On Mon, 31 Dec 2007, Adrian the Rock wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:

On Sun, 30 Dec 2007, Adrian the Rock wrote:

In many cases the underground itself provides a third group of
"ultra-inner" services.

What? No. I don't think that's true. I think LU routes are generally of
about the same extent as NR inners. The Brighton line inners you mention
end at Purley...

... while the LUL lines only go as far as Elephant, Brixton and
Morden.

Morden's only Z4, granted, but the other two are hardly representative
cases.

I accept it's a bit different north of the river, where LU lines
generally do go further out,

Quite!

but many of them don't run parallel or even near to NR lines anyway.

No. But you can still compare their extent. But certainly, for the point
you're making, they're not helpful.

But Ealing Broadway and West Ruislip are good examples of the comparison
I was making, while the corresponding inner suburban trains on NR go to
Hayes and High Wycombe respecively.

I'd say that Ealing Broadway is the Brixton of the west - it's somewhere
where LU lines stop noticeably short, because they've reached a major
interchange and traffic generator, and the onward route is already covered
by NR. I don't think that's typical (although it's certainly not uncommon,
so maybe i'm kidding myself here!). Also, bear in mind that the District
used to go beyond Ealing Broadway, all the way to Windsor, in the 80s. The
1880s, that is.

A quick look at the Chiltern timetable suggests that trains to High
Wycombe mostly go on to Aylesbury or Banbury; i think that makes such
trains outer suburban services, and thus that the Central line service is
the inner service on this route.

And the other point, of course, is that LU lines have more closely
spaced stations, which obviously makes journey times longer. Eg there
are far more District line stations between Z1 and Wimbledon/Richmond
than if you go by SWT from Waterloo.

True. Although the Victoria line is an interesting, if ultimately futile,
counterexample.

Most of these don't run alongside NR routes, but obvious examples are
the District/Central lines to Ealing/Richmond/W Ruislip and the Jubilee
to Stanmore. So in effect the inner suburban services over NR are
usually the second tier, not the first.

What are the NR inners on those routes?

Ealing see above; Richmond, the SWT services to Kingston/Hounslow loop
etc; W Ruislip see above.

Hmm. I'm not entirely convinced about Richmond; i think the District and
Windsor lines have a relationship a bit like the Jubilee and Central at
Stratford, where one terminates having provided a slightly
round-the-houses route, and one carries on straight through to the fringes
of the city.

The Met&GC line is unusual in that only the outer suburban service
(Alyesbury) runs over NR tracks, with the Metropolitan line providing
the inner suburban service. But note that even this has multiple tiers
- Amersham semi-fasts vs Uxbridge/Watford stoppers.

Vs the Jubilee, which provides a yet innermore layer of service on that
route.

Inners are usually all-stops. A service to Aylesbury would be an outer.

Indeed. Were the GW&GC to become an arm of Crossrail, I would certainly
envisage inners to (at furthest) High Wycombe with separate outers to
Aylesbury.

Okay, i see, apologies.

Part of Crossrail's problem is that it tries to straddle the fence
between inners and outers, providing both a high-frequency,
short-distance service in town, and a fast long-distance service at the
fringes...

I think we're broadly agreeing there are some issues around this,
anyway.

Yes, i think you're right.

... Well, at the western end: the Shenfield service is a
straightforward all-stops to-roughly-the-edge-of-Z6 service. It's the
attempt to go to Maidenhead and Reading that's causing schizophrenia...

That's one view, but I would turn the coin on its head and say it shows
a lack of ambition to run only that far on the eastern stretch. This is
why I'm concerned about the 'Ken factor' having too much influence, as
their formal responsibilities stop at Z6.

Ah, right. Now, here we come to the fundamental and age-old argument about
Crossrail, and all other such projects: should it be a suburban service,
like a funny tube line, or a way to let long-distance trains run into
town? For Crossrail, the argument was settled in favour of serving London
(except for Maidenhead); for Thameslink 2000, in favour of serving the
home counties. The argument was also fought over Chelsea-Hackney, with
proposals to run trains to Peterborough, Cambridge, Farnham, Southampton,
etc; i think it's too early to say that that's been settled at all!

I don't think the decision is about a lack of ambition, it's about the
priorities of the stakeholders and, to some extent, the situation on the
ground. The reason we're debating this is, i think, because we're from
different camps: what really matters to me is improving transport for
London, and what matters to you is improving it for the whole of the
south-east.

Have you come across the Superlink proposal? That's a version of Crossrail
put forward by some old railway hands that does exactly what you want. One
of the interesting features is that it would attract a lot more farebox
revenue, and so would cost the state less, even though it's a bit more
expensive to build.

I'd surely have thought there would be a market for through trains
from places like Colchester and Southend to points west of London -
Heathrow is surely a no-brainer, but the Thames Valley itself is a
thriving business zone and this would make it far more accessible from
Essex. Again, think how successful Bedford - Brighton is.

Absolutely! A service from the depths of the home counties to the middle
of London would be very popular indeed. As would such a service from
Shenfield, of course .

tom

--
Things fall apart - it's scientific