On 2009/04/02 at about 1600, I arrived at Aldgate at platform 4 on an
anti-clockwise Circle line train. I did not hear the driver's message.
There were Metropolitan trains on platforms 2 (which left first) and 3.
I switched to the train on platform 3 (3/4 are 2 sides of an island
platform) when it got green. Although I did not time events, the Journey
Planner suggests a Metropolitan service interval of about 10 minutes.

Since then, I have been thinking about the teacup proposals, whose main
rationale seems to be that there is nowhere to store Circle line trains.
Aldgate seems a good candidate in both directions. Gloucester Road
clockwise and the line between High Street Kensington and Gloucester
Road anti-clockwise seem OK. (Does the latter allow passing Wimbledons?)
Hence my question above.
--
Walter Briscoe

Walter Briscoe wrote:

Since then, I have been thinking about the teacup proposals, whose main
rationale seems to be that there is nowhere to store Circle line trains.
Aldgate seems a good candidate in both directions. Gloucester Road
clockwise and the line between High Street Kensington and Gloucester Road
anti-clockwise seem OK. (Does the latter allow passing Wimbledons?)
Hence my question above.

It's more than just storing trains - the Circle Line basically involves
trains running continuously for c20 hours, with no turn arounds and no
opportunity to recover time from delays. The latter has a knock-on effect on
the other three lines that share the tracks. (It's because of this that I
doubt there will ever be an "outer circle" *service* on London Overground.)
By introducing a couple of terminuses the individual train journeys shrink
to a far more managable length, they all turn around and it will be possible
to terminate a train early and reverse it in order to recover some of the
lost time table.

It seems to also offer an increased frequency on the Hammersmith branch as
well as on the Circle-only sections of track - I find myself avoiding
relying on Aldgate-Tower Hill services as much as possible (instead taking
wide detours to get the District elsewhere) because they have a reputation
as being just too unreliable.

"Tim Roll-Pickering" wrote in
:

Walter Briscoe wrote:

Since then, I have been thinking about the teacup proposals, whose
main rationale seems to be that there is nowhere to store Circle line
trains. Aldgate seems a good candidate in both directions. Gloucester
Road clockwise and the line between High Street Kensington and
Gloucester Road anti-clockwise seem OK. (Does the latter allow
passing Wimbledons?) Hence my question above.

It's more than just storing trains - the Circle Line basically
involves trains running continuously for c20 hours, with no turn
arounds and no opportunity to recover time from delays. The latter has
a knock-on effect on the other three lines that share the tracks.
(It's because of this that I doubt there will ever be an "outer
circle" *service* on London Overground.) By introducing a couple of
terminuses the individual train journeys shrink to a far more
managable length, they all turn around and it will be possible to
terminate a train early and reverse it in order to recover some of the
lost time table.

One problem is going to be *where* do you terminate your late running train
early? The plan is to run Hammersmith - Outer Circle - Edgware Road -
Inner Circle - Hammersmith - Whitechapel/Barking - Hammersmith. Once past
Aldgate on the Outer Circle there is simply nowhere to park a train until
reaching Moorgate on the run to Whitechapel/Barking, unless you drop the
Inner Circle trip and run straight to Moorgate (or Aldgate) from Egdware
Road - which is pretty much what the Circle does at times of disruption
now.


It seems to also offer an increased frequency on the Hammersmith
branch as well as on the Circle-only sections of track - I find myself
avoiding relying on Aldgate-Tower Hill services as much as possible
(instead taking wide detours to get the District elsewhere) because
they have a reputation as being just too unreliable.



The Circle will be every 10 rather than 8 minutes. I suspect part of the
plan is to run everything on a 10 minute cycle - at least in the off peak.

David

"David Jackman" pleasereplytogroup wrote in message
. 109.145...

One problem is going to be *where* do you terminate your late running
train
early? The plan is to run Hammersmith - Outer Circle - Edgware Road -
Inner Circle - Hammersmith - Whitechapel/Barking - Hammersmith. Once past
Aldgate on the Outer Circle there is simply nowhere to park a train until
reaching Moorgate on the run to Whitechapel/Barking, unless you drop the
Inner Circle trip and run straight to Moorgate (or Aldgate) from Egdware
Road - which is pretty much what the Circle does at times of disruption
now.


Are you assuming trains will interwork on both H&C and Circle routes?
Surely it will be more reliable to have two discrete sub fleets on a day to
day basis, doing H&C OR Circle, and then delays will not transfer from one
service to the other?

