How Much of the Tube is Actually Underground?
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- Опубликовано: 30 сен 2024
- It's the sort of thing that turns up in quizzes and that I get asked a lot ... how much of the London Underground is actually underground? Turns out, there's not a straightforward answer as it depends on how you define a station as being 'Underground' ... let's discuss!
Geoff's Actual Underground Map: www.geofftech.c...
TfL's Tube Map Showing Tunnels: content.tfl.gov...
The Section 12 Fire Regulations Map: www.whatdothey...
Hi Geoff, I worked at TfL in their tunnels engineering department from 2008 to 2020. We worked out that there was roughly 41% of the tube in tunnel (excluding cut an cover sections and measuring from tunnel portal to tunnel portal). So we are converging to a number around 40%.
Deepthought still thinks the answer is 42.
Thank you for this comment. I was hoping someone could answer this question. For this question, I don’t care as much about stations underground as I do track underground. Thanks for your expertise!
Bearing in mind the new extensions and whatnot of the tube I feel like that would be I little bit more
Tunnel Engineers are quite scarce aren’t they? I work in tunnelling and do a lot of work for Thames Water, they had a tunnel engineer who was sick and they were searching months for s replacement
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Tfl can't err on the side of 'you can see daylight' when it's about emergency vehicle access.
I think the criteria for the Fire Brigade would have to be how to get fire hoses in. If you can get to track-side, even if it is in a cutting, instead of having to come down stairs then that station would be overground. So I think any station where you can see daylight from the platform would fit that. I would love to see the LFB version of the map, which would have all their access points to stations.
Fortunately the London Fire Brigade have issued an urgent statement to clarify that they don't intend to use Geoff Marshall's video for emergency planning purposes ;)
From the Fire Precautions Regulations, regarding the definition of sub-surface stations:
"A railway platform is an underground platform if the level of the roof or ceiling immediately above the platform and the permanent way to which it is adjacent is below the level of the surface of the ground adjacent to any exit from the railway station providing a means of escape from the station in case of fire."
So it's not about vehicular access, but about passenger egress. If you can get out without walking UP, you're not underground...
@@QemeH Which would be why the Fire Brigade map will include any station with any underground platforms (like the Piccadilly line at Earls Court), where Geoff is excluding the station because of the District Line platforms.
Toronto has a great 'gray area' station, Old Mill, as it's built into the side of a hill. The west end of the platform is fully underground, but the east half is on an enclosed bridge over a river valley.
That sounds like a great looking place! I'll go and see if I can find some photos of it.
I never been to Toronto, BUT (and a big one too!), I have seen pictures and videos involving TTC's Old Mill station, it looks like a floating museum/art gallery, and I love it; as for the rest of the line (Bloor-Danforth/#2), it is in-and-out of the tunnel at various stations west of Dundas West station, yet a mistake is always made going eastward where on a street/road map the line is 'printed as' coming out of the tunnel after Sherbourne station [staying out] through Castle Frank station just to cross the bridge over the Don Valley area returning into the tunnel for Broadview through Main Street stations (the videos I've seen says otherwise: Castle Frank station is indeed underground); there is the Greenwood trainyard offroute, and the remaining outdoors from Victoria Park to Warden (original terminal until the 1980s extension to current underground Kennedy station). . .future plans call for routes #2 and #3 [Scarborough RT] to be put together as one route (#2's station is underground and #3's station is elevated until take-off time) while transfer privileges would be available further on for still under construction route #5 [Eglinton Crosstown]; I have a track map of the TTC and discovered a track connection between the infamous u-shaped #1 [Yonge/University/Spadina] and #4 [Sheppard]: I always imagined trains could 'alternate' between the two routes for the time being until future changes, while all along, the #1 could have been cut in half each way with Union RR station in it's middle as a terminal (saw a map of such a service that could have been)-fortunately I saw the original map of routes operated 'before' the Spadina extension came years later, yet the recently opened extension to Vaughn Metropolitan Center is completely underground which saddened me just slightly, but was enjoyable to watch, even with the layout of the infrastructure in another video that sowed the seed; surprised the Union-Pearson commuter rail wasn't operated by TTC, the rail line uses the same type of railcar as California's SMART commuter rail route (these acronyms o-mi-gosh) . . .SMART compensates for BART decades later thanks to the usual mathematics of politricks+ignorance+nimbyism=racism that stymies the living transit hell out of any transit expansion plans for the future because of the general unattractiveness that shame opportunities everywhere: "sh/st'eople [depreciation]", meanwhile transit fans continue to fantasize the latest umpteenth 'what if's' of how a transit system would/should/could look like.
