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.

tom

--
History is about battles, great men, gory executions and wigs. That is
all. -- The Richelieu Association

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 could make a cut and cover extension more straightforward? :-)

Paul

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. It'd be a bit unbalanced though, so
extending the Stratford branch up the Lee valley or taking over some
of the metro services of the GEML might prove beneficial....and if it
all gets too busy for a DLR-style service...it can always be upgraded;
after all, the hard work comes from securing the basic alignments.

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008, 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,

A better option for the DLR is not to go any further at all. The DLR is an
excellent short-distance transport system, but it's too slow and
low-capacity to be a sensible thing to send great distances. It's a bus on
steroids (or a tram on a pie and mash diet), not a substitute for a real
railway.

though going through Lewisham is probably still a good idea. It'd be a
bit unbalanced though, so extending the Stratford branch up the Lee
valley or taking over some of the metro services of the GEML might prove
beneficial....and if it all gets too busy for a DLR-style service...it
can always be upgraded; after all, the hard work comes from securing the
basic alignments.

The beauty of the DLR is that you can build it on alignments that wouldn't
take a heavy rail route; that means it's not necessarily a useful
pathfinder for subsequent upgrading. Of course, if you take alignments and
build bridges and tunnels with this in mind, you can do it, but it means
throwing away much of the cost advantage of the DLR.

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.

tom

--
It is a laborious madness, and an impoverishing one, the madness of
composing vast books. -- Jorge Luis Borges

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.

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.

Jonn

On 22 Jan, 09:29, 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.

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.

Jonn

The East London Line extension project is the nail in the coffin for
any such ideas. Interchange between the District/H&C and the ELLX at
Whitechapel is very easy anyway. I wonder if Whitechapel will get
lifts for this purpose by the time the ELLX (re)opens...

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 22 Jan, 00:37, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Mon, 21 Jan 2008, 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,

A better option for the DLR is not to go any further at all. The DLR is an
excellent short-distance transport system, but it's too slow and
low-capacity to be a sensible thing to send great distances. It's a bus on
steroids (or a tram on a pie and mash diet), not a substitute for a real
railway.

I have to broadly agree with you on that one - taking the DLR all the
way to Hayes seems improbable. Also, bear in mind that the DLR model
involves there being many more stations, which would increase journey
time quite significantly - that's unlikely to please many Hayes line
users. Plus, even if it were more frequent, could even a three car DLR
train provide equivalent capacity to the existing service.

The only argument for a Hayes conversion to DLR that makes any sense
is that a great many of the passengers are commuting to the Docklands,
and are currently changing at Lewisham. Even then I still think that
converting the Hayes branch to DLR is a pretty unworkable idea. Maybe
I'm just not imaginative enough.

On 22 Jan, 11:12, Mizter T wrote:
On 22 Jan, 00:37, Tom Anderson wrote:

On Mon, 21 Jan 2008, 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,

A better option for the DLR is not to go any further at all. The DLR is an
excellent short-distance transport system, but it's too slow and
low-capacity to be a sensible thing to send great distances. It's a bus on
steroids (or a tram on a pie and mash diet), not a substitute for a real
railway.

I have to broadly agree with you on that one - taking the DLR all the
way to Hayes seems improbable. Also, bear in mind that the DLR model
involves there being many more stations, which would increase journey
time quite significantly - that's unlikely to please many Hayes line
users. Plus, even if it were more frequent, could even a three car DLR
train provide equivalent capacity to the existing service.

The only argument for a Hayes conversion to DLR that makes any sense
is that a great many of the passengers are commuting to the Docklands,
and are currently changing at Lewisham. Even then I still think that
converting the Hayes branch to DLR is a pretty unworkable idea. Maybe
I'm just not imaginative enough.

Among a great many other things, I've no idea about the mechanical
characteristics of a DLR unit, so can't comment about things such as
acceleration nor top speeds (say the Hayes branch would maintain it's
current stations and not adopt the DLR-style of almost tram stop
frequencies ), but the same argument could be said that the DLR is
insufficient for serving Canary Wharf itself, given the number of
commuters, hence the need to increase the number of units per train.
Don't get me wrong, I think the DLR is a great system that did/does
it's job near enough perfectly, which is to cheaply provide mass
transport on the cheap to spur regeneration. Eventually though, you
hit a point when that phase is complete, and you have to move more
people than you can deal with, and then it's the time to move to
something with more capacity, e.g. medium or even heavy rail. Though,
if they can get the DLR capacity up to tube levels, that's probably
just as good. It's the capacity that matters, not the means. The only
reason I suggest the Lee Valley to Hayes is that it would provide a
downstream heavy rail crossing between the GE lines and SE lines that
could be quite useful, though I suppose we'll (hopefully!) get the
Abbey wood CrossRail tunnel, so perhaps it'd be a fringe benefit at
best.

My main aim with linking things up is to remove services upstream, to
provide better interchange viability as the outer services could then
get to the central area faster (and there would be more terminal
capacity for them). The same can be achieved with shuttle services
though, but opening up new direct journey opportunities is always a
good thing. IIRC, I read something somewhere about the DLR plans for
it to head south to Catford ( or maybe Beckenham Junction? ), but they
built Lewisham station in such a fashion (below the road, but not
deep enough for tunnel nor high enough for viaduct) that it become
much more difficult. So not *totally* random ideas.

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

--
space, robots, pirates, vikings, ninjas, medieval castles, dinosaurs,
cities, suburbia, holiday locations, wild west, the Arctic, airports,
boats, racing cars, trains, Star Wars, Harry Potter, Spider-Man, Batman,
SpongeBob SquarePants, Avatar: The Last Airbender and more