In message , at 10:09:41 on Thu, 4
Dec 2008, Andrew Heenan remarked:
And where is the obvious place "past Shenfield"? Colchester is the
nearest that makes sense.
Wha? Chelmsford?
Doesn't have the required capacity to turn trains. The track beyond
Shenfield is also already quite busy with longer distance trains.

I suspect you've missed the point of Crossrail; it could substitute for some
of those trains, not necessarily add to them.

Only by removing capacity from stations beyond Chelmsford (or wherever
you put the mk2 terminus).
--
Roland Perry

On 4 Dec, 10:07, "Andrew Heenan" wrote:
What is so great about Shenfield?

The point of the northeast branch is to provide new capacity to
Stratford to relieve the Central Line. East of there the destination
really doesn't matter from a capacity point of view, but the local
services are the obvious choice given their existing high frequency,
high degree of segregation and the platform layout at Stratford.

U

In message
Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 09:48:12 on Thu, 4
Dec 2008, Graeme Wall remarked:
Don't know if it still exists in the current economic situation, but
there used to be a lot of traffic between high tech firms in the Thames
Valley and places like Marconi at Chelmsford.

I think the main demise is that "places like Marconi" have almost ceased
to exist in Chelmsford!

So what does it do now to justify it's existance?

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

In message , at 10:57:34 on Thu, 4
Dec 2008, Graeme Wall remarked:
Don't know if it still exists in the current economic situation, but
there used to be a lot of traffic between high tech firms in the Thames
Valley and places like Marconi at Chelmsford.

I think the main demise is that "places like Marconi" have almost ceased
to exist in Chelmsford!

So what does it do now to justify it's existance?

Mainly a dormitory, but plenty of financial industry offices that have
moved out of London.
--
Roland Perry

In message
Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 10:57:34 on Thu, 4
Dec 2008, Graeme Wall remarked:
Don't know if it still exists in the current economic situation, but
there used to be a lot of traffic between high tech firms in the
Thames Valley and places like Marconi at Chelmsford.

I think the main demise is that "places like Marconi" have almost ceased
to exist in Chelmsford!

So what does it do now to justify it's existance?

Mainly a dormitory, but plenty of financial industry offices that have
moved out of London.

So not a lot going for it :-)

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

In message , at 11:37:22 on Thu, 4
Dec 2008, Graeme Wall remarked:
Chelmsford!

So what does it do now to justify it's existance?

Mainly a dormitory, but plenty of financial industry offices that have
moved out of London.

So not a lot going for it :-)

I grew up there, and to my eyes it has been vastly "over-developed" with
fill-in housing, medium sized office blocks, and bits of shopping mall
tacked onto what was once quite a traditional High Street. They've even
built flats on the old bus station (next to the train^H^H railway
station).
--
Roland Perry

On 2008-12-03 23:54:11 +0000, Tom Anderson said:

On Tue, 2 Dec 2008, Peter Masson wrote:

"Tom Anderson" wrote

No, Crossrail should stop at Slough, and concentrate on being an
affordable and effective suburban railway, and not a pie-in-the-sky all
things to all people scheme.

Crossrail will go to Maidenhead, Heathrow, Shenfield, and Abbey Wood.
Any strong pressure to change any of these destinations is more likely
to mean that Crossrail doesn't happen at all than that changes will be
made.

Yes. I'm not quite mad enough to argue for changes at this stage -
rather, i point out that the scheme is not optimal. It shouldn't really
be going to the GWML at all - the Waterloo lines would be a much better
destination, but for obscure reasons, they were dropped from
consideration a very long time ago.

Subsequent add-ons are possible - Reading is the obvious one, so that
diesel trains out of Paddington can be eliminated from the Relief
Lines, while the Main Lines can become a totally 125 mph railway.

By which everyone at Reading travels to London. Nobody at Reading is
going to get on a Crossrail stopper to London when they could get a
fast train. The only market is for local commuting into Reading, and
that market isn't big enough to justify the expense.