Eglinton West is also another incredible example, as it is located in the centre along Allen Road and located below a road and a hill. The southern end of the station is clearly in tunnels, but once you get to the northern end, it gets very apparent that the station is not completely underground.
Old Mill Station was indeed my station when I lived in Toronto. There are some stations in TTC where a portion is below ground and the other is above ground but enclosed. I am thinking of High Park and Keele.
p
6:45 "You may not disagree, but that is fine" - Geoff Marshall
So the dark gray on the map is all 15 stories below the street and the light gray is partially 15 stories down?
The classification would be made clearer if you used platforms instead of stations
yeah, because by his definition of "if the weather can touch it" means none of them are underground, they all have entrances above ground level - otherwise they would be pretty useless stations :P
Yes, I would be inclined to count the stations with just a handful of overground platforms to be, say, 25% overground or 50% or whatever the fraction of platforms, perhaps even incorporating a further fraction of those platforms that the weather still can't get to (the other side of the opening, basically, if the outside is immediately through one end of the tunnel). That way an entirely underground station is still 1 and an entirely overground station (like Leytonstone) is still 0. Of course, this method would give an answer that lies within the range Geoff said at the end.
GEOFF MARSHALL VIDEOS HOW MUCH OF THE TUBE IS ACTUALLY UNDRRGROUND
But there could also be one for total miles or kilometres of tunnel. Anyway,I like the idea of those maps by both TfL and Geoff that indicate where the tunnel parts are by the grey shading.
Stations? Platform? The Underground is more than just the stations. I've expected an answer with the unit miles/kilometres. And then you can still argue about built-over and service tracks that are not used with passengers and all that …
Hey Geoff! Hope you don't mind but I've found a tiny mistake on your new map - apparently there's a rogue Stratford station on the lower part of the Northern Line :) Sorry - don't mean to be nitpicky; it's a brilliant map, and thanks so much for still making videos even while everything's shut down - it means a lot to us all :)
Edit: I see it's been sorted out - thank you!
Intrigued by your name (not very usual on a train channel) I clicked and found your own. I'll be back!
Where?
Your exposure to weather metric is fine, but fails on a hypothetical overground station that has been encased in a shopping centre.
You could also argue that cut-and-cover stations that are not covered, are really at least below ground level though not exactly underground.
Reminds me in HK where quite a no. of stations' are located within shopping malls on 1 of their upper floors, so they feel more enclosed & like underground stations although they're elevated
Maybe they could’ve called it the Overground if that name wasn’t already taken.
Maybe the Wombling Network. Underground Overground. 🙂
@@ianwood2031 That is , interestingly, Whitechapel. Where the Overground is Underground and the Underground is Overground. Wimbledon incidentally is Open to the Air, as is Wimbledon Park , Southfields Too, but the track then goes in a Tunnel to East Putney which is also within walking distance of Wimbledon Common.
wood wombeling free.
So this video is actually "How many of the Tube stations are actually underground". "How much of the Tube is actually underground" is next week's video?! How hard would it be to calculate just how much of the running lines is in tunnels and how much of it is open to the weather?
Or how about "How much of the Underground is actually Tube?"
might there be sections of line between stations that are above ground or in a cutting? Not stations I know.
@@darylcheshire1618 Would Finchley Road-Baker Street Metropolitan line be an example of what you are looking for?
