I imagine the growth in London's population had something to do with it. Plus
the fact that far fewer people today can afford to run a car.

In article , d
() wrote:

On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 09:01:10 -0600
wrote:
In article ,
() wrote:

On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 05:37:22 -0600
wrote:
In article ,
d () wrote:

Still, at least looking at pictures of the trains someone had enough
sense to specify 3 sets of doors per carraige, unlike the dorks who
specified the 378s on the Overground.

They followed the design of the 376s of course, though they were 5-car
from the start.

The point was that no-one foresaw how busy London Overground would
become.
Well they should have done really. A short cut from north london to
canary wharf (almost) and south of the river via the up and coming
areas of Hoxton and Shoreditch I would have thought would be a dead
cert for packed trains.

You have obviously missed your vocation as a seer.

Oh come on, this is a "new" metro line in London linking to a huge
business district, not some speculative tram system in a midlands town.
Anyone who didn't see it coming was frankly an idiot.

In your view with hindsight. No-one previously thought of Shoreditch as
"linking to a huge business district".

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Paul Corfield) wrote:

On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 12:37:05 +0000 (UTC),
d wrote:

On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 05:37:22 -0600
wrote:
In article ,
() wrote:

Still, at least looking at pictures of the trains someone had enough
sense to specify 3 sets of doors per carraige, unlike the dorks who
specified the 378s on the Overground.

They followed the design of the 376s of course, though they were 5-car
from the start.

The point was that no-one foresaw how busy London Overground would
become. Well they should have done really. A short cut from north london
to canary wharf (almost) and south of the river via the up and coming
areas of Hoxton and Shoreditch I would have thought would be a dead cert
for packed trains.

Let's turn this on its head. If anyone, no matter how talented, had
created a business case for approval by the TfL Board or the DfT that
said "give us £150m for bigger trains" because we predict demand for
Overground services will rise by over 150% they'd have been laughed
out of the room. Such a claim would just be seen as ludicrous and
without much foundation.

The UK tends to work on solving crises of capacity once they've
happened rather than building things big enough in the hope that the
demand might materialise. That approach is engrained at the Treasury
and won't change anytime soon. You need evidence that there is a
problem to fix to justify expenditure not forecasts that might come
true one day. I'm not saying which approach is right or wrong merely
that there are significant constraints to getting the "logical" thing
done quickly.

The scale of Overground growth has been astonishing. If anyone had
said to me that you'd have peak hour crush loading on the Barking -
Gospel Oak line to the scale we do have I wouldn't have believed it.
If someone said you'd get 80-100 people alighting off peak at
Blackhorse Road on trains from Barking I wouldn't have believed that
either but it happens all the time. On the few occasions I see the NLL
at Highbury in the peak I am flabbergasted at the scale of the
crowding.

This TfL paper from a couple of years ago nicely summarises the change
in demand for Overground routes with specific reference to the ELL.


http://www.tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms...ard-London-Ove
rground-Impact-Study.pdf

I agree. The change to LO is truly extraordinary. I remember the South
London too, one of London's charming rail backwaters with hardly any
passengers. Not any more. I think it transferred to LO after that paper.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On 19.12.14 19:14, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 19/12/2014 17:52, wrote:
On 19.12.14 16:58, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 19/12/2014 16:39, wrote:
On 19.12.14 11:12, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 19/12/2014 09:10, d wrote:
On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 21:26:00 +0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
wrote:
On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 16:55:26 +0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
Pity the trains won't be sized to match them. RER style double
decker
trains
would be perfect for this route. Given how many billions its
cost
for the
tunnels, I can't see why raising a few bridges on the
pre-existing lines
would
be such a big deal.

Perhaps it's planning for the future?

The running tunnels are sized for normal UK-gauge trains.
Obviously
the
station tunnels are larger.

From the cross sections I've seen the running tunnels are
considerably
larger than normal UK tunnels.

Perhaps to allow for a walkway, as with other modern tunnels? I
don't
think they're large enough for UIC gauge.

Probably moot anyway since the usual lack of foresight means the
trains are
going to be the standard tiny UK gauge

UK gauge is identical to most of the continent.


With the exception of the Iberian Peninsula, Ireland, Finland, Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, as well as parts of Italy,
France, Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria.


Also Wales.


How so in the case of Wales?

Tallyllyn, Festiniog, Snowdon Mountain, etc

Fair enough.

Graeme Wall wrote:
On 19/12/2014 17:52, wrote:
On 19.12.14 16:58, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 19/12/2014 16:39, wrote:
On 19.12.14 11:12, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 19/12/2014 09:10, d wrote:
On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 21:26:00 +0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
wrote:
On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 16:55:26 +0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
Pity the trains won't be sized to match them. RER style double
decker
trains
would be perfect for this route. Given how many billions its cost
for the
tunnels, I can't see why raising a few bridges on the
pre-existing lines
would
be such a big deal.

Perhaps it's planning for the future?

The running tunnels are sized for normal UK-gauge trains. Obviously
the
station tunnels are larger.