The market may not be big enough to justify electrification, but based
on /numbers/ of passengers, I understand that more people travel /to/
Reading (from all the different directions) in the mornings these days
as travel /from/ Reading to Paddington. So there are already quite
large flows from the Ascot and Guildford via Wokingham and Paddington -
Slough - Maidenhead directions at least to counterbalance the 'towards
London' flows.
Of course this effect makes the eastbound flows from points west and
south of Reading even fuller!


Gravesend is a long shot, but may be needed for (and financed by)
development in the Thames Gateway.

Ditto.

Another destination west of Paddington would be nice, but no-one has
come up with any convincing case.

Hampton Court! The SWML is crying out for Crossrail - a single-seat
ride along it into the City would relieve Waterloo, the W&C, and the
southern Circle. The trouble is that you'd need to bore quite a bit
more tunnel in central London - probably on a route something like the
1938 Northern line plan:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/twic/1591807010/sizes/o/

Perhaps diving into tunnel at Battersea, and running Victoria, perhaps
Green Park and then Oxford Street. Not at all cheap.

Richmond - Kingston did not attract universal support. Amersham -
Aylesbury would be nice, so that the Met line can concentrate on
Uxbridge and Watford, while the fast lines beyond Harrow-on-the-Hill
would become single use by Crossrail, and electrified at 25 kV OHLE.
But traffic density is insufficient to generate a business case. More
trains can't be pushed down the GWML - there's not teh demand, and
capacity is needed for freight west of Acton Yard. So I think we're
stuck with the Westbourne Park reversing sidings.

Realistically, yes.

tom


--
Robert

Graeme Wall writes:

Line 2 has an elevated section which crosses the throat of Gare du Nord.

More than half of line 6 is elevated.

In article ,
Graeme Wall wrote:
In message
Sarah Brown wrote:

Similarly, London Bridge to Canon Street & Blackfriars - ish.


I'd included the latter in my original comment about south London, most of
the ex-SR terminals are fed by an elevated system.

Sorry - I'd lost track of the thread a bit.

On Thu, 4 Dec 2008, Graeme Wall wrote:

In message
Tom Anderson wrote:

On Tue, 2 Dec 2008, Peter Masson wrote:

"Tom Anderson" wrote

No, Crossrail should stop at Slough, and concentrate on being an
affordable and effective suburban railway, and not a pie-in-the-sky all
things to all people scheme.

Crossrail will go to Maidenhead, Heathrow, Shenfield, and Abbey Wood.
Any strong pressure to change any of these destinations is more likely
to mean that Crossrail doesn't happen at all than that changes will be
made.

Yes. I'm not quite mad enough to argue for changes at this stage - rather,
i point out that the scheme is not optimal. It shouldn't really be going
to the GWML at all - the Waterloo lines would be a much better
destination, but for obscure reasons, they were dropped from consideration
a very long time ago.

How do you come up with that conclusion?

By reading the cross-London rail studies, going back to the 70s. There's a
report from the late 70s that considers various branches in the west,
including the GWML and SWML, and the SWML comes out as the winner. The
next report, from some point in the 80s, starts off by saying "we're
considering a cross-London route from the GWML to somewhere in the east".
The SWML option is simply not considered. All very odd.

With the city business centre moving eastward it leaves Paddington even
further from many commuters ultimate destination. Waterloo has good
links to both the City and Docklands (the Drain and the Northern and
Jubilee Lines) already.

All of which are creaking under the strain. The worst overcrowding in
London is on the eastern corridor into the City, and some way into the
west end, which is why Crossrail is going to run from Stratford to Oxford
Street. The second worst congestion is on the lines from the southwest
(Clapham Junction-ish) into the City. If the goal of Crossrail is to help
people make journeys, then the right place for it is connecting those two
corridors.

The fact that the majority of Crossrail trains aren't going to go any
further west than Paddington shows just how little demand there is on that
route. The GWML was selected for two reasons: connecting Heathrow, and
supporting regeneration in the western wedge. These aren't transport
reasons, they're political reasons, designed to secure support from the
government. That doesn't make them bad reasons, but it does mean that the
scheme is suboptimal.

Also one of the principal objectives of Crossrail is to relieve the
pressure on the Central line, going to Waterloo won't help that.

Nor will going to Paddington, Maidenhead or Reading.

tom

--
I'm angry, but not Milk and Cheese angry. -- Mike Froggatt