Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 1 Aug 2006, Dave Arquati wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 1 Aug 2006, Dave Arquati wrote:

Bob wrote:

to turn round of half the trains at Paddington which seems a wasted
opportunity - taking over the Hammersmith end of the H&C removes a
busy junction on the Circle Line with knock on effects for that
lines reliability would seem a low cost no brainer.

I agree, but I think ensuring the central tunnel gets built is most
important - adding on too many extra bits here and there could kill
the whole project. Hammersmith could come later...

Except Hammersmith involves noodling about quite near the Paddington
portal (if you want to have a station at Royal Oak, or if you want to
use the existing H&C fly-under, at any rate), so if you don't at
least build in the possibility at the start, you might not be able to
do it later.

I'm not sure it would be worth keeping Royal Oak in this scenario
(gasp). Its catchment area overlaps a lot with Bayswater, Warwick
Avenue and Paddington H&C; a western entrance for Paddington Crossrail
would also be close by.

Sort of. You're right, of course, about other stations being close by,
but neither Bayswater nor Warwick Avenue are stations which offer good
routes to the eastern end of central London (ie the City). Paddington
H&C would of course cease to exist if the H&C was transferred to
Crossrail - unless you're envisaging a very exotic configuration of the
subsurface lines! People could go to Paddington to catch Crossrail, but
that involves pushing local commuters through a busy mainline station.
This western entrance could make that fairly painless, though; i'm
afraid i don't know the details of that.

I don't think there are currently any plans for a western entrance; it
was my suggestion to mitigate a closure of Royal Oak. such an entrance
would be at the junction of Eastbourne Terrace and Bishops Bridge Road.
This would totally separate local travellers from mainline users, and it
wouldn't have to be a grand entrance - Royal Oak isn't particularly
busy, and its passengers would be distributed amongst other stations.

What's wrong with Bayswater for the City? The Circle line has the same
frequency as the H&C, and if Wimblewares were extended eastwards to
compensate for the loss of the H&C, it would see a doubling of frequency.

(The configuration I'm imagining is as now but with no H&C and with
Wimblewares extended from Edgware Road to Whitechapel/Barking... call it
the Wimblebark if you will!)

Paddington H&C could either become extra platforms for mainline trains,
or stabling sidings for the Circle line or Wimbleware(bark).

Nonetheless, there's still the fly-under to think about: it gets to
ground level ~50 m west of Lord Hill's Bridge, which is pretty much
level with the planned Crossrail portal, so there wouldn't be room for a
straightforward junction here; you'd need some sort of weird junction on
a slope thing. Realistically, if you want to use it, you either have to
move the portal east, or you have to leave room for a junction inside
the box, so the branch can run for a hundred metres or so at a bit below
ground level to link up with the fly-under. Or something -
IANACivilEngineer.

An alternative would be to ditch it, and add a new fly-under/over around
Westbourne Park, rebuilding the station a little to the east; this would
have the advantage that the station would be upwards of the junction,
and so would be served by more trains. It might also enable some
creative use of the H&C platforms and tracks from Paddington to
Westbourne Park by mainline trains; suggestions on a postcard, please.

This seems like the best solution, involving the least reconfiguration
of Crossrail. The only problem is whether there's room for grade
separation or not - maybe that could be found through careful
redevelopment of the bus garage.

I'm not sure whether stopping Heathrow/Maidenhead trains at Westbourne
Park would be that useful or not; Ealing Broadway could already be used
for people travelling from the west to Shepherd's Bush or Hammersmith,
and an extra stop on those services might be irritating for travellers
from further out.

(snip pretty ascii art which was useful but needs no comment!)

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London