Which lines do you think would benefit from 3rd rail electrification?

[A0]

OK,saying you want a new commuter fleet for the Aylesbury line,who's going to supply a small fleet of bespoke 5 car bi mode units (4th rail and diesel) to Chiltern? Unless you propose to electrify the isolated section of Amersham to Aylesbury and Marylebone to Harrow with 25kv OHLE,which would make the fleet slightly easier to procure,but would make them useless for longer journeys out to Milton Keynes for example if EWR isn't electrified. And I think it's going to be prohibited or heavily limited soon enough for purely diesel units to be used out of terminals in London or other large cities, to cut down pollution levels in the city centres. So why would they want to buy stock which has a limited life on Chiltern?

It makes far more sense to 25kv Aylesbury - Amersham and Harrow - Marylebone as you list it there and run dual voltage units. Not least because the rest of the Chiltern line will almost certainly be electrified at 25kv and logically so will Aylesbury - Claydon - Bletchley.

Already in existence are dual voltage units which operate on 25kv and LU 4 rail - the 378s. I suspect the 707s could as well (on the basis the 313s could).

That said, I maintain it makes even more sense to 4 track Moor Park to Rickmansworth, curtail the Met at Rickmansworth and 25kv 2 lines all the way from Amersham to Marylebone by handing the fast lines over the NR. That only leaves Chesham as a problem to fix.

 

[AlastairFraser]

That they are getting central government funding is irrelevant - the fact remains they are accountable to the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority.

Which means that in its current structure, TFL has no accountability to anyone outside of those areas - so the likes of Herts County Council, Bucks County Council etc have no influence or control over it.

The commuters themselves always have control over the situation though. If TfL started treating Aylesbury passengers really badly for example, they could use Chiltern's services via High Wycombe to Marylebone. Then the TfL revenue would drop and they'd have to listen to them.

 

[AlastairFraser]

It makes far more sense to 25kv Aylesbury - Amersham and Harrow - Marylebone as you list it there and run dual voltage units. Not least because the rest of the Chiltern line will almost certainly be electrified at 25kv and logically so will Aylesbury - Claydon - Bletchley.

Already in existence are dual voltage units which operate on 25kv and LU 4 rail - the 378s. I suspect the 707s could as well (on the basis the 313s could).

That said, I maintain it makes even more sense to 4 track Moor Park to Rickmansworth, curtail the Met at Rickmansworth and 25kv 2 lines all the way from Amersham to Marylebone by handing the fast lines over the NR. That only leaves Chesham as a problem to fix.

EWR isn't planned to be electrified until after opening.
In that case, you'd have to send all the Milton Keynes services up the the Princes Risborough branch line, which would require double tracking of that branch line. Good luck finding the funding for that.

If you're so obsessed with curtailing the Met, maybe a better idea would be to additionally four track from Rickmansworth to Chalfont and Latimer and run the Chesham branch as the only terminus of the Met service. It's all surface alignment so an additional 2 tracks could be placed on a deck above the current running lines for that short section.

 

[AlastairFraser]

I think there's something of an urban myth on that one.

Dimensions of a Class 150 (per car) : Length 20m, width 2.8m, height 3.7m

Dimensions of a Class 158/9 (per car): Length 23m, width 2.8m, height 3.8m

Dimensions of a Class 165 (per car) : Length 23m, width 2.8m, height 3.8m

So basically they're no less flexible than a Class 158/9 is.

The bigger issue is Chiltern have a relatively small fleet of these - 28 x 2 car 11 x 3 car and they aren't a type which has been seen away from Chiltern or Great Western, so the only likely taker for them would be GW.

Northern and GA and WMR - the most likely alternatives - have just taken on a load of new DMUs, so unless GWR could make use of them, they really haven't got another home to go to. That said until Chiltern is electrified in some capacity, they aren't going anywhere any time soon.

Well, saying they did manage to replace them, they would be most welcome on GWR to replace the Cl150s and Cl158,which could then be cascaded elsewhere like Northern or EMR to strengthen their fleets and allow the removal of Cl153's and Pacers.

