wrote in message
ups.com...
marcb wrote:
wrote:
There was much on the news last night about the £500M revamp at
Victoria and the increse in capacity. Surely you can only increase
capacity buy increasing the frequency of trains or increasing the
carrying capacity or have I missed something.
Kevin
I had the same thought - I think there are only four platforms for
Victoria and Circle/District. and most people won't want Victora
southbound...
M.
I don't know about the District/Circle but the Victoria lines platforms
are already packed to overflowing. How is increasing the passenger
tunnel capacity going to help. I would have thought that £500M would
have been better spent incresing train length to give extra capacity
which would also help in loading unloading times therefore increasing
frequency.
London Underground can't increase length (despite the election promises of
the new Conservative MP for Putney) because the length of the platforms in
subsurface tunnels is fixed. To lengthen all the platforms would either be
prohibitivly expensive, or take so long as to take generations to actually
build.
The only ways to increase capacity a
i) more trains
ii) improvements to track and signalling to allow them to run closer
together, thereby increasing the number of passengers carried per unit time.
iii) redesign trains to get more people on each one, i.e. adjusting the
balance of seats to standing space, and positioning the seats to take up
least space.
iv) schemes (such as the extra platforms proposed at Victoria) to help (ii)
by decreasing station dwell times.
What seems to be proposed for Victoria is a very clever solution to
*station* overcrowding. As I understand it, in itself it won't affect train
capacities.
Michael