Express Lines on the London Underground

[katrinabryce]

Putting extra express tracks on an existing line would cost about the same as building an entirely new line, and an entirely new line has the benefit of making more different journeys possible. I guess that's why the entirely new line always wins out for budget funding.

[PokhrajRoy.]

Someone once mentioned maintenance in the London Underground as doing a bypass surgery on a patient who’s alive and talking.

[onbedoeldekut]

In 1991, I was a foot messenger for an advertising company, and took hard-copy adverts in various stages of completion to the places which worked on them.
I had to get them to and from the different places around London as quickly as possible, and so I learned the transport network concerning my routes completely, so that I could hop off a tube train at one station, use an interconnecting node to make it as seamless as possible, even making use of buses where viable.
I went back to London a few years ago, to find what felt like a wholly new city laid over the remnants of the one I'd only left behind a decade or so prior, it was quite unsettling, to say the least!

[richardfincher]

In 1989 I was working in the West End commuting from Edgware end of the northern line. There were quite a few strikes that year and on one occasion, I was faced with the need of getting to work using the 113 bus which would have taken ages. So when I saw the station gates slightly open, I thought I'd check to see if there were actually trains running that day. What I found was, that they were indeed running a limited service to the West End, stopping only at Golders Green, Camden Town, and then all stations. Got me there in half the time it was brilliant. Although slightly unnerving to be going so fast through all those other stations.

[juliankent]

Thanks! How about a video on the development of upholstery fabrics on the tube, especially by Enid Marx

[christown]

Some fast Bakerloo trains ran as an express service not stopping at all stations and in the late 1940's the Ted Heath Orchestra celebrated this with the piece 'Bakerloo Non-Stop' their musical answer to Billy Strayhorn's 1941 composition for Duke Ellington's Ochestra 'Take The 'A' Train' an express service on the New York Subway.

[mickeydodds]

Love that 'Hobbs End's.

Hobbs End was, of course, the mythical tube station featured in that 1968 Hammer classic sci fi horror film, 'Quatermass and the Pit'.

[delurkor]

Nerd fact: The New York elevated lines on Manhattan ran a third track as an express line. Express trains ran south in the morning commute. Then north in the afternoon commute. At the express stations the track was raised another level to make room for the platforms. I don't know if this still exists in Brooklyn or Bronx for the surviving elevated sections.

[metropod]

The way we work in New York (I do say we as an MTA employee) is we didn't build four tunnels, but one large one, wide enough to hold all the tracks at once. In some places, the tunnels are double decked, with ether the express and local tracks on separate levels or the directions of travel separated.

this is helped by the wide, grid pattern our streets are laid out on in manhattan.

[ryderdopp]

First Jago video I’ve watched while actually in London itself. Thanks for all the great videos that have kept me entertained while I’m home in the USA

[DavidMoxham]

Love your imaginary first map illustrating how express lines might function. Eastenders meets Quatermass and the pit. Great imagination!

[colinbaker]

What about the Metropolitan Line? The Finchley Road to Wembley Park section skips five Jubilee Line stations, and there are fast services to the more distant stations. Not separate lines, the express services exist

[Haobey]

Always love an appearance from the man, the myth, the legend...Mr Yerkes

[kapuchinoification]

What about the genuine 'fast' and 'semi-fast' services on the Met.

[nicholasquinn]

Hobbs End - nice Quatermass and the Pit reference, that film terrifies me as a kid.

[kenmorris]

Another interesting video which brings out more questions than answers. I regularly used the subway in New York where the original construction in Manhattan under the long straight Avenues enabled a 4 track trunk system from the outset. They are certainly expresses as they rattle through stations non-stop. London did experiment with trains missing stops which proved unworkable. The other example which you didn't mention, as part of the Metropolitan line of the 1960 electrification, was the construction of a pair of fast lines was from Harrow to north of Moor Park by 1962. This enabled both the Metropolitan and British Railway services through to Amersham and Aylesbury to be speed up and extra trains for Watford on the slow lines.

[cmw]

All those who get the Metropolitan fast service to this day are waving their hands around right now.

[dvdvnr]

Well done, Jago. I love the station names chosen for the imaginary tube line at 0:26! Yes, I got the references for all of them!

[SynchroScore]

Just a note here: The express tracks in Chicago are not in the subway, but on the elevated structure. The main line north of the Loop is four tracks wide as it handles Red Line trains from the subway through to Howard, Brown Line trains from the Loop to Kimball, and Purple Line trains from Howard to Linden, with weekday nonstop Purple Line service between Howard and the Loop. It used to be even busier, with the Chicago North Shore & Milwaukee interurban line that ran from the loop to either the Skokie Valley Line (a remnant of which is the Skokie Swift, or Yellow Line, which splits off at Howard) and the Shore Line, which continued north from the current end of track at Linden, both with the ultimate destination of Milwaukee.

[timbounds]

You could also argue that the Fenchurch St (C2C) line provides an express alternative to the District Line between West Ham, Barking and Upminster - though in that case the Express line was built fast and they ran underground trains alongside it later!