"to bring the railway, tube and road system in line with modern requirements" If only the road system was held to such standards, imagine a road being closed after a crash and that model of car being retrofitted to prevent further incidents.
Bradford demolished both its Victorian stations (and most of the city centre) and replaced them with stunning modern ones of the finest cement. Worked out a charm... and they didn't even bother to link them.
Those town planners should hang their heads in shame for the terrible destruction they wrought on our mostly beautiful Edwardian Victorian architectural heritage in the name of so called progress. They are obviously all long dead and hopefully before they died they had good grace to realize what had been lost and horrible, ugly and cheap replacements they had put in their place.
The stations aren't linked because, annoyingly, they too close together for trains to both use the stations and a tunnel/viaduct to go the other one. It an infuriating situation that basically can't be solved.
Any joining would be ridiculously steep. Best thing would be start the climb at Frizinghall and perhaps reopen manningham but abandon Forster Square to allow a viaduct through the city. Still not ideal though
I haven't lived in Bradford for a long while, but I seem to remember that while heavy rail is out of the question there was a plan to built a tramtrain or something, with Manningham actually on the table for reopening. However I have no idea how far this plan got. Probably not very. Bradford Interchange must surely be the dingiest and most poorly served station of any major city... and demolishing Bradford Exchange must rank highly in Britain's worst planning blunders.
I used to enjoy walking around the Southwark Viaducts in my lunch-time when working in the area. Fascinating to feel the history of the places. Thanks for the footage.
The only Abercrombie post-war plan I knew of before this was the one he did for Plymouth (also remodelled by the Luftwaffe). The plan managed to stop anyone living in the city centre with the result that it was a dead zone in the evenings.
Abercrombie was very active in planning a lot of council housing, a lot of it now knocked down for social reasons. I have a book, in 3 volumes, edited by him in 1923 which is very interesting and gives a lot of the 'new' ideas an airing.
Abercrombie was a busy and prolific planner. He co-authored with Derek Plumstead a new "Civic Plan for Edinburgh". Hold onto your hats, folks...this plan also involved knocking down huge parts of the city to build those newfangled motorways.
The worst example of station butchery must be here in Brum, where New Street station (so called because it is on Stephenson Street) is an underground branch of a shopping centre. There have been two phases to the destruction: the first was in 1964 when the shed and Queen's Hotel were demolished, to be replaced by a shopping centre and offices above the now dark and dismal station, where passengers were in the first stage of their evolution into customers. (Air rights had been sold to private property developers). At least it was easy to get in and out the the station as a pedestrian, and taxis and drop-off-points were within 10 metres of the exit gates. Then the town planners struck again: they told us New Street Station was to be redeveloped and improved. "Well", I thought, "it couldn't be worse". How wrong I was. The main part of the station is still the horrible, dark, dismal underground hell it was, but the concourse has now been turned into more of the shopping centre, with multiple entrances to hades, making a visit to the hell-maze of New Street as a special outing for a day or two. If you need a taxi, forget it - it will take you 10-15 minutes to lug your bags to the new rank location, if you can find it. New Street Station is en example of the worst railway architecture on earth, brought about by a combination of Town Planners and Private Developers - both heartless foolish twats.
I am from Birmingham and I had not been back in abour 20 years as I live abroad only to find a shopping centre a bouve the station I did finaly get out of the exit I needed after many wrong turns. The old station may have been an eye sore but everything from the booking office to the patforms were easy to find and get to now It is just a concret maze.
To give the positive side: Moor Street Station in Brum is an example of how a station _can_ be developed without destroying it. It raises my spirit whenever I go there, and as the Camp Hill line in Brum is reopening soon it will be the alternative terminus for my journeys from Kings Norton to Brum. Google some pics of it. But I understand that there are plans to defile the station as the HS2 Curzon Street Station pulls alongside it. Curzon Street Station entrance will be a ten minute walk from Curzon Street, and the main entrance for Snow Hill Station is not on Snow Hill, but Colmore Row. Moor Street Station entrance is on . . . Moor Street, so I expect them to shift that onto Park Street. It doesn't do for a station _actually_ to be on the street after which it is named.
@@frogandspanner I use the Chiltern Mainline in preference to the WCML to get from northwest London to Birmingham and think Moor Street is delightful. I just wish the connections were better for people starting from South or West Ruislip (usually changing at High Wycombe or sometimes Gerrard's Cross) as it's almost quicker to set off in the opposite direction and change at Marylebone.
👍proper interesting this one Jago! Well done, again. I am not sure what their suggested underlying philosophy was with all of this. Whacking Waterloo seems a bit daft, it’s a nice station.
London has too many termini and not enough through stations, so there is some logic to this, but i feel like knocking everything down and starting again is a little bit too drastic at this point when we have so much fabulous historic architecture tied into everything. I think the Elizabeth line and Thameslink are a fantastic solution to this type of problem.
The problem isn't the lack of through services (local such are now catered for by Thameslink and Elizabeth); rather the need for convenient interconnections. Most people arriving at London termini, I imagine, are heading for other parts of the city, so the Tube is usually adequate, and it doesn't really matter in which part of central London the terminus is located. On the other hand, if you are travelling across London, eg from the north to the south coast, or from the west to East Anglia, it's a pain to get on a crowded Tube especially if it involves a change. But digging up Trafalgar Square to build a London Hbf would never happen.
Looking at the situating with a bazillion termini in London through the glasses of a continental European (who also spent enough time in North America) the situating in London seems beyond crazy... (Berlin also has too many main stations)
@@johanneswerner1140 Why Berlin? The vast majority of Berlin's intercity services terminate at or pass through Hauptbahnhof, only a few being recently relegated to Gesundbrunnen due to track works. Sure many stations have intercity service, but that's rather efficient - providing ample interchange points for folks hopping over to S-Bahn, U-Bahn, or another ICE without having to touch the central hub.
I am amazed at these grandiose (if ill conceived) plans...It would have cost something like the scale of the Space Race, or the Manhattan Project... (or even Supersonic Airliners!) Money was something in very short supply after the Unpleasantness of 1939-1945! Still, at least we have some progress now in the 2020s, even if not everyone agrees with it! Another good 'un, Jago!
Incidentally, the view of St Pancras down Argyll Street at 4:37 is the view from Mrs Wilberforce's front door in The Ladykillers (even though the house itself was above Copenhagen Tunnel!)
