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Colin Rosenstiel · August 3rd 08, 07:54 PM posted to cam.transport,uk.railway,uk.transport.london

In article
,
() wrote:

On Aug 3, 10:17*am, "Brian Watson" wrote:
"Roland Perry" wrote in message

...

In message . uk,
at
23:36:00 on Sat, 2 Aug 2008, Colin Rosenstiel

remarked:
07:15 Cambridge London Kings Cross * * 176%
07:45 Cambridge London Kings Cross * * 164%
17:45 London Kings Cross Kings Lynn * *164%

Due to be 12 car trains

20 extra carriages are apparently to be supplied to FCC, but not
necessarily all for use on the Cambridge line. I'll be interesting
to see what sort those are. Displaced from elsewhere, presumably.

from May 2009 (at least I think so in the third case).

Does that mean their stopping pattern will change?

If those are average rather than worst snapshot figures they will
still have standing passengers.

Why cannot more mainline trains be a little longer (by a carriage or
two) and overhang platforms at the back?

It happens on various rural routes and seems to present no problem.

Apart from the issues already described by others, one major problem
on certain routes is platform length at the terminus or key
intermediate stations. Waterloo is a good example, where many
platforms can only handle 8-car trains (and most others only 12-car of
20 m or 10-car of 23 m) and the platforms cannot be lengthened in the
country direction owing to signalling issues, or reduction in capacity
of flexibility.

Other stations similarly constrained include London Bridge (no
platform can take more than 12 cars), Liverpool Street, Kings Cross
and Cambridge. Glasgow Central also has a number of short platforms.

King's Cross has two platforms (1 and 6) longer than the others. The
North of London Eurostar sets could only use them when on the White Rose
services a few years back.

The advent of 12-car trains on the West Anglia route is why the Cambridge
island platform scheme has suddenly come to the fore.

--
Colin Rosenstiel