Paul S

David Jackman pleasereplytogroup wrote on 07 April 2009 21:36:12 ...
"Tim Roll-Pickering" wrote in
:

Walter Briscoe wrote:

Since then, I have been thinking about the teacup proposals, whose
main rationale seems to be that there is nowhere to store Circle line
trains. Aldgate seems a good candidate in both directions. Gloucester
Road clockwise and the line between High Street Kensington and
Gloucester Road anti-clockwise seem OK. (Does the latter allow
passing Wimbledons?) Hence my question above.

It's more than just storing trains - the Circle Line basically
involves trains running continuously for c20 hours, with no turn
arounds and no opportunity to recover time from delays. The latter has
a knock-on effect on the other three lines that share the tracks.
(It's because of this that I doubt there will ever be an "outer
circle" *service* on London Overground.) By introducing a couple of
terminuses the individual train journeys shrink to a far more
managable length, they all turn around and it will be possible to
terminate a train early and reverse it in order to recover some of the
lost time table.

One problem is going to be *where* do you terminate your late running train
early? The plan is to run Hammersmith - Outer Circle - Edgware Road -
Inner Circle - Hammersmith - Whitechapel/Barking - Hammersmith. Once past
Aldgate on the Outer Circle there is simply nowhere to park a train until
reaching Moorgate on the run to Whitechapel/Barking, unless you drop the
Inner Circle trip and run straight to Moorgate (or Aldgate) from Egdware
Road - which is pretty much what the Circle does at times of disruption
now.

The "Outer Circle" was an entirely different route. You mean "Outer
Rail" and "Inner Rail" if you're referring to the clockwise and
anticlockwise tracks of the (Inner) Circle.
--
Richard J.
(to email me, swap 'uk' and 'yon' in address)

Walter Briscoe wrote:

Since then, I have been thinking about the teacup proposals,

BRAINWAVE.

On this group, we have two long-standing conundra: how to run the circle
line efficiently, and what to do with the recently disused Widened Lines.

Each is, of course, the solution to the other. We have the exclusive use
of the Widened Lines between Farringdon junction and Moorgate. On that
stretch, there are platforms at Barbican. We build two new bits of track,
and a bunch of crossovers:

- a trailing link from the inner Circle to the up Widened as far west as
possible; east of Farringdon, west of Barbican - this would be a trivial
extension of the Cowcross Street sidings

- a facing crossover from the up to the down Widened immediately east of
the above

- a facing crossover from the outer to the inner Circle also immediately
east of the link

- a facing link from the up Widened to the inner Circle west of Moorgate -
probably involving the Met sidings at Moorgate, at their western end

- a trailing crossover from the up Widened to the inner Circle west of the
link, which probably means west of the existing facing crossover (which is
west of the existing trailing crossover)

- a trailing crossover from the down to the up Widened west of the link

You then redesignate (fast/slow is arbitrary here):

- outer Circle - outer Circle fast
- inner Circle - outer Circle slow
- up Widened - inner Circle slow
- down Widened - outer Circle fast

And you have a four-track Circle between Farringdon and Moorgate, with no
flat crossings. Essentially, Barbican looks just like Edgware Road. You
can have trains on the slows sit in the platforms for as long as they need

Currently looks like this (|- denotes the severed tracks at Farringdon):

Barbican Moorgate

### ###
------------------------------+---------+---------
\ /
--+-----------------------------+---+-+-----------
\ ### \ ####
CX St ------+-+-------#
sgds \ #
+-----#
### ####
|------------------------------------------------#
#
|------------------------------------------------#
### ####

And would become (tracks not in routine use dashed):

### ###
---+---------------------+---+---------+---------
\ / \ /
---+-+-----------------+- - - -+-+-+-+-----------
\ ### / \ ####
\ +- - -+-+- - - -#
\ / \ #
\ / +- - -#
\ ### / ####
|- - - - -+-+-------------+-+- - - - - - - - - -#
\ / #
|- - - - - - -+---------+- - - - - - - - - - - -#
### ####

The stubs of Widened line at the Farringdon end probably wouldn't be long
enough to be of any use, but the stubs at the Moorgate end would all be
usable in one way or another. You might need a few more links or
crossovers to make full use of them. Whatever you do, they'll involve flat
crossings, though.

Actually, a cheaper version of this plan would just be to rearrange the
Cowcross Street sidings as a short four-track stretch. I'm not sure it's
long enough, but if it is, that would be somewhere to hold trains which
needed holding.

tom

--
Argumentative and pedantic, oh, yes. Although it's properly called "correct" -- Huge

In article i,
(Tom Anderson) wrote:

Walter Briscoe wrote:

Since then, I have been thinking about the teacup proposals,

BRAINWAVE.

