On Thu, 9 Jul 2009 21:28:33 +0100, "Recliner"
wrote:

"Jamie Thompson" wrote in message

Shame they're missing the opportunity to add the sorely-missing
flyover/under to link the DC lines with the St. Albans Abbey branch.
Handing that line over to LO would do wonders for the service, which
would then get more people actually using it.

But it's well outside London.

The hole/bridge involved would also be rather expensive, which ISTR
takes us back to previous suggestions that a SA via WJ to somewhere
on the Met would be better value for money as it would allow
street-running to get from one side of WJ to the other.

Arthur Figgis wrote:
Tony Polson wrote:
"Recliner" wrote:
"Jamie Thompson" wrote in message

Shame they're missing the opportunity to add the sorely-missing
flyover/under to link the DC lines with the St. Albans Abbey branch.
Handing that line over to LO would do wonders for the service, which
would then get more people actually using it.
But it's well outside London.


It's typical uk.railway: if a service is sparsely used, costing the
taxpayer a lot of money per passenger-journey or passenger-km (take your
pick!) the trainspotters' answer is always the same:

Well, yes. Trainspotters want more trains. If they wanted buses or
guided hovercraft, they wouldn't be trainspotters.


Thank God the DfT isn't run by a trainspotter ...


Er, hang on a minute, IT IS!!!

;-)

"Peter Masson" wrote:
"Jamie Thompson" wrote in message
...
Shame they're missing the opportunity to add the sorely-missing
flyover/under to link the DC lines with the St. Albans Abbey branch.
Handing that line over to LO would do wonders for the service, which
would then get more people actually using it.

It's single track with, AIUI, no crossing loop. So without double track, or
at least a crossing loop, you can't increase the frequency (end-to-end
journey time of 16 minutes, and a round trip generally every 45 minutes}.


So let's spend endless £ millions on a new loop, and signalling, and why
don't we double all the track at the same time, all to run even more
expensive trains full of fresh air.

On Fri, 10 Jul 2009 00:36:54 +0100, Charles Ellson
wrote:

On Thu, 9 Jul 2009 21:28:33 +0100, "Recliner"
wrote:

"Jamie Thompson" wrote in message

Shame they're missing the opportunity to add the sorely-missing
flyover/under to link the DC lines with the St. Albans Abbey branch.
Handing that line over to LO would do wonders for the service, which
would then get more people actually using it.

But it's well outside London.

The hole/bridge involved would also be rather expensive, which ISTR
takes us back to previous suggestions that a SA via WJ to somewhere
on the Met would be better value for money as it would allow
^tramway damn!
street-running to get from one side of WJ to the other.

On 9 July, 22:27, Tony Polson wrote:
"Recliner" wrote:
"Jamie Thompson" wrote in message

Shame they're missing the opportunity to add the sorely-missing
flyover/under to link the DC lines with the St. Albans Abbey branch.
Handing that line over to LO would do wonders for the service, which
would then get more people actually using it.

But it's well outside London.

It's typical uk.railway: *if a service is sparsely used, costing the
taxpayer a lot of money per passenger-journey or passenger-km (take your
pick!) the trainspotters' answer is always the same:

"Let's throw good money after bad, build a hugely expensive
flyover/flyunder, lease some more very expensive rolling stock and pay
even more in track access charges and staff costs!" *


I agree that linking the line to the DC is a complete waste of money.
Linking into the WCML is more favourable, especially with the Watford
Junction - Euston service planned (only one train morning peak at the
moment)

All this for a very small number of passengers. *The result? *A marginal
increase in ridership (at best) and a further huge increase in the
already very high subsidy. *As usual, a complete and utter waste of
taxpayers' money.


The line is certainly not empty during the peak, the 4 car trains are
full upon arrival / departure at Watford Junction. If you need the
resources to run the peak hour service, then the extra cost of running
off-peak is minimal.

The reason the line is very little used is that the vast majority of
demand for rail services from St Albans is to/from London. *That demand
is already being satisfied by Thameslink, and Thameslink capacity is
getting a huge boost for the future because that is where people
actually want to travel.


There is actually a sizeable band of commuters into Watford on the
line and you are falling into the classic trap of thinking of the line
from only the end-to-end journeys. From the station usage stats at
http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/upload/xls/station_usage_0708.xls, St.
Albans Abbey had 222,482 entries and exits with the other stations on
the line between 32,000 and 98,000, not huge numbers, but certainly
comparable is many stations with more frequent services in the
commuter belt.