I used to work at Birmingham New Street station. For fire safety regulations this was classed as an underground station as most of the platforms are underneath a building. There are platform ends in the open, so it was classified as a sub-surface station. So I would guess that it would apply to the underground as well.
Waterloo & City is underground, that's for sure! The Little line that could
But the depot for it is open to air and you can see daylight from Waterloo Platforms
I love the Waterloo and city line! I use it every day, or used to *sad face*
Lucas Barton _Every_ day? But it doesn’t run on Sundays.
Sort of, the whole depot is unique in being below street level though. There is a shaft in the depot for ventilation and lowering/raising trains (used to have an elevator on a siding but there was a major accident with that). The line is considered a deep level line as it is more than 20m underground and was not constructed using cut and cover.
BenCol oh yeah, sorry I meant weekday
I remember my first trip to London - a 2 week family holiday - I was 7. I was really excited by the underground, but felt completely cheated when the trains appeared out in the open.. Suddenly those great mystical tunnels felt more like a railway with a roof.
Well it literally was how they were built in the early days! Deep a deep ditch, put the railway in, put the roof over it.
@@Ealsante so was the first parts of the Metro in Stockholm built as well. That was however in the 1950s on the Green line, while the other stations is mainly outdoors. The underground stations on the Red line is located about 15 - 20 m below the surface, and the first deep level (20 - 30 m) stations is mainly located on the Blue line. There are as well 2 special cases; Liljeholmen opened in 1964 as a surface station, but in the early 2000s, a brand new shopping centre was built on top of the station, meaning that if you want to go from platform to street level, you need to go up 1 floor. However, there is windows on one of the walls, so you can look out. This means that you are suddenly on street level. The other special case is Skärholmen, which is sort of built inside a building, so the station is located in the basement.
I had an experience like this in reverse, I’d always been used to the tube being completely underground, but then I took a train that went outside and my mind was blown. It was such a fascinating experience to see something like that, I really had no idea they ever left the tunnels, and it made the tube so much more interesting to me. I also had a funny experience where our conventional train pulled up into a station, and a tube train came out of a tunnel into another platform further down the station, and it was such a bizarre thing to see.
As I child in the 1960s I remember standing on Hounslow West station many times when it was a terminus and before the Heathrow extension was built. Back then it was completely "overground" and exposed to the weather. So, Geoff, would it be worth making a video on all the stations that have changed from one type to another?
Geoff is clearly a god.
He is just unbelievably wise about the tube...
So I was thinking ... shouldn't there be a statue of our Geoff on the tube system. .
No brainer is it. ..yeah !!!
The question must be...
Where would you think on the tube network should the statue of Geoff be located?
Sudbury Town ?
Cockfosters?
Then where...on a platform or in a forecourt or ..
Terah....
above an entranceway ?
So many questions...
Can anyone help?
Halfway down the fifteen storey steps at hampstead😂😂😂
Maybe ontop of Chiswick park?
Brixton
In all honestly I would probably believe more of what geoff says than TFL.
GM has the problem of one named station serving lines that are underground and open to air. I would proportion them- like Baker Street half and half rather than saying it is open or underground - I have not counted them though as a result.
High Path as a northerner from West Yorkshire I have absolutely no clue. But Geoffs word is final. I tried messaging him and vkki on ALl the stations to being them sandwiches at Saltaire but that didn’t happen.
I agree but from the point of view from TFL their map is more based on emergency vehicle access and not just whether you can see daylight or not
@@highpath4776 indeed, every station that is home to more than one line is also correspondingly more likely to become a "overground station" in Geoff's system, even if only one platform out of 6 or 8 or 12 were open to the air. Of course classification is always slippery and that's part of what makes it fun to debate.
So where is the partial station (0.1%)? Extra-dimensional maybe....
I love the detail you`ve gone into here!
I was thinking the same and calculated the figures. The percentages are actually 61.5% and 38.5%.
Here's my test - if you can see rails on Google Earth, the stations not underground...!
John Still John what about Bermondsey where you can see daylight from the underground platforms?
@@transportflick923 Ah yes - but look on Google Earth...!