Washington D.C. did something analogous with its railways in the early 20th century, and the result was Washington Union Station. Before WUS was built, for example, trains crossed the National Mall at grade. No one today regrets moving passenger trains to a tunnel under the U.S. Capitol area, and routing freight trains to Anacostia. However, the Abercrombie Plan for London is extreme.
As an aside, your photography is becoming very cinematic. At 6:30 I definitely had a THX 1138 moment and the 8:00 train leaving the station sequence was great. Thank you. So glad these plans weren't carried through. If only Birmngham New Street had been left alone...the Victorian one that is!
It would have been criminal to do away with St Pancras. That said, its a station one would instinctively think of as handling trains from places north (which it sort of still does) and not from far away places of a "foreign" nature. (Dash it James, how can foreigners have a station). I actually thought Waterloo was reasonably well suited for that other than the lines were pathetically slow into it. Moreover, HS1 suffers from Londoncentricity (again). No thought was ever given to potential through trains from other country capitals like Cardiff and Edinburgh. HS2 sort of connects with other UK cities but it has no connection (well it does in terms of actual track) to HS1. In my flights of fancy I imagine a tunneling machine making its way deep under London creating a "London Central" station where trains from all over Europe could come into from the south and head out to these other capitals and, yay, even unto other major UK cities. Potentially replacing short hopping aeroplanes, reducing greenhouses gasses and connecting all of the UK to the largest trading block on the planet. Make Britain Great Again. In reality, the UK is trying to be some sort of isolationist third world country instead. Oh well. I can dream.
He also 'rebuilt' Plymouth creating a concrete-canyon grid that totally failed to respect the beautiful pre-Blitz city and provably demolished more fine old buildings than the Luftwaffe managed to do.
Csn sort of see why the hate. St Pancras was filthy dirty and horribly run down - and it wasn't just the Victorian stations that were derided. Years of air pollution had taken its toll of many Victorian buildings - I can well remember how dirty the Natural History Museum was - and how a scrub in the 1970s absolutely transformed it into the jewel its original builders intended it to be
The Abercrombie Plan wisely comprehends that cental London has no central destination, especially for employment, but a raft of major destinations, and thus it needs stations scattered about. However, stub end stations are inefficient to work, even with diesel and electric multiple unit trains. Still one large central station west of The City would be more efficient than what existed in 1944; an even larger version of the great Farringdon Station plan Jago has covered earlier. Briefly ignoring the humanitarian consequences, had the Luftwaffe completely wrecked London and left some vast wasteland in the center of it, redevelopment on this scale might have been reasonable. On the other hand -- would any sane planner rebuild London as it is, placing the most important financial, government, and cultural institutions in the British Isles on the same few square miles, thus necessitating the centralization of transport as that does? On the other hand, Tokyo was almost completely destroyed in 1945, and it was essentially rebuilt, except that many old moats were repurposed for motorways. Los Angeles is about to experience a microcosmic version of this, when its main station is finally double-ended so that trains can cross the region without reversing. L.A. Union Station (opened in 1939) was originally to be a through station when it was originally planned, but its southern approach tracks were omitted as an economy measure. Of course, in 1939, L.A. was a much smaller city then, and regional transport was provided by the largest suburban electric railway system in North America, the 1500 route miles of Pacific Electric ("The Red Cars"), so a stub on wye station was fit for purpose. Today, Metrolink commuter trains are ranging much further from Los Angeles than PE ever did.
It would have been awful to lose these cavernous stations, but I can't help but feel that perhaps there was room to improve connectivity between railways that we don't currently have - thanks to the Victorians being so bloody-minded about not sharing any resources. The Underground is fine, but tourists going from, say, Gatwick to north London face a number of changes with all their luggage. Even as a commuter, marching in lock-step with everyone else and not getting in anyone's way as you transfer from one platform or line to another is such a miserable experience. (And then there's the current weather - let's not even think about it!)
Our railways are old and the builders did not anticipate 21st century travel. The wealthy sent their luggage ahead of departure and everybody else just took day trips. As I watch tourists heave huge cases up and down stairs, I realise what nobody told them how bad it is getting around on trains in this country.
Hi Jago from Spain. Thank you for another interesting video which provides a talking point, if nothing else. Why do politicians never talk about demolishing that lump of stonework with its clocktower that clutteres up the northern riverside in Westminster and, maybe, move its overpaid and over privileged occupants to somewhere else such as Milton Keynes?
@@alejandrayalanbowman367 True, but I figured "Jago" was an anglicised spelling of "Diego" - they're certainly pronounced pretty much the same. However, Wikipedia says Jago is the Cornish version of "Jacob", so I guess I'm wrong 🙂
@@SirKenchalot Moving the capital to Milton Keynes is not exactly a punishment though? Also you would end up seeing London swallow up Milton Keynes altogether.
I have a copy of this County of London Plan explained by E J Carter and Erno Goldfinger published by Penguin 1945. Essentially it considers all overground railways to have ' long outstayed their welcome ' and as you say by implication almost all main line termini would be demolished. For various reasons this did not happen in most cases. The proposals for elevated major new roads to be blasted through inner London which it is favour of however did happen in the 1960s and 70s. Incredibly it suggests these proposed elevated motorways as sites for new shopping precincts. This sort of planning did happen not so much in London but in many other places such as Birmingham. London got parts of an inner ring road and the M25.
An interesting video, as always. However I think you have to see the Abercrombie Plan's attitude to Victorian railway stations in context. In 1943 parts of London had been been flattened by bombing, and Victorian architecture generally was held in very low esteem. The condition of the main London termini was in many cases poor. The LMSR had been planning to redevelop Euston for years; I never knew the old station, but it seems clear that while the LNWR buildings were quite grand operational needs had outgrown them. The eventual rebuilding of most of it was probably inevitable. It's just a pity that the arch at the entrance wasn't kept.
Apart from anything, massive amounts of electrification would also have been needed to send all these services underground, seeing that most of the trains into London were steam operated at the time.
Part of Abercrombie's rationale was that the viaducts impacted amenity for local residents through noise,dirt (steam trains) and by dislocation...dividing neighbourhoods,basically...as well as the fact that the land would be freed for development. In this respect he was forward thinking and humanist,and his report also led to the creation of two large parks in what had been the most densely-packed neighbourhoods before the war...Mile End Park and what became Burgess Park ("The Hyde Park of South London",in his vision). It was very interesting researching this for a guided walk I was asked to do in Burgess Park.
