On Tue, 22 Jan 2008, wrote:

On 22 Jan, 00:37, Tom Anderson wrote:

My current favourite implausible scheme involves somehow (magic?)
putting tunnels in in the City that let Metropolitan (and District?)
trains which currently terminate at Aldgate (or Tower Hill) carry on to
the east, perhaps Canary Wharf, Lewisham and points south.

One that comes up about every 18 months in these parts is sending the
Metropolitan line from Liverpool Street, through Aldgate East and
Shadwell to New Cross and beyond.

That doesn't actually help, as trains still have to go through Aldgate and
Aldgate East junctions, which generates loads of conflicts, and for which
there isn't even capacity east of Aldgate East. Unless you swap the H&C
and Met termini, but then you can only make a service to the south by
taking away trains to Barking.

There have to be portals to the west of Aldgate and/or Minories junctions,
and a new route in tunnel, to get any more trains out of the situation.

Then someone always pops up and points that two trains can't pass on
that curve without doing severe damage to each other's paintwork, and
the whole thing gets forgotten.

And it's to be expunged by the ELLX anyway.

tom

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On Jan 22, 5:07*pm, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Mon, 21 Jan 2008, MIG wrote:
On Jan 21, 5:08*pm, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sun, 20 Jan 2008, MIG wrote:
New stations and better interchanges on existing lines could provide a
lot of new person-routes, both north and south of the Thames, at much
less cost than new lines.

I think the original suggestion was about capacity, not routes. Building
more stations on existing lines can't increase capacity.

There are probably cheaper options than extending the Bakerloo, though.

I can't work out a formula, but it seems to me that if people could
travel more directly to where they wanted to go, spending less time on
the transport networks and travelling a shorter distance, it actually
would increase capacity. *Interchanges could make that possible.

To a point. If people are making a journey using lines A, B and C, and you
add an interchange between A and C, it relieves B. It doesn't relieve A or
C, though, and if those are at capacity, it doesn't relieve the
bottleneck. It depends on the details of the network, i suppose.

I think you alluded to platforms on the South London line at Loughborough
Junction (interchanging with the Holborn aka Thameslink line) and Brixton
(interchanging with the Chatham main line). Would those add capacity? I'll
assume that people can come from Batterclapstock, ie on the SLL west of
Brixton, from Peckham, ie along the SLL west of Loughborough Junction,
from the southern part of the Chatham, or the southern part of the
Thameslink route, and want to go to one of Victoria, Blackfriars etc or
London Bridge. Looking at the possible combinations:

Batterclapstock - Victoria: no, wrong way
Batterclapstock - Blackfriars: no, take a radial line into town + change
Batterclapstock - London Bridge: no, direct train already
Peckham - Victoria: no, direct train already
Peckham - Blackfriars: no, go via London Bridge / Cannon Street (?)
Peckham - London Bridge: no, wrong way
Chatham - Victoria: no, direct train already
Chatham - Blackfriars: no, change at Herne Hill
Chatham - London Bridge: maybe
Thameslink - Victoria: no, change at Herne Hill
Thameslink - Blackfriars: no, direct train already
Thameslink - London Bridge: no, change at Elephant or Blackfriars

The only journey that gets improved is Chatham - London Bridge: if you're
south of Penge, you can get a direct train or a good change (at Shortlands
or Penge). If you're north of there, you either backtrack to Penge, or do
a double change via Herne and Tulse Hills, both of which are a bit
awkward. Being able to change at Brixton onto an SLL train would make life
easier, even though the SLL route to London Bridge is a bit roundabout.
This would take people off the Tulse Hill or New Cross Gate lines into
London Bridge, and put them on the SLL. Possibly a minor win, i'm not
sure.

To sum up, i think building those platforms would be a good idea, to add
flexibility and resiliency to the network, and to serve local users
better, but i don't think they're going to deliver extra capacity.

tom


I can see that it's limited, but it's also cheap, and therefore
possibly possible.

