On Tue, 1 Aug 2006, Dave Arquati wrote:

Bob wrote:

to turn round of half the trains at Paddington which seems a wasted
opportunity - taking over the Hammersmith end of the H&C removes a busy
junction on the Circle Line with knock on effects for that lines
reliability would seem a low cost no brainer.

I agree, but I think ensuring the central tunnel gets built is most
important - adding on too many extra bits here and there could kill the
whole project. Hammersmith could come later...

Except Hammersmith involves noodling about quite near the Paddington
portal (if you want to have a station at Royal Oak, or if you want to use
the existing H&C fly-under, at any rate), so if you don't at least build
in the possibility at the start, you might not be able to do it later.

tom

--
Understanding the universe is the final purpose, as far as I'm
concerned. -- Ian York

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 1 Aug 2006, Dave Arquati wrote:

Bob wrote:

to turn round of half the trains at Paddington which seems a wasted
opportunity - taking over the Hammersmith end of the H&C removes a
busy junction on the Circle Line with knock on effects for that lines
reliability would seem a low cost no brainer.

I agree, but I think ensuring the central tunnel gets built is most
important - adding on too many extra bits here and there could kill
the whole project. Hammersmith could come later...

Except Hammersmith involves noodling about quite near the Paddington
portal (if you want to have a station at Royal Oak, or if you want to
use the existing H&C fly-under, at any rate), so if you don't at least
build in the possibility at the start, you might not be able to do it
later.

I'm not sure it would be worth keeping Royal Oak in this scenario
(gasp). Its catchment area overlaps a lot with Bayswater, Warwick Avenue
and Paddington H&C; a western entrance for Paddington Crossrail would
also be close by.

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

Dave Arquati wrote:
Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 1 Aug 2006, Dave Arquati wrote:

Bob wrote:

to turn round of half the trains at Paddington which seems a wasted
opportunity - taking over the Hammersmith end of the H&C removes a
busy junction on the Circle Line with knock on effects for that lines
reliability would seem a low cost no brainer.

I agree, but I think ensuring the central tunnel gets built is most
important - adding on too many extra bits here and there could kill
the whole project. Hammersmith could come later...

Except Hammersmith involves noodling about quite near the Paddington
portal (if you want to have a station at Royal Oak, or if you want to
use the existing H&C fly-under, at any rate), so if you don't at least
build in the possibility at the start, you might not be able to do it
later.

I'm not sure it would be worth keeping Royal Oak in this scenario
(gasp). Its catchment area overlaps a lot with Bayswater, Warwick Avenue
and Paddington H&C; a western entrance for Paddington Crossrail would
also be close by.

--
If CrossRail takes over the Hammersmith Branch, and I think there is a
case for it, then there should be considerable rationalization of
stations.

Adrian.

Solario wrote:
Dave Arquati wrote:
Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 1 Aug 2006, Dave Arquati wrote:

Bob wrote:

to turn round of half the trains at Paddington which seems a wasted
opportunity - taking over the Hammersmith end of the H&C removes a
busy junction on the Circle Line with knock on effects for that lines
reliability would seem a low cost no brainer.
I agree, but I think ensuring the central tunnel gets built is most
important - adding on too many extra bits here and there could kill
the whole project. Hammersmith could come later...
Except Hammersmith involves noodling about quite near the Paddington
portal (if you want to have a station at Royal Oak, or if you want to
use the existing H&C fly-under, at any rate), so if you don't at least
build in the possibility at the start, you might not be able to do it
later.
I'm not sure it would be worth keeping Royal Oak in this scenario
(gasp). Its catchment area overlaps a lot with Bayswater, Warwick Avenue
and Paddington H&C; a western entrance for Paddington Crossrail would
also be close by.

If CrossRail takes over the Hammersmith Branch, and I think there is a
case for it, then there should be considerable rationalization of
stations.

It might be necessary, given the length of the trains (up to 245m).
Westbourne Park should stay if Royal Oak were to go; Ladbroke Grove is
an important station, and could be moved so that there were two
entrances; one on Ladbroke Grove itself and the other on Portobello Road.

A similar arrangement could see a long White City station replace both
White City and Latimer Road; it could have a western entrance on Freston
Road and an eastern one on Wood Lane (the platform would not be quite as
long; it would not need to straddle the WLL & West Cross Route, but a
pedestrian bridge could do so).

Finally, a Shepherd's Bush station would be just the right length to run
the length of the market between Uxbridge Road and Goldhawk Road with
entrances at each. However, I'm not sure what impact this would have on
the market itself. If it were too bad, then instead the arrangement
might have to be to get rid of Goldhawk Road station altogether, extend
Shepherd's Bush up towards Wood Lane for White City, ditch Latimer Road
and have Ladbroke Grove run westwards with an entrance north of the
sports centre.

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

On Tue, 1 Aug 2006, Dave Arquati wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 1 Aug 2006, Dave Arquati wrote:

Bob wrote:

to turn round of half the trains at Paddington which seems a wasted
opportunity - taking over the Hammersmith end of the H&C removes a busy
junction on the Circle Line with knock on effects for that lines
reliability would seem a low cost no brainer.