We could have had some really cool looking stations if we had let the Germans win and put Albert Speer in charge although I admit this plan may have had its drawbacks.
And of course having failed with London, Abercrombie then tried for a rematch in Plymouth, and ended up winning a contract to design the new city, for which he largely used copious quantities of grey concrete, and pretty well nothing else, thereby turning the Piazza in Armada way into an almost plausible replica of Red Square! Having at one time lived in Plymouth for many years I'd say the remains of London had a narrow escape. Still it could be argued that the main city planning disaster in both cases was giving the site clearance contract to the Luftwaffe in the first place. 🤔
Was more of Plymouth destroyed by the planners or the bombs. Can’t be sure, but suspect it was the bombs. Utopian ideas quickly become dystopian realities because planners often forget the humanity.
The loss of Euston's Doric archway was an act of architectural vandalism of epic proportions, personally I'd like to see the redevelopment of Euston to include some keys/pointers to what was so cruelly destroyed in the name of progress?
Euston Station, the current version has been vandalised by a huge bus station outside, that has robbed it of natural light, which it had when it was built, looking much like an airport terminal. Knocking down the current Euston, would seriously disrupt local and north western England and Scotland services. Some things never change. 😒🙄 Anyone remember Pie In The Sky the detective television series? 😁
Ah, professor Abercrombie. He’s one of the fathers of my much aligned profession. It was before Betjeman and the reappraisal of Victorian buildings and was very much of its time. It has no concept of money! Plymouth city centre could have worked but sadly the build quality and lack of green space along with the architecture of the time spoiled it!
Interesting indeed: if this plan had been implemented in full, london railway and tube transport network would have resembled the almost totally fully integrated underground ratp/sncf network we see in Paris...
1:17 I find it amusing that your South Western Railway uses almost exactly the same livery as our Southwest Airlines. I also acknowledge that I may be the only one who does.
I hope that SWA do not have the large number of pointless and boring announcements as we have here in England on the South Western Railway : on the platform then on the train and then on the arrival station -with up to four announcements of the next station stop,all this on a suburban railway built in 1864 and managed by First Group and the MTR of Hong Kong. [perhaps they do not know how to programme the computer or they just don't give a damn ]. ] Mr O'Leary of Ryanair copied the business plan invented by the founder of SWA]..
Certainly a fascinating set of ideas ... if money and resources were no object. If affordable, some underground cross-city routes are useful, like Thameslink/Crossrail and Paris RER. The authors missed however that to-London travel is much greater than cross-London travel, so the majority of services need to terminate at London and you still need most or all of the terminal stations. Even the 2-track Waterloo and City copes with the onward travel to the City from the 20-odd platforms at Waterloo. I suppose you could have a giant underground complex beneath Oxford Street with multiple tracks leading to it ... theoretically. But actually that can get very complex and congested, so distributing traffic between a lot of different stations has its advantages as long as there is some interconnectivity. Kings Cross St Pancras is a very useful interchange, but I tend to change lines elsewhere if I can, because the walking routes are so long (and some have been made longer to help crowd control). The two cases of redundant stations which have been superseded and demolished are Holborn Viaduct and Broad Street. Relieved that the idea of moving Liverpool Street long-distance services to Bishopsgate was dropped - no tube connections! Same error now being made at Birmingham Curzon Street for HS2, due to lack of foresight in providing extra eastern entry tunnels to New Street when the Bull Ring was redeveloped.
As touched on here, as well as previous presentations on the lines (specifically underground lines) south of the river, but with the ever expanding boundary of the city, the redevelopment on the south side (increasing both the scarcity and price of available land) and the advance in civil engineering technology, are there likely to be future proposals for sub-surface lines south of the river? 🤔
Patrick Abercrombie was also the chief author of a plan to demolish acres of London buildings to build wide new boulevards like in Paris, as well as a much larger set of avenues circling London than the Metropolis actually received. The "Unfinished London" series on Jay Foreman's channel explains it.
7:06 - The approach tracks to Charing Cross station, that run on a viaduct between Waterloo Road and Waterloo station, are a good example of the kind of designs that modern planners would never do. It's hard to believe that Charing Cross was opened years after Waterloo opened in 1848, but so it was. Good example that Jago picked to show why planners might think a complete rebuilding of the entire London railway network would be a good thing.
see the building right of screen at 5.01 ? Bridge House, Queen Victoria Street. I used to work in that building, before the redevelopment of Blackfriars station. It had a rather splendid view of the Thames as we were right next to Blackfriars Bridge. One time the office junior went in to the bosses office, that had large windows over looking the river, and came into the main office ans asked "what's that river out there" ? She got one hell of a laugh !
Ah St. Patrick of Abercrombie. The monocled town planner, an inspiration to all us town planners along with Ebenezer Howard. Although I am glad a lot of his proposals, including here in the city of Bath didn't win political support, I do lament that others did not. But the GREATER London Plan published in 1944 did pioneer the New Towns. For him we must thank for Harlow, Basildon, Stevenage and Crawley etc.
What would have made sense would have been to (a) extend beyind Charing Cross to Moorgate and the Northern City Line to create a new north-south route across London - ideally if the curve between Waterloo and Waterloo East had been reinstated, this would have created even more routes; and (b) Create a route from Victoria underneath Park Lane to Marylebone, creating a through route from the South Coast to the Midlands and beyond.
If one wants to build a "London Central" Station (linking the ECML & MML with lines South), Mount Pleasant would be the best option. Not just because it's next to Farringdon Station, but also because its currently home to a Royal Mail Depot and thus enough space to build such a station.
Thameslink and Liz/Cross/Purp are evidence that grids are the most effective transport structures where services must be supplied to people living in a wide geographic area. Lots of brick viaducts in London should be removed with lines linked underground. This particularly applies to intercity routes. However, I suggest every heritage railway station building be retained and reused - likely for retail and hotel activities. Through stations require less than a quarter of the platforms of terminal stations. History is great, but it must be in the service of a better future.
@3:38, plans for the redevelopment of the Bishopsgate goodsyard area have been approved and work is due to start next year. It is, indeed, pretty soulless looking, although it does include a small High line style park.
Interestingly in the context of heritage protection of rail infrastructure, I saw a photo today of the former Circular Quay tram depot on Sydney's Bennelong Point. The replacement for the travesty of this lost transport heritage is an uninspiring structure called the Sydney Opera House.
