On Dec 15, 11:21 am, Mizter T wrote:
On 15 Dec, 11:11, "Paul Scott" wrote:

"alex_t" wrote:

Less welcome is the fact that passengers on the Stratford branch now
have no trains beyond Canary Wharf after 10am in the morning. Thanks!

Also I'm amazed that new 5 minute service is only between 9:30 and
15:30 - which makes it totally useless since DLR Stratford service is
usually overloaded during 7:00-9:00, 17:00-19:00 peaks...

Is it possible that the timetable is temporary while awaiting additional
stock to be delivered?

Paul S

I use the DLR fairly often, but I must admit I haven't followed the
timetable changes closely.

How long has the Stratford branch had this 10 minute frequency for?
The Jubilee line obviously took much of the DLR's Stratford - Canary
Wharf custom away, but given the long 'outerchange' between the
Jubilee and DLR at Canary Wharf I expect that many passengers from
Stratford heading for points south on the line to Lewisham would just
take the DLR all the way.

I have often travelled from the bottom part of the DLR to Bow. It's
only Stratford itself for which there's an alternative, which is not a
very good one as mentioned above.

On Fri, 14 Dec 2007, lonelytraveller wrote:

On 13 Dec, 21:53, wrote:
On Thu, 13 Dec 2007 10:13:54 -0000, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

You will only ever see NLL & WLL frequency increasing incrementally,
up to 4, 6 or maybe 8 tph over overlapping sections of the line,
because it is also a goods line. When Ken talks about 'metro style
frequencies' he seems to mean better than 4 tph, which is when it is
considered (by many) that you don't need to worry about the
timetable.

Aren't they planning to eventually send the goods trains over a different
route?

As far as I remember, they wanted to send goods trains via the east
london thames crossing, and a new rail link (or, more accurately, the
resurrection of an old one) going from oxford to cambridge.

Most of the freight is coming from ports on the Essex bank of the Thames,
either in the depths of Essex at Felixstowe (probably soon to be joined by
an equally huge new container terminal at Harwich), or at the Gormandy
end, smeared along the river around Purfleet, Thurrock and Tilbury, and a
little bit further down at Coryton and another planned huge container
terminal at Shell Haven. There's also the Ripple Lane freight yard and
various work and docks in Dagenham, but i don't know how active those are
these days. Anyway, a Thames crossing isn't really relevant to any of
those ports.

There are flows from kent, from the Tunnel and from the oil terminal at
the Isle of Grain mostly. They're much smaller than the Essex flows.

You're right about a cross-country link, but it's not Oxford to Cambridge,
it's from Ipswich to Nuneaton. The tracks are there, but the route isn't
suitable for freight trains. If it was, traffic between Felixstowe and the
West Midlands (which is most of the traffic through Felixstowe) could go
that way rather than via London. There is a plan to reopen
Oxford-Cambridge, but it's not such an important freight axis.

The cross-country route doesn't do anything about traffic generated by the
ports nearer London, around Tilbury etc. One plan there is to use the
Gospel Oak - Barking line for a lot more freight, possibly even closing it
to passenger trains, i think, which would relieve the North London line
between Stratford and Gospel Oak. If you could send all through-London
freight that way, i think you could in theory run a tube-frequency service
between Stratford and Gospel Oak.

A long time ago, someone here proposed four-tracking the NLL all the way
from Stratford to Camden Road, and argued that it was a practical thing to
do. This would give you a route from the GEML and LTSR to the WCML, which
is where freight wants to go, that would be completely segregated from the
passenger tracks of the NLL. Skepticism about the possibility of the
scheme has also been expressed, though.

tom

--
The most successful people are those who are good at plan B. --
James Yorke

"Tom Anderson" wrote

There are flows from kent, from the Tunnel and from the oil terminal at
the Isle of Grain mostly. They're much smaller than the Essex flows.

Also container traffic from Thamesport at the Isle of Grain. There is a case
to be made for freight to use High Speed 1, both from the Channel Tunnel (it
is daft that the Ford parts train has to run all round London on congested
commuter lines when there is a convenient connection from HS1 in teh
Dagenham area. The Grain to Willesden container trainwould also have a
better route via the Thames Tunnel and the Barking to Gospel Oak line,
though unless a diesel is allowed through the Thames Tunnel both Grain to
Hoo Junction and Barking to Gospel Oak would need to be electrified.

