West London Line - what recession?
 

"Nobody" wrote in message

"E27002" wrote in message

On Oct 27, 3:37 pm, "Chris Read" wrote:


That sort of work for British companies is now normally done in
Mumbai or Bangalore. They're a lot cheaper than Edinburgh, Los
Angeles, or Omaha.


grin and OT: but if you're gonna write "Mumbai" for Bombay, please
be consistent and use "Bengaluru" for Bangalore...

Yes, I did think of that, but felt that the former had caught on a lot
more than the latter. The latter is also not as cheap as it used to be.

West London Line - what recession?
 

On Oct 28, 2:54*pm, "Recliner" wrote:
"E27002" wrote in message







On Oct 27, 3:37 pm, "Chris Read" wrote:
"E27002" wrote:
London's costs, including transit fares, are a factor in making
London and unattractive metropolis in which to do business.

Really? People won't do business here because a bus fare costs about
half the price of a small coffee in Starbucks?

When we have people hiding in trucks at Dover, trying to escape the
UK, as opposed to hiding in trucks at Calais trying to get in, I'll
accept that we're no longer a good place to do business.

When I choose an IT contract there are certain cost that I take into
account, the rate, the cost of temporary accommodation, food and
transportation costs. *I then factor in issues like safety and the
local environment.

London tends to be less attractive than Edinburgh, Los Angeles, or
Omaha. *But, you needn't be concerned; you have plenty of folks
waiting in trucks at Calais. *I am sure they will be able to install
and maintain software at your companies, financial institutions, etc.

That sort of work for British companies is now normally done in Mumbai
or Bangalore. *They're a lot cheaper than Edinburgh, Los Angeles, or
Omaha.

They have been less expensive. I have heard the India is now enjoying
wage inflation in the IT sector.

My son, and I, have done rather well over the years correcting and
implementing some of the product of these off-shore facilities.

West London Line - what recession?
 

On Oct 28, 3:42*pm, Jamie Thompson wrote:
On 28 Oct, 19:19, Stephen Furley wrote:





On 28 Oct, 12:19, Jamie *Thompson wrote:

On 28 Oct, 07:10, Stephen Furley wrote:

On 28 Oct, 04:05, D7666 wrote:

I would have thought the most significant length constraint would be
Willesden Junction (for LO trains obviously not SN). To extend that to
8-car would involve bridging WCML and that would not come cheap.

Which would put the high-level station back just about where it used
to be. *I'm certainly not holding my breath for that to happen.
They've been talking about re-building the platforms on the slow lines
almost since the old ones were demolished. *I'm not expecting that to
happen in my lifetime either.

How long were the platforms at the old station? *Given the previous
platform lengths at various other North London Line stations, I'm
guessing that they were rather longer than at the present station.

The original station also had a third platform, generally known as the
'Earls Court Bay', though I believe it was actually a through
platform, rather than a real bay. *If this was still available it
would have avoided the situation which existed a few years ago, I'm
not sure if it still does now as I haven't used the line for some
time, where a train arriving from the WLL is held just before the
junction while trains run through in both directions on the NLL, so
you then have a long wait for a connection on that line.

This is why NEW tube lines - be they tube size or main line size -
need to get under way now as they take 10 years to build even once
planning is done, and that takes years too.

An LU person at a LURS meeting at the time that the Jubilee Line
extension was being either planned or constructed stated that this was
being built to traditional tube dimensions only because the rest of
the tube section of the line was that size, and that any future tube
line would almost certainly be to take surface stock size trains, as
the cost of tunneling to the larger size would not be much greater
using modern equipment and techniques.

Don't suppose you know of any diagrams of the old pre-1960's layout of
Willesden Junction?

I hear odd descriptions from time to time, but the best I've ever
managed were a few scattered old photos that didn't really give any
indication of how it all was laid out.

Something for the station's wikipedia page perhaps :)

No sorry, and I don't know much about it. *There was a track in the
second bay, next to platform 2, in the 'new' station. *I have seen a
picture of the old high level station; the two main tracks were served
by side platforms as I remember, and one of these was an island with
the 'Earls Court' track on the other side of it. *The signalbox seems
to have been just at the end of the ramps of the high-level platforms
in the pictures I've seen. *The bridge which gives access to the high-
level platforms also used to serve the main line platforms, I know
this because until not too many years ago old painted over signs
pointing to these platforms could just be made out on this bridge.

