Alternate Universe Tube Map

This post was last updated on 24 May 2022

We see what-if stories everywhere. What if the Axis powers had won World War II? What if the dinosaurs hadn't been wiped out? What if Shrek hadn't been born?

After having a go at showing what the Tube map might look like in 2040, I wanted to try and present a map from an alternate history, where the Tube looks faintly familiar but still strikingly different.

This is what I ended up with:

Alternate Universe Tube Map

There's a lot that's different. The executive summary:

• The map is based on proposals put forward in 1946, which you can read online here, and read a little more about here
• The report's authors were particularly concerned about overcrowding at London Bridge station and the space taken up by railway viaducts on the South Bank
• Their solution was radical: demolish the overground stations at London Bridge, Charing Cross and Cannon Street altogether
• Suburban trains originally travelling to London Bridge would be sent into one of five new tunnels running across London (in the style of Crossrail and Crossrail 2), taking over suburban services on the other side
• Two further Crossrail-style lines and one new Tube-style line were put forward to relieve congestion elsewhere on the network
• A few existing Tube lines would get extensions and tweaks, especially the Northern line

The map itself contains annotations in grey which explain a little about what's going on. What follows below will go into geekier detail, following the same structure as the bullet points above.

Background

So, it's January 1946. The Victoria line, Jubilee line, Overground, DLR and Emirates Air Line are nowhere to be seen. The Metropolitan and District lines share the same identity on the Tube map and serve quirky places like Aylesbury, New Cross and South Acton. Although the construction of underground railways previously had been something of a free-for-all, the London County Council and (as it was called until April 1946) the Ministry for War Transport were now taking a more active role in overseeing the development of London's transport.

In 1943, the County of London Plan was published, with its own section on rail transport. A particular concern was the number of railway viaducts around the South Bank and their effect on development around places like Southwark Cathedral (shown below).

Southwark Cathedral and the surrounding railway viaducts today
Image: Google Earth

The "Railway (London Plan) Committee" was set up to investigate the proposals in the County of London Plan and make their own comments and suggestions. The Committee's response was set out in the 1946 Report to the Minister for War Transport, which from now on I'll just call "the 1946 report". It is this report which forms the basis of the alternate-universe Tube map: the map depicts a world where all the proposals from the 1946 report came to fruition.

Why use the 1946 proposals to construct an alternate-universe Tube map when other proposals (including the 1943 County of London Plan) could have worked just as well?

First, the 1946 report was particularly ambitious, allowing this alternate-universe Tube map to feature eight fictional lines. Most proposals made before and since have been far more cautious, often suggesting no more than one new line at a time.

Second, the 1946 report contains suggestions which closely resemble proposals which actually did come to fruition in real life. Most strikingly, we see an underground line linking Victoria and King's Cross (like the real-life Victoria line) and a line linking Wimbledon and Dalston (like the current proposals for Crossrail 2).

The third reason is more practical: the 1946 report's availability online (including its full text in searchable form at archive.org) made it particularly easy to adapt as a Tube map.

London Bridge problem, Crossrail solution

The Railway Committee shared the concerns in the County of London Plan about the railway viaducts around the South Bank. They were also worried about the heavy passenger traffic arriving at London Bridge station: they reported that 60,000 passengers arrived at London Bridge during the morning peak hours, more than any other London terminal except Liverpool Street.

The County of London Plan proposed that the viaducts through London Bridge station to Cannon Street and Charing Cross be demolished and replaced by a deep-level tube line. Suburban rail services to London Bridge would run in a loop: entering a tunnel south of London Bridge station, trains would then travel to London Bridge underground station followed by Waterloo Junction, Charing Cross, Blackfriars and Cannon Street (or those four stations in reverse order) before returning to London Bridge and rejoining the surface lines again.

Loop line proposed in the 1943 County of London Plan

The 1946 report expressed concern about running lines in a loop like this. The frequency of service in the loop would be severely constrained, since clockwise and anticlockwise services would share the same tunnel through London Bridge. If (say) 24 trains per hour ran northwest through London Bridge, only 12 could run clockwise and 12 anticlockwise.

Furthermore, the junction north of London Bridge would require careful timetabling so that clockwise and anticlockwise trains don't have to wait for each other when merging back onto the line through London Bridge. Disruption to one service could have significant knock-on effects by forcing trains to wait longer at the junction.

