Christian Wolmar - Down the Tube: The Battle for Londons Underground

Down The Tube

THE BATTLE FOR LONDONS UNDERGROUND

CHRISTIAN WOLMAR

Published 2011 by Kemsing Publishing

ISBN 978-1-908555-00-7

Copyright 2002, 2011 Christian Wolmar

www.chr i stianwolmar.co.uk

The right of Christian Wolmar to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be copied, stored, transmitted, distributed or otherwise made available in any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher.

First published in Great Britain

2002 by Aurum Press Limited

ISBN 1 85410 872 7

Kemsing Publishing Limited

www.kemsingpublishing.co.uk

enquiries@kemsingpublishing.co.uk

Contents

This book is dedicated with love to Tony Bevins and Keith Harper, two old hacks, who are sadly missed and would have thoroughly enjoyed this tale.

T his book would not have been po ssible without the cooperation I received from all sides of this controversy. A request for interview was only turned down by a couple of people, and I did not bother asking Gordon Brown. Otherwise, everyone was prepared to help, which was extremely gratifying. There are, of course, a whole host of people to thank for whom anonymity is more important than an acknowledgement, including many who still work for the Underground.

Of those I can name, I would like to thank, in no particular order: Josephine Grant at the London Transport Museum, who let me clutter up her office for long periods, and her colleagues in the library; Steve Norris who has helped me with almost every book on transport I have written, although we have the odd disagreement; a wide variety of people at Transport for London, including Maggie Boepple, Jay Walder, Lesley McLeod, Steve Polan, Peter Hendy, Susan Kramer, Bob Kiley and Ken Livingstone; Martin Callaghan, Jon Smith and the press office at London Transport who were all extremely helpful, even though they suspected that the book might not entirely endorse their argument; Bill Mount for a lesson in reading consultant s reports; my pal Roger Ford who keeps me sane during the lonely days; Rupert Brennan-Brown, one of the be st PRs in the business; Nigel Harris and the team at Rail , even though they call me the electrician for my skill at plugs; Ron Rose for neck massages; and Brendan Martin, Peter Ford, Sir Alastair Morton, Denis Tunnicliffe, Neal Lawson, Tony Travers, John Fowler, Phil Kelly, Tony Ridley, John Self, Mike Horne, Jerry, Steve and McM. And there are, of course, those whom I have forgotten.

Special thanks go to Stephen Glaister and Jon Shaw for reading the manuscript and making many helpful comments; Piers Burnett at Durum, for having the idea; and Andrew Lownie, m y agent, who stood by me in dif ficult times. The errors and omissions remain, of course, my responsibility.

And none of this would have been possible without my partner, Scarlett MccGwir e, who was particularly supportive when the deadline came and went, and, of course, my wonderful children, Molly, Pascoe and Misha.

NOTE: I have used the words London Undergrou nd and Tube inter changeably, ra ther than confining the use of Tube to the deep tube lines. For comments and reactions, my email address is christian.wolmar@gmail.com.

* * *

A day in the Life of the Tube

T o ex p lore the bowels of the London Underground system is easy. There are little anonymous doors with incomprehensible coded index numbers off almost every corridor which, when opened, reveal the very Edwardian soul of the system: redundant lift shafts, abandoned machinery that would cost far too much to remove, electrical equipment stored in tiny, low ceiling rooms built in an age before six-footers were commonplace, and much more. The Underground people are only too happy to show visitors these nooks and crannies, as it is part of their continuous propaganda war for more resources to renew the system.

Camden Town is a perfect place to show how every day the Underground is stretched close to breaking point. The station was originally built in 1907 to accommodate the Charing Cross , Euston and Hampstead railway, but when in the 192 s the two sections of what is now the Northern Line merged, it had to be reorganised but largely within the existing confines. Therefore it has throughout its history been too small to accommodate the ever-increasing numbers using it. On the surface, the entrance is on a narrow peninsula at a junction between two busy one-way streets that is far too small to accommodate what has become one of the most heavily frequented stations on the network. There are 5 , daily users on an average weekday but the real nightmare is at weekends, which were, until the 1980 s , so sleepy that nearby Mornington Crescent was only a Monday to Friday station. Now, Camden Market has become one of London s most popular tourist destinations and a staggering 7 , use it every Saturday and Sunday, which means that special contraflow systems have to be used, forcing those joining the Tube at Camden Town to go down the ninety-six steps of the winding staircase that envelops the long disused lift shaft, made redundant in 1927 when the escalators were built. At the busiest time, on Sunday afternoon, the station entrance is closed, as the flow is too big, and passengers wanting to get into the network are di verted instead to nearby Chalk Farm and Mornington Crescent .

The staggering, and not completely understood, renaissance in Tube passenger numbers is well illustrated by the recent history of Mornington Crescent , which was closed for six years in the 1990s and nearly shut permanently because it is just at the other end of the High Street from Camden Town and was thought to be superfluous to requirements. But Tube usage has almost doubled in that time, and Mornington Crescent , whose evocative name has even spawned an eponymous and deliberately incomprehensible game on the radio programme Im Sorry I Have nt a Clue , is now an essential part of the system.

The two fundamental problems of the Tube, the pressures caused by growth and the lack of investment, are forever entwined. When Tony Ridley took over as managing director of London Underground in 1980, he was expected to manage the decline. It was, incidentally, the same mistake that was made a decade later when the railways were privatised and expected gradually to wither away. The growth has been nothing short of phenomenal. The very success of the Tube in increasing passenger numbers, from under 500 million annually a couple of years after Ridley took over to today s throughput of double that, is responsible for many of the failings of the system. If there were more room on the trains, tracks, platforms, escalators, if the steady throng of people abated even just for a bit as it did on Sundays a few years ago, then the task of those trying to keep the system moving, let alone improve it, would be so much easier.