In message , at 04:34:37 on
Wed, 10 Aug 2005, asdf remarked:
I wonder why they can't simply scrap the terminating services and send
them all to Victoria instead.

Because a lot of people use them (including me)! And if they went to
Victoria you'd land in an entirely different part of town.

Why not make them part of the TL2K thing? Instead of terminating at
Blackfriars, send them through the tunnels and on to somewhere like
Welwyn, Hertford or Letchworth.

Exactly. Send all the services (from the Elephant & Castle direction)
that currently terminate at Blackfriars through the tunnel to
Farringdon and beyond. Terminate an equivalent number of services from
the London Bridge direction at Blackfriars. Seems a far more sensible
and sane solution than ripping apart the entire station.

Then you wouldn't get the through services from Gatwick (and other
planned destinations) to north of the river, as they mainly go via
London Bridge.

On the other hand, adding some of the "via elephant" destinations to the
through trains doesn't seem too much of an issue, although maybe there's
not the capacity through the tunnels for them.
--
Roland Perry

On Fri, 5 Aug 2005 16:52:08 +0100, Roland Perry
said:

I wonder why they can't simply scrap the terminating services and send
them all to Victoria instead.

Victoria is pretty damned busy.

--
David Cantrell | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david

In message , at 20:32:50 on
Fri, 5 Aug 2005, David Cantrell remarked:
I wonder why they can't simply scrap the terminating services and send
them all to Victoria instead.

Victoria is pretty damned busy.

And Blackfriars is pretty small. You can't make an omelette without
breaking a few eggs, and if this is causing a billion pounds worth of
expenditure that's scuppering the whole Thameslink project it's time
some hard decisions were made.

--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 20:32:50 on
Fri, 5 Aug 2005, David Cantrell remarked:

I wonder why they can't simply scrap the terminating services and send
them all to Victoria instead.


Victoria is pretty damned busy.
snip

it's time some hard decisions were made.



Er - forget the whole thing?

--

Mark²³

In message , at 07:07:36 on Sat, 6 Aug
2005, Mark²³ remarked:
I wonder why they can't simply scrap the terminating services and
send
them all to Victoria instead.


Victoria is pretty damned busy.
snip

it's time some hard decisions were made.

Er - forget the whole thing?

You can't "forget Thameslink 2k" just because a few commuters who
currently use Blackfriars are stuck in their ways. I'm sure there are
other suitable routes/trains for them to get to work.
--
Roland Perry

David Cantrell wrote:
On Fri, 5 Aug 2005 16:52:08 +0100, Roland Perry
said:

I wonder why they can't simply scrap the terminating services and send
them all to Victoria instead.

Victoria is pretty damned busy.

--
David Cantrell | http://www.cantrell.org.uk/david
There will be some capacity becoming available at Waterloo soon.

Kevin

wrote:
David Cantrell wrote:
On Fri, 5 Aug 2005 16:52:08 +0100, Roland Perry
said:
I wonder why they can't simply scrap the terminating services and send
them all to Victoria instead.
Victoria is pretty damned busy.
There will be some capacity becoming available at Waterloo soon.

.... and that is probably how we can use joined-up thinking to make TL2K
work without rebuilding Blackfriars station.

Consider: what are the pieces of TL2K?

* Platform lengthening -- useful but not absolutely critical.
* Borough Market four-tracking -- desperately needed, TL2K or no TL2K.
* London Bridge rebuild -- at least part of it is needed for Borough
Market
* Bermondsey underpasses/flyovers -- needed to make Borough Market work
properly.
* St Pancras Midland Road -- done. (OK, it'll cost money to fit it out,
but the hard work is done.)
* Link to Kings Cross lines -- done. (again, at least the hard part is
done.)
* Blackfriars station rebuild -- do we need it?

If we don't rebuild Blackfriars station, what do we have? A situation
where trains from London Bridge have to use the terminating platforms
rather than trains from the Elephant. Is that such a bad thing? It
requires a rethink of the plans, certainly -- but it sounds to me like
we'd get 85% of the benefit for 60% of the cost.

I suppose this is what I'd do:
(1) Connect a four-tracked Borough Market to the existing station at
London Bridge, except that Platform 8 would probably have to go in
order to build a new up Platform 7 on the existing up through line.
That implies that Platform 6 becomes the down fast (or the down
ex-Charing Cross) platform. Re-fiddle the flyover plan sufficiently
that most movements are conflict-free without spiralling the cost. Use
Platform 5 for up trains to Blackfriars and some up trains (generally
those from the slow lines) to Charing Cross, ditto Platform 4 for down
trains. Don't bother with the huge grandioseness of the last plan I saw
for London Bridge, that rebuilt most of the station and added about
four extra through platforms. Closing one terminating platform and
adding one through platform on an existing track should be sufficient.
It will require people on the platforms to make sure the trains get
dispatched OK, because each platform will be very busy, but getting rid
of slam-door stock helps a LOT there.

