Tom Anderson wrote:
On Sun, 25 Sep 2005, Paul Corfield wrote:
On Sat, 24 Sep 2005 21:02:32 +0100, Tom Anderson
wrote:
On Sat, 24 Sep 2005, Paul Corfield wrote:
On 16 Sep 2005 15:31:45 -0700, wrote:
Exactly, having multiple southern end destinations all with varying
journey times is a nightmare for timetable compilation and
reliability and will prevent 'tube' levels of frequency on the
individual branches.
I thought the frequencies on the ELLX branches were going to be
every 10 minutes peaks and daytimes? This is the same frequency as
offered on a number of Tube services such as the Met to Watford,
Uxbridge, Rayners Lane branch of the Picc, Mill Hill East branch.
Yes, all of which are pitiful services. Even so, they are perhaps
appropriate to the places those line serve: Watford and Uxbridge are
essentially outside London, the Rayner's branch of the Picc also has
the Met, and Mill Hill East isn't exactly a dense hub of population.
The service via South Harrow, Sudbury etc (which is what I meant when
I referred to the Rayners Lane branch) is only served by the Picc Line.
Ah, of course, sorry.
I think we will simply have to disagree about a 10 minute service
being pitiful. 20 minute headways - fairly typical for NR - is what I
would call pitiful.
I think what constitutes pitiful varies according to context - for
somewhere like Sudbury Town that's out in the sticks (and served by fast
mainline trains into town), a train every 10 minutes might well be
enough. For somewhere like Holloway Road, which is closer in and more
densely populated, it wouldn't be. The question is whether the demand on
the ELL is going to be more like Sudbury or Holloway. I have to admit
that i think demand isn't going to be that heavy - the line serves some
very densely populated areas, but i don't see any heavyweight
destinations on it - so perhaps 6 tph will be enough. On the other hand,
TfL and plenty of pundits seem to think it's going be heavily used, in
which case 10 tph (especially with 4-car trains) is going to look pretty
silly.
The major destination on the line is likely to be Shoreditch High
Street, as it serves a large number of employment locations on the City
fringe which were previously a ten minute walk or so from the nearest
stations at Old St and Liverpool St.
Canada Water will also be fairly significant, for people heading to
Canary Wharf. I think some 5,000 passengers per hour were expected to
switch from journeys via London Bridge (and Waterloo, if/when Phase 2
occurs) to using the ELL to Canada Water.
Although initially a 6tph service will probably be fine (although fairly
busy during the peaks, I should imagine - even during Phase 1), I
believe the plan is to encourage new development at the key interchanges
along the line, allowing it to underpin inner-London densification. The
key place for this will be Whitechapel, which will become a fairly
strategic interchange when Crossrail opens.
It was bad enough when the individual ELL termini had a 20 min
evening service, if you just missed a train at the 'Cross' at
night, you could walk to the 'Gate' only to just miss that
departure too 10 mins' later! Far better a combined service running
to one or other only but then no good for the BR interchange.
This simply reduces the utility of the rail network and certainly
does nothing to improve the lot of people needing to travel into
Docklands and East London from South London.
What? Would you care to explain the reasoning behind that?
The person I was responding to suggested that either NX or NXG branch
be closed. I was disagreeing and saying that to shut one of them
reduces the potential for people to make sensible connections with NR
services. Not every train via NX stops at Lewisham for the DLR so
therefore there will be people wishing to use the ELL to get to Canada
Water or Shadwell for connections into Docklands. Forcing people to
wander round the streets of New Cross or go via London Bridge and Zone
1 to change onto a tube service doesn't strike me as very sensible.
The flip side is that the service to the surviving branch would be twice
as frequent.
Anyway, imagine you are in control, which branch would you opt not
to serve and why?
New Cross. If you're near New Cross and need the ELL, walk to New
Cross Gate; if you're on a NR train coming into New Cross and need
the ELL, change at the Surrey Canal Road/Deptford Park station
various people have proposed.
This proposed station is part of Phase 2
True. I'd happily keep the NX branch open until phase 2 was done.
and does not seem to have any connection whatsoever with any National
Rail services. Having looked at a map it is also a very long walk from
New Cross. I don't think this is a sensible option at all.
The idea was to move it north a bit and build an interchange station
where the Clapham Junction branch crosses the mainline, with platforms
on both lines - you wouldn't walk from New Cross, you'd stay on your
train until Deptford Park, get off there, then catch an ELL train.
I came across the government's opinions on this idea - apparently, the
disbenefit to mainline passengers going to or from central London
resulting from the delay caused by the extra stop vastly outweighs the
benefit to those wanting to change. I haven't seen the details of the
analysis, though, so i'm not entirely convinced.
Such a result doesn't surprise me in the least; although the interchange
would be very useful for, say, 10% of the passengers on the trains that
would stop there, the other 90% of passengers just want to get to
central London, and therefore if everyone's time is worth the same, then
the maths is fairly obvious.
It was exactly the same problem at Shoreditch High St, where a Central
line interchange was mooted but dropped.
Neither Shoreditch nor Deptford are easy places to build the new
platforms for interchange, either - the Central line being deep tube and
the Deptford lines being on a viaduct, and both having extremely busy
services that would have to be maintained throughout the majority of the
construction period.
Sigh. The railways in this country really are a pain. Why didn't someone
build a station at Southwark Park with platforms on *all* the suburban
lines out of London Bridge, then run the ELL to it along under
Rotherhithe New Road? Oh yes, because all the lines were built by
different companies which all wanted to destroy each other ...
Capitalism, eh?
--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London