The St Albans Abbey to Watford Junction branch could more usefully be
replaced by a bus service which would better serve intermediate
communities between St Albans and Watford Town Centre and also serve
Watford town centre rather than Watford Junction, which is very poorly
situated relative to the centre of Watford. *Yes, you can change trains
to the DC lines at Watford Junction and go to Watford High Street
instead, but that makes for a significant increase in average journey
time.

But there are already several bus routes serving areas on the line,
and the timings are slow. For example the 321 bus takes about 30 mins
Watford Junction - St. Alban's Abbey station and runs along a road
between 5 and 10 minutes walk from the stations. How many buses are
you going to run to take the peak load on the branch? Or are you
comtemplating conversion to a busway which will not come cheap.

I do agree that it is a waste of time changing to the DC lines , as it
is only a ten minute walk / 2 min bus ride from Watford Junction to
the main shopping areas.

From eWatford Observer - 5:50pm Monday 13th July 2009

Road plans get County Hall backing

By John Harrison »


Councillors have approved plans that could see seven landowners forced
to sell prime retail land in central Watford.
Members on Hertfordshire County Council today voted in favour of a
policy that could impose compulsory purchase orders on seven companies
along St Albans Road.
The proposal is part of plans to build a new link road between the M1
motorway and Watford Junction.
The road will link Colonial Way with St Albans Road, as well as the
busy station, and is intended to cross the main railway line to link
east and west Watford.
The land earmarked for construction is currently occupied by TK Maxx,
Staples and Homebase superstores.
At a meeting, held inside County Hall, in Hertford, this afternoon,
councillors agree to first seek to acquire the land through
negotiation.
However, they voted to follow a police of compulsory purchase is
necessary.
The executive member for transport, County Councillor Stuart Pile,
told fellow councillors the new road would ease congestion and a new
station “hub” would provide additional parking.
Hertfordshire County Council officers say the new road would offer a
“more direct connection to the motorway system” and “alleviate
existing traffic congestion”.
One option under consideration would see the proposed road built as an
extension to Colonial Way, passing over the railway track and through
the Homebase car park.
The second option, however, would see the new road built directly on
top of a unit currently containing T K Maxx.
……………………………….........
……………………………….........
John Burke
WRUG

In message
, at
11:56:03 on Mon, 13 Jul 2009, burkey
remarked:
Councillors have approved plans that could see seven landowners forced
to sell prime retail land in central Watford.
....
The second option, however, would see the new road built directly on
top of a unit currently containing T K Maxx.

In another thread we were discussing why new railways (and by analogy,
new roads) cost so much here compared with other countries.

The scheme elsewhere would likely be to offer T K Maxx a reasonable
price for their unit, and if they refused, to build the road anyway.

Once landowners get the message, they accept the first offer
"gratefully".
--
Roland Perry

On 9 July, 21:28, "Recliner" wrote:
"Jamie Thompson" wrote in message



Shame they're missing the opportunity to add the sorely-missing
flyover/under to link the DC lines with the St. Albans Abbey branch.
Handing that line over to LO would do wonders for the service, which
would then get more people actually using it.

But it's well outside London.

Yup, but one of the main reasons the passing loop got deferred is
because one of the franchise commitments that came in when LM took
over was to harmonise their fleet or some such, meaning that the line
can only be worked by a hugely excessive new 377, when a much smaller/
cheaper non-standard unit would suffice ( I believe a Silverlink Metro
unit used to operate the line before the franchise change).
Additionally, I'd imagine timings could be improved by using one or
two of the new metro-class stock built for LO (rapid acceleration and
lower top-speeds than the 377s - built to be able to handle the fast
lines without stealing too much capacity from Lord Beardie's trains as
well as run stopping services all the way from from Birmingham) -
hence the reason I suggest LO as a suitable operator, as they have a
suitable set of units already, so you wouldn't need specialist stock
or additional stabling.

Having a flyover/under would let the service act as an extension of
the current Watford terminating one, giving the future option of not
only LO services (switching to AC at WJ to utilise the existing
infrastructure), but Chiltern services (or even Met/Bakerloo, if they
decided to install DC rails). Not having to endure a decidedly dodgy
connection at WJ might also attract more local usage from north
Watford for places south. Anyone heading to central London would be
using Thameslink or changing at WJ anyway.

Going off piste a bit - The ideal situation for the line is to be able
to run into St Albans station rather than the Abbey Station - that
would build up contraflow usage, making the line more sustainable.
Moving the Thameslink station south to London Road and building a
proper interchange would make this easier and leave open the option of
extending to Hatfield whilst maintaining a really good interchange. I
suspect the golf club might object though If you could pull off
Hatfield and get FCC to stop their semi-fast there, you'd eventually
build up a significant chunk of interchanging commuter use as people
would be able to get between the WCML, MML, and ECML a) without going
near central London or b) out to Birmingham/Leicester or c) going out
as far as the proposed EWR route, and especially d) very quickly as
the distances aren't that great between them. I know a *large* number
of people who have to drive because the train isn't viable as they'd
need travel orbitally.

