In article ,
James wrote:
If all else fails, there's always the bus timetable approach to
timetabling - only timetable the first and last stops (and maybe a one
or two important intermediate ones).

Before WWII many of the Southern suburban lines showed trains as being "at
frequent intervals until ...".

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"James" wrote in message
om...
Ian Harding wrote in message
...
Tom Anderson wrote:
On Thu, 3 Mar 2005, Dave Arquati wrote:
Surely the only solution that would allow such a service would be
isolation of the metro tracks from the "country" tracks - much like
Crossrail hopes to do


Bingo.


(although the current setup of the GW and GE makes their plan
relatively
easy).


Also bingo, sadly. Are there any separable bits in the SWT area? The
Hounslow loop isn't needed by country trains, since they can go via
Richmond, but it will be needed by goods trains until there's a
freight
crossing across the Thames in the east. How about the slow lines on
the
LSW mainline? Are those used by country trains, or does everything run
fast when it gets to Surbiton? Is there any scope for more tracks
round
here?

Trains to Guildford, Woking, and Dorking all use the slow lines. Not
enough demand at the country end to justify a metro service, and not
enough capacity on the fast lines (not to mention large numbers of
passengers using Clapham Junction and Wimbledon).

The alternative is just to scrap the country service. Not sure i like
the
idea of all these bumpkins getting into London anyway. It's bad enough
just with people from south of the river.

Possibly the only way to make my current journey even more difficult ;-)

Ian

Separating the Main Slow Lines out would be relatively easy. There
would be little bits of track-sharing with other trains on the
outskirts (rather like the Bakerloo Line does). There would be a cycle
of four destinations:
- Shepperton
- Chessington South
- Hampton Court
- Epsom
each of which could run every 10 minutes (so better frequencies than
Mill Hill East gets, therefore no need for a public timetable).

That would be 24 tph on the slow tracks, compared with the present 16 tph,
and you wouldn't be serving the Woking or Guildford lines. So you would have
to add more trains on the fast tracks, which are also already at capacity.
The existing peak service is limited by dwell times at stations like
Wimbledon. Besides, do Chessington or Hampton Court really need more than
their present half-hourly services?

If the present service is too crowded, more capacity could be provided by
extending platforms or running double-deck trains.

Regards, David.


The
only bits which would be shared with other services would be the Epsom
station area (with services from Victoria and London Bridge to the
country) and Kingston to Teddington (with services to Waterloo via
Richmond). People from the country who insist on Waterloo over
Victoria would have a nice easy cross-platform interchange at Epsom.
42 via Cobham trains would *all* use the Fast Lines.

As for dwell times, 15-20 seconds could be done at Earlsfield and most
stations from Raynes Park outwards (with obvious exceptions, including
Kingston, Surbiton, and Epsom).

The Windsor Lines of course wouldn't be separable into metro and long
distance - they are laid out in a way that's almost as bad as the
Central Section.

If all else fails, there's always the bus timetable approach to
timetabling - only timetable the first and last stops (and maybe a one
or two important intermediate ones).

James.

"David Fairthorne" wrote in message
...
That would be 24 tph on the slow tracks, compared with the present 16 tph,
and you wouldn't be serving the Woking or Guildford lines. So you would
have
to add more trains on the fast tracks, which are also already at capacity.
The existing peak service is limited by dwell times at stations like
Wimbledon. Besides, do Chessington or Hampton Court really need more than
their present half-hourly services?

If the present service is too crowded, more capacity could be provided by
extending platforms or running double-deck trains.

Regards, David.

Stagecoach wanted to increase platform lengths as part of their new
franchise, but the SRA blocked it. The idea was to run 10-car suburban sets
by re-forming the 455s as 5-cars and using the proposed 5-car 450/2 build.
It hasn't happened, the 455s are staying as 4-cars and the 450/2 Desiro
order for 32 sets has mutated into 40 4-car sets, 30 of which are going to
West Coast.

On Mon, 7 Mar 2005 00:09:21 -0500, David Fairthorne wrote:

If the present service is too crowded, more capacity could be provided by
extending platforms or running double-deck trains.

I've often wondered if DD trains really do help that much. Sure they may
move more people, but it also takes rather longer for the people to get
on and off. Is there any definitive evidence on this matter?
--
(The changing appearance of the Gatwick Express service...)
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p9767288.html (1980: 4VEG unit 7910)
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p9680299.html (1998: 73 203 + coaches)
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p11218102.html (2005: Juniper unit 06)

On Mon, 7 Mar 2005 12:16:04 +0000, Chris Tolley
wrote:

I've often wondered if DD trains really do help that much. Sure they may
move more people, but it also takes rather longer for the people to get
on and off. Is there any definitive evidence on this matter?

Not sure, but given that in a 26m UIC gauge coach you only get about
1.5 times the single-decker capacity due to space taken up by what
would be underfloor equipment, staircases and wider doors, if we were
stuck with 20m British-gauge coaches you'd get even less.

Neil

--
Neil Williams in Milton Keynes, UK
When replying please use neil at the above domain
'wensleydale' is a spam trap and is not read.

"wjm1" wrote in message
...
| Hang on...
|
| What about where there is only an up and a down line - or worse, the
| mainline goes to bi-directional single track. The Waterloo - Portsmouth
and
| Winchester/Eastleigh-Portsmouth services frequently wait outside Botley
for
| an up freight service. How can this be right?! Why don't Network Rail
| reinstate the double track through the Fareham tunnels? Cost, I suppose.
|


This question came up a month or two back. "Cost" is the indirect answer.
The plain answer is that the ground conditions there are so bad that even an
attempt to avoid the Funtley tunnel (the one you can see the south portal of
from Fareham station) by a diversion in a cutting had to be abandoned (local
OS maps still show the route of this diversion). The cost of the
engineering solution required is out of proportion to the traffic using this
line. As has from time to time been shown when the Netley route is closed,
the capacity of the Botley route is actually more than adequate for the
current timetable.
--
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"Yokel" now posts via a spam-trap account.
Replace my alias with stevejudd to reply.

Neil Williams wrote:
On Mon, 7 Mar 2005 12:16:04 +0000, Chris Tolley
wrote:

I've often wondered if DD trains really do help that much. Sure they may
move more people, but it also takes rather longer for the people to get
on and off. Is there any definitive evidence on this matter?

It was tried a long time ago (50s?) with the 4-DD sets. I think they
were restricted to one route (Dartford possibly?) and the southern
region decided that extending the platforms was a better idea.

Not sure, but given that in a 26m UIC gauge coach you only get about
1.5 times the single-decker capacity due to space taken up by what
would be underfloor equipment, staircases and wider doors, if we were
stuck with 20m British-gauge coaches you'd get even less.

Not to mention the extra foot you'd need in the loading gauge to get two
walkways one above the other. You only get about 3.7m max internal
height assuming a lower floor as low as a pocketwagon, and using the
full-height of W6 (or better yet, the freight gauges with squarer corners).

Given how full the SR is of random bridges with low clearances, and in
particular flying junctions, I doubt a loading gauge with a higher
centre will ever happen. (Improvements at the corners happen for
container traffic, but the centre never goes up...)

James Moody
--
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