Northern Line split

[Halsebee]

Splitting the Northetn Line in London into two seperate lines is a well known and old proposition, which has significant operational and capacity advantages, but as far a I understand it is not likely to happen because of two main issues,

inconvenience to passangers

Capacity at Camden Town station due to potentially a very large increase in numbers of people changing trains in addition to very large number of people entering and leaving the station, which, even with a rebuild will struggle to cope.

A speculative idea.... both Bank and Charing X branches are very close together at Morninigton Crescent station, why not split the lines and rebuild Mornington Crescent into a specific exchange station with new platforms for the Bank branch (perhaps with cross platform interchange).
This would make interchange much easier ( especially with cross platfrom interchange) and would relieve a lot of the increased congestion at Camden Town.

Undoubtedly expensive, but would it be more so than rebuild of Camden Town? I get that diverting tracks to fashion a cross platform arrangement wolud be even more costly and may be difficult to do, from what I can see of the layout, but it would be ideal

Any thoughts?

 

[SynthD]

but would it be more so than rebuild of Camden Town?

Yes. There are two platforms at Camden town, and a few passages in the middle. The proposal adds a new ticket hall, escalators, and passages in the middle. It would end up with two ticket halls with their own bank of escalators, and circulating space at platform level.

Mornington Crescent has lifts, no escalators, down to two platforms. The other line's platforms you propose building will not be directly next to the current platforms, as that line bends there. Even ignoring cross platform interchange, this plan requires building a new ticket hall with escalators down to circulating space and new platforms. I can't be sure they're even at the same depth. After that, how do you discourage people from changing at Camden? If people did change at Mornington, would Camden be safe with growth in non-interchange passengers?

 

[cle]

Most people agree it's a good idea. Bank was done at least.

Just needs Camden Town doing properly, and then the money to action the changes (signal upgrades, more trains, opex costs, more drivers).

Probably overprovision at Battersea Power Station, but I think many have views on that having capacity to extend, in time.