On Mon, 9 Oct 2006, TheOneKEA wrote:

On Oct 9, 11:54 am, "Kev" wrote:
TheOneKEA wrote:

For that matter, how will the tracks themselves be positioned? One
smart thing to do would be to run them down the centre of the
formation, so that in case patronage begins to pick up significantly,
a set of outside loops can be built at the stations and new platforms
added, to permit non-stopping of trains.

Funniest thing that I have read in ages, the prospect of the Eat London
Line being so busy it will need to be quadrupled. You would still have
the double track bottleneck to the south.

How about some sort of freight use? The NLL isn't just for people, you
know. However, i'm not sure where the southern end would be; Bishopsgate
is hardly the freight hub it once was, and there's no obvious way beyond
it: the Great Eastern is too busy (and you can get there via Stratford
already), and the East London line itself is never going to be four-track
south of there. You could always go down into some point-defeatingly
expensive tubes, i suppose. The big London freight study a while ago did
say we needed a new Thames crossing to get freight from the Kent ports to
the north without faffing around on the south London commuter lines and
the WLL; might as well build it here as out at Tilbury (yes, i know, it'd
still play merry hell with the Dartford lines).

Alternatively, whack in a second portal or a flyover or whatever, and run
Shoreditch - Highbury & Islington - Willesden Junction as another
Crossrail branch!

While we're on the subject of the ELLX, two questions, slightly more
serious. Firstly, what happens between the Shoreditch High Street edge of
the old Bishopsgate yard and the old Broad Street viaduct? There's a
hundred metres or so which isn't on the viaduct, and is currently (?)
occupied by buildings. Secondly, what's going to happen to the stub of
viaduct south of the junction with the answer to the first question?

Oh, third question: what was on the Bishopsgate site between 1964, when i
understand it closed as a goods yard, and the time ELLX construction
started? It seems inconceivable that a site that size so close to Livepool
Street didn't get turned into an office block. I suppose this 'City
fringes' business is all quite new.

Fourth question! How did Broad Street once function as it apparently did
as a terminus of the Great Northern? How do you get from Finsbury Park to
Broad Street? Ah, no, i see - there's a curve from just below Drayton Park
to the NLL. Isn't that single-track, though?

Genuine fourth question: was anything of industrial archaeology salvaged
from Bishopsgate, and if so, where will it be put on display?

Fifth question: goods yards with two rail levels: who on earth thought of
that? Do they still do that anywhere? Madness!

tom

--
I really don't know what any of this **** means, but it looks
impressive. -- zerolives, on YVFC