"Aidan Stanger" schreef in bericht
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Chetoph wrote:

As Crossrail is in all likelihood going to be a regional link, as
opposed to an intercity one, are there any reasons why it could not
run double deck trains similar to those is Paris?

London Regional Metro (the private sector consortium with plans to build
a more commercially viable version of Crossrail) includes the provision
for double decker trains in its plans.

Your question implies that double deck trains are better for regional
services than intercity ones, but the reverse is the case because of the
extra time the trains would take to load and unload.

I met with some people from LRM and asked why they thought it was worth
the extra expense of bigger tunnels when double deck trains would
require longer station dwell times. I was told that the tunnels required
for double deck trains aren't much bigger than for normal trains, and
aren't much costlier (the running tunnels are a relatively small
component of the cost anyway). Furthermore CTRL completion would make
some large TBMs available. There were no plans for double decker trains
initially, but they thought it made sense to keep the option open to
introduce them if Crossrail gets too crowded after several decades.
Meanwhile, the bigger tunnels would at least provide an aerodynamic
advantage.

Here in the Netherlands, we have doubledecker trains for almost 20 years
now. I guess that the train services in the higly urbanised and densily
populated western part of the country ("Randstad Holland") is somewhat
comparable with Greater London.
Increased loading/unloading times are not considered to be a problem here.
Most doubledeckers have wide doors that allow three people to pass through
them at the same time. However, those carriages have been tested on the
München S-Bahn and the Germans considered the flow of people to slow. Maybe
because Bavarians are much wider than Dutchman...
The trains have been build to fit in the usual Continental profile. The
comfort doesn't suffer too much, especially in the newest trains that are
used in Intercity services.
I guess using doubledecker trains is way cheaper than making trains (and
platforms) longer of running more trains.

greetings,
hgrm

--
Aidan Stanger