 

[LancasterRed]

Have seen Ormskirk-Rufford mentioned a few times and assuming 777s can run battery powered from Rufford-Preston it's a no brainer to run Merseyrail to Preston, providing a new more frequent route into Liverpool.

 

[A0]

EWR isn't planned to be electrified until after opening.
In that case, you'd have to send all the Milton Keynes services up the the Princes Risborough branch line, which would require double tracking of that branch line. Good luck finding the funding for that.

EWR isn't planned to be electrified - that doesn't mean it's being designed in such a way as to preclude it. Ultimately it's highly likely to be electrified - particularly the Oxford - MK stretch. The point at the moment is that Oxford isn't wired - I suspect if Oxford had been wired, the case for wiring the western section of EWR would have been a 'done deal' from day 1. Electrifying the Bedford - Bletchley and then onto Cambridge is likely to be more expensive, not least because of the clearance works needed on the Marston Vale and the sorting out of a number of level crossings.

I fail to see why you'd have to double track Risborough though - you'd extend the Marylebone-Amersham-Aylesbury's onto MK.

If you're so obsessed with curtailing the Met, maybe a better idea would be to additionally four track from Rickmansworth to Chalfont and Latimer and run the Chesham branch as the only terminus of the Met service. It's all surface alignment so an additional 2 tracks could be placed on a deck above the current running lines for that short section.

I think you need to put your crayons away.

Do you actually know the area ? Have you actually looked at a map ? Considered the space available, the environment it runs through ?

<sarcasm alert> Yes, I can just see 6 miles of double deck line from Rickmansworth to Chalfont and Latimer as the answer - it's only running through open countryside after all, who could possibly object ?

 

[si404]

That said, I maintain it makes even more sense to 4 track Moor Park to Rickmansworth, curtail the Met at Rickmansworth

I've dealt with this 'curtail the Met' idea and it's lack of easiness at length already, so won't repeat myself beyond it being a idea with little benefits, but massive costs due to having to upgrade Marylebone and throat.

4-tracking to Rickmansworth however isn't a bad idea - move the junction to a station where the trains all stop (well would if it could hold a longer train - it needs a costly rebuild to deal with 6-car Chilterns anyway) and so make it easier to regulate - which they do there anyway (as well as making the northbound merge easier, it also allows a Met stopper waiting to even out the service south of Moor Park to do so without blocking the fast tracks). Also allows more of the excessive number of trains at Watford in the peak to serve busier Rickmansworth.

If you're so obsessed with curtailing the Met, maybe a better idea would be to additionally four track from Rickmansworth to Chalfont and Latimer and run the Chesham branch as the only terminus of the Met service. It's all surface alignment so an additional 2 tracks could be placed on a deck above the current running lines for that short section.

It's a good 5 miles, and parts are through an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the rest in urban areas - both of which require sensitivity about visual impact. Add in that you're doing it Bucks, with its (not very successful, but very loud) NIMBY squad, and it's clear that this is just difficulty piled onto difficulty.

Far easier to 4-track by running alongside - there's room as the alignment has a generous width and railway land extends a lot either side. Then again, the whole thing is constrained by the single-track to Chesham, so perhaps it could just be 3-tracks (which would be pretty easy to fit, other than at stations, which would be 4-track) north of the sidings north of Rickmansworth.

But the whole thing, anyway, is totally pointless beyond a point just north of Rickmansworth station (see above) as there's plenty of room for both Met and Chiltern service to share tracks north of there.

 

[mr_jrt]

Alternatively we're back in the 'what should the Met north of Moor Park' look like debate again. And originally it was meant to be 4 tracked all the way to Amersham - I'm not sure that's viable now, but doing something to Rickmansworth and killing the Met there and handing over the fasts to NR may be viable.

