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Post by snoggle on Feb 5, 2013 12:27:09 GMT
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Post by marlon101 on Feb 5, 2013 21:35:31 GMT
Are we broadly in agreement with this or not? Anything that Lord Adonis endorses I am immediately turned off.
I generally subscribe to the view that a wide range of less sexy smaller projects would be much more effective in unlocking existing capacity than throwing money on other bigger projects such as this, i.e. removing bottlenecks and platform extensions and so on.
Open to the suggestion that this is necessary if indeed it is
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2013 22:15:16 GMT
Are we broadly in agreement with this or not? Anything that Lord Adonis endorses I am immediately turned off. I generally subscribe to the view that a wide range of less sexy smaller projects would be much more effective in unlocking existing capacity than throwing money on other bigger projects such as this, i.e. removing bottlenecks and platform extensions and so on. Open to the suggestion that this is necessary if indeed it is I have to say I agree, smaller projects are usually more effective. A large amount of it appears to be already covered by existing rail links which gravitate towards the centre of London anyway - and therefore these links don't involve much more than a short journey on the Tube. The links being provided don't appear to be particularly likely journeys anyway - certainly not worth tearing up London again, just for the sake of 5 minutes saved and a direct link for occasional journeys. The first Crossrail certainly I can support. Direct links to Heathrow, support for the Central line, and new links to East London for the SE of London. This project doesn't seem to provide the same sort of useful links. Again, other projects like the ELL extension have provided much need capacity. Whether replacing existing links with links that there aren't necessarily any demand for is certainly questionable.
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Post by snoggle on Feb 5, 2013 22:43:41 GMT
Are we broadly in agreement with this or not? Anything that Lord Adonis endorses I am immediately turned off. I generally subscribe to the view that a wide range of less sexy smaller projects would be much more effective in unlocking existing capacity than throwing money on other bigger projects such as this, i.e. removing bottlenecks and platform extensions and so on. Open to the suggestion that this is necessary if indeed it is I think it is OK but could be a bit better. I have read the report right through and the new line's trying to do a few things. - relieve the overcrowded and, in future, impossibly overcrowded SWT suburban routes. The report says Network Rail have said signalling mods and full length trains on every train would not provide enough capacity. Shoving the suburban lines into tunnel frees up platform and track capacity for longer distance services into Waterloo. - serves Clapham Junction and can syphon off people from Southern and other SWT routes who want to reach Victoria. It is estimated that the lines into Victoria will reach saturation point. Victoria LU also cannot cope with interchange traffic today and even £800m of expanded station brings only temporary relief. - relieves Euston LU which will cease to function at peak hours even without HS2. If HS2 is built then it becomes essential. - relieves the northern bits of the Vic and Picc Lines and gives access to Central London from Dalston / Hackney. The station at Ally Pally would provide a new interchange from Great Northern services to the West End and would remove some of the chronic overloading at Finsbury Park. Last time I saw the southbound Vic Line at FP in the AM peak the crowds were 4 deep all along the platform. Anything more than that and the station would have to shut. Let's be frank - Finsbury Park station needs a bomb dropping on it and then a complete and massive rebuild. Unfortunately that would be massively expensive and disruptive to hundreds of thousands of people every day. Shifting a big bit of the interchange traffic and also relieving the Vic & Picc Lines further north reduces the need for such a large scale rebuild. The report very specifically says that a series of small scale projects and tweaks will not provide anything like the extra capacity. If you tweak the SWT lines and lengthen trains you would be faced with a rebuild of Waterloo Main Line. I agree the map looks peculiar - like a lop sided octopus. There does not need to be massive demand for cross London jnys on lines like this. What you do need are flows that are strong from the suburbs to the centre which are then balanced by a further set out to / from the other side. This makes it worthwhile running trains right through. Unfortunately Crossrail 1 is not quite like that as 14tph will terminate at Paddington because western demand is not balanced with eastern demand. In time people change their travel patterns because new through services suddenly make life easier. In the past who would travelled from Finsbury Park to Stockwell? - not many people. Now it is so easy and there are connections with the Northern Line. There are thousands of similar examples with tubes, DLR, trains or buses. Provide a decent service and people will turn up - Crossrail, enhanced Thameslink and Crossrail 2 will be no different. For example, I am looking forward to being able to catch Thameslink at Finsbury Park to have a convenient link to bits of South London. Only 6 years to wait
