In message
-sept
ember.org, at 21:37:39 on Thu, 28 Apr 2016, Recliner
remarked:
As I said, 3/4 trains is an underestimate. It's more like six. You seem
to have forgotten T5, which usually has two trains in the station or
sidings, and T4, which always has a train in the station or loop.

Do at least *try* to keep up - Clive was talking about the order of 73's
for phase 1.

If you'd actually read my note, you'd have seen that I pointed out that
several more trains have been moved to the Heathrow branches, at the
expense of the Picc service to Uxbridge. Instead, more Met trains serve
Uxbridge.

When did this happen? The time period under discussion is late 70's.
--
Roland Perry

In message
-sept
ember.org, at 21:28:54 on Thu, 28 Apr 2016, Recliner
remarked:

Further into the future, if a third runway is built, there will be a new
western terminal, which may be adjacent to T5, and share its three
underground stations.

There are only two. Recent poorly-written articles about a "secret
station" are in fact about extra as-yet-unused platforms at the heavy
rail station.

When it eventually opens, who knows whether it will be shown as a new GWR
station or a pair of extra platforms at what is currently the HEx station?
The GWR station may be gated, the HEx station isn't, as it's free to the
central station.

It's inevitable that it'll be just one station because there will be
through trains (I don't think it's yet been decided if HEx or Crossrail
would run the 2tph Paddington-Heathrow-Reading trains; very unlikely to
be FGW or successor).
--
Roland Perry

Roland Perry wrote:
In message
-sept
ember.org, at 21:37:39 on Thu, 28 Apr 2016, Recliner
remarked:
As I said, 3/4 trains is an underestimate. It's more like six. You seem
to have forgotten T5, which usually has two trains in the station or
sidings, and T4, which always has a train in the station or loop.

Do at least *try* to keep up - Clive was talking about the order of 73's
for phase 1.

If you'd actually read my note, you'd have seen that I pointed out that
several more trains have been moved to the Heathrow branches, at the
expense of the Picc service to Uxbridge. Instead, more Met trains serve
Uxbridge.

When did this happen? The time period under discussion is late 70's.

We're not just talking about the original 1977 extension, as that can't be
viewed in isolation.

The original 73TS fleet was planned to be large enough for the original
two-station Heathrow extension, which opened just after the fleet started
to enter service from 1975. As suggested upthread, it probably had about
four more trains than would have been needed without that extension.

With the two additional extensions to T4 and T5, more trains were moved to
the Heathrow branches, at the expense of the Rayner's Lane and,
particularly, the Uxbridge services. The Rayner's Lane branch still has a
worse service than when T4 opened, while the Uxbridge branch now gets a
more frequent Met service to compensate for the reduced Picc service. So
about four more S8 trains (which cost about £8m each) were needed to
compensate for the four more 73TS trains serving the Heathrow branches.

So if you want to consider the incremental fares revenue from the Heathrow
services, you need to set that against all the investments in those
services. Obviously a complicating factor in doing those calculations is
that BAA contributed to the construction costs and now benefits from a
share of the fares revenue. Ideally, if the figures were available, you'd
want to include the BAA (now HAL) investments and returns as well, though
the figures may be impossible to obtain.

Incidentally, you can't just look at the Central station in isolation, as
all the trains that serve it also serve T4 or T5.

Roland Perry wrote:
In message
-sept
ember.org, at 21:28:54 on Thu, 28 Apr 2016, Recliner
remarked:

Further into the future, if a third runway is built, there will be a new
western terminal, which may be adjacent to T5, and share its three
underground stations.

There are only two. Recent poorly-written articles about a "secret
station" are in fact about extra as-yet-unused platforms at the heavy
rail station.

When it eventually opens, who knows whether it will be shown as a new GWR
station or a pair of extra platforms at what is currently the HEx station?
The GWR station may be gated, the HEx station isn't, as it's free to the
central station.

It's inevitable that it'll be just one station because there will be
through trains (I don't think it's yet been decided if HEx or Crossrail
would run the 2tph Paddington-Heathrow-Reading trains; very unlikely to
be FGW or successor).

Through trains will presumably use the current HEx platform pair. The
currently unused platform pair could be used for a different service,
perhaps to Staines and beyond.

Anyway, this is just an argument about semantics. We all know that T5
included another pair of platforms from the beginning, intended for a
proposed new western service (then Airtrack) which has yet to happen.
They're not secret, but we don't yet know exactly how they'll be accessed
from the terminal building.

