In message
"David Biddulph" groups [at] biddulph.org.uk wrote:

"Graeme Wall" wrote in message
...
In message i
Tom Anderson wrote:
...
Would people use it instead of the fast train? Would they even use it
in place of the Wokingham train?

It's still around 20 minutes quicker and Twyford station is easier to
access than Wokingham. IIRC the car park at the latter takes about a
dozen cars.

268 according to
http://www.nationalrail.co.uk/statio...ml#Interchange

Where on earth do they put them all? It's a fairly constricted site :-)
Mind you it's around 20 years since I last ventured to that part of town.

quick shufti on Google Earth Ah, I see, they've extended the carpark
northwards, that area was going to be light industrial units at one time.

Interesting to see they have 80 cycle spaces, I wonder how well they are
used.

--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html

On Dec 14, 10:51 pm, "Peter Masson" wrote:
"Dan G" wrote

I live in Reading and I don't want Crossrail to come here. Why?
Because Crossrail will be a stopper service. I want to catch an HST to
Paddington, overtaking the slow Crossrail trains past Maidenhead, and
then change for the ride into central London (or beyond). Taking it
all the way to Reading would increase the already sky-high cost and
take away capacity for other, more useful, trains for Reading.

If Crossrail is extended to Reading the Main (Fast) Lines will still be
available for 125 mph trains running non-stop (or possibly calling at
Slough) between Paddington and Reading. But if it terminates at Maidenhead
how are London to Twyford/Henley passengers to be catered for, or passengers
travelling to Reading from intermediate stations? Will there be a
Paddington - Reading stopping service sandwiched between Crossrail trains
(using capacity which really ought to be kept for freight)? Or will
passengers have to use Crossrail, and change at Slough or Maidenhead for a
shuttle service? Or will Main Line capacity be used up with 90 mph trains
calling at Slough, Maidenhead and Twyford (perhaps crossing to the Relief
Lines at Dolphin, Maidenhead East or Ruscombe once the Crossrail service has
thinned out - and the crossing move eats capacity)?

While Crossrail can be justified as a stopping service within Greater
London, as Acton Main Line and Hanwell would undoubtedly get much more use
if they had a decent service) stopping all Maidenhead trains at Iver and
Taplow is daft, as in population terms these two stations at least are in
the middle of nowhere.

The argument that saddling Crossrail with the cost of rebuilding and
resignalling Reading would make Crossrail unaffordable is sound, but the
argument that even if these necessary improvements are funded separately, as
they will be, Crossrail still can't go there is weak. However, it has to be
realised that although Reading is only two stations further than Maidenhead
it is actually half as far again as Paddington to Maidenhead.

Peter

Its called piecemeal enchroachment or piecemeal development. Its what
the Government is good at - as witnessed at Heathrow. Of course
they'll build Crossrail to/from Maidenhead - at first. But then later
they'll extend it to Reading and further to the East and South East.
Like at Heathrow with T4, then widening the M25, then T5, then
Airtrack, then the Third Runway and T6, etc., there would be no way of
getting planning permission for just one really mega-project. So each
project gets planning permission one at a time during which further
development is always denied. Then when that project is up and
running, the next one - even though emphatically denied - is started.
Haven't you heard of the BAA (wholy privately owned by Spanish
property demolition and development company Ferrovial) with its lies,
damned lies, statistics, and emphatic denials? Crossrail is just the
same. CJB.

On Mon, 17 Dec 2007, Graeme Wall wrote:

In message i
Tom Anderson wrote:

On Sun, 16 Dec 2007, Graeme Wall wrote:

In message i
Tom Anderson wrote:

Point taken, though, Twyford is a far more important station than i'd
realised.

It taps into a lot of traffic from the Wokingham area which would
otherwise have to take the slow service to Waterloo.

Ah, i see.

Hmm. It looks like a train from Wokingham to Waterloo takes 68 minutes; a
train from Twyford to Paddington which stops at Maidenhead only takes 32,
and one which stops at eight stations on the way takes 50 minutes.
Crossrail would presumably be more like 50 minutes.