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Post by Deleted on Feb 5, 2013 23:59:39 GMT
Are we broadly in agreement with this or not? Anything that Lord Adonis endorses I am immediately turned off. I generally subscribe to the view that a wide range of less sexy smaller projects would be much more effective in unlocking existing capacity than throwing money on other bigger projects such as this, i.e. removing bottlenecks and platform extensions and so on. Open to the suggestion that this is necessary if indeed it is I think it is OK but could be a bit better. I have read the report right through and the new line's trying to do a few things. - relieve the overcrowded and, in future, impossibly overcrowded SWT suburban routes. The report says Network Rail have said signalling mods and full length trains on every train would not provide enough capacity. Shoving the suburban lines into tunnel frees up platform and track capacity for longer distance services into Waterloo. - serves Clapham Junction and can syphon off people from Southern and other SWT routes who want to reach Victoria. It is estimated that the lines into Victoria will reach saturation point. Victoria LU also cannot cope with interchange traffic today and even £800m of expanded station brings only temporary relief. - relieves Euston LU which will cease to function at peak hours even without HS2. If HS2 is built then it becomes essential. - relieves the northern bits of the Vic and Picc Lines and gives access to Central London from Dalston / Hackney. The station at Ally Pally would provide a new interchange from Great Northern services to the West End and would remove some of the chronic overloading at Finsbury Park. Last time I saw the southbound Vic Line at FP in the AM peak the crowds were 4 deep all along the platform. Anything more than that and the station would have to shut. Let's be frank - Finsbury Park station needs a bomb dropping on it and then a complete and massive rebuild. Unfortunately that would be massively expensive and disruptive to hundreds of thousands of people every day. Shifting a big bit of the interchange traffic and also relieving the Vic & Picc Lines further north reduces the need for such a large scale rebuild. The report very specifically says that a series of small scale projects and tweaks will not provide anything like the extra capacity. If you tweak the SWT lines and lengthen trains you would be faced with a rebuild of Waterloo Main Line. I agree the map looks peculiar - like a lop sided octopus. There does not need to be massive demand for cross London jnys on lines like this. What you do need are flows that are strong from the suburbs to the centre which are then balanced by a further set out to / from the other side. This makes it worthwhile running trains right through. Unfortunately Crossrail 1 is not quite like that as 14tph will terminate at Paddington because western demand is not balanced with eastern demand. In time people change their travel patterns because new through services suddenly make life easier. In the past who would travelled from Finsbury Park to Stockwell? - not many people. Now it is so easy and there are connections with the Northern Line. There are thousands of similar examples with tubes, DLR, trains or buses. Provide a decent service and people will turn up - Crossrail, enhanced Thameslink and Crossrail 2 will be no different. For example, I am looking forward to being able to catch Thameslink at Finsbury Park to have a convenient link to bits of South London. Only 6 years to wait I'm not sure demand for transport is necessarily created simply by supply, as you're suggesting. You can link everywhere to everywhere with transport but unless people have some good reason to travel between those destinations, nobody is going to want to or need to use the links you've provided. The dangleway is a prime example of this - Royal Victoria was never going to be a prime destination for people from SE London. The new Thameslink project is providing trains from South London through to Peterborough. Now what Peterborough offers to people from South London I don't know... Obviously