Aidan Stanger wrote:
wrote:


Won't passengers get a bit hacked off if what is essentially a suburban
commuter service was to be disrupted because of delays on a regional
train eighty miles away?

Why would the distance away that the delays occur at cause any problems?
If anything, I'd expect a delay further away to be less of a problem
because there would be more opportunity to recover.


If Crossrail was to go to Milton Keynes, then it'd be very difficult to
segregate its tracks. A delay on a regional train between London and
the West Midlands could have a knock on effect on a tube-like service
in east London (after all, with trains every two minutes through the
central tunnel there'd be no time to recover if a train missed its
slot). If my tube train was delayed because of a problem eighty miles
away I'd be a mite hacked off.

Personally, I suspect RER-style services work best on a segregated
suburban basis.

Anything is bound to be more reliable if it's entirely self contained,
but the benefits of using the WCML outweigh the risk. Consider
Thameslink - do you think it would be better value if they tried to keep
it self contained?

I do believe it would be better focused on Greater London, actually.
Providing a link between Gatwick and Luton is a good think because of
the airports, but I've never quite been convinced that there's a market
for people to go from Bedford to Brighton. There will be a market for
people to go from Bedford to Blackfriars, yes; but I think there's
probably a bigger market of people in the south London and Surrey/Kent
suburbs who want to go to King's Cross or Farringdon.


The current Crossrail proposal does have its problems -
the waste of trains not going west of Paddington,

Do you at least concede that running them to Milton Keynes is more
sensible than turning them back at Paddington?


Yes, but I think turning them back at Watford or somewhere comparable
would be more sensible still.


missing out City Airport,

That's only because CLRL didn't think it was worth the money to put a
station in the vicinity! It's strange, but they try to save a few
million pounds on a line that wastes billions.


That one I agree with you on.


But again, how much do you think a Whitechapel stop is worth? If the
line were going there anyway then putting in a station would be a
sensible move. But under the current plans, the delays to the 95+% of
Crossrail passengers not going to Whitechapel outweigh the time savings
to the few who are (who could easily get there by Tube anyway).

It's not about passengers that are going to Whitechapel - it's about
passengers that are going to Croydon, Peckham or Hoxton. The idea of
having two major new railway projects in London, that will between them
bring tube-like services to new swathes of the city, crossing and not
providing a connection in this day and age is just... odd, frankly.
Plus, stopping Crossrail at Whitechapel makes up somewhat for not
having a Central Line-ELL interchange.

Jonn