On this group, we have two long-standing conundra: how to run the
circle line efficiently, and what to do with the recently disused
Widened Lines.

Each is, of course, the solution to the other. We have the
exclusive use of the Widened Lines between Farringdon junction and
Moorgate. On that stretch, there are platforms at Barbican.

[snip]

There's the snag. There isn't a down platform at Barbican.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

wrote:

There's the snag. There isn't a down platform at Barbican.

There is, just not one that was used by Thameslink. But would it be short
enough for a Circle?

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
th.li...
SNIP
BRAINWAVE.

On this group, we have two long-standing conundra: how to run the circle
line efficiently, and what to do with the recently disused Widened Lines.

Each is, of course, the solution to the other. We have the exclusive use
of the Widened Lines between Farringdon junction and Moorgate. On that
stretch, there are platforms at Barbican. We build two new bits of track,
and a bunch of crossovers:

- a trailing link from the inner Circle to the up Widened as far west as
possible; east of Farringdon, west of Barbican - this would be a trivial
extension of the Cowcross Street sidings

- a facing crossover from the up to the down Widened immediately east of
the above

- a facing crossover from the outer to the inner Circle also immediately
east of the link

- a facing link from the up Widened to the inner Circle west of Moorgate -
probably involving the Met sidings at Moorgate, at their western end

- a trailing crossover from the up Widened to the inner Circle west of the
link, which probably means west of the existing facing crossover (which is
west of the existing trailing crossover)

- a trailing crossover from the down to the up Widened west of the link

You then redesignate (fast/slow is arbitrary here):

- outer Circle - outer Circle fast
- inner Circle - outer Circle slow
- up Widened - inner Circle slow
- down Widened - outer Circle fast

And you have a four-track Circle between Farringdon and Moorgate, with no
flat crossings. Essentially, Barbican looks just like Edgware Road. You
can have trains on the slows sit in the platforms for as long as they need

Currently looks like this (|- denotes the severed tracks at Farringdon):

Barbican Moorgate

### ###
------------------------------+---------+---------
\ /
--+-----------------------------+---+-+-----------
\ ### \ ####
CX St ------+-+-------#
sgds \ #
+-----#
### ####
|------------------------------------------------#
#
|------------------------------------------------#
### ####

And would become (tracks not in routine use dashed):

### ###
---+---------------------+---+---------+---------
\ / \ /
---+-+-----------------+- - - -+-+-+-+-----------
\ ### / \ ####
\ +- - -+-+- - - -#
\ / \ #
\ / +- - -#
\ ### / ####
|- - - - -+-+-------------+-+- - - - - - - - - -#
\ / #
|- - - - - - -+---------+- - - - - - - - - - - -#
### ####

The stubs of Widened line at the Farringdon end probably wouldn't be long
enough to be of any use, but the stubs at the Moorgate end would all be
usable in one way or another. You might need a few more links or
crossovers to make full use of them. Whatever you do, they'll involve flat
crossings, though.

Actually, a cheaper version of this plan would just be to rearrange the
Cowcross Street sidings as a short four-track stretch. I'm not sure it's
long enough, but if it is, that would be somewhere to hold trains which
needed holding.

tom

--
Argumentative and pedantic, oh, yes. Although it's properly called
"correct" -- Huge

A study of Underground history will show a similar situation at Gloucester
Rd and South Kensington dating from the days of District vs Met egos. You
have side platforms @ Barbican. Unless extensively rebuilt as well, you
won't have the outer rail splitting to sharing sides of one island, inner
rail the other. Instead, the outer rail will be split to one side platform
and one side of the central island. If the down widened lines platform space
is still there, the same would appy to the inner rail. So, there'll be a
load of hoofing it up/down stairs involved. Bifurcation is a good idea, but
only with ISLAND platforms.

Cheers

David down under

On 7 Apr, 06:59, Walter Briscoe wrote:
Since then, I have been thinking about the teacup proposals, whose main
rationale seems to be that there is nowhere to store Circle line trains.
Aldgate seems a good candidate in both directions. Gloucester Road
clockwise and the line between High Street Kensington and Gloucester
Road anti-clockwise seem OK.

The whole reason the Circle Line exists is to provide a fast
convenient service for passengers passing through exactly those
locations. If you timetable 5 minutes plus of recovery time (which is
what the teacup plan will allow at Edgware Road), you might as well
not bother running it.

(on a related topic, I've decided they should install a drawbridge at
the east end of Edgware Road so that there's always level access to
the next onward train. Trains rarely leave the centre tracks in that
direction)

U