London Banter - View Single Post - The Ermine strikes back

Duncan · December 15th 07, 08:25 PM posted to uk.railway,uk.transport.london

In article ,
says...

I suspect that demand for trips between Twyford and London, and between
Reading and stations on the way to London, is very small compared to the
demand further in along the line.

I wouldn't say the numbers are very small. Passenger numbers in 2002/3
showed that long the GWML 8.6m journeys were into Berkshire, whilst
21.1m were into Central London. Also Reading is the second busiest
station outside London, so passengers from West London and East
Berkshire are also likely to use Reading as an interchange.

Even if Crossrail could run to Reading,
i really doubt that the demand would justify more than a few tph. Doing
all the electrification work etc just for that seems daft. Might as well
interleave a few non-Crossrail Reading stoppers.

Which will reduce the capacity for Crossrail services into London. The
alternative is to run a shuttle from Maidenhead to Reading / Oxford, but
then passengers traveling from Twyford - London or West London to
Reading will have to change at Maidenhead.

Actually, i'm skeptical about the value of extending beyond Slough,
really. Maidenhead has lots of demand, but would be better served by
stopping some fast trains, allowing Crossrail to focus on London.

However the cost per mile of extending from Slough to Maidenhead or even
Reading must be very low compared to the cost within the central area.
There is also the cost of the impact of not extending to consider, for
example if Crossrail doesn't go to Reading then some sort of DMU
stopping service will still be required, which currently eats up 4 paths
per hour off-peak, paths which will then not be available to Crossrail.

Duncan