tube station in ED

[cate]

Camberwell has Denmark Hill and Loughborough Junction.

[Earl Aelfheah]

...I suppose they're on the outskirts of Camberwell. The fact remains that SE London has only 10 tube stations (or worse, 3 if you class zone 1 as 'central London). This is out of a total of around 268. No one can seriously argue that SE London is not very poorly served by the tube network. The rail network within inner SE is on the whole irregular, overcrowded and unreliable. There are one or two exceptions. The new overground / east Lodnon line trains are excellent, but atypical in terms of the general state of public transport in SE London.

[njc97]

rahrahrah - but SE has more train stations than other parts of London. And you're ignoring the ELL and DLR.

[Medley]

Yes - and for very good reasons; they are not Tube equivalents for several reasons. The key one is that they do not go to central London.

It always amazes me how people don't get this. ELL and DLR are not a substitute for the Tube in terms of access to central London - and that remains where most, not all of course, people want to go.

SE has more train stations than some other parts of London, yes, but fewer than it used to post-war and they're not a substitute for the Tube either.

I'm not desperate to get on the Tube if I don't have to. I actually prefer overland trains, ELL, DLR - if they get me where I want to go, which they often don't.

But to say SE London has been ignored for generations in terms of Tube access is only stating the obvious.

njc97 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> rahrahrah - but SE has more train stations than

> other parts of London. And you're ignoring the ELL

> and DLR.

[peterstorm1985]

Medley Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Yes - and for very good reasons; they are not Tube

> equivalents for several reasons. The key one is

> that they do not go to central London.

>

> It always amazes me how people don't get this. ELL

> and DLR are not a substitute for the Tube in terms

> of access to central London - and that remains

> where most, not all of course, people want to go.

I think I'd like a bit of clarity here as to the definition of "Central London", as in the place that you think that most people want to go.

There are an awful lot of people who work in the City for whom London Bridge does just fine.

The underground is a big network and a lot of it takes people from place A to place B where place B is not Central London.

The underground is just one of many forms of transport. It makes a lot of sense to provide an underground to go under densely built areas but none at all where there is fresh air above ground that will accommodate another form of transport.

Why do so many people have such a fixation on the tube? Have none of you lived in the vast areas of North London that are supposedly within the tube network but you have to walk miles to get to it - without any bus service to interconnect. From ED you can get to LB in no time at all. For Victoria either change at Peckham Rye or walk to Denmark Hill. Plenty of tube journeys involve a number of changes. It's not that hard to connect to the tube at LB. Before Oyster cards were invented I could see your point, but not any more.

Rant over.

[Earl Aelfheah]

Possibly a cheaper alternative would be to supply some secure bike parking at ELL stations.

Siduhe Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> James Barber Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Hi Nero,

> > Proposals to extend the no.63 to Honor Oak were

> > suggested about two years ago ansd were part of

> > the May election campaign. Throughout Transport

> > for London siad insufficient users forecast.

>

> I think I posted this at the time, but I still

> think it was particularly sneaky of TFL to carry

> out the survey of the 63 and 363 buses on the

> Tuesday after a Bank Holiday and then to rely on

> the results to suggest these routes were not

> likely to carry sufficient extra users to need

> changing.

[Jeremy]

Medley Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> ELL and DLR are not a substitute for the Tube in terms

> of access to central London

The DLR goes to Bank!

[Medley]

Good points - and I was thinking about my post while catching the tube and ELL home last night, inc. the point about Bank.

What I'm really getting at is that the tube goes through central London - that's the great thing about it.

So from, for example, Caledonian Road or Maida Vale or Snaresbrook (these are totally top of head) you've got a range of central London destinations without a change of mode, or often even of line. For CR and MV it's major termini, the West End, Covent Garden and for MV Westminster/Whitehall/Waterloo too. For Snaresbrook the City, Holborn, West End, White City etc.

So trains to LB or Bank work OK if you want to go to LB or Bank. But changing mode at LB is quite a pain and means journey times from ED/HOP etc to, say, the West End or Holborn or Euston Road are substantially longer than they would be with direct tube access.

