Talk:Northern line

Battersea / Nine Elms
As of 20 september some parts of this article need rewriting to reflect changes brought about by the opening of Battersea & Nine Elms stations? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.194.119.250 (talk) 11:41, 20 September 2021 (UTC)

Has Bank Station Moved?
Angel is listed as a moved station. The station didn't move but one platform did. Originally it comprised a very large tunnel containing a skinny island platform with tracks on either side. A new tunnel was dug for the northbound line with a new platform and the southbound platform was widened by filling in the old northbound track. A similar exercise was performed at Euston to give cross-platform access to the Victoria line in 1968. Bank originally had two separate platforms that were very close together. The Northbound track was moved (that is a new tunnel was built) and the original tunnel converted into a concourse between the two platforms. Does this qualify as a moved station. If not then what about Angel. Should that remain a moved station? OrewaTel (talk) 07:41, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The word "moved" does not occur in the article. Where are you seeing it? -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 17:14, 17 May 2022 (UTC)
 * The section actually says, Resited Stations. It's a sub-section of Northern line. OrewaTel (talk) 11:31, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi, I've removed it for the moment as per your comment.
 * If anyone disagrees feel free to reason here. Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 12:18, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Note that I didn't say that Angel doesn't qualify. I simply asked the question. If Angel is removed then this calls into question the Euston (City Branch) entry. That station was moved in 1924 to be near to Euston (Charring Cross) Branch but the entry only mentions the re-routing of the northbound platform when the Victoria Line was built in 1967. As it stands this section is a mess. So I ask again. Does moving a single platform qualify as resiting the station? OrewaTel (talk) 13:29, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * Hi, personally I would say the whole station needs to be resited to count - i.e., the station itself should move (and thus one platform would be expansion, rather than resiting). Just my personal opinion... Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 13:45, 18 May 2022 (UTC)
 * There are two ways that an underground station can be resited. The surface entrance may be moved to an entirely different location, serving the original platforms, as with Chancery Lane; or new platforms may be constructed at a different position. Sometimes both happen, as with King's Cross (Metropolitan) or Aldgate East. -- Red rose64 &#x1f339; (talk) 11:25, 19 May 2022 (UTC)

Requested move 9 June 2022

 * The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion. 

The result of the move request was: not moved. This Northern line was found to be the primary topic, backed up by page view data. As the primary topic, it does not need a disambiguator. (closed by non-admin page mover) — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 15:23, 22 June 2022 (UTC)

– Name is too ambiguous. Note that the specific method of disambiguation is already in use in Central line (London Underground) and Circle line (London Underground). Animal lover &#124;666&#124; 16:24, 9 June 2022 (UTC) — Relisting. — Ceso femmuin mbolgaig mbung, mellohi! (投稿) 16:51, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Northern line → Northern line (London Underground)
 * Northern line (disambiguation) → Northern line
 * Pinging the users who participated in the Central line discussion and have at leadt one edit in the past month: Animal lover &#124;666&#124; 16:50, 9 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Support per nom. Highly ambiguous. -- Brown HairedGirl  (talk) • (contribs) 16:57, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
 * — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that BrownHairedGirl (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion.
 * Support. There's another in the UK, and at least one more elsewhere in the world. Bazza (talk) 17:12, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
 * But that doesn't mean there isn't a primary topic. For example, the busiest station on the Merseyrail line, Liverpool Central, served around 18 million annual passengers in 2010, while the busiest station on the LU line, Waterloo, served over 100 million in 2016. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  17:21, 9 June 2022 (UTC)