the London Overground ELL can be quoted as a good example of new links being created between unlikely places being popular, but then that would ignore the fact a lot of these journeys were being made anyway - just in different ways. Pre-Overground, the trains from Honor Oak to London Bridge were hopelessly overcrowded. Now they're relatively lightly-used and the hopeless overcrowding has transferred to the ELL. I do agree the capacity into Victoria is certainly lacking at the moment, though. I stood at Clapham Junction, waiting for my half-hourly train, and saw crowds of people stuffing onto trains bound for intermediate destinations in SW London and Victoria. If journeys to intermediate destinations in SW London can be shifted onto a new line providing extra capacity for further destinations, then it would be a win-win situation. A rebuild of the Waterloo Main Line seems like a grim prospect not worth thinking about. The disruption that would cause would be unfathomable, and I could understand why that should be avoided at all costs. Clapham Junction would also get the Tube line it never had (in a National Rail way!). Clapham Junction sits very close to Central London, yet no trains past Victoria or Waterloo exist which does cause a bit of a headache if you're trying to get to the West End, for example. Changing onto the Victoria or Jubilee doesn't seem like a fun alternative, given the overcrowding on those routes. The Paddington terminations from the East are certainly reflective of where the demand is. Heathrow Connect was established not that long ago in West London, which provides capacity that doesn't have an East London parallel. I often quote the crowding on the 25 until everyone's sick to death with it - but at least Crossrail might provide a more viable alternative for Stratford and beyond. The demand for increased capacity will always be in there in inner East London, with the population rising so quickly. I suspect it will be quickly worked out where the demand sits on Crossrail 2 - existing lines already exist in a lot of the destinations and would provide some indication of potential passenger numbers. With the Thameslink project already providing for a lot of areas like Alexandra Palace in the north the case would most likely be the heavier demand will most likely come from the South. (The South's increased demand on such rail links has always been compounded by the fact it's never had the same Tube links the North has)
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Post by marlon101 on Feb 7, 2013 21:14:35 GMT
I think it is OK but could be a bit better. I have read the report right through and the new line's trying to do a few things. - relieve the overcrowded and, in future, impossibly overcrowded SWT suburban routes. The report says Network Rail have said signalling mods and full length trains on every train would not provide enough capacity. Shoving the suburban lines into tunnel frees up platform and track capacity for longer distance services into Waterloo. - serves Clapham Junction and can syphon off people from Southern and other SWT routes who want to reach Victoria. It is estimated that the lines into Victoria will reach saturation point. Victoria LU also cannot cope with interchange traffic today and even £800m of expanded station brings only temporary relief. - relieves Euston LU which will cease to function at peak hours even without HS2. If HS2 is built then it becomes essential. - relieves the northern bits of the Vic and Picc Lines and gives access to Central London from Dalston / Hackney. The station at Ally Pally would provide a new interchange from Great Northern services to the West End and would remove some of the chronic overloading at Finsbury Park. Last time I saw the southbound Vic Line at FP in the AM peak the crowds were 4 deep all along the platform. Anything more than that and the station would have to shut. Let's be frank - Finsbury Park station needs a bomb dropping on it and then a complete and massive rebuild. Unfortunately that would be massively expensive and disruptive to hundreds of thousands of people every day. Shifting a big bit of the interchange traffic and also relieving the Vic & Picc Lines further north reduces the need for such a large scale rebuild. The report very specifically says that a series of small scale projects and tweaks will not provide anything like the extra capacity. If you tweak the SWT lines and lengthen trains you would be faced with a rebuild of Waterloo Main Line. I agree the map looks peculiar - like a lop sided octopus. There does not need to be massive demand for cross London jnys on lines like this. What you do need are flows that are strong from the suburbs to the centre which are then balanced by a further set out to / from the other side. This makes it worthwhile running trains right through. Unfortunately