Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

Sorry, I didn't respond to your second point in my first reply, hence
this second reply!

On 28 Mar, 14:22, Andy wrote:

On Mar 28, 12:54 pm, Mizter T wrote:

(snip)

I don't think it likely that Thameslink passengers from the south will
pass through London Bridge and go up to Farringdon for Crossrail
rather than changing to the Jubilee from London Bridge, though this
will certainly look like a good move for those coming from the
Wimbledon/Sutton loop (or other similar south London suburban start
points if the Thameslink service gets rejigged). Even if the
interchange at Farringdon is very easy,

(Apols - it appears I never finished my sentence above! I'll leave it
hanging - you get the gist.)


I wasn't really thinking of the Thameslink passengers from the
Brighton / Croydon - London mainline, who as you say have
alternatives. I was thinking of the Wimbledon / Sutton loop (or
wherever in the future) passengers. Farringdon is only be a few
minutes from Blackfriars and connections will certainly be easier to
Docklands than they currently for the non London Bridge Thameslink
passengers.


That's all very true. At the moment there really isn't a decent route
for such passengers - alight at Elephant & Castle then crammed
Northern line to London Bridge and change to the Jubilee is the most
obvious I suppose. Other more imaginative routes could involve walking
from Blackfriars to Bank for the DLR, though if you were to do that
you might as well walk (or even get the bus against the flow) from
Blackfriars to Southwark station (Jubilee), or walk or bus it from E&C
to Southwark.

Depending upon what happens to the Thameslink service pattern in south
London it could even take some of the strain off of the Northern and
Jubilee lines, other mainline services into London Bridge and
generally relieve London Bridge somewhat as an interchange point by
diverting Docklands-bound commuters up to Farringdon for interchange
with Crossrail.

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008, lonelytraveller wrote:

But Crossrail includes 8 underground stations, most with two entrances
(doubling many of the costs), the rebuilding of several miles of Great
Western Main Line including two grade-separated junctions (Heathrow and
Acton Yard), the electrification of 11 miles of GWML (requiring the
rebuilding of about ten bridges in Slough), rebuilding a of a fair bit
of GEML, rebuilding of ca. 30 stations (about half will be completely
demolished) and so on. It's a much larger project.

Yes, so they could reduce the costs by doing it at tube guage,

AIUI, doesn't make as big a difference as you think these days.

and having single entrances for the stations,

Which would then be bottlenecks.

and raising the level it runs at through farringdon so that they can
re-use the tracks for the moorgate branch of thameslink.

Which would involve two more phenomenally expensive portals.

tom

--
Change happens with ball-flattening speed. -- Thomas Edison

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008, lonelytraveller wrote:

On Mar 25, 9:53 am, "Grumpy Old Man"
wrote:
The Real Doctor wrote:

On 24 Mar, 23:10, Adrian wrote:

You have clearly never lived in a city where good spacious (1,000 sq
ft per person) affordable housing is available to middle class
workers. Or, enjoyed one where a normal comfortable journey to work
is 40 minutes or less.

And how many people do you think will find good, spacious, affordable
housing as a result of this line. It'll knock quarter of an hour,
tops, off the journey onto London - are those fifteen minutes really
deterring millions from moving to good, spacious, affordable housing?

The only way to get good, spacious, affordable housing in Britain is to have a
smaller population. It's gone up 50% in the past hundred years.

The housing crisis is more about the fact that everyone wants to live in
their own home now, while before people were content to have their
entire family live in the upstairs floor of a standard victorian terrace
house.

I don't think that's true. I don't remember people living like that in the
80s, when we didn't have a housing crisis. My understanding is that it's
largely about people leaving home earlier, and getting married later (and
less, and divorced more), which increases the ratio of households to
people, and so drives up demand for housing, and thus its price.