 * Leaning oppose per precedent in Bakerloo line, District line, Hammersmith and City line, Victoria line and Waterloo and City line - unless evidence is provided showing that the London Underground version is not the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC against, say Northern Line (Sydney) or Northern Line (Thailand). Central line (London Underground) is disambiguated to avoid confusing with Central line (geometry) and Central line (medicine). Simply saying "highly ambiguous" is unhelpful without examples. Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  17:16, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Before we even ask about PRIMARYTOPIC, the first question is if it's ambiguous at all (the presence of a hatnote being a test for this). Using the hatnote test, Hammersmith&City and Waterloo&City have no hatnotes; Bakerloo has for the word "Bakerloo", but none of the other meanings could possibly be called Bakerloo line. Victoria has for Victoria lines, but not the singular. District has for "border", which would be unlikely to be called a district line, and an album. Northern actually has other lines which some reader may actually consider at least as PRIMARY, unlike the others. Animal lover &#124;666&#124; 17:28, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I don't understand what you mean. Of course there are other railway lines called Northern line, and also a boy band. Hence my comment that I would like to evaluate whether this article is overwhelmingly what people expect to find here (in which case I would oppose the move) or whether another one is reasonably likely too (in which case I would support). Ritchie333 (talk) (cont)  17:46, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
 * I'd also argue that Northern line meets the COMMONNAME points - especially that my quick attempts at pan-global Google searches using a VPN have it consistently as the top result! Turini2 (talk) 11:55, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Support. This name is just too vague and ambiguous to be used as a primary topic, regardless of views. Adding a disambiguation helps readers clearly identify what article they are on, without them needing to read anything, and helps editors avoid linking to an incorrect page. As the dab page shows there are at least 7 other lines with the same name and others with similar names. Gonnym (talk) 18:44, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
 * That does not address the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC concerns I have mentioned multiple times. If you are trying to look for the boy band, or the Merseyrail line, and end up with the LU one, will you be that surprised? Ritchie333 (talk) <sup style="color:#7F007F">(cont)  19:15, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
 * It does not have to address that. That isn't the only consideration when deciding on a title and in my opinion, in this case, is the least relevant. Gonnym (talk) 08:52, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose - As per the last 30 days of views for Northern line articles, and PRIMARYTOPIC.
 * Northern line has at 16x as many views as the most popular other article ("A topic is primary for a term with respect to usage if it is highly likely - much more likely than any other topic"), and adding all the views up gets you to around 2,800 - around 5x less than the Northern line article ("A topic is primary for a term with respect to usage if it is highly likely - more likely than all the other topics combined"). I would therefore argue that the Northern line article meets both points of Primary Topic with flying colours, and therefore I oppose this move.
 * Northern line (14,856), Northern Line (group) (227), Linha do Norte (207), Northern Line (Sydney) (881), Northern line (Sri Lanka) (308), Northern Line (Thailand) (555), Northern Line (İZBAN) (43), Northern Line (Cape Town) (57), Northern line (Merseyrail) (587) Turini2 (talk) 18:51, 9 June 2022 (UTC)

