Matthew Malthouse wrote in message ...
On Tue, 16 Sep 2003 14:06:30 -0000 Zonky wrote:
} Sorry, but what's the point of it? Turning an express train into a slow
} stopper for the last couple of miles?

The main point is that it will be 10 mins walk from my front door;
couldn't have let 'em do it otherwise.

Seriously, Stratford is already an interchange for Mainline, DLR,
Jubilee and Central services. With the DLR it will have a link to City
Airport. It will make passenger access significantly easier for a great
many people.

Additionally it has freight links with Harwich and Felixtowe. I don;t
know how much freight was a consideration byt it seems reasonable to
suspect that it played a part.

Matthew

I don't think freight had much to do with the choice to add a
Stratford station. If Quail is to be believed there will be no routes
off the CTRL from the South at Stratford. The only routes off the up
CTRL north of the Thames are at Dagenham, into Ripple Lane Yard and
the Ford plant; into St. Pancras station; and onto the WCML via
Primrose Hill. There is a a route off the Down CTRL at Stratford
into Temple Mills Yard.

I suspect that the main reasons that the station exists were as a stop
for domestic trains on the CTRL, and to provide a London stop for NOL
Eurostars off the WCML that does not require a St. pancras reversal.
Additionally, even though the interchange to other railways at
Strtford is terrible, Stratford is probably still more convenient to
the Docklands, and (more generally) to most points East of the the
City. If Crossrail is ever built, it will probably be more convenient
for many passengers from West fo town too. [Although this is probably
less true for the current proposed Crossrail routes than was true for
those current when the CTRL was being planned.]

It also looks as if trains can be reversed at Stratford, so it would
provide an alternate terminus in the even tthat St. Pancras was
unusable.

I have a few CTRL questions.

Will St. Pancras Eurostars still use the North Pole depot? If so, are
there plans to add a route out of the depot onto the Northbound WLL?
If not, then what facility will be used?

What is the connection into Temple Mills Yard for?

To what extent will a failure to complete TL2K before CTRL Phase 2 is
doen cause operational problems in the redeveloped St. Pancras, wheer
there will only be four platforms available the MML? [I suppose the 3
domestic CTRL platforms might also be available, but access to them
from the MML crosses the entire throat of the station on the flat, so
there is a limit to their usefulness].