(2) Terminate as many Dartford and/or Caterham trains at Blackfriars as
are necessary. Run the Sevenoaks via Bellingham trains (and anything
else that comes up from the Elephant) through to somewhere north of
town (the existing terminators used to be through trains anyway). Make
sure, of course, that the long-distance (Brighton, Gatwick, etc.)
trains from London Bridge can run through. Of course that will require
franchise negotiation logistics, route and stock swaps between
franchises, and probably a complete timetable revamp, but (assuming
goodwill between the franchises or an SRA-wielded big stick) those are
paper operations and much cheaper than building a great big new white
elephant of a station.

(3) If it makes sense to run the Sevenoaks or Wimbledon Loop trains
into Victoria rather than Blackfriars (and it may), transfer some
trains (those, or more likely, some long-distance ones) into Waterloo,
in order to equalise platform capacity, given that Waterloo will have
five new spare platforms.

By the way, someone upthread mentioned that end doors are needed on
Thameslink -- really? Even in a double-track tunnel? But wasn't the
whole point of ordering 365s on both sides of the river that they were
going to run through? (Or is this the Prescottists instituting
pointless safety rules again?) I know that the GN&C tunnels are
single-bore and small enough that end doors are needed -- that seems
fair enough. But I didn't think that would apply to the Thameslink
tunnels. If you can run a Pendolino through Primrose
Hill/Shugborough/wherever without end doors, why can't you run a 365
through Thameslink? (What's the current status on running 365s between
Dover and Folkestone? Are they still banned?)

Alistair Bell wrote:

By the way, someone upthread mentioned that end doors are needed on
Thameslink -- really? Even in a double-track tunnel? But wasn't the
whole point of ordering 365s on both sides of the river that they were
going to run through? (Or is this the Prescottists instituting
pointless safety rules again?) I know that the GN&C tunnels are
single-bore and small enough that end doors are needed -- that seems
fair enough. But I didn't think that would apply to the Thameslink
tunnels. If you can run a Pendolino through Primrose
Hill/Shugborough/wherever without end doors, why can't you run a 365
through Thameslink? (What's the current status on running 365s between
Dover and Folkestone? Are they still banned?)

Indeed. An even more extreme example is running Pendolinos through the
single-bore down fast tunnel at Linslade - no end doors there! (Incidentally
when tilting at full speed they have only a couple of inches to spare on the
kinematic envelope through that tunnel, according to the latest MR.) Same
applies for 365s on the ECML tunnels near London between KX and Potter's
Bar - one of those tunnels has single bores on the slow lines I think, but I
forget which.

Angus

"Alistair Bell" wrote in message
ups.com...



By the way, someone upthread mentioned that end doors are needed on
Thameslink -- really? Even in a double-track tunnel? But wasn't the
whole point of ordering 365s on both sides of the river that they
were
going to run through?

I may be wrong, but I had understood that, originally, all the 365s
were to go to South Eastern to replace some slammers, but ultimately
25 were sent to (what was) WAGN instead, leaving just 16 for South
Eastern.



(Or is this the Prescottists instituting
pointless safety rules again?) I know that the GN&C tunnels are
single-bore and small enough that end doors are needed -- that seems
fair enough. But I didn't think that would apply to the Thameslink
tunnels. If you can run a Pendolino through Primrose
Hill/Shugborough/wherever without end doors, why can't you run a 365
through Thameslink? (What's the current status on running 365s
between
Dover and Folkestone? Are they still banned?)


I think its something to do with tunnel width not necessarily the
single/double track/boredness of them.
The Dover/Folkestone tunnels are very narrow with no room to escape
from the side of the train, hence the need for end doors. Other
single-bore tunnels may well be wide enough to allow egress and safe
passage from the side of the train, so no need for end doors.

Similarly, its possible the double track Thameslink tunnel, whilst
wide enough for two tracks, doesn't have enough width either side for
passengers to escape and walk along the side, and therefore need to be
able to escape from the ends. And if its any tunnel, its more likely
the one north of Farringdon rather than the one under the Thames.

Not sure if this has been posted before but the below link shows
Network Rails current thinking on TL2000. If I'm reading it right the
re-opened enquiry will limit itself to the three areas that were not
acceptable to the original enquiry chairman ie.

* Substandard designs for London Bridge
* No reinstatement plans for Borough Market
* Detailed (But relatively minor) objections to Blackfriars station

The first of these should be mittigated by the new London Bridge
masterplan.

Reinstatement plans have now been drawn up for Borough Market (Will
these be acceptable?)

Detailed changes to Blackfriars (eg. cutting the projected OHLE to City
Thameslink) which will improve the look of the station.

Therefore it seems that the whole scheme rests on whether the designs
by Network Rails Architect, Jestico & Whiles for the Borough Market
re-instatement are going to be accepted. However J&W was also the
practice that LUL contracted for their twice rejected Camden Town
re-development...

http://www.networkrail.co.uk/Documents/Web%20SOC.pdf