On Jan 20, 12:31 pm, plcd1 wrote:

On Jan 20, 9:25 am, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

"John Salmon" wrote:

"Paul Scott" wrote
Main reason for posting though is that I noticed a London Reconnections
report today, giving a start date of 4th April for an 'ELL only' service,
ie 4 tph each to NX and NXG.

Easter Sunday. Interesting choice of date.

Hadn't noticed that - will probably be closed for engneering works...

I wouldn't have thought so. I suspect it is quite a sensible choice
as it is a holiday weekend with people being less time pressured and
forgiving if there are any first day "glitches". You also have the
Easter Monday and then schools being off so the build up of demand in
the following week or so should be gentler than in a "normal" week.
They may, of course, get a baptism of fire from kids riding up and
down the whole time when they're on hols but at least they'll get used
to the sort of antics that will probably follow on a regular basis.
It is going to be very interesting to see how things pan out and how
quickly demand picks up once there is a service in place.


I think the service will be a colossal success quite quickly, and that
demand will start to pick up very rapidly from day one. (Well, maybe
day three, or day eight - but you know what I mean!).

Off the top of my head there are a few groups of what one might call
savvy travellers who I think could make up some of the 'early
adopters' here...
(note that in many ways this is a south London perspective on things -
also I've resisted my urge to put each mention of 'hip' or 'trendy' in
inverted commas like so!)

~ ~ ~
(1) Students and staff heading to and from Goldsmith's College in New
Cross (famous for its art courses), plus associated arty / trendy
types. This includes Goldsmith's students (and staff) who live nearby
(in New Cross, Deptford and Brockley) heading up from NX towards hip
'n' trendy places like Shoreditch (a bit night-life location nowadays,
very popular though hardly cutting edge any more) and Dalston (seen as
up and coming), and indeed on to Hackney (been a focus for artistic
types for some time) - both Hackney proper (not far down the road from
Dalston Junction) and the wider Borough. Also, there's a growing, if
somewhat underground, art and music 'scene' in and around New Cross
and Deptford (always has been, courtesy of the student connection, but
it's gaining a bit more prominence - (e.g. see the New York Times'
perhaps mildly surprising recommendation of the area as a destination
for hip tourists, which of course got the Daily Mail treatment
here!).

Anyway, point being that in addition to NX being a destination for
study and work, there's a small degree to which it'll be a destination
for other activities for such folk who might live 'up east' (Dalston/
Hackney etc) coming down to visit, in addition to the predominant flow
of traffic for such activities heading the other way. So, expect a
sizable ultra-skinny jean and silly hairdo contingent, and I'd also
expect some changes to the NX and Deptford areas as a result of the
new line too, which should help pull them up a bit. (Of course there's
a whole host of interesting discussions to be had on these lines -
critics sometimes say things changes are gentrification by stealth by
pioneering middle class young outsiders with an artistic bent who then
pave the way for others, and indeed such criticisms are perhaps a bit
more evident in Dalston - but that's a whole other debate that I'm
just skirting around here, as I'm trying - and failing - to keep this
post concise and to the point!)

~ ~ ~
(2) My second group of savvy travellers are the Canary Wharf
commuters, what with the ultra easy interchange onto the Jubilee at
Canada Water. Obviously the big change will come when there's through
running from the ELL onto the LB&SCR main line down to Croydon and
Crystal Palace, but for the meantime the situation will broadly return
to what it was pre-ELL closure in December '07 (albeit with the extra
northern destinations up to Dalston). Likewise for these commuters,
things will go back to how they were at New Cross. So the contingent
of folk who used to use the ELL (and in doing so avoid zone 1 fares)
will return.

