FROM THE RAILWAY MAGAZINE ARCHIVES
YEARS AGO
APRIL 1922 Over a billion passengers use Underground railway
THE report issued for the working of the London Underground Electric Railway, which includes the three tramway companies associated with it, reveals the astounding figure of 1,293,500,000 passengers carried during the year 1921. London’s Underground is easily the largest traffic undertaking. Over 81 million of the total were workmen and another 57 million were season-ticket holders.
It is not generally known that London’s Underground, apart from its railways and motor-bus services, owns and leases over 123 miles of tramway track in Greater London. The profits of the Underground for 1921 were stated as £2,650,000.
YEARS AGO
APRIL 1972 Work on new Fleet Line tunnel started
TUNNELLING for the new Fleet Line
(later renamed the Jubilee Line) of London Transport was scheduled to begin in February, after the award of a £2.5m contract to Kinnear Moody & Co for driving and lining half-a-mile of twin tube tunnels from a point near Admiralty Arch under the Strand to Aldwych, which will initially be used as sidings.
A further £2.5m contract has been placed with A Waddington & Son for driving 1½miles of twin tunnels from Admiralty Arch to just south of Bond Street Station, including Fleet Line platform tunnels at Green Park Station. St Albans rebuilt
COMPLETION is expected next year of rebuilding St Albans City station at a cost of £200,000. All the present buildings, except those on island platform 2/3, are being demolished. A one-storey grey brick building is being constructed on the site of the former coal and goods yard.
Access to platforms will be by a new footbridge, which already is in use. The main entrance will be from Victoria Street and a roadway to Hatfield Road is being constructed; this will give better access to the new station forecourt. Midland bangers and mash
PASSENGERS on weekend trains between St Pancras, Leicester, Nottingham, Derby and Sheffield can now have a dish of two freshly cooked pork sausages and mashed potatoes served to them at their seats for 20p.
YEARS AGO
APRIL 2002 New trains for MML
MIDLAND Main Line has ordered 127 of the ‘Voyager’ design, Bombardierbuilt vehicles to be formed into seven nine-car and 16 four-car rakes. They will be known by the generic fleet name ‘Meridian’ and classified ‘222’.
Once in service, they will provide MML with approximately 4000 extra seats a day, enabling the Class 170 ‘Turbostars’ to be transferred to one or more of National Express’s other franchises.
The 13 HST sets currently employed on the route will be retained, undergoing a major refurbishment and repainting to bring them up to a similar standard.
The ‘Meridians’ will not look exactly the same as the Virgin ‘Voyagers’, and there will some structural differences to improve the use of interior space. Mail train routes to be axed
THE Post Office, which is considering dropping its unpopular new name Consignia after only a few months’ use, is to phase out three of its mail train routes this year as it seeks to address a raft of financial and industrial problems.
The trains to be axed are the Willesden-Swansea, WillesdenShieldmuir, and Shieldmuir-Bristol Parkway.
Until the end of 2001, Consignia operated 58 mail trains each weekday night, worked under a 10-year EWS contract. However, Consignia says that unreliability – mainly following the Hatfield accident – coupled with Railtrack’s failure to guarantee services, has led it to reconsider the long-term future of mail by rail. ‘Voyagers’ to Newcastle
THE long-awaited entry into passenger service of Virgin ‘Voyager’ stock on the Bristol-Birmingham-York-Newcastle corridor started on February 18 when the 06.45 Bristol Temple Meads-Newcastle and 13.08 return were formed of eight-car Class 220 formations.
High-profile ceremonies were held in both Newcastle and Bristol to herald one of the most tangible signs yet of the ‘Voyager’ revolution. It is also the first time distance-running at 125mph has been possible with passengers. Birmingham CrossCity boost
THE Birmingham CrossCity Line is to receive a £3.4m grant from the SRA which will allow a 10-minute interval service to be launched and turn the railway into a ‘turn-up-and-go’ network.
The six-trains-per-hour service will operate weekdays between Lichfield and Longbridge from this autumn, and will also see semi-fast services introduced between Birmingham
New Street and Lichfield. Centro will contribute another £900,000 to the scheme.