I now live in Leicester, where town planning in the 1950s and 1960s left the city with a fair amount of concrete monstrosities, but, from reading articles written at the time, there was a great public sentiment to look forward rather than back at two fairly recent world wars. This involved some radical thinking and the expectation that a lot of the proposals would end up going nowhere, as appears to be the case with the Abercrombie Plan of 1943 for London. London is one of very few cities with a railway network sufficiently complex for anywhere else to have post-war plans to close down or move stations except when lines were completely closed. There was also an Abercrombie Plan for Edinburgh, published in 1949, which would have had what would now call an urban motorway replacing Princes Street - surely one of Edinburgh's finest selling points. Unlike London, Edinburgh was virtually unscathed by the Luftwaffe in WW2 and hence the scope for exploiting unused or destroyed spaces was significantly less than in London. In 1963 (nothing happens quickly in Edinburgh - it took over 40 years to implement the outer ring road) it finally got mostly abandoned, although Edinburgh did implement certain elements of the plan. Areas such as Leith and the Southside witnessed wholesale demolition as families were moved out of dilapidated tenements and relocated to new housing schemes on the fringes of the city, including Wester Hailes, which was in the Abercrombie Plan..
If you go back to Victorian times, the entire Snow Hill crypts was conceived as a single central mainline station, with every terminus running through.
The too narrow platforms at Penn Station were the worst thing about it. Still there. The good part was demolished - the huge light filled station. Grand Central almost went but partly because of Penn plus Jackie O and others it was saved - really the beginning of major historic preservation instead of new is good old is bad thinking. The platforms were of course already underground like at Grand Central.
There was also a scheme post-War to demolish the whole of Glasgow and replace it with something akin to Milton Keynes. Fortunately it was scrapped when some underling suggested renovating the tenement blocks instead, at a fraction of the cost.
Seems that this might've been a spiritual precursor to the idea of the RER or Crossrail: mainline gauge tunnels connecting disparate terminals through the central city. Were it not for the surface demolitions, this plan may have been quite the boon. There's some terminal pairs that would've made strong contenders had they been explored: Waterloo to Liverpool St, London Bridge to Moorgate, Victoria to King's Cross, etc. I think it's kind of a shame that the Crossrail 2 tunnel is reaching so far to meet the various branches at their merger points, when a shorter tunnel between the terminals could get the job done simply by tying the network together.
Interesting that you used the terminology “ Liquid Highway” for the Thames , That indeed what it is and from Ben Mann we have a very good social media page called that about all things on the River 😀
Is anyone else supremely disappointed that Abercrombie's planning partner/co-author is NOT named Fitch?? Jago, you are the trousers to my American fashionable pants
Abercrombie and Forshaw sounds like the a band name for one of those "up market" ranges of expensive clothing aimed at the country set which, inexplicably, appears from time to time in the never ending stream of advertising which the algorithm picks for my personal annoyance.
The disconnect of the London termini is a bit of a pain, left over from Victorian free market dabbling. The idea of a joined up system is interesting, although we would all be lamenting the architecture. The stations that have been rebuilt, have mainly been to maximise profits of the buildings themselves - Victoria, Charing Cross, Liverpool Street, Canon Street etc. Not the passenger. Although routes like Crossrail and Thameslink are very much passenger led.
On the one hand there's the argument for not hanging on to the past. But on the other is the argument for preserving heritage. It's a tough balance to make.
The Luftwaffe school of architecture was briefly influential
😂
Aka the Goering School
But more aesthetic than brutalism.
@@brendandmcmunniii269 Oh, I like that!
Einsturzende Neubauten's first gig, just a flying visit . . . : )
“A Victorian did it and now we’re stuck with it.”
A line that can be placed in most situations and would be true 9 out of 10 times.
Dubliners blame George! 😅
"to bring the railway, tube and road system in line with modern requirements" If only the road system was held to such standards, imagine a road being closed after a crash and that model of car being retrofitted to prevent further incidents.
Bradford demolished both its Victorian stations (and most of the city centre) and replaced them with stunning modern ones of the finest cement. Worked out a charm... and they didn't even bother to link them.
Those town planners should hang their heads in shame for the terrible destruction they wrought on our mostly beautiful Edwardian Victorian architectural heritage in the name of so called progress. They are obviously all long dead and hopefully before they died they had good grace to realize what had been lost and horrible, ugly and cheap replacements they had put in their place.
The stations aren't linked because, annoyingly, they too close together for trains to both use the stations and a tunnel/viaduct to go the other one. It an infuriating situation that basically can't be solved.
Any joining would be ridiculously steep.
Best thing would be start the climb at Frizinghall and perhaps reopen manningham but abandon Forster Square to allow a viaduct through the city. Still not ideal though
I haven't lived in Bradford for a long while, but I seem to remember that while heavy rail is out of the question there was a plan to built a tramtrain or something, with Manningham actually on the table for reopening. However I have no idea how far this plan got. Probably not very. Bradford Interchange must surely be the dingiest and most poorly served station of any major city... and demolishing Bradford Exchange must rank highly in Britain's worst planning blunders.
@@orange77_ Or you go underneath…
Mainline tunnels are a thing (as are mainline underground stations).
I used to enjoy walking around the Southwark Viaducts in my lunch-time when working in the area. Fascinating to feel the history of the places. Thanks for the footage.
I can see why Unfinished London brought you in as Harry Beck with your mapping skills for these, and other, proposed route bits.
Keep it up!
Abercrombie? They felt that they had to scratch that Fitch.
Came here for this 😂
The only Abercrombie post-war plan I knew of before this was the one he did for Plymouth (also remodelled by the Luftwaffe). The plan managed to stop anyone living in the city centre with the result that it was a dead zone in the evenings.
Abercrombie was very active in planning a lot of council housing, a lot of it now knocked down for social reasons. I have a book, in 3 volumes, edited by him in 1923 which is very interesting and gives a lot of the 'new' ideas an airing.
Abercrombie also did a plan for Bath. The world famous Royal Crescent was to be turned into council offices.
Abercrombie was a busy and prolific planner. He co-authored with Derek Plumstead a new "Civic Plan for Edinburgh". Hold onto your hats, folks...this plan also involved knocking down huge parts of the city to build those newfangled motorways.