The advent of buy-to-let hasn't helped, particularly in hotspots like
London, where a fair chunk of the supply of housing has been taken off the
market and transferred to the rental market. Hence why rents are now 'so
cheap', as people, who are conspicuously not paying my rent, tell me.

tom

--
Change happens with ball-flattening speed. -- Thomas Edison

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On Fri, 28 Mar 2008, John Rowland wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:

And there's quite a few more trains west of Paddington planned, which
would require platforms Paddington doesn't have.

Okay, i thought it was path-for-path. There will be more actual trains
under Crossrail?

There have to be. Extending the line makes the existing line desirable
to more punters - if it didn't, there would be little point in extending
the line in question.

If the trains were longer, that would do it, though, wouldn't it?

tom

--
Change happens with ball-flattening speed. -- Thomas Edison

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

"Mizter T" wrote in message
...

Depending upon what happens to the Thameslink service pattern in south
London it could even take some of the strain off of the Northern and
Jubilee lines, other mainline services into London Bridge and
generally relieve London Bridge somewhat as an interchange point by
diverting Docklands-bound commuters up to Farringdon for interchange
with Crossrail.

At the risk of going off at a slight tangent, are Thameslink services on the
Wimbledon loop constrained currently by the single platform and
bidirectional working at Wimbledon? Given the eventual proposed Thameslink
frequencies, will the decision to give a platform over to Tramlink come to
be regretted ?

Paul S

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On Fri, 28 Mar 2008, Mr Thant wrote:

On 28 Mar, 00:06, Tom Anderson wrote:

I'm very slightly dubious about this. Where are the trains run using this
capacity going to run to? More trains on the GE fasts? More WA trains?

West Anglia:

"On the Great Eastern route, it has been assumed that a 6 tph service
would operate in the peak period between Gidea Park and Liverpool
Street. On the West Anglia route via Hackney Downs, an additional 6 tph
are assumed to operate following the opening of Crossrail. "

http://billdocuments.crossrail.co.uk...%20Pattern.pdf

Okay, lovely. Despite having used it for a year, the WA route is one i
don't have a good feeling for flows on. It certainlty looks like an
underexploited route to me. More trains, hurrah!

And the first lot of trains mean a net increase in service on the
Shenfield route.

"4.2 However, for the purposes of planning, it has been assumed that
Crossrail would release paths on both the Great Eastern and West Anglia
routes into Liverpool Street."

I'd like to hear more about this assumption, i have to say. On the West
Anglia, fine, but i'm simply skeptical about the possibility of running
more trains in total over the GE route.

Okay, i thought it was path-for-path. There will be more actual trains
under Crossrail?

Interesting question. I think the peak provision remains the same but
they'll be running more trains off peak. Sounds like it shouldn't be a
problem, but AIUI due to freight and the platforms at Paddington being
taken up by intercity services which are busy all day, there's not
capacity to run it at the moment.

And yet there is in the peaks? Freight might run mostly off-peak, but the
density of it just isn't high enough to have that effect.

I suppose in the peaks, you have some leeway for things going wrong and
running late, because the peak only lasts a few hours, and you can sort of
overspill, if that makes any sense.

Is TLnK getting Victoria trains? I haven't been keeping up, i have to
confess.

Not directly, but Victoria and London Bridge/Blackfriars serve a lot
of the same places.

Right, got it.

tom

--
Change happens with ball-flattening speed. -- Thomas Edison

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On Thu, 27 Mar 2008, Andy wrote:

On Mar 27, 11:59*pm, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Wed, 26 Mar 2008, Andy wrote:
On Mar 26, 6:53*pm, Tom Anderson wrote:
On Tue, 25 Mar 2008, Mr Thant wrote:
On 25 Mar, 23:49, Tom Anderson wrote:

True. All of which could be done without the tunnel, for a fraction of the
price.

And without increasing any capacity from the termini to where people
work/shop/go out/etc, which is the whole point of the current iteration
of the project.

