On Sun, 30 Dec 2007, tim..... wrote:
"Terry Harper" wrote in message
...
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.
This is already a well established principle on some national rail
routes. But the problem with operating it on Crossrail is that it
requires all the trains to leave Padd on time. This is achievable if
they start there, but likely to end in chaos if they are delayed
en-route from Shenfield/whereeverelse.
Hang on, though: i think Terry was suggesting doing this just with
Crossrail trains, so they don't have to run on time in absolute terms,
just relative to each other, ie with an even spacing. Given that they're
running one after the other, with no branches, junctions or other
complicated bits (except passengers) from Whitechapel to Paddington, that
doesn't seem impossible.
I'm not sure that the service frequency will be low enough to allow a
useful amount of flighting using just one pair of tracks, though.
I should mention that i'm not even sure i've understood the Japanese
system right, though. Is this a Taktfahrplan or something different?
tom
--
In my view, this is no different than a parent introducing his child to
Shakespeare (except that the iambic pentameter is replaced by a framework
of profanity, misogyny, substance abuse, violence, retaliation, crime
and infidelity). -- Dad Gone Mad, on rap