On Thu, 6 Apr 2006, Aidan Stanger wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:

On Tue, 4 Apr 2006, Aidan Stanger wrote:
John B wrote:
MIG wrote:
Peter Smyth wrote:

Mill Hill East services will be reduced to a shuttle to Finchley
Central off-peak and weekends from October 2006.

Yet another service reduction disguised as "reliability",

If the result is to make a substantial reduction in total Misery Line
misery, which it should be, then it seems like a good plan...

It would be a good plan if they did it right!

There's presumably room to throw in a passing loop halfway along the
branch; that would cost money, but be cheaper than doubling, but would
allow the frequency to be doubled, so that every mainline train could
link up with a shuttle.

It could if the passing loop were long, though it would be harder to
coordinate the service to connect with southbound trains as well.

Perhaps things could be timed so that the shuttles connect to the
southbound trains in the morning, and the northbound ones in the evening.
Not sure what you'd do in the middle of the day!

But the biggest problem would be getting it to connect properly in the
peaks when trains run more frequently than every 4 minutes.

True.

If they shortened the train length proportionally, it wouldn't even
cost any more to run.

What's the train length got to do with it? Going from 15 to 8 minutes
would be done by cutting down waiting time, not running more trains, AIUI.

Shorter trains use less electricity.

Aha. Is that a significant cost in running a train, then? I'd never though
of that.

The interesting thing to consider is how the MHE branch can be made
more useful in the long term. One idea I put on my website is to have
it as a branch of Crossrail Line 2, and extend it to Watford Junction
via MHB, Edgware and Stanmore. This would mean that nobody in North
London would have to detour to Euston to catch a train to The North,

Er, provided they can get to the High Barnet branch of the Northern line,

No, it would interchange with the other lines as well.

Where would it go south of Finchley?

and they don't want the ECML or MML!

If they did, they'd be detouring to Kings Cross or St.Pancras, not
Euston. However there would be a stop at Mill Hill Broadway to connect
with the Thameslink service, so some MML passengers would also benefit
albeit not to the same extent as the WCML passengers.

I suppose if this function was considered important enough, more trains
could be stopped at MHB.

There's no GNER equivalent of Watford Junction. Stevenage is too far
out, and they couldn't get planning permission for their Hadley Wood
proposals. Potters Bar might be a better location, but their trains
don't stop there yet.

The closest equivalent is probably Finsbury Park. In terms of distance,
that's more like Willesden Junction, but i think it gets more trains
stopping there than that.

If they, or their successors, ever do start stopping their trains there,
it might be worth considering extending the Jubilee Line there. But it's
not going to become as important a station as Watford Junction any time
in the forseeable future.

The Northern or Piccadilly look better placed for that to me.

and more passengers would be attracted to the outer ends of lines, where
there's plenty of spare capacity.

Not sure i get that bit - anyone at Watford is going to catch a fast train
to Euston, not sit on a tube train that stops at a dozen places on the
way.

Wrong! Not everyone at Watford is going to Central London. Millions of
people live in North London, and detouring to Euston would be more
expensive and in many cases slower and less convenient. By interchanging
with the ELL, GN, Victoria and Piccadilly Lines, two branches of the
Northern Line, Thameslink and the Jubilee Line, it would serve most of N
London.

Okay, i think i see what you mean.

Does anyone else have any other ideas for it?

The trouble with resurrecting the Northern Heights plan is the green
belt; the intention was always to drive development of new suburbs in
the north, as the Met did for Metroland, but post-WW2 planning policy
has put the kybosh on that. If the illustrious Mr Prescott or his
successor waves a wand and lets the golf courses and subsidy sinks of
Bushey be buried under an avalanche of Barratt boxes, this plan might
regain wings.

It wouldn't require that. There's enough of Bushey not already served by
rail to justify a station. The main destination's Watford.

It's not about justifying a station - it's about justifying a new railway,
a much more expensive proposition.

However, linking it to the ELL would be folly, IMHO; better would be to
link it to the GN electrics from Finsbury Park to Moorgate. A graded
junction at Moorgate would allow this to be done without conflicting
with mainline traffic to KX; the branch to Moorgate itself might need
some upgrading to cope, but the frequency would be well within the
capability of modern (ie early 20th century signalling systems). Of
course, this all comes to pass anyway under my glorious plan to drive
the tunnel further south from Moorgate, under the Bank and the Thames,
to link up with the lines at London Bridge ...

Where would you link them up?

Do you mean where would the portal be? Good question. Is there room for a
portal around the bulge in the formation where the railway crosses Dockley
Road? if not, you'd need to take some land away from buildings beside the
line; some grim industrial buildings would be the cheapest option, perhaps
those by Tanner Road, Rouel Road, Saint James's Road, etc. Where you put
the portal depends to some extent on which lines you want to join up with,
and i don't have strong views on that - i don't know enough about the
traffic patterns.

I also wondered whether that line could be extended. There's nowhere
around London Bridge to surface, but some passengers would get a much
more direct journey if it ran straight to Denmark Hill and surfaced
somewhere around Dulwich or Tulse Hill.

That's quite a bit of tunnelling, though.

I also wonder whether rather than being extended from Moorgate it could
be extended from Old Street to Liverpool Street to give better
interchange, then run under Gracechurch Street to London Bridge.

Moorgate is a stone's throw from Liverpool Street anyway - it's a shorter
walk between them than between some of the more distant platforms at Bank,
i'd say. Ideally, there'd be a direct underground passage; Crossrail will
join the two stations up, although i would guess that the Crossrail
platform won't be usable as an ad hoc foot tunnel.

tom

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