Why are there so many Tube stations north of the Thames (and so few south)?

today's video was inspired by a question that showed up in my comment section the comment came from n17 hero and was paraphrasing slightly hi jago i'd love to see a video about why the tube is so top you have lines stretching into hertfordshire buckinghamshire and essex and yet south of the river lines fizzle out still well within the bounds of greater london now this is an interesting question not least because i myself live in south london it is true to say that the underground is indeed far more extensive north of the thames than south there are 250 stations north of the river and by the time this video comes out 31 south 5 of the 11 tube lines don't venture south of the river at all but why well this question is one with several answers geographical political and economic i'm going to try not to be too boring here so first of all the question we need to ask is why even build an underground railway they're expensive and they always come with engineering challenges well two reasons land in central london is very very pricey when the first underground lines were built london was already a very built up city the early lines were built using a method known as cut and cover where they dig a trench lay the track and cover it over again wherever possible these lines were built to follow the line of the streets to minimize the number of private buildings they'd have to buy and demolish but still it was a pretty costly process and the completion of the district line was delayed for years due to financial issues from 1890 onwards lines were built at a deeper level where they could follow any course they liked and not have to demolish much of anything the second reason was political in 1846 the royal commission on metropolitan railway termini had made it the law that you couldn't build railways in central london not without going through a lengthy parliamentary consultation at any rate underground railways were different they created far less disturbance to the fabric of the city so it was far easier to get them authorized therefore it was the way forward and continues to be even to this day meanwhile south of the river land was cheaper the area was on the whole much poorer the royal commission's recommendations did cover south of the river but to a far lesser extent and this brings up another point if you look at an underground map there's very little south of the river if you look at a map that includes railway routes as well things are a lot more even south london has an abundance of railways in places even a surfeit there were four major railway companies behind this the london and south western the london brighton and south coast the london chattamoon dover and the south eastern britain's southern railway companies tended to embrace commuter transport far more than the northern ones they didn't have as much heavy freight so they filled their coffers with passenger revenue the london chatham and dover and the south eastern railway were deadly rivals which caused them to build lines and stations in direct competition with each other in this bizarre game of train-based one-upmanship there were also the trams trams were big in south london due to cheap fares so when the underground was being built getting south of the river was not a priority so that explains why there are so many underground lines in central london and so few in south london but what about further out the original comment specifically mentioned that amisham which is some way north west of london has an underground station while say waybridge does not this is indeed rather incongruous the northern end of the metropolitan line serves a number of towns that aren't in london like amisham chesham and watford and that's because the metropolitan line started out as the metropolitan railway the metropolitan railway wasn't intended to be an underground line in fact when it opened in 1863 the concept of an underground line didn't even exist the metropolitan railway saw itself as a proper mainline railway that just happened to have an underground section in fact their largest locomotives couldn't even go underground and if places like amisham and chesham seem far out the metropolitan used to go further the furthest reach was a place called verni junction 50 miles from baker street how far flung was it well vernie isn't a place they just named the station vernee junction after one of the directors because there was nothing nearby to name it after why build a junction in the middle of nowhere because their long-term plan was to get to oxford there was even a mad idea to run trains up to manchester and down to paris but that's a whole other story when the metropolitan was absorbed into the underground in 1933 its directors protested vigorously but to no avail london underground quickly got rid of the furthest reaches of the metropolitan but kept everything else these were the days before greenbelt legislation limited the growth of london so perhaps london underground figured they'd become part of london eventually so long story short the reason places like amisham have underground stations is largely due to railway politics it's just the way the dice fell but okay what about the easternmost reaches of the central line those aren't in london either well that's due to the new works program proposed in 1935 this involved taking over a number of already existing railway lines electrifying them and adding them to the underground the lines chosen were ones that could with relative ease be linked up to the underground lines that were already there lines in the west and the east that could be connected to the central line lines in the north that could be connected to the northern line actually the northern line is only called the northern line because of those extensions and it was originally hoped that it would go all the way to bushy heath all this only happened north of the river because north of the river was the place that had all the underground lines so there were underground lines north of the river because there were underground lines north of the river how informative the underground has evolved over the years when the metropolitan railway was built the concept of urban mass transit was in its infancy now an underground line is a very different beast from a surface railway although systems like thameslink and the overground are a bit of a gray area between the two so for a long time now people in south london have been asking why can't we have a tube line well another big factor preventing lines being built south of the river is simple geology the soil in central london is mostly clay the soil south of the river is full of sand silt the odd deposit of peat and even seashells like me in this video it's not very coherent and so it's difficult to build a tunnel through with modern tunneling techniques it is a bit easier though hence the victoria and jubilee line extensions into south london but again politics come into it the early lines which i'm defining here as everything built before 1933 were funded by private investment on the expectation that they'd make money which mostly they did not these days transport for london is expected to fund itself or it relies on grants from the greater london authority one exception was the jubilee line extension which was partially funded by business interests in canary wharf in the 1990s they knew the line itself wasn't going to make a profit but good transport links would make canary wharf a much more attractive place for companies to set up shop london transport agreed to a partnership on condition that they could add stations in places like birmingham canada water in south london as for other schemes in south london well it doesn't look good in the wake of covid the bakerloo line extension into southeast london has been put on hold and the local authorities have considered doing away with it all together and building a tram line instead which would be much cheaper and maybe that's the point we really need to think about south london is light on tube lines but it's got the dlr the thames link the overground the tram link and lest we forget lots and lots of railways hello all i hope you enjoyed this top heavy tale from the tube if you did then head south to the like button and subscribe for more content like this thanks to n17 hero for asking the question that inspired this video thanks also to my donors on kofi and patreon you are the tram line to my old kent road and i'll see you all again very soon cheerio you

Channel: Jago Hazzard

Views: 225,434

Keywords: London, London Underground, Thames, Tales from the Tube

Id: ekskzass8KQ

Length: 9min 45sec (585 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 22 2021