If you dig a hole in the ground, is the hole underground or on ground or overground ? Or is it only underground if you bury it with ground? I would say underground is if you dig a hole, if it’s buried with ground or not. So below surface level is underground in my opinion, if you can see daylight or not.
2:24 even the best You-tuber's are not perfect but well done on correcting yourself when editing.
Hey Geoff, here’s an idea for your next video in this series: for the lines on the tube map that run alongside each other (yellow, pink, green et.al.) what percentage of the length do they actually share tracks? That question is easier to answer for the underground that I ride most often, the one in Stockholm. The three colours on the Stockholm TuB-map (TuB för TunnelBana) are three independent systems, with their own depots, connected only at two places (on the bridge between Gamla Stan and Slussen, and between stations Fridhemsplan and Rådhuset). What’s it like in London?
here are all the areas of the tube that share tracks, I don't have it in me to work out the percentage but basically all of the circle line is shared with either Hammersmith and City or Metropolitan lines
Hammersmith (Met) - Near Aldgate [Circle Line / Hammersmith & City Line].
Just east of Baker Street - Near Aldgate [[Hammersmith & City / Metropolitan Line]
Just east of Baker Street - Aldgate [[Circle Line / Metropolitan Line]
Southern side Circle Line [Circle Line / District Line (main section)].
Western side Circle Line [Circle Line / District Line (Edgware Road - Wimbledon service)].
Harrow-On-The-Hill - Moor Park - Amersham [Chiltern Railways / Metropolitan Line].
Acton Town - Ealing Common [District Line / Piccadilly Line].
Rayners Lane - Uxbridge [Metropolitan Line / Piccadilly Line].
Queens Park - Harrow & Wealdstone [Bakerloo Line / Euston-Watford London Overground].
Aldgate East - Barking [District Line / Hammersmith & City Line].
Richmond - Gunnersbury [District Line / North London Line London Overground].
“Eat Putney”... what’s Putney ever done to you? 🤣😂
Eat Chutney
My auntie told me how the tube stopped at the end of tunnel during the WW2 Blitz and how she and her boyfriend would have to walk the last bit home to East Acton in the open, sheltering when enemy planes flew over. She said the AA fire shell cases would rain down in front of them sheltering in a porch
For your series ‘The Secrets Of The...’
You should do:
-Secrets of The Brighton Volks Railway
-Secrets Of The Blackpool Trams
-Secrets Of MerseyRail
-Secrets Of The Edinburgh Trams
-Secrets Of The Manchester MetroLink
Secrets of West Midlands metro
I used Hounslow West all the time before lockdown, it was strange because it seems underground, except u can see the outside on the east exit, and when heading eastbound you actually end up travelling above ground level in the way to Hounslow central and Hounslow East
Before the Piccadilly line was extended to Heathrow, Hounslow West was an open air station, it was also the terminus of the line. I remember watching aircraft going into the airport while waiting on the platform.
4:09 Yes I see a lot of grey areas there
Surely you should be measuring by track miles, not stations to say "how much of the underground" is underground?
So the real question answered here is "how many of the undergraund is underground"?
I always thought the underground/overground percentages referred to track miles rather than stations.
We now go to the weather with Geoff Marshall:
(5:19) Look up, daylight, weather, in your face! 😎
Thank you Geoff. In other news...
How much of the docklands light railway is actually over or near the docklands
It uses a disused viaduct from Tower Gateway and the whole Docklands area was leveled during the blitz so there was lots of room to make it above ground
Nearly all of it, except Bank, the two branches from Poplar and Canning Town to Stratford, and the sections south of the Thames. (All the London Docks were on the north bank except the Surrey Docks - the name is a clue! - which are served by Rotherhithe, Canada Water and Surrey Quays on the Overground.
Most lines or street names describe the destination, not the location. Imagine every railway in England would be called the English Line to fulfill your requirement.
For a train nerd like me, this is excellent! I always enjoy your videos.
As I said in the previous video, you should forget about the stations, and concentrate on the lines. That'll give you a much better idea, and you won't have the issue of trying to figure out if something is underground or not because some platforms at a given station are exposed to the weather but others are deep level.
