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| Re: London's five-year plan (13719) | |||
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Re: London's five-year plan |
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Posted by Rail Blue on Thu Oct 28 19:42:41 2004, in response to Re: London's five-year plan, posted by David Fairthorne on Fri Oct 22 15:32:13 2004. That would explain why the route to the north (lines C1 and C3) starts out going south west, then turns north east!It's a distinctly silly routing if looked at on a map, but it's really bloody useful. If only the entire Petit Ceinture were open. Yes but you obviously cannot expect through routes to connect every combination of places served from eleven main line termini, or even every combination of airports. So London is an unavoidable nuisance for through journeys. You don't need to connect all 11 termini. Think what the first few InterCity destinations are on each line: GE - Ipswich, Norwich / Cambridge, King's Lynn EC - Peterborough, Grantham, Newark, Doncaster Midland - Leicester, Derby / Nottingham, Sheffield WC - Milton Keynes, Rugby, Nuneaton, Tamworth / Coventry, Birmingham Chiltern - Banbury, Leamington, Birmingham GW - Reading, Oxford / Swindon, Bristol, Caridff SW - Basingstoke, Salisbury / Southampton / Guildford, Portsmouth Brighton - errrm, Brighton, and maybe Eastbourne, Worthing, Chichester SE&C - Maidstone, Ashford, Margate, Ramsgate, Canterbury, Folkestone, Dover Noting the major cross-country routes (which need significant development in themselves) and allowing for full IC use of the WLL (covering GW/Chiltern/WC to Brighton/SE&C) and reinstating the Oxbridge line (which would fully cover GE-GW). There are big improvements needed to make Cross-Country work (notably re-opening Birmingham Curzon St station), but it solves most London issues on the national scale. This leaves GE/EC - SEC/Bri/SW and MML - SEC/Bri. This line would not even have to go through Central London. It could run from Bedford, Hitchin (maybe using the 1860s MML), then skirting East London (connector from the GE), then bridging the estuary near the proposed Cliffe Airport, with junctions to the NKL, the SEML both ways in the Tonbridge - Paddock Wood area, then a curve south onto the Brighton Slow Lines (to avoid reversal at Redhill). Liverpool Street to Paddington via Circle line. Kings Cross / St Pancras to Victoria via Victoria line. Definitely not Thameslink Great without luggage, isn't it. I'll never forget the day I heaved my suitcase from the Northern Line to the Brighton station at London Bridge. I am not happy about the excessive number (twelve) of southern branches planned for Thameslink 2000, especially combined with the mixture of local and long distance routes using the same tracks. There are too many interfaces with the rest of the rail network for a robust and reliable service of 24 tph. I think they should reduce the planned tph through the Snow Hill tunnel, and (yes) continue to terminate more long distance trains at the main line termini. It's a really silly project, no doubt about it. With a proper interchange station at Southwark, a lot of pressure could be removed from London Bridge and the number of branches halved. What would probably be a sensible compromise would be to forget the 12-car trains, split the service and run Southern 3rd Rail trains to West Hampstead (needs a bit of electrification) and Midland OHLE trains to Moorgate. Then the expensive buggy non-standard rolling stock could be well and truly buried. But you would need four track width for the junction at Monument, unless it's a flat junction. It would be a flat junction. The Upminster service would only be 6tph, remember, so it should be pretty easy to make sure the diverging intervals line up. |
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