~ ~ ~
(3) The third group have some linkages with the first, and they're the
bods who work in and around Shoreditch where there's a lot of
'creative' industry type stuff going on (people who I dare say are
perhaps more likely to be attuned to developments, at least according
to my stereotype!). For them, Shoreditch High Street will be very
useful, as it will be those working on the northern fringe of the City
(e.g. around Bishopsgate). The price advantage of Shoreditch High
Street (SHS) being in zone 2 is no longer to be of course - it's zone
1 now - but nonetheless if SHS is more convenient than a trek in from
London Bridge (or Cannon Street) by whatever means (possibly by foot
for some) then it'll still be attractive. From the get-go I'd say
there'd be a number of people living in New Cross and also the
Rotherhithe area (i.e. inc. Canada Water catchment) for whom this
would provide a no-interchange needed option.

That said, if a rail-only season ticket to London Terminals (London
Bridge, Cannon Street) is cheaper than a season to SHS, then that
might actually pull things the other way (I'll take a punt at guessing
that SHS will not count as a London Terminal from either points north
or south, and perhaps there won't be a rail-only season ticket for ELL-
only sections either, but instead it'll be like the Tube where the
Travelcard is the season ticket, full stop - we shall of course see.)

~ ~ ~
(4) All those who used to use the ELL as a way of getting from SE
London to east and north east London, e.g. via Canada Water and the
Jubilee line, or via Whitechapel for the District line to head east.


Anyway there's a few ideas of people who might be using it early on,
even before through running to points south begins. It will indeed be
interesting to see how demand picks up in the month or so before this
happens. I dare say that off-peak travel might pick up more quickly
than peak-time commuter travel.

When it fully gets going I'm sure it'll be very well patronised, even
more so when it runs beyond Dalston Junction through to Highbury &
Islington (with a stop at Canonbury). I hate to say this, but I do
just wonder whether placing SHS in zone 1 might be beneficial in
preventing the service from becoming horribly overcrowded at peak
times. A significant benefit of attracting people towards orbital
journeys is taking the strain off the central London infrastructure -
in this case for example the 'delightfully snug' Northern line - but
if the ELL became similarly rammed (i.e. with folk using SHS as a
cheap way to get to and from the City), then the attraction of 'doing
it orbitally' might dim somewhat.

Of course, depending on how the fares work, it might well be that
instead of being cheaper, SHS will now be a more expensive choice when
compared to going to the conventional London terminal (e.g. London
Bridge, Cannon Street, Moorgate), losing it custom.

I expect that the re-zoning of SHS into expensive z1 territory will
also dissuade folk from transferring off the buses and onto the ELL
for orbital north-south trips (e.g. New Cross to Dalston), and indeed
those who under previous projections would have been expected to make
new or extra journeys may well no longer do so now, thus losing some
of the wider economic regeneration benefits that the line was to
offer. (In crude terms that I'll inevitably get hauled up on, it
becomes a bit less of a 'people's line', and more a line for 'them'.)


Anyway, a rather longer post than I had initially intended - really
gotta try and keep it shorter! I'm going to x-post this to utl - I've
been intending on making a re-appearance othere for a bit, but it
seems that having been away from usenet for a while (and indeed from
following metropolitan transportational developments in general), I
proceeded to get a little waylaid in uk.railway on my return! (I did
actually have something else in mind for my first utl post in ages,
something short and pithy, but never mind, having written all this
blah it'd be a shame not to inflict it on utl-ers too!)

In article
,
Mizter T wrote:

~ ~ ~
(2) My second group of savvy travellers are the Canary Wharf
commuters, what with the ultra easy interchange onto the Jubilee at
Canada Water.

That'll include my wife - we live near Dalston Junction and she commutes
to Canary Wharf on the 277, or 277/D6 if I drop her in Mare Street. The
drawback is presumably the cost - what will the fare be?

E.

eastender wrote:
In article
,
Mizter T wrote:

~ ~ ~
(2) My second group of savvy travellers are the Canary Wharf
commuters, what with the ultra easy interchange onto the Jubilee at
Canada Water.