I love your dedication to exhaustively research all of this! There’s a good lesson on statistics in this - so much depends on how you define things.
It might be more precise to count individual stations on each line rather than treating an interchange with three lines as one station? After all, a strict definition of "station" is a place where trains are stationary allowing passengers to get on or off. Therefore Notting Hill Gate in your example would have both a Central Line station and a subsurface lines station with an interchange between them.
Wouldn't you measure it by length of track underground?
By the title of the video, I thought you were going to measure linear length of lines which are underground/overground, therefore needing a proper map rather than the standard tube diagram. As well as the partially exposed stations and parts of track in zones 1/2, with longer overground sections outside zone 1, that might make the percentage 'underground' even less?
5:42 Eat Putney 😉
Would it not be simpler to give
1. Percentage of "Tube Train" track underground
2. Percentage of "Underground Train" track underground
3. Percentage of "Overground Train" track underground
BUT should that be just track that is within London not outliers Amersham etc?
Hi Geoff
You should do another video where you show what percentage of the passengers on the underground travel underground or in the open!
Like if you agree!!
But this only looks at the stations and the question is 'how much of the underground' so what if you checked to see how many km of track are covered and how many aren't. This would also then eliminate any grey area stations which are partly open/underground or have some lines covered and some open. New video? ;)
Really the best way to answer this question would be to go to Google Earth, map out which sections of the tube are underground and which are exposed, and then to figure out from that what percent of the Tube is underground.
No, that doesn't answer the question. You've listed the *number of stations* which are underground, but the title of the video asks how much of the tube is underground. To answer that, you'd need to find the percentage of all the * lengths of track* which are underground, and not only the stations.
Daylight doesn’t mean not underground. Underground just means undersurface level.
Interesting. Maybe do one on how many kilometers of track are underground or overground too? The under-over ratio is bound to be small, I wonder jow small.
They're building an underground train system over at my area / metropoline (different country) and people keep claiming that it's not an underground train system that they're building because most of it is above ground. Now I have some numbers to show them.
The whole thing is a real mixture for historical reasons. In Hamburg and Berlin some sections of the Ubahn. are elevated and you get the oddity of the Ubahn being above ground and the Sbahn being underground at one station! Fascinating stuff Geoff.
We have that in London too, at Whitechapel the Underground platforms are on the surface and the Overground platforms are in a tunnel underneath.
06:47: "You may not disagree"
Sir, yes, sir!
were not in the military u kno but oki
"But that is fine."
Bravo! Someone who actually knows the difference between may and might. Although I think Geoff really meant to say "agree" rather than "disagree".
How many replies this gets it how many times Geoff said “tube”
I couldn’t do this with likes because someone said it was like bait
I counted it, he says tube or tubes 16 times.
Hi Geoff, have you listened to the latest podcast of Well There's Your Problem about the 1987 Kings Cross Fire? What are your thoughts on this event and about their view on this tragic event?
Next.. the % of underground TRACK (that passenger ride on) over and under ground
Overground ,underground ,your wombling free as we say in Wimbledon!
How many copies of the current tube map do you have, Geoff?
He probably has a lot of them to replace toilet paper.
@@Sean-D78 😂Real true
I knew the answer was 45% before I even watched the video! (i havent watched it yet, i will edit the comment when i have)
I would class Morden as NOT underground. My god you DO get wet on that station sometimes. You can totally see the open air too.
Neither the fire safety map nor the TFL map count it as underground. Not living in London I did wonder whether it had received the Wembley Central/Fulham Broadway treatment since those 2 maps were created. If it's still open I would like to know if the fake owl is still failing to discourage the pigeons?
Another great Geoff video. relaxing at home watching this on my tv..Hope your fine Geoff!
That's all about stations, though. I want toknow how much line is underground - a whole new can of worms...
GEOFF! Redcar British Steel is PERMANENTLY closed!!!
