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Mammoth "Metal Moles" Tunnel Deep Beneath London
Hugh Pickens writes "BBC reports that the first of eight highly specialized Tunnel Boring Machines (TBM), each weighing nearly 1,000 tonnes, is being positioned at Royal Oak in west London where it will begin its slow journey east. It will carve out a new east-west underground link that will eventually run 73 miles from Maidenhead and Heathrow in the west, to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east. Described as 'voracious worms nibbling their way under London,' the 150-meter long machines will operate 24 hours a day and move through the earth at a rate of about 100m per week, taking three years to build a network of tunnels beneath the city's streets. Behind a 6.2-meter cutter head is a hydraulic arm. Massive chunks of earth are fed via a narrow-gauge railway along the interior of the machine, which is itself on wheels, as the machines are monitored from a surface control room which tracks their positions using GPS. Hydraulic rams at the front keep them within millimeters of their designated routes. 'It's not so much a machine as a mobile factory,' says Roy Slocombe, adding that the machine is staffed by a 20-strong 'tunnel gang' and comes with its own kitchen and toilet. Meanwhile, critics complain that the project is a peculiarly British example of how not to get big infrastructure schemes off the ground, because almost 30 years will have elapsed from its political conception in 1989 to its current projected completion date of 2018."
....as anyone who's seen the beginning of "Reign of Fire could tell you.....
GPS?? Underground? Cool, so my scuba GPS is just around the corner too then.
From the summary:
the 150-meter long machines...
From the article:
The 140 metre long, fully assembled tunnel boring machine...
At 140 metres, each TBM would just fit just inside the boundaries of a cricket oval.
Was 140 meters not impressive enough, so the submitter had to add 10 meters?
Wouldn't be British without the whining and moaning.
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
they build exciting and reliable sports cars, too
It's older than any other subway system.... Which would make them the original leader, eh?
If I had an Ass, I'd call it Fanny Bottom, then I could slap my Ass; Fanny Bottom, on the Arse.
100m per week makes for a long commute. *Practical* transport that moves freely underground is still a ways off.
In what way is this unique? Are these machines in any way superior to the machines used to bore the tunnels for the 2nd avenue subway in NYC or the ones used in the construction of the LHC at CERN?
Seems like this machine might be larger, but is that it?
Call me when they can load one up on a big green supersonic aircraft and deploy it anywhere in the world on a moment's notice.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
London. On an island, right?
Wrong. Glad to be of help.
We may as well get all of the Dune references out of the way here in this one thread.
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It has more gaps than any other system - you have to constantly mind them.
sic transit gloria mundi
There's nothing peculiarly British about partisan politics resulting in funding taking years to be approved and plenty of NIMBYs protesting the plans!
ISTR reading about this somewhere three weeks ago, it was old news then...
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
It will not be a dump any longer when the sub-way terminates there.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
This isn't about the London Underground at all, it is a heavy rail link.
Someone hasn't played Jenga, apparently.
Hoping not to disturb your world view overmuch, but there is this interesting concept of reality.
You might try it sometime - it's different enough at any rate.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The place is a complete dump.
To be fair, many people not from London would say the same about all of our illustrious capital.
London's system appears to be conveniently bi-directional.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
Appreciated, thank you. It all looks smaller on Google Maps, but a 1:1 scale would probably be unfeasible.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
Boneshaker, anyone?
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
People being unnecessarily offensive on the internet or off, alas, does not disturb my present world view.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
Never mind, Penrith is Australian. Still funny though.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
Ugh, terrible journalism, they've buried the lede. You have to read to the very last sentence to figure out that it's a heavy commuter rail corridor, not a subway, bus, or car tunnel. Maybe this is obvious to British readers, but I found it confusing as hell.
Good to see London going for public infrastucture development during the recession. Definitely will be great to have a fast Crossrail service and add to the options of moving around London. I was standing waiting for a bus at Angel the other day and I realised all the people sitting in the cars between the two sets of lights in that section could fit into one bus (or a train carriage). Public mass transport got to be the way to go in cities like London. Could you imagine London without the tube? (Mind you it would be great if they could somehow refurbish the old lines, but I guess TfL have that dream as well...)
You wait til a superfast train connection stops there. House prices will go up again... Fast connection across London stopping there will mean it's going to go up in the world.
It has more gaps than any other system - you have to constantly mind them.
That's why I prefer the Moscow Metro. Because there, the gap minds you.
PlusFive Slashdot reader for Android. Can post comments.