I agree, but I think ensuring the central tunnel gets built is most
important - adding on too many extra bits here and there could kill the
whole project. Hammersmith could come later...

Except Hammersmith involves noodling about quite near the Paddington portal
(if you want to have a station at Royal Oak, or if you want to use the
existing H&C fly-under, at any rate), so if you don't at least build in the
possibility at the start, you might not be able to do it later.

I'm not sure it would be worth keeping Royal Oak in this scenario
(gasp). Its catchment area overlaps a lot with Bayswater, Warwick Avenue
and Paddington H&C; a western entrance for Paddington Crossrail would
also be close by.

Sort of. You're right, of course, about other stations being close by, but
neither Bayswater nor Warwick Avenue are stations which offer good routes
to the eastern end of central London (ie the City). Paddington H&C would
of course cease to exist if the H&C was transferred to Crossrail - unless
you're envisaging a very exotic configuration of the subsurface lines!
People could go to Paddington to catch Crossrail, but that involves
pushing local commuters through a busy mainline station. This western
entrance could make that fairly painless, though; i'm afraid i don't know
the details of that.

Nonetheless, there's still the fly-under to think about: it gets to ground
level ~50 m west of Lord Hill's Bridge, which is pretty much level with
the planned Crossrail portal, so there wouldn't be room for a
straightforward junction here; you'd need some sort of weird junction on a
slope thing. Realistically, if you want to use it, you either have to move
the portal east, or you have to leave room for a junction inside the box,
so the branch can run for a hundred metres or so at a bit below ground
level to link up with the fly-under. Or something - IANACivilEngineer.

An alternative would be to ditch it, and add a new fly-under/over around
Westbourne Park, rebuilding the station a little to the east; this would
have the advantage that the station would be upwards of the junction, and
so would be served by more trains. It might also enable some creative use
of the H&C platforms and tracks from Paddington to Westbourne Park by
mainline trains; suggestions on a postcard, please.

Or i suppose you could run the box into the fly-under, run all Crossrail
trains along the existing H&C track on the south side of the formation,
and do something at Westbourne Park to allow them to carry on west - build
a new pair on the south side beyond the junction if possible, or else on
the north side, as is planned, then either provide a fly-under/over to get
there, or put in crossovers to shuffle all the pairs north one position.
Hang on, i'll try some ascii art:

Key:

--- track
+ joining of track
X crossing of track
direction of train
### Westbourne Park platform
.... line heading off to Hammersmith
nU line label; mainlines 1-3 and Crossrail X, plus Up/Down

Now:

1U ------------------------------ 1U
1D ------------------------------ 1D
2U ------------------------------ 2U
2D ------------------------------ 2D
3U ------------------------------ 3U
3D ------------------------------ 3D
/--------------------- XU
### //--------------------- XD
XU ...------//
XD ...------/
###

New pair to the south:

1U ------------------------------ 1U
1D ------------------------------ 1D
2U ------------------------------ 2U
2D ------------------------------ 2D
3U ------------------------------ 3U
3D ------------------------------ 3D
XU -----------+------------------ XU
XD ----------X+---\ ### /-------- XD
XU ...------// \---/
XD ...------/

New pair to the north, with fly-under (flying tracks not shown):

XU -----)
XD ----)
1U ------------------------------ 1U
1D ------------------------------ 1D
2U ------------------------------ 2U
2D ------------------------------ 2D
3U ------------------------------ 3U
3D ------------------------------ 3D
(-+------------- XU
(-X+---\ ### /--- XD
XU ...----------// \---/
XD ...----------/

New pair to the north, with shuffle:

1U -------------\
1D -------------\\
2U ----------+---X+-------------- 1U
2D ----------+X---+-------------- 1D
3U -------+---X+----------------- 2U
3D -------+X---+----------------- 2D
XU ----+---X+-------------------- 3U
XD ----+X---+-------------------- 3D
\\---------+------------- XU
\--------X+---\ ### /--- XD
XU ...----------// \---/
XD ...----------/

I expect that's made things crystal clear to all!

Adding a new pair to the south is clearly best, but probably not possible;
the shuffle would then probably be the easiest, but might leave the lines
in the wrong place for things further down. The fly-under/over would get
everything right, but involves either a big bridge or three small ones -
and does mean that the Crossrail line would cross the formation three
times between Paddington and Heathrow, which is frankly silly.

tom

--
Demolish serious culture!

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 1 Aug 2006, Dave Arquati wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 1 Aug 2006, Dave Arquati wrote:

Bob wrote:

to turn round of half the trains at Paddington which seems a wasted
opportunity - taking over the Hammersmith end of the H&C removes a
busy junction on the Circle Line with knock on effects for that
lines reliability would seem a low cost no brainer.

I agree, but I think ensuring the central tunnel gets built is most
important - adding on too many extra bits here and there could kill
the whole project. Hammersmith could come later...