The cross-country route doesn't do anything about traffic generated by the
ports nearer London, around Tilbury etc. One plan there is to use the
Gospel Oak - Barking line for a lot more freight, possibly even closing it
to passenger trains, i think, which would relieve the North London line
between Stratford and Gospel Oak. If you could send all through-London
freight that way, i think you could in theory run a tube-frequency service
between Stratford and Gospel Oak.

Barking to Gospel Oak is going to get a 4 tph passenger service, but this
still leaves 3 or 4 freight paths once the line is resignalled. It really
needs electrifying as well.

A long time ago, someone here proposed four-tracking the NLL all the way
from Stratford to Camden Road, and argued that it was a practical thing to
do. This would give you a route from the GEML and LTSR to the WCML, which
is where freight wants to go, that would be completely segregated from the
passenger tracks of the NLL. Skepticism about the possibility of the
scheme has also been expressed, though.

It is likely that 4 tracks will be reinstated the whole way from Dalston to
Camden Road, but the East London Line extension will be given exclusive use
of the southern pair between Dalston Junction and Highbury & Islington, so
freight will still have to run between passenger trains between Stratford
and Acton as well as between Barking and Gospel Oak.

Peter

On 15 Dec, 11:52, lonelytraveller
wrote:
The Jubilee line obviously took much of the DLR's Stratford - Canary
Wharf custom away, but given the long 'outerchange' between the
Jubilee and DLR at Canary Wharf I expect that many passengers from
Stratford heading for points south on the line to Lewisham would just
take the DLR all the way.

Why did they build Canary Wharf station like that? Couldn't they have
put it on the western side of the dock instead of the eastern side, so
that they could have a more direct connection?

I don't know the details of the engineering considerations with
regards to Canary Wharf Jubilee line station, but it was all a bit of
a tight fit - the station box is a bit like a big dry dock.

I don't think creating a perfect transport interchange with the DLR
was at the top of the priority list here - the Jubilee line to the
Wharf is all about getting people in and out.

I find that the easiest change here is actually between Heron Quays
DLR and Canary Wharf Jubilee, as getting from the Jubilee up to the
Canary Wharf DLR platforms involves a little bit more faffing about

However, some northbound DLR trains start from the middle platform at
Canary Wharf (can't remember exactly which ones do, and what the
pattern is throughout the day), so northbound passengers are perhaps
best heading up there, though of course starting from Heron Quays
might offer a better opportunity of a seat at busy times. Southbound
passengers are of course best off heading to Heron Quays, unless again
they wanted to try and get a seat at Canary Wharf - though I think
this tactic would be less likely to succeed here.

On 15 Dec, 13:28, Tom Anderson wrote:

(snip)

The cross-country route doesn't do anything about traffic generated by the
ports nearer London, around Tilbury etc. One plan there is to use the
Gospel Oak - Barking line for a lot more freight, possibly even closing it
to passenger trains, i think, which would relieve the North London line
between Stratford and Gospel Oak. If you could send all through-London
freight that way, i think you could in theory run a tube-frequency service
between Stratford and Gospel Oak.


I don't think I've ever read about a serious proposal to close GOBLIN
for passenger services and make it freight only. Certainly no such
notion appears to be on TfL's radar.

Could any kind of serious case be made for this - i.e. a strong enough
argument to justify closing it for passenger services?

(My gut instinct is that any such move would be a distinctly
retrograde step, but I'm interested in the arguments.)

How long has the Stratford branch had this 10 minute frequency for?

Since construction of Langdon Park started (some time during this
summer).

In article ,
(Tom Anderson) wrote:

On Tue, 11 Dec 2007, Paul Scott wrote:

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
.li...

I take your point. ISTR a map (drawn by J. Rowland?) which put the
Wimbleware service in a different shade of green to the rest of the
District to make it clear that there were no Richmond - Edgware Road

trains. You could do something similar with the Metropolitan.
Moreover, the current map suggests you can get a train from Clapham
Junction to Stratford via Willesden Junction; you cannot.

Bit of a sweeping statement that Tom, there are 3 or 4 services
each way to/from CJ shown in the weekday timetables!

Well, bugger. Okay, but four trains does not a service make.

Thanks to Peter and Paul for the correction, though.

Eh, lad, I can remember when the Birmingham Cross-City service (well, the
Southern bit at least) consisted of only three trains a day!