Crossrail 1 is not quite like that as 14tph will terminate at Paddington because western demand is not balanced with eastern demand. In time people change their travel patterns because new through services suddenly make life easier. In the past who would travelled from Finsbury Park to Stockwell? - not many people. Now it is so easy and there are connections with the Northern Line. There are thousands of similar examples with tubes, DLR, trains or buses. Provide a decent service and people will turn up - Crossrail, enhanced Thameslink and Crossrail 2 will be no different. For example, I am looking forward to being able to catch Thameslink at Finsbury Park to have a convenient link to bits of South London. Only 6 years to wait I'm not sure demand for transport is necessarily created simply by supply, as you're suggesting. You can link everywhere to everywhere with transport but unless people have some good reason to travel between those destinations, nobody is going to want to or need to use the links you've provided. The dangleway is a prime example of this - Royal Victoria was never going to be a prime destination for people from SE London. The new Thameslink project is providing trains from South London through to Peterborough. Now what Peterborough offers to people from South London I don't know... Obviously the London Overground ELL can be quoted as a good example of new links being created between unlikely places being popular, but then that would ignore the fact a lot of these journeys were being made anyway - just in different ways. Pre-Overground, the trains from Honor Oak to London Bridge were hopelessly overcrowded. Now they're relatively lightly-used and the hopeless overcrowding has transferred to the ELL. I do agree the capacity into Victoria is certainly lacking at the moment, though. I stood at Clapham Junction, waiting for my half-hourly train, and saw crowds of people stuffing onto trains bound for intermediate destinations in SW London and Victoria. If journeys to intermediate destinations in SW London can be shifted onto a new line providing extra capacity for further destinations, then it would be a win-win situation. A rebuild of the Waterloo Main Line seems like a grim prospect not worth thinking about. The disruption that would cause would be unfathomable, and I could understand why that should be avoided at all costs. Clapham Junction would also get the Tube line it never had (in a National Rail way!). Clapham Junction sits very close to Central London, yet no trains past Victoria or Waterloo exist which does cause a bit of a headache if you're trying to get to the West End, for example. Changing onto the Victoria or Jubilee doesn't seem like a fun alternative, given the overcrowding on those routes. The Paddington terminations from the East are certainly reflective of where the demand is. Heathrow Connect was established not that long ago in West London, which provides capacity that doesn't have an East London parallel. I often quote the crowding on the 25 until everyone's sick to death with it - but at least Crossrail might provide a more viable alternative for Stratford and beyond. The demand for increased capacity will always be in there in inner East London, with the population rising so quickly. I suspect it will be quickly worked out where the demand sits on Crossrail 2 - existing lines already exist in a lot of the destinations and would provide some indication of potential passenger numbers. With the Thameslink project already providing for a lot of areas like Alexandra Palace in the north the case would most likely be the heavier demand will most likely come from the South. (The South's increased demand on such rail links has always been compounded by the fact it's never had the same Tube links the North has) Your point about an exponential rise in demand raises an interesting question. If it can never be satisfied, why bother spending an abominable sum trying? Food for thought... where's the trade off point or how do you go about calculating it
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Post by Deleted on Feb 7, 2013 23:03:20 GMT
Your point about an exponential rise in demand raises an interesting question. If it can never be satisfied, why bother spending an abominable sum trying? Food for thought... where's the trade off point or how do you go about calculating it You'd have to do cost-benefit analysis for such things, but what nobody wants to be left with is a hideously expensive white elephant project - where the costs rocket but it's too late to stop.
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Post by twobellstogo on Feb 8, 2013 10:22:48 GMT
I prefer the Chelney proposal : Epping-Leytonstone-King's Cross/Euston-Victoria-Chelsea-Parson's Green-Wimbledon. Then possibly on from Wimbledon to Chessington South and Dorking via Raynes Park/Epsom.