I would hope an electrified service would do better than that.

How much difference does it make? And why? This is something that's always
puzzled me, actually - why are electric trains so much preferred to
diesels? Do they accelerate faster? I assume it's not a question of top
speed.

Would people use it instead of the fast train? Would they even use it in
place of the Wokingham train?

It's still around 20 minutes quicker and Twyford station is easier to
access than Wokingham.

Depends where you live - there seem to be a lot more houses near Wokingham
than Twyford, meaning most people in that area (if i've understood the
area you were referring to right) would be looking at a longer drive (or
even a drive rather than a walk) to get to Twyford. That offsets some of
the train's advantage.

tom

--
never mind your fingers, i've got blisters on my brain

On 17 Dec, 00:09, Tom Anderson wrote:
Hmm. It looks like a train from Wokingham to Waterloo takes 68 minutes; a
train from Twyford to Paddington which stops at Maidenhead only takes 32,
and one which stops at eight stations on the way takes 50 minutes.
Crossrail would presumably be more like 50 minutes. Would people use it
instead of the fast train? Would they even use it in place of the
Wokingham train? If not, the value of Crossrail at Twyford is maybe less
than the passenger numbers indicate.

Post-Crossrail Twyford's main service to London will be a diesel semi-
fast on the slow lines taking ca. 40 minutes (and probably few if any
fast trains). I'd hope this would also be the basis of any Crossrail
to Reading service, rather than extending the Maidenhead stoppers,
which would make Crossrail at Twyford a good thing.

U

--
http://londonconnections.blogspot.com/
A blog about transport projects in London

In message i
Tom Anderson wrote:

On Mon, 17 Dec 2007, Graeme Wall wrote:

In message i
Tom Anderson wrote:

On Sun, 16 Dec 2007, Graeme Wall wrote:

In message i
Tom Anderson wrote:

Point taken, though, Twyford is a far more important station than
i'd realised.

It taps into a lot of traffic from the Wokingham area which would
otherwise have to take the slow service to Waterloo.

Ah, i see.

Hmm. It looks like a train from Wokingham to Waterloo takes 68 minutes;
a train from Twyford to Paddington which stops at Maidenhead only takes
32, and one which stops at eight stations on the way takes 50 minutes.
Crossrail would presumably be more like 50 minutes.

I would hope an electrified service would do better than that.

How much difference does it make? And why? This is something that's always
puzzled me, actually - why are electric trains so much preferred to
diesels? Do they accelerate faster?

Generally yes.

Would people use it instead of the fast train? Would they even use it
in place of the Wokingham train?

It's still around 20 minutes quicker and Twyford station is easier to
access than Wokingham.

Depends where you live - there seem to be a lot more houses near Wokingham
than Twyford, meaning most people in that area (if i've understood the
area you were referring to right) would be looking at a longer drive (or
even a drive rather than a walk) to get to Twyford. That offsets some of
the train's advantage.


As you say, depends where you live. I'm not just referring to Wokingham
itself, there's a large area know as Wokingham Without - 'ere, stop tittering
missus!

--
Graeme Wall
This address is not read, substitute trains for rail.
Transport Miscellany at http://www.greywall.demon.co.uk/rail/index.html

On 17 Dec, 19:14, Mr Thant
wrote:

Post-Crossrail Twyford's main service to London will be a diesel semi-
fast on the slow lines taking ca. 40 minutes (and probably few if any
fast trains). I'd hope this would also be the basis of any Crossrail
to Reading service, rather than extending the Maidenhead stoppers,
which would make Crossrail at Twyford a good thing.


Good thinking. I like that idea. They could use some of the Paddington
terminators to run a semi-fast Crossrail service to Reading in
addition to the all stations to Maidenhead.

In article ,
(Tom Anderson) wrote:

I would hope an electrified service would do better than that.

How much difference does it make? And why? This is something that's
always puzzled me, actually - why are electric trains so much
preferred to diesels? Do they accelerate faster? I assume it's not
a question of top speed.

