2 posts tagged “underground”

A decade ago, when the Jubilee Line was extended from Green Park to Stratford, there were plenty of glossy books published, examining the design and architecture of the twelve stations that made up the extension. Deservedly so, too; one, Foster's Canary Wharf, has become iconic in that time. There's still plenty you can find about the philosophy of the designers, and the way they wanted a commonality but individuality for each of the stations.

By contrast, it's almost impossible to find out about the thinking behind the Victoria Line. This was only all-new Underground line in the last century¹, and it's forty years old this year. Most people, if they think of its design at all, consider it dull at best.

However, I've been using it for my commute for a year now, and as a primary line for half a decade, and I think that does it a disservice. First, consider the station layouts. This is, I'll admit, more commonly thought of as engineering, but even so, someone had to think about it. There are sixteen stations on the line; five have cross-platform interchanges with either Tube or British Rail lines, far more than any other line², while all but one station offer interchanges with either Underground or British Rail lines.

Admittedly, partly this is due to politics: during the "tube boom" from 1898 to 1908, the organisations building lines were in competition with one another, whereas the Victoria was the first line designed by London Underground, a single company responsible for all lines. Even so, it's a boon to people who use the line - ask anyone who changes to the Piccadilly at Finsbury Park, or the Bakerloo at Oxford Street.

Beyond the engineering, though, I think the stations are also designed well. Unlike the aforementioned Jubilee Line, most stations follow the same basic look, with three escalators³ down to a main hallway between the two platforms. Unlike some earlier lines (the Central Line springs to mind), these are almost always straight, and I can't think of a station with steps from the central section to either platform. As I've said before, there are also cross-platform interchanges, which complicate things, but even there, consistency leaps out in other ways.

All of the Victoria Line platforms are tiled in a light, almost blue-tinted, grey, with simple wooden benches. Each also has a mural; there's a lovely set on Flickr by Chutney Bannister collecting them all. Recently, the southbound Oxford Street tiling was refurbished as part of the station's PPP makeover, and I was impressed by the lovely, modern design that replaced the snakes-and-ladders mural you can still see on the northbound platform. It turns out that this was the original design, removed in the 1980s after the Oxford Circus fire, but now re-instated, and it doesn't look at all dated - in fact, it's positively modern.

For now, the original 1967 tube stock is still used on the line. However, next year should see the introduction of the new 2009 stock, which, to be honest, I'm somewhat dreading. As with the stations, these are nicely consistent and minimal, with a quirky use of circular glass panels dividing vestibules from seating areas, and standard seating. The new stock will introduce more fold-up seats, and more room to stand, at the cost of fixed seats. I suppose I should wait and see how it turns out, but my gut feeling is that I'll dislike them.

That's not to say the line is without problems. As part of the engineering work to get the line ready for the new trains, its previously solid reliability seems to have taken a knock. More seriously, the above-ground buildings are generally appalling, with far too many of the stations lumbered with unpleasant subway complexes or buildings that look like glorified portakabins. This is particularly shameful at Highbury and Islington, where a damaged but glorious old station was demolished in favour of the current single-storey shed.

Despite this, I think the effort going into the line has been unfairly neglected. The design work for the Victoria line seems to be largely lost, on the Internet at least. Mischa Black was in charge of the overall design effort, leading the Design Research Unit, but I can easily imagine how the utilitarian style leant itself to concealing the identities of the others who contributed. I think it's a shame; the line, while perhaps understated, deserves more attention than it gets. I can't imagine my London without it.

¹ Parts of the Jubilee line were inherited from the Metropolitan line in 1977, and of course the extension in 1999, while needing new tracks, was not a new line end-to-end. Amazingly, the Central London tube network we know today - with the exception of the Victoria and Jubilee lines - was completed by 1907.

² I believe the Central, District and Piccadilly each have two, excluding Victoria Line interchanges, but none are within zone 1 (I'm thinking of Stratford, Mile End, and Hammersmith).

³ Annoyingly, cost-cutting sometimes (as at my home station, Blackhorse Road) led to the central escalator being replaced by a fixed staircase, which means that any failure results in people having to walk or, in extreme cases, station closures.

As every Londoner knows, all tube lines were not created equal. There's a definite ranking of the lines you'd like to have to use, and those you'd like to avoid. So here's my own, totally unscientific (yet, I hope, reasonable) list of lines in order of usefulness.

Victoria

This isn't just because it's my daily commute (although I must say, in the nine months since I've been using it regularly, it's been pretty much rock solid), but it's because it's reliable and frequent. It probably helps that it's a single line with no branches (the only exception being the slight thinning of trains north of Seven Sisters as they peel off to the depot). Other things that help are the fact it's a relatively new line - only forty years old - and that the stations are spaced relatively far apart, making end-to-end journeys remarkably quick. Let's hope the current engineering works and the new stock (in service from next year, and hopefully a bit more roomy inside) don't cause any problems.