You can't count the life of a project from the date someone first thought of it. By that measure, the Apollo moon landing project took at least 100 years. You should start counting from the date significant funding began, which in this case is 2010. Not bad, compared to, say, Boston's Big Dig.
Sorry, but no, it's in Cumbria, in the North of England. http://g.co/maps/4f64r
And I lost one mod point for you...
Do you honestly think it's all just bits of soft sandy soil under the ground?
No, and I hadn't been trying to give that impression.
Neither do I think that quantities of houses and automobiles are made of foam rubber. If you excavate large swaths of the foundation, island or not, there's going to be trouble.
My parents were homeowners, and the city decided it would pump the freshwater under the neighborhood and sell it. That alone caused significant property damage as the land settled due to the lowered water table. And that was just water; I wouldn't like to think what would happen removing massive amounts of the earth.
Bring land ashore from the North Sea.
They had to add the stop because the Alternate Thursday Rule, when applied in conjunction with the Left-Hand Turns Only Method, caused too many people to end up in the middle of the Thames.
ARTILLERYMAN: We're gonna build a whole new world for ourselves. Look, they
clap eyes on us and we're dead, right?
So we gotta make a new life where they'll never find us. You know where?
Underground.
. .
Good to know, thank you. We're actually both right. And thanks.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
Have gnu, will travel.
How does London's subway system compare to everyone elses? Is this an awesome new thing where they are leaders, or is this catching up to what other cities did years ago?
London's subway is somewhat behind these days. The big problem is that, because it's so old and established, it's very difficult to renovate. There's no cell reception, 3G or air-con. Trains are often small and cramped. Reliability is poor, and lines are often closed (although strikes, and sadly jumpers play a big part in that one). It's also fairly expensive. Compre it to say Shanghai's system and they're miles apart.
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Well, it isn't going to do anything, because they don't want the tunnels collapsing...
This isn't like pumping water, gas or oil out from under the ground - the tunnels need to be servicable and usable after the fact, otherwise there isn't any point in making them, so they get lined with concrete or some other material which keeps them rigid and bearing the weight of the ground above them.
Bear in mind that they've been doing this in London for 200 years or more, what with the London Underground, service tunnels, Royal Mail tunnels, BT telecommunications tunnels etc etc etc. London is criscrossed with tunnels already, 99% of them not having any issue on the surface at all. They've got experience in this.
Whitechapel already has a station with 3 lines.
In fact, you know that things are strange in Whitechapel, because the underground trains run overground, and the overground trains run underground.
That's sincerely reassuring then, and I thank you. I hadn't thought they could successfully reinforce tunnels a tenth of a kilometer wide.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
Some counter points.
Sulfur (the US spelling) is more archaic than Sulphur (the English spelling).
Meter is English, Metre is French (they invented the metric system).
I suppose you would also want all other homophones to be spelled the same way, right, rite, wright, write?
English has never been a phonetic language, neither the UK nor the US version.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
There are GPS re-radiators that will allow GPS underground. Based on the wording, it seems like that is something they are doing, but I didn't see the exact method explicitly stated.
Learn to love Alaska
The first London subway line opened in 1863, so it's not a new thing. In terms of milage, it's the second largest metro system in the world (ref. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems) And 45% of its 249 miles are underground. There are some facts and figures here: http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/modesoftransport/londonunderground/1608.aspx
This isn't really part of the London Underground. It's a very long mainline railway tunnel.
"The Tube", like most major metropolitan underground systems is extremely overloaded, but actually a pretty good network, and well integrated with the mainline. It has its problems, the main one being expense. It is a major target of investment, mainly because the city depends on it to operate. Many parts of it are pretty old, but this is more a case of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it".
Pffft, Amateurs. Boston's Big Dig is only 3.5 miles long and it took 35 years from first review to completion.
They had these in Ninja Turtles. Can't find a link, though.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
A job is a job, a 30 years project is a decent job security after all.
The could retrofit air con and phone reception. Air con simply isn't seen as needed for the two weeks a year when the temperatures get too high, and the public dislike the idea of idiots yammering on the phone next to their ear.
The crampedness is because this is a deep tunnel network rather than the cheaper cut and cover (i.e. dig a trench, build on top).
Strikes aren't that common, nor are jumpers. 97% of services run to schedule, which isn't too bad.
Price is a big issue but really that's about it.
It's easier to mind Gaps in America, here we have Baby Gap's.
Never say never. Ah!! I did it again!