The worst example of station butchery must be here in Brum, where New Street station (so called because it is on Stephenson Street) is an underground branch of a shopping centre.
There have been two phases to the destruction: the first was in 1964 when the shed and Queen's Hotel were demolished, to be replaced by a shopping centre and offices above the now dark and dismal station, where passengers were in the first stage of their evolution into customers. (Air rights had been sold to private property developers). At least it was easy to get in and out the the station as a pedestrian, and taxis and drop-off-points were within 10 metres of the exit gates. Then the town planners struck again: they told us New Street Station was to be redeveloped and improved. "Well", I thought, "it couldn't be worse". How wrong I was. The main part of the station is still the horrible, dark, dismal underground hell it was, but the concourse has now been turned into more of the shopping centre, with multiple entrances to hades, making a visit to the hell-maze of New Street as a special outing for a day or two. If you need a taxi, forget it - it will take you 10-15 minutes to lug your bags to the new rank location, if you can find it.
New Street Station is en example of the worst railway architecture on earth, brought about by a combination of Town Planners and Private Developers - both heartless foolish twats.
Monied interests only begat more money for those who have it, to the detriment of all else.
I am from Birmingham and I had not been back in abour 20 years as I live abroad only to find a shopping centre a bouve the station I did finaly get out of the exit I needed after many wrong turns. The old station may have been an eye sore but everything from the booking office to the patforms were easy to find and get to now It is just a concret maze.
I lived in Birmingham about 15 years ago. Redeveloping New Street was clearly needed... I'm staggered to hear they've made it arguably worse!
To give the positive side: Moor Street Station in Brum is an example of how a station _can_ be developed without destroying it. It raises my spirit whenever I go there, and as the Camp Hill line in Brum is reopening soon it will be the alternative terminus for my journeys from Kings Norton to Brum. Google some pics of it.
But I understand that there are plans to defile the station as the HS2 Curzon Street Station pulls alongside it. Curzon Street Station entrance will be a ten minute walk from Curzon Street, and the main entrance for Snow Hill Station is not on Snow Hill, but Colmore Row. Moor Street Station entrance is on . . . Moor Street, so I expect them to shift that onto Park Street. It doesn't do for a station _actually_ to be on the street after which it is named.
@@frogandspanner I use the Chiltern Mainline in preference to the WCML to get from northwest London to Birmingham and think Moor Street is delightful. I just wish the connections were better for people starting from South or West Ruislip (usually changing at High Wycombe or sometimes Gerrard's Cross) as it's almost quicker to set off in the opposite direction and change at Marylebone.
Thank you for the great laugh today. "You're the pie to my sky", delivered in that quintessentially British dry tone. Perfection.
Jago, thank you for all the laughs in these troubled times 😂
Leaving he bus in the shot: "Hello, world" LOL. splendid
👍proper interesting this one Jago! Well done, again. I am not sure what their suggested underlying philosophy was with all of this. Whacking Waterloo seems a bit daft, it’s a nice station.
Jago really articulated the Multitrain of Madness taking place in the 20th Century.
Excellent and upmarket shot at 7.53 with train entering platform and camera filming from train leaving
London has too many termini and not enough through stations, so there is some logic to this, but i feel like knocking everything down and starting again is a little bit too drastic at this point when we have so much fabulous historic architecture tied into everything. I think the Elizabeth line and Thameslink are a fantastic solution to this type of problem.
The problem isn't the lack of through services (local such are now catered for by Thameslink and Elizabeth); rather the need for convenient interconnections. Most people arriving at London termini, I imagine, are heading for other parts of the city, so the Tube is usually adequate, and it doesn't really matter in which part of central London the terminus is located. On the other hand, if you are travelling across London, eg from the north to the south coast, or from the west to East Anglia, it's a pain to get on a crowded Tube especially if it involves a change. But digging up Trafalgar Square to build a London Hbf would never happen.
@@davidemmott6225 It would have been around Farringdon anyway under the London Central station plans
Looking at the situating with a bazillion termini in London through the glasses of a continental European (who also spent enough time in North America) the situating in London seems beyond crazy... (Berlin also has too many main stations)
@@johanneswerner1140 so has Paris.
@@johanneswerner1140 Why Berlin? The vast majority of Berlin's intercity services terminate at or pass through Hauptbahnhof, only a few being recently relegated to Gesundbrunnen due to track works. Sure many stations have intercity service, but that's rather efficient - providing ample interchange points for folks hopping over to S-Bahn, U-Bahn, or another ICE without having to touch the central hub.
In contemporary nomenclature, this plan would be called "the great reset".
I am amazed at these grandiose (if ill conceived) plans...It would have cost something like the scale of the Space Race, or the Manhattan Project... (or even Supersonic Airliners!) Money was something in very short supply after the Unpleasantness of 1939-1945! Still, at least we have some progress now in the 2020s, even if not everyone agrees with it! Another good 'un, Jago!
I suspect that the lack of money is part of the reason this didn't all happen.
@@luxford60
Or rather, the unwillingness to actually spend some money for a change.
Incidentally, the view of St Pancras down Argyll Street at 4:37 is the view from Mrs Wilberforce's front door in The Ladykillers (even though the house itself was above Copenhagen Tunnel!)
I would definitely welcome one or more viaduct videos.
Washington D.C. did something analogous with its railways in the early 20th century, and the result was Washington Union Station. Before WUS was built, for example, trains crossed the National Mall at grade. No one today regrets moving passenger trains to a tunnel under the U.S. Capitol area, and routing freight trains to Anacostia. However, the Abercrombie Plan for London is extreme.
As an aside, your photography is becoming very cinematic. At 6:30 I definitely had a THX 1138 moment and the 8:00 train leaving the station sequence was great. Thank you. So glad these plans weren't carried through. If only Birmngham New Street had been left alone...the Victorian one that is!
That plan sounds like complete madness! I am glad that they didn't knock down all those stations!
Btw, I really like that shot around minute 8.
Agreed - he's developing into the Werner Herzog of public transport, is our Jago.
@@apolloc.vermouth5672deserves a BAFTA!
It would have been criminal to do away with St Pancras. That said, its a station one would instinctively think of as handling trains from places north (which it sort of still does) and not from far away places of a "foreign" nature. (Dash it James, how can foreigners have a station). I actually thought Waterloo was reasonably well suited for that other than the lines were pathetically slow into it. Moreover, HS1 suffers from Londoncentricity (again). No thought was ever given to potential through trains from other country capitals like Cardiff and Edinburgh. HS2 sort of connects with other UK cities but it has no connection (well it does in terms of actual track) to HS1.
