"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
h.li...

Anglia Railways ran a train from the GEML (can't remember where) to
Reading or something, ISTR; that went via the NLL.

*gogols*

London Crosslink, that was it. Chelmsford (or Ipswich, according to some
sources) to Basingstoke, apparently; i would have assumed it was
Basingstoke via Reading, but from the sound of this (from a press
release):

It went via Feltham and Staines. How? I've turned up mentions of Richmond,
too; can you come down the NLL into Richmond and carry onto the Windsor
lines?


I think it ran directly from South Acton to Brentford, via Kew East and Old
Kew Junctions (bypassing west of Kew Bridge in other words). It would have
been the only passenger service over what is normally considered a freight
only line.

Joe Brown's London rail atlas reckons the connection at Richmond has been
lifted since 1972...

Paul S

In message , at
17:43:35 on Thu, 21 Feb 2008, Tom Anderson
remarked:
Anglia Railways ran a train from the GEML (can't remember where) to
Reading or something, ISTR; that went via the NLL.

Yes, but that was later, and didn't go via Birmingham, Harwich or even
Edinburgh!!

It failed, imho, because it was too slow - compared to travelling via
Liverpool St and Waterloo [as you say later it was Basingstoke, not
Reading].
--
Roland Perry

"Paul Scott" wrote in message
...

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
h.li...

Anglia Railways ran a train from the GEML (can't remember where) to
Reading or something, ISTR; that went via the NLL.

*gogols*

London Crosslink, that was it. Chelmsford (or Ipswich, according to
some sources) to Basingstoke, apparently; i would have assumed it was
Basingstoke via Reading, but from the sound of this (from a press
release):

It went via Feltham and Staines. How? I've turned up mentions of
Richmond, too; can you come down the NLL into Richmond and carry onto
the Windsor lines?


I think it ran directly from South Acton to Brentford, via Kew East
and Old Kew Junctions (bypassing west of Kew Bridge in other words).
It would have been the only passenger service over what is normally
considered a freight only line.

Joe Brown's London rail atlas reckons the connection at Richmond has
been lifted since 1972...

There is still a connection between Platform 3 at Richmond and the Up
Windsor line however I think it is only for ECS movements.

Peter Smyth

"Roland Perry" wrote

Edinburgh to Harwich features in the index, and Table 18, of my 1974/5
timetable.

Although there are no especially long distance through trains, but
connections to Edinburgh are shown. The route is via Ely and
Peterborough.

There had for many years been an overnight through train from Colchester to
Glasgow Queen Street via Peterborough and the ECML.

However, the history of the Harwich to Glasgow and Edinburgh train is more
recent (and I can't put dates on it without delving into the archive). When
BR decided to cease using the Settle & Carlisle for through trains from
Nottingham to Scotland the Manchester to Glasgow/Edinburgh trains were
altered to start back from Nottingham. By then the Harwich to Manchester had
been diverted away from its historic route via Lincoln and Retford to run
via Peterborough, Grantham and Nottingham, and was plugged into the
Nottingham and Manchester to Scotland pattern. Presumably Nottingham and
Sheffield to Scotland patronage did not live up to expectations (it was
after all quicker to go via the ECML) so the through trains were dropped.
However, there was presumably some residual patronage between Harwich,
Birmingham and Manchester; the NLL was getting AC electrification for
freight, so it was decided to keep the Harwich to Glasgow and Edinburgh
through train, but run it via the NLL and Birmingham, as part of the
Cross-Country Birmingham to Scotland service pattern. It lasted, IIRC, for a
few years. At least in the 1987-88 timetable it had no passenger stop in
Greater London, running without an intermediate stop between Shenfield and
Watford Junction.

Peter

Lüko Willms wrote:
Am Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:47:31 UTC, schrieb
(Neil Williams) auf uk.railway :

On Wed, 20 Feb 2008 11:47:58 +0100, "L=?ISO-8859-1?B?/A==?=ko Willms"
wrote:

No, check it out in Berlin or Hamburg or Munich ... that can be very
costly.