Bakerloo

The Bakerloo feels remarkably like the Victoria's older sister, partly due to its similar rolling stock. (It's much older, as it happens - the line celebrated its centenary a couple of years ago). However, it's also a single line (avoiding all those pesky problems with points) and it's mainly sheltered underground, so it seems to me - and I'm an infrequent user - that it's near the top of the list.

Central

Another old line, the Central manages to be remarkably useful despite having a fork at one end and a rather complicated loop at the other. However, its stock is pretty cramped - the line has some of the smallest tubes n the network - and although I commuted on it happily for six months, it doesn't quite reach the heights of the previous two entrants.

Piccadilly

Another line with branches, the Piccadilly does especially well given its length, with long extensions to Heathrow and Uxbridge (although the latter is a bit unreliable, from what I've noticed). I'm one of those people who'll save a tenner by taking it rather than the Heathrow Express, for example, and when I lived in the western half of Islington it was a pretty safe way to get back from the West End. However, it is pretty slow through the centre, with stops that are arguably too close together (the classic being Covent Garden's proximity to Leicester Square, exacerbated by the former's reliance on slow lifts), which keep it down at the current ranking, as does its extensive overground sections - always a problem if there's sufficient heat, rain or snow.

Waterloo & City

On the grounds of reliability alone, I reckon the Waterloo and City would score highly. Unfortunately, it loses out rather severely on the utility front, since it connects just two stations, closes in the early evening and isn't open at all on Sundays. It's also got the most uneven flow of any line I can think of, being full northbound in the mornings, with the reverse in the evenings, as commuters from the south west head back to their mainline trains.

Jubilee

The Jubilee is the newest line, with older sections being younger than the Victoria. However, a botched attempt to move to sophisticated signalling during the construction of the extended section seems to have doomed it to unreliability, and it seems to have quite low train frequency. This all knocks it along way down the list, which is a shame, because I like the noise of the gate thyristors of the trains, and it really should be a showcase for the system.

East London Line

This is a rather special case, since it's closed for engineering works until 2010, when it vanishes - it'll become part of London Overground (which, in the interests of sanity, I've excluded from this list, along with the DLR). Certainly, the current replacement bus services would be bottom of the list, but before its closure, I found the line reliable and friendly. Its use of Metropolitan stock meant the trains were spacious, and while train frequency was a little low (there was only one every six minutes) I still think it comes in as a fairly useful line.

Metropolitan

A long subsurface line, and the oldest (incorporating the original 1863 route from Baker Street to Farringdon), the Metropolitan seems to do surprisingly well, given the amount of its track exposed to the elements and the complexity of its north-western end. However, it does have issues, both out in the suburbs and when it gets interleaved with the other lines, which mean that, despite the spacious interiors, the line ends up pretty low in the rankings.

District

Another long subsurface line, the District has its fair share of branches, but mainly it loses points not for junction delays or complexity, but because it's so slow. The stations it shares with the southern edge of the Circle line all feel far too close together, so it takes an age to get anywhere. However, as with the Metropolitan, large carriages help it out, so it's saved from bottom place.

Northern

Ah, the Misery Line. No wonder it's down here. But what's this? A look at TfL's performance data seem to show more trains in service than any other line, and not too many delays. So why does the Northern end up all the way down here? Well, its complex layout is mostly to blame, causing both low train frequency on either branch (especially if you need to pass one of the link points at Camden Town or Kennington), while also letting delays affect either branch, if they're bad enough. Coupled with that are the short rolling stock - only six carriages, compared with a more typical eight for tube stock - and somewhat cramped interiors. (One can only be thankful that London Underground abandoned their usual colour-coding inside the train: all-black handrails would have just been even more depressing.) It drops into the last place for the deep tubes.

Hammersmith & City, Circle

I'm going to list these as a single line, because they share rolling stock, and they also share some of the same problems. However, in case you were wondering, the Circle really is deliberately listed last. The problem with it is simply that, except for two points, the line doesn't really exist: it's shared with the Metropolitan and District lines, and, as the name makes clear, has no terminus. This also means that there's nowhere to go when the service gets disrupted, and the usual outcome is that these two get sacrificed for the others. TfL plan to unroll the line somewhat in the next few years, running from Hammersmith around the loop once and then back to Edgware Road, which should help, but even so, the low train frequency (you can wait ten minutes for a Circle line train) and relatively small carriages (for a subsurface line, anyway) put the line at the bottom of the list.

So, that's the list. I should note that, even though it's last, the Circle still manages a reliability of over 85% and the average customer delay is about 10 minutes. I'd certainly usually choose it over buses, taxis or (horrors) driving.

I'd love to hear from more regular users of any of these lines if they have any comments.