In article .com, MIG
writes
According to the Hendon Times, Mill Hill East services will be reduced to a
shuttle to Finchley Central off-peak and weekends from October 2006.

And closure following closely no doubt.

Not necessarily - look at Chesham, which runs in that way.

Why don't they genuinely improve reliability by
doubling the track?

How will that improve reliability with the present service?

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
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Dave Arquati wrote:
MIG wrote:
Dave Arquati wrote:
MIG wrote:
John B wrote:
Kev wrote:
This does sound like the thin end of the wedge. Ask people who used to
use the Watford Junc to Broad St (Liverpool St) and Watford to Croxley
service what they think of this.

OK, so in the first case a poor frequency service has been replaced
partly with the current NLL clockface 4tph timetable (set for further
improvements under TfL Rail) and will be replaced further with the ELLX
between Dalston and Shoreditch. In the second case, the link is set to
be rebuilt with more useful connections.

During London's decades of stagnation and decline, many useful rail
links were short-sightedly destroyed. The ideological antipathy of a
progression of governments and transport ministers towards public
transport didn't help matters.

However, it's now clear that the default mode for public transport in
London is one of expansion not contraction. Since Mill Hill East isn't
an Aldwych or an Ongar but somewhere with decent loadings, it would
therefore be hard to see why anyone would choose to close it...

But once it loses the through service it will have poor loadings.
Aldwych is right in the centre of London, but that didn't save it. I
don't suppose for a moment it would have closed if it had a through
service (or why not close Temple, St Pauls or Chancery Lane?).
Not sure of the logic here - St Paul's and Chancery Lane are extremely
busy during the week.


I was mentioning non-interchange stations that have a through service,
in the same general area as Aldwych, which didn't, and wasn't as busy.
I'm suggesting that the lack of through service reduced demand for
Aldwych rather than its location.

As other posters have suggested, Aldwych was probably doomed from its
birth. If Aldwych were reopened today with through services to
Cockfosters (which in itself is physically difficult), I think demand
would still be poor for two reasons:
1. The frequency with which Aldwych could be served would be limited by
capacity considerations on the rest of the line (it's not as though you
can just slot extra trains in the timetable between Holborn and Arnos
Grove, and the existing trains are busy with people heading to and from
places like Piccadilly Circus). In turn, sending trains to Aldwych would
pose reliability problems.
2. Even if served by a relatively high frequency, it's just too near
other Piccadilly stations to be particularly useful - even Holborn is
only a few minutes' walk away, and Covent Garden is much more useful for
the key theatre-going market.


I think we are both saying that the inevitable poor service made the
station unattractive. The poor service at Alwych follows from it being
on a stub with necessarily either a shuttle or infrequent through
service. A station on an imaginary through line at that location might
well have been popular.


The first of these applies equally to Mill Hill East, particularly from
a reliability point of view. The second does not.

Roding Valley, Chigwell and Grange Hill are still open, despite having
much poorer demand (only about enough to support a bus service, let
alone rail).


At least partly because they are a pain to get to by train, either a
long way round (and infrequently) via Hainault or changing at Woodford.
If some expensive repairs cropped up which no one was keen to fund, I
suspect that the line would be under threat.

Demand at those stations is surely limited by local geography rather
than frequency - there are so few people living in their catchment areas
(at least on foot). Even if a high-frequency through service were
provided, it would probably be carting around air. The only way
significant demand increases might occur would be through park-and-ride,
and even then there are other equally suitable stations either south of
Hainault or on the main Epping route.

This would also seem to be a major consideration at Mill Hill East - low
population density around the station severely limits demand, and even
park-and-ride (or bus feeder) demand would probably be limited to
passengers from quite nearby because of the poor road connectivity of
the area.



But a good through service does create demand. A lot of the
Underground was financed by property speculators on that basis.

MIG wrote:
Why don't they genuinely improve reliability by
doubling the track?

How will that improve reliability with the present service?


Not at all, if single track doesn't cause reliability problems.

I am not actually proposing doubling, I am rejecting the "reliability"
excuse for cutting services.

The point is not that the services on the MHE branch are unreliable in
themselves, it's that having an irregular sequence of trains coming
from the northeast reduces reliability at Camden Town, messes about
with train frequencies through central London, exacerbates problems on
the line and leads to greater system-wide delays.

