Downtown Line

[sgstrait]

Anybody used the new line much? It's brand spanking new and is, in my opinion, a lot more useful presently than the Circle line.

Love that Bukit Timah, Sixth Avenue are easier to reach now. Trains are also nice, new, clean and bright.

Congratulations to Singapore for a job well done and to the construction workers who toiled away at it day and night to build it for us.

[soulsearching]

Am using it everyday and absolutely loving it! U gotta head up to Beauty World ..... Cracking restaurant right by MRT ...serving indian, Malay food at awesome prices

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[sgstrait]

Good to hear. I just got back London, and I the contrast is like comparing two different galaxies. DT line feels clean, modern and very "weekend"! Love it. MRT/LTA rarely receive praise but they deserve lots of it for this.

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[soulsearching]

Yes only left london like 3 weeks back so am still like wide eyed with all this MRT business... What a world of difference indeed

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[sgstrait]

Imagine if London thought of doing something similar - numerous public consultations, protests, tax rises, security issues, delays, going over budget, not to mention the cost of the fares!

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[soulsearching]

And it will be come online in 2065 ... Lol

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[sgstrait]

UK is probably the only nation on earth that had trains that split into somewhere leaving panic stricken passengers scurrying up and down the aisle trying to figure out which direction the train was travelling!

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[Barnsley]

UK is probably the only nation on earth that had trains that split into somewhere leaving panic stricken passengers scurrying up and down the aisle trying to figure out which direction the train was travelling!

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I think many trains on continent do the same.

[Barnsley]

Imagine if London thought of doing something similar - numerous public consultations, protests, tax rises, security issues, delays, going over budget, not to mention the cost of the fares!

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You think the Govt should subsidise public transport fares is it?

or that the UK should just pay the workers on public transport sod all in order to keep the fares down?

[rajagainstthemachine]

I use that line quite a bit, its got a bunch of design flaws at Newton and Stevens but not a major pain in the ass, connects yellow, red, purple and green lines, but id still prefer to use the bus as I don't like climbing down and up and walking through hundreds of feet of concrete shit to get from place to place.
Once the 2nd half of that line is commissioned the line would be really cool

[JR8]

Good to hear. I just got back London, and I the contrast is like comparing two different galaxies.

Which is what you're trying to do.
The London underground is over 160 years old and carries over a billion people a year.
You could turn your suggestion around; 'Wow, Singapore, their MRT only started 30 years ago lol! How 3rd world'.

[BBCWatcher]

Good point, JR8. As another point of comparison, Singapore's MRT system is still today much less than half as large as the London Underground (only, excluding other rail services) both in terms of track kilometers and stations. Also -- and this may be a surprise, considering the more modern and capable construction equipment available today -- London's system may have had a faster initial build-out period than Singapore's. Parts of eight of today's London Underground lines were constructed and opened within its first quarter century.

London even had a dedicated postal tunnel system, only fairly recently closed. That's pretty impressive!

[JR8]

London even had a dedicated postal tunnel system, only fairly recently closed. That's pretty impressive!

My father has a lot of correspondence that his father sent and received to/from his future wife c1915-1920, including hundreds of postcards. It was an ongoing polite, very subtle, and gentle but determined courtship; you can imagine how much these fascinated me as a child
One thing I recall was there were some cards that he sent, and he received a reply, and then posted a reply again, all on a single day. So the postal system used to be unimaginably efficient, and that X-London postal 'train' [IIRC it was more like a driver-less big torpedo on tracks ] was part of it.

[BBCWatcher]

I found a reference to General Post Office deliveries in London in 1879. Within Victorian London at that time there were a minimum of six and a maximum of twelve postal deliveries per day, Monday through Saturday. Yes, the worst service you could get if you lived in London was six deliveries per day. Obviously if there was no mail queued up for you there was no delivery, but if there was mail to deliver each time then you got it that often. There were no deliveries on Sunday.

The GPO also invented Travelling Post Offices in 1838: postal sorting facilities aboard moving railway carriages that operated while they were moving. Sorting and moving mail at the same time dramatically reduced mailing times.

I found another reference to postal service in the U.S. in 1905. The U.S. achieved very much the same service levels in New York City: nine deliveries per day from the main post office, and five per day in Brooklyn, also every day except Sunday. But even "lesser" cities enjoyed many daily deliveries at that time. Philadelphia and Baltimore got seven, and Kansas City got six, to pick some examples. Some U.S. residences enjoyed multiple deliveries per day as late as 1950, and some businesses, through the end of the 20th century.

While we're making comparisons between countries, Singapore Post ended Saturday mail delivery in 2010 but reintroduced Saturday delivery (but only for packages) in 2014. The U.S. still has general Saturday mail delivery and will deliver certain packages and high priority mail on Sundays and holidays as well, including Christmas Day. The Royal Mail also still has general Saturday delivery.

[JR8]

It's fascinating, as it's a mirror to the development of modern society (and economy).
If per the song lyric 'Video killed the radio star', I wonder if a parallel is 'the internet is killing off the postal system'...