From the cross sections I've seen the running tunnels are
considerably
larger than normal UK tunnels.

Perhaps to allow for a walkway, as with other modern tunnels? I
don't
think they're large enough for UIC gauge.

Probably moot anyway since the usual lack of foresight means the
trains are
going to be the standard tiny UK gauge

UK gauge is identical to most of the continent.


With the exception of the Iberian Peninsula, Ireland, Finland, Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, as well as parts of Italy,
France, Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria.


Also Wales.


How so in the case of Wales?

Tallyllyn, Festiniog, Snowdon Mountain, etc

You could do a similar thing with most countries in Europe, for example:

England: Romney Hythe & Dymchurch, Ravenglass and Eskdale etc

Germany: Harzer Schmalspurbahn, several railways in Saxony, Rasender
Roland, Molli etc.

Switzerland: RhB, MGB, MOB, ZB etc

I could continue...
--
Jeremy Double

In message , at 20:20:06 on Fri, 19
Dec 2014, Robin9 remarked:
The point was that no-one foresaw how busy London Overground would
become. -

Well they should have done really. A short cut from north london to
canary
wharf (almost) and south of the river via the up and coming areas of
Hoxton
and Shoreditch I would have thought would be a dead cert for packed
trains.

I imagine the growth in London's population had something to do with
it. Plus the fact that far fewer people today can afford to run a car.

Car ownership is pretty flat at the moment, but isn't declining. In
London it's actually increasing!

http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/interactiv...map-2-1---car-
ownership/index.html
--
Roland Perry

On 20/12/2014 06:34, Jeremy Double wrote:
Graeme Wall wrote:
On 19/12/2014 17:52, wrote:
On 19.12.14 16:58, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 19/12/2014 16:39, wrote:
On 19.12.14 11:12, Graeme Wall wrote:
On 19/12/2014 09:10, d wrote:
On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 21:26:00 +0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
wrote:
On Thu, 18 Dec 2014 16:55:26 +0000 (UTC)
Recliner wrote:
Pity the trains won't be sized to match them. RER style double
decker
trains
would be perfect for this route. Given how many billions its cost
for the
tunnels, I can't see why raising a few bridges on the
pre-existing lines
would
be such a big deal.

Perhaps it's planning for the future?

The running tunnels are sized for normal UK-gauge trains. Obviously
the
station tunnels are larger.

From the cross sections I've seen the running tunnels are
considerably
larger than normal UK tunnels.

Perhaps to allow for a walkway, as with other modern tunnels? I
don't
think they're large enough for UIC gauge.

Probably moot anyway since the usual lack of foresight means the
trains are
going to be the standard tiny UK gauge

UK gauge is identical to most of the continent.


With the exception of the Iberian Peninsula, Ireland, Finland, Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Belarus, Russia, Ukraine, as well as parts of Italy,
France, Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria.


Also Wales.


How so in the case of Wales?

Tallyllyn, Festiniog, Snowdon Mountain, etc

You could do a similar thing with most countries in Europe, for example:

England: Romney Hythe & Dymchurch, Ravenglass and Eskdale etc

Germany: Harzer Schmalspurbahn, several railways in Saxony, Rasender
Roland, Molli etc.

Switzerland: RhB, MGB, MOB, ZB etc

I could continue...


The RH&DR doesn't count as it was always a "toy" railway, the others
were all working railways in the past.

--
Graeme Wall
This account not read, substitute trains for rail.
Railway Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail

On Fri, 19 Dec 2014 16:35:20 -0600
wrote:
In article , d
Oh come on, this is a "new" metro line in London linking to a huge
business district, not some speculative tram system in a midlands town.
Anyone who didn't see it coming was frankly an idiot.

In your view with hindsight. No-one previously thought of Shoreditch as
"linking to a huge business district".

I take it you're not aware that shortditch high street station is all of
300m from liverpool street and that canada water is one stop on the jubilee
line from canary wharf?

Any transport planners that couldn't see that a link from highbury and south
london to these destinations would be popular, frankly should consider a
new career.

--
Spud

Yes, car ownership has not gone down, partly because of population growth,
but the use of cars has gone down.

Twenty or so years ago, suburban streets away from railway stations were
mostly free of parked cars during the day but had bumper-to-bumper parking
at night. Today that night and day difference is far smaller because people
are leaving their cars at home and are travelling by public transport. In fact,
isn't this one of TfL's proudest boasts?

What has changed are the cost of motoring and the traffic situation in London.

The rising cost of petrol and diesel and the falling levels of prosperity mean
that many people with "normal" jobs can not afford to travel by car in the
light hearted way they used to. Young people in particular cannot afford the
crippling rates of car insurance and, in sharp contrast to twenty five years
ago, many young people do not aspire to have a car.

TfL sabotaging of the roads of London has turned Central London into one
large traffic jam and many motorists, including myself, are very reluctant to
drive into "the middle." By the way, as I drive a Toyota Prius, I do not pay the
Central London Road Tax.