Doesn't stop a lot of people doing it.

True, today I witnessed a young women being caught, and who was
scared into giving here real address when the controllers told here
that the cops might come to her place if the address she had given
were wrong.

But if the address she gave was wrong, how would they find her again?


--
Arthur Figgis Surrey, UK

On 21 Feb, 19:43, Arthur Figgis wrote:
Lüko Willms wrote:
Am Wed, 20 Feb 2008 19:47:31 UTC, schrieb
(Neil Williams) auf uk.railway :

On Wed, 20 Feb 2008 11:47:58 +0100, "L=?ISO-8859-1?B?/A==?=ko Willms"
wrote:

No, check it out in Berlin or Hamburg or Munich ... that can be very
costly.

Doesn't stop a lot of people doing it.

True, today I witnessed a young women being caught, and who was
scared into giving here real address when the controllers told here
that the cops might come to her place if the address she had given
were wrong.

But if the address she gave was wrong, how would they find her again?



Impossible - in Germany, one does not give ze wrong address to ze
authorities...

Tom Anderson wrote:

On Thu, 21 Feb 2008, Roland Perry wrote:

In message , at 15:57:14 on Thu, 21
Feb 2008, John Rowland remarked:
On 21 Feb, 09:13, Martin Edwards wrote:
At one time there was a train from Scotland to Harwich which used
the North London Line but did not stop at a London terminus. They
cancelled it because too many people used it.

Err, cite?

[happy to believe that there was a train and that it was cancelled]

Sorry, I really can't remember, but I took it from Birmingham to
Chelmsford several times. There was a great view of the "Scrubs".

I believe this is the train which was discussed on That's Life. BR wanted
to
get rid of it, but they weren't allowed to, because too many people used
it.
So they omitted it from all public timetables for a few years, but carried
on running it. When this caused usage to plummet, they were then allowed to
get rid of it. This would be approx 1980.

Edinburgh to Harwich features in the index, and Table 18, of my 1974/5
timetable.

Although there are no especially long distance through trains, but
connections to Edinburgh are shown. The route is via Ely and Peterborough.

Anglia Railways ran a train from the GEML (can't remember where) to
Reading or something, ISTR; that went via the NLL.

*gogols*

London Crosslink, that was it. Chelmsford (or Ipswich, according to some
sources) to Basingstoke, apparently; i would have assumed it was
Basingstoke via Reading, but from the sound of this (from a press
release):

(press release and other stuff snipped)

Anyway, it didn't do well. It wasn't well advertised, and it was also
rather slow, due to the congestion and all that - it interacted with the
GEML, the NLL and the Windsor lines, so it must have been a nightmare to
run reliably.

Still, being able to catch a direct train from High & I to Feltham would
have been handy!


Day release?

I never used the Crossrail service at the time, but I've since read
with great interest many threads concerning it from the archives of
utl and uk.railway.

In London it stopped at Stratford, High & I, Camden Road, West
Hampstead, Brentford and Feltham (though Brentford was a later
addition, and I'm not sure all trains stopped there). By all accounts
a very erratic timetable, certainly not a clock-face one - perhaps
best summed up as 'every two hours or so', trains that took an age to
get around the NLL going at a snail's pace because they were stuck
behind the frequent Silverlink stopping services...

However (and I'm really pleased because I looked for this before and
failed to find it) the Crossrail service came as a pleasant surprise
to a few NLL commuters travelling between West Hampstead, Highbury and
Stratford - as 'underachiever' said at the time...

"A seat. A buffet! fantastic."

Indeed - however good the new London Overground trains might be, I
don't think they can top that!

That's from a July 2002 post on the utl/uk.railway thread about the
withdrawal of Crosslink, and can be read he
http://groups.google.co.uk/group/uk....4c25e0859ec927


Though thinking of cross-London journeys one can still find a buffet
on the Arriva CrossCountry services between East Croydon and
Kensington Olympia, though there's only something like two a day each
way and they stop running this coming December. Perhaps I should
endeavour to take one for that journey and get a coffee on board!