And I was thinking about journeys south as well. For example, going
from Lewisham* to Herne Hill really needn't be as difficult as it is.
To do it by train you'd have to clutter up routes into London Bridge
and Blackfriars or Victoria and back out again, when a change at
Brixton or Loughborough Junction would make it simple.

Given the enthusiasm for orbital routes, which I don't entirely share,
surely it should be possible to come in from one direction and travel
along the orbital route a bit before proceeding in or out on another
radial route, thereby benefiting those who don't live directly on the
orbital corridor.

*The route to Victoria has so many signal stops, there might as well
be lots of stations with no effect on journey time.

On Tue, 22 Jan 2008, Mizter T wrote:

On 20 Jan, 20:12, Mr Thant
wrote:
Mwmbwls wrote:

The 1974 London Rail Study
believed the cost benefit case to be weak and so Camberwell like
sleeping beauty nodded off until most recently in 2006

Tim O'Toole mentioned it in a Time Out interview last year:
http://londonconnections.blogspot.co...line-extenstio...

Pure rumour says the plan involves the Hayes branch.

I'm not so sure that the travellers on the Hayes branch would really
want it - they already have a 4tph service, two of those being fast from
Ladywell to London Bridge (which is an advantage for those who wish to
get into town quicker, though a disadvantage for those who want Lewisham
either in its own right or for connections including the DLR to the
Docklands).

Indeed. Those wanting London Bridge or the City would have to change at
Lewisham. Or Elephant, after they've sat through some number of additional
stops. The change at Lewisham would have to be pretty painless for this to
work, and there would have to be enough capacity on that line for it.

Would the Bakerloo service intermingle with other services? The Bakerloo
would presumably have to intermingle with freight trains on the line
from Peckham Rye to Lewisham, which could present safety and reliability
issues (though many of the freights do run late or at night). Even if
there was a new separated route constructed through Lewisham for the
Bakerloo to reach the Hayes branch, it would still have to share tracks
with other services from Peckham Rye (if that is indeed where it
surfaced) to the junction just past Nunhead.

I had the idea it was to be a tunnel from Elephant and Castle all the way
to Lewisham, surfacing south of there, from where the Hayes branch is
separate from all other lines (one of the striking things about that
branch that makes it so attractive for tubulation). That would mean it was
an entirely segregated route, and so there were no worries about
intermingling, freight, safety, performance pollution, etc. Plus, it would
reduce conflicts and release capacity on the surface lines.

If you draw a straight line from Elephant to Lewisham, it goes pretty much
along the Old Kent Road; this is a very densely populated area that's very
poorly served by railways, so it would be a great route for a new tube
line, regardless of where it went past Lewisham. You run via stations at
Bricklayers Arms, Thomas a Becket aka Albany Road aka Southernwood Retail
Park aka Burgess Park, Canal Bridge aka Rotherhithe New Road aka Cantium
Retail Park, Queen's Road Peckham, New Cross Gate, Deptford Bridge,
Lewisham. Or something like that.

If it did surface at Peckham Rye, there may be space to four-track from
there to Lewisham: you have to take a house, a car-park, lots of unused
land, dig out some cuttings and build up some embankments, and widen some
bridges, but it is doable.

I'm just not quire sure how it would all work in practice - and it
certainly seems like there'd be many potential pitfalls in taking the
Bakerloo all the way put to Hayes.

Certainly true.

Don't get me wrong - I'm very much in favour of extending the Bakerloo,
I just wonder if this Hayes talk is merely people grasping for a wider
plan which would justify its extension. I think it'd be a great success
even if it was just extended to Camberwell, with an intermediate station
on the Walworth Road - and could even go further south to East Dulwich
(not just the station but into the heart of the neighbourhood), or east
to Peckham. The line's central/southern section has the spare capacity,
and has the unfulfilled potential.

Quite. I think the above route to Lewisham would be a huge boon to Peckham
residents, whether it went on to Hayes or not!

tom

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On Tue, 22 Jan 2008, Mizter T wrote:

Even then I still think that converting the Hayes branch to DLR is a
pretty unworkable idea. Maybe I'm just not imaginative enough.

