London could be about to welcome a new generation in train travel. A new proposal calls for vertical trains, which climb the exterior of skyscrapers to free up city space. Clarendon Serviced Apartments explores how it would work.
Train stations in major cities like London and New York are vast. They have to be. Think of the thousands of people who daily travel through St Pancras or King’s Cross or Liverpool Street. Many of those commuters and business travellers head straight to the underground and head to work either in the city or another location.
Yet while that space is a necessity it is often space that disrupts and divides cities. Passengers aren’t routed out of stations effectively and the rush often causes roads and routes to be clogged up during peak times.
Are we thinking about it from the wrong angle? Could vertical trains be a solution? The proposal suggests that the introduction of vertical stations would allow trains to scale skyscrapers freeing up space in city centres. Called the Hyper Speed Vertical Train Hub the idea is that existing stations would be replaced by new connective points. Beginning the journey horizontally from these train hubs, as the carriages approached the skyscraper they would switch to a vertical form. Like on a ferris wheel, passengers would remain standing and would travel the exterior of the skyscraper until they reached their level. Magnetics would be used to manoeuvre the carriages that would enable passengers to travel into the atrium of a building and alight where they need to.
Designers say the idea would remove the need for rails and train infrastructure, which would be cheaper as well as creating more space. London isn’t going to statically remain the same size. All the predictions are that it will grow and expand reaching a critical mass in 2075. Environmentally and simply for the health and well being of those who live and work in the city there needs to be a radical overhaul of how the population can be accommodated and how they travel around London.
Clarendon is fully in favour of this kind of innovative thinking and this vertical solution could be exactly what London needs to help address the space issues the city is facing, as well as meeting environmental needs. We’re excited to see the developments and how they will take shape over the coming decades. With 26 years experience providing serviced apartments across the capital in locations like The City, Canary Wharf and Richmond we have seen London change drastically. Evolution is to be celebrated and planned for, rather than feared.