And - whilst it's not quite the same thing, well not really the same
thing at all really - all this talk of buffets on London trains
reminds me of a recent-ish journey I made with a friend on a late
night SLL train back from town to mystery location x in south London -
the stock was one of the old Brighton Express units that had been
swankyfied by Connex and subsequently downgraded to working services
through suburbia, and we sat on the transverse seats in the distinctly
closed and, for reasons unknown, completely unlit buffet area with our
own round table in front of us looking out in the darkness northwards
across the illuminated skyline of the London night... 'twas magical, I
tell thee!

On Feb 19, 4:27*pm, Mizter T wrote:
Adrian wrote:
On Feb 19, 2:25pm, Mizter T wrote:

On 19 Feb, 21:10, Adrian Auer-Hudson
wrote:

On Feb 19, 9:20 am, Mizter T wrote:

On 19 Feb, 16:38, "Peter Masson" wrote:

"John B" wrote

Euston is the only sensible destination for a north/south HSL, in
simple geography and engineering terms. A link to HS1 to allow NoL
trains (which might be viable at 350km/h) would be sensible. Maybe a
travelator to KXSP...

Exactly. A branch from Heathrow to the HSL (in the Denham area, if the
Chiltern corridor is used) would make sense (as suggested by Greengauge),
but running the HSL from Euston/St Pancras to Birmingham via Heathrow is
likely to be too slow, and certain to be too expensive, to be worthwhile.

Peter

Additionally, if space is tight at Euston then the whole station could
be rebuilt with longer platforms at the current level stretching to
buffer stops just north of Euston Road (or at least north of the
course of the Met & Circle lines) and with the station concourse being
on the next level up above the platforms. A mighty expensive project
of course, plus the main Underground concourse might well be in the
way of all this subsurface shenanigans, but that's not an insuperable
problem.

For local distribution of arrivals Euston Square station needs to be
moved. Or, Euston Square should be linked to the mainline and tube
stations by a travelator.

Adrian

Urban groups added for wider readership.

Well, if anyone on utl or misc.transport.urban-transit is reading this
then I they won't be aware of the context - which basically came from
a pretty pie-in-the-sky discussion of where a London terminus/through
station for a new British north-south high speed line would be
located. Euston appears to be the most realistic suggestion, if a new
HSL ever actually got built (and that is a very big if!). However in a
further reply to my post Peter Masson pointed out that the platforms
at Euston station as they stand could likely handle any new long
trains just fine, so my suggestion that Euston might have to be
completely rebuilt (never really intended to be that serious) would in
fact not even have to enter onto the drawing board.

Points taken.

I didn't mean to be quite as harsh as I came across! I'm just a little
wary of being labelled as a fantasist - nothing wrong with flights of
fancy per se on usenet of course, I just like to ensure they get
appropriately flagged up!

All that said, I'm guessing that the current 60's modernist station
buildings at Euston won't last forever - indeed I would make the
(perhaps quite wrong) assumption that it wasn't aren't built to last
in quite the manner that St Pancras or Paddington was. And of course a
significant part of the logic behind the 'new' Euston of the 60's was
that it should handle parcels traffic effortlessly, hence the
expansive parcels deck high above the platforms. The parcels handling
function of Euston is now totally dead (at least I'm pretty sure it
is!).

It is this large parcels deck, floating above the platforms, that made
me think a new two level passenger railway station at Euston would be
possible - the site would appear to lend itself to such a proposition.



Which would be just as well really, as any new high speed line has
less and less chance of ever even being considered the more
ostentatious plans for it get.

Sort of: Part of the attraction of HS1 was/is its breadth of vision.
Local upgrades form a small part of the overall budget. *But I agree
that rebuilding Euston would be a tall order.

I was really thinking about whether the platforms would be long enough
for a new breed of high speed trains - and the north-south high speed
line proposition has the HS2 moniker these days, as HS1 is already
with us in the form of the CTRL.



