LONDON | DLR, Underground, Tramlink

[CharlieP]

Originally Posted by El_Greco

^ What about outside?

Very uncomfortable, and not to be recommended on the Yerkes lines

[hkskyline]

Mayor's Envy as Shanghai Metro Outstrips Tube
12 April 2006
The Evening Standard

LONDON'S Tube leaders today visited the world's fastest-growing underground system - and admitted they were jealous at its rate of progress, writes Ross Lydall.

Mayor Ken Livingstone and London Underground managing director Tim O'Toole travelled on the Shanghai metro, which will be the world's biggest in 2012.

Opened in 1994, it is used by three million passengers a day, a million fewer than London. It is a quarter the size of the Tube, but with six lines under construction it will match London by 2010 and overtake it in 2012.

Improvements to London's Tube will take 30 years under the £20 billion public-private partnership. The Mayor blamed an overcomplicated planning process and his difficulty in raising cash for the slower progress.

He said: 'I come here with the tinge of regret. Only a few years ago Shanghai embarked on this construction. In five years it will have surpassed the London Underground, constructed over a century ago. That is a great achievement.' Mr O'Toole, in Shanghai with the Mayor on a cultural exchange, said that in the next six years London would only be able to upgrade signalling on two of 12 lines.

Meanwhile, Poems on the Underground is moving to the Shanghai metro, with commuters able to enjoy work by poets including Blake and Wordsworth.

[onetwothree]

Shanghai Metro will become one of the worlds biggest (like top 3 or something?) underground systems in the world in only 16 years from opening! Holy cow!

[Jue]

It was from sheer necessity though. Shanghai has twice the population of London, living in less land area. Getting around by bus is absolutely awful; I often make better time on foot during rush hour.

About London: in what way is the approval process for Tube upgrades difficult? Is is just a NIMBY attitude to construction, or does it go much further than that?

[Insignia]

well Shanghai is ahead of many British cities...

[Jue]

Originally Posted by Insignia

well Shanghai is ahead of many British cities...

Not in air pollution, water quality, public services, and above all, civility.

[hkskyline]

Fire Delays Train Commuters in London
26 June 2006

LONDON (AP) - Fire broke out Monday at a construction site near one of London's main railway stations, disrupting travel for thousands of commuters, officials said.

King's Cross station was evacuated at about 11 a.m. and closed for the rest of the day. according to Network Rail. Scores of commuter train services were disrupted, and long-distance trains to London were stopping at Peterborough, 75 miles north of the capital.

King's Cross is used by some 60,000 passengers a day.

London's Fire Brigade said it had set up a 200-yard cordon around the fire because of fears a gas canister at the site might explode. More than 630 people were evacuated from their homes as 20 firefighters battled the blaze.

Fire officials said one person had been taken to a hospital with burns.

[Tubeman]

^
Nothing to do with London Underground... It was only the high-level platforms of the Mainline station that were affected. Tube services continued stopping as normal.

There was a fire on top of the core of an under construction building off York Way which heated some propane cannisters white hot, because of this a 200m exclusion zone had to be imposed as they were 8 stories up, this included the signalling centre for Kings Cross to Stevenage on the GNER Mainline plus the approach tracks, hence no service.

[hkskyline]

Workers on track to complete refurbishment of network's shortest route.
By ROBERT WRIGHT
27 June 2006
Financial Times

In a tunnel underneath the south bank of the River Thames, a 30-strong gang of men in hard hats and high-visibility vests works in semi-darkness, cramped up against each other over a newly laid piece of railway track, writes Robert Wright.

The men are pouring concrete to hold the track in place once it is again in use carrying the nearly 10m passengers a year who use the Waterloo & City line, the London Underground's shortest route, between Waterloo station and the City of London.

Their work is part of the highest-profile project so far carried out by Metronet - the replacement of the track in the 2 1/2-mile tunnels between Waterloo and Bank stations in a project costing Pounds 40m. The project marks the first time that London Underground has allowed a lengthy closure of a line to let refurbishment work proceed more quickly. The line closed on April 1 and is due to reopen on September 1.