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Post by snoggle on Feb 8, 2013 16:21:47 GMT
I'm not sure demand for transport is necessarily created simply by supply, as you're suggesting. You can link everywhere to everywhere with transport but unless people have some good reason to travel between those destinations, nobody is going to want to or need to use the links you've provided. The dangleway is a prime example of this - Royal Victoria was never going to be a prime destination for people from SE London. The new Thameslink project is providing trains from South London through to Peterborough. Now what Peterborough offers to people from South London I don't know... Obviously the London Overground ELL can be quoted as a good example of new links being created between unlikely places being popular, but then that would ignore the fact a lot of these journeys were being made anyway - just in different ways. Pre-Overground, the trains from Honor Oak to London Bridge were hopelessly overcrowded. Now they're relatively lightly-used and the hopeless overcrowding has transferred to the ELL. I do agree the capacity into Victoria is certainly lacking at the moment, though. I stood at Clapham Junction, waiting for my half-hourly train, and saw crowds of people stuffing onto trains bound for intermediate destinations in SW London and Victoria. If journeys to intermediate destinations in SW London can be shifted onto a new line providing extra capacity for further destinations, then it would be a win-win situation. A rebuild of the Waterloo Main Line seems like a grim prospect not worth thinking about. The disruption that would cause would be unfathomable, and I could understand why that should be avoided at all costs. Clapham Junction would also get the Tube line it never had (in a National Rail way!). Clapham Junction sits very close to Central London, yet no trains past Victoria or Waterloo exist which does cause a bit of a headache if you're trying to get to the West End, for example. Changing onto the Victoria or Jubilee doesn't seem like a fun alternative, given the overcrowding on those routes. The Paddington terminations from the East are certainly reflective of where the demand is. Heathrow Connect was established not that long ago in West London, which provides capacity that doesn't have an East London parallel. I often quote the crowding on the 25 until everyone's sick to death with it - but at least Crossrail might provide a more viable alternative for Stratford and beyond. The demand for increased capacity will always be in there in inner East London, with the population rising so quickly. I suspect it will be quickly worked out where the demand sits on Crossrail 2 - existing lines already exist in a lot of the destinations and would provide some indication of potential passenger numbers. With the Thameslink project already providing for a lot of areas like Alexandra Palace in the north the case would most likely be the heavier demand will most likely come from the South. (The South's increased demand on such rail links has always been compounded by the fact it's never had the same Tube links the North has) I think it is better not to quite extreme examples like Peterborough to somewhere in South London. Giving people options about journey patterns, direct journeys and more frequent services are all proven ways to bolster transport demand. Sometimes to get the demand you *do* have to create the supply coupled with service quality. I am sure that Thameslink, when linked to the GN, will shove a while pile of people off the Vic and Picc Lines because people will change at Finsbury Park on to trains to South London rather than plodding on through Z1 on the tube and changing at Victoria. Ditto people on GN services today will not overload Kings Cross but rather stay on board and change at Farringdon or Blackfriars. The whole point of these schemes is to vastly increase capacity and to take pressure off key network locations which suffer horrendous overcrowding. The Crossrail type schemes give through services which is what people typically want. I accept you cannot link "everywhere to everywhere" - no one is proposing that. What is being proposed are faster direct journeys with longer higher capacity trains. This concept has been proven in many places such as Paris RER and German S Bahn schemes. I do not think Crossrail will have any effect on route 25. Route 25 is popular because it gets people closer to their homes than the stations and because it is comparatively cheap. The boroughs served by the 25 are not well off so people will opt for the cheapest way to travel and that's the bus. Crossrail will not be much more frequent that the existing line into Liverpool St. While that is not exactly quiet it is probably not carrying anything like the 25/85/205 carry between Aldgate and Ilford / Romford. Your point about an exponential rise in demand raises an interesting question. If it can never be satisfied, why bother spending an abominable sum trying? Food for thought... where's the trade off point or how do you go about calculating it The problem is that if you do nothing you end with absolute grid lock in parts of the system. That then becomes dangerous meaning people have to queue in the street to get into stations, queue to get to platforms, queue on the platform and then squeeze on to trains. This reduces the efficiency of the poor people trying to get to work because they're "fed up" when they get to work and work less hard. People also have to allocate more time to commuting meaning they're likely to change jobs (if they can) for ones with easier commutes. You then get the issue about business people visiting London to do business - if their jnys are horrible then they are less likely to come back. All of this affects the competitiveness and attractiveness of London as a place to do business. Given London generates vast economic activity and tax revenues it does make sense to keep the place attractive to business. I fully accept your point that it looks like a never ending quest - it probably is but that's no different to the development of most major cities over the decades. There is no less pressure in Hong Kong, Singapore, Paris, New York, Beijing, Moscow - all are building new rail, metro or tram lines and sometimes all three. TfL do a lot of modelling work looking at employment and economic development as well as transport demand to try to determine where more capacity is needed. They obviously have to take into account the London Plan (Mayor's planning document) plus Network Rail's plans. It is always a case of having to prioritise the most pressing work - those with the best business case as MrEdd said. Those projects with the best ratio of benefits to cost will be taken forward for development and costing and eventual approval. In the case of big schemes that process can obviously take years.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2013 11:10:04 GMT
CR2 does make a lot of sense. Waterloo is running out of capacity and can't handle the anticipated growth, and sending inner suburbans underground will release much needed platform capacity for more longer-distance services. At the other end of the route CR2 relieves the already overcrowded Victoria and Piccadilly lines. It very much is about removing bottle necks, and the proportion of London it benefits is huge.
