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#51
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On Dec 27 2007, 6:26*pm, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 08:46:24 on Thu, 27 Dec 2007, Paul Weaver remarked: A decision on whether to extend the £16billion Crossrail scheme to Reading will be made in the New Year, it emerged today. If it is, then presumably the current semifast services from Reading will be relegated to all-stops, and there won't be much choice for passangers from the Slough-Reading corridor Is that what another poster referred to in a different thread as "St Alban-isation"? (I took this to be a reference to BedPan electrification meaning mainline services no longer stopped there). -- Yes, you took right g But St Albanisation (I coined it!) in this context would mean eliminating inter-city stops at Slough. (Then you would have what might be called Sloughification ![]() I think what is being referred to here is a downgrade, ie more stops inserted, of the current semi-fasts Reading - PDN. Kester |
#52
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#54
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On Mon, 31 Dec 2007, Adrian the Rock wrote:
Tom Anderson wrote: On Sun, 30 Dec 2007, Adrian the Rock wrote: In many cases the underground itself provides a third group of "ultra-inner" services. What? No. I don't think that's true. I think LU routes are generally of about the same extent as NR inners. The Brighton line inners you mention end at Purley... ... while the LUL lines only go as far as Elephant, Brixton and Morden. Morden's only Z4, granted, but the other two are hardly representative cases. I accept it's a bit different north of the river, where LU lines generally do go further out, Quite! but many of them don't run parallel or even near to NR lines anyway. No. But you can still compare their extent. But certainly, for the point you're making, they're not helpful. But Ealing Broadway and West Ruislip are good examples of the comparison I was making, while the corresponding inner suburban trains on NR go to Hayes and High Wycombe respecively. I'd say that Ealing Broadway is the Brixton of the west - it's somewhere where LU lines stop noticeably short, because they've reached a major interchange and traffic generator, and the onward route is already covered by NR. I don't think that's typical (although it's certainly not uncommon, so maybe i'm kidding myself here!). Also, bear in mind that the District used to go beyond Ealing Broadway, all the way to Windsor, in the 80s. The 1880s, that is. A quick look at the Chiltern timetable suggests that trains to High Wycombe mostly go on to Aylesbury or Banbury; i think that makes such trains outer suburban services, and thus that the Central line service is the inner service on this route. And the other point, of course, is that LU lines have more closely spaced stations, which obviously makes journey times longer. Eg there are far more District line stations between Z1 and Wimbledon/Richmond than if you go by SWT from Waterloo. True. Although the Victoria line is an interesting, if ultimately futile, counterexample. Most of these don't run alongside NR routes, but obvious examples are the District/Central lines to Ealing/Richmond/W Ruislip and the Jubilee to Stanmore. So in effect the inner suburban services over NR are usually the second tier, not the first. What are the NR inners on those routes? Ealing see above; Richmond, the SWT services to Kingston/Hounslow loop etc; W Ruislip see above. Hmm. I'm not entirely convinced about Richmond; i think the District and Windsor lines have a relationship a bit like the Jubilee and Central at Stratford, where one terminates having provided a slightly round-the-houses route, and one carries on straight through to the fringes of the city. The Met&GC line is unusual in that only the outer suburban service (Alyesbury) runs over NR tracks, with the Metropolitan line providing the inner suburban service. But note that even this has multiple tiers - Amersham semi-fasts vs Uxbridge/Watford stoppers. Vs the Jubilee, which provides a yet innermore layer of service on that route. Inners are usually all-stops. A service to Aylesbury would be an outer. Indeed. Were the GW&GC to become an arm of Crossrail, I would certainly envisage inners to (at furthest) High Wycombe with separate outers to Aylesbury. Okay, i see, apologies. Part of Crossrail's problem is that it tries to straddle the fence between inners and outers, providing both a high-frequency, short-distance service in town, and a fast long-distance service at the fringes... I think we're broadly agreeing there are some issues around this, anyway. Yes, i think you're right. ... Well, at the western end: the Shenfield service is a straightforward all-stops to-roughly-the-edge-of-Z6 service. It's the attempt to go to Maidenhead and Reading that's causing schizophrenia... That's one view, but I would turn the coin on its head and say it shows a lack of ambition to run only that far on the eastern stretch. This is why I'm concerned about the 'Ken factor' having too much influence, as their formal responsibilities stop at Z6. Ah, right. Now, here we come to the fundamental and age-old argument about Crossrail, and all other such projects: should it be a suburban service, like a funny tube line, or a way to let long-distance trains run into town? For Crossrail, the argument was settled in favour of serving London (except for Maidenhead); for Thameslink 2000, in favour of serving the home counties. The argument was also fought over Chelsea-Hackney, with proposals to run trains to Peterborough, Cambridge, Farnham, Southampton, etc; i think it's too early to say that that's been settled at all! I don't think