Not Permantly for ever 😭
It's now a disused ghost station 👻
If the steal workers and security guards would let you into British steel station you would be property only be filming the trains rushing by
It wasn't much point having a station not being used. Couldn't exit the station all you would of done is got off the 0751 only do half an hour train spotting then get the 0821 back not really worth the gold cheese that comes out ya wallet 👍
It would really be better to spend it on something worth while doing like riding a steam train to Whitby
If an SCO19 team can get directly on the platform from a helicopter then it’s overground, otherwise it’s underground 😂
4:08 "There are some grey areas"
Most of the map is a grey area Geoff :D
I like how the victoria line is the only one that's completely underground
W&C as well?
What would you say about Whitechapel, where the District/H+C is overground and the Overground is very much underground?
I'm pretty sad you leave in a country where they are hiding the overground lines and where the telephone network does'nt work underground. It has to be a third world country.
The metro of Vienna has some very special caveat: Donauinsel station at the line U1 looks almost completely like an underground station. The only thing are two windows on the side. So there is no weather influence there whatsoever. But the station is actually lokated on the lower floor of a bridge crossing the river Danube.
Here is Wikipedia article in German about it: de.wikipedia.org/wiki/U-Bahn-Station_Donauinsel
Very interresting video. I also like those kind of calculations.
My Viennese special other says this is true!
Another great video. The hell of us all being stuck inside. You'll soon find yourself creating a similar replica TFL map on one of the computer games 😅
Geoff's actual underground map link not working
But what percentage of the track in under ground ?
Well arguably the metropolitan line platforms at Baker Street are a black spot for most networks, so the phone signal point doesn’t really work here 😂. Sometimes I’ve found more signal down in the escalator hall of the Bakerloo and Jubilee better than I have on the Met platforms... Referencing 6:40
you could argue the fact that they are under ground level
Thought it was an outside video
Another interesting video. I'm wondering why Morden isn't 'above ground' on your map, Geoff. It is on TfL's. I've only been there once, but I thought it was daylight I saw when I got off the train.
666 comments... creepy
Tube mapematics.
Regarding your comments about shopping centres built over stations, that hell-hole Birmingham New Street was classified as 'underground' when the regulations regarding smoking were changed following the Kings Cross fire, as so much of it is beneath the shopping centre above, though the platform ends are in the open.
In this case, I'd almost suggest going with a New York approach where each set of platforms is considered a station. For example, 161st St Yankee Stadium would for you count as one station, and it shows as one dot on the subway map. The 4 is above ground and the B and D are below ground, and the MTA considers these to be separate stations. Times Square is a 4 station complex, Grand Central is 3 (as is Atlantic Avenue and Broadway Junction, the latter of which is also a case of split above and below ground). The oddest case here is Wilson Avenue on the L, where the southbound platform is aboveground and the northbound platform is below ground. So Baker St would count as four separate stations, two of which are below ground and one of which is above ground.
Baker Street has Eight? Platforms . Two Hammersmith&City/Circle, Two Jubillee and Four Metropolitan (two through to the H&C and two terminating.
@@highpath4776 but the two terminating platforms are in the same part of the station as the two thru platforms, so that could count as one station. the two H&C would count as one station, etc...
@@highpath4776 Ten: you forgot the Bakerloo
Yay early viewer! Thanks Geoff! Very much appreciated esp at this time!
6:46 "You may not disagree & that's fine". That amused me.
Regarding Aldgate. As well as part of the platforms being out in the open, it also has a station roof ... but the platforms are below ground level.
Morden is definitely in the open not underground Geoff.
Yep but you have to go down steps to get to them
Edgware Road on the Circle Line is exposed to the elements! There’s also one of the lines at Paddington in the open air - and Finsbury Park as you approach King’s Cross - and a stretch of the West Country line from Paddington!
I've always felt that the Metropoloitan Line platforms at Baker Street have the feel of a main line terminus, which, of course, is as the Meropolitan Railway sort of intended it!
Another video idea how much of the overground is actually underground?
Hi Geoff! Just some suggestions... Are you going to add the Elizabeth line to the map? Also, the London Overground would be an interesting one - how much of it is actually underground?
