On Thu, 4 Dec 2008, Andrew Heenan wrote:

"Roland Perry" wrote:
And where is the obvious place "past Shenfield"? Colchester is the
nearest that makes sense.
Wha? Chelmsford?
Doesn't have the required capacity to turn trains. The track beyond
Shenfield is also already quite busy with longer distance trains.

I suspect you've missed the point of Crossrail; it could substitute for
some of those trains, not necessarily add to them.

No it couldn't. Those trains run fast between Shenfield and Liverpool
Street, only stopping at Stratford if anywhere. Crossrail won't do that.
You can't replace a fast train with one which is all stops across half of
London.

You also couldn't run those extended trains fast from Shenfield, as that
would mean cutting back the suburban commuter service, which is very
heavily used. And you can't introduce Liverpool Street terminators to make
up the difference, as then you have performance pollution between the two
lines. Some services like that already planned as part of Crossrail, and
they're enough of a worry from an operational point of view.

tom

--
I'm angry, but not Milk and Cheese angry. -- Mike Froggatt