London Banter - View Single Post - Crossrail link to Reading hangs in the balance

Terry Harper · December 30th 07, 09:44 PM posted to uk.railway,uk.transport.london

On Sun, 30 Dec 2007 14:45:59 GMT, (Adrian the
Rock) wrote:

"Richard J." wrote:
Colin McKenzie wrote:

I hope the principle that Crossrail should be all-stations has been
established.

Then you'll be disappointed. The planned Crossrail timetable involves
some trains non-stopping certain stations west of Paddington in order to
leave paths for some west-of-Maidenhead FGW trains on the relief lines...

Glad to hear this - the suggestion of every train stopping at every
station to Maidenhead seemed utter madness to me too.

Firstly, it's been standard and established practice for many years
now to have separate outer and inner suburban services on major London
suburban/commuter lines. For example the Brighton lines have their
Metro and Sussex Coast services, out of KX the inners run to Welwyn
GC/Hertford N, and so on.

Isn't there a precedent here from the Japanese high-speed lines?

They run flights of trains which go non-stop to a major station, and
then every station to the next major station, where they terminate.
The timing is such that connections in each direction provide a
quicker service than the alternative of all-stations plus limited stop
services.

For Crossrail you could use Hayes and Harlington, Slough and
Maidenhead as the major intermediate stations. Time the trains so that
the non-stop arrives at the major station just after the stopper has
arrived. This would require extra platform faces for cross-platform
connections, of course, and reversing facilities. Hayes and Harlington
trains continue to Heathrow.
--
Terry Harper
Website Coordinator, The Omnibus Society
http://www.omnibussoc.org