On 10 Oct 2006 02:56:00 -0700, "Mizter T" wrote:

Regarding your comments about Dalton's poor patronage: the ELL will
provide a more useful through link that goes south rather than stopping
at Broad Street (and for those who want the City the new Shoreditch
High St. station will be _just_ round the back of Liverpool Street
station); and in the late 70's / early 80's the demand for rail
services was fundamentally different from now - see the success of the
present-day North London Line and compare it to the ghost line it was
in the early 80's.

There are a couple of points here (happy to be corrected if my facts
aren't quite right). The NLL that exists now was two separate services
back in the late 70s. It was diesel operated out at North Woolwich and
through Hackney IIRC. You only got the third rail bit at Dalston. There
was no effective through link and the service was run with clapped out
stock with stations maintained to the lowest BR standard possible. Even
Broad Street was run in that way - it was distinctly uninviting. The GLC
spent a lot of cash on the NLL, electrified it and built / modernised
stations in Hackney. The ELLX will, from the looks of things, be a
further step change in quality and frequency. The stations and trains
will also offer far better security than the old 1980s BR services did.
The poor quality of the old services is what made them unattractive and
ELLX / Overground should reverse that in time.

The City is slowing creeping north - I see yet another bit of Broadgate
is under construction. While not 100% ideal I think the new Shoredtich
High St will do just fine.

You and many others are also scathing about the potential demand a
north/south link on the ELL - I hold a diametrically opposed view. In
addition to brand new A-B journey opportunities, many journeys that
might otherwise have taken a different central London route will
instead go via the ELL.

If someone in Forest Hill wants to go to Stansted when ELLX is open will
they go into a central London terminal, slog a few stops by tube or by
bus to Liverpool St or will they catch ELLX to Highbury and then the Vic
Line to Tottenham Hale for the Stansted Express? Once people see how
the ELLX will link them with minimal changes into a whole pile of
services (tube and NR) then the potential of the line will be realised.

There is an article in the latest Rail magazine where Gordon Pettit
comments that part of the justification for CTRL is not journeys within
the South East but the ability to make fast journeys with one convenient
change at KXSP from Kent to places north of London. I can see how on a
smaller scale the ELLX provides that "round the corner, simple
interchange" type of journey opportunity. The role of Overground
services is how they tie the rail network together rather than the
intrinsic value of an A to B journey solely on the Overground network
itself. You only have to see how well used the Ring Bahn in Berlin is
and how many people change at Westkreuz and Ostkreuz to understand the
value of proper orbital services.

--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

Tom Anderson wrote:
Alternatively, whack in a second portal or a flyover or whatever, and run
Shoreditch - Highbury & Islington - Willesden Junction as another
Crossrail branch!

Or extend the northern extension (!) to Finsbury Park, Stroud Green,
Crouch End, Highgate, Finchley to end by taking over the Mill Hill East
branch of the Northern Line.

It would be interesting to see the reaction from the Crouch Endites
were this to be seriously proposed. They've wanted a tube for ages,
yet this route would mean the loss of the Parkland Walk. When I lived
in Crouch End in the late 90s, there was a proposal to turn the
Parkland Walk into a road and the opposition was immense. A railway
wouldn't be able to generate the same amount of moral outrage, yet the
Parkland Walk would still be lost. I can imagine a lot of heads
exploding with contradictions!

Patrick

Tom Anderson wrote:

On Mon, 9 Oct 2006, TheOneKEA wrote:

On Oct 9, 11:54 am, "Kev" wrote:
TheOneKEA wrote:

For that matter, how will the tracks themselves be positioned? One
smart thing to do would be to run them down the centre of the
formation, so that in case patronage begins to pick up significantly,
a set of outside loops can be built at the stations and new platforms
added, to permit non-stopping of trains.

Funniest thing that I have read in ages, the prospect of the Eat London
Line being so busy it will need to be quadrupled. You would still have
the double track bottleneck to the south.