Before the old ticket office was demolished, with the odd situation
that you had to cross a road to get from the ticket office to the
platforms, a bricked-up doorway could just be made out in one of the
walls, which I think would also have provided access to these
platforms.

In the South-West you have Clapham Junction, with lots of platforms on
all lines, and most trains stopping there. *In the North-East you have
something similar at Stratford. *it always seemed to me that Willesden
Junction should be the one in the North-West, though there's not
really an obvious one in the South-East.

Thank you. I'll try and work on my mental image of all that.

I agree about the four interchanges. In the south east I guess London
Bridge fulfils the role, dealing as it does with both the southern and
south-eastern mainlines. One of the options considered for Thameslink
was new tunnel from Kings Cross to Bermondsey, with the tunnel to St
Pancras being the cop-out. In my various musings about how things
could be, I usually settle on building a new station on the scale of
CJ/WJ/Stratford roughly where the lines converge next to Millwall's
ground, and downgrading London Bridge in some capacity as more trains
could be running through to Kings Cross (if they an manage 24tph down
the current Thameslink, two tunnels means 24x2 tph isn't out of the
question), and thus Cannon Street should be able to cope. Having the
station there could regenerate the area, and most importantly, provide
interchange with the orbital London overground route. A super-dooper-
surrey canal road junction station, if you will. This location would
be a great location for the line to surface after serving Cannon
Street/London Bridge in tunnel.

Anyway, I digress. Thanks you for your descriptions.

Rather than build a new tunnel from Kings Cross to Bermondsy, would it
not be easier to extend the GN Electric tunnel from Moorgate?

West London Line - what recession?
 

rail wrote:

In message
"Tim Fenton" wrote:

[snip]

I suspect Omaha isn't exactly bank breakingly expensive either.


Got a good beach I've heard...

Covered in towels, though...
--
http://gallery120232.fotopic.net/p13309778.html
(50 050 and 73 111 at Basingstoke, 1992)

West London Line - what recession?
 

On Oct 29, 7:34*am, "Recliner" wrote:
"Tim Fenton" wrote in message







"Recliner" wrote in message
...

London tends to be less attractive than Edinburgh, Los Angeles, or
Omaha. *But, you needn't be concerned; you have plenty of folks
waiting in trucks at Calais. *I am sure they will be able to install
and maintain software at your companies, financial institutions,
etc.

That sort of work for British companies is now normally done in
Mumbai or Bangalore. *They're a lot cheaper than Edinburgh, Los
Angeles, or Omaha.

Last year, I was doing an assignment with a large services company
which is, as they say, headquartered in the USA.

They had identified a number of low (or lower) cost locations, some
of which were *inside* the US. From memory, the Carolinas was one -
not all of the country is prosperous.

I suspect Omaha isn't exactly bank breakingly expensive either.

Probably not, even though Warren Buffet, one of the world's richest men
lives there.

For one year I worked in Omaha doing a major reconfiguration of an
accounting package. I found a very inexpensive apartment ten minutes
walk from my client's campus.

My rate was slightly lower than my previous assignment which had been
in the San Francisco Bay area. However, because my costs were much
lower it was an entirely more profitable venture.

Moreover, the folks living in Douglas County, Nebraska where, by and
large, very friendly. The work environment was more than pleasant.
An unexpected bonus was a British Restaurant in nearby Belleview, NE.

Omaha is also home of the headquarters of the Union Pacific
Railroad. The town has much of railway interest. It is also Gerald
Ford’s birthplace.

West London Line - what recession?
 

On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:34:26 -0700 (PDT), E27002
wrote:

An unexpected bonus was a British Restaurant in nearby Belleview, NE.


What food does it serve? Balti? Tandoori? Pizza and Pasta?

It seems odd that there should be such a thing as a "British
Restaurant" when British cuisine has largely vanished.

West London Line - what recession?
 

In article , Bruce
writes
On Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:34:26 -0700 (PDT), E27002
wrote:

An unexpected bonus was a British Restaurant in nearby Belleview, NE.


What food does it serve? Balti? Tandoori? Pizza and Pasta?

It seems odd that there should be such a thing as a "British
Restaurant" when British cuisine has largely vanished.

I do wish he'd said "British restaurant", not "British Restaurant".
Horrible memories of 1939-1945.
--
Bill Borland

West London Line - what recession?
 