In my flights of fancy I imagine a tunneling machine making its way deep under London creating a "London Central" station where trains from all over Europe could come into from the south and head out to these other capitals and, yay, even unto other major UK cities. Potentially replacing short hopping aeroplanes, reducing greenhouses gasses and connecting all of the UK to the largest trading block on the planet. Make Britain Great Again.
In reality, the UK is trying to be some sort of isolationist third world country instead. Oh well. I can dream.
That was heavy going for some reason.
Top content as ever Jago. 👏
He also 'rebuilt' Plymouth creating a concrete-canyon grid that totally failed to respect the beautiful pre-Blitz city and provably demolished more fine old buildings than the Luftwaffe managed to do.
Csn sort of see why the hate.
St Pancras was filthy dirty and horribly run down - and it wasn't just the Victorian stations that were derided.
Years of air pollution had taken its toll of many Victorian buildings - I can well remember how dirty the Natural History Museum was - and how a scrub in the 1970s absolutely transformed it into the jewel its original builders intended it to be
'You are the pie to my sky'. That summed it up better than anything!
All aboard the 12:00 train with your driver Jago Hazzard
I’d love to see a video on viaducts.
The Abercrombie Plan wisely comprehends that cental London has no central destination, especially for employment, but a raft of major destinations, and thus it needs stations scattered about. However, stub end stations are inefficient to work, even with diesel and electric multiple unit trains. Still one large central station west of The City would be more efficient than what existed in 1944; an even larger version of the great Farringdon Station plan Jago has covered earlier.
Briefly ignoring the humanitarian consequences, had the Luftwaffe completely wrecked London and left some vast wasteland in the center of it, redevelopment on this scale might have been reasonable. On the other hand -- would any sane planner rebuild London as it is, placing the most important financial, government, and cultural institutions in the British Isles on the same few square miles, thus necessitating the centralization of transport as that does? On the other hand, Tokyo was almost completely destroyed in 1945, and it was essentially rebuilt, except that many old moats were repurposed for motorways.
Los Angeles is about to experience a microcosmic version of this, when its main station is finally double-ended so that trains can cross the region without reversing. L.A. Union Station (opened in 1939) was originally to be a through station when it was originally planned, but its southern approach tracks were omitted as an economy measure. Of course, in 1939, L.A. was a much smaller city then, and regional transport was provided by the largest suburban electric railway system in North America, the 1500 route miles of Pacific Electric ("The Red Cars"), so a stub on wye station was fit for purpose. Today, Metrolink commuter trains are ranging much further from Los Angeles than PE ever did.
It would have been awful to lose these cavernous stations, but I can't help but feel that perhaps there was room to improve connectivity between railways that we don't currently have - thanks to the Victorians being so bloody-minded about not sharing any resources. The Underground is fine, but tourists going from, say, Gatwick to north London face a number of changes with all their luggage. Even as a commuter, marching in lock-step with everyone else and not getting in anyone's way as you transfer from one platform or line to another is such a miserable experience. (And then there's the current weather - let's not even think about it!)
Our railways are old and the builders did not anticipate 21st century travel. The wealthy sent their luggage ahead of departure and everybody else just took day trips. As I watch tourists heave huge cases up and down stairs, I realise what nobody told them how bad it is getting around on trains in this country.
Hi Jago from Spain. Thank you for another interesting video which provides a talking point, if nothing else. Why do politicians never talk about demolishing that lump of stonework with its clocktower that clutteres up the northern riverside in Westminster and, maybe, move its overpaid and over privileged occupants to somewhere else such as Milton Keynes?
Moving the government to Milton Keynes would have the unfortunate effect of making Milton Keynes the capital of the UK though!
If Jago was from Spain, he would be spelled "Diego" 😂
@@WillKemp Hardly. Diego means 'James'
@@alejandrayalanbowman367 True, but I figured "Jago" was an anglicised spelling of "Diego" - they're certainly pronounced pretty much the same. However, Wikipedia says Jago is the Cornish version of "Jacob", so I guess I'm wrong 🙂
@@SirKenchalot
Moving the capital to Milton Keynes is not exactly a punishment though? Also you would end up seeing London swallow up Milton Keynes altogether.
Funnily, "A Victorian did it," explains a lot of problems around the world.
And most of our prosperity, health, and democracy too…
Especially in Victoria. Damn Victorians, ruining Victoria.
You wait until 2160 when that generation lays into yours. If you haven't blown up the world for them by then, of course.
I do like your understated fury, especially when describing the short-link from Shadwell to Deptford. The scheme rings with absurdities
I have a copy of this County of London Plan explained by E J Carter and Erno Goldfinger published by Penguin 1945.
Essentially it considers all overground railways to have ' long outstayed their welcome ' and as you say by implication almost all main line termini would be demolished. For various reasons this did not happen in most cases. The proposals for elevated major new roads to be blasted through inner London which it is favour of however did happen in the 1960s and 70s. Incredibly it suggests these proposed elevated motorways as sites for new shopping precincts. This sort of planning did happen not so much in London but in many other places such as Birmingham. London got parts of an inner ring road and the M25.
An interesting video, as always. However I think you have to see the Abercrombie Plan's attitude to Victorian railway stations in context. In 1943 parts of London had been been flattened by bombing, and Victorian architecture generally was held in very low esteem. The condition of the main London termini was in many cases poor. The LMSR had been planning to redevelop Euston for years; I never knew the old station, but it seems clear that while the LNWR buildings were quite grand operational needs had outgrown them. The eventual rebuilding of most of it was probably inevitable. It's just a pity that the arch at the entrance wasn't kept.
Apart from anything, massive amounts of electrification would also have been needed to send all these services underground, seeing that most of the trains into London were steam operated at the time.
One of the most unexpected videos you have produced, Jago. I did not see it coming.
"So, Herr Reichsmarschall, you reckon you've knocked London about, do you? Well I'm Mr Abercrombie. Hold my beer..."
Post-war planning did more damage than the Luftwaffe.
Part of Abercrombie's rationale was that the viaducts impacted amenity for local residents through noise,dirt (steam trains) and by dislocation...dividing neighbourhoods,basically...as well as the fact that the land would be freed for development.