How about some sort of freight use? The NLL isn't just for people, you
know. However, i'm not sure where the southern end would be; Bishopsgate
is hardly the freight hub it once was, and there's no obvious way beyond
it: the Great Eastern is too busy (and you can get there via Stratford
already), and the East London line itself is never going to be four-track
south of there. You could always go down into some point-defeatingly
expensive tubes, i suppose. The big London freight study a while ago did
say we needed a new Thames crossing to get freight from the Kent ports to
the north without faffing around on the south London commuter lines and
the WLL; might as well build it here as out at Tilbury (yes, i know, it'd
still play merry hell with the Dartford lines).


I think it'd be far preferable to get as much rail freight traffic as
possible on routes that avoid going through London. I've not read the
freight study but an out of town link across the Thames, such as at
Tilbury, sounds good.

Alternatively, whack in a second portal or a flyover or whatever, and run
Shoreditch - Highbury & Islington - Willesden Junction as another
Crossrail branch!


As if Crossrail isn't expensive enough already!

While we're on the subject of the ELLX, two questions, slightly more
serious. Firstly, what happens between the Shoreditch High Street edge of
the old Bishopsgate yard and the old Broad Street viaduct? There's a
hundred metres or so which isn't on the viaduct, and is currently (?)
occupied by buildings. Secondly, what's going to happen to the stub of
viaduct south of the junction with the answer to the first question?


Re your first question - I don't know the details but it would indeed
seem that some building demolition is necessary. See the route map in
the Spring '06 ELLX brochure [1] and the ELLX pages on the TfL London
Rail website [2]. Re your second question - the stub of the viaduct
might contain business premises in the arches, I don't know, I'll take
a look next time I'm around there. Presumably it could be knocked down
and built on, though I'd imagine such a redevelopment would be
expensive given the difficulty of demolition so close to the busy
tracks out of Liverpool Street (look at an aerial photo [1] to see this
for yourself)

Oh, third question: what was on the Bishopsgate site between 1964, when i
understand it closed as a goods yard, and the time ELLX construction
started? It seems inconceivable that a site that size so close to Livepool
Street didn't get turned into an office block. I suppose this 'City
fringes' business is all quite new.


The Sub Brit website has several fascinating pages and photos
concerning Bishopsgate Goods Yard [4]. On it Nick Catford says:

"Eventually some uses were found for the former goods station; an
unlicenced car breaker set up in business at the east end of the goods
yard while the top of the ramp up from Shoreditch High Street was used
as a car park. The lower level roadway west of Wheler Street was also
adapted as an 'underground' car park."

I'd guess that any development there would be expensive, given the fact
it is located over the tracks out of Liverpool Street. And the focus of
80's development was more central within, such as the Broadgate
development on the site of Broad Street station. As you say,
developments on the fringes of the City are a relatively new thing.

The ELLX was proposed by LU in 1989, which has presumably meant a
certain amount of safeguarding in relation to Bishopsgate Goods Yard.


Fourth question! How did Broad Street once function as it apparently did
as a terminus of the Great Northern? How do you get from Finsbury Park to
Broad Street? Ah, no, i see - there's a curve from just below Drayton Park
to the NLL. Isn't that single-track, though?


The "Canonbury Curve" (search for it on uk.railway) used to be a two
track railway. If you look through the fence opposite of Drayton Park
station you'll see that the trackbed and tunnel do have space for two
tracks.

Genuine fourth question: was anything of industrial archaeology salvaged
from Bishopsgate, and if so, where will it be put on display?

Fifth question: goods yards with two rail levels: who on earth thought of
that? Do they still do that anywhere? Madness!



Dunno about these questions but again I'd say turn to Sub Brit which
may answer your queries (I read it a while ago and I can't remember
what it says). Interesting method of counting to 6 you have!