With properly constructed concrete-and-rebar parts, much wider tunnels could be done. There are, of course, a number of variables involved: depth, size, composition of surrounding rock, etc. A Civil Engineer with a P.E. would be the go-to guy (or gal) for the specific tech details ans math...
http://www.thelaunchbox.blogspot.com/2012/03/contract-one-nearly-done.html
Picture of TBM
Keep in mind these pictures are taken from several feet below the active traffic on Second Avenue.
Yes. Lasers are commonly used. It's not uncommon for two underground boring machines to meet at the center of a ten mile tunnel and be less than a centimeter off.
It's easier to be a result of the past, but more fun to be a cause of the future! http://www.spacefinancegroup.com/
Like the US, a lot of our older towns and suburbs are named after English places. It's like they ran out of place names in the 19th century, even the state that Penrith is in is called New South Wales.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
The fundamental approach to digging appears to broadly resemble that of Brunel's ideas for digging the Thames Tunnel in the early-mid 1800's.
That's sort of debatable. The tunnels are too small for it to work as a heavy rail link as defined in European rail standards (as was pointed out at a presentation I was at recently, they could get a European standard-sized heavy rail locomotive through the tunnel but not operate it through the tunnel because there's no room for safe electrical separations). But there's a policy decision for it not to be a metro system, which would allow smaller units. So it's actually neither one nor the other; a heavy rail system that is too light to be a heavy rail system. Say one thing for the British: we can compromise.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
Fixed the subject for you.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
It has an excellent art galley.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
In fairness, there are genuine improvements coming down the line. (Sorry...) These are at least partly driven by a desire not to look like idiots when a few million extra people are around for the Olympics later this year.
New trains with air-conditioning and a walk-through design, as used in underground networks such as those in Paris and Rome, have been rolling out for a year or so. They are replacing one line at a time and due to cover 40% of the network by 2015.
Also, a deal was announced just last week for Virgin Media to provide WiFi access on the London Underground during the 2012 Olympics, though it only covers station areas and not the trains themselves while they are in the tunnels. Its stated goal is to allow travellers to respond more quickly to disruption and avoid the busiest areas (which are almost certainly going to be flooded far beyond capacity at peak times during the Olympics, whatever happens).
The system is still nowhere near the level of, for example, the other European capitals I mentioned, though, and won't get there any time soon.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
That's sincerely reassuring then, and I thank you. I hadn't thought they could successfully reinforce tunnels a tenth of a kilometer wide.
Um, what?
The tunnel diameter is 6.2 metres, i.e. a bit bigger than the cross section of a train + emergency walkway. The new, underground station platforms will be 250 metres long (wow!) but still only ~18m diameter (my guess from the mock-up video). Presumably they've planned for enough space for most of the "some 1,500 passengers ... carried in each train at peak periods" to get off at a single station.
Tunnelling can cause problems though. For example, London's local Quake II level (see picture) required some special work to avoid the Houses of Parliament collapsing.
You can tell you don't go on the underground much. Even in the height of winter, it gets pretty hot down there. It's pretty far underground though, so I don't think surface temperatures affect it all that much. Still, it makes the train arriving twice as nice, since it often brings a lovely blast of cool air with it.
All your other points are completely accurate, though. It's overpriced and cramped.
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
97% of services run to schedule, which isn't too bad.
It's not great, though. With more than a billion passenger journeys taken on the Underground per year, that 97% still represents more than 30 million significantly disrupted journeys, or if you prefer, regular commuters being late to work (or late home) once or twice every month.
Of course, there is only so much even the most hard-working staff could do with the limited resources available, and there is only so much money that can be available without putting fares (or taxpayer subsidy) up to politically intolerable levels.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Modern engineering can do some quite remarkable things, but for what it's worth, I think you've misunderstood the scale of the tunnels involved here by about an order of magnitude.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
It's actually this guy
I'm at least suspicious about it. It makes a whole lot of sense.
That's sincerely reassuring then, and I thank you. I hadn't thought they could successfully reinforce tunnels a tenth of a kilometer wide.
Um, what?
My mistake. The article brief sizes the equipment at 150 metres, corrected in the comments to 140 metres.
What I'd missed was that they were 140 metres long, not wide. Naturally I freaked.
Thanks for the correction.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
Doesn't anyone remember Hobb's Lane in London and Quatermass adn the Pit?
Nos Morituri te salutamus
Isn't the New York nematic tube system older?
