kytelly wrote:
Dave Arquati wrote:
Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 19 Sep 2006, Peter Frimberley wrote:

On Tue, 19 Sep 2006 13:41:37 -0500, David Jackman
wrote:

"Bob" wrote in
news:1158689984.356980.88880
@k70g2000cwa.googlegroups.com:

Further to out thread of November last year
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/5301366.stm

Is there any further detail ?
The best question is "where is the depot?". Unless the plan is to
dig up Hyde Park (unlikely) an isolated Oxford Street tramway with
steel wheeled cars doesn't work.
Either run it as a 24 hour or near 24 hour service, with just a few
sidings here and there to drop a few cars out of service at night;
plus a ramp down to the Central Line, and trundle off to another ramp
up to the West London tram, and go to their depots once a week for a
major clean etc?
Store them on-street, and have some specialised low-loaders to cart them
off, broken into separate cars, for maintenance?

That, or maybe one of those very large university/medical buildings up
TCR way might fancy being rebuilt and could accomodate some sort of
fancy dual-level depot on the ground floor and basement?
I'm sure Dave would be only too happy to see this patch of ground dug up:

http://maps.google.co.uk/?z=19&ll=51...,-0.133955&t=k


My loyalty lies with Imperial, you can insert a tram depot in UCL if you
want!

Slightly more seriously, how about the Royal Mail sorting office on
Rathbone Place? Their carpark is almost exactly the same size as the
Therapia Lane building. I've no idea what's under it (apart from a
defunct Mail Rail station), but it's conceivable that you could have a
two-storey setup, with a floor of stabling (maybe even two, as
mezzanines) and a floor of workshops above it, linked by a lift, with
the Royal Mail vans parking on top of that. Could even synergise and run
mail trams ...
Sounds like too efficient a plan to me.

I think various surface stabling points are possible. The gyratory
system at Marble Arch probably won't survive any improvements to Oxford
Street (thankfully), so any space released could provide a tram
terminus/stable. If there's enough space, it could be made reasonably
secure. Additionally, numerous bus stands would be freed up around
Oxford Street.

Ken also mentioned replacing various buildings by St Giles Circus with a
convention centre - which might incorporate a basement (or even surface
undercroft) tram depot.

However, I think the easiest option would be to plug it into CRT.
Through running might only be possible outside the peaks, when CRT will
be at capacity with 40tph.

As of yesterday I couldn't find anything on the TFL, the Mayors or the
Oxford street companies website about this. Are they just slow putting
this up or is this just a PR stunt they have no intention of
implementing?

It was apparently revealed in a chat the Mayor had on BBC London 94.9.
The actual report doesn't come out for another month.

--
Dave Arquati
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London