Penny Fares Underground.
Page 2
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The experience of the Central London Railway Company, since the middle of March, at which date penny stages were inaugurated, has fully bcrne out our forecast that there is no parallel between that company's case and those of the Bakerloo and the Brompton undertakings. It is a very different matter for a straight-line " tube " with a continuous stream of horse-drawn arid motor-propelled surface vehicles in competition to entice travellers to descend by lift, to endure a walk through underground
" catacombs,to take the chance of missing a train and having to wait a couple of minutes on the platform, and to repeat, in inverse order, the stages of progress which intervene between street and platform, except for distances in excess of one mile. They will only do it where there is no direct alternative. We are prompted to revert to this matter, upon which we last touched in our issue of the 18th March (page 24 ante), by reason of the further indications of advance towards the construction of a
tube " along the line of Maida Vale between Edgware Road and Cricklewood. The promoters of the Bill for this project hope to be granted an extension of time, and they have been able, by arrangement with the Baker Street and Waterloo Railway Company, materially to reduce the capital which they are likely to have to expend, the scheme now being to join the older undertaking at its present terminus in the Edgware Road, to abandon the Edgware Road-Victoria section, and to run a " shuttle service to and from Paddington. We are very confident that there will also be disappointment in regard to penny stages along that part of the route which is retained : the records for the Central London Railway Company, since the change was initiated, have resulted in a comparative deerease of 23,800, whereas, during the same period, the Bakerloo and the Brompton " tubes" have been able, largely because of the growing appreciation of their cross-route advantages, to show comparative increases of E1,700 and 22,000 respectively. The penny fare underground is discredited along the line of any main thoroughfare in the Metropolis.