Are you sure about that? Everything I've read over the years has stated the original plan was to move Rickmansworth station east to roughly where the supermarket is now, and rebuild it as a four-platform station. Aside from that, the only other bits that got descoped were the extension of the four tracking from Watford South Junction to the new Rickmansworth station and a pair of loops at Chorleywood:



Personally, I'm all in favour of upgrading the Chiltern bits. Rebuild Ricky to take 8x20m NR trains, and then slowly do the works up to Aylesbury to get the rest to 5 or 6x20m but passively provide for 8x20m. Once that's done, improve the track speeds, and finally string up the knitting. North of Ricky a third track with loops at the stations is intriguing, but given how much it would cost to rebuild Ricky, the idea of rebuilding all the stations to Chalfont would likely kill that off, surely? Surely it would make more sense to either squeeze in the serve between the Chilterns or to curtail the Met at Ricky, even if only during the peaks?

 

[Bletchleyite]

Whilst I'd agree with that, maybe their larger loading gauge might limit the locations that they can be run on.

Barring electrification I don't entirely see the point, they fit Chiltern and can simply be run in multiple.

 

[si404]

People who live in Bucks or Herts do not have a say in London politics, and when service changes are proposed this is often noticed.

Absolutely.

You no longer get off-peak semi-fasts to/from Amersham

Off-peak semi-fasts weren't a thing, and if they were, the addition of 2 or 3 stops (Wembley Park was a bit hit or miss whether it was a stop or not on the fasts. Sometimes it was, sometimes it wasn't, sometimes it was a wait in the platform with the doors closed. I think it depended on crew changes and service regulating), then it's a bit meh to complain about. It was the off-peak fasts that went.

This actually (as someone travelling weekly off-peak to/from Amersham at the time of the change) wasn't that controversial (there was grumbling - certainly I grumbled) initially, nor was the halving of service to give Chesham through trains. Those changes happened in December 2011.

The vocal complaints started after the December 2012 changes the Amersham and Chesham trains got swapped wrt the Chilterns, and so Chesham (which wants the overtake so a change at Chalfont/Chorleywood/Ricky gives them a short wait to/from a Chiltern) trains didn't get overtaken about North Harrow (the overtake point has moved southwards over the subsequent years), but Amersham trains now did (so people travelling to Central London/Harrow would be better to wait at Amersham and let the Met leave empty). Most people didn't quite get the nuance, nor could explain it, so the problem was attributed to 'stopping trains' rather than the wrong stopping trains being overtaken.

and you no longer get as many peak fasts to/from Amersham, because it was better for London ratepayers in places like Pinner to have everything run all stops.

No, sorry, I don't believe this is the case. I'm pretty sure the 2tph Amersham semi-fast was an addition with S Stock in order to
1) get more seats at Pinner and Northwood to make up for the reduction of seats the change of train brought about
2) add more service to Rickmansworth and Amersham, helping to provide more capacity to these stations which needed more service (unlike Watford whose 8tph is still rather overkill)

In the '00s it was always a trivia point of mine that Amersham had a train every 15 minutes off-peak, but every 34 minutes at peak. After having waited a long time at peak times, I looked it up, and repeated it often on rail/LU forums with no correction. I may be wrong - I haven't double checked whether that was the case a decade ago recently - but I'm pretty certain that it was only (not quite) 2tph peak Met service to Amersham in the last days of A stock.

And in the early '90s, as a young child, I remember spending 45 minutes to an hour every weekday morning in the car to take my dad to Chalfont station (which should only be a 15 minute round trip - but traffic was terrible, even on the long-way-round route we took) and there were quite a lot of others doing so. I asked him why we couldn't drive to Amersham (or better yet, him walk - which is what he does now when he wants to catch a train - so I didn't have to get up quite so early just to sit in a car for ages) - which was about half the distance and via less congested roads so would take maybe 20 minutes to make the round trip (we probably would have still gone a long way round) - the issue was the half-hourly service was too infrequent to just miss a train due to traffic.

I'm pretty sure I'm correct here that the number of fast trains hasn't decreased, and actually the number of peak trains at Amersham has increased. Happy to be proved wrong.

Obviously the cancellation of the Croxley link is the biggest example of how handing control to TfL really doesn't benefit people who live outside the London boundary.

