On Fri, 3 Jun 2005, Baffobear wrote:

It may not be understandable to some, but the city had it's railway
stations, (Kings Cross, Canon Street, Liverpool Street, Waterloo, etc)
all serving the city. However with such movement, these commuters have
been "forced" on to the jubilee line, which serves, London Bridge,
Waterloo, or have been "forced" on to the DLR at Bank).

Or Stratford, if they're coming from the east.

Not sure i'd describe King's Cross as a City station, though!

In the East, Great Eastern Services are frequent and fast and
crossrail's plans do nothing to improve the level of service already
offered, except to remove some fast Ilford peak time services to ensure
timetable simplicity.

That's not true - the current service is something like 16 tph with 8-car
trains, or 128 cars per hour (cph); Crossrail will be 12 tph with 10-car
trains, which is only 120 cph, but there will also be a rump GE service, 6
tph @ 8 cars, whose 48 cph make for a total of 168 cph, 30% more than at
present. If Crossrail gets 12-car trains, the Crossrail part will be 144
cph, more than the current service just by itself.

(info and working shamelessly nicked from alwaystouchout.com!)

Lets take an example of the Victoria Line in the 1960s. No doubt if it
was built today, it would have been built to a heavy rail gauge,
connected at Wood Street, Walthamstow - for chingford, Tottenham Hale -
for Cheshunt, Stansted and at Victoria or Herne Hill - for South London
Destinations.

Hang on - the Victoria line *is* heavy rail; it has reasonably big trains,
travelling at high speed and high frequency. Of course, they're smaller
(shorter and narrower) than mainline trains, but they're still very
significantly bigger than light rail (eg DLR) trains. Moreover, the track
specifications are compatible with NR lines: very similar trains share
tracks with mainline trains on the Bakerloo / Watford DC joint line
between Queens Park and Harrow & Wealdstone. Thus, if the connections were
built, and suitable power and signals provided, Victoria line trains
could, on a technical level, do exactly that.

The reason they don't, as was kindly explained to me a few days ago, is
that there isn't capacity on the central section of the line - traffic
from the existing stations is already enough to saturate it, so adding
more stations at the ends would overload it. If the frequency of service
can be improved, then yes, more stations could perhaps be added, but at
present, that wouldn't be sensible.

The NLL Statford - North Woolich line should be seen as an important
line that has potential to serve both South and North of The River
similar in a "Thameslink" Style. If a thames tunnel was built between
North Woolwich and Woolwich Arsenal. and a connection was made from the
North London line to the Lea Valley line. A huge number of potential
routes would be available. Stansted - Dartford or Cheshunt to Abbey Wood
for example. Even complementary services from Enfield or Chingford could
be diverted into this route.

Honestly it would be best if DLR ceased operations north of West India
Quay. And heavy rail was reinstated from Fenchurch Street to a new
overground Isle of Dogs Station (probably around billingsgate market)
witin a good walking distance of Canary Wharf. A line would continue to
pass through Canning Town, and diverge into two, one diving under the
thames as crossrail envisages, and the other continuing to custom house,
Gallions Reach Barking Reach and following the C2C line to Pitsea.
Simple.

That makes a lot of sense. It's similar in spirit to what i was
suggesting, although more practical - provide a heavy rail cross-river
suburban metro service focused on Docklands. A sort of
'Thamesgatewaylink', if you will.

It makes much more sense to provide longer 8 - 12 car
trains which can transport more people, and has the 'potential' to have
the same frequency of the DLR service.

Bingo.

tom

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