Don't forget London's population is projected to rise by 1.5 million in the next 2 decades or so.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 9, 2013 22:04:49 GMT
I'm not sure demand for transport is necessarily created simply by supply, as you're suggesting. You can link everywhere to everywhere with transport but unless people have some good reason to travel between those destinations, nobody is going to want to or need to use the links you've provided. The dangleway is a prime example of this - Royal Victoria was never going to be a prime destination for people from SE London. The new Thameslink project is providing trains from South London through to Peterborough. Now what Peterborough offers to people from South London I don't know... Obviously the London Overground ELL can be quoted as a good example of new links being created between unlikely places being popular, but then that would ignore the fact a lot of these journeys were being made anyway - just in different ways. Pre-Overground, the trains from Honor Oak to London Bridge were hopelessly overcrowded. Now they're relatively lightly-used and the hopeless overcrowding has transferred to the ELL. I do agree the capacity into Victoria is certainly lacking at the moment, though. I stood at Clapham Junction, waiting for my half-hourly train, and saw crowds of people stuffing onto trains bound for intermediate destinations in SW London and Victoria. If journeys to intermediate destinations in SW London can be shifted onto a new line providing extra capacity for further destinations, then it would be a win-win situation. A rebuild of the Waterloo Main Line seems like a grim prospect not worth thinking about. The disruption that would cause would be unfathomable, and I could understand why that should be avoided at all costs. Clapham Junction would also get the Tube line it never had (in a National Rail way!). Clapham Junction sits very close to Central London, yet no trains past Victoria or Waterloo exist which does cause a bit of a headache if you're trying to get to the West End, for example. Changing onto the Victoria or Jubilee doesn't seem like a fun alternative, given the overcrowding on those routes. The Paddington terminations from the East are certainly reflective of where the demand is. Heathrow Connect was established not that long ago in West London, which provides capacity that doesn't have an East London parallel. I often quote the crowding on the 25 until everyone's sick to death with it - but at least Crossrail might provide a more viable alternative for Stratford and beyond. The demand for increased capacity will always be in there in inner East London, with the population rising so quickly. I suspect it will be quickly worked out where the demand sits on Crossrail 2 - existing lines already exist in a lot of the destinations and would provide some indication of potential passenger numbers. With the Thameslink project already providing for a lot of areas like Alexandra Palace in the north the case would most likely be the heavier demand will most likely come from the South. (The South's increased demand on such rail links has always been compounded by the fact it's never had the same Tube links the North has) I think it is better not to quite extreme examples like Peterborough to somewhere in South London. Giving people options about journey patterns, direct journeys and more frequent services are all proven ways to bolster transport demand. Sometimes to get the demand you *do* have to create the supply coupled with service quality. I am sure that Thameslink, when linked to the GN, will shove a while pile of people off the Vic and Picc Lines because people will change at Finsbury Park on to trains to South London rather than plodding on through Z1 on the tube and changing at Victoria. Ditto people on GN services today will not overload Kings Cross but rather stay on board and change at Farringdon or Blackfriars. The whole point of these schemes is to vastly increase capacity and to take pressure off key network locations which suffer horrendous overcrowding. The Crossrail type schemes give through services which is what people typically want. I accept you cannot link "everywhere to everywhere" - no one is proposing that. What is being proposed are faster direct journeys with longer higher capacity trains. This concept has been proven in many places such as Paris RER and German S Bahn schemes. I do not think Crossrail will have any effect on route 25. Route 25 is popular because it gets people closer to their homes than the stations and because it is comparatively cheap. The boroughs served by the 25 are not well off so people will opt for the cheapest way to travel and that's the bus. Crossrail will not be much more frequent that the existing line into Liverpool St. While that is not exactly quiet it is probably not carrying anything like the 25/85/205 carry between Aldgate and Ilford / Romford. On the point of the 25, it is worth noting the number of people that get on the Central Line at Mile End and depart at Stratford. Meanwhile, the cheaper 425 receives pretty light loadings on that section, despite being just across the road. Quite a few people also