In this respect he was forward thinking and humanist,and his report also led to the creation of two large parks in what had been the most densely-packed neighbourhoods before the war...Mile End Park and what became Burgess Park ("The Hyde Park of South London",in his vision).
It was very interesting researching this for a guided walk I was asked to do in Burgess Park.
Where is Burgess park?
Is it named in honour of a certain Guy?
@@thomasburke2683 It was originally called,romantically,"The North Camberwell Open Space" but was renamed after a former (female) mayor of Camberwell.
We could have had some really cool looking stations if we had let the Germans win and put Albert Speer in charge although I admit this plan may have had its drawbacks.
Slave labour for a start....
And of course having failed with London, Abercrombie then tried for a rematch in Plymouth, and ended up winning a contract to design the new city, for which he largely used copious quantities of grey concrete, and pretty well nothing else, thereby turning the Piazza in Armada way into an almost plausible replica of Red Square! Having at one time lived in Plymouth for many years I'd say the remains of London had a narrow escape. Still it could be argued that the main city planning disaster in both cases was giving the site clearance contract to the Luftwaffe in the first place. 🤔
Was more of Plymouth destroyed by the planners or the bombs. Can’t be sure, but suspect it was the bombs. Utopian ideas quickly become dystopian realities because planners often forget the humanity.
The loss of Euston's Doric archway was an act of architectural vandalism of epic proportions, personally I'd like to see the redevelopment of Euston to include some keys/pointers to what was so cruelly destroyed in the name of progress?
Thanks for another gem, Jago
Euston Station, the current version has been vandalised by a huge bus station outside, that has robbed it of natural light, which it had when it was built, looking much like an airport terminal. Knocking down the current Euston, would seriously disrupt local and north western England and Scotland services. Some things never change. 😒🙄
Anyone remember Pie In The Sky the detective television series? 😁
Pie in the sky is currently been shown on Yesterday.
Ah, professor Abercrombie. He’s one of the fathers of my much aligned profession. It was before Betjeman and the reappraisal of Victorian buildings and was very much of its time. It has no concept of money!
Plymouth city centre could have worked but sadly the build quality and lack of green space along with the architecture of the time spoiled it!
Interesting indeed: if this plan had been implemented in full, london railway and tube transport network would have resembled the almost totally fully integrated underground ratp/sncf network we see in Paris...
"You are the pie to my sky." Brilliant!
Jagotastic history lesson today, Sir Jago Hazzard. Bring henceforth the next ‘Tale From Da Tube’..
I would love to see an episode devoted to viaducts. I have a rather soft spot for Victorian ones...
1:17 I find it amusing that your South Western Railway uses almost exactly the same livery as our Southwest Airlines. I also acknowledge that I may be the only one who does.
I hope that SWA do not have the large number of pointless and boring announcements as we have here in England on the South Western Railway : on the platform then on the train and then on the arrival station -with up to four announcements of the next station stop,all this on a suburban railway built in 1864 and managed by First Group and
the MTR of Hong Kong. [perhaps they do not know how to programme the computer or they just don't give a damn ].
] Mr O'Leary of Ryanair copied the business plan invented by the founder of SWA]..
Certainly a fascinating set of ideas ... if money and resources were no object. If affordable, some underground cross-city routes are useful, like Thameslink/Crossrail and Paris RER. The authors missed however that to-London travel is much greater than cross-London travel, so the majority of services need to terminate at London and you still need most or all of the terminal stations. Even the 2-track Waterloo and City copes with the onward travel to the City from the 20-odd platforms at Waterloo. I suppose you could have a giant underground complex beneath Oxford Street with multiple tracks leading to it ... theoretically. But actually that can get very complex and congested, so distributing traffic between a lot of different stations has its advantages as long as there is some interconnectivity. Kings Cross St Pancras is a very useful interchange, but I tend to change lines elsewhere if I can, because the walking routes are so long (and some have been made longer to help crowd control). The two cases of redundant stations which have been superseded and demolished are Holborn Viaduct and Broad Street. Relieved that the idea of moving Liverpool Street long-distance services to Bishopsgate was dropped - no tube connections! Same error now being made at Birmingham Curzon Street for HS2, due to lack of foresight in providing extra eastern entry tunnels to New Street when the Bull Ring was redeveloped.
As touched on here, as well as previous presentations on the lines (specifically underground lines) south of the river, but with the ever expanding boundary of the city, the redevelopment on the south side (increasing both the scarcity and price of available land) and the advance in civil engineering technology, are there likely to be future proposals for sub-surface lines south of the river? 🤔
Patrick Abercrombie was also the chief author of a plan to demolish acres of London buildings to build wide new boulevards like in Paris, as well as a much larger set of avenues circling London than the Metropolis actually received. The "Unfinished London" series on Jay Foreman's channel explains it.
Jago is the low-level loop to my goods yard! Love this even though it's built on things which 'could have', 'might have' happened!
7:06 - The approach tracks to Charing Cross station, that run on a viaduct between Waterloo Road and Waterloo station, are a good example of the kind of designs that modern planners would never do. It's hard to believe that Charing Cross was opened years after Waterloo opened in 1848, but so it was. Good example that Jago picked to show why planners might think a complete rebuilding of the entire London railway network would be a good thing.
see the building right of screen at 5.01 ? Bridge House, Queen Victoria Street. I used to work in that building, before the redevelopment of Blackfriars station. It had a rather splendid view of the Thames as we were right next to Blackfriars Bridge. One time the office junior went in to the bosses office, that had large windows over looking the river, and came into the main office ans asked "what's that river out there" ? She got one hell of a laugh !
Ah St. Patrick of Abercrombie. The monocled town planner, an inspiration to all us town planners along with Ebenezer Howard. Although I am glad a lot of his proposals, including here in the city of Bath didn't win political support, I do lament that others did not. But the GREATER London Plan published in 1944 did pioneer the New Towns. For him we must thank for Harlow, Basildon, Stevenage and Crawley etc.
Great history lesson,thanks
Thank you for sharing this madness with us…😊
What would have made sense would have been to (a) extend beyind Charing Cross to Moorgate and the Northern City Line to create a new north-south route across London - ideally if the curve between Waterloo and Waterloo East had been reinstated, this would have created even more routes; and (b) Create a route from Victoria underneath Park Lane to Marylebone, creating a through route from the South Coast to the Midlands and beyond.
