On Sat, Jun 02, 2012 at 08:09:49PM +0100, Paul Corfield wrote:

If the plans are approved then I suspect it will be 2-3 years before
anything materialises "on the ground" as the carriages will have to be
procured and built, the station platform extensions designed and
constructed plus any signalling work needed to deal with different
stopping positions has to designed and then done on the ground. It
then all has to be put together and tested while also keeping the day
to day service running.

I don't believe that it takes 2 years to build carriages, at least not
when a load of the same design have already been built so the designs
are set in stone and the snags in the manufacturing process known and
ironed out. And I thought that most stations were already long enough
for at least 5 carriages, and often more.

Platform extensions, where needed can be done in parallel with rolling
out the new stock, by using selective door opening.

And what's involved that makes it so difficult to move some signals
20-odd yards?

--
David Cantrell | Official London Perl Mongers Bad Influence

Perl: the only language that makes Welsh look acceptable