Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 23 Nov 2004, Dave Arquati wrote:


Dave Liney wrote:


If you want flat interchanges then go to Waterloo as normal and get a
bus to Euston (at least three routes IIRC) and walk from there. Or you
could walk to Aldwych and get a direct bus from there. It'll take
around 30 minutes either way.

Why on earth isn't there a direct bus between Waterloo and King's
Cross?! I never even noticed that before. These are arguably the two
most important railway termini.


No, since one of those is Liverpool Street. Just because it mostly serves
Essex and Hackney doesn't mean you can ignore it! Gaaah!

Unless you have some definition of 'important' that is not related to
passenger numbers, in which case you will be the first up against the wall
when the revolution comes.

Liverpool Street is very important - but when I was referring to King's
Cross I meant (and didn't make at all obvious) the combination of King's
Cross, St Pancras and King's Cross Thameslink. I'm not sure on the
passenger numbers but combined it must be at least a competitor to
Liverpool St.

Whatever the passenger numbers, my rant is justified because Waterloo
has two buses to Liverpool Street :-) (26 and express 705) It also has
buses to Moorgate, Euston, Marylebone (Baker St), Paddington, Victoria,
Charing Cross, London Bridge, Fenchurch Street, Cannon Street and City
Thameslink. The only one left out seems to be Blackfriars - and the
buses to London Bridge and Elephant & Castle should cover that.

This is especially bad when there isn't even a direct Tube route between
the two.


You are of course quite right that there should be a direct bus. There
should probably be direct, and perhaps somewhat expressed, bus services
linking every pair of mainline termini that do not have a direct rail
link.

At least they're part of the way there with the 705 (and the non-express
205).


--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

Tom Anderson wrote in message ...
On Wed, 24 Nov 2004, David Marsh wrote:

So Waterloo is a good and cheap solution for those north of London

The interchange between St Pancras and Waterloo is poor, especially when
carrying luggage.

How infeasible (read: costly) would it be to build an underground
travelator link between Euston Station (with access from the mainline
and the Underground) to St Pancras International

Better:

PEDESTRIANISE EUSTON ROAD!

Think about it - a broad, leafy (plant some trees), elegant avenue running
from Paddington to King's Cross (if you also do the Marylebone Road and
integrate the land around Paddington Basin), in front of some of the most
refined buildings in northern central London (and some ****ty ones too, of
course). It would be completely wonderful! Stick that in your Piazza San
Marco, Venice, and smoke it!

Not sure what you'd do with the cars, though. I'd suggest cut-and-covering
a highway underneath the avenue, but the Metropolitan Line's got there
first. Perhaps another tunnel could be dug alongside it. Yes! And at the
eastern end, it could carry on through the Widened Lines tunnels, to
Moorgate! Two birds with one stone!

Also not sure how cars would get from the tunnel and the side roads; i bet
that Funky Junction guy could work something out.

Really, though, consider the alternatives:

(a) Cars on the surface, people underground
(b) People on the surface, cars underground

Or (c) People on the surface, buses crossing at grade (side street to
side street - maybe there can be a bus lane in each direction along
the Euston Rd), cars use A406 or M25 to the correct radial.

Then demolish Westway. Add a rail connector from the H&C to the
Central, turn all Central Line trains at White City, whilst the Inner
Suburban services (eg Gerrard's Cross, Slough, Heathrow) are
transferred into Paddington over the H&C (basically an extra pair of
tracks).

Demolish the West Cross Route too. That way, you can get four tracks
on the WLL, allowing both local and through services
(Birmingham/Manchester/Liverpool to Brighton/Eastbourne/Kent,
anyone?).

This would be better for North Kensington than any amount of Funky
Junk.


(And while I'm in tunnel-digging mode, why not merge Embankment and
Charing Cross Northern/Bakerloo stations into one station (on each line)
with travelators to shrink the distance/time from the existing
entrances, to save the time of an extra station stop?

This is also obviously right.

And very expensive. Perhaps they could install cross-platform
interchange at the same time.

James.

In message , Dave Arquati
writes

Just a general comment in this thread; everyone is assuming that people
will transfer from Waterloo to St Pancras, but there will also be a
direct transfer between Waterloo and Stratford, which only takes 23
minutes platform to platform, compared to the 16 minutes for Waterloo
to St Pancras. There will hopefully be a travelator at Stratford to
compensate for it being a longer interchange than St Pancras.

But I wonder how many Eurostar services will actually stop at Stratford?
Hopefully more than currently stop at Calais Frethun!

--
Paul Terry

In message , at 21:10:06 on Wed,
24 Nov 2004, M.Whitson remarked:
An aspect of this subject which has not been aired here is the fact that
St.Pancras/KX from a public transport point of view is the most overcrowded
in London and distribution of passengers from there is extremely
problematical.This is greatly exacerbated at peak times. This problem will
not be helped by the arrival of the CTRLDS and the absence of an upgraded
Thameslink (3,000?).

