London Banter - View Single Post - Train-home ban for big bike ride

Colin Rosenstiel · June 21st 05, 12:11 AM posted to uk.transport.london

In article , (David
Splett) wrote:

"Colin Rosenstiel" wrote in message
...
- Only a small number of their platforms can take more than 8
carriages (Finsbury Park, Stevenage, Hitchin, St. Neots, Huntington,
Peterborough, Cambridge plus perhaps one or two others - all with
quite a bit of inconvenience). This makes regular operation of
12-carriage trains very hard.
- Certain platforms can only take 4-carriage trains - Meldreth,
Shepreth & Foxton, plus stations north of Cambridge except Ely.
Actually, _stations_ North of Ely can take longer trains (e.g. Downham
Market) but the power supply doesn't support trains longer than 4
cars.

Um. I can't remember what the power restrictions are, but I would have
thought it's more to do with the number of trains in a section rather
than their length - though granted the two are often related. Possibly
Downham can take more than 4 (though I could have sworn that when I
stood at the 4-car mark last year with my bike I was at the end of the
platform), but I'm sure Littleport and Watlington can't.

To get an 8 car train between Ely and Cambridge they have to be sure the
line is clear so it won't be checked en route. The power is fed from
Milton, just North of Chesterton Junction at the Northern end of
Cambridge and isn't sufficient to restart a 8 car train in section,
apparently.

Watlington is a recent halt which only has short platforms as you say.
Downham Market, I'm sure because I've been there more than once, has
platforms long enough for the old loco-haled services. I would be
surprised if Littleport hadn't too.

Similarly, some stations can only take 6-carriage trains - for
example Welham Green.
- 12-carriage trains would have to use only Platforms 1 to 8 at
King's Cross, which at peak times are already full to capacity with
GNER trains, et cetera.
You can't have used King's Cross much at rush hours recently. Lots of
Cambridge and Peterborough trains leave from platforms 1-8.

Quite so, but if you suddenly extend all of these to 12 cars they can't
use platforms 9-11 (or can't use a platform already occupied by one
unit). This is fine until an incident causes the platforming to go out
of sequence: currently WAGN only runs one 12-carriage service;
similarly the Eurostars can only use platforms 1 or 6 - okay for a
handful of services, but start making more of them and you have
problems.

There is nothing like enough stock for all trains to be 12 car though
there are some 12 car Peterboroughs now. When Thameslink 2000 gets done,
who knows what will happen?

The class 365 units seem to be a right bugger to couple up. The
Royston coupling is now performed at Cambridge AIUI, to make
assistance more available if there are problems. I can see why
Southern insisted on changing all their Electrostar couplers.

Yep, though they did of course used to join and split on the
Ramsgate/Dover runs, seemingly with little hassle. I've seen 317s have
trouble, but 365s do seem to suffer from the problem very badly.

We can heartily agree there. All the more puzzling given the much
increased miles per casualty being achieved for the class 365s by Hornsey
compared to their record at SET.

--
Colin Rosenstiel