Quite a bit. Not having to carry diesel engines and their transmissions
around makes quite a difference to weight and therefore power required
for acceleration.

Also, they have a significantly longer life expectancy and maintenance
cost without diesel engines trying to shake them to bits all the time.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

How much difference does it make? And why? This is something that's always
puzzled me, actually - why are electric trains so much preferred to
diesels? Do they accelerate faster?

yes

In uk.railway Tom Anderson wrote:
How much difference does it make? And why? This is something that's always
puzzled me, actually - why are electric trains so much preferred to
diesels? Do they accelerate faster? I assume it's not a question of top
speed.

Firstly they can draw more peak power when accelerating as components can be
worked harder for shorter periods - with a diesel the power you've got is
the power you've got. Secondly you don't have to cart around a big heavy
engine and a tank of fuel all the time, so you can accelerate faster as your
train is (in theory) lighter. You can oversize the engine to get more
accelerating power (see Voyagers) but it'll be bigger and heavier (and more
expensive, and more track-damaging) so you don't win quite as much.

Theo

http://www.transportbriefing.co.uk/story.php?id=4600
quote

Crossrail bill heads for Lords following third reading
Filed 17/12/07

The hybrid bill which will allow construction of the London Crossrail
link has cleared the Commons after nearly three years of debate.

(Snip)

"The improved east-west rail access into and across London from the
east and south-east regions will also support local and national
government policy for economic development and regeneration,
particularly in the Lea valley and Thames Gateway, attracting some
additional 80,000 jobs to regeneration areas."

Theresa May, Conservative MP for Maidenhead, where the route is due to
terminate in the west, sought assurances that a future extension to
Reading would be possible by means of a Transport & Works Act order,
rather than requiring further legislation to be introduced in
parliament. Tom Harris explained that future extensions to Reading and
Ebbsfleet could be accommodated by this process, subject to legal
test. He said the government would make an announcement in due course
about safeguarding these routes although he emphasised that there was
no intention of funding such extensions at present. "

May also expressed concerns about current fast and semi-fast trains to
and from Maidenhead being replaced by an all-stations stopping
Crossrail service. She said: "Crossrail could be so much more of a
benefit to the UK, to the south-east and to my constituents if the
government examined carefully the service provision on First Great
Western when Crossrail comes and looked at the issue of extending to
Reading."

(Snip).

Ian Liddell-Grainger, Conservative MP for Bridgwater, welcomed the
opportunity for greater scrutiny of the project and admitted that the
committee which previously scrutinised the bill was unable to clarify
the cost of some components of the scheme. "We never quite got to the
bottom of the costings, although we tried to write into the bill a
provision that the costings had to be shown to parliament, the London
Assembly, the outer boroughs and the royal boroughs," he said. "One
reason that we did not get to the bottom of the costings was that we
got the okay for Woolwich at a time when we were trying to get things
sorted out as quickly as possible so as to get the bill to this stage,
and there are still some grey areas. New clause 1 would mean that some
of the bits that we could not fulfil will now have the money put in. I
would like to think that the minister will push Crossrail to fill bits
in, especially at Woolwich, and with the external stations at both
ends and the Heathrow link."

He also described freight operator EWS as "barrow boys" and cited the
company as an example of where the committee had not been able to
clarify funding needs. "It became quite obvious when many committee
members visited its operations - I could not go - that attempts were
being made to pull the wool over our eyes. That is a glaring example
of a case where the funding was not understood. We could not get to
the bottom of what it was trying to do, or of what it wanted. The new
clause, if it is accepted, will push such organisations into a
position where they have to say precisely what their contribution to
the costs will be."

unquote
Two thoughts

Theresa May's idea of future extension through TWA seems a good one

One wonders what wool the barrow boys of EWS were trying to pull over
the eyes of the Crossrail committee. Does the committee understand the
difference between the TOC franchises and the Open Market Freight
Companies. If the latter were not entrepreneurial - the economist's
translation of "barrow boy" they would find themselves being eaten
alive by the Road Haulage Industry.