Zone 1 Challenge Rules???

[geofftech]

Bank and Monument is because (i guess) they were built as seperate stations, and then someone said "we need to make it look like the District/Circle has a station for the city types", and so they linked monument to it via a bloody great escalator. Hence the 'escalator link' on earlier tube maps - and back in the days before the DLR (which i remember!) there really was a set of escalators that took you from one station to another - they no longer exist.

Re: W&C/Waterloo. there's just Oyster touch pads though, aren't there? no actual barriers. Good point though, and worth checking out.

[jbom]

Kings Cross St Pancras has always counted as one station, even when it's been necessary to exit one gateline and enter another one to change from deep tube to subsurface lines.

[RichieG]

Back to Paddington; if you go by how the station(s) is/are arranged, the Hammersmith & City platforms are 'part of' the NR station, in that the platform numbering is one (the LU platforms are 15 and 16) plus the ticket gateline is shared (one gateline for platforms 10-14, although it is possible to get to these platforms without using the gates on the bridge where the LU ticket machines are located), not to mention the physical next-ness of the station - though I guess this is the same with other stations. The Bakerloo and District platforms are a separate entity, with a ticket gateline where the only trains available beyond it are LU, and separate platform numberings. NR's 'Stations Made Easy' kind of has separated the two up by refering to the H&C as 'Platforms for London Underground Hammersmith & City Lines' while the Bakerloo and District lines is shown as 'London Underground Paddington Station'.

Geographically though... the Bakerloo Line is (or looks to be at least) under the main NR concourse, facing (roughly) the same direction (so anybody doing the H&C-BD run is effectively running the length of the Bakerloo platforms) - so if there was an entrance to the Bakerloo line platforms from the Hammersmith & CIty lines, would that finally make it one station? (not sure if it's physically possible with the way the station building is built though...)

[geofftech]

good call.. about Kings Cross, etc.. and yes, i remember when they all had seperate gatelines! Hmmm. Maybe it's because it's "seen" as part of the NR station then.

here's a thought though, we're arguing the toss about this, and yet ... if Paddington WAS one station, would it actually help the tube challenge? Er.. no, I suspect not. Hang on, well maybe you'd do a Bayswater -> Queensway. Err, that's got me thinking up pointless "what if" routes now...

[greatkingrat]

It would be handy for a zone 1 challenge, but wouldn't make any difference for a GWR as even if you ran from Bayswater to Queensway, you would still pass through Paddington on the Bakerloo.