In message
-septe
mber.org, at 08:21:42 on Fri, 29 Apr 2016, Recliner
remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message
-sept
ember.org, at 21:37:39 on Thu, 28 Apr 2016, Recliner
remarked:
As I said, 3/4 trains is an underestimate. It's more like six. You seem
to have forgotten T5, which usually has two trains in the station or
sidings, and T4, which always has a train in the station or loop.

Do at least *try* to keep up - Clive was talking about the order of 73's
for phase 1.

If you'd actually read my note, you'd have seen that I pointed out that
several more trains have been moved to the Heathrow branches, at the
expense of the Picc service to Uxbridge. Instead, more Met trains serve
Uxbridge.

When did this happen? The time period under discussion is late 70's.

We're not just talking about the original 1977 extension, as that can't be
viewed in isolation.

Until you agree on the parameters for ROI for the phase 1 of the
project, it's futile to be discussing the parameters for all three
phases.

The original 73TS fleet was planned to be large enough for the original
two-station Heathrow extension, which opened just after the fleet started
to enter service from 1975. As suggested upthread, it probably had about
four more trains than would have been needed without that extension.

If you agree that was 4 trains, then we are making progress.

With the two additional extensions to T4 and T5, more trains were moved to
the Heathrow branches, at the expense of the Rayner's Lane and,
particularly, the Uxbridge services. The Rayner's Lane branch still has a
worse service than when T4 opened, while the Uxbridge branch now gets a
more frequent Met service to compensate for the reduced Picc service. So
about four more S8 trains (which cost about £8m each) were needed to
compensate for the four more 73TS trains serving the Heathrow branches.

I'm not sure Clive agrees with you there and in any event I'm only
looking at phase 1 at the moment.

So if you want to consider the incremental fares revenue from the Heathrow
services, you need to set that against all the investments in those
services.

Yes, for phase 1 only, at the moment.

Obviously a complicating factor in doing those calculations is
that BAA contributed to the construction costs and now benefits from a
share of the fares revenue. Ideally, if the figures were available, you'd
want to include the BAA (now HAL) investments and returns as well, though
the figures may be impossible to obtain.

Incidentally, you can't just look at the Central station in isolation, as
all the trains that serve it also serve T4 or T5.

But not during phase 1.

Of course, you could produce some figures for all three phases if you
like, that would make a change from doing nothing but offering wildly
over-estimated figures contesting those you've been given by myself and
Clive.
--
Roland Perry

On 28/04/2016 17:22, Roland Perry wrote:
In message
-sept
ember.org, at 08:03:57 on Thu, 28 Apr 2016, Recliner
remarked:

the 73TS were built while the Heathrow extension was
under construction, and a large enough fleet to cover it was ordered.
Without that extension, the order would have been for a significantly
smaller fleet.


They were later modified to have more luggage space by the
doors, with fewer seats.

What was the total cost including the two separate, subsequent
extensions
for T4 and T5, the latter also requiring a new grade-separated
underground
junction for the T4 and T5 lines to the west of the T123 station?
Those
extensions would certainly have much more than doubled the total cost.

And generate double the fares.

Probably not double (have you seen how few people use the T4
station?), but
more certainly.

Latest annual station usage stats:

T123 7.49m
T5 3.90m
T4 2.35m


Is that it? Any ideas about the Hex and Connect? Given the number of
passengers through Heathrow each year, let alone staff, those numbers
seem terribly low.

Seems Shadwell is busier than T4....

On 28/04/2016 20:52, Clive D. W. Feather wrote:
In message , Someone Somewhere
wrote:
Who says that we're getting equivalent value on each different piece
of work? Anecdotally the cost of building railways seems to be going up,

Modern Railways used to use a "Ford Factor" of pi for increases since
privatisation. Some recent issues were using a "carton of milk"
comparison, but I forget the actual numbers.


I get the Pi thing (3.14whatever), but a carton of milk? Any chance of
a potted explanation?

and that's before you take into account the stupidly over-engineered
stations and so on of the JLE.

Why are you assuming they are over-engineered? They're mostly built in
very different ground to the Blue Clay. I remember reading at the time
that the "big box" design used at some stations was actually the
cheapest way to build them.

I'm sure it's been stated elsewhere, but I fail to believe that it's the
case for all the stations - I thought there was a lot of discussion at
the time about over-engineering? Let alone the re-signalling cost when
it didn't work etc. Even wikipedia states that the stations include:
"an attempt to "future-proof" stations by designing from the start for a
high use. One consequence is that most platforms and halls are full only
in a busy rush hour."