Okay, let's get imaginative. What if you piggybacked DLR trains on heavy
rail well wagons? Run them at high speed along the Hayes branch, using the
existing stations, and then automatically unload at Lewisham for transfer
to the DLR. Interleave normal trains to London Bridge as now. Solved!

Apart from the fact that a DLR train is 28 metres long and 2.65 metres
wide, which is longer and wider than any normal train, and 3.47 metres
tall, which means that by the time it's piggybacked, it's going to be
about W12 height. Apart from that, it's a great idea, obviously.

tom

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On Jan 22, 5:54*pm, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 22 Jan 2008, Mizter T wrote:
On 20 Jan, 20:12, Mr Thant
wrote:
Mwmbwls wrote:

*The 1974 London Rail Study
believed the cost benefit case to be weak and so Camberwell like
sleeping beauty nodded off until most recently in 2006

Tim O'Toole mentioned it in a Time Out interview last year:
http://londonconnections.blogspot.co...line-extenstio...

Pure rumour says the plan involves the Hayes branch.

I'm not so sure that the travellers on the Hayes branch would really
want it - they already have a 4tph service, two of those being fast from
Ladywell to London Bridge (which is an advantage for those who wish to
get into town quicker, though a disadvantage for those who want Lewisham
either in its own right or for connections including the DLR to the
Docklands).

Indeed. Those wanting London Bridge or the City would have to change at
Lewisham. Or Elephant, after they've sat through some number of additional
stops. The change at Lewisham would have to be pretty painless for this to
work, and there would have to be enough capacity on that line for it.

Would the Bakerloo service intermingle with other services? The Bakerloo
would presumably have to intermingle with freight trains on the line
from Peckham Rye to Lewisham, which could present safety and reliability
issues (though many of the freights do run late or at night). Even if
there was a new separated route constructed through Lewisham for the
Bakerloo to reach the Hayes branch, it would still have to share tracks
with other services from Peckham Rye (if that is indeed where it
surfaced) to the junction just past Nunhead.

I had the idea it was to be a tunnel from Elephant and Castle all the way
to Lewisham, surfacing south of there, from where the Hayes branch is
separate from all other lines (one of the striking things about that
branch that makes it so attractive for tubulation). That would mean it was
an entirely segregated route, and so there were no worries about
intermingling, freight, safety, performance pollution, etc. Plus, it would
reduce conflicts and release capacity on the surface lines.

If you draw a straight line from Elephant to Lewisham, it goes pretty much
along the Old Kent Road; this is a very densely populated area that's very
poorly served by railways, so it would be a great route for a new tube
line, regardless of where it went past Lewisham. You run via stations at
Bricklayers Arms, Thomas a Becket aka Albany Road aka Southernwood Retail
Park aka Burgess Park, Canal Bridge aka Rotherhithe New Road aka Cantium
Retail Park, Queen's Road Peckham, New Cross Gate, Deptford Bridge,
Lewisham. Or something like that.

If it did surface at Peckham Rye, there may be space to four-track from
there to Lewisham: you have to take a house, a car-park, lots of unused
land, dig out some cuttings and build up some embankments, and widen some
bridges, but it is doable.

I'm just not quire sure how it would all work in practice - and it
certainly seems like there'd be many potential pitfalls in taking the
Bakerloo all the way put to Hayes.

Certainly true.

Don't get me wrong - I'm very much in favour of extending the Bakerloo,
I just wonder if this Hayes talk is merely people grasping for a wider
plan which would justify its extension. I think it'd be a great success
even if it was just extended to Camberwell, with an intermediate station
on the Walworth Road - and could even go further south to East Dulwich
(not just the station but into the heart of the neighbourhood), or east
to Peckham. The line's central/southern section has the spare capacity,
and has the unfulfilled potential.

Quite. I think the above route to Lewisham would be a huge boon to Peckham
residents, whether it went on to Hayes or not!

tom


I've long thought that extending the Bakerloo to Lewisham would be
very useful in itself. If it was to extend to Hayes, which is already
signalled to NR standards, wouldn't it be possible to intermingle on
the lines of Queens Park to Harrow?

Maybe the peak Cannon Street service would need to be reduced or
curtailed.