[SeanMacGabhann]

I?m not disagreeing with you totally Medley, and I accept many of your points. But changing mode can be easier than changing lines on the tube ? and Bank/Monument is a prime example of that.

Having lived for many years with a tube, and needing to travel to central London ? I can say that I wouldn?t go back to that. Sometimes it is undeniably the way to go but overall I?m far happier without it than I was with it.

[Huguenot]

There's an awful lot of bonkers prejudice knocking around on this thread about north vs south.

The Underground wasn't created by government as a public service, but by private capital. All the railways were run as profit making ventures.

The first of these - the Met line - was created to capitalise on slum clearance programmes that were relocating 'the poor' outside Lonodon (where have I heard this before?).

Before this North London was really badly serviced for trains - so it was a massive commercial opportunity.

They only started marketing themselves jointly as the 'Underground' in 1908, and were only nationalised in 1948 alongside many other fits of dogmatic lefty strategies.

It didn't extend south of the river because the market was more limited and the costs were a little higher because of the technology of the time.

Anyone who thinks cross rail is being created because of some weirdy west London prejudice is failing to see the wood for the trees - it's for national economic benefit.

If you want to extend the underground (God only knows why) into E Dulwich, you'll need to come out with a very strong economic case for it. Bet you can't.

[peterstorm1985]

I travelled from ED to Hornsey on Sunday (North of Harringay). I caught the 12:37 at ED and got off at Hornsey at 13:35. The whole journey was on a train. OK I had to change at LB and St Pancras but there was no bus, no tube. We're not that cut off.

[cate]

Herne Hill is a good station to use, or live near to. It has the Thameslink.....

[Ramble66]

So does Peckham rye, travels via blackfrairs, farringdon, st Pancras, Kentish town and up to Luton. Just rarely runs at weekends.

[cate]

I thought the line that runs through Herne Hill was more frequent....does the PR one stop at all the other stations on the Thameslink like W. Hampstead, Cricklewood, Borehamwood...etc.

And think here are only a few Thameslink trains a day from Denmark Hill as well.

[Ramble66]

I think there are 2 an hour and more at peak times. Not sure of all the stops but the change at st pancras is quick.

[Medley]

Herne Hill is a proper Tlink station, PR only has the ones to St P - and fairly infrequent too. But much better than nothing (as it was for a while until it came back).

Hope is that with the new Blackfriars it'll get better.

Agree it can be great.

Hugeonot, it's a v. good point that north London was less well served by trains. But the Met was not created solely to reach the poor, it was created for lots of reasons (not least the dappy government decision to have no termini in the heart of London, which has bedevilled the city it ever since - hence our LB/Bank debate). In any case the days of private speculative capital creating transport networks in Britain have been over for most of a century, so although it's interesting to talk about it's irrelevant today. Public money is the only thing that can deliver this stuff, albeit with some chipping in and benefit extraction as with Crossrail or the Northern extension to Battersea.

I'm not saying ED/HOP etc. are cut off. Try Ham or Roehampton or Thamesmead to experience cut off - albeit they're all further out than we are. I'm saying it would be much better with a tube somewhere deeper into SE London - would benefit the whole area.

So I can get to Hornsey in an hour. But I can hardly get to the centre of zone 1 in an hour from the very start of zone 3, unless I cycle. That's not great.

[cate]

What is the centre to you? You can easily get to Victoria in about 40 minutes or less from Denmark Hill or Peckham Rye if you time it right. I can get to Brompton Road that quickly from DHill.

[Ramble66]

East dulwich to bond street 28minutes, probably quicker if you're a fast walker at LB. Honor oak to bond street also 28minutes!

East dulwich to Cov Garden 36minutes.

[Medley]

Nonsense, Ramble.

