On 4 Aug, 11:09, wrote:
On Wed, 4 Aug 2010 01:39:30 -0700 (PDT)

"Capt. Deltic" wrote:
This is the question I have been asking.

the official argument for separate fleets is that Crossrail needs to
have 23 m long cars with three doors a side because of the capacity
requirements/ station dwell times while Thameslink can accomodate only
20 m long cars with two doors a side because of curvature. - despite
similar capacity/dwell time issues.

If they want to really future proof it they should build UIC gauge double
decker trains instead of ****ing around with piddly UK gauge EMUs that
will be packed from day 1. It won't happen of course because there might
be the odd bridge that'll need raising by a foot on the out of london routes.
Obviously this would be a huge expense compared to digging 10 miles of
tunnel under london....

The bigger problem is that UK platforms impinge on the UIC gauge,
which is full width practically down to rail head level. So to run
UIC stock, you will need to rebuild every platform on the route, and
in so doing make those platforms unusable by conventional UK rolling
stock because the gap would be too wide. The only UIC platforms in
the UK are on HS1, and at St P, Stratford and Ebbsfleet, separate UIC
and UK platforms on separate platform roads are provided for
international and domestic trains (not sure whether Ashford has UIC
platforms, no doubt someone will be along shortly with an answer).

If you went down this path, then you'd end up with UIC platforms on
the relief lines and UK platforms on the main lines, so effectively
the releif lines would become crossrail only. Assuming Crossrail to
Reading, then things like Oxford stoppers would be confined to the
main lines as far as Reading, and if Crossrail only goes to
Maidenhead, then Reading stoppers and the like would also be forced on
to the main lines as far as Maidenhead. Is that compatible with the
projected timetables?

Robin