Entirely agreed. But the point i was making in the text that's been
snipped is that the Crossrail project doesn't deliver significant
increases in capacity outside central London, and none that couldn't be
provided much more cheaply.

But it is the central London section that needs the capacity, as the
Underground can not distribute passengers arriving from the mainline.
How much cheaper would it be to provide the extra capacity across London
without the joining the lines to the west and east? Passengers taken
off, for example, the Central line at Liverpool Street / Stratford will
give more capacity for passengers from the West Anglia lines.

Absolutely. Sorry that i haven't really made myself clear about all this -
i think Crossrail's a good idea (although not as good an idea as some
other options which were dismissed - but that's another story), i just
think it's misleading to say it'll increase capacity on the lines it's
assimilating.

But can we agree that it will provide extra capacity at the terminii
where the current trains will be removed? On top of any possible
increase in the lines that it serves directly.

Yes.

But i'm still going to maintain that it's capacity that can't be used,
because the bottleneck is not the terminal capacity!

Unless you mean capacity for passengers rather than trains, in which case
you're quite right.

Again, could be done without the tunnel.

And where do you plan to build the extra platforms at Paddington and
Liverpool Street?

Liverpool Street isn't limited by platform capacity, it's limited by
capacity through the station throat. Rebuilding that is entirely
possible, although of course not trivial. I don't know about
Paddington, i have to confess. But since all we're talking about is
lengthening trains, why do we need more platforms?

Paddington has at least three platforms that are of limited length
(12-14, plus 11 which shares the country end track with the entrance to
platform 12). If you lengthen the trains to 8 or 10 coaches, I don't
think that any of these platforms can cope. Liverpool Street also
suffers from some of the same problems, with platforms 16-18 limited to
8 coaches. At both locations, the trains serving these platforms will be
the ones sent down the crossrail tunnels.

Right. Problems which could be solved without recourse to a tunnel.

But at what proportion of the cost?

At what proportion of umpty-billion pounds? A pretty small one.

To add a double track railway junction at each end of the Crossrail
tunnels is considerable easier than fitting extra platforms / new
layouts into the existing sites. The junctions can be placed where there
is room without the expense of buying the land etc. You only need to
look at the costs that seem to be involved in adding just one platform
at King's Cross. The point is that the extra capacity is needed in
central London and this can only be provided by building a tunnel.

The capacity increase is going to come from longer, not more, trains.
Extra platforms or whatever would not be needed; existing ones would need
to be extended. This is not free, but it's also not expensive, at least on
the Crossrail scheme of things.

I would certainly agree that if you are going to build a
cross-central-London tunnel, you should connect it to some routes outside
the centre, though. I'm not arguing for a Paddington-to-Liverpool Street
mini-Crossrail. I'm just saying that the capacity increase outside the
centre of London will be small, and nothing that couldn't be achieved much
more cheaply without Crossrail.

tom

--
Change happens with ball-flattening speed. -- Thomas Edison

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On 28 Mar, 15:56, Tom Anderson wrote:
I'd like to hear more about this assumption, i have to say. On the West
Anglia, fine, but i'm simply skeptical about the possibility of running
more trains in total over the GE route.

On the GE freight runs on the fast lines, so the Shenfield Metro has
dedicated track for most of its length, the only limit being at the
Liverpool Street end. Which means you could send some of the trains
somewhere else when they get to London, like say a great big tunnel,
you're onto a winner.

And yet there is in the peaks? Freight might run mostly off-peak, but the
density of it just isn't high enough to have that effect.

To be honest I'm only assuming Crossrail is going to increase the
overall number of trains because they're spending a lot of money
rebuilding big bits of the GWML further west. Need to do some more
reading.

U

--
http://londonconnections.blogspot.com/
A blog about transport projects in London

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On Mar 28, 3:50*pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:
"Mizter T" wrote in message

...