There are better pictures on this blog:
http://www.londonreconnections.com/2011/in-pictures-the-crossrail-tbms/
http://www.londonreconnections.com/2012/in-pictures-crossrails-tbms-at-westbourne-park/
(But even after seeing all those pictures, I was still amazed at how huge the TBM was when I happened to see it -- 95% assembled -- from a train on my way into London.)
They are actually retrofitting AC systems into the newer rolling stock. It's just difficult due to the size of the tunnels, which places quite strict limits on the size of the train but more importantly, the ability to dump all that waste heat - you can't just pump it into the tunnels as it's already quite warm down there.
You need to be able to use heat exchangers that are very efficient, or cycle the heat out of a transfer medium when the train comes up above ground (as they all tend to do outside of the centre).
Well they did have to import the names from overseas; there was probably a shortage.
Sort of reassuring to know that Australia still had plenty of lag, even in the 1800's.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
No, it isn't.
No. London's predates New York's by about 41 years. (1863 vs 1904). Glasgow's is dated to 1896, so even the Scots beat the Yanks to this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
What's the worst thing that could happen? A "voracious worm" tunnelling near established infrastructure sounds like a disaster waiting to happen. Please, someone explain how a surface control room can keep track of a subterranean device using GPS. And then there's that bit under the River Thames...
All they have to do is wait for the mayhem to commence!
The San Francisco Bay Bridge had a section collapse in the 1989 Loma-Prieta earthquake. They're building a replacement now and should have it open sometime next year (2013). They'll still have to take down the old bridge and only Jerry Brown knows how long that'll take. It took about 3 years to build it the first time and more than 25 years to replace just half of it.
don't even go into just how many Wellington Streets can be packed into Melbourne. adjacent suburbs all have their own, like it was legally required to have at least one Wellington St, Rd, Pde if you were to be allowed a postal code.
no way! they've managed to bend spacetime in such a way as to run a train from London to Shanghai and make the distance travelled mere miles?
"Meanwhile critics complain that the project is a peculiarly British example of how not to get big infrastructure schemes off the ground, because almost 30 years will have elapsed from its political conception in 1989 to its current projected completion date of 2018."
How long has NYC been working on the 2nd Avenue line? 75 years? IIRC, they had a bond issue in the early '50s and finally started tunneling in the early '70s, but funding fell through. They started up again recently and currently plan for an opening late this decade for the first segment, 63rd St to 96th St. No word on when the other phases will be funded, extending the line from Hanover Sq. to 125th St., roughly 9 miles total.
Yes, it's a TBM. That's how tunnels are usually dug today, where possible. There are several types, depending on the subsurface conditions. Crossrail is using mostly "earth pressure balanced" TBMs, which are for soft ground, and, for the section under the Thames out to Woolwich, a "slurry" TBM, for, well, mud. There are other types of TBMs, like hard-rock TBMs, like the ones the Swiss use to grind through the Alps.
For wet conditions, the digging is the easy part, It's propping up the tunnel walls and keeping water out that's hard. The general idea is that air pressure does the job near the face, and just behind the cutting head, ring segments are put into place to build the tunnel wall. In wet ground, the TBM drills a hole slightly larger than the ring segments, so there's never unsupported tunnel wall.
Crossrail only needs 3 years to build the tunnels. That's not bad for 21km of tunnel.
TBMs are so long because they're a construction project in a can. The front end digs. The next section assembles the tunnel rings. Then there's a section where little railroad cars take away dirt and bring up tunnel ring segments. Then there's a part that adds new track sections for the little railroad cars, which run on a two-track line. All this has to be crammed into the tunnel diameter, and it has to continue to work while the thing inches forward.
Out here in California, we recently had a non-TBM tunnel job, at Devils' Slide. This is a road tunnel through an unstable mountain, one that has repeatedly dropped the coastal road into the ocean. The mountain is essentially a big pile of loose shale and sandstone, not hard rock. Digging and stabilizing that involved a lot of steel and concrete. That's one of the worst cases.
The Channel Tunnel was in some ways, not too bad. Most of the route is in chalk, which is easy to drill and reasonably dry.
The second Crossrail TBM, incidentally, is named Ada, after Ada Lovelace.
I've always wondered how the tunnel borers track position precisely when they are underground. GPS depends on adequate reception of satellite signals, which you do NOT get underground. Inertial navigation systems? But those usually need to be refreshed from calibration sources.
I've concluded it's all done by reference to gnomes.
No, the smectic tubes are older.
Demesne, which is pronounced 'domain'!
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
You have heard of the Channel Tunnel haven't you?
