AlbertBeale
Established Member
No indeed - the building works which would sever the link relate to expanding the station to provide another way up to the street (and an alternative link between the two lines), and nothig has happened about this yet. I think the extra route to/from the Piccadilly would entail building near the KX end of the Picc platforms, and this would mean losing the track link to the disused platform. But - as with Camden Town plans etc - there's no money in the short term for building work that major. (And perhaps there are lower average peak loadings post-COVID such that the worst of the rush-hour bottlenecks at Holborn aren't so bad or so frequent, and hence it can more easily be de-prioritised.)
There was some provision made for the new Holborn works when the area was used for access during Crossrail tunnelling nearby (I think a bit of that no-longer-needed Crossrail excavation would be part of the new link tunnels, and I believe that one of the surface buildings which was used for the Crossrail works is still in TfL's hands and would be the site of the extra station entrance/exit (on the Holborn one-way system on Proctor Street). But no doubt the need for much of the sub-surface excavation still to happen, and the equipping with lifts, escalators, etc, means that the Crossrail leftovers wouldn't make much of a dent in the cost of the planned extension.
If that was indeed the last of the silver tubes, then it does seem strange not to hang on to it; as said, it would be more iconic for some people than the '38 stock. (Though both are significant memories for me.)