Depending upon what happens to the Thameslink service pattern in south
London it could even take some of the strain off of the Northern and
Jubilee lines, other mainline services into London Bridge and
generally relieve London Bridge somewhat as an interchange point by
diverting Docklands-bound commuters up to Farringdon for interchange
with Crossrail.

At the risk of going off at a slight tangent, are Thameslink services on the
Wimbledon loop constrained currently by the single platform and
bidirectional working at Wimbledon? Given the eventual proposed Thameslink
frequencies, will the decision to give a platform over to Tramlink come to
be regretted ?

Paul S

I think that there are constrained from getting much more frequent on
the Wimbledon to Sutton bit, due to the single platform. From memory,
services are approximately every 30 minutes around the loop in each
direction (even during the peak hours), giving 4 trains per hour
through the single platform. I suppose that the frequency could be
increased, but probably not to much more than every 15 minutes in each
direction without affecting reliability and pathing.

However (and I don't know if this is planned), there is the
terminating track at the north end of the platform where the Tramlink
platform is. This would allow a greater frequency on the Wimbledon -
Tooting - Thameslink route. There are a couple of trains that use this
already during the peak shoulders.

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

Tom Anderson wrote:
On Thu, 27 Mar 2008, lonelytraveller wrote:

On Mar 25, 9:53 am, "Grumpy Old Man"
wrote:
The Real Doctor wrote:

On 24 Mar, 23:10, Adrian wrote:

You have clearly never lived in a city where good spacious (1,000 sq
ft per person) affordable housing is available to middle class
workers. Or, enjoyed one where a normal comfortable journey to work
is 40 minutes or less.

And how many people do you think will find good, spacious, affordable
housing as a result of this line. It'll knock quarter of an hour,
tops, off the journey onto London - are those fifteen minutes really
deterring millions from moving to good, spacious, affordable housing?

The only way to get good, spacious, affordable housing in Britain is to have a
smaller population. It's gone up 50% in the past hundred years.

The housing crisis is more about the fact that everyone wants to live in
their own home now, while before people were content to have their
entire family live in the upstairs floor of a standard victorian terrace
house.

I don't think that's true. I don't remember people living like that in the
80s, when we didn't have a housing crisis. My understanding is that it's
largely about people leaving home earlier, and getting married later (and
less, and divorced more), which increases the ratio of households to
people, and so drives up demand for housing, and thus its price.

The fact that the population is rising has an effect, too.


The advent of buy-to-let hasn't helped, particularly in hotspots like
London, where a fair chunk of the supply of housing has been taken off the
market and transferred to the rental market. Hence why rents are now 'so
cheap', as people, who are conspicuously not paying my rent, tell me.

But the homes are still inhabited, the only difference is they pay rent instead
of the mortgage.

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

lonelytraveller wrote:
On Mar 25, 9:53 am, "Grumpy Old Man"
wrote:

The only way to get good, spacious, affordable housing in Britain is to have a
smaller population. It's gone up 50% in the past hundred years.

The housing crisis is more about the fact that everyone wants to live
in their own home now, while before people were content to have their
entire family live in the upstairs floor of a standard victorian
terrace house.

I'm one Yorkshireman, so we just need three more then we are all set for
the rest of the thread...

--
Arthur Figgis

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

Andy wrote:
On Mar 28, 3:50 pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

At the risk of going off at a slight tangent, are Thameslink
services on the Wimbledon loop constrained currently by the single
platform and bidirectional working at Wimbledon? Given the eventual
proposed Thameslink frequencies, will the decision to give a
platform over to Tramlink come to be regretted ?

Paul S

I think that there are constrained from getting much more frequent on
the Wimbledon to Sutton bit, due to the single platform. From memory,
services are approximately every 30 minutes around the loop in each
direction (even during the peak hours), giving 4 trains per hour
through the single platform. I suppose that the frequency could be
increased, but probably not to much more than every 15 minutes in each
direction without affecting reliability and pathing.