The approach was a sensible one for the Waterloo & City line, says Andrew Lezala, chief executive of Metronet. The closure made it possible to send away the line's five trains for refurbishment. It is also easier to carry out work in one long blockade of a line than in hundreds of stages during the short times trains are stopped at night. The work is still far from straightforward, however.

Darren Self, the manager in charge of trackwork for the line refurbishment, says the work is very labour-intensive. "We've tried to mechanise it as much as we can," he says. "But you can't get away from the fact it's a very confined space and it's impossible to mechanise the work much more."

From 2007, the work, combined with new computer systems, should allow London Underground to run up to 25 per cent more trains at busy times than at present, while the journey will immediately be faster and smoother. Yet, given Metronet's recent problems, the focus will be on whether work is completed on time.

Mr Lezala says a big risk remains the line's signalling system, which will not be reinstalled and tested until just before reopening. However, early problems with breaking up the concrete under the old track have been overcome.

[Tubeman]

Originally Posted by hkskyline

The project marks the first time that London Underground has allowed a lengthy closure of a line to let refurbishment work proceed more quickly.

So the East London Line being closed from 1995-1998 was our imagination?

[Saltwater_London]

Originally Posted by StarFish

Shanghai Metro will become one of the worlds biggest (like top 3 or something?) underground systems in the world in only 16 years from opening! Holy cow!

Cheap Chinese labour, and paying contractors in CNY instead of GBP does make a difference! If London could get away with paying its workers those amounts every week, we'd triple the number of our tube lines in sixteen years too!

[paw25694]

those pictures make me wanna go back 2 london... hehe

[city_thing]

Shanghai will never be better than London. As a londoner, nowhere does underground trains better than my fair city -Shanghai just wont have the history nor substance that London's does.

[hkskyline]

Memorial to London transit bombing victims to be built in Hyde Park
15 February 2007

LONDON (AP) - A permanent memorial to victims of the 2005 bombings of three London subway trains and a bus will be built in the city's Hyde Park, the government said Thursday.

Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell said the 142 hectare (350 acre) park -- already home to a memorial to Princess Diana -- had been chosen because of its "prominence, history and central London location."

In the July 7, 2005 attacks, four suicide bombers killed 52 commuters and wounded 700 during the capital's morning rush hour.

The government had initially planned to build a monument to mark the attacks at Tavistock Square -- where one of the explosions ripped through a double-decker bus, killing 13 passengers.

A fund of one million pounds (US$1.95 million; euro1.49 million) has been set aside to fund the memorial to those killed and injured.

Jowell called the bombings "the worst terrorist atrocity London has ever seen."

"A permanent memorial will provide a dignified and tranquil space for their friends and families -- and the country -- to remember them," she said in a statement.

The government is inviting designers and landscape architects to submit proposals for the site, in the park's Lovers' Walk.

A group of representing the victims' families said in a statement it would ensure "a suitable and fitting memorial is created to honor the lives of our loved ones."

[Tubeman]

Personally I think Tavistock Square would have been more appropriate... You can't move in Hyde Park for various monuments and memorials, whereas Tavistock Square is a beautiful little oasis of peace, and the scene of the most striking image of 7/7 (the #30 bus).

[marrio415]

london beats shanghai anyday cos china is a dump an un-civallised dump with pollution and and crap everywhere.

[Tubeman]

Originally Posted by marrio415

london beats shanghai anyday cos china is a dump an un-civallised dump with pollution and and crap everywhere.

And you've just been brigged, whoever you are

[LosAngelesMetroBoy]

So are they going to be powerwashing the stations in the waterloo-city line as well.... all the underground stations could do with a good cleaning. But thats most public transport systems.

[lasdun]

Well no one can beat us for history, can't say I wouldn't mind some Shanghai size trains and aircon, but the network as I saw it (2003, so lines 1, 2, 3, 5) seemed to be full of problems that will come back to haunt them, no doubt cause by the speed odf work. The stations were two small for the passenger load and the build and design quality seemed really poor. I very much doubt there will be books and books devoted to the network in the 2140's...

[Ricardo Fig]

Hi there!

I am a train spotter in Portugal, and i am going to spend a few days in London, is there any problem os restriction to take a few shots on the subway? Or its tottaly forbidden?

Thanks in advance!