New Fleet Line

Like the basic routing; chance for another camden-esque between Canary Wharf and NG

As for the stations around the City.... If you go for a couple of double ended stations, From Charing Cross onwards I'd personally hazard Aldwych, City "Thameslink/St Brides", "St. Pauls", "Cannon Street/Monument", "Fenchurch Street/TH-TG", "Vaughaun Way-Kennet Street", "Wapping (right under the thames with an enterance on southern bank at Rotherhithe street").

Interesting choice of alignment through the royals. I think it was the River Line North that went to Beckton before Thamesmead, whereas South went Woolwich - Thamesmead. Might I suggest though that if you are to lack a connection to the NR system south of the Thames near Woolwich you continue the line one stop further to Dagenham Dock station?

A good observation overall.

Ben I was going on the pretence that the Dagenham Dock DLR extension will be built before this, meaning that passengers in Dagenham Dock can just change for this line at Gallions Reach, meaning that going from Thamesmead to Dagenham Dock is kind of pointless. I was thinking more of extending it further into Bexley, as it is officially the worst London Borough for transport! So I was thinking more for it to go from Thamesmead North to Belvedere, then to Erith and Slade Green, before terminating at Crayford.

Heres my choice for a new East West lines. Hammersmith - Ilford.

Hammersmith, High st Ken, Albert Hall, Knightsbridge, Victoria, Charing Cross, Aldwych, Ludgate Circus, Liverpool street, Shoreditch, Bethnal Green, Victoria Park (Roman Road) QE Park south of the new stadium, Stratford and then replace all the railway stations between Stratford and Illford, allowing Shenfield services to run semi fast.

goo.gl/maps/QHyz

It provides relief to the District, Picadilly Central and part of Crossrail which will be full coming from the East.

Sorry, I thought the Fleet line should actually go under Fleet street. My route from Charing Cross to Ilford pretty much follows the route suggested for extending the Jubilee line in the Central London Rail study, way back in the eighties before Canary Wharf was thought of.

As to the route in suggested, it's pointless. Thamesmead is a small area of London it does not justify it's own tube line. The suburban ends of our existing lines were either former commuter rail lines or built through cheap greenfields. There needs to be an Eastern destination for the line to have enough passengers. Thamesmead is not big enough.

The Jubilee and, now, Crossrail have killed off any opportunities of threading a line through the area.

The route suggested might have some merit if the Jubilee had not been built, but it has. As it stands the line would be mostly empty City airports, where it might pick up some passengers from the airport and the DLR, but most rail commuters would have switched to Crossrail at Abbeywood. The line would be busy between the City and Canary Wharf, but it largely duplicates Crossrail again in that regard as people can do the same journey from Farringdon.

You have only two proper tube interchanges at Bank and Tower Hill, Canary Wharf is a mess for an interchange and anyway you are duplicating routes at Canary Wharf.

Bank as an interchange is not possible. Not only is a very built below narrow streets, with buildings with deep foundations, the whole station is very busy and proposed rebuilding works will just about keep pace with traffic as it stands. Also it will prove very challanging to fit anymore tunnels underneath the existing lines.

To fix the line, I would make several changes.

The line needs to go further towards the West End or other key transport interchanges. You could follow the suggested routes of the DLR extension and start the line in Victoria and follow the old proposed District Express route to Charing Cross - Aldwych - City Thameslink etc, or Kings Cross - Thameslink etc. Both relive overcrowded tube routes, the Victoria one though gives Fenchurch street passengers an easy link to the West End, plus it would be an express route to the City and Docklands from Victoria and the businesses there.

From Thameslink you could still link to the Central line at St Pauls, then a swerve southwards and miss Bank and go straight to Tower Hill/Fenchurch Street.

Another alternative would be for the line to go Victoria - Waterloo - London Bridge - Tower Hill then to Docklands. This option would provide relief to the Jubilee from the West and allow more Overground passengers to change at Canada Water. This option would also relieve the W&C to Bank and the Northern to Bank by providing another route into the City from the South.

Either way all these options provide more destinations for passengers from the east and collect more passengers towards the City and Docklands from the West.

From the City I personally not bother with a station in wapping, but if you did the best place would be along the Highway by News International, as it a big site. This would have the advantage of allowing you to close Wapping if you wanted to operate longer trains on the Overground.

After North Greenwich there is not a lot of demand for a tube line. The jubilee snagged the strongest nearest Hub, with Stratford. If you went to City airport, I'd drop Gallions reach as it seems too far North, besides they can changes at Custom House for Crossrail. I'd just go for Thamesmead West instead before going to Thamesmead Central. It's probably terminate at Abbeywood. A second branch could split after North Greenwich and head down to Charlton and then Terminate it at Kidbrooke.

Alternatively you could just forget Thamesmead and send the entire line down to Charlton and the follow the Shooters Hill Road all the way to Bexleyheath, which is a major town centre and shooters hill is a major bus route.

Between Liverpool Street and Stratford, its just the central line; what's the purpose/gain of adding it? Its a very long way for a parallel route, especially when that route will already have crossrail as a fast version.

Stratford - Ilford would duplicate Crossrail; I'm not saying that's automatically a bad thing, but it does seem a little pointless if that's all it does, if its not a means to go somewhere else after.

The rest reads like a DLR extension.

Knightsbridge - Victoria - Charing Cross seems like an awkward deviation, just to take in a mainline terminal. Why must all new lines strive to encompass as many mainlines as possible? If you bypass a mainline, you take the bypass traffic off the existing routes through the mainline, so the effect is the same, but doesn't add the clunky detour. Its clunky on the map too.

As for Hammersmith - central Kensington - Albert Hall - Knightsbridge. This seems pointless. Its clearly a straight line, but these places are relatively empty, and full of very rich people, and few poor ones, (the same kind of people that have their own transport, or reject the tube to the extent that places like Down Street, and Brompton Road, for example, became only rarely used).

Hardly anyone lives at Albert Hall at all, and half of the area is a giant park; its a very expensive option just to cater for the occasional few hundred people turning up to a concert, who aren't rich enough to travel by taxi anyway.

Kensington already has a station (on the circle line), and there's not much there other than an ordinary upmarket high street, so I don't think there's much advantage to another station. Plus the disruption, to a high street that expensive, would be extremely costly; the station building site purchase costs alone would be a fortune.

If you push the line further south, it might be more useful and viable. Obviously you'd want to avoid duplicating the two existing lines in that area, so it would be more towards chelsea, but then that's the Chelney; it would basically be taking over part of the Chelney route.

Or you could make it viable and useful if you push it north through Notting Hill - then you'd have a useful shortcut across Hyde Park, that might take a large amount of traffic off that corner of the circle line [which is currently very busy]. If you take it to Ladbroke Grove, and then say, East Acton, you'd create a very useful shortcut that might even help regenerate the poorer areas of west central london. You could even take over one of the central line branches, and provide relief by simplifying management of the central line.

Given that TfL is estimating that there will be an increase of demand for central London transportation services of 50% by 2030 (the reference is elsewhere on this board), new tube & crossrail lines will be certainly be needed. It is estimated that the abuilding Crossrail will only add 10% of such capacity. Anything that makes rail transport more efficient will need to be evaluated, especially if there are unused stations & tunnels in central London.