-----
[1]
http://ellp.tfl.gov.uk/UserFiles/Fil...(Final)(1).pdf
or via shortURL http://tinyurl.com/mwdp3

[2] http://www.tfl.gov.uk/rail/initiativ...oduction.shtml

[3] http://tinyurl.com/qodww

[4]
http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/s...on/index.shtml

Paul Corfield wrote:

On 10 Oct 2006 02:56:00 -0700, "Mizter T" wrote:

Regarding your comments about Dalton's poor patronage: the ELL will
provide a more useful through link that goes south rather than stopping
at Broad Street (and for those who want the City the new Shoreditch
High St. station will be _just_ round the back of Liverpool Street
station); and in the late 70's / early 80's the demand for rail
services was fundamentally different from now - see the success of the
present-day North London Line and compare it to the ghost line it was
in the early 80's.

There are a couple of points here (happy to be corrected if my facts
aren't quite right). The NLL that exists now was two separate services
back in the late 70s. It was diesel operated out at North Woolwich and
through Hackney IIRC. You only got the third rail bit at Dalston. There
was no effective through link and the service was run with clapped out
stock with stations maintained to the lowest BR standard possible. Even
Broad Street was run in that way - it was distinctly uninviting. The GLC
spent a lot of cash on the NLL, electrified it and built / modernised
stations in Hackney. The ELLX will, from the looks of things, be a
further step change in quality and frequency. The stations and trains
will also offer far better security than the old 1980s BR services did.
The poor quality of the old services is what made them unattractive and
ELLX / Overground should reverse that in time.

The photos of Dalston Junction in the 80's on the Disused Stations
website help to illustrate your point...

http://www.subbrit.org.uk/sb-sites/s...on/index.shtml
(see the bottom of the page for a link to many more photos)

wrote:
Mizter T wrote:
You and many others are also scathing about the potential demand a
north/south link on the ELL - I hold a diametrically opposed view. In
addition to brand new A-B journey opportunities, many journeys that
might otherwise have taken a different central London route will
instead go via the ELL.

Indeed. To use just two examples of my own (I live at New Cross):

1. I have friends in Finsbury Park. I currently get train to London
Bridge, tube to King's Cross, tube to Finsbury Park. Once the ELL is
open, it'll be tube to Highbury, tube to Finsbury Park. Much easier,
and reduces congestion on central tubes.

2. I have friends in Walthamstow. Currently I get the tube to Canada
Water, change to Jubilee to Stratford, then get the 69 bus. Again,
once the ELL opens I'll be able to do the whole journey by tube with a
single change, making public transport a very attractive option.

Patrick

OK I can counter that by saying that I live in Watford and if I want to
get to SW London I have to use the once hourly Southern service or
crawl all the way to Willesden on the Metro then use the WLL. I think
that should spend hundreds of millions putting platforms on the county
lines at Willesden. My journey would be so much easier but would it be
cost effective when there is an alternative.
As a tax payer I have every right to be critical of something even if
it is agreed. If the ELLx is such a great idea why is the current ELL
so poorly used.

Kevin

Kev wrote:
OK I can counter that by saying that I live in Watford and if I want to
get to SW London I have to use the once hourly Southern service or
crawl all the way to Willesden on the Metro then use the WLL. I think
that should spend hundreds of millions putting platforms on the county
lines at Willesden. My journey would be so much easier but would it be
cost effective when there is an alternative.

It depends what the alternatives are. In the two cases I cited,
congestion in the central area is reduced and public transport becomes
a more attractive option, so there are benefits over and above simple
passenger numbers. You had claimed that there wouldn't be any current
journeys which would benefit from the ELLX; I just outlined a couple.

As a tax payer I have every right to be critical of something even if
it is agreed. If the ELLx is such a great idea why is the current ELL
so poorly used.

I don't recall anyone here claiming you didn't have that right! Some
of us are exercising our equally valid right to put forward another
opinion.

And I would disagree about the current ELL being poorly used; there are
always lots of people waiting for it at any time of day when I'm using
New Cross station. I used to use it regularly during the peaks when I
worked at Barbican (New Cross-Whitechapel-Barbican and back again) and
it was always full. Granted, not as full as the Northern Line, but you
often had to stand.

