On 2013-05-27 07:34:38 +0000, Robin9 said:

I was at Hackney Downs Station yesterday when a Stansted Express train
crawled through at little more than walking pace. The alignment of this
route
through inner East London precludes fast running. Why, I wondered, don't
they
route the train via Stratford?

The route between Liverpool Street and Stratford allows rapid movement
and
once Stratford is passed, the route between Stratford and Tottenham Hale
is
also far better aligned than the line via Hackney.

Presumably there must be a good reason for continuing with the tortuous

Hackney route but does anyone know what it is? Shortage of capacity
between
Liverpool Street and Stratford? Too much time lost negotiating the
Stratford
curve? Any ideas?

During engineering works they sometimes do run via Stratford, but it's
very, very slow. I can't be arsed to look up up the PSRs but Stratford
- Coppermill is not the fastest of routes, and its quite a bit slower
than via Hackney.

I suspect the real problem though is capacity on the main between
Bethnal Green and Stratford.