London, 1968.
Right, chaps. Thanks for coming. Do sit down. Take some tea. And a biscuit. Please.
So - we're building a new mainline station for London. Euston - we have a problem! No seriously, let's stay focused. And Apollo 13 doesn't launch till 1970.
So - this station. It'll serve the entire North West of the country, and up to Scotland too. There're two Underground lines here - well, three if you count to split branches of the Northern Line. So - how many escalators shall we put in? Hmm. It is a major London terminus. A flagship late-60s development and modernisation programme. Five? Ha, no Perkins, I think not. Hmm. I reckon... one each way. Yeah. There is no possible way that one escalator could not be enough. I mean, seriously - it would be ludicrous to put more in. Or even leave space for more. No, there could never be a freak set of circumstances in which one escalator would not be grossly generous. Particularly at rush hour. Yup, no problems here at all.
See! Told you. Huge amounts of capacity. It's almost embarrassing.
A Sunday afternoon is clearly indicative of the busiest it'll ever get.
Another thing - we need to help passengers understand the Tube setup here. This new station should make best use of the brand new Victoria Line, which has only just started running. It's really important that things are as simple and streamlined as possible. I think I'll get that Escher guy in again - he did such a good job with the Thamesmead flying walkways. I have a feeling that this brilliant decision will secure me an MBE... Just mark my words.
Cyrstal. Clear.
Think we're pretty much there, chaps. All we need now is to destroy the iconic arch out front, jam in a charmless and windswept plaza, and we're done.
A good day's work, I think. Pass the biscuits.
No comments:
Post a Comment