The ELLX probably won't be as immediately successful as Crossrail will
be, but IMHO it will offer a number of small benefits, not all of them
immediately and quantifiably measurable.

Patrick

On Oct 10, 12:15 pm, Paul Corfield wrote:
There are a couple of points here (happy to be corrected if my facts
aren't quite right). The NLL that exists now was two separate services
back in the late 70s. It was diesel operated out at North Woolwich and
through Hackney IIRC. You only got the third rail bit at Dalston.

The two services were Broad Street to Richmond and Palace Gates to
North Woolwich.

There was no effective through link and the service was run with clapped out
stock with stations maintained to the lowest BR standard possible. Even
Broad Street was run in that way - it was distinctly uninviting. The GLC
spent a lot of cash on the NLL, electrified it and built / modernised
stations in Hackney. The ELLX will, from the looks of things, be a
further step change in quality and frequency. The stations and trains
will also offer far better security than the old 1980s BR services did.
The poor quality of the old services is what made them unattractive and
ELLX / Overground should reverse that in time.

Indeed. The biggest advantage I see is that Shoreditch High Street will
be literally right next to the new City offices being built near
Liverpool Street. I would not be shocked if pax numbers on the gateline
at London Bridge went into freefall after the ELLX opened to
Shoreditch.

If someone in Forest Hill wants to go to Stansted when ELLX is open will
they go into a central London terminal, slog a few stops by tube or by
bus to Liverpool St or will they catch ELLX to Highbury and then the Vic
Line to Tottenham Hale for the Stansted Express? Once people see how
the ELLX will link them with minimal changes into a whole pile of
services (tube and NR) then the potential of the line will be realised.

Exactly!

The biggest disadvantage I see is that the ELLX Phase 1 will stop at
Highbury & Islington. In my other thread on extending the Southern
service at Watford Junction to St. Albans Abbey, I stated that when the
new TfL LO stock comes on stream and displaces the 313s, they should be
cascaded onto the ECML to lengthen existing 313-served services. If the
ELLX is not extended to Finsbury Park, then the GN&CR service should be
enhanced using the 313s to permit low-stress connections between the
two lines, thereby opening up the entire ECML catchment area to the
ELLX and taking pressure off of KX and Moorgate.

On Oct 10, 12:02 pm, asdf wrote:
I bet if the were the WLL opening instead of the EELL, you'd be saying
that with only 4 stations, and no obvious reason why large flows of
people would want to travel between any of them, and an infrequent
service using grubby trains, the WLL will be a complete non-starter
and a waste of money.

The only problem with the WLL is that it is only useful for through
journeys from end to end, i.e. someone in Clapham who wants to go to
Watford, or someone in Harrow who wants to go to South London but
doesn't want to fight with the Underground. The cyclic nature of
Olympia doesn't make the WLL useful enough to encourage non-through
journeys IMO.

Once the new Shepherd's Bush station is opened, I feel that the WLL
will become a LOT more useful within its catchment area.

On Oct 10, 12:21 pm, wrote:
Or extend the northern extension (!) to Finsbury Park, Stroud Green,
Crouch End, Highgate, Finchley to end by taking over the Mill Hill East
branch of the Northern Line.

That would require expensive three-tracking between East Finchley and
Finchley Central, with a flyover of some kind to move the Northern Line
tracks around.

Besides, the ELLX is an _East_ London line. The services you're talking
about should be run out of the GN&CR, and I would upgrade the proposal
into the following:

- Construct a station on the GOBLIN where it crosses the Parkland
route, and tie it into the new station, which would be called Stroud
Green.

- Add more tracks between East Finchley and Finchley Central -
triple-tracking with a single line for the new services might suffice,
but ideally quadruple track ought to be built if the formation can be
widened enough.

- Extend beyond Mill Hill East to the Copthall stadium area, and
construct a terminus at the cessation of the old route near Page
Street.