I'm talking about average end to end journey times, starting when I want to rather than when a timetable wants me to (hence the frequency point). Unless you live actually at East Dulwich or Honor Oak Park (if only Honor Oak still existed, much nearer to me) stations and have a magical ability to arrive on the platform c. 30 seconds before trains depart, these figures are fantasies.

Having just looked up the HOP-Bond St journey, 3 of the 4 from now (as I type this) are actually using the somewhat-Tube like ELL/Overground and then the Jubilee, changing at C Water. If there could more more ELL/Oground stuff - Tube-like facilities, trains, frequency, badging, integration on existing above-ground lines that'd be great. But instead ELL only sort of goes to central London (with Shoreditch High St station ironically and irritatingly just in zone 1 and so bumping up fares along the route) and ELL phase two will deliver us to places like Clapham Junction.

Cate, Victoria isn't the centre to me - it's on the fringe of the centre.

I'm not saying it's all terrible. I love the new ELL and am glad the other options are there. But a tube extension would be a massive uplift for SE London.

Ramble66 Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> East dulwich to bond street 28minutes, probably

> quicker if you're a fast walker at LB. Honor oak

> to bond street also 28minutes!

>

> East dulwich to Cov Garden 36minutes.

[cate]

How far do you live from a station Medley - ie which road? I made a point of buying close to the station and when Jubilee line came in to LB the transport improved greatly.

[Medley]

That admittedly is part of my prob - I'm not really that close to any station. Hence my mournful remarks about Honor Oak (er, closed 1954).

As I was buying in 2007 there wasn't a great deal of choice about that! If I'd been buying in 1999 or before, as you must have been, I might have been able to do better!

Still, quite happy on the bike.

[cate]

Is it a folding bike? Then you could take it on the train.

[Medley]

Snags with folding bike:

My non-folding bike cost fifty quid, a new Brompton (I'd love to have one mind) costs c. 800 quid;

I'd then have the cost of a travelcard on top.

Defeats the point really. At the moment I can be pretty much anywhere in zone 1 in 40 mins or less for about 50 quid in bike maintenance per year. There's no beating that, tube or no tube!

And to go back to the old saw about trains going to but not through London I'd have a fairly hefty cycle from whichever terminus I got to. Although you could take a folder on the deep tube in rush hour in theory, I really wouldn't fancy it in practice.

[James Barber]

Hi cate,

Herne Hill will lose through Thameslink train services when the Thameslink upgrade is finished.

The reason we don;'t have more tube lines in London/South London is we're rubbish at doing them cheaply. Network Rail has publicly stated they cos 40% more to maintian the train network than a mainland train company would spend.

In Madrid they build new tube lines 18km long in 4 years start to finish at ?30M-?50M/km. As other have pointed out they also charge peanuts to ride on them.

[Medley]

James Barber Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> Hi cate,

> Herne Hill will lose through Thameslink train

> services when the Thameslink upgrade is finished.

Knew it was too good to be true.

>

> The reason we don;'t have more tube lines in

> London/South London is we're rubbish at doing them

> cheaply. Network Rail has publicly stated they cos

> 40% more to maintian the train network than a

> mainland train company would spend.

This is rather a mess of thinking, if I may say so, as train companies pay nothing directly on maintenance - that's taxpayers via that miracle of Brown Economics, Network Rail and its 20bn debt etc. etc.

There are plenty of other reasons too - our relatively good train network, the water-laden clay down here (although I think modern tunnelling machines can cope much better with this now, but no idea really).

>

> In Madrid they build new tube lines 18km long in 4

> years start to finish at ?30M-?50M/km.

I should think this is much more about the crazy multiplication of infrastructure costs that the Tube PPP (Labour's fault) and the post-Hatfield Network Rail craziness (likewise, although the Tories really for their disaster of a privatisation). Never forget the rail network, despite being 'privatised', gets c. 3.5 times what British Rail ever got in REAL terms - i.e. adjusted for inflation. The rail network is not 3.5 times better than it was under various eras of BR.

As other

> have pointed out they also charge peanuts to ride

> on them.

Seems only fair to point out that Spain is broke.