<div style="padding-left: 1.6em; font-style: italic; border-top: 1px solid #a2a9b1; margin: 0.5em 0; padding-top: 0.5em">The discussion above is closed. <b style="color: #FF0000;">Please do not modify it.</b> Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
 * Support per nom.Sheehanpg93 (talk) 19:03, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. I don't find the page view stats to be so overwhelming to make this a clear primary topic. oknazevad (talk) 23:22, 9 June 2022 (UTC)
 * You don't find sixteen times to be overwhelming? Words fail me. <b style="color:#7F007F">Ritchie333</b> <sup style="color:#7F007F">(talk) <sup style="color:#7F007F">(cont)  09:17, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * — Note: An editor has expressed a concern that Oknazevad (talk • contribs) has been canvassed to this discussion.
 * Support per nom. As there are various other Northern lines, being specific is surely an advance. Oculi (talk) 00:00, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. XtraJovial (talk) 01:07, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose what do you mean when you say 'Northern Line' with no distinguishing adjective? The bare words 'Northern Line' always mean London Underground. To say there is the Sydney Northern Line, the Sri Lankan Northern Line or the Boy Band called Northern Line is irrelevant. OrewaTel (talk) 05:35, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Based on the votes currently present, it would appear that this opinion is specifically a UK-bias. Ritchie has user boxes about having promoted England-related topics, Turini lists articles he created and 11 out of 17 are England-related, and Orewa, according to his own talk page, "originally came from England" (and currently lives in New Zealand, which has no entries listed at Northern line (disambiguation)). Animal lover &#124;666&#124; 11:11, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Firstly, let's keep the points to factual points about the policy. (such as CRITERIA). Secondly, please don't prejudge other people's reasoning for their votes. I would happily be supportive of this move if the readership numbers for other articles were in the opposite direction - my reasoning is categorically not a UK centric bias. I would therefore politely request that you retract (or at least caveat) your statement. Turini2 (talk) 11:47, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Just had to comment to laugh at The bare words 'Northern Line' always mean London Underground - to who exactly does that always mean that? I'm not from the UK and I've never connected those two words with that system. Gonnym (talk) 08:53, 15 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Support per nom. Mattdaviesfsic (talk) 10:57, 10 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose due to page view stats. --Eldomtom2 (talk) 16:44, 11 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose due to page view stats. YorkshireExpat (talk) 21:22, 16 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Support This is one of those terms that is impossible to have an obvious primary topic, no matter what its pageviews are compared to the others. ᴢxᴄᴠʙɴᴍ (ᴛ) 02:39, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Support This is a very ambiguous name and I'm surprised it was used in the first place. There are many other Northern Lines. I would not know what the article is about from the name. Poketama (talk) 05:38, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose Finchley Central doesn't need a dab page and neither do we. There's only one Northern Line worth talking about and anyone looking for it knows what city they are in. --Pete (talk) 23:23, 17 June 2022 (UTC)
 * Oppose, as it is the WP:PRIMARYTOPIC. Jmg38 (talk) 17:08, 20 June 2022 (UTC)

Longest tunnel?
The article claims that "The tunnel from Morden to East Finchley via Bank, 17 miles 528 yards (27.841 km), was for a time the longest in the world. The Channel Tunnel linking the UK and France together is now longer."

However, this isn't true, as according to the list of longest tunnels of any kind, the Rothschönberger Stolln (water) tunnel (50.9 km) was the longest from 1882 to 1945, which was already longer than the Northern Line tunnel (27.8 km) when the latter was completed.

The claim makes more sense if we're only talking about rail tunnels - in which case the Northern Line tunnel was indeed the longest from 1940 to around 1978, when it was beaten by a line in St Petersburg (29.6 km) - long before the Channel tunnel was built. Gadget1000 (talk) 12:02, 26 August 2023 (UTC)


 * That is true but it comes from an English English idiom. 'Tunnel' without qualification means some form of route tunnel - Rail, Road or Pedestrian. A water tunnel or trunking to carry cables would be qualified. This is not universal and to the rest of the World the Rothschönberger Stolln aqueduct was the longest tunnel. Meanwhile the claim that this was the longest rail tunnel always seemed artificial. A tunnel should have a portal at each end connected by a tube. Having intermediate stations where people could enter and leave just seems wrong. But most lists are happy with subway tunnels being in the same category as rail tunnels. I'm editing the article to address the substantive point. OrewaTel (talk) 00:30, 27 August 2023 (UTC)

Operating Speed
In the infobox the operating speed is quoted as being 45 mph. Recently a train operator (that's the driver - in USA he would be called the engineer) changed it to 50 mph because that is the speed that he drives the train. This was reverted with a "Personal experience doesn't count" tag. The citation for 45 mph is a dead link but it seems to have been an op-ed in a free paper given away at stations. Personally I would put more weight on someone who knows the facts rather than a journalist making up a list of figures to put some text between adverts. It doesn't make any difference that the journalist's article was published.

Anyway the free sheet has long been pulped and we no longer have access to the original writing. And nor do we have any way of finding out how the journalist come up with the figure of 45 mph. We now have the situation that Wikipedia has a wrong figure and that figure is currently uncited.