This would get you a route with stations at Finsbury Park, Stroud
Green, Crouch End, Highgate HL, East Finchley, Finchley Central, Mill
Hill East, and Page Street. The route would be double track between
Finsbury Park and East Finchley, single track between East Finchley and
Finchley Central, and single track with a passing loop at Mill Hill
East and a two-track terminus at Page Street.

First of all, you get immediate relief for the Northern Line, as all of
the traffic to the City will immediately switch to the new route.
Secondly, you will open up an area that could have been served by the
Underground but wasn't, and thirdly, you can give the GN&CR a new
feeder that doesn't rely on the ECML.


It would be interesting to see the reaction from the Crouch Endites
were this to be seriously proposed. They've wanted a tube for ages,
yet this route would mean the loss of the Parkland Walk. When I lived
in Crouch End in the late 90s, there was a proposal to turn the
Parkland Walk into a road and the opposition was immense. A railway
wouldn't be able to generate the same amount of moral outrage, yet the
Parkland Walk would still be lost. I can imagine a lot of heads
exploding with contradictions!

Indeed. It's a shame that the route to Alexandra Palace is blocked, as
building a double-track branch to Alexandra Palace and running services
from there to Moorgate would be especially Nice to Have.

Kev wrote:

wrote:
Mizter T wrote:
You and many others are also scathing about the potential demand a
north/south link on the ELL - I hold a diametrically opposed view. In
addition to brand new A-B journey opportunities, many journeys that
might otherwise have taken a different central London route will
instead go via the ELL.

Indeed. To use just two examples of my own (I live at New Cross):

1. I have friends in Finsbury Park. I currently get train to London
Bridge, tube to King's Cross, tube to Finsbury Park. Once the ELL is
open, it'll be tube to Highbury, tube to Finsbury Park. Much easier,
and reduces congestion on central tubes.

2. I have friends in Walthamstow. Currently I get the tube to Canada
Water, change to Jubilee to Stratford, then get the 69 bus. Again,
once the ELL opens I'll be able to do the whole journey by tube with a
single change, making public transport a very attractive option.

Patrick

OK I can counter that by saying that I live in Watford and if I want to
get to SW London I have to use the once hourly Southern service or
crawl all the way to Willesden on the Metro then use the WLL. I think
that should spend hundreds of millions putting platforms on the county
lines at Willesden. My journey would be so much easier but would it be
cost effective when there is an alternative.
As a tax payer I have every right to be critical of something even if
it is agreed. If the ELLx is such a great idea why is the current ELL
so poorly used.

Kevin

I absolutely agree that, connections wise, it'd be very useful if there
were mainline (i.e. WCML) platforms at Willesden Junction. It would
very effectively link people route north of Willesden Junction to the
West London Line and North London Line, as well as the
Bakerloo/Silverlink Metro stopping service. I don't know the history of
why these platforms were razed, I'll read up on it.

Whether it would be cost effective I guess depends in part on how you
measured the benefits - the benefits of the ELLX have obviously been
deemed to justify the cost. The ELLX website [1] will give you some
idea of the thinking that has gone on with regard to this.

With regards to your comments regarding your right to be critical, I
absolutely agree - of course you have the right to be critical, no-one
has suggested otherwise. On this occasion the decision that has been
made is not one you agree with - c'est la vie.

Concerning what you say about the poor usage on the current East London
Line, I'm afraid I can only disagree again. I'm a fairly frequent user
of the ELL, and whilst it's certainly not as hectic as other LU lines,
it's definitely not poorly used. In the middle of the day trains can be
fairly lightly loaded, yet during the peaks it can be standing room
only, and is quite well patronised during the evenings and weekends.

In it's own right I'd definitely say it justifies it's existence, but
however it definitely has potential to do more - it's that potential
that the ELLX will exploit. I could almost compare it to a small scale
Thameslink, but I won't as I've written enough on this for now.

-----
[1] http://www.tfl.gov.uk/rail/initiativ...oduction.shtml