On Thu, 8 Jun 2006 11:40:17 UTC, "John B" wrote:

: Ian Johnston wrote:
: : Just
: : makes me wonder if the money being invested in the ELL wouldn't have
: : been better spent going towards Crossrail, given that the latter can't
: : get the funding.
:
: It can't get the funding, though, because it's a completely crap idea
: and would, if it were ever built, be the worst waste of infrastructure
: money in living memory. At least the Chunnel might be useful, one day.

: For that remark, you are sentenced to an eternity of travelling between
: Liverpool Street and Tottenham Court Road on the Central Line every
: morning peak hour.

Great. Let's spend rough enough money to electrify every main line in
the UK on relieving morning peak-hours congestion on a short length of
one London underground line. What a wonderful, sensible use of money.

: Seriously, nobody's suggesting (except, apparently, you) that Crossrail
: won't immediately attract massive ridership. The question is whether
: the benefits (pegged by several studies at somewhere between £10bn and
: £50bn)

Pegged? With a five-fold margin of error? That's not "pegged", that's
"wildly guessed." And not being able to predict the costs to within a
factor of two doesn't greatly inspire confidence either.

And it's not just me. You'll notice that every organisation asked to
stump up the cash has said "Erm, no".

It's a truly terrible idea.

Ian

"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
...
snippitty
The ELLX may look odd on its own. The real issue is the service pattern
to be provided over the whole set of TfL inherited routes. Thankfully
there is already some innovative thinking going on which provides a
range of through journeys not available at present.

Somewhat off topic I know, but mention of the TfL inherited routes made me
wonder if anyone knows what the situation with TfL staff passes will be once
the routes pass to TfL control, will these lines become available to staff
passes?
--
Cheers, Steve.
Change from jealous to sad to reply.

Steve Dulieu wrote:

Somewhat off topic I know, but mention of the TfL inherited routes made me
wonder if anyone knows what the situation with TfL staff passes will be once
the routes pass to TfL control, will these lines become available to staff
passes?
--
Cheers, Steve.

I suspect *not*. Had LU been the operator and the extended ELL (and
maybe NLL) incorporated into the Underground proper, then clearly staff
passes would have become valid on all sections.

As things stand I guess "grandfather rights" will allow their use from
Shoreditch to New Cross/New Cross Gate and from Harrow & Wealdstone to
Watford Junction - i.e. as at present.

A precedent was set a few years ago when LU single tickets from
Tottenham Hale to zone 1 were also accepted on WAGN via Liverpool
Street NR. Despite me raising the anomaly, holders of staff passes were
not granted a similar choice in route.

In article 5, Tristán
White writes
Having an underground station nearby means that it's easy to get in and
out without having to make your way through backstreets to the new
alternative station on Shoreditch High Street. Which is not ready yet as
an alternative (if it goes to schedule, we're looking at June 2010 -
four years to go!)

It's not practical to build the connection to the new route and keep the
old one open.

Do we really want to lose even more history?

Do we want "history" to block all progress? You have to compromise.

Could they not have gone up
to Hoxton from the current station?

No. Where are you going to put the incline to get over the GER main line
(which, remember, is only 50m or so beyond Shoreditch station).

I remember seeing PDFs and consultations and stuff on UTL when they were
discussing the exact route north of Whitechapel, but I can't remember
reading a completely convincing argument why they couldn't use the
existing route that used to go to Liverpool Street pre-war (and which
was a goods-only service until the 60s).

Because it goes to Liverpool Street.

But the basic issue isn't the route in plan, it's the elevations. You
need to get *up* from below street level at Whitechapel to well above it
at Hoxton. The only practical place for such an incline (look at a map)
is east of Shoreditch and on to the old Bishopsgate viaduct.

If they could have provided an interchange from the ELL-Extension at
Bishopsgate/SHS to the Central Line, I would agree that there is sense
in moving the station to Bishopsgate. But since there's not (another
missed opportunity),

I doubt the amount of interchange traffic (on to an already crowded
Central Line, remember) would justify it.

But no. So was it really necessary to get rid of another piece of
functional history?

Yes.

--
Clive D.W. Feather | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Please reply to the Reply-To address, which is:

On Thu, 08 Jun 2006 13:46:21 GMT, "Steve Dulieu"
wrote:


"Paul Corfield" wrote in message
.. .
snippitty
The ELLX may look odd on its own. The real issue is the service pattern
to be provided over the whole set of TfL inherited routes. Thankfully
there is already some innovative thinking going on which provides a
range of through journeys not available at present.