The project was genuinely unviable once re-examined. However certain Mayoral spokespeople and AM (assembly members) decided to politically campaign with it and make it a "London taxes should be spent in London for Londoners*" parochial reason (I joked at the time that London was open, except to people living just outside the border). And therefore this Little Londoner reasoning, which wasn't the actual reasoning for cancellation, has become the folk reasoning for why it happened.

TfL don't actually hold to this - Amersham has spent the last year with a load of building works on the railway: a new overbridge with lifts, and a new signal box. Rickmansworth is also going step-free. Plus there's the aforementioned upping of service at non-London stations with the semi-fasts.

*the main beneficiaries of Croxley Link would have included people from Northwood and Pinner being able to take the train to the major employment/retail/leisure hub of Watford. As well as the vast amount of new housing proposed/built for London workers because of the line extension, helping to relieve the massive strain on the GLA and boroughs to provide more and more housing.

Put simply, Bucks and Herts residents don't pay so don't get a say.

Except, of course, they pay via the fare box! TfL has a statutory duty them as passengers (just as it does tourists, or whatever).

As a relatively regular user of the trains out to Amersham (t'missus worked there at the hospital, and the restaurants were better in Amersham than Hemel for after-work dining!) the main thing that needs sorting is the under-capacity of the Chiltern trains. <snip> the solution is to get some bigger trains for Chiltern and move the 2-car and 3-car 165/166s to the provinces where their size is better suited.

Totally agree. And even 2- and 3-car 16xs are fine provided that they run as 5-car trains. The problem is that they don't enough - perhaps they should take some of the non-Pacer stock being replaced up north/out west.

 

[AlastairFraser]

I've dealt with this 'curtail the Met' idea and it's lack of easiness at length already, so won't repeat myself beyond it being a idea with little benefits, but massive costs due to having to upgrade Marylebone and throat.

4-tracking to Rickmansworth however isn't a bad idea - move the junction to a station where the trains all stop (well would if it could hold a longer train - it needs a costly rebuild to deal with 6-car Chilterns anyway) and so make it easier to regulate - which they do there anyway (as well as making the northbound merge easier, it also allows a Met stopper waiting to even out the service south of Moor Park to do so without blocking the fast tracks). Also allows more of the excessive number of trains at Watford in the peak to serve busier Rickmansworth.
It's a good 5 miles, and parts are through an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty and the rest in urban areas - both of which require sensitivity about visual impact. Add in that you're doing it Bucks, with its (not very successful, but very loud) NIMBY squad, and it's clear that this is just difficulty piled onto difficulty.

Far easier to 4-track by running alongside - there's room as the alignment has a generous width and railway land extends a lot either side. Then again, the whole thing is constrained by the single-track to Chesham, so perhaps it could just be 3-tracks (which would be pretty easy to fit, other than at stations, which would be 4-track) north of the sidings north of Rickmansworth.

But the whole thing, anyway, is totally pointless beyond a point just north of Rickmansworth station (see above) as there's plenty of room for both Met and Chiltern service to share tracks north of there.

That makes sense now. I had no idea railway land existed on both sides of the alignment. I was only suggesting decking to reduce land take of such a ridiculous scheme.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Totally agree. And even 2- and 3-car 16xs are fine provided that they run as 5-car trains. The problem is that they don't enough - perhaps they should take some of the non-Pacer stock being replaced up north/out west.

Or maybe Chiltern could be less tight and put more stock out. It's like with the 350/2s - LM was too tight to get them out, so we had 4-car sets on weekends - now LNR are willing to pay, so out they come and there are, apart from I think one diagram, no 4-car trains on Saturdays or Sundays at all.

They do seem to suffer the issue of "we've got 2-car units so let's just put a 2-car unit out" like Northern do. At least (hooray, back on topic!) EMUs would likely come as a minimum as 3-car sets

 

[A0]

Or maybe Chiltern could be less tight and put more stock out. It's like with the 350/2s - LM was too tight to get them out, so we had 4-car sets on weekends - now LNR are willing to pay, so out they come and there are, apart from I think one diagram, no 4-car trains on Saturdays or Sundays at all.