the decision is about a lack of ambition, it's about the priorities of the stakeholders and, to some extent, the situation on the ground. The reason we're debating this is, i think, because we're from different camps: what really matters to me is improving transport for London, and what matters to you is improving it for the whole of the south-east. Have you come across the Superlink proposal? That's a version of Crossrail put forward by some old railway hands that does exactly what you want. One of the interesting features is that it would attract a lot more farebox revenue, and so would cost the state less, even though it's a bit more expensive to build. I'd surely have thought there would be a market for through trains from places like Colchester and Southend to points west of London - Heathrow is surely a no-brainer, but the Thames Valley itself is a thriving business zone and this would make it far more accessible from Essex. Again, think how successful Bedford - Brighton is. Absolutely! A service from the depths of the home counties to the middle of London would be very popular indeed. As would such a service from Shenfield, of course ![]() tom -- Things fall apart - it's scientific |
#55
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#56
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My completely off-the-wall idea is to join up Crossrail with the
Hammersmith & City and run Crossrail trains (from Shenfield) that would otherwise terminate at Paddington on to Hammersmith. After all, Crossrail as proposed is just another tube line - Shenfield is closer than Amersham, hardly further than Epping or Upminster. The pattern could be: 4 fast Heathrow 4 slow Heathrow 8 Maidenhead / Reading 8 Hammersmith Or 12 Hammersmith if Ken can't get BAA to agree to HeX on Crossrail. For Crossrail it would save all the expense of the sidings and ghost station needed to satisfy Health & Safety re passengers staying on terminating trains at Paddington. There would be a huge benefit to the Circle Line. All Circle and Wimbleware trains would continue beyond Edgware Road, providing for the first time since 1868 a proper much-needed frequent service from west to north Circle, dramatically improving performance by removing the conflicts and bottleneck west of Edgware Road. Running as a Teapot line (Wimbledon - Edgware Road - Aldgate - High St Ken - Edgware Road - Aldgate and vice versa) would solve the Circle problem as well. The two lines virtually intersect at Paddington anyway so joining them shouldn't be too difficult. Platform lengthening and ancillary works at the H&C stations, plus a new Royal Oak, would be challenging, but no doubt not insurmountable. |
#57
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#58
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Tom Anderson wrote:
On Fri, 4 Jan 2008, wrote: My completely off-the-wall idea is to join up Crossrail with the Hammersmith & City and run Crossrail trains (from Shenfield) that would otherwise terminate at Paddington on to Hammersmith. You're not the first person to suggest this. I can't remember who was, at least on utl, but it's a cudgel i've taken up. It's an excellent idea. The pattern could be: 4 fast Heathrow 4 slow Heathrow 8 Maidenhead / Reading 8 Hammersmith Or 12 Hammersmith if Ken can't get BAA to agree to HeX on Crossrail. Which they won't. Current plans, the last i heard, only have 10 tph going beyond Paddington - 4 tph to Heathrow, 2 tph to West Drayton, and 4 tph to Maidenhead, all all-stops, i think, although exactly what happens at the far end is still up in the air. That's 14 tph to dispose of at Paddington, which would be a doubling of the current H&C frequency. I think the constraint on frequency at Heathrow is the need to reverse. This is one reason the Airtrack plan is such a good one - you can run trains on from T5 to Staines and reverse there, where there's room for a higher-capacity layout. That would let more trains go to Heathrow (well, Staines), although at the expense of other destinations i think. Not sure about that Tom, doesn't the current airtrack proposal only have terminating trains from Staines originating both at Waterloo, and from the Woking direction (including Guildford). In other words the 'HEx' tracks at T5 are arranged as entering one pair of platforms, from the central area, alongside a currently unused space for trains from the 'airtrack' route only. Side by side two platform terminii, rather than a four platform through station? Clearly if Crossrail had dual voltage units there is no basic reason they couldn't carry on onto the SW lines, but does the T5 station even allow for this future possibility? Paul S |
#59
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And there I was thinking I'd invented it! I won't even mention my
earlier rather more hare-brained idea of splitting the Bakerloo west of Paddington to take over the Hammersmith branch... Be that as it may, the Circle Line problem I was referring to was not the flat junctions, fiddly though they are, but the problem of running round in circles exacerbating delays and preventing recovery, which led to the current (I believe) proposal for the Hammersmith - Aldgate - H St Ken - Edgware Road "teacup". My suggestion would replace this with the Wimbledon - Edgware Rd - Aldgate - H St Ken - Aldgate loop. Any late running can thus be absorbed by reduced layovers, short turns at Moorgate or Putney Bridge etc etc. There are no spare H&C paths in all this; they are taken up by the trains from Wimbledon extended over the north circle. The frequency end-to-end would be every 8 mins, giving a 4-minute frequency where the route wraps round itself between High St Ken and Aldgate (via King's Cross). Earl's Court - High St Ken, Aldgate - Tower Hill and Gloucester Rd - H St Ken each every 8 mins as at present. [Assuming 2- min headways round the circle - I'm not sure exactly how many tph run nowadays; in the good old days of District trains to Hounslow they managed to squeeze 1 1/2 min headways through the south side.] The only other change would be rerouting & extension of some Met trains (presumably Uxbridge) every 8 mins to Barking instead of Aldgate, in place of the H&Cs. And if they can run 10 or 12 tph from Crossrail to Hammersmith, even better - that addresses TfL's other objective of increased capacity on the Hammersmith branch (which would also be achieved with 10-car trains at the existing frequency; but the line really needs a more frequent service with White City et al). So benefits all round! Paul W |
