I heard yesterday that some kind of agreement had just been reached
about re-opening the Epping-Ongar line, and that there was some
rolling stock movement (Woodford to Ongar?) in relation to this. Does
anyone know anything further about this? Neither EOR nor ORPS have
anything about this on their websites...


Christopher

--
Christopher Allen . + . -===""===- c==== .
email: * . . \ \____}}
WWW: http://ruah.dyndns.org/~cpcallen/ . * @====-' .
snail: Studio 10, 319 Archway Rd. London N6 5AA U.K. . *

What is the purpose of the Ongar line? Ongar cannot be a very
important traffic objective. Harlow would pull in far more traffic, if
pulling in traffic is the objective!

Michael Bell

In article , Christopher Allen
wrote:
I heard yesterday that some kind of agreement had just been reached
about re-opening the Epping-Ongar line, and that there was some
rolling stock movement (Woodford to Ongar?) in relation to this. Does
anyone know anything further about this? Neither EOR nor ORPS have
anything about this on their websites...


Christopher


--

Michael Bell wrote in message ...
What is the purpose of the Ongar line? Ongar cannot be a very
important traffic objective. Harlow would pull in far more traffic, if
pulling in traffic is the objective!

Michael Bell

In article , Christopher Allen
wrote:
I heard yesterday that some kind of agreement had just been reached
about re-opening the Epping-Ongar line, and that there was some
rolling stock movement (Woodford to Ongar?) in relation to this. Does
anyone know anything further about this? Neither EOR nor ORPS have
anything about this on their websites...

The local paper http://www.ongarguardian.co.uk ran this last week:

Guided busway plan is 'mad' says MP
By David Jackman


THE possibility of a 'guided busway' along part of the old
Epping-Ongar railway line has been branded a "mad" plan by Epping
Forest MP Eleanor Laing.

Various suggestions about what form the busway would take have been
raised with the Guardian, with suggestions including buses running
along a concreted Central Line track or a London Docklands Light
Railway-type service between Epping and North Weald.

But any use of part of the former Epping-Ongar line for such a purpose
has been slammed by Mrs Laing.

The guided busway is included in the Harlow Options Study report
detailing various schemes for growth in and around Harlow. It forms
part of a scheme that would see high density housing (up to 2,300
homes) and an employment site at North Weald served by new public
transport linking the Central Line at Epping to Harlow town centre via
the former North Weald Station.

The report states this "would probably" be achieved with the guided
busway – a scheme that Mrs Laing says would mean the end of any
hope of a full Epping-Ongar line service ever being reinstated.

Mrs Laing said: "I think it's a totally pie in the sky, mad plan."

She added: "The consultants who made this proposal don't know that
we've fought for years to preserve the Epping-Ongar part of the
Central Line so that when the time comes, and it looks now as if it
will quite soon, that part of the Central Line can be reinstated.

"I think it would mean that the Epping-Ongar line would never run
again and that's what we have fought to prevent."

She added: "Many of the proposals that were put to the stakeholders
meeting have not been thought out."

Paul White, of Harlow Options Study consultants Atkins Design
Environment and Engineering, said: "What we're saying is that we
envisage a public transport link of some description which would link
the Central Line in Epping and North Weald to Harlow.

"Our view is that it would be a dedicated busway, but I know that
there are other interested parties that envisaged possibly light rail
or heavy rail. Becasue there is the disused part of the Central Line
we feel it would make sense to use that and have new infrastructure to
Harlow."

He said the issue was a matter for much more detailed study before
final proposals were drawn up.

Commenting on the busway reference in the report, a district council
spokesman said: "The suggestions are conceptual at this stage and do
not say exactly how such a guided busway would operate.

"Transport infrastructure is obviously a major consideration and we
would need to see much more detail in the near future."

"umpston" wrote in message
om...

Guided busway plan is 'mad' says MP

That's promising, then.

:-)

--
Brian
"Stuck down a hole, in the fog, in the middle of the night, with an owl."