I have commented out the speed line in the infobox. This could be re-instated if we get a citation. Alternatively our train operator could cite the operating manual and add the correct speed. OrewaTel (talk) 10:59, 18 October 2023 (UTC)


 * @OrewaTel 1) yes we do have access - an archive link is here https://web.archive.org/web/20171022142712/https://www.citymetric.com/transport/which-london-underground-line-fastest-3322 2) The article says "The Northern line is deliberately limited to 45mph in its underground sections due to the infrastructure of the tunnels"
 * Looks like a decent source, given that CityMetric was part of the New Statesman.
 * So unless there's a better source for 50mph, I think it should be reinstated. Turini2 (talk) 12:07, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Yes. The original cite led to a web site that my anti-virus blocked as being dangerous. This archive is safe. The comment on the line speed is a throw away line. I'm sure it's right but it shows that the operating speed of any railway varies according to local limits. I strongly suspect that most of the line is at 50 with some sections having a reduced limit. However, I will spend a couple of day's trying to run down the actual facts. If I'm unsuccessful I'll reinstate the operating speed as 45 with your web site as new citation. OrewaTel (talk) 22:08, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
 * There are a few places we get up to 50mph in the tunnel section. Battersea extension is an example of this. Also between some of the Claphams and a few other places. I’m not sure how I can prove this. I suspect pre TBTC the speed limit was 45mph? Before my time as I’ve only been driving on here since May, I was on the Picc line before then. Search my name on Linkedin you can see my currently job. Danielrichardbond (talk) 22:34, 18 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah unfortunately we need a published reliable source - we can't take your word for it! Turini2 (talk) 07:50, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Yeah you’re right. Maybe I’m mistaken. I mean, I only drive the 95 stock on the northern line five days a weekDanielrichardbond (talk) 13:09, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
 * @Danielrichardbond: If you want to contribute to Wikipedia, then you need to assume a bit of good faith. Personal experience is prohibited, as stated at WP:SOURCEDEF. Readers don't know that you really do what you say you do five days a week. You've been correctly advised that all facts on Wikipedia should have already been published elsewhere by reliable sources; that link describes what is and is not "reliable". If you have a reliable published source for what you are stating about the Northern line's operating speed, then let us know here what that is and you or somebody else will add it to the article. Bazza (talk) 13:41, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
 * I completely understand that. I’ll see what I can dig up regarding proving the 50mph line speed.
 * What annoyed me was how the last message to me was worded. Danielrichardbond (talk) 17:53, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
 * @Danielrichardbond: Hence my reference to WP:AGF (assume good faith). was pointing out that your word (like his and mine) is worth nothing to Wikipedia when it comes to verifying information. I can't see what was offensive about the way that advice was worded. Bazza (talk) 18:28, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
 * Fair enough. I read it as someone stating I was unreliable and not to be taken at my word. But re-reading it I can see they meant that not about me, just that the source needs to be published and reliable. Apologies to all concerned, and I’ve removed the unnecessary annoyance part of my message. I don’t usually make amendments to Wikipedia. I’ll keep looking for published evidence! Danielrichardbond (talk) 23:47, 19 October 2023 (UTC)
 * There is no operating manual as such. Unfortunately with TBTC signalling there’s no need to learn the speeds as a driver as such, it’s all displayed on the TOD on the rare occasion you drive in PM. The train gets up to 50mph at the following locations: Clapham Common to Clapham South both directions. Kennington to Nine Elms both directions. Highgate to East Finchley both directions. Kennington to Waterloo northbound. And most of the open sensations.
 * I find it frustrating knowing the line speed on here is shown as 45mph when I know from driving them every working day it’s 50mph, but what can I do. You can search for me on Linkedin but I know that proves nothing, I could have spent the past few years fabricating a Linkedin page for the purpose of adding 5mph to the line speed on the northern line’s Wikipedia page. Danielrichardbond (talk) 16:51, 11 March 2024 (UTC)
 * Sections not sensations. Although parts of the High Barnet branch are very sensational. Danielrichardbond (talk) 16:53, 11 March 2024 (UTC)

Station image changes to tunnels?
I just reverted changes by @Argybz (diff) which replaced many of the station exterior images with views from inside the various platforms/tunnels. This is pretty radical and I believe it should be discussed first. I for one do not find the images helpful and object to their inclusion as they don't add to the understanding of the article. 10mmsocket (talk) 11:09, 18 July 2024 (UTC)