Perhaps you've not noticed that KX/StP is currently in the midst of a
huge rebuilding programme to address these very issues?
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 01:44:03 on Thu, 25 Nov
2004, Dave Arquati remarked:
Liverpool Street is very important

But won't most Essex folk headed for E* drive to Ebbsfleet through the
Dartford tunnel, rather than trek all the way via London?
--
Roland Perry

On Thu, 25 Nov 2004, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 01:44:03 on Thu, 25 Nov
2004, Dave Arquati remarked:

Liverpool Street is very important

But won't most Essex folk headed for E* drive to Ebbsfleet through the
Dartford tunnel, rather than trek all the way via London?

I wouldn't.

I *would* go via Stratford rather than King's Cross, though!

tom

--
24-Hour Monkey-Vision!

On Thu, 25 Nov 2004, Dave Arquati wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:

On Tue, 23 Nov 2004, Dave Arquati wrote:

Dave Liney wrote:

If you want flat interchanges then go to Waterloo as normal and get a
bus to Euston (at least three routes IIRC) and walk from there. Or
you could walk to Aldwych and get a direct bus from there. It'll take
around 30 minutes either way.

Why on earth isn't there a direct bus between Waterloo and King's
Cross?! I never even noticed that before. These are arguably the two
most important railway termini.

No, since one of those is Liverpool Street. Just because it mostly serves
Essex and Hackney doesn't mean you can ignore it! Gaaah!

Unless you have some definition of 'important' that is not related to
passenger numbers, in which case you will be the first up against the wall
when the revolution comes.

Liverpool Street is very important - but when I was referring to King's
Cross I meant (and didn't make at all obvious) the combination of King's
Cross, St Pancras and King's Cross Thameslink.

That's what i assumed - i don't think of them as separate stations.

I'm not sure on the passenger numbers but combined it must be at least a
competitor to Liverpool St.

I think Greater King's Cross is the second busiest station in London,
after Liverpool Street; i think Waterloo is a lot further down. I can
never find the figures, though!

One thing to consider is the nature of the journeys: i think LS is so busy
because of all the commuter traffic into the city, but handles relatively
little long-haul traffic (there isn't really anywhere to long-haul to,
except Chelmsford, Colchester and Norwich), whereas KX, along with Euston,
is the hub for pretty much all of the trips along the length of the
country. I should imagine Waterloo's in a similar situation to Liverpool
Street, though: lots of inner and outer suburban traffic, not a lot of
long-distance. If you think long-distance traffic is more important in
some way, you could argue that KX is more important than LS, but i don't
think it works for Waterloo.

Whatever the passenger numbers, my rant is justified because Waterloo
has two buses to Liverpool Street :-) (26 and express 705) It also has
buses to Moorgate, Euston, Marylebone (Baker St), Paddington, Victoria,
Charing Cross, London Bridge, Fenchurch Street, Cannon Street and City
Thameslink. The only one left out seems to be Blackfriars - and the
buses to London Bridge and Elephant & Castle should cover that.

While we're ranting [1] - the buses at Blackfriars are a disgrace! The
stops for some of them are about twenty miles up the road! And there's
only one night bus - which is pretty daft, given that trains run there
until pretty late at night. I had to do Wallington to Clapton on a sunday
night once, which is why i'm bitter about this .

tom

[1] By which i obviously mean "While *i'm* ranting"

--
24-Hour Monkey-Vision!

In message ,
at 14:43:10 on Thu, 25 Nov 2004, Tom Anderson
remarked:
But won't most Essex folk headed for E* drive to Ebbsfleet through the
Dartford tunnel, rather than trek all the way via London?

I wouldn't.

I *would* go via Stratford rather than King's Cross, though!

That might suit you, but I doubt it would suit the majority.
--
Roland Perry

On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 11:10:51 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 21:10:06 on Wed,
24 Nov 2004, M.Whitson remarked:
An aspect of this subject which has not been aired here is the fact that
St.Pancras/KX from a public transport point of view is the most overcrowded
in London and distribution of passengers from there is extremely
problematical.This is greatly exacerbated at peak times. This problem will
not be helped by the arrival of the CTRLDS and the absence of an upgraded
Thameslink (3,000?).

Perhaps you've not noticed that KX/StP is currently in the midst of a
huge rebuilding programme to address these very issues?

Which has now been cut back due to cost over-runs, so its adequacy
must be in doubt.
--
Peter Lawrence

"Peter Lawrence" wrote:

On Thu, 25 Nov 2004 11:10:51 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 21:10:06 on Wed,
24 Nov 2004, M.Whitson remarked:
An aspect of this subject which has not been aired here is the fact that
St.Pancras/KX from a public transport point of view is the most overcrowded
in London and distribution of passengers from there is extremely
problematical.This is greatly exacerbated at peak times. This problem will
not be helped by the arrival of the CTRLDS and the absence of an upgraded
Thameslink (3,000?).

Perhaps you've not noticed that KX/StP is currently in the midst of a
huge rebuilding programme to address these very issues?

Which has now been cut back due to cost over-runs, so its adequacy
must be in doubt.


Exactly so. In particular, the provision for Thameslink services will
be grossly inadequate.