On Oct 29, 7:34*am, "Recliner" wrote:
"Tim Fenton" wrote in message







"Recliner" wrote in message
...

London tends to be less attractive than Edinburgh, Los Angeles, or
Omaha. *But, you needn't be concerned; you have plenty of folks
waiting in trucks at Calais. *I am sure they will be able to install
and maintain software at your companies, financial institutions,
etc.

That sort of work for British companies is now normally done in
Mumbai or Bangalore. *They're a lot cheaper than Edinburgh, Los
Angeles, or Omaha.

Last year, I was doing an assignment with a large services company
which is, as they say, headquartered in the USA.

They had identified a number of low (or lower) cost locations, some
of which were *inside* the US. From memory, the Carolinas was one -
not all of the country is prosperous.

I suspect Omaha isn't exactly bank breakingly expensive either.

Probably not, even though Warren Buffet, one of the world's richest men
lives there.

For one year I worked in Omaha doing a major reconfiguration of an
accounting package. I found a very inexpensive apartment ten minutes
walk from my client's campus.

My rate was slightly lower than my previous assignment which had been
in the San Francisco Bay area. However, because my costs were much
lower it was an entirely more profitable venture.


Moreover, the folks living in Douglas County, Nebraska where, by and
large, very friendly. The work environment was more than pleasant.
An unexpected bonus was a British restaurant in nearby Bellevue, NE.
See http://tinyurl.com/yj7drwy


Omaha is also home of the headquarters of the Union Pacific
Railroad. The town has much of railway interest. It is also Gerald
Ford’s birthplace.

Given the oportunity I would not hesitate to work in Omaha again.

West London Line - what recession?
 

On 29 Oct, 15:22, E27002 wrote:
On Oct 28, 3:42*pm, Jamie *Thompson wrote:



On 28 Oct, 19:19, Stephen Furley wrote:

On 28 Oct, 12:19, Jamie *Thompson wrote:

On 28 Oct, 07:10, Stephen Furley wrote:

On 28 Oct, 04:05, D7666 wrote:

I would have thought the most significant length constraint would be
Willesden Junction (for LO trains obviously not SN). To extend that to
8-car would involve bridging WCML and that would not come cheap..

Which would put the high-level station back just about where it used
to be. *I'm certainly not holding my breath for that to happen.
They've been talking about re-building the platforms on the slow lines
almost since the old ones were demolished. *I'm not expecting that to
happen in my lifetime either.

How long were the platforms at the old station? *Given the previous
platform lengths at various other North London Line stations, I'm
guessing that they were rather longer than at the present station..

The original station also had a third platform, generally known as the
'Earls Court Bay', though I believe it was actually a through
platform, rather than a real bay. *If this was still available it
would have avoided the situation which existed a few years ago, I'm
not sure if it still does now as I haven't used the line for some
time, where a train arriving from the WLL is held just before the
junction while trains run through in both directions on the NLL, so
you then have a long wait for a connection on that line.

This is why NEW tube lines - be they tube size or main line size -
need to get under way now as they take 10 years to build even once
planning is done, and that takes years too.

An LU person at a LURS meeting at the time that the Jubilee Line
extension was being either planned or constructed stated that this was
being built to traditional tube dimensions only because the rest of
the tube section of the line was that size, and that any future tube
line would almost certainly be to take surface stock size trains, as
the cost of tunneling to the larger size would not be much greater
using modern equipment and techniques.

Don't suppose you know of any diagrams of the old pre-1960's layout of
Willesden Junction?

I hear odd descriptions from time to time, but the best I've ever
managed were a few scattered old photos that didn't really give any
indication of how it all was laid out.

Something for the station's wikipedia page perhaps :)

No sorry, and I don't know much about it. *There was a track in the
second bay, next to platform 2, in the 'new' station. *I have seen a
picture of the old high level station; the two main tracks were served
by side platforms as I remember, and one of these was an island with
the 'Earls Court' track on the other side of it. *The signalbox seems
to have been just at the end of the ramps of the high-level platforms
in the pictures I've seen. *The bridge which gives access to the high-
level platforms also used to serve the main line platforms, I know
this because until not too many years ago old painted over signs
pointing to these platforms could just be made out on this bridge.

Before the old ticket office was demolished, with the odd situation
that you had to cross a road to get from the ticket office to the
platforms, a bricked-up doorway could just be made out in one of the
walls, which I think would also have provided access to these
platforms.

