Nah that's just defeatist to say Central is too small to redevelop. A bit of engineering craft and innovation would find some sort of solution. Its a typical "cannot do" mentality that holds this country back. Or should I say, "cannot do this unless it is financially viable".
Central is underground, I'm not an engineer, but its not as if we're building a whole new underground station from scratch here - we're expanding it. Again, how the engineers go about doing this is up to them.
Closing down Central would be a real loss, and another example of rail transport being pushed aside, unless of course, significant investment was ploughed into a brand new station or reopening the grandiose Exchange Station. But to simply close down Central because its "getting in the way of development" and push it up the road to create a complete underground station smacks of lack of ambition.
At risk of sounding "traditionalist", what has happened to design standards? Why have we gone so far backward over the past 50 years? To save money, obviously, but pride of place and design standards are so low now, I'd hate to see a new plastic underground station open in place of Central. Ok, Central is not as grand it was 100 years ago, but still, it is fairly unique in principle. In reality, it is stuck in the 1970s, it is dark, smelly and I think Joe Riley hit the nail on the head when he said its like something out of "Ghost-train" ride in a fairground. There has never been any attempt to improve its design. So, the toilets have been renovated... we now have electronic gates... but what of the station itself? It's boring, dark, plastic and has absolutely no character. What I'm saying is unique is the two ideally located entrances and the fact that it is not very "underground", it's very shallow, and is also surrounded by some terrific listed buildings (which could also do with better maintenance and care), although it would be fair to say that wherever the station is located, it will be near some listed buildings!
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One thing I've never been quite sure of though is the old "high level" line... How much higher was the old line (running underneath Berry Street) compared to the line today? The old line must have ran very shallow beneath Berry Street yes? Or was it simply excavated deeper, so now the tunnel is actually quite deep and vertically spacious?
I'm not sure how possible this suggestion would be - but retaining the old high level and creating a new tunnel underneath Hardman Street to the Wapping tunnel sounds a great idea. This way we'd have three levels of rail, and we can divert some of the easterly traffic onto this new high level. Assuming a tunnel link between Hardman St and the Wapping tunnel is viable, why not give consider this option? It could also open up other regional and national links.
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