Otherwise, like the distinctly bad DLR idea, it removes the fairly
fast route to London Bridge.

On 21 Jan, 19:50, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Mon, 21 Jan 2008, THC wrote:
On 20 Jan, 20:12, Mr Thant
wrote:

Pure rumour says the plan involves the Hayes branch.

It's more than a rumour, as confirmed by Bakerloo line GM Kevin Bootle
to Modern Railways in November 2007 (p87). *He said that "extending the
line to Hayes remains a live proposition for the longer term".

Which is completely meaningless, since 'live proposition' means everything
from 'we're oiling the TBMs now' to 'a work experience student once had a
look at a map and thought it might be doable'. The only way it could stop
being a live proposition would be if a rift valley opened up in Peckham.

That's as may be but it elevates the prospect from one of pure rumour
to something that is verifiably under consideration. Which makes it
altogether a more likely prospect than your super-Met into south-east
London, no? ;-)

THC

"MIG" wrote

To sum up, i think building those platforms would be a good idea, to add
flexibility and resiliency to the network, and to serve local users
better, but i don't think they're going to deliver extra capacity.

I once had a commute from Swanley to South Bermondsey, and the connection at
Peckham Rye worked well enough. From Chatham itself to London Bridge the
best route is the direct train, or backtracking from Cannon Street if the
fast doesn't stop at LB, although it's a bit slow via Dartford off peak.
From intermediate stations I would take the tube Elephant.

For your other example of Lewisham to Herne Hill I would take a bus from
Denmark Hill, or change at Peckham Rye and walk from North Dulwich.

Loughborough Junction must have been quite a hive of activity when it had
six platforms (2 on the Herne Hill line, two on the Denmark Hill spur - the
remains are still extant, although they haven't been used for at least 90
years - and two on the spur towards Brixton. One of the bronze commuters is
silently waiting on the remains of the Catford Loop platform at Brixton).

I don't think South London line platforms at Loughborough Junction can
really be justified, though platforms on the South London (Atlantic) lines
at Brixton would be well used, though expensive to provide on the viaduct.

Peter

I can see that it's limited, but it's also cheap, and therefore
possibly possible.

And I was thinking about journeys south as well. For example, going
from Lewisham* to Herne Hill really needn't be as difficult as it is.
To do it by train you'd have to clutter up routes into London Bridge
and Blackfriars or Victoria and back out again, when a change at
Brixton or Loughborough Junction would make it simple.

Given the enthusiasm for orbital routes, which I don't entirely share,
surely it should be possible to come in from one direction and travel
along the orbital route a bit before proceeding in or out on another
radial route, thereby benefiting those who don't live directly on the
orbital corridor.

*The route to Victoria has so many signal stops, there might as well
be lots of stations with no effect on journey time.

"Tom Anderson" wrote

If you draw a straight line from Elephant to Lewisham, it goes pretty much
along the Old Kent Road; this is a very densely populated area that's very
poorly served by railways, so it would be a great route for a new tube
line, regardless of where it went past Lewisham. You run via stations at
Bricklayers Arms, Thomas a Becket aka Albany Road aka Southernwood Retail
Park aka Burgess Park, Canal Bridge aka Rotherhithe New Road aka Cantium
Retail Park, Queen's Road Peckham, New Cross Gate, Deptford Bridge,
Lewisham. Or something like that.

There was a missed opportunity when the Bricklayers Arms branch closed. If
the Bakerloo extension surfaced at B Arms and took over the branch, with an
interchange at South Bermondsey, before diving down to reach Lewisham it
would be much cheaper than tunnelling all the way, and have the opportunity
to regenerate what are still run down areas.

Peter

Tom Anderson wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008, MIG wrote:

On Jan 21, 5:08pm, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sun, 20 Jan 2008, MIG wrote:
New stations and better interchanges on existing lines could provide a
lot of new person-routes, both north and south of the Thames, at much
less cost than new lines.

I think the original suggestion was about capacity, not routes. Building
more stations on existing lines can't increase capacity.

There are probably cheaper options than extending the Bakerloo, though.