That'll include my wife - we live near Dalston Junction and she
commutes to Canary Wharf on the 277, or 277/D6 if I drop her in Mare
Street. The drawback is presumably the cost - what will the fare be?

On the face of it, a zone 1 and 2 journey at the tube/LO rate, ie
£2.30/£1.80.

However there was talk of special 'zone 2 only' fares for some ELL journeys
as long as you didn't actually use Shoreditch High St, which is the only
station in zone 1. This was mentioned a year or so back, but the trail has
gone a bit cold recently. Perhaps this will prompt someone with insider
access to find out...

Paul S

On Jan 21, 6:36*pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

eastender wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

~ ~ ~
(2) My second group of savvy travellers are the Canary Wharf
commuters, what with the ultra easy interchange onto the Jubilee at
Canada Water.

That'll include my wife - we live near Dalston Junction and she
commutes to Canary Wharf on the 277, or 277/D6 if I drop her in Mare
Street. The drawback is presumably the cost - what will the fare be?

On the face of it, a zone 1 and 2 journey at the tube/LO rate, ie
£2.30/£1.80.

However there was talk of special 'zone 2 only' fares for some ELL journeys
as long as you didn't actually use Shoreditch High St, which is the only
station in zone 1. *This was mentioned a year or so back, but the trail has
gone a bit cold recently. *Perhaps this will prompt someone with insider
access to find out...

Most interesting - I obviously missed that at the time. I suppose that
would go some way to pacifying the TOCs worried about revenue
abstraction (i.e. pax deserting London Bridge/Cannon Street and
Moorgate for SHS) whilst still promoting it as an orbital route.

Two thoughts... (1) This is being kept-back as a 'surprise' for when
the ELL opens, or (2) it has been quietly forgotten about because the
extra revenue that will accrue has been deemed as being needed.

Or (3) it was only ever in the air as the result of some kite flying.

Mizter T wrote:
On Jan 21, 6:36 pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

However there was talk of special 'zone 2 only' fares for some ELL
journeys as long as you didn't actually use Shoreditch High St,
which is the only station in zone 1. This was mentioned a year or so
back, but the trail has gone a bit cold recently. Perhaps this will
prompt someone with insider access to find out...

Most interesting - I obviously missed that at the time. I suppose that
would go some way to pacifying the TOCs worried about revenue
abstraction (i.e. pax deserting London Bridge/Cannon Street and
Moorgate for SHS) whilst still promoting it as an orbital route.

I think it might be in one of those TfL board papers. The sort of thing Paul
Corfield seems to be able to find in an instant...

:-)

Paul S

On Jan 21, 10:23*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:19:36 -0000, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

On Jan 21, 6:36 pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

However there was talk of special 'zone 2 only' fares for some ELL
journeys as long as you didn't actually use Shoreditch High St,
which is the only station in zone 1. This was mentioned a year or so
back, but the trail has gone a bit cold recently. Perhaps this will
prompt someone with insider access to find out...

Most interesting - I obviously missed that at the time. I suppose that
would go some way to pacifying the TOCs worried about revenue
abstraction (i.e. pax deserting London Bridge/Cannon Street and
Moorgate for SHS) whilst still promoting it as an orbital route.

I think it might be in one of those TfL board papers. The sort of thing Paul
Corfield seems to be able to find in an instant...

:-)

Err not this time. *The zoning decision was linked to the approval for
ELLX Phase 2 as you know. The only further fares development that anyone
has spotted is the fare zones on the new NR London Connections map that
showed SHS in Zone 1 but Hoxton as boundary Z1/2.

I hadn't spotted that! Given the impenetrability of finding said map
on the redesigned (aka broken) NR website, I put "London Connections"
into Google, and it took me to the old Sept '09 map on the PDA version
of their site (i.e. "http://pda.nationalrail etc etc), so I've only
just really taken the new one on board (seen it at a station but
didn't pore over it).