However (and I don't know if this is planned), there is the
terminating track at the north end of the platform where the Tramlink
platform is. This would allow a greater frequency on the Wimbledon -
Tooting - Thameslink route. There are a couple of trains that use this
already during the peak shoulders.

Thanks, presumably only 4 car trains though? I did notice the other day
that platform 10 still has the same stop markers as platform 9, for trains
arriving from the southwest through back to back buffer stops presumably!

Paul S

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

In article ,
Arthur Figgis wrote:
lonelytraveller wrote:

The housing crisis is more about the fact that everyone wants to live
in their own home now, while before people were content to have their
entire family live in the upstairs floor of a standard victorian
terrace house.

I'm one Yorkshireman, so we just need three more then we are all set for
the rest of the thread...

One Yorkshireman ? You were lucky ......

Nick
--
Serendipity: http://www.leverton.org/blosxom (last update 17th February 2008)
"The Internet, a sort of ersatz counterfeit of real life"
-- Janet Street-Porter, BBC2, 19th March 1996

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

Andy wrote:
On Mar 28, 3:50 pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

I think that there are constrained from getting much more frequent on
the Wimbledon to Sutton bit, due to the single platform. From memory,
services are approximately every 30 minutes around the loop in each
direction (even during the peak hours), giving 4 trains per hour
through the single platform. I suppose that the frequency could be
increased, but probably not to much more than every 15 minutes in each
direction without affecting reliability and pathing.

However (and I don't know if this is planned), there is the
terminating track at the north end of the platform where the Tramlink
platform is. This would allow a greater frequency on the Wimbledon -
Tooting - Thameslink route. There are a couple of trains that use this
already during the peak shoulders.

Now that the South London RUS is out - I see Wimbledon loop trains will be
terminating in the bays at Blackfriars in the final Thameslink arrangement,
avoiding the crossing moves south of Blackfriars that we have discussed in
the past. There seems no real reason why the service might not be
transferred to Southern (or LO) then, using DC stock, leaving FCC or their
successor to concentrate on the main routes?

Paul S

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On Wed, 2 Apr 2008, Paul Scott wrote:

Andy wrote:
On Mar 28, 3:50 pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

I think that there are constrained from getting much more frequent on
the Wimbledon to Sutton bit, due to the single platform. From memory,
services are approximately every 30 minutes around the loop in each
direction (even during the peak hours), giving 4 trains per hour
through the single platform. I suppose that the frequency could be
increased, but probably not to much more than every 15 minutes in each
direction without affecting reliability and pathing.

However (and I don't know if this is planned), there is the
terminating track at the north end of the platform where the Tramlink
platform is. This would allow a greater frequency on the Wimbledon -
Tooting - Thameslink route. There are a couple of trains that use this
already during the peak shoulders.

Now that the South London RUS is out - I see Wimbledon loop trains will be
terminating in the bays at Blackfriars in the final Thameslink arrangement,

Blimey. Bit of a blow to south Londoners.

avoiding the crossing moves south of Blackfriars that we have discussed in
the past.

Has anyone proposed a flyover somewhere that would allow them to get on to
the through lines without conflicts? I know there are all sorts of planned
bits of infrastructure down there, and i can't keep track of them.

There seems no real reason why the service might not be transferred to
Southern (or LO) then, using DC stock, leaving FCC or their successor to
concentrate on the main routes?

That would fit perfectly with Thameslink's new focus on outer suburban /
middle-distance services. But not with Ken/TfL/London Rail's growing power
to promote inner suburban services. Unless he thought he could get more
frequency on that route by making it LO. Or making it a part of the ELL!

tom

--
We don't contact anybody or seek anybody's permission for what we do. Even
if it's impersonating postal employees. -- Birdstuff

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On 2 Apr, 15:09, Tom Anderson wrote:
Has anyone proposed a flyover somewhere that would allow them to get on to
the through lines without conflicts? I know there are all sorts of planned
bits of infrastructure down there, and i can't keep track of them.

