I was in Berlin recently and of course took some time to admire the new
Hauptbahnhof. Reading up about it, I discovered that pre-WW2, Berlin
had the same situation as London regarding mainline termini, i.e. a
number of them in a circle around the city, depending on which part of
the country you were travelling to. As part of reunification, a
decision was made to build a Berlin Hauptbahnhof where all mainline
trains to the city would halt.

My question is, was something similar ever considered for London in the
immediate postwar period? The area where the Barbican now is was
flattened, so would it have been possible for the lines from Euston,
King's Cross/St Pancras, Moorgate, Fenchurch Street, Cannon
Street/London Bridge and Waterloo to have been extended somehow to
build a London "Hauptbahnhof" on a site in that area? I know it would
have left out Victoria & Paddington, and would have meant a lot of
demolition, but the postwar nationalisation period would seem to have
been the natural time for such a big project if the idea were ever
mooted.

Patrick

In message <1161699947.018285.44840@m73g2000cwd.googlegroups.com>,
patrick1971@gmail.com writes

One of the loopier (literally) ideas emanating out of County Hall was
the LCC's post-war plan (concocted in 1943) for four mainline railway
loops in deep-level tunnels that would link existing terminii.

One (starting from Bermondsey) passed through London Bridge and
Waterloo, then crossed the Thames beneath Westminster Bridge and
returned through Charing Cross, Blackfriars, Cannon Street and back out
round to London Bridge.

Another ran roughly under the N, E and S parts of the Circle line - but
when it got to Victoria cut straight up under Hyde Park to get to
Paddington.

The other two linked various parts of these two main loops.

patrick1971@gmail.com wrote:

On 24 Oct 2006 08:40:15 -0700, Earl Purple wrote:

In the same way that Paddington isn't a terminus?

i don't see the point in this. There is so much congestion on stations
already that we should work on actually spreading people around more
stations, not trying to centralise it. As long as the termini are
interconnected I think you're fine. And of course Crossrail schemes can
help with that as well.

asdf wrote:

No.

sweek wrote:

Actually, it's best if all main lines passed through London, and all lines
interchanged with each other and with all tube lines, but not too many lines
interchanging at the same station. That way a terrorist strike on a single
station causes minimal disruption. A single London Central station has no
benefits and huge disbenefits.

Earl Purple wrote:

Yes it is - it just isn't a terminus for every service that uses it,
same as Blackfriars.

--

Stephen

The Doctor: Must be a spatial temporal hyperlink.
Mickey: What's that?
The Doctor: No idea. Just made it up. Didn't want to say 'magic door'.

On Tue, 24 Oct 2006, John Rowland wrote:

Right - this spreads interchange out, rather than having massive traffic
in a small number of places.

John, are you seriously suggesting we plan transport infrastructure around
terrorism? Have you been completely taken in by what the government's told
you in the papers?

Tom Anderson wrote:

Hear hear Tom, well said.