Now I know I should probably ignore king troll, but could you please
come up with something more original than 'trainspotter'? - It's
really quite tiresome after all this time. I'm not btw, I couldn't
care less about the trains themselves - I'm only interested in
building up public transport infrastructure, and the train is far
quicker over the distances in question than any bus would be. Decent
local bus interchange at each end would also be very much on my
agenda, but you need a worthwhile service for them to connect to
first. Who in their right mind would get out of their car, suffering
the inconvenience penalty of public transport on a bus caught in the
same traffic that their car was?

On Jul 13, 9:25*pm, Jamie Thompson wrote:
On 9 July, 21:28, "Recliner" wrote:

"Jamie Thompson" wrote in message



Shame they're missing the opportunity to add the sorely-missing
flyover/under to link the DC lines with the St. Albans Abbey branch.
Handing that line over to LO would do wonders for the service, which
would then get more people actually using it.

But it's well outside London.

Yup, but one of the main reasons the passing loop got deferred is
because one of the franchise commitments that came in when LM took
over was to harmonise their fleet or some such, meaning that the line
can only be worked by a hugely excessive new 377, when a much smaller/
cheaper non-standard unit would suffice ( I believe a Silverlink Metro
unit used to operate the line before the franchise change).
Additionally, I'd imagine timings could be improved by using one or
two of the new metro-class stock built for LO (rapid acceleration and
lower top-speeds than the 377s - built to be able to handle the fast
lines without stealing too much capacity from Lord Beardie's trains as
well as run stopping services all the way from from Birmingham) -
hence the reason I suggest LO as a suitable operator, as they have a
suitable set of units already, so you wouldn't need specialist stock
or additional stabling.


Provision of the passing loop at Bricket Wood would have had nothing
to do with the costs of the units needed to run the service. The class
350s, used by LM, cost a similar amount to the new LO class 378 units,
although it is hard to compare the costs to the train operating
company, as the rental cost of units seems to be much harder to find.
What would be cheaper is for LM to run the branch with the class 321s
that they are retaining, rather than switching to any form of new
unit.

Having a flyover/under would let the service act as an extension of
the current Watford terminating one, giving the future option of not
only LO services (switching to AC at WJ to utilise the existing
infrastructure), but Chiltern services (or even Met/Bakerloo, if they
decided to install DC rails). Not having to endure a decidedly dodgy
connection at WJ might also attract more local usage from north
Watford for places south. Anyone heading to central London would be
using Thameslink or changing at WJ anyway.


But the cost of the flyover would probably pay for the passing loop at
Bricket Wood and lease costs of an additional unit to run the service
for 25 (or 50 or 100) years. Far better to make provision, when
Watford Junction gets resignalled, to run services through to Euston
from the branch, linking the planned peak Watford Junction, Bushey,
Harrow, Euston 'bounce back' service to the branch shuttle. For
several years in the 90s, the St. Albans trains connected with the
Watford - Euston trains which left from platform 10 at the Junction,
this was lost when the Southern service used the platform during the
WCML rebuilt, but the Watford-Euston services are making a comeback,
with one train already running at 08.03 from Watford (a bit of a tight
connection from the 07.44 from St. Albans) and more planned by
December.

On Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:25:23 -0700 (PDT), Jamie Thompson
wrote:

Yup, but one of the main reasons the passing loop got deferred is
because one of the franchise commitments that came in when LM took
over was to harmonise their fleet or some such, meaning that the line
can only be worked by a hugely excessive new 377, when a much smaller/
cheaper non-standard unit would suffice ( I believe a Silverlink Metro
unit used to operate the line before the franchise change).

It was a 313[1]. But IMO it makes no sense to add it to the
incredibly slow DC lines. Better use of the loop, if built, would be
to attach it to a self-contained AC Euston-Harrow-Bushey-Watford
shuttle, with most stops south of Watford being removed from existing
LM services. This would make better use of units, as there are quite
a few LM trains that are quite quiet north of Watford but full and
standing south of either there or Harrow.

This kind of thing has already started with some peak services, and is
likely to expand. Ideal stock for it is to use LM's retained 321s.
If the branch platforms are too short for 8 cars (as I think they
are), one set could be left at Watford while the other one does the
branch - if it can work at Northampton it can work there.

[1] These days it's a 321, which isn't exactly a super-high-tech unit,
though is newer and more pleasant than a nasty unrefurbed graffitied
Silverlink 313.

Neil

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