In message , Boltar
writes
Guided busways have hardly ever been a success wherever they've been
tried. They're a solution designed by a commitee. "We want something
that follows a set route but we like busses , I know , lets have a
guided bus!". Duh. If you want a guided vehicle have a railway , rail
vehicles are more efficient in energy use , can carry FAR more people
than any bus and are more reliable. If you want a bus put it on a road
, you don't need to build a special road with side barriers (which is
all a busway is) for it. I wonder how long after this road .. sorry
"busway" is built, it would take for some politician eager to coin in
the motorist vote to say "Hey , why don't we let cars use this road too?"

But aren't guided bus ways a lot cheaper to build and more reliable? And
guided bus ways can become normal buses when they get to the end of the
busway?
--
CJG

CJG writes
But aren't guided bus ways a lot cheaper to build and more reliable?

Of course, that's why there are guided busways in every town and city
across the nation.

--
Dave

CJG wrote in message ...
But aren't guided bus ways a lot cheaper to build and more reliable? And
guided bus ways can become normal buses when they get to the end of the
busway?

Depends what you mean by reliable. Sure if you have a pothole in the busway
it probably won't bring the whole service to a halt like a broken rail would
but on the other hand roads seem to disintegrate far quicker than rail so
more maintenance would ultimately be needed and given that by design a bus
can't run around the roadworks on a busway since its held in place by the
guiderails, any maintenance will force closure of the busway just as on a
railway. Busways are pointless. If you want a road just build a road , not
some poor facsimile of a railway.

B2003

Out in Huntingdonshire, a similar process is going on with the former
Huntingdon to Cambridge railway trackbed. The consultation is cosmetic
and hilarious inasmuch as the word "bus" is conspicuously absent from
the publicity, given Joe/Jill Public's abhorrence of all things
bus-like. "High quality transit service" is the preferred euphemism.

"Brian Watson" wrote in message ...
"umpston" wrote in message
om...

Guided busway plan is 'mad' says MP

That's promising, then.

:-)

In article , Clive D. W. Feather
writes
[Personal note: the MGB will *increase* the time it takes the bus to get
from my village to Cambridge. If rail services were reinstated on the line I
could eliminate 80% of the road part of my commute and replace them
with rail, very possibly without altering the total travel time.]

While I don't doubt the truth of what you say for a minute, Clive *and*
while being deeply sceptical of the advantages of guided buses [1], how
does the Cambridgeshire system actually increase a particular journey?

[1] The only place I can see guided bus technology being of use is in
bus *stations*, to be honest, for ensuring flush boarding and coping
with often restricted areas.

--
Ian Jelf, MITG, Birmingham, UK
Registered "Blue Badge" Tourist Guide for
London & the Heart of England
http://www.bluebadge.demon.co.uk

In article , Ian Jelf
writes
While I don't doubt the truth of what you say for a minute, Clive *and*
while being deeply sceptical of the advantages of guided buses [1], how
does the Cambridgeshire system actually increase a particular journey?

Crude map:

+---------busway--------+
| |
| |
C D
| |
| |
+-----A-----+-----B-----+
| |
V X

V is the village where I live, X is the central Cambridge area.
Road A is a 3 lane each way dual carriageway.
Road B has a bus lane in the direction that sees congestion.
Road C is a narrow country lane.
Road D is a busy road where adding a bus lane involves major political
risk.

In addition, the busway route is about twice the length, or more, of the
present route.

It seems likely that the presence of the busway will mean that all
routes around here are altered, and that the bus to Cambridge will be
diverted to it.

[1] The only place I can see guided bus technology being of use is in
bus *stations*, to be honest, for ensuring flush boarding and coping
with often restricted areas.

Apparently it works well in Adelaide because of the layout of things:

Adelaide: Cambridge:

Wide streets in central Narrow congested streets in
area, no busway centre
Congested suburbs bypassed Congested roads in suburbs
by busway
Quiet roads in countryside Quiet countryside roads bypassed
by busway

--
Clive D.W. Feather, writing for himself | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8371 1138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Written on my laptop; please observe the Reply-To address