In the South-West you have Clapham Junction, with lots of platforms on
all lines, and most trains stopping there. *In the North-East you have
something similar at Stratford. *it always seemed to me that Willesden
Junction should be the one in the North-West, though there's not
really an obvious one in the South-East.

Thank you. I'll try and work on my mental image of all that.

I agree about the four interchanges. In the south east I guess London
Bridge fulfils the role, dealing as it does with both the southern and
south-eastern mainlines. One of the options considered for Thameslink
was new tunnel from Kings Cross to Bermondsey, with the tunnel to St
Pancras being the cop-out. In my various musings about how things
could be, I usually settle on building a new station on the scale of
CJ/WJ/Stratford roughly where the lines converge next to Millwall's
ground, and downgrading London Bridge in some capacity as more trains
could be running through to Kings Cross (if they an manage 24tph down
the current Thameslink, two tunnels means 24x2 tph isn't out of the
question), and thus Cannon Street should be able to cope. Having the
station there could regenerate the area, and most importantly, provide
interchange with the orbital London overground route. A super-dooper-
surrey canal road junction station, if you will. This location would
be a great location for the line to surface after serving Cannon
Street/London Bridge in tunnel.

Anyway, I digress. Thanks you for your descriptions.

Rather than build a new tunnel from Kings Cross to Bermondsy, would it
not be easier to extend the GN Electric tunnel from Moorgate?

It might seem so, but things to consider:
a) It's size cannot handle OHLE, which any new infrastructure should
be built to support (one day the southern network will be brought into
line ;))
b) It has metro station-spacing, unsuitable for a service serving an
area as wide as Thameslink (Cambridge to Essex Road, anyone?).
c) Said station are too short, and would be expensive to extend.
d) Closing said stations to remedy b&c would be unpopular with
existing users.
....and finally, e) Extending the tunnel from Moorgate means cutting
through both the planned Crossrail station's escalators, as well as
the Northern line tunnels.

Ergo, I think a new Crossrail-gauge tunnel from either Finsbury or
Ally Pally would be best, with stations at Finsbury Park, Moorgate-
Bank, Cannon Street-London Bridge, and Surrey Canal Junction. However,
either tunnel option would miss out on interchanging with KXSP,
forcing an interchange at Liverpool St. and a trip back along the
Circle.

My preference for the NC tunnels would still have to deal with e), but
covering the other considerations, would be to link it to the W&C, and
from Finsbury up to Highgate, then along back to Ally Pally, before
taking over the majority of the Hertford loop. Plans for the other end
of the W&C take it down to Clapham and off elsewhere...but that's
another thing entirely.

West London Line - what recession?
 

On Oct 29, 9:51*am, Jamie Thompson wrote:
On 29 Oct, 15:22, E27002 wrote:


Rather than build a new tunnel from Kings Cross to Bermondsy, would it
not be easier to extend the GN Electric tunnel from Moorgate?

It might seem so, but things to consider:
a) It's size cannot handle OHLE, which any new infrastructure should
be built to support (one day the southern network will be brought into
line ;))
b) It has metro station-spacing, unsuitable for a service serving an
area as wide as Thameslink (Cambridge to Essex Road, anyone?).
c) Said station are too short, and would be expensive to extend.
d) Closing said stations to remedy b&c would be unpopular with
existing users.
...and finally, e) Extending the tunnel from Moorgate means cutting
through both the planned Crossrail station's escalators, as well as
the Northern line tunnels.

Ergo, I think a new Crossrail-gauge tunnel from either Finsbury or
Ally Pally would be best, with stations at Finsbury Park, Moorgate-
Bank, Cannon Street-London Bridge, and Surrey Canal Junction. However,
either tunnel option would miss out on interchanging with KXSP,
forcing an interchange at Liverpool St. and a trip back along the
Circle.

My preference for the NC tunnels would still have to deal with e), but
covering the other considerations, would be to link it to the W&C, and
from Finsbury up to Highgate, then along back to Ally Pally, before
taking over the majority of the Hertford loop. Plans for the other end
of the W&C take it down to Clapham and off elsewhere...but that's
another thing entirely.-

IIRC because of the way it is configured, extending the W&C from
Waterloo would be very difficult. There was once talk of adding a W&C
station at Blackfriars. That idea may have merrit. But there would
be little return for the very high investement.