Only two that I know of:
- A flyover just east of London Bridge allowing trains from points
south towards Thameslink can cross over trains from points east to
Charing Cross (not sure exactly which lines)
- Doubling "Tanners Hill flydown", which is a flying junction just
west of Lewisham. Again, not sure exactly which trains make use of it.

U

--
http://londonconnections.blogspot.com/
A blog about transport projects in London

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

On Wed, 2 Apr 2008, Mr Thant wrote:

On 2 Apr, 15:09, Tom Anderson wrote:

Has anyone proposed a flyover somewhere that would allow them to get on to
the through lines without conflicts? I know there are all sorts of planned
bits of infrastructure down there, and i can't keep track of them.

Only two that I know of:
- A flyover just east of London Bridge allowing trains from points
south towards Thameslink can cross over trains from points east to
Charing Cross (not sure exactly which lines)
- Doubling "Tanners Hill flydown", which is a flying junction just
west of Lewisham. Again, not sure exactly which trains make use of it.

Yeah. I think this lets trains coming from LB on the SE main line fasts
get into Lewisham's Hither Green-bound platforms without conflicting with
trains coming the other way. But as you say, why? Is there some kind of
Hayes / Lee / Orpington slow service that runs into LB on the fasts for
some reason?

Anyway, neither of these do anything for Sutton loop trains wanting to go
to St Albans.

Maybe that's where the Bakerloo should go to the south ...

tom

--
We don't contact anybody or seek anybody's permission for what we do. Even
if it's impersonating postal employees. -- Birdstuff

Crossrail could bankrupt London - says Ken Livingstone
 

"Mr Thant" wrote in message
...
On 2 Apr, 15:09, Tom Anderson wrote:
Has anyone proposed a flyover somewhere that would allow them to get on
to
the through lines without conflicts? I know there are all sorts of
planned
bits of infrastructure down there, and i can't keep track of them.

Only two that I know of:
- A flyover just east of London Bridge allowing trains from points
south towards Thameslink can cross over trains from points east to
Charing Cross (not sure exactly which lines)
- Doubling "Tanners Hill flydown", which is a flying junction just
west of Lewisham. Again, not sure exactly which trains make use of it.

The change of mind about the destination of the Thameslink trains via
Elephant & Castle (6tph in the peaks) means that they will all run via
Catford, while trains via Herne Hill (Wimbledon Loop and Kent House) will be
kept quite separate on the west side and terminate at the new bays on the
upstream side of Blackfriars.

The grade-separated junction at Bermondsey will actually be a diveunder to
take Thameslink trains under the Charing Cross lines and the down London
Bridge - New Cross Gate slow line. In the same area is the flying junction
giving northbound ELLX trains their own route from the up side of New Cross
Gate to the ELL.

The Tanners Hill spur is being doubled as the presence of Thameslink trains
in the middle of the Greenwich viaduct will mean that Charing Cross trains
will not easily be able to access the slow lines west of New Cross, so will
have to use the Tanners Hill spur to reach Lewisham.

One other possible flyover that is discussed in the RUS, but kicked into the
long grass, is one at Herne Hill to separate Elephant & Castle to Tulse Hill
flows from Victoria to Kent house trains.

RUS thinking is that Thameslink to South Eastern via London Bridge trains
will run down the Tonbridge Main Line, rather than the previous proposal to
run to Dartford (via Bexleyheath and via Sidcup) - this is apparently easier
to path in the Lewisham area, and makes up for a likely reduction in Cannon
Street - Tonbridge Main Line trains. At present some Cannon Street trains
run ecs to/from or via Blackfriars Reversing Sidings, but the Cannon
Street - Metropolitan Junction spur is being taken out for Thameslink, so
all Cannon Street ecs will have to run via London Bridge, and this will
limit the capacity of London Bridge to 20 tph.