On Jun 16, 3:39*pm, Tom Anderson wrote:

On Tue, 15 Jun 2010, Paul Corfield wrote:
It might be that the programme to do the civils work is done to the
original schedule and then you phase the fit out and commissioning more
slowly. This may also allow any rolling stock procurement to be put back
so that co-ordination with Thameslink (common fleet) can be achieved and
the supplier has a long production run but the cost is spread /
financing made easier.

Are the requirements for the trains for TL and CR similar enough for a
common fleet to be possible? Apart from the whole dual-power thing, which
i assume would be easy enough to leave off the CR trains (maybe except a
few, so there's a reserve that could be used for TL at short notice). What
about seating plan? That could be varied between batches, S-stock style,
if necessary. What about the engines and suspension? What about
signalling? TL isn't using ERTMS, right?

Essentially, are the lines similar enough in the services they will run
and the infrastructure they will run over that they can actually share
stock?

It's not so much sharing stock as such, just that a common fleet for
both routes could be purchased at the same time. The exact
specifications for the stock for each route could be different, e.g.
internal layout, or obviously dual-power or not. Also the central
section of Crossrail will be ATO - AIUI the original plan for
Thameslink 3000 was for the core section to be ATO too, so as to make
24tph 'doable' (though I recall some saying that the sub-surface LU
lines can manage similar headways with conventional signalling - well,
I might suggest they only sort of manage it! - but I'm no expert on
signalling), however received wisdom seems to suggest that ATO might
well be cut from the Thameslink Programme, and for the headway in the
core section to reduce to 20tph.

(If new Thameslink stock was designed to be 'ATO-ready', then ATO
could come at a later date when required.)