They dug from both ends and met in the middle, under much deeper water than the Thames, and were only a centimetre out.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
London's Underground is what is usually considered its "subway" system. It's the oldest in the world, and one of the most comprehensive.
This, however, is something else. This is a mainline railway route which is going under central London. Tube trains (on the London Underground) are small vehicles with an odd cross-section, so that they can go through smaller tunnels, and are powered by "four rail electrification". This new Crossrail line is designed for full-sized intercity trains, with normal overhead-wire electrification. This is part of why it's such a big project.
Bostons Big Dig was first planned in 1948 and didn't get completed till 2007, which makes the US look quite pedestrian compared to the rapid progress in the UK.....
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You can tell you don't go on the underground much.
was using on a daily basis for years. Only a real problem in the summer
Britain has its own concept of heavy rail though, which is a smaller loading gauge than European. As far as I understand, this is a standard tunnel that you could fit any train *currently* running on British tracks.
I think they had been outsourcing name production to the Celts and the Picts for too long. Once those disappeared or lost interest in that, they no longer knew how to produce any more of their own.
=~ s,(.*),<sarcasm>$1</sarcasm>,g if any_point_you_wish();
I sure hope they didn't outsource to the Welsh or the Finns...
Well, I might have a way, but it only works on a semi spherical planet in a vacuum.
It's an interchange onto the North-South London Overground network (that at Whitechapel runs underneath the East/West District Line and Hammersmith & City Line Underground lines) that also stops at Whitechapel.
Right. Most of the British mainline railway is W6 through W8, which are roughly the size of what a British person would think of as a "normal" passenger train. It's rounded at the top (like trains used to be) which means it's not suitable for 2.9m "high cube" containers now becoming popular in sea freight. W10 fixes that, so key freight routes are, or are being, cleared to W10 (ie somebody comes along and demolishes the local bridges and re-builds them very slightly higher and without rounded arches, then they cross out W8 and write W10 on the chart).
[ You can squeeze a high cube container on a normal W8 route by using special low trucks where the container hangs between the wheels rather than riding above them, but this is not a cost efficient way to transport cargo so you don't want to start doing it at all the time ]
The underground comes in two sizes, both smaller than mainline trains. The sections that run shallow and spend a lot of time in open air are just slightly smaller ordinary looking electric trains. But the deep tunnel underground uses even smaller trains which are very obviously cylindrical so that they fit the naturally cylindrical tunnels of the deep underground.
Nobody intends to use the cross rail link for bulk freight transport. If you've got freight in the West and you wish it was in the East you don't send it through London to get there. So it doesn't matter if the cross rail is less than W10.
like the small one in Gloucester did last year... not only did they lose track of where it was, when they finally restarted it back on the correct path, it cut through a major telephone cable that hadn't been correctly identified on the maps they based the route on... (oh for heck's sake, my google fu is poor this afternoon... it was a major local news topic about it being lost, yet I can't find any of the articles now...)
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
First, they say the network will be built in three years.
8 (diggers) * 0.1km / week * 52 weeks / year * 3 years = 41.6km 73 miles (117.5km)
But then, they said the project would complete 2018... so then it adds up... but still a little unclear.
The underground length is about 22 km, i.e. around 44 km of tunnel (one for each line). 3 years gives enough time for the tunnelling and ancillary work on the underground parts. Once that is done there's still building the stations (including connecting to the underground), laying the track etc, a lot of work on the existing suburban stations required, and aquiring the trains (something the Department for Transport are notorious for; the invitation to tender has only just been released and it's likely to be a touchy issue for the government) - hence the estimated 2018 date.
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The kitchens on TBMs are pretty neat. Depending on the depth of the dig, the pressure can get quite high, and this renders normal cooking recipes absolutely useless. Anything and relies on gas pressure to add volume will end up flat, so fluffy breads, crusts, and desserts like muffins, cakes, or souffles are right out as are things that use steam for cooking. Anything cooked in water has to be watched as temperatures get much higher and you don't have the cooling effects of boiling to help with regulation.
When I was doing squid research, I got an opportunity to spend some time in an underwater lab. Pressure wasn't much higher than normal (can't remember how many mmHg) but it was enough that cooking was crazy-go-nuts. We ended up eating a lot of cold preparations, salads, and packaged foods.
Fun Fact, beer is fucking lousy at depth. You'd be amazed how much the dissolved gasses and the release of such affects the taste and enjoyment.
I'm surprised your major population centres aren't all named after UK prisons :-)
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Sort of reassuring to know that Australia still had plenty of lag, even in the 1800's.
