"Paul Scott" wrote:

"Grumpy Old Man" wrote in message
news
The Real Doctor wrote:
On 25 Mar, 08:47, "Lüko Willms" wrote:
Am Mon, 24 Mar 2008 22:26:35 UTC, schrieb The Real Doctor
auf uk.railway :

The people Crossrail is supposed to benefit - the international
financial community

I think that London Crossrail will benefit much more people than
just the "financial community".

It will be a faster way to get _thru_ London, instead of just _into_
London.

Well, it would be if it was designed to take long distance trains. But
it's not - just stoppers from Maidenhead to Shenfield. Long distance
travellers (Bristol - Norwich?) wanting to travel across London will
still have to change twice, just as now.

Ian

All the more reason to pull the plug. Thameslink, by contrast, will
accommodate
long-distance services, will it not ?

Depends if you consider Brighton - Bedford or Peterborough long - distance,
but they are still going to use basically high capacity commuter trains. In
terms of gauge, there appears little reason why an electric train couldn't
run Bristol - Norwich in the future (at least off peak when the service is
lighter), but like Thameslink the central section services will require high
frequency all stations stoppers at, so they will almost certainly decide
against it for reliability of timetabling.

Paul

Well the Thameslink services you mention look longer than is currently proposed
for Crossrail. I agree with you, services such as Norwich to Bristol would make
better use of Crossrail than allowing it to be hogged mainly for travel within
the M25 area.