Putting Hoxton in z1/2 is good in the sense that it will at least make
it clearer that one is going to travel through zone 1, though it's
essentially presentational of course (ok, it does mean single journeys
between Hoxton and SHS will be charged differently as z1-only
journeys, but who's going to be doing that?!). I recall the fix on the
NLL that put Hampstead Heath (and only HH) in zone 3, surrounded by
zone 2 - this feels like something of a fix too, but at least it's
executed in a way that's a bit easier to see.

(Not that I think many people with zone 2 Travelcards ever actually
ended up paying for a ticket extension to go through HH, not least
because buying a ticket wasn't always exactly easy, let alone a
difficult ticket like this which required an open ticket office, and
not that anyone ever had their tickets checked on the NLL. Not that
that many people had tickets in the first place either of course!)

Shame there doesn't appear to be a 'go orbital' easement to encourage
people to head this way. The SHS rezoning has to turn a lot of the
predicted traffic analysis on its head.


http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...ive/11192.aspx

Interestingly the DfT press release is no longer on the usual NDS site.
Given the SLL controversy I suspect it has been pulled.

That's something that is good about the TfL and GLA websites - old
press releases stay up on them and don't get airbrushed from history.
The GLA website has press releases dating back to 2000 when it was set
up, and TfL back to 2004. Might not always be the case of course.


What I haven't tried is whether the Fares Finder has Hoxton or
Shoreditch High St listed. I'd be amazed if they were there but it can't
be long before an update will be needed. The real fun will be when the
services on to NR metals start and the fares implications from that -
pink validators at Canada Water anybody?

Hopefully not for people to jump out and touch on before leaping
heroically back in! (I recall someone saying they'd successfully done
as much when travelling in on Chiltern on a paper ticket and switching
to PAYG at Amersham, or maybe Chalfont & Latimer... cue MIG saying
facilities should be provided for doing this everywhere!)

I tried the Fare Finder for ELL stations a couple of days ago but
there were none. Also, "fare finder" is in the singular, though it
doesn't sound or scan at all right does it! See:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/faresandtickets/2930.aspx

On Jan 21, 6:20*pm, eastender wrote:

In article
,
*Mizter T wrote:

~ ~ ~
(2) My second group of savvy travellers are the Canary Wharf
commuters, what with the ultra easy interchange onto the Jubilee at
Canada Water.

That'll include my wife - we live near Dalston Junction and she commutes
to Canary Wharf on the 277, or 277/D6 if I drop her in Mare Street. The
drawback is presumably the cost - what will the fare be?

Dalston Junction will be zone 2, so that will be a zone 1&2 journey -
though if the rezoning of SHS into z1 hadn't happened, it would have
been an zone 2 journey in its entirety.

Details about fares have not been announced, but I expect the ELL will
likely follow the Tube fare scale, if so using Oyster PAYG a single
journey would be £2.30 peak/ £1.80 off-peak. A season zones 1&2
Travelcard is a bit more expensive, but would of course cover any
extra non-commuting travel.

And thanks for an alternative take on it from the Dalston perspective!
The Jubilee can be pretty heaving in the morning, so an alternative
route would be to change at Shadwell onto the DLR, though its
certainly not quite such a smooth interchange - as it's out-of-station
via the street! - and the DLR journey to Canary Wharf would take
longer. Despite the awkward interchange, the extended ELL at Shadwell
will offer a number of new journey opportunities.

In article
,
Mizter T wrote:


And thanks for an alternative take on it from the Dalston perspective!
The Jubilee can be pretty heaving in the morning, so an alternative
route would be to change at Shadwell onto the DLR, though its
certainly not quite such a smooth interchange - as it's out-of-station
via the street! - and the DLR journey to Canary Wharf would take
longer. Despite the awkward interchange, the extended ELL at Shadwell
will offer a number of new journey opportunities.