use the DLR from Bow Church to Stratford, again with the 25 just across the road. I accept that people go for the cheap option in these cases and that people with mobility issues are unlikely to use the many stairs involved - but there must be something to be said for the quicker, direct service to Stratford. The District Line eastbound is very crowded in the peaks, which would understandably be a deterrent for using the more expensive option - why use a similarly crowded service and pay more? However, I'm sure the direct link will be appreciated by at least some people using the 25 - sitting on the very slow 25 for a while is never much fun. I don't think Crossrail will be a good substitute, however, for providing the desperately needed extra capacity on the 25. I don't question that the direct links provided by Crossrail will at least receive appreciation by some people who travel from North London to South London. What I do wonder is how many people actually make such direct journeys. Of course, new links are provided to North London for areas which don't have Thameslink - but a lot of Thameslink trains don't seem to be used for such through journeys. When Thameslink came down to one of my local lines (the Catford Loop) very few people seem to venture beyond Kings Cross on the new line. I get the feeling Crossrail 2 is more about the indirect effects than actually providing direct links (aside the slightly more direct links to Central London from the South), in contrast to Crossrail 1. With the Thameslink project already providing a variety of North-South links, is there really demand for more? I'm not sure, though I'm open to be enlightened on that! ;D
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2013 16:56:44 GMT
The Crossrails aren't really intended for making Cambridge - Tattenham Corner journeys easier. The point is mainline railways terminate at King's Cross / Paddington / Waterloo but people want to travel onwards to the West End. Currently people are having to brave the already overcrowded Victoria and Piccadilly for their onward travel, and mainline terminals don't provide enough throughput for anticipated demand increases, particularly Waterloo. It just happens that SWML and WAML both suffer from onward connection and terminal capacity problems so it's convenient to marry them up.
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Post by snoggle on Feb 10, 2013 21:38:23 GMT
The Crossrails aren't really intended for making Cambridge - Tattenham Corner journeys easier. The point is mainline railways terminate at King's Cross / Paddington / Waterloo but people want to travel onwards to the West End. Currently people are having to brave the already overcrowded Victoria and Piccadilly for their onward travel, and mainline terminals don't provide enough throughput for anticipated demand increases, particularly Waterloo. It just happens that SWML and WAML both suffer from onward connection and terminal capacity problems so it's convenient to marry them up. I've never said that long cross London journeys are the reason d'etre for these services. I agree completely with your analysis about Crossrail lines being designed to take pressure off main line terminals, inner sections of lines and parts of the tube network. My point, clearly badly made, is that in time the new links and shorter journey times will generate additional trips as people take advantage of the through services. Perhaps not on the longest journeys although I suspect people will take advantage of through journeys to Heathrow Airport on Crossrail 1.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 13, 2013 22:22:56 GMT
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Post by snoggle on Feb 13, 2013 23:52:23 GMT
Not really. Thameslink is a successful service but it is constrained by a lack of capacity in the Blackfriars / London Bridge area. It offers a worse service in the peak on some routes than it does off peak because trains cannot get through London Bridge without getting in the way of South Eastern services. When the Thameslink project is complete in 2018/9 then it will probably offer a very good service *if* it can operate reliably. However it will have a much more complicated service pattern than Crossrail 1. It will also operate very long services whereas Crossrail 1 and Crossrail 2 are rather more suburban in nature. Services will probably be "all stations" on Crossrail but certainly will not be on Thameslink which has a mix of stopping and semi-fast services (outside the central area) in order to keep journey times at a reasonable level for both short and longer distance passengers. If we do get Crossrail 2 built then there will be some very good rail services with connections at the Farringdon, Tottenham Court Road and Euston / KX St P "super hub" stations. I think these 3 lines will revolutionise travel in and across London. Shame we are about 40 years behind Paris and 25-30 years behind many German cities which have S Bahn networks. There are, of course, very old plans that envisaged a series of Crossrail style tunnels that linked all the main line terminals with through services.
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