please empty your brain below
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Aren't there also moving walkways at Waterloo?
David Walters | 19.08.16 - 7:34 a.m. | #
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82.5 million km / 1.34 billion - amazing numbers really. Difficult to get a grasp of too as you only ever see a tiny slice of the network at any one time.
Should be an interesting night down the tube !
Kevin | 19.08.16 - 7:49 a.m. | #
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One would think with the (continued?) austerity, looming recession and 'brexit' (is that a 'proper word yet?) that this 'project' should have either put-on-hold or re-thought. Guess there must still be people who, after working so hard during the week, have time & money to be going out at the weekends. I don't give me the silly talk about shift-workers, doctors, nurses, security guards also making use of the 'service' (as Mr Khan mentioned) because what they suppose to do the rest of the week?
Plus if a was a doctor/nurse i'd rather find another way home than be putting-up (again) with drunks, drug users and aggressive/silly people... which will form quite a large part of the 'passengers' on the night-tube.
Grumpy Anon | 19.08.16 - 7:57 a.m. | #
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Grumpy Anon,
Travel at night or very early morning and you will see that shift workers do use night services in significant quantities. The problem of early morning travel is generally worse on Saturday mornings and especially Sunday mornings. The night tube will make a difference to these people.
As for putting the scheme on hold, have you thought of the significant capital expenditure already incurred and the staff who have already been employed specifically for this? So you want this capital expenditure to be written off and redundancy payments made with no income whatsoever to show for it?
Pedantic of Purley | 19.08.16 - 8:28 a.m. | #
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My old commute was Bethnal Green to White City - and on a Sunday morning, the first train of the day would already be crush loaded by the time it arrived at the platform. It would largely be people looking like they were on their way to work, but picked up some people on their way home along the way too. (I got fed up of it and started cycling instead - far more pleasant!)
The introduction of Night Tube is going to allow a lot of those people to make their journeys earlier, as well as speed up a lot of late night/early morning bus journeys.
martin | 19.08.16 - 8:46 a.m. | #
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@David Walters. The moving walkways at Waterloo are included in DGs Day Tube list but, as Waterloo is not on the initial Night Tube network, not on the Night Tube list.
Is that shortest lift shaft at Kings Cross part of the Night Tube network? Does it serve the Victoria Line?
The disparity between north and south London is even greater for the initial night tube network than the Day network, but that will be fixed when the Northern Line is added.
@PoP There may be good reasons for running the service, but you can't justify running a loss making service by pointing at the sunk costs. They are gone for good. (Heatherwick is trying that argument for justifying throwing yet more money at his latest vanity project)
Timbo | 19.08.16 - 8:52 a.m. | #
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The shortest lift at King's Cross is in the ticket hall area. Except that i have my doubts, and think that the shortest lift may actually be at Hainault station when they made that step-free a couple of years ago... Hmm...
Geofftech | 19.08.16 - 9:33 a.m. | #
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Wasn't the owl called Tooting at one time?
T | 19.08.16 - 10:02 a.m. | #
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I remember flying into Heathrow not long ago, and got downstairs in time to see the last Piccadilly Line train leave. It will be great to have that avoided when the night tube gets fully operational.
Tim | 19.08.16 - 10:09 a.m. | #
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Timbo is technically correct about sunk costs. But I suspect that behind PoP's mention of them is the issue of how embarrassing it would look, particularly with the redundancies, to defer or cancel this project now. Sometimes the politics does not line up with the bald accountancy issues.
Malcolm | 19.08.16 - 10:13 a.m. | #
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To be honest I've always found it strange that a world city like London DID'NT have a 24 hour subway service.
| 19.08.16 - 10:18 a.m. | #
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As one who has worked shifts for most of his working life it astounds me that there are still people who think society functions by magic when the offices close.
And yet these people flick a switch at night and expect electricity, use the loo, surf the net, get ill, etc etc.
There is demand for a night tube from night workers.
Still, as I live south of the river, it won't be any use to me.
Chris | Homepage | 19.08.16 - 10:19 a.m. | #
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I have to say that with the new overnight staff, the number of difficult shifts on the tube has fallen drastically. The difficult shift are the ones where there's no National Rail service to get one into zone 1 in order to open up the stations for start of service, and where the next National Rail service is many hours after the tube shift finishes (which means that train scoops up all the drunks who turn up at the mainline station to find a huge gap in service and only one train left to take them home to sleep it off over the weekend).