I use City Airport quite a bit - eg going to Rotterdam next week - so
the change at Shadwell makes sense for me, although I sometimes drive
there (the car park though is now a staggering £72 for 29-48 hours - far
higher than business parking at Heathrow) I sometime park down there at
the weekends to take my kids for a ride on the DLR.

The bus though does have advantages - the 277 stops right outside my
wife's office. But if the traffic's snarled round the tunnel in the
evening rush hour, it can be a nightmare journey back home.

E.

On Jan 21, 7:32*pm, eastender wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

And thanks for an alternative take on it from the Dalston perspective!
The Jubilee can be pretty heaving in the morning, so an alternative
route would be to change at Shadwell onto the DLR, though its
certainly not quite such a smooth interchange - as it's out-of-station
via the street! - and the DLR journey to Canary Wharf would take
longer. Despite the awkward interchange, the extended ELL at Shadwell
will offer a number of new journey opportunities.

I use City Airport quite a bit - eg going to Rotterdam next week - so
the change at Shadwell makes sense for me, although I sometimes drive
there (the car park though is now a staggering £72 for 29-48 hours - far
higher than business parking at Heathrow) I sometime park down there at
the weekends to take my kids for a ride on the DLR.

Though given the ultra-easy interchange at Canning Town from Jubbly to
DLR, one could well argue that ELL - Jubilee - DLR might still be
easiest for those with cumbersome luggage. They'd all have to be
working, of course - particularly problematic for the Jubilee at
weekends as we all know. But going via the Shadwell might mean one
less change if the DLR service was going all the way.

(Plus the DLR being overground gives one more of an opportunity for
any last minute pre-flight mobile communications.)


The bus though does have advantages - the 277 stops right outside my
wife's office. But if the traffic's snarled round the tunnel in the
evening rush hour, it can be a nightmare journey back home.

It's generally ok on the way in then?

Bus in, then rail home would of course work as a cheaper way of taking
advantage of both modes.

On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:25:41 -0800, Mizter T wrote:

On Jan 21, 7:32Â*pm, eastender wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

And thanks for an alternative take on it from the Dalston
perspective! The Jubilee can be pretty heaving in the morning, so an
alternative route would be to change at Shadwell onto the DLR, though
its certainly not quite such a smooth interchange - as it's
out-of-station via the street! - and the DLR journey to Canary Wharf
would take longer. Despite the awkward interchange, the extended ELL
at Shadwell will offer a number of new journey opportunities.

I use City Airport quite a bit - eg going to Rotterdam next week - so
the change at Shadwell makes sense for me, although I sometimes drive
there (the car park though is now a staggering £72 for 29-48 hours -
far higher than business parking at Heathrow) I sometime park down
there at the weekends to take my kids for a ride on the DLR.

Though given the ultra-easy interchange at Canning Town from Jubbly to
DLR, one could well argue that ELL - Jubilee - DLR might still be
easiest for those with cumbersome luggage. They'd all have to be
working, of course - particularly problematic for the Jubilee at
weekends as we all know. But going via the Shadwell might mean one less
change if the DLR service was going all the way.

(Plus the DLR being overground gives one more of an opportunity for any
last minute pre-flight mobile communications.)


The bus though does have advantages - the 277 stops right outside my
wife's office. But if the traffic's snarled round the tunnel in the
evening rush hour, it can be a nightmare journey back home.

It's generally ok on the way in then?

Bus in, then rail home would of course work as a cheaper way of taking
advantage of both modes.

As a veteran of the Hackney to Canary Wharf journey, I actually found the
NLL from Hackney Central (or Dalston) to Stratford followed by Jub-Jub to
Canary Wharf to be arguably the best/quickest option. You can usually get
a seat at Hackney Central, or at worst, when all the staff for the
hospital get off at Homerton, and then you're pretty certain of a seat at
Stratford on the Jubilee. If was hanging around late at work, the 277 was
usually my preference for getting home as the roads might be quieter at
7-7:30pm....