The Committee's solution followed the same philosophy underlying Crossrail and Crossrail 2: rather than run suburban London Bridge services in a loop and send them back where they came from, run them in tunnels underground across London and have them link up with suburban services on the other side. Five new cross-London lines were proposed, each one adapting a different portion of the suburban railway fanning out from London Bridge.

According to the 1946 report, the cross-London tunnels would carry up to 25 trains per hour, have tunnels 5.1 metres in diameter (large enough to carry full-size trains) and have platforms 198 metres long. Compare this with the real-life Crossrail, which opened in May 2022: tunnels are 6.2 metres in diameter, platforms are 240 metres long and the route will ultimately carry 24 trains per hour through its core in each direction.

Tower Bridge Road

Although London Bridge would no longer be the terminus for suburban services, there would still need to be a terminus for long-distance regional services and an interchange between the different cross-London lines. The London Bridge site was considered unsuitable for this, so the 1946 report proposed build a new interchange hub from scratch, further east on Tower Bridge Road.

Proposed site of Tower Bridge Road station as it appears today
Image: Google Earth

Tower Bridge Road wouldn't be the final terminus for long-distance services: they would travel by viaduct a little further west to Waterloo Junction, which today is known as Waterloo East. The viaducts connecting Tower Bridge Road to Waterloo Junction would be built from scratch along a new more direct route.

Although Waterloo Junction would have no underground connections of its own, the Railway Committee saw it as serving an important role as an interchange with the main Waterloo station and as a destination for passengers seeking to continue their journey by foot, bus or taxi.

Lines in detail

Before diving into more detail about the individual lines, it's worth noting that the 1946 report didn't assign them names or colours. I uncreatively chose portmanteau names in the style of the Bakerloo line, which I hope are at least more informative than "District" and less of a mouthful than "Waterloo & City".

The report doesn't go into much detail about service patterns on the new lines or how services on surrounding above-ground routes might change. This means the positioning of rail interchange icons involved a lot of speculation. Take these with a pinch of salt!

Tower Bridge Road lines

Tower Bridge Road lines
From top to bottom: Bankbone, Cricklefleet, Dartling, Finsmoor and Leatherwat

The five Tower Bridge Road lines would, between them, take over all the suburban services formerly bound for London Bridge, Charing Cross and Cannon Street.

Many portions of the Tower Bridge Road lines are familiar, having made it on to the Tube map in other forms. The northern portion of the Leatherwat line from Watford Junction to Euston is currently part of the Overground. The Dartling line's western section between Maidenhead and Paddington is now part of the Elizabeth line. Although the Bankbone branch from Elmers End to Addiscombe no longer exists as a heavy rail line, part of the route was adapted for the Croydon Tramlink.

The Finsmoor line was proposed to incorporate the Northern City Line from Finsbury Park to Moorgate, which was once a self-contained part of the Northern line but presently (in real life) falls under Great Northern. Some have suggested that this line should be now be devolved to TfL and form part of the London Overground. The Finsmoor line would also take over the railway from Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace, which exists today only as the Parkland Walk.

Viking line

Viking line

The Viking line was actually proposed in the 1946 report as two separate lines. Since they share the same route north of Finsbury Park they're combined here for the sake of simplicity. The western (East Croydon) branch and the eastern (Sevenoaks) branch would have separate platforms at Finsbury Park and rejoin the surface lines to Stevenage and Hitchin between Finsbury Park and Harringay.

The East Croydon branch closely resembles the real-life Victoria line: the Viking line and the Victoria line both serve Brixton, Stockwell, Vauxhall, Victoria, Euston, King's Cross St Pancras and Finsbury Park. The Sevenoaks branch shares features in common with real-life Thameslink, but would run underground all the way between Loughborough Junction to Harringay.

Under the 1946 proposals, the tunnels north of Farringdon which today are used for Thameslink would have become part of a new underground route specifically designed for freight. This route would have run from Loughborough Junction to Blackfriars, Holborn and Farringdon before joining these pre-existing tunnels and rejoining the mainline rail system.

Wimbleching line

Wimbleching line

The Wimbleching line was intended to relieve congestion on the South Western Main Line between Raynes Park and Waterloo by diverting suburban trains from Motspur Park through a new underground route. Suburban services to Chingford (in real life, now part of the London Overground) would be absorbed at the other end.