Plenty of old lags, you mean.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
This isn't about the London Underground at all, it is a heavy rail link.
So it's underground London trains rather than London Underground trains?
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
As it was presented at the rail industry safety group meeting I attended, the issue wasn't that the costs would be excessive, it was that the delays in getting fresh royal assent would be excessive. And that the issue wasn't extra capacity, it was compliance with European free-trade law.
Quidnam Latine loqui modo coepi?
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In fairness, there are genuine improvements coming down the line. (Sorry...) These are at least partly driven by a desire not to look like idiots when a few million extra people are around for the Olympics later this year.
It doesn't really matter how bad the tube is, because you've always got the options of utilising London's advanced road network, with guaranteed journey times and absolutely no hold ups.
If you're part of the Olympic committee or their sponsors and thus able to travel in special lanes during the Games, that is. Otherwise you sit and stew in your car, travelling at an average speed of 10mph if you're lucky.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
(I'm sure other Londoners will agree with me here)
I'm still baffled as to why CrossRail have decided to add a stop at Whitechapel. The place is a complete dump.
There's some historic pubs there though. Why, if only I'd been born at the time, I could have been one of the several thousand people present in the Blind Beggar the night Reggie Kray shot George Cornell.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Ronnie, sorry. Oh dear, I've probably just transgressed an unwritten law.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
These are at least partly driven by a desire not to look like idiots when a few million extra people are around for the Olympics later this year.
Revamping the menus of thousands of restaurants and getting other businesses to stay open past 5pm must be a herculean task! I wonder if the flashing sign telling people not to piss in the streets will remain.
The new trains have aircon, fyi.
Sorry, I was too busy thinking of the "stone pigs" under Fallen London in Echo Bazaar.
Five down, two to go.
I hope the tunnels are deep enough to avoid destroying all of the ancient artifacts still buried beneath London.
all delays were caused by the French, Kaiser Wilhelm and Hitler.
Ooh, Godwin!!
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
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Now, now, be fair. They introduced a congestion charge in order to alleviate overcrowding on London's roads, and it has been highly effective and surely worth every penny that motorists have been charged! Anyone who claims it just moved some peak traffic to different roads or slightly different times of day is clearly deluded, and anyone who says it barely made a difference and the roads have long since gone back to being at least as crowded as before clearly isn't taking into account that they can now reach speeds of up to 12mph in the 50m gap between traffic lights, a full 20% improvement on the figure you quoted. Frankly, I think you're just being absurd and more than a little harsh on the national treasure that is London transport infrastructure.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
A little of both, actually. In case you were sincere:
I'm a political protester living off the grid and on the street. It can be very distracting trying to post from raucous shelters, being jostled and interrupted by rude people every few minutes. It happens wherever I get online from, but shelters are usually worse. I'm malnourished, which impairs cognition quality. And I have systemic candida albicans overproliferation, exacerbated from eating lots of cheap, starchy and near-expired shelter food. Candida overgrowth overloads the body with toxins and gives you the constant equivalent of a hangover, giving a person "brain fog" (they become mentally spacey). All of this, as the alternative to paying one red cent to the federal government and becoming an accomplice to their crimes against humanity, at home or abroad. (If everyone refused to subsidize the government until it shaped up, then it necessarily would. They don't, and so I end up taking a lot of flak for refusing to be a party to it - while society just carries on around me, falling to bits as it goes.)
A margin of patience is appreciated.
The Wolfpack Project: BitCoin + Crowdfunding = Political Accountability
Curse you, for reminding me of that horrible movie! That movie was almost as bad as Gigli and Battlefield: Earth.
Actually, it isn't. In 1844, in the interests of segregating passenger train and road traffic, a rail tunnel was built under the roadbed of Atlantic Avenue, in what was then the independent city of Brooklyn, New York. There is a reply to the OP suggesting that Liverpool has some earlier tunnels than this, but in any case, it would seem that Brooklyn significantly predates the London underground train system.
All that noise and you might just burst a few of their tunnels!
(Flamebait, Troll, Overrated mods)
At least the way that this is done, the British err on the side of giving respect to the workers that end up down there instead of the Third World where it is reserved for the despots.
Apparently someone's offended that the British take the time to do something properly for all involved instead of a despot ordering something to happen and having it come at the unnecessary cost of people or bad long-term consequences.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Never mind. The fact you were able to type and submit it with your head nailed to the floor displays a certain "stick-to-it" attitude that will do you all right in the end.
What was once true, is no longer so