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

Dave Arquati wrote:

As other posters have suggested, Aldwych was probably doomed from its
birth. If Aldwych were reopened today with through services to Cockfosters
(which in itself is physically difficult), I think demand would still be
poor for two reasons:
....
2. Even if served by a relatively high frequency, it's just too near other
Piccadilly stations to be particularly useful - even Holborn is only a few
minutes' walk away, and Covent Garden is much more useful for the key
theatre-going market.

And yet which station on the Picadilly Line is so over capacity that it
frequently has to limit passenger access and could really benefit from a
nearby alternative station?

Tim Roll-Pickering wrote:
Dave Arquati wrote:

As other posters have suggested, Aldwych was probably doomed from its
birth. If Aldwych were reopened today with through services to Cockfosters
(which in itself is physically difficult), I think demand would still be
poor for two reasons:
....
2. Even if served by a relatively high frequency, it's just too near other
Piccadilly stations to be particularly useful - even Holborn is only a few
minutes' walk away, and Covent Garden is much more useful for the key
theatre-going market.

And yet which station on the Picadilly Line is so over capacity that it
frequently has to limit passenger access and could really benefit from a
nearby alternative station?

The only feasible alternatives are Holborn and Leicester Square. As an
alternative to Covent Garden, Aldwych would be fairly useless, given the
slow access and egress, and its northbound orientation.

I also wouldn't separate point one (the effect on the rest of the line)
from point two. Trains that went to Aldwych wouldn't be able to go to
Covent Garden or Leicester Square, making overcrowding at those stations
worse. The solution to Covent Garden overcrowding is to increase
capacity at Covent Garden, not to reopen a station that would be of
little use to the majority of people heading to the area.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

MIG wrote:
Dave Arquati wrote:
MIG wrote:
Dave Arquati wrote:
MIG wrote:
John B wrote:
Kev wrote:
This does sound like the thin end of the wedge. Ask people who used to
use the Watford Junc to Broad St (Liverpool St) and Watford to Croxley
service what they think of this.

OK, so in the first case a poor frequency service has been replaced
partly with the current NLL clockface 4tph timetable (set for further
improvements under TfL Rail) and will be replaced further with the ELLX
between Dalston and Shoreditch. In the second case, the link is set to
be rebuilt with more useful connections.

During London's decades of stagnation and decline, many useful rail
links were short-sightedly destroyed. The ideological antipathy of a
progression of governments and transport ministers towards public
transport didn't help matters.

However, it's now clear that the default mode for public transport in
London is one of expansion not contraction. Since Mill Hill East isn't
an Aldwych or an Ongar but somewhere with decent loadings, it would
therefore be hard to see why anyone would choose to close it...

But once it loses the through service it will have poor loadings.
Aldwych is right in the centre of London, but that didn't save it. I
don't suppose for a moment it would have closed if it had a through
service (or why not close Temple, St Pauls or Chancery Lane?).

Not sure of the logic here - St Paul's and Chancery Lane are extremely
busy during the week.

I was mentioning non-interchange stations that have a through service,
in the same general area as Aldwych, which didn't, and wasn't as busy.
I'm suggesting that the lack of through service reduced demand for
Aldwych rather than its location.

As other posters have suggested, Aldwych was probably doomed from its
birth. If Aldwych were reopened today with through services to
Cockfosters (which in itself is physically difficult), I think demand
would still be poor for two reasons:
1. The frequency with which Aldwych could be served would be limited by
capacity considerations on the rest of the line (it's not as though you
can just slot extra trains in the timetable between Holborn and Arnos
Grove, and the existing trains are busy with people heading to and from
places like Piccadilly Circus). In turn, sending trains to Aldwych would
pose reliability problems.
2. Even if served by a relatively high frequency, it's just too near
other Piccadilly stations to be particularly useful - even Holborn is
only a few minutes' walk away, and Covent Garden is much more useful for
the key theatre-going market.


I think we are both saying that the inevitable poor service made the
station unattractive. The poor service at Alwych follows from it being
on a stub with necessarily either a shuttle or infrequent through
service. A station on an imaginary through line at that location might
well have been popular.

I think we're getting the concepts of through *services* and through
*lines* muddled up here. I was saying that a through *service* to
Aldwych would have never have been able to attract high levels of
demand. A through *line* is an entirely different kettle of fish.

The first of these applies equally to Mill Hill East, particularly from
a reliability point of view. The second does not.

Roding Valley, Chigwell and Grange Hill are still open, despite having
much poorer demand (only about enough to support a bus service, let
alone rail).

At least partly because they are a pain to get to by train, either a
long way round (and infrequently) via Hainault or changing at Woodford.
If some expensive repairs cropped up which no one was keen to fund, I
suspect that the line would be under threat.