Bravo sir, who is up for a Jago Hazzard fan club?
You never told us what Fitch thought of the plan.
He wasn’t talking to anyone because he’d been left to stitch all the trousers on his own while Abercrombie messed around at the Planning Office.
7:55 I like how you moved the station along for this shot.
If one wants to build a "London Central" Station (linking the ECML & MML with lines South), Mount Pleasant would be the best option. Not just because it's next to Farringdon Station, but also because its currently home to a Royal Mail Depot and thus enough space to build such a station.
Potential video on viaducts in Southwark? Yes please!
Mean? You? Omg never!
"You are the pie to my sky", that made me laugh. 😂
I thought the next 3 words in the title would be "by the Luftwaffe", but then realised that was 3 or 4 years earlier.
Thameslink and Liz/Cross/Purp are evidence that grids are the most effective transport structures where services must be supplied to people living in a wide geographic area. Lots of brick viaducts in London should be removed with lines linked underground. This particularly applies to intercity routes. However, I suggest every heritage railway station building be retained and reused - likely for retail and hotel activities. Through stations require less than a quarter of the platforms of terminal stations. History is great, but it must be in the service of a better future.
@3:38, plans for the redevelopment of the Bishopsgate goodsyard area have been approved and work is due to start next year. It is, indeed, pretty soulless looking, although it does include a small High line style park.
Is this the same "Abercrombie" discussed in Jay Foreman's unfinished London video about London ring roads?
That’s the boy!
a brief bit of research suggests it is the same man
@@JagoHazzard I feel like my RUclips viewing habits are all forming a weird transport/infrastructure nerd cinematic universe
Interestingly in the context of heritage protection of rail infrastructure, I saw a photo today of the former Circular Quay tram depot on Sydney's Bennelong Point. The replacement for the travesty of this lost transport heritage is an uninspiring structure called the Sydney Opera House.
I now live in Leicester, where town planning in the 1950s and 1960s left the city with a fair amount of concrete monstrosities, but, from reading articles written at the time, there was a great public sentiment to look forward rather than back at two fairly recent world wars. This involved some radical thinking and the expectation that a lot of the proposals would end up going nowhere, as appears to be the case with the Abercrombie Plan of 1943 for London. London is one of very few cities with a railway network sufficiently complex for anywhere else to have post-war plans to close down or move stations except when lines were completely closed.
There was also an Abercrombie Plan for Edinburgh, published in 1949, which would have had what would now call an urban motorway replacing Princes Street - surely one of Edinburgh's finest selling points. Unlike London, Edinburgh was virtually unscathed by the Luftwaffe in WW2 and hence the scope for exploiting unused or destroyed spaces was significantly less than in London. In 1963 (nothing happens quickly in Edinburgh - it took over 40 years to implement the outer ring road) it finally got mostly abandoned, although Edinburgh did implement certain elements of the plan. Areas such as Leith and the Southside witnessed wholesale demolition as families were moved out of dilapidated tenements and relocated to new housing schemes on the fringes of the city, including Wester Hailes, which was in the Abercrombie Plan..
If you go back to Victorian times, the entire Snow Hill crypts was conceived as a single central mainline station, with every terminus running through.
Demolishing a station and shoving the platforms underground has a Penn Station ring about it.
The too narrow platforms at Penn Station were the worst thing about it. Still there. The good part was demolished - the huge light filled station. Grand Central almost went but partly because of Penn plus Jackie O and others it was saved - really the beginning of major historic preservation instead of new is good old is bad thinking. The platforms were of course already underground like at Grand Central.
There was also a scheme post-War to demolish the whole of Glasgow and replace it with something akin to Milton Keynes. Fortunately it was scrapped when some underling suggested renovating the tenement blocks instead, at a fraction of the cost.
Seems that this might've been a spiritual precursor to the idea of the RER or Crossrail: mainline gauge tunnels connecting disparate terminals through the central city. Were it not for the surface demolitions, this plan may have been quite the boon. There's some terminal pairs that would've made strong contenders had they been explored: Waterloo to Liverpool St, London Bridge to Moorgate, Victoria to King's Cross, etc. I think it's kind of a shame that the Crossrail 2 tunnel is reaching so far to meet the various branches at their merger points, when a shorter tunnel between the terminals could get the job done simply by tying the network together.
Any talk of rebuilding Euston Arch has gone quiet.
Anybody know anything?
Interesting that you used the terminology “ Liquid Highway” for the Thames , That indeed what it is and from Ben Mann we have a very good social media page called that about all things on the River 😀
Is anyone else supremely disappointed that Abercrombie's planning partner/co-author is NOT named Fitch??
Jago, you are the trousers to my American fashionable pants
Great again from the Jago
Abercrombie and Forshaw sounds like the a band name for one of those "up market" ranges of expensive clothing aimed at the country set which, inexplicably, appears from time to time in the never ending stream of advertising which the algorithm picks for my personal annoyance.
The disconnect of the London termini is a bit of a pain, left over from Victorian free market dabbling. The idea of a joined up system is interesting, although we would all be lamenting the architecture. The stations that have been rebuilt, have mainly been to maximise profits of the buildings themselves - Victoria, Charing Cross, Liverpool Street, Canon Street etc. Not the passenger. Although routes like Crossrail and Thameslink are very much passenger led.
Thank god we have listed buildings now
"A Victorian did it" is going to be my new go-to excuse.
Wow they were planning to close most the heavy hitting big commuter rail stations
Bishopsgate Goods Depot was destroyed by fire on 5 December, 1964.
Now, if the Luftwaffe had tried that little bit harder...
Why is it that every time abicrombe comes up I think of that jay foreman video that featured him 😂
Southwark viaducts video - yes please! It's probably the most interesting area of railway infrastructure in all of London.
“A Victorian did it” - cue Sir Edward Watkin?
On the one hand there's the argument for not hanging on to the past. But on the other is the argument for preserving heritage. It's a tough balance to make.
The was an Abercrombie plan for Dublin too. Came to nothing also.
When I saw the title I thought the video was going to be about Hermann Göring.
You are my sanity to London transport madness.
Have you been to Plymouth? The good professor designed the city centre? It has good and bad aspects and is very car centric
Just sat here like 'wut?'. I can't tell if the plans make sense or not😂
Interesting video. Have you done a video on the Snow Hill Tunnel? Always wondered why it was ever closed.
Not yet, it’s another one on my list.