Roland Perry wrote:
In message
-septe
mber.org, at 08:21:42 on Fri, 29 Apr 2016, Recliner
remarked:
Roland Perry wrote:
In message
-sept
ember.org, at 21:37:39 on Thu, 28 Apr 2016, Recliner
remarked:
As I said, 3/4 trains is an underestimate. It's more like six. You seem
to have forgotten T5, which usually has two trains in the station or
sidings, and T4, which always has a train in the station or loop.

Do at least *try* to keep up - Clive was talking about the order of 73's
for phase 1.

If you'd actually read my note, you'd have seen that I pointed out that
several more trains have been moved to the Heathrow branches, at the
expense of the Picc service to Uxbridge. Instead, more Met trains serve
Uxbridge.

When did this happen? The time period under discussion is late 70's.

We're not just talking about the original 1977 extension, as that can't be
viewed in isolation.

Until you agree on the parameters for ROI for the phase 1 of the
project, it's futile to be discussing the parameters for all three
phases.

The original 73TS fleet was planned to be large enough for the original
two-station Heathrow extension, which opened just after the fleet started
to enter service from 1975. As suggested upthread, it probably had about
four more trains than would have been needed without that extension.

If you agree that was 4 trains, then we are making progress.

I never disagreed about the number of trains needed prior to 1986. But that
was a small part of the eventual Heathrow extension.


With the two additional extensions to T4 and T5, more trains were moved to
the Heathrow branches, at the expense of the Rayner's Lane and,
particularly, the Uxbridge services. The Rayner's Lane branch still has a
worse service than when T4 opened, while the Uxbridge branch now gets a
more frequent Met service to compensate for the reduced Picc service. So
about four more S8 trains (which cost about £8m each) were needed to
compensate for the four more 73TS trains serving the Heathrow branches.

I'm not sure Clive agrees with you there and in any event I'm only
looking at phase 1 at the moment.

So if you want to consider the incremental fares revenue from the Heathrow
services, you need to set that against all the investments in those
services.

Yes, for phase 1 only, at the moment.

Obviously a complicating factor in doing those calculations is
that BAA contributed to the construction costs and now benefits from a
share of the fares revenue. Ideally, if the figures were available, you'd
want to include the BAA (now HAL) investments and returns as well, though
the figures may be impossible to obtain.

Incidentally, you can't just look at the Central station in isolation, as
all the trains that serve it also serve T4 or T5.

But not during phase 1.

Of course, you could produce some figures for all three phases if you
like, that would make a change from doing nothing but offering wildly
over-estimated figures contesting those you've been given by myself and
Clive.

If you only want to look at phase 1, fair enough. The analysis will have to
be for the period from 1977 to 1986, when T4 opened. What was the rate of
return, positive or negative, on the capital investments in the extended
line, stations (two all-new and one re-built) and four extra trains, made
over those ten years?

In message , at 09:56:12 on Fri, 29 Apr
2016, Someone Somewhere remarked:
Who says that we're getting equivalent value on each different piece
of work? Anecdotally the cost of building railways seems to be going up,

Modern Railways used to use a "Ford Factor" of pi for increases since
privatisation. Some recent issues were using a "carton of milk"
comparison, but I forget the actual numbers.

I get the Pi thing (3.14whatever), but a carton of milk? Any chance of
a potted explanation?

Back in the day people often used "the price of a Mars Bar" as an
inflation benchmark, but that got spolit when they kept changing the
size. Milk is an especially poor benchmark due the combination of over
production, supermarkets both screwing their suppliers and selling milk
as a loss leader.
--
Roland Perry

In message , at 09:43:18 on Fri, 29 Apr
2016, Someone Somewhere remarked:
Latest annual station usage stats:

T123 7.49m
T5 3.90m
T4 2.35m

Is that it? Any ideas about the Hex and Connect?

If only there was a way to find things like that out. Hold on, I'll see
if Tim Berners Lee has any ideas.

Given the number of passengers through Heathrow each year, let alone
staff, those numbers seem terribly low.

HEx is 5.84m a year and Connect a lowly 0.4m .

There is expected to be a sizeable shift from the Piccadilly Line to
Crossrail when it opens.

The airport had 73m passengers in 2014, but 26m were transfers, so 47m
landside. T5 is by far the busiest, with twice as many as the next
busiest (T3).

Overall, 40% are reported to use public transport, which sounds about
right - adding up the figures above actually gives 42%, but there's also
bus and coaches, offset from that some of the passengers are staff (but
with unsocial hours, over 17,500 free staff car parking spaces on site
and a vigorous car-sharing policy, their use of public transport is
naturally going to be low).
--
Roland Perry