Somewhat off topic I know, but mention of the TfL inherited routes made me
wonder if anyone knows what the situation with TfL staff passes will be once
the routes pass to TfL control, will these lines become available to staff
passes?

I doubt very much that that has yet been considered. I would expect the
TUs to add it to the list of items for negotiation but the fact the
routes are effectively a concession or franchise does not bode well.

There have been very few positive changes to the staff pass or priv
ticket validities since rail privatisation. The usual reasons are money
and reciprocation of benefit for National Rail franchise / Network Rail
employees. The relative sizes of the employee groupings in TfL vs
Network Rail and the TOCs always tilts the cost / benefit balance in
favour of NR and the TOCs and away from TfL.

I don't see much reason for TfL to extend staff pass validity to these
services when they do not own the infrastructure, the vehicles or
directly employ the staff. The nearest parallel is DLR and I am not at
all sure how it works there - do the people maintaining the Lewisham
extension have TfL staff pass validity given they are employed by a
private infrastructure company and no direct relationship with DLR Ltd
or even Serco as the DLR operator?

--
Paul C


Admits to working for London Underground!

"Kev" wrote:

I bet you can't wait to go to West Croyden. Dalston of course used to
have a station and look what happened to that.

Is Dalston Kingsland not in Dalston, then?

I just wonder how many
many of the people who think that the ELL extension is wonderful never
used the NLL in Broad Street days.

Unless you were a City worker, Broad Street wasn't much of a destination
either. Witness how quiet Fenchurch Street is at weekends and off peak, with
circa 75% of pax now bailing out at West Ham for the Jubilee.

Chris

O-V R:nen wrote:

"Please ensure that you have a valid London Underground ticket or
Oyster pay as you go before you board. Tickets are not sold on the bus."

How are you supposed to start a journey at Shoreditch then? They give
the addresses of three local shops, two in Brick Lane itself, and one
in Bethnal Green Road, which sell Travelcards, but that's not much use
if you only want to make one journey. As far as I can see, there will
be no way to do that.

They advise that journey times will be extended by up to twenty five
minutes; it's walkable in ten! The bus stops are further from where
most passengers probably want to go than Shoreditch station is.

I predict that the usage of the replacement buses will be almost nil.
It would be probably be cheaper to provide a free taxi on request for
anybody who is not able to walk it.

Until fairly recent times Brick Lane was not somewhere that most people
wanted to go. In recent years that has changed; if it wasn't for the
extension it might hae been worth extending the opening hours of the
station.

Is it really necessary to close it quite so soon; four years seems a
long time for the construction work.

Stephen Furley wrote:

Until fairly recent times Brick Lane was not somewhere that most people
wanted to go. In recent years that has changed; if it wasn't for the
extension it might hae been worth extending the opening hours of the
station.

I still think Aldgate East is a better stop for Brick Lane (and for most
traffic it is quicker). It's good to walk the full length, not pop up two
thirds of the way down. Maybe extending the opening hours would have done
something, but I've rarely seen massive traffic at the station line even
when it was open.

Is it really necessary to close it quite so soon; four years seems a
long time for the construction work.

If they're going to get that link built, which is a key part of the
extension, they need the track free for a good while.

"Mark Brader" wrote in message
...
Chris Read:
Just a quick reminder that Shoreditch station (East London Line) will
close permanently this Friday. Last train appears to depart at 20:34

Tristán White:
Thanks for the reminder. And a rap on the knuckles of the people who
designed the latest map.... it says that the station would close on
Saturday 10 June whereas technically it's late on Friday 9 June.

I suggest that this is not an error as such, but the standard problem
of whether to report a closure date as "last day of service" or "first
day of no service". What's the actual wording on the map?

Looking at the map tonight in Epping station shows that Shoreditch has a red
line through the name and a 'footnote sword' beside it, the branch from
Whitechapel is in the faded shade as normally used on lines being built and
there is a bus symbol to show how you can get there instead. I assume
details of that can be found on the base of the map by looking for the
footnote.

Nick

TheOneKEA wrote:

They can't. There is literally no capacity for additional movements
across the Aldgate triangle,

How would the various proposals going around to scrap the Circle, turn the
Hammersmith & City into a once round the loop Hammersmith to Edgeware Road
route and send the Met Whitechapel way change this?