On Dec 30, 12:33*pm, 1506 wrote:
On Dec 30, 12:27*pm, Tom Anderson wrote:

On Thu, 30 Dec 2010, 1506 wrote:
On Dec 30, 9:16�am, "Graham Harrison"
wrote:
The current plan is to terminate Crossrail at Maidenhead I believe.

During past discussions I recall various people putting forward the idea
that Reading would be a more logical terminus. � Others pointed out that
there wasn't much point as long as Reading wasn't remodelled.

Well, now we're getting the remodelling AND the wires will one day pass
through Reading to Oxford and Newbury.

The question I have is does it make more sense to leave the Crossrail
terminus at Maidenhead or extend it to (or beyond?) Reading at some point in
the future?

Clearly, the question is almost rhetorical. *Crossrail should go to
Reading.

No, Crossrail should go to Slough. Trying to run suburban metro and home
counties commuter services with the same tracks and trains is a
transparently stupid idea which we will come to regret very quickly.

Thameslink?

Thameslink also does it wrong, IMHO. It's only saving grace is that it
doesn't serve the northern section within the M25 very well (because
the line capacity is needed for all the other services), so the lack
of metro-service-orientated stock is less of a problem. Ideally, you'd
want to run everything south of St. Albans as a metro service, with
suitable high-density stock to match. The easiest (and most expensive)
way of doing this would be to extend the freight lines from Hendon to
St. Albans, and find a southern location to connect to the other end
at West Hampstead, (perhaps a tunnel to the Goblin). This new-found
capacity would then let you add new stations such as Brent Cross
(whilst retaining Hendon and Cricklewood), another between Cricklewood
and West Hampstead, Napsbury, retaining a full service for Kentish
Town; with the interchanges to Thameslink at St. Albans and West
Hampstead. The freed up capacity on the most congested section of
Thameslink would then allow more services from Luton and Bedford, and
potentially further afield (such as Leicester, though I personally
think these would be better operated by EMT as there'd be less demand
on the existing fast lines), as well as freight from the Goblin
straight up the MML.

Outer suburban: Bedford-Luton, St. Albans, West Hampstead, St.
Pancras.
Inner suburban: Luton-St. Albans, West Hampstead, St. Pancras.
Metro: St. Albans-West Hampstead-Gospel Oak (or somesuch)

As for Crossrail, if they widened the formation to six tracks out to
Heathrow, then Crossrail could satisfactorily provide the suburban
services from Reading to Heathrow, with the interchanges at Heathrow
and OOC. Let something like the H&C line operate the metro service,
and then you could again improve the service levels to the existing
stations as well add several more stations.

Outer suburban: Didcot & Newbury-Reading, Heathrow Hub, OOC,
Paddington
Inner suburban: Reading-Heathrow Hub, OOC, Paddington
Metro: Heathrow Hub-OOC-Paddington