I can't work out a formula, but it seems to me that if people could
travel more directly to where they wanted to go, spending less time on
the transport networks and travelling a shorter distance, it actually
would increase capacity. Interchanges could make that possible.

To a point. If people are making a journey using lines A, B and C, and you
add an interchange between A and C, it relieves B. It doesn't relieve A or
C, though, and if those are at capacity, it doesn't relieve the
bottleneck. It depends on the details of the network, i suppose.

I think you alluded to platforms on the South London line at Loughborough
Junction (interchanging with the Holborn aka Thameslink line) and Brixton
(interchanging with the Chatham main line). Would those add capacity? I'll
assume that people can come from Batterclapstock, ie on the SLL west of
Brixton, from Peckham, ie along the SLL west of Loughborough Junction,

^^^ I presume you mean *east* of Loogabarooga Juntion, for that is
where Peckham is.

I understand the Batterclapstock amalgam you have created, but the
reality is somewhat more complex -
- Clapham has the Northern line + SLL
- Clapham Junction - which is really in Battersea - is on the main
lines to Waterloo and Victoria
- also in Battersea, the almost adjacent Queenstown Rd and Battersea
Park stations are on the main lines to Waterloo and Victoria
respectively, albeit with less frequent services (plus Battersea Park
is on the SLL - though courtesy of platform lengthening on the other
lines this looks like it will be no longer)
- Stockwell has the Northern line + Victoria line

from the southern part of the Chatham, or the southern part of the
Thameslink route, and want to go to one of Victoria, Blackfriars etc or
London Bridge. Looking at the possible combinations:

Batterclapstock - Victoria: no, wrong way
Batterclapstock - Blackfriars: no, take a radial line into town + change

From Clapham / Stockwell one could go by tube to the Elephant & Castle
then change for a train to Blackfriars, but I wouldn't recommend it -
however the 45 or 63 bus from E&C to Blackfriars would be a good
route.

Batterclapstock - London Bridge: no, direct train already

Yes, from Clapham - and yes from Battersea Park via the SLL, but not
in the future (see above).
No, from Clapham Jn (unless you include the long way round half-hourly
service via the Crystal Palace that takes 37 mins) - but CJ to London
Bridge can be done via Waterloo, either by Jubilee line or by mainline
train from Waterloo East.
Yes, from Stockwell - Northern line.

Peckham - Victoria: no, direct train already
Peckham - Blackfriars: no, go via London Bridge / Cannon Street (?)

Err... how about - go direct from Peckham Rye to Blackfriars (service
starts at Sevenoaks).

Peckham - London Bridge: no, wrong way
Chatham - Victoria: no, direct train already
Chatham - Blackfriars: no, change at Herne Hill
Chatham - London Bridge: maybe
Thameslink - Victoria: no, change at Herne Hill
Thameslink - Blackfriars: no, direct train already
Thameslink - London Bridge: no, change at Elephant or Blackfriars

Yes, change from Thameslink at Tulse Hill and take train to London
Bridge.


The only journey that gets improved is Chatham - London Bridge: if you're
south of Penge, you can get a direct train or a good change (at Shortlands
or Penge). If you're north of there, you either backtrack to Penge, or do
a double change via Herne and Tulse Hills, both of which are a bit
awkward. Being able to change at Brixton onto an SLL train would make life
easier, even though the SLL route to London Bridge is a bit roundabout.
This would take people off the Tulse Hill or New Cross Gate lines into
London Bridge, and put them on the SLL. Possibly a minor win, i'm not
sure.

If you are considering a journey from the Chatham main line to London
Bridge via Loughborough Jn, that would still mean a change at Herne
Hill too. Plus, the SLL service look like it is getting kicked out of
London Bridge to make way for Thameslink 2000. The ELLX phase 2 will
likely be coming to the SLL however.

Also, passengers wanting London Bridge from the vicinity of Kent House
can go from nearby Clock House; from the vicinity of Penge East they
can go from Penge West; from the vicinity of West Dulwich they can go
from North Dulwich; and from Sydenham Hill they could go from the
nearbyish Gipsy Hill station.