#60
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Re the confusion of Crossrail as an inner or outer service & The
Central/District/Piccadilly western branches: Just had the thought (and posted it elsewhere) that there might be benefit from extending the Central line from Ealing to Hayes & Halington (inner) and leaving Crossrail to do: *Paddington, Hayes & Harlington, Heathrow *Padding - Hayes & Harlington - West Drayton, Iver, Langley, Slough, Burnham, Taplow, Maidenhead, Twyford, Reading. This gives an express service from central London to Heathrow as well as decent and simple (reliable) service pattern for the 'slow' Reading trains. The only thing I can see which might prevent this is whether it is practical to extend the Central line to H&H. I've also been convinced that Crosrail isn't best placed to deal with the Shenfield Metro. A simple 'Wimblefield' tube (via Liverpool St and Victoria) would do better to match up the demand from the district Wimbledon branch and the Shenfield Metro. This would relieve the Circle line and in turn leave the the Piccadilly with just Heathrow. The other arm of Crossrail would then be an outer Great Eastern service (or C2C) to match up with the outer Great Western Service. On 30 Dec 2007, 23:48, Tom Anderson wrote: On Sun, 30 Dec 2007, Adrian the Rock wrote: "Richard J." wrote: Colin McKenzie wrote: I hope the principle that Crossrail should be all-stations has been established. Then you'll be disappointed. The planned Crossrail timetable involves some trains non-stopping certain stations west of Paddington in order to leave paths for some west-of-Maidenhead FGW trains on the relief lines... Glad to hear this - the suggestion of every train stopping at every station to Maidenhead seemed utter madness to me too. Firstly, it's been standard and established practice for many years now to have separate outer and inner suburban services on major London suburban/commuter lines. For example the Brighton lines have their Metro and Sussex Coast services, out of KX the inners run to Welwyn GC/Hertford N, and so on. In many cases the underground itself provides a third group of "ultra-inner" services. What? No. I don't think that's true. I think LU routes are generally of about the same extent as NR inners. The Brighton line inners you mention end at Purley, which is in Z6, as are many (well, some) of the LU end-of-the-lines. The ends of inners on other lines are Watford Junction, Potters Bar, Cheshunt, and Shenfield, which are all roughly at the edge of Z6 - they're all closer to London than Epping, i think. St Albans is a notable exception. Most of these don't run alongside NR routes, but obvious examples are the District/Central lines to Ealing/Richmond/W Ruislip and the Jubilee to Stanmore. So in effect the inner suburban services over NR are usually the second tier, not the first. What are the NR inners on those routes? Colin McKenzie wrote: (Adrian the Rock) wrote: The other extension to Crossrail that seems fairly obvious to me is to extend the trains currently planned to terminate at Paddington up the former GW&GC joint line. =A0Bring the Old Oak - Northolt East line back into proper use, rebuild the main line platforms at Greenford, making this the first stop out of Padd, then run all-stations to Princes Risboro and Aylesbury (some trains probably terminating at High Wycombe). =A0But this is clearly too extensive to be sensible to include in the initial project. The principle of an all-stations service stands, so you'd need to give serious thought to reallocating the Central Line tracks beyond about Greenford... No, because this is mixing underground and inner suburban stopping patterns. Inners are usually all-stops. A service to Aylesbury would be an outer. Part of Crossrail's problem is that it tries to straddle the fence between inners and outers, providing both a high-frequency, short-distance service in town, and a fast long-distance service at the fringes. Well, at the western end: the Shenfield service is a straightforward all-stops to-roughly-the-edge-of-Z6 service. It's the attempt to go to Maidenhead and Reading that's causing schizophrenia. The ideal solution would be for Crossrail to go to Slough on its own pair of tracks, leaving a slow pair for trains that run fast to Slough and stopping beyond that to Windsor, Henley, Reading, and perhaps even Oxford, and then a fast pair for trains that run fast to Reading and then do whatever beyond that. Sadly, we don't have six pairs to Slough, only four. tom -- We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, and a whole galaxy of multi colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers... and also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls. Not that we needed all this for the trip, but once you get locked in a serious drug collection, the tendency is to push it as far as you can. -- Hunter S. Thompson, 'Fear and loathing in Las Vegas' |
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