has potential for meaningful use!

Not excluding the following three, Charring Cross, Embankment and Waterloo, on both the Northern & Bakerloo lines.

Charing Cross not an interchange - the Jubilee station was double ended and merged two stations together. And I think that the Northern line (which was the later line) extending from Charing Cross (as it was called then) to Waterloo had nothing about interchanging with the Bakerloo line, and everything to do with interchanging with the mainline station and congestion relief on the Bakerloo and buses due to people crossing the river from Waterloo to the Strand area! You'd interchange at Embankment, as that's the one which sort of had that aim.

The main benefit I can see with going via Vauxhall and giving passive provision for a station is if you give passive provision for an extension underneath the mainline (eg W&C extension) to remove the Battersea route from the Northern line so a southern extension from Kennington can be built. As these things are sadly unlikely, serving Vauxhall just isn't going to happen, though I like that route 5 option. TfL want to make it as cheap as possible and the promoters of the scheme want to make it as beneficial to them as they can - both parties want as direct a route as possible, TfL wants Nine Elms south of the tracks and Vauxhall is quite a headache with congestion, and no benefits for either for a long time.

From Battersea to Vauxhall or Victoria you can take the mainline trains, from Nine Elms, that you'd have to take a bus is no hardship, given that's what you have now - you'd have fast trains to the Charing Cross, Euston and (via an interchange at Kennington) City area. Not serving Vauxhall, while in a perfect world it would be well worth doing, is far from the end of the world.