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

Tom Anderson · January 4th 08, 11:54 AM posted to uk.transport.london

On Fri, 4 Jan 2008, wrote:

My completely off-the-wall idea is to join up Crossrail with the
Hammersmith & City and run Crossrail trains (from Shenfield) that
would otherwise terminate at Paddington on to Hammersmith.

You're not the first person to suggest this. I can't remember who was, at
least on utl, but it's a cudgel i've taken up. It's an excellent idea.

The pattern could be:

4 fast Heathrow
4 slow Heathrow
8 Maidenhead / Reading
8 Hammersmith

Or 12 Hammersmith if Ken can't get BAA to agree to HeX on Crossrail.

Which they won't.

Current plans, the last i heard, only have 10 tph going beyond Paddington
- 4 tph to Heathrow, 2 tph to West Drayton, and 4 tph to Maidenhead, all
all-stops, i think, although exactly what happens at the far end is still
up in the air. That's 14 tph to dispose of at Paddington, which would be a
doubling of the current H&C frequency.

I think the constraint on frequency at Heathrow is the need to reverse.
This is one reason the Airtrack plan is such a good one - you can run
trains on from T5 to Staines and reverse there, where there's room for a
higher-capacity layout. That would let more trains go to Heathrow (well,
Staines), although at the expense of other destinations i think.

There would be a huge benefit to the Circle Line. All Circle and
Wimbleware trains would continue beyond Edgware Road, providing for the
first time since 1868 a proper much-needed frequent service from west to
north Circle, dramatically improving performance by removing the
conflicts and bottleneck west of Edgware Road.

Is it much-needed? I think a more important benefit would be improving the
service along the north side by removing a lot of H&C passengers and
simplifying the network, making it more reliable.

Also, bear in mind that it would mean Paddington regains the two H&C
platforms, which might benefit GWML passengers a bit.

Running as a Teapot line (Wimbledon - Edgware Road - Aldgate - High St
Ken - Edgware Road - Aldgate and vice versa) would solve the Circle
problem as well.

No it wouldn't. The main problem with the Circle is conflicting movements
across the various flat junctions, including Praed Street, where the H&C
joins. The Hammersmith & Crossrail plan eliminates that junction
altogether; the Teacup plan puts even more trains through it than at
present.

So what are you going to do with the H&C paths that are are freed up on
the Circle? You could run more Met trains through from Baker Street. You
could use it to strengthen the Circle service, but that would mean taking
paths away from the District on the south side, which is unlikely to be
popular. You could run a partial Circle, from Gloucester Road (with a
couple of new crossovers, i think) to Aldgate. You could extend the
Wimbleware to Aldgate, and possibly strengthen it.

The two lines virtually intersect at Paddington anyway so joining them
shouldn't be too difficult.

Even better, the H&C is in a dive-under around where the Crossrail portal
needs to be, so it'd be simplicity itself to link them together.

Platform lengthening and ancillary works at the H&C stations, plus a new
Royal Oak, would be challenging, but no doubt not insurmountable.

"Challenging, but no doubt not insurmountable" is a very interesting way
of spelling "expensive"

. It's the platforms, OHLE on the whole route,
possibly gauge improvements along the way, resignalling, and changing
Hammersmith to support turning a higher frequency reliably (which only
means adding a crossover or two, i think).

tom

--
only positivistic reason and the forms of philosophy based on it are
universally valid -- Pope Benedict XVI