The kind of shit the management wanted to pull, with station staff shifts starting and ending in the wee small hours with no hope of getting home in a reasonable time, which would have meant extra staff taxis and additional safety concerns... well, they've actually avoided all that, but it's down to the union negotiators, not the management who remain inept and disconnected from reality.
Uncle Audrey | 19.08.16 - 10:46 a.m. | #
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Timbo, Malcolm,
I agree that setup costs have already been incurred and are irrelevant to the argument - other than politically (as Malcolm states). Redundancy payments haven't been incurred but would be if it didn't go ahead.
What I didn't make clear was that the Night Tube is expected to make an operating profit - it is the startup costs (already incurred) that could make the scheme financially questionable if external factors are not taken into account.
Accordingly, it makes no economic sense not to go ahead with it having got this far.
Pedantic of Purley | 19.08.16 - 11:47 a.m. | #
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DG has the opening date of the night tube as 2016. As a branded entity, that obviously correct. But haven't there been some all-night trains on New Year's Eve/Day in recent years?
Malcolm | 19.08.16 - 12:48 p.m. | #
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Trains have run all night on New Year's Eve (on almost all lines) for years. That's the tube at night. It's not the Night Tube.
diamond geezer | Homepage | 19.08.16 - 12:50 p.m. | #
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It all sounds rather wonderful,doesn't it! But some lines will have to wait a few months to go 'all night'. Oh,horror! How inconvenient!!! Live south of the river,then complain!
Jo W | 19.08.16 - 6:17 p.m. | #
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And complain on Monday nights as well, shift workers of London!!!
(BTW, commiserations to our neighbours "sarf" of the river, for enduring the mainline rail services :)
Not Diamond Geezer | 19.08.16 - 7:36 p.m. | #
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@ndg
Commiserations due in the other direction, I think. North London is still behind Croydon, which has trains all night, EVERY night.
Timbo | 19.08.16 - 9:41 p.m. | #
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I will be there protecting you London.
No Doubt i'll bump into DG. Alfred has had a tip off, DG will be on the first central line....then back again
Bruce Wayne | 19.08.16 - 9:54 p.m. | #
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2 nights a week - is it worth making a song and dance about it?
ChrisMitch | 20.08.16 - 12:30 a.m. | #
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How many years has an all-night (all-week) service been running on bits of Thameslink and Great Northern? Sure that's only hourly, and it's probably easier to run a surface service through the night as you can get by with much fewer staff, but still.
Come to think of it, on parts of Southern and London Midland the gap between the last and first services is about two hours, which is only one train away from a true overnight service.
anon | 20.08.16 - 4:11 a.m. | #
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>>but you can't justify running a loss making service by pointing at the sunk costs
It shouldn't have to be justified, it's about providing a service to people. Honestly, we seem obsessed in this country that everything must make a profit.
Red cardinal | 20.08.16 - 8:35 a.m. | #
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That rather depends on just how loss making something is. £3million supporting 100 users isn't justifiable - the daytime travelling public, increased subsidy by way of increased business rates (I notice that there isn't a special business rate for companies who are making profits at night on the back of the night tube), central government grants, advertising revenue increases, all paying for a service which could be and has been for many years provided in other ways. The Tube is rapid mass transit that comes at a cost. The Night Bus is a slower, less mass transit that is cheaper. If the numbers don't add up for Night Tube, then it can disappear again and it can go back to how it was. If they do add up (I don't see how myself, but what do I know?) then it will continue. If that makes passenger numbers drop on part of the Night Bus, then that will adjust to compensate. Yes, there is a bit of a profit culture, but then that's evolution baby. Cost/benefit is survival of the fittest, with cost neutral diversity having a hidden benefit. If Night Tube breaks even or runs at a slight loss, then it will survive by offering choice, diversity, robustness. If it runs at a massive loss, it will die. If it runs at a profit, it will survive. If it runs at a massive profit, then it may lead to the extinction of alternatives.
Uncle Audrey | 20.08.16 - 8:56 a.m. | #
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@red Cardinal
"timbo >>but you can't justify running a loss making service by pointing at the sunk costs<<
It shouldn't have to be justified, it's about providing a service to people."
It does have to be justified, and in this case providing a service to people is that justification, even if the service runs at a loss. But the sunk costs are not material to any decision as to whether to carry on or not, as they are the same in both scenarios.
timbo | 20.08.16 - 9:53 a.m. | #
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