Demand at those stations is surely limited by local geography rather
than frequency - there are so few people living in their catchment areas
(at least on foot). Even if a high-frequency through service were
provided, it would probably be carting around air. The only way
significant demand increases might occur would be through park-and-ride,
and even then there are other equally suitable stations either south of
Hainault or on the main Epping route.

This would also seem to be a major consideration at Mill Hill East - low
population density around the station severely limits demand, and even
park-and-ride (or bus feeder) demand would probably be limited to
passengers from quite nearby because of the poor road connectivity of
the area.

But a good through service does create demand. A lot of the
Underground was financed by property speculators on that basis.

Same confusion - a good through *line* might create demand (although at
Mill Hill East demand would still be limited by geography - making it a
through line would increase demand because more destinations would be
served, but the demand would still be drawn from a limited pool).

I was talking about the through *service* from Mill Hill East to Morden,
for which demand is limited because of the low population density around
Mill Hill East station. High Barnet, on the other hand, is different
(and the reduction of a MHE to a shuttle service is permitting an
improved frequency to High Barnet).

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

John B wrote:
MIG wrote:
Why don't they genuinely improve reliability by
doubling the track?
How will that improve reliability with the present service?

Not at all, if single track doesn't cause reliability problems.

I am not actually proposing doubling, I am rejecting the "reliability"
excuse for cutting services.

The point is not that the services on the MHE branch are unreliable in
themselves, it's that having an irregular sequence of trains coming
from the northeast reduces reliability at Camden Town, messes about
with train frequencies through central London, exacerbates problems on
the line and leads to greater system-wide delays.

....and according to the article originally quoted, the service frequency
to High Barnet will be increased as a result of the MHE changes, which
means benefits to the four other stations north of Finchley Central.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London

On Thu, 6 Apr 2006, Aidan Stanger wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:

On Tue, 4 Apr 2006, Aidan Stanger wrote:
John B wrote:
MIG wrote:
Peter Smyth wrote:

Mill Hill East services will be reduced to a shuttle to Finchley
Central off-peak and weekends from October 2006.

Yet another service reduction disguised as "reliability",

If the result is to make a substantial reduction in total Misery Line
misery, which it should be, then it seems like a good plan...

It would be a good plan if they did it right!

There's presumably room to throw in a passing loop halfway along the
branch; that would cost money, but be cheaper than doubling, but would
allow the frequency to be doubled, so that every mainline train could
link up with a shuttle.

It could if the passing loop were long, though it would be harder to
coordinate the service to connect with southbound trains as well.

Perhaps things could be timed so that the shuttles connect to the
southbound trains in the morning, and the northbound ones in the evening.
Not sure what you'd do in the middle of the day!

But the biggest problem would be getting it to connect properly in the
peaks when trains run more frequently than every 4 minutes.

True.

If they shortened the train length proportionally, it wouldn't even
cost any more to run.

What's the train length got to do with it? Going from 15 to 8 minutes
would be done by cutting down waiting time, not running more trains, AIUI.

Shorter trains use less electricity.

Aha. Is that a significant cost in running a train, then? I'd never though
of that.

The interesting thing to consider is how the MHE branch can be made
more useful in the long term. One idea I put on my website is to have
it as a branch of Crossrail Line 2, and extend it to Watford Junction
via MHB, Edgware and Stanmore. This would mean that nobody in North
London would have to detour to Euston to catch a train to The North,

Er, provided they can get to the High Barnet branch of the Northern line,

No, it would interchange with the other lines as well.

Where would it go south of Finchley?

and they don't want the ECML or MML!

If they did, they'd be detouring to Kings Cross or St.Pancras, not
Euston. However there would be a stop at Mill Hill Broadway to connect
with the Thameslink service, so some MML passengers would also benefit
albeit not to the same extent as the WCML passengers.

I suppose if this function was considered important enough, more trains
could be stopped at MHB.

There's no GNER equivalent of Watford Junction. Stevenage is too far
out, and they couldn't get planning permission for their Hadley Wood
proposals. Potters Bar might be a better location, but their trains
don't stop there yet.

The closest equivalent is probably Finsbury Park. In terms of distance,
that's more like Willesden Junction, but i think it gets more trains
stopping there than that.

If they, or their successors, ever do start stopping their trains there,
it might be worth considering extending the Jubilee Line there. But it's
not going to become as important a station as Watford Junction any time
in the forseeable future.