8:22 Do the math again, but slowly
Hi Geoff,
I don't mean to nit-pick your video, but......
I paused the video and did a quick calculation, 61.1% + 38.8% = 99.9%
Please don't think I'm being rude, but where's the other 0.1%. LOL
How much of the Tube Network (Stations, Or Route Mileage) is Below Ground North of the Thames, and how much of the Network Rail / Overground is Below Ground South of the Thames (Same Criteria). Exclude DLR/Tram
61.1% overground, 38.8% underground, Presumably 0.1% Wombling Free
GLouster road ws fully uncovered in 1980's, then mostly covered, with supermarket i believe then, i 1970's track from Morgate to Barbican ws uncovered, then they built offices on-top.!!!!
You should rate the underground-ness with percentages. Roding Valley would be 0% underground, Holborn 100%, Bow Road maybe 60%, Baker Street probably 80%, and then add up the decimal values. These four would consist of 2.4 underground and 1.6 overground stations.
I have a love hate relationship with "it depends how you define it" answers! On the one hand, it's good, because it's open to discussion, but sometimes you do just want a definitive answer!
More than half of the underground network is actually above ground
System length 402 km (250 mi)[1]
There are 20 miles (32 km) of cut-and-cover tunnel and 93 miles (150 km) of tube tunnel
Is the glass half full or is it half empty...
if you can see daylight ABOVE then (NO), only at the end, end of a platform (YES), part of the station (NO), shopping centre above (NO), cut and cover (YESS) - simple no "grey area"
That Fire precaution regulations map, is that not the Secret Tube map that only for employees or is that a different map all together? but it was very interesting indeed.
I'm from Dawlish/Exeter so the notion of the "underground" tube is completely alien to me. (trip aged 6, used one, dont remember).
Subterrainian cylinder trains going through tubes? Fine. That are sometimes above ground...Err okay :S? And the map lookings nothing like the actual layout... okay so its narnia then where the rules are made up and the locations don't matter.
Give me a simple coastal branch line any day (even if it does get washed away once in 100 years).
Baker Street is interesting because although the Circle line platforms are fully underground now, that wasn't always the case. You've probably seen those lit-up ceiling recesses - these were originally wide open when the station was built, allowing daylight in and smoke out.
Wasn’t expecting Geoff is to be a little inaccurate with his counting. If it’s too tricky to measure through metres of track, I would’ve counted the platforms. For example, there 10 platforms at Bakers Street. 6 platforms would be underground with the 4 metropolitan platforms being overground.
What about Blackfriars? At the eastern end of the sub surface lines platform there is a short section of open air definitely big enough for the weather to come in. Co-ordinates: 51.511763, -0.103183
Is it Section 12 which means Birmingham New Street is underground...? Can't remember...
A civil engineer has a different perspective. Tunnels built cut-and-cover or bored are treated largely same for operational safety requirements. Similarly with track in cuttings, at ground level and aboveground (embankments/viaducts/bridges). Stations provide for vertical and horizontal movement of people. The 'station box' design is used to hold back earth. Even 50 metres below ground it would be possible to look up and see daylight, rain, snow fall on you if no structure was built in/over the box. 'Underground' should define the track between stations. Station platforms open to the weather are a development opportunity. Living at/close to railway stations and being able to rely on trains, walking and cycling for most travel needs allows a far better serviced neighbourhood (retail, etc). Roads are low people density environments. The less people need to use big vehicles, the less road we need.
So, the "Underground" should not be called "Underground" due to the number of stations that actually are "Underground" (less than 50%...).
But what about the entire distance of tracks? How many kilometres are underground?
If we were to include the overground though...how on earth would Whitechapel look? Because it’s overground for the district and Hammersmith and underground for the overground. (I nearly confused myself typing this)
That's the interesting thing about watching your videos Geoff. In every single one, you learn something new. Super film - loved it
But is the London Tube below street level? Or are there parts of the tracks above the ground surface? If there are, how many kilometres of the complete length?