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article
,
(lonelytraveller) wrote:

As far as I remember, they wanted to send goods trains via the east
london thames crossing, and a new rail link (or, more accurately, the
resurrection of an old one) going from oxford to cambridge.

Hollow laugh There has never been any central government support for
re-opening Cambridge to Oxford and the consortium of local authorities
has only ever promoted a passenger-only scheme. Not that Cambridge to
Oxford ever had much through freight even before it closed in 1968.

There is the route from Felixstowe via Peterborough and Nuneaton which is
receiving government support, though.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

In article ,
(Tom Anderson) wrote:

You're right about a cross-country link, but it's not Oxford to
Cambridge, it's from Ipswich to Nuneaton. The tracks are there, but
the route isn't suitable for freight trains. If it was, traffic
between Felixstowe and the West Midlands (which is most of the
traffic through Felixstowe) could go that way rather than via
London.

Er, it's not W10 gauge and can't therefore take 9'6" containers on
standard wagons but it carries a good deal of freight, I can assure you!

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Sat, 15 Dec 2007, Peter Masson wrote:

"Tom Anderson" wrote

There are flows from kent, from the Tunnel and from the oil terminal at
the Isle of Grain mostly. They're much smaller than the Essex flows.

Also container traffic from Thamesport at the Isle of Grain.

Oops, forgot that one!

There is a case to be made for freight to use High Speed 1, both from
the Channel Tunnel (it is daft that the Ford parts train has to run all
round London on congested commuter lines when there is a convenient
connection from HS1 in teh Dagenham area.

I think this is a speed thing - the freight trains are presumably not
running at 186 mph, so they consume a lot of capacity on the high speed
link if they run to London. From the passenger operations point of view,
it makes sense to get them off the fast path as soon as possible.

There is a connection from the North Kent line to the HS1 tunnels under
the Thames, at something called Springheaad junction, plugging in just
down of Ebbsfleet; it would presumably be possible for freight trains to
come off HS1 at Folkestone, make it up to Gravesendish on normal tracks,
then hop back onto HS1 to cross the river, thus avoiding South London, but
also not clogging up the high speed link.

The one missing piece is a similar connection at Tilbury, so that freight
trains could get back onto filthy normal lines once they're across the
river, thus reducing the impact on high-speed trains still further. As it
is, they have to carry on to the connection in Dagenham.

The Grain to Willesden container trainwould also have a better route via
the Thames Tunnel and the Barking to Gospel Oak line,

Agreed.

though unless a diesel is allowed through the Thames Tunnel both Grain
to Hoo Junction and Barking to Gospel Oak would need to be electrified.

A good idea anyway!

Is the problem with diesel vehicles going through the tunnel at all, or
with them doing it under their own power? If it's the latter, you could
imagine a sort of shunting shuttle being used to move diesel trains from
the Hoo yards to Ripple lane. If the former, i suppose you could do the
same but actually remove the diesel engine; have a diesel shuttle from
Grain to Hoo, an electric one from Hoo to Ripple Lane, and then put on
your big engine for the trip up north from there. Probably simpler just to
electrify!

A long time ago, someone here proposed four-tracking the NLL all the
way from Stratford to Camden Road, and argued that it was a practical
thing to do. This would give you a route from the GEML and LTSR to the
WCML, which is where freight wants to go, that would be completely
segregated from the passenger tracks of the NLL. Skepticism about the
possibility of the scheme has also been expressed, though.

It is likely that 4 tracks will be reinstated the whole way from Dalston
to Camden Road, but the East London Line extension will be given
exclusive use of the southern pair between Dalston Junction and Highbury
& Islington, so freight will still have to run between passenger trains
between Stratford and Acton as well as between Barking and Gospel Oak.

I think we went over the reasons for this, but it still seems funny. The
ELL and NLL will both run at 8 tph between Dalston and H&I or Barnsbury,
for 16 tph combined; this is easily accommodated on a single pair of
tracks, even with a flat junction at Barnsbury. If that was done, you'd
have a freight-only pair from Dalston to Camden Road. I suppose the
freight still has to share with the planned Stratford - Queen's Park
services west of there, and NLL services to the east, so perhaps this
wouldn't actually be so great. If there were four tracks to Stratford,
though, it would be a very big deal. Oh well.

tom

[1] http://www.alwaystouchout.com/projec...ceImprovements

--
The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the
societies in which they occur. -- Alfred North Whitehead