The Northern or Piccadilly look better placed for that to me.

and more passengers would be attracted to the outer ends of lines, where
there's plenty of spare capacity.

Not sure i get that bit - anyone at Watford is going to catch a fast train
to Euston, not sit on a tube train that stops at a dozen places on the
way.

Wrong! Not everyone at Watford is going to Central London. Millions of
people live in North London, and detouring to Euston would be more
expensive and in many cases slower and less convenient. By interchanging
with the ELL, GN, Victoria and Piccadilly Lines, two branches of the
Northern Line, Thameslink and the Jubilee Line, it would serve most of N
London.

Okay, i think i see what you mean.

Does anyone else have any other ideas for it?

The trouble with resurrecting the Northern Heights plan is the green
belt; the intention was always to drive development of new suburbs in
the north, as the Met did for Metroland, but post-WW2 planning policy
has put the kybosh on that. If the illustrious Mr Prescott or his
successor waves a wand and lets the golf courses and subsidy sinks of
Bushey be buried under an avalanche of Barratt boxes, this plan might
regain wings.

It wouldn't require that. There's enough of Bushey not already served by
rail to justify a station. The main destination's Watford.

It's not about justifying a station - it's about justifying a new railway,
a much more expensive proposition.

However, linking it to the ELL would be folly, IMHO; better would be to
link it to the GN electrics from Finsbury Park to Moorgate. A graded
junction at Moorgate would allow this to be done without conflicting
with mainline traffic to KX; the branch to Moorgate itself might need
some upgrading to cope, but the frequency would be well within the
capability of modern (ie early 20th century signalling systems). Of
course, this all comes to pass anyway under my glorious plan to drive
the tunnel further south from Moorgate, under the Bank and the Thames,
to link up with the lines at London Bridge ...

Where would you link them up?

Do you mean where would the portal be? Good question. Is there room for a
portal around the bulge in the formation where the railway crosses Dockley
Road? if not, you'd need to take some land away from buildings beside the
line; some grim industrial buildings would be the cheapest option, perhaps
those by Tanner Road, Rouel Road, Saint James's Road, etc. Where you put
the portal depends to some extent on which lines you want to join up with,
and i don't have strong views on that - i don't know enough about the
traffic patterns.

I also wondered whether that line could be extended. There's nowhere
around London Bridge to surface, but some passengers would get a much
more direct journey if it ran straight to Denmark Hill and surfaced
somewhere around Dulwich or Tulse Hill.

That's quite a bit of tunnelling, though.

I also wonder whether rather than being extended from Moorgate it could
be extended from Old Street to Liverpool Street to give better
interchange, then run under Gracechurch Street to London Bridge.

Moorgate is a stone's throw from Liverpool Street anyway - it's a shorter
walk between them than between some of the more distant platforms at Bank,
i'd say. Ideally, there'd be a direct underground passage; Crossrail will
join the two stations up, although i would guess that the Crossrail
platform won't be usable as an ad hoc foot tunnel.

tom

--
Who would you help in a fight, Peter van der Linden or Bill Gates?

Dave Arquati wrote:

And yet which station on the Picadilly Line is so over capacity that it
frequently has to limit passenger access and could really benefit from a
nearby alternative station?

The only feasible alternatives are Holborn and Leicester Square. As an
alternative to Covent Garden, Aldwych would be fairly useless, given the
slow access and egress, and its northbound orientation.

I also wouldn't separate point one (the effect on the rest of the line)
from point two. Trains that went to Aldwych wouldn't be able to go to
Covent Garden or Leicester Square, making overcrowding at those stations
worse. The solution to Covent Garden overcrowding is to increase capacity
at Covent Garden, not to reopen a station that would be of little use to
the majority of people heading to the area.

How serious are the suggestions in circulation for both a Waterloo-King's
Cross St. Pancras route and reviving the old Fleet Line plans for Charing
Cross to Ludgate Circus and beyond? The natural interchange for them is
Aldwych and the former project could make use of the branch tunnels,
although frankly at Holborn they'd either need a proper connection to the
Picadilly (I saw the other day that Aldwych was built with three lift shafts
and multiple exit routes from the platforms - yet another example of an over
elaborate station being uselessly inaccessible for through services) or else
build a new line to King's Cross St Pancras.

On Thu, 6 Apr 2006 20:22:34 +0100, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:

How serious are the suggestions in circulation for both a Waterloo-King's
Cross St. Pancras route

Fairly serious, but it would be a surface tramway running Camden Town
- Peckham/Brixton (ish).

--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK