South Kensington station's escalator replacement project
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South Kensington station's escalator replacement project
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Re: South Kensington station's escalator replacement project
#2I havent read the full article, but why is this the number 2 story on HN? Have I sorted incorrectly?
Re: South Kensington station's escalator replacement project
#3This is a great example of why underground railways are so expensive to run. I don't believe the London Underground has ever been profitable.
Not only is it expensive to install equipment, you then have to maintain it and replace it and in this example, not even "like for like" are going to fit in the same space.
When I used to go round various equipment rooms, there was electrical equipment that was the best part of 100 years old. Who would ever remove it in case it is wired into the signalling system or whatever? For that reason, they have to wait and then do a massive re-signalling etc. so they can safely remove everything and put nice expensive new stuff in!
Re: South Kensington station's escalator replacement project
#4I havent read the full article, but why is this the number 2 story on HN? Have I sorted incorrectly?
Because older articles lose karma and drop down the list. Not many new highly voted articles for today yet.
Re: South Kensington station's escalator replacement project
#5Fascinating post as always from Ian.
My dad used to work for the underground and hearing him talk about the challenges of the engineering down there was always fascinating. This is especially true for the deep tunnels and the older parts of the network. Trying to keep the whole network dry, when you are dealing with brickwork that might be 100 or more years old, in a water table that has risen a lot following the end of heavy industry in London sounded like a particularly tricky issue.
Add in the constrained space and often very limited access on the deep lines and you can understand why it can take so long to do some projects, and why things like longer operating hours might sound nice but have significant knock-on effects.
Re: South Kensington station's escalator replacement project
#6To be honest, for me the most interesting part of the blog post was this one-liner "for an unbuilt high-speed District line service between South Kensington and Mansion House with just one stop at Embankment.".
As one of the millions who at some historical point in their lives has had to suffer the District line commute, the above is a thought I used to have regularly whilst stuck sniffing someone's armpit on the District line ... why can't they have non-stop services intermingled with normal traffic (just like in any other number of countries around the world).
They could have used the same rails, no need for a separate line (just like other countries around the world)... its a shame London Underground seemingly only considered the most expensive option (building separate tracks and tunnels for the non-stop).
Re: South Kensington station's escalator replacement project
#7This is a great example of why underground railways are so expensive to run. I don't believe the London Underground has ever been profitable. Not only is it expensive to install equipment, you then have to maintain it and replace it and in this example, not even "like for like" are going to fit in the same space. When I used to go round various equipment rooms, there was electrical equipment that was the best part of…
That's not right, I'm afraid - the Underground is usually profitable and subsidises loss-making forms of transport (particularly buses). Here's some high-level, pre-pandemic figures: https://diamondgeezer.blogspot.com/2018/03/average-yield-and...
(based on TfL's draft budget for 2018-19)
Re: South Kensington station's escalator replacement project
#8It is amazing how what might seem like fairly routine engineering jobs become completely nightmarish once you do it underground.
I used to commute via Goodge Street every day. A few years ago they replaced the four lifts (in twos so that two were still in service) which ultimately took two years. I could never really fathom what it was that specifically slowed that down so much but hey the lift congestion every morning was fun
Re: South Kensington station's escalator replacement project
#9To be honest, for me the most interesting part of the blog post was this one-liner "for an unbuilt high-speed District line service between South Kensington and Mansion House with just one stop at Embankment.". As one of the millions who at some historical point in their lives has had to suffer the District line commute, the above is a thought I used to have regularly whilst stuck sniffing someone's armpit on the Dis…
Express services on shared track isn't common on metro systems. NYC's express subways all use dedicated track, for instance. The tendency to not keep to a strict timetable and the close-running of metro systems makes it hard to slot express trains into gaps between local trains properly.
Re: South Kensington station's escalator replacement project
#10This is a great example of why underground railways are so expensive to run. I don't believe the London Underground has ever been profitable. Not only is it expensive to install equipment, you then have to maintain it and replace it and in this example, not even "like for like" are going to fit in the same space. When I used to go round various equipment rooms, there was electrical equipment that was the best part of…
On the railways in general there is a strong inclination towards keeping what works as the potential downsides of getting it wrong can be literally catastrophic. Things like solid-state interlocks, are reliable and trusted; it's taken a lot of work to develop the same kind of trust in software based systems.
I worked in railway safety back in the early 2000s and moving block signalling was like nuclear fusion, the great hope for increasing capacity and always just around the corner. While it's in use on some underground lines, it still isn't in widespread use on surface lines, it's just proved really hard to get right. We are getting there, it will form part of future systems in Europe, but it's taken decades to get to the level of maturity where people will trust it to carry thousands of people at intercity speeds through complex rail networks.