Except Hammersmith involves noodling about quite near the Paddington
portal (if you want to have a station at Royal Oak, or if you want to
use the existing H&C fly-under, at any rate), so if you don't at
least build in the possibility at the start, you might not be able to
do it later.

I'm not sure it would be worth keeping Royal Oak in this scenario
(gasp). Its catchment area overlaps a lot with Bayswater, Warwick
Avenue and Paddington H&C; a western entrance for Paddington Crossrail
would also be close by.

Sort of. You're right, of course, about other stations being close by,
but neither Bayswater nor Warwick Avenue are stations which offer good
routes to the eastern end of central London (ie the City). Paddington
H&C would of course cease to exist if the H&C was transferred to
Crossrail - unless you're envisaging a very exotic configuration of the
subsurface lines! People could go to Paddington to catch Crossrail, but
that involves pushing local commuters through a busy mainline station.
This western entrance could make that fairly painless, though; i'm
afraid i don't know the details of that.

I don't think there are currently any plans for a western entrance; it
was my suggestion to mitigate a closure of Royal Oak. such an entrance
would be at the junction of Eastbourne Terrace and Bishops Bridge Road.
This would totally separate local travellers from mainline users, and it
wouldn't have to be a grand entrance - Royal Oak isn't particularly
busy, and its passengers would be distributed amongst other stations.

What's wrong with Bayswater for the City? The Circle line has the same
frequency as the H&C, and if Wimblewares were extended eastwards to
compensate for the loss of the H&C, it would see a doubling of frequency.

(The configuration I'm imagining is as now but with no H&C and with
Wimblewares extended from Edgware Road to Whitechapel/Barking... call it
the Wimblebark if you will!)

Paddington H&C could either become extra platforms for mainline trains,
or stabling sidings for the Circle line or Wimbleware(bark).

Nonetheless, there's still the fly-under to think about: it gets to
ground level ~50 m west of Lord Hill's Bridge, which is pretty much
level with the planned Crossrail portal, so there wouldn't be room for a
straightforward junction here; you'd need some sort of weird junction on
a slope thing. Realistically, if you want to use it, you either have to
move the portal east, or you have to leave room for a junction inside
the box, so the branch can run for a hundred metres or so at a bit below
ground level to link up with the fly-under. Or something -
IANACivilEngineer.

An alternative would be to ditch it, and add a new fly-under/over around
Westbourne Park, rebuilding the station a little to the east; this would
have the advantage that the station would be upwards of the junction,
and so would be served by more trains. It might also enable some
creative use of the H&C platforms and tracks from Paddington to
Westbourne Park by mainline trains; suggestions on a postcard, please.

This seems like the best solution, involving the least reconfiguration
of Crossrail. The only problem is whether there's room for grade
separation or not - maybe that could be found through careful
redevelopment of the bus garage.

I'm not sure whether stopping Heathrow/Maidenhead trains at Westbourne
Park would be that useful or not; Ealing Broadway could already be used
for people travelling from the west to Shepherd's Bush or Hammersmith,
and an extra stop on those services might be irritating for travellers
from further out.

(snip pretty ascii art which was useful but needs no comment!)

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

Dave Arquati wrote:
What's wrong with Bayswater for the City? The Circle line has the same
frequency as the H&C, and if Wimblewares were extended eastwards to
compensate for the loss of the H&C, it would see a doubling of frequency.

(The configuration I'm imagining is as now but with no H&C and with
Wimblewares extended from Edgware Road to Whitechapel/Barking... call it
the Wimblebark if you will!)

Building on from the H&C Circle line tea cup ideas - how about two
interposed reverse loops. How about existing H&C trains (to and) from
Barking continuing from Edware Road via Bayswater and Victoria to
rejoin the original route at Aldgate East - whilst Wimbleware continues
to and from Liverpool Street, Aldgate and Victoria to join its original
route at Earls Court.

Bob wrote:
Dave Arquati wrote:
What's wrong with Bayswater for the City? The Circle line has the same
frequency as the H&C, and if Wimblewares were extended eastwards to
compensate for the loss of the H&C, it would see a doubling of frequency.

(The configuration I'm imagining is as now but with no H&C and with
Wimblewares extended from Edgware Road to Whitechapel/Barking... call it
the Wimblebark if you will!)

Building on from the H&C Circle line tea cup ideas - how about two
interposed reverse loops. How about existing H&C trains (to and) from
Barking continuing from Edware Road via Bayswater and Victoria to
rejoin the original route at Aldgate East - whilst Wimbleware continues
to and from Liverpool Street, Aldgate and Victoria to join its original
route at Earls Court.

Nice idea, but I think you have too many trains on the Barking and
Wimbledon arms, as well as the southern Circle. For example, you'd have
16tph between Gloucester Road and Tower Hill before you even added any
Districts from Ealing / Richmond.

I imagine you could eliminate all other Wimbledon services, leaving
16tph on the loop service (8tph via Paddington, 8tph via Victoria)

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