Paul Corfield wrote:
On Thu, 15 Mar 2007 22:11:35 +0000, Dave A wrote:

Edward Cowling London UK wrote:
Well I've now done three weeks on the North London Line and it's been an
experience.

Then there is Highbury & Islington ! You can hear people on mobiles
telling friends, "We're at Highbury and Islington, there'll be trouble,
there always is." The train pulls in and the people on the platform are
so packed in that they can't make a gap for the people getting off. A
sort of scrum develops and people moan at each other. The frontier
express spirit would still mean nothing serious would happen, but the
staff at Highbury & Islington then play their trump card. They start
shouting at people through megaphones (honest) and of course that gets
things nicely heated up and trouble ensues. Eventually a lone police
woman comes down the stairs, uses a bit of common sense, stops the staff
shouting and order is restored.

I was reliably informed today that trains arriving at Highbury &
Islington on the NLL are (officially) the most crowded in London. I'm
sure that's no surprise to you (but it usually is to everyone else who
thinks their trains are the most packed in London, and can't understand
how trains on a line that doesn't even go *into* central London can be
more crowded)!!

I have to say I was a bit surprised to read both of these comments. They
are rather revealing though. I am now somewhat intrigued and may well
toddle along sometime to take a look at just how awful it is. I shall
try to stay in a place where I am not in the way though!

I imagine from a statistical point of view, the main issue is how short
the trains are - PIXC measures the ratio of seats to standing, and those
NLL trains don't have many seats!

If it is like this now I cannot imagine what will happen when
improvements to the overall service start being delivered and suppressed
demand starts to be unlocked - it'll be (even more) awful! That's a
very real challenge for whoever will be running the service. LU will be
taking over the operation of those platforms / station buildings come
November so there the local staff will have all that to deal with.

It will be quite tricky. The station improvement programme will launch
pretty quickly, and that in itself will attract more people to the line
before the trains are even touched. The infrastructure works to permit
the doubling of frequencies can't start until 2009/10 and will run for
three years (pencilled in as west NLL, then east NLL, then GOBLIN).

I have yet another document in front of me which mentions a slightly
different service pattern than the ones I have seen previously - people
have been mentioning 8tph on the ELL to Dalston Junction and only 4tph
beyond to Highbury, but this says 8tph to Highbury (4tph from Crystal
Palace, 4tph from New Cross) and 4tph to Dalston Junction (from West
Croydon). It also mentions "additional peak services to/from Dalston
Junction" (which I presume means fromto/from the south!).

These frequencies are set out as part of Service Level Commitment 2,
which would also see 2tph Stratford - Clapham J, 4tph Stratford -
Richmond and 2tph Stratford - Camden Road - resulting in 16tph from the
Dalston stations to Highbury. That should be more than enough to satisfy
both existing and new demand on that section of line, but of course it
has to wait until the new ELL curve opens in 2011. Prior to that, the
8tph Stratford to Camden Road should be running, but presumably only
from 2010 when infrastructure works have been done.

There may be scope for extra "PIXC-buster" services in the peaks between
Camden Road and Stratford in the meantime - I'm not really sure what the
plan for that is.

Unfortunately, platform extensions are a very tricky business - there
are various plans for them, but as someone else mentioned, some stations
are especially tricky - Dalston Kingsland is one of them (overbridges at
each end). Selective door opening has been mentioned for lightly-used
stations, but Dalston Kingsland isn't one of them.

--
Dave Arquati
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London