On Tue, 27 Oct 2009 23:49:50 -0700 (PDT), MIG
wrote:

On 28 Oct, 04:05, D7666 wrote:
On Oct 26, 9:37*pm, EE507 wrote:

The real issue is platforms 16 and 17 at CLJ. SDO can't be used with
the sort of loadings these trains experience, but straightening and
lengthening the platforms won't happen any time soon.
CLJ 16 and 17 will never be sorted out, so why bother when LOROL will
be a 4-car max railway forever more?

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. As
there would be no benefit to LO in 8car trains if Willesden Junycion
were never done, the entire cost of 8car works on WLL would be born by
the SN operation.

IMHO a fundamental flaw in the LO / WLL / NLL / ELL shceme is being
geared around 4car trains. At this period in 21st century we should be
talking *absolute mnimum* 8-car trains by 2015 with passive provision
for 12car, and I'd say even 15-car (300 m length).

Similar problem on the ELL, due to stringing together bits of old
infrastructure and then contaminating all the main routes that now
feed into them.

I can see the case for extending the ELL up the old viaduct to Dalston
and beyond, but Croydon to London Bridge is one of the most
ludicrously overcrowded stretches on the network. Taking up paths
with short trains diverted off to Dalston is insanity gone mad.

The ELL should terminate at NX/NXG, at least in the peaks. Maybe it
still will.

Or stop trains twice at the stations with short platforms (once for
the front half, then for the rear).