On Tue, 20 Jan 2009 10:45:23 -0800 (PST), Mr Thant
wrote:

On 20 Jan, 18:04, Paul Corfield wrote:
As others have suggested TfL are lobbying to divert the £54m mentioned
below towards doing GOBLIN electrification. *I doubt £54m gets you the
whole job done and there would also be the issue of rolling stock unless
we are to be given new DMUs

I believe the current plan is we'll get Class 165s and be grateful.

Eh? I thought one extra 165 was being hunted to try to run the fabled
x15 headway. I thought Class 172s were then the new fleet until such
time as dangly electrical wires are put in place. Are you saying the
plan has changed again?

and then have them snatched away and
replaced by knackered old Class 313s. *If more 378s were needed then it
might get difficult in procurement terms as I don't believe TfL have any
further contract options left to exercise.

I'm sure I've seen documents listing very high numbers (250? 350?) as
"options", although I can't find them now.

Now that's interesting and very sensible. Shame Bombardier can't build
anything at the moment due to the banks being idiots (other post).

Having looked at some other postings in this thread can anyone say
exactly what the £54m buys at Camden Road? * I had assumed that it did
put back the missing bridges to the east of Camden Road and also sorted
stuff out to the west. Seems it does neither unless I am comprehensively
misunderstanding.

"restore four tracks to [...] west of Camden Road" and "improve
signalling and other infrastructure" is all it says on the press
release.

The bridges are still there, just in a poor state, so it's mainly
restoration and track-laying/signalling. TfL's dropped scheme included
restoring the north face of the middle platform at Camden Road, which
would probably also be needed for any scheme.

You're quite right that they are still there - I have it in my head that
there are gaps that need to be filled in despite having walked under
these bridges numerous times. I had wondered in anyone had seen the
scheme which had got to NR GRIP 4 stage or something?

They haven't explicitly said it's the same as TfL's scheme. The latter
was all about being able to run 8 tph passenger without impacting
freight capacity, whereas the DfT state increasing freight capacity as
their aim.

I guess it depends on how you define the base position in terms of
working out that there is an increase in capacity.

--
Paul C