Tour of Cincinnati Abandoned Subway

Found this today. Pretty interesting abandoned/never finished subway. Seems like they could use this somehow.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nY6A0_uxyvs" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

I was just thinking about this, and why Cincinnati didn’t acquire some London Tube-sized stock (or NYC Subway, if large enough) to finish the system. IIRC one of the reasons it was never completed was that the tunnels didn’t properly fit the large interurbans in use in Cincinnati, and instead of re-equipping, the affected companies bought buses instead.

mtuandrew wrote:I was just thinking about this, and why Cincinnati didn’t acquire some London Tube-sized stock (or NYC Subway, if large enough) to finish the system. IIRC one of the reasons it was never completed was that the tunnels didn’t properly fit the large interurbans in use in Cincinnati, and instead of re-equipping, the affected companies bought buses instead.

Well they have streetcars and they would fit. They could have a system like Boston with cars running in the street in the suburbs and the subway in downtown.

An article showing the sections that were built and demolished:

https://www.citybeat.com/news/blog/2104 ... -have-been" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

They would need to choose whether to build a high platform rail line with the added expense for any and all new surface stations, or rework the existing old subway stations for non-high floor cars.

As well as reroute a large pipe (water main?), fiber optic equipment, and other items in the subway.

mtuandrew wrote:why Cincinnati didn’t acquire some London Tube-sized stock (or NYC Subway, if large enough) to finish the system.

Can you please explain like I'm five about what London Tube-sized stock is exactly?

Thank you.

Joke Insurance wrote:

mtuandrew wrote:why Cincinnati didn’t acquire some London Tube-sized stock (or NYC Subway, if large enough) to finish the system.

Can you please explain like I'm five about what London Tube-sized stock is exactly?

Thank you.

Sure - I mean subway cars sized to fit the London Underground tunnel system, which has a maximum height of 11’ 8”. In practice that means the Tube’s cars are around 9’ 2” high and about 8 1/2’ wide, while a comparable New York City Subway car would be closer to 11 1/2’ tall and 9’ wide.

Not sure if smaller cars would give Cincinnati enough additional room to keep a water main in the tunnels though.

UK tube trains have two sizes - tiny and very tiny. But that's not surprising given that British Rail clearances are probably no bigger than Chicago CTA.

As a former near-Cinci resident for four years, I was always interested in those tubes. From what I understand, the money was appropriated to build the tubes but not for rolling stock or street-level ROW past the tubes exits toward the suburbs. Someone got a bee in their bonnet over costs, and it all got canceled around the time the tubes were finished.

In today's Cincinnati, the tubes don't necessarily line up with current commuting patterns from what I understand, although the downtown is undergoing a significant renaissance. In 2000 nobody went downtown, that's changed a lot.

Since they built high-level station platforms (from 9:20) it seems strange that they wouldn't have allowed for the size of interurbans--certainly city streetcars couldn't have used them. If low-floor cars would be a problem, maybe (since we're in fantasyland) they could simply build up the roadbed to provide an ascending grade up to the platform and a descending grade leaving the platform; that's what they did when digging the Tube lines in London, to save on braking and acceleration. As to compatibility with today's traffic patterns, developments have shown (beginning with Toronto all those years ago) that over time development tends to follow fixed rapid-transit routes. Now, as to where the lines would go after leaving the subway, and how they would be paid for ...

ExCon: they use that same ramp solution in Cleveland, I believe.

From what I’ve read, these tunnels are 15’ high and that should have fit most period interurbans. I think it’s just the high platforms that are problematic for using these tunnels without modification, unless you go halvesies with Cleveland RTA on some high-floor LRT vehicles even beyond constructing a usable system.

Does anyone here think that this tunnel, if put to use would have meant that some lines remained to this day?

Myrtone wrote: ↑Thu Aug 20, 2020 12:18 am Does anyone here think that this tunnel, if put to use would have meant that some lines remained to this day?

I doubt it, the canal they were using for right of way died as well, as newer technology replaced it.

I was asking because similar undergound running in Boston and Philladelphia seems to have saved some lines there from bus conversion.

Also in Newark, NJ, where they considered converting to trolleybuses but couldn't because the curves were too constricting for manual steering. I think I've read that the Cincinnati subway mostly doesn't go where today's demand is, apart from the numerous other problems cited above.