The Wimbleching route very closely resembles the real-life Crossrail 2 proposals. A new underground railway from south-west to north-east London has been seen as a priority for London for a long time, and the 1946 report illustrates just how long.

The southern tunnel portal for the Wimbleching line would be southwest of Raynes Park, an area which in 1946 was a goods depot but is now an industrial estate. Crossrail 2 is more ambitious, with the tunnelled section beginning between Raynes Park and Wimbledon. This would allow Crossrail 2 services to run to Hampton Court and Shepperton as well as Chessington and Epsom.

Golders line

Golders line

The Golders line, uniquely among the lines proposed by the Railway Committee, would have narrower tunnels only able to fit Tube-size trains. To highlight this, this is indicated on the Tube map with a solid line rather than the double or "cased" line used for the other new lines. The line was designed principally to provide relief for the Northern line's northern branches. A proposed alternative in the 1946 report was to double the existing Northern line tunnels between Golders Green and Waterloo.

Northern line

Improved Northern line

Many improvements to the Underground's existing lines were planned or proposed before the Second World War. Most famous of these was the Northern Heights plan: a new Northern line branch would be built to connect Finchley Central to Edgware, and the Edgware branch would be extended to Bushey Heath. The Northern Heights also includes the incorporation of the Northern City line and Alexandra Palace branch into the Northern line, but under the 1946 proposals they would have formed part of the Finsmoor line.

As noted above, either the Golders line or doubling the Northern line between Golders Green and Waterloo would ease crowding on the northern section. On the southern section, the Charing Cross branch would be extended south of Kennington along the same route as the existing Morden branch, rejoining the old Northern line south of Tooting Broadway. The Committee proposed that trains on the Bank branch (using the old track) would terminate at Tooting Broadway, while trains on the Charing Cross branch would continue further south.

Although the 1946 report does not mention it explicitly, it seems likely that the doubling of the Northern line would have made use of the deep-level shelters built under Northern line stations during the Second World War. The doubling of the line would free up capacity for an extension to North Cheam. It seems likely that one of the sets of Northern line tunnels between Kennington and Tooting Broadway would run an "express" service, missing out stations like Oval and Clapham South, but the 1946 report makes no explicit proposals about this.

The section of the Northern line between Morden and Kennington remains today one of the most crowded on the London Underground. Crossrail 2 is intended to relieve some of this crowding with a station at either Tooting Broadway or Balham.

Other lines

It's worth quickly mentioning some of the other lines. In 1946 the Central line's western section ran to Ealing Broadway, with no West Ruislip branch. There were plans to extend the line as far as Denham but in real life the extension was only built as far as West Ruislip. The Central line would reach Ongar in 1949, but in real life services from Ongar usually only went as far as Epping. The Central line service between Epping and Ongar was withdrawn entirely in 1994.

There were plans in the 1930s to extend the Bakerloo line to Walworth and Camberwell. This is depicted in one of the maps accompanying the 1946 report, fainter than the other plans and proposals, but isn't mentioned in the text of the report.

Next steps

The Railway Committee anticipated that all their proposed lines and extensions could be finished within 30 years. So the "alternate universe Tube map" isn't so much an alternate present day as an alternate 1976.

The intriguing (especially geeky) question is how the alternate-universe Tube would have been improved upon in the years between 1976 and the present day. Would the Docklands Light Railway have been built, and would it follow the same routes? Would Heathrow be served in the same way? Would a new line be needed (like the real-life Jubilee line) to better serve the existing line to Stanmore? Would the dedicated freight line have been adapted for passenger service? Which services, if any, would be cut back?

I definitely can't answer any of these questions, but I would emphasise two takeaways from the 1946 proposal and the alternate-universe Tube map.

First, many of the planning problems facing London after the Second World War were strikingly similar to those facing planners today, not least because of the glacial speed at which solutions are put into action. For example, planners are as concerned today as they were in 1946 about congestion on the Northern line and on the surface railway lines approaching Waterloo, and the "Crossrail philosophy" was the proposed solution in 1946 as well as now.

But on the other hand, the planners after the Second World War were not afraid to be bold. Their proposals would have profoundly reshaped London's transport infrastructure, especially south of the river, and given rise to a Tube map very different from the one we know.