They do seem to suffer the issue of "we've got 2-car units so let's just put a 2-car unit out" like Northern do. At least (hooray, back on topic!) EMUs would likely come as a minimum as 3-car sets

Unlike LM, I don't think Chiltern actually *have* spare stock. And don't forget the Amersham route has a subset because of the requirement for tripcock mechanisms to be fitted to work over LUL lines.

The comment upthread about 'perhaps they could take some of the non-Pacer stock being released from the North' is showing a similar lack of thought.

The only two types of unit it would make sense for Chiltern to take would be 165/6s or Turbostars - anything else would be non-standard and create a different set of problems.

GWR seem to be retaining their 165/166s for now.

So let's look at Turbostars:

170s:
Chiltern took the TPE ones.
Scotrail are keeping a few of theirs - the remainder have gone to Northern.
WMRs are going to be replaced with Civitys but have already been earmarked for EMR.
XC seem to be keeping theirs.
TFW are keeping theirs to cascade Sprinters.
EMR seem to be accumulating them to replace Sprinters.

172s:
TFL's were taken by WMR
Chiltern got some new.

So unless WMR were to release its 35 class 172s - I can't see where suitable DMUs for Chiltern are going to come from ?

 

[AM9]

Barring electrification I don't entirely see the point, they fit Chiltern and can simply be run in multiple.

I was assuming electrification, as it was an electrification thread. So somebody, a RosCo or even the DfT, might want them to go somewhere useful.

Or maybe Chiltern could be less tight and put more stock out. It's like with the 350/2s - LM was too tight to get them out, so we had 4-car sets on weekends - now LNR are willing to pay, so out they come and there are, apart from I think one diagram, no 4-car trains on Saturdays or Sundays at all.

They do seem to suffer the issue of "we've got 2-car units so let's just put a 2-car unit out" like Northern do. At least (hooray, back on topic!) EMUs would likely come as a minimum as 3-car sets

So now the thread is back on topic, can anybody here comment on whether something like a 377 could run on 3rd rail as far as Amersham whilst the Met trains run on 4 rail up to Moor park junction, thereafter on 3rd rail with a ground tied 4th rail, (as per Euston DC and Bakerloo). That woulod be an infrastructure isse running ground negative alongside floating negative.
From Amersham westwards, the 377s could then switch to OLE, (after it was installed of course)!

 

[Bletchleyite]

So now the thread is back on topic, can anybody here comment on whether something like a 377 could run on 3rd rail as far as Amersham whilst the Met trains run on 4 rail up to Moor park junction, thereafter on 3rd rail with a ground tied 4th rail, (as per Euston DC and Bakerloo). That woulod be an infrastructure isse running ground negative alongside floating negative.
From Amersham westwards, the 377s could then switch to OLE, (after it was installed of course)!

Would it be possible to modify such a unit to work with fourth rail? I can't see why not. Or would it be cheaper just to bond the fourth rail to the running rails for the entire interworked section as they did for the Bakerloo to Watford?

 

[MarkyT]

Would it be possible to modify such a unit to work with fourth rail? I can't see why not. Or would it be cheaper just to bond the fourth rail to the running rails for the entire interworked section as they did for the Bakerloo to Watford?

I'd say the bonding option would be very practical once the new signalling is fully in operation, as it doesn't have any track circuits for train detection for the traction current to interfere with, only the beacon and odometry based positioning system and axle counters. That might actually be a viable option throughout the surface sections of the Metropolitan and could have the benefit of reducing the loop resistance for the traction current, potentially improving performance for all trains. There's little concern for stray currents on the surface, as long as the running rails are properly insulated from the sleepers, which they must be for track circuits to have functioned correctly.

 

[si404]

Unlike LM, I don't think Chiltern actually *have* spare stock. And don't forget the Amersham route has a subset because of the requirement for tripcock mechanisms to be fitted to work over LUL lines.

They somehow manage at peak to run longer trains most of the time so it's not like a huge increase in stock would be needed.

The comment upthread about 'perhaps they could take some of the non-Pacer stock being released from the North' is showing a similar lack of thought.

Maybe I assumed that people wouldn't show a lack of thought when reading my comment and realise you can put the transferred Sprinters, etