On Mar 26, 10:55*pm, wrote:
Published today at:http://www.dft.gov.uk/pgr/rail/pi/ro...ityeasteng.pdf

Covers the London Liverpool Street to Cambridge/Stansted main line and
London area branches. Quick highlights of proposals:

* 12 car trains London to Cambridge and Stansted in 2012; 'longer'
trains on the other routes

It would help enormously if National Express ran existing trains to
the advertised length. Having had the grave misfortune to use the
Chingford Line in last Friday's PM peak when only 4 rather than 8 cars
turned up I now understand why people get so upset at such antics. The
other issue here is whether these longer trains will be in use all the
time or just at peak times. While it is undoubtedly popular to
relieve overcrowding at peak times having new additional resources
sitting around doing nothing is not such good value for money.

* 10 to 15 minute reduction on London to Cambridge and Stansted
journey times

Lovely for people catching planes or who live in the bordering
counties. Not much use to anyone else.

* extension of London Overground services from Stratford to
Northumberland Park (or a shuttle service)

Not at all sure what that is supposed to achieve. While I would love
to see a service restored at places like Lea Bridge there is no talk
here about the obvious link which is the Coppermill Curve to the
Chingford Line - the alignment is still there and it would be a
marginal additional to any grade separation works. It would also allow
far better local services to be created if coupled with plans to add
extra stations. I think a shuttle service would be far better than
extending the NLL from Richmond. That strikes me as making the line
extremely long and prone to even more delays as it would interface
with yet another set of lines. A frequent local shuttle would probably
be better but they need to be inventive with stations and interchanges
- e.g. would they sort out Angel Road given its promixity to IKEA or
would they contemplate a Ferry Lane station to give interchange on to
GOBLIN but perhaps only with local line platforms on the 4 track
section? A station near Ruckholt Road in Leyton to the north of the
Olympics site would also be a good idea. The Chingford Line could
easily have 3 extra stations (Forest Road, Winchester Road / North
Circ, Chingford Hatch) added to improve its coverage.

In another post the issue was identified about local rail line usage.
Service frequencies are relatively poor via both Seven Sisters and
Tottenham Hale for stopping services. You only need to look at the
massive overcrowding all day, every day on the 192 bus to see that
something is amiss in terms of real demand and how the modes work or
more pertienently don't work. The Tottenham - Edmonton - Enfield
corridor has extremely high bus frequencies and very high demand and
yet I'm sure rail could cover a decent share of that market far more
efficiently if only services and fares were more affordable.

* grade-separation of Coppermill Junction and four-tracking from there
to Tottenham Hale

I am very surprised by this. I fail to see how they can get 4 tracks
in the alignment immediately south of Tottenham Hale. You have Ferry
Lane estate on one side and industrial and residential units including
the retail park on the other. Unless the tracks are going to be on top
of one another then it's going to be a very controversial move to cut
a big swathe through there. I'd also question whether Tottenham Hale
can be expanded to 4 tracks itself given the massive Hale Village
redevelopment that is under construction now.

They do seem rather fixated on how "low demand" at the inner stations
would drag down the business case for other improvements. Quite why
Stansted Airport needs 6 trains an hour I do not know. I also think a
15 minute inner suburban station is the bare minimum acceptable
standard - rail services would be much more acceptable if they could
run every 10 mins. I doubt there would be any issues about demand
levels at places like Brimsdown etc if trains ran that frequently.
They also need to think about stations to better serve developments
like Enfield Island Village.

* removal of many level crossings in the Lea Valley, both road and
foot

Well I can see why they wish to do this but that is not going to be an
easy task with some of the road crossing in the Brimsdown - Edmonton
area. Not a lot of space to either dig under or bridge over the rail
lines.

* 100mph ruling line speed
* second tunnel on approach to Stansted Airport
* signalling alterations to allow overnight services to/from Stansted
Airport

Anyone understand why signalling alterations are required for
overnight services?

The document is a reasonable start but it is completely lacking in
imagination when it comes to required service levels and the
opportunities for radical service developments to serve people in
London. It's a given that they want to shuttle the outer area
commuters in as fast as possible but I fail to see why scope for
decent improvements within London should be sacrificed as part of the
scheme.

--
Paul Corfield
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