However linking up Euston Square with the rest of Euston might not be
a bad ting to aim for in the long run, as has been discussed here many
times before - and in the unlikely event that a high speed line into
Euston ever got the go ahead then it should definitely be on the
cards. In the meantime, passengers transferring between these stations
can enjoy the fresh air of the Euston Road!

Oh yes, all that fresh CO2. *:-)

In terms of your lungs I think the extra CO2 is the least of your
worries! There's some tasty pollutants out there, breath in deep!



The stations on the northern half of the circle may have made sense in
the 1860s. *They are inconvenient today. *And, said side of the Circle
misses interchange possibilities at almost every opportunity. *The
biggest omission IMHO is not having a station in front of Euston. *It
would be an expensive mistake to rectify.

Adrian

Apart from at Euston and Marylebone I don't really see what's missing
with regards to interchange opportunities on the northern (Met) half
of the circle. Euston is a big omission, I'll grant you that,
Marylebone less so. The platforms at Euston Square stretch from the
entrance eastwards - i.e. towards Euston, so there have been various
proposals mooted for that new passageways are built at the east end of
the platforms to lead directly into the Euston station Underground
complex. However even if the platforms weren't moved this would, as
you say, be a mighty expensive endeavour. Perhaps this might have to
wait until Euston gets rebuilt, if indeed that ever does happen as
such.

Starting at Paddington:

Neither the Circle nor Metropolitan platforms offer easy interchange
with the Bakerloo.

Edgware Road. The Bakerloo and Circle stations are separate. This
probably has zero impact on interchange. But, had the Bakerloo line
used the Circle line station there would have been no need for extra
staff. This is clearly not worth rectifying. It would take several
centuries of employee wages to cover the cost of a rebuild.

Marylebone. Many is the time I have arrived at Marylebone and then
walked to Baker Street for the Circle Line. Watkin's grip was not
tight enough. Baker Street should have been rebuilt in order to
accommodate the GC ML circa 1899!

Regents Park/Great Portland Street. Same issue as Edgware Road. TfL
pays to staff two stations.

Gower Street. Poor interchange with Euston Square.

Euston. Poor Interchange with Euston Square.

None of the above is earth shattering. It is mildly inconvenient.


Adrian

On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:37:02 +0100, "Lüko Willms"
wrote:

Am Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:01:28 UTC, schrieb Charles Ellson
auf uk.railway :

It was going to do so - the NoL Eurostar. It didn't happen because it
wouldn't have been economic without being able to also carry
Scotland-London and London-France passengers on the same trains.

If it never ran then there was no way of knowing what would actually
happen. Many new services which really have run have enjoyed better
than forecast figures.

It was the opinion of the Arthur D. Little report "Review of
regional Eurostar services: summary report"
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/passenger/europe/reviewofregionaleurostarserv3325

especially section 4 in the chapter linked below:
http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/passenger/europe/reviewofregionaleurostarserv3325?page=11#a1014


You can get whatever opinion you pay for.

On Thu, 21 Feb 2008 12:48:43 -0800 (PST), Mizter T
wrote:

And - whilst it's not quite the same thing, well not really the same
thing at all really - all this talk of buffets on London trains
reminds me of a recent-ish journey I made with a friend on a late
night SLL train back from town to mystery location x in south London -
the stock was one of the old Brighton Express units that had been
swankyfied by Connex and subsequently downgraded to working services
through suburbia, and we sat on the transverse seats in the distinctly
closed and, for reasons unknown, completely unlit buffet area with our
own round table in front of us looking out in the darkness northwards
across the illuminated skyline of the London night... 'twas magical, I
tell thee!

Train travel by night is far more pleasant in the dark. It's one of
the reasons I mourn the passing of the WCML Mk2s and Mk3s, where there
would often be a coach with failed lighting which was able to provide
me with a relaxing darkened journey with a good view out. The very
ends of the vehicles in Pendolinos are better than nothing, but this
is one area where the road coach very clearly wins.

Neil

--
Neil Williams
Put my first name before the at to reply.