To sum up, i think building those platforms would be a good idea, to add
flexibility and resiliency to the network, and to serve local users
better, but i don't think they're going to deliver extra capacity.

tom


As MIG has already stated, your analysis purely looks at journeys into
central London and ignores other journeys. However, even when one
considers many of these other possible journeys, the case isn't
amazingly strong - many such journeys can be achieved using a change
elsewhere, or by using a bus for a bit of the journey (try me!).

When the ELLX phase 2 comes, interchange at Loughborough Jn would
offer some further possibilities, but again they are largely available
elsewhere.

In addition constructing platforms on the SLL at Loughborough Jn would
be *very* expensive - it is on a viaduct at this point. From a train
it might look easy, but take a look from the street and you'll see
that it ain't. If there was to be platforms anywhere along the SLL,
then Brixton would take preference - but again the line is high up on
a viaduct here. As I put forward in another thread, perhaps rebuilding
East Brixton station on the SLL might be the best bet - it's a far
easier location than either Brixton or Loughborough Jn, and whilst
hardly ideal for interchange purposes, and would serve the locality of
Loughborough Jn as well.

Don't get me wrong, I am all in favour of connecting the dots and
creating interchanges - like so many others I also look out of train
windows and see the missed potential, and the SLL flying over
Loughborough Jn is a particularly easy one to spot. However, a cold
hard look at the benefits arguably reveals that perhaps it isn't quite
the magic wand solution that it might at first seem.

On 22 Jan, 10:18, Mwmbwls wrote:
On Jan 21, 9:14 pm, Jamie Thompson wrote:

I was looking at the South London options for developing the network
the other day, and it seems to me that the Hayes branch is pretty
much the only option for the DLR, so it should probably go to
that, with the Bakerloo going elsewhere, though going through
Lewisham is probably still a good idea.

I am not sure that the DLR would offer sufficient capacity down the
Hayes corridor - the South of London RUS is now proposing 6 twelve car
trains per hour in the peak. Plans for the original Fleet line to link
Lewisham with Fenchurch Street were abandoned in 1977 and at that
time
an extension of the East London Line from New Cross to Lewisham and
from Shoreditch to Liverpool Street were proposed instead. Thereafter
long grass grew and memories faded. Under the current proposals, I
have always felt that New Cross, like Elephant and Castle, is too
close to the City to be a viable terminus and that an ELL phase 3
extension to relieve Lewisham, possibly going on to Hayes would be a
good idea. It would at some point be necessary to tackle the four
coach constraint limit on the Canada Water - Whitechapel section of
the ELL but I believe that is going to be inevitable anyway sooner or
later. The London Overground proposal already contains links to the
"Not quite Outer Circle" core route from the east from Barking,and the
north from Watford and suggestions were made for a western extension
from Wimbledon to Clapham Junction. Linking the south east quadrant in
a similar manner could be worth considering.

Mwmbwls - "Renowned Builders of Castles in the Air to the Gentry" -
our motto - "Everything will be fine until you try to move in."


Interesting ideas, in particular the notion of the ELLX continuing
from New Cross down to Hayes which I do quite like!

I suppose one argument in favour of the terminus at New Cross is that
during times of disruption on the Croydon/Crystal Palace 'branch' it
would help to provide the rest of the line with a reliable, if
degraded, service - and passengers from Southeastern services could
still change onto it at New Cross.

I'm not so sure of your certainty that ELLX trains are going to get
much longer than four carriages. If Wapping and Rotherhithe were
closed and with judicious use of SDO and perhaps some platform level
works, perhaps six carriages might be possible - though without major
works I'm not sure how feasible this would be. I don't know whether
passive provision is being made at the new ELLX stations for longer
trains. Of course whether the Hayes branch could get by with four car
ELLX trains, even if they were just part of the mix, is questionable
(as you implicitly seem to acknowledge).

What's this ' "Not quite Outer Circle" core route from the east from
Barking' of which you speak - it would involve taking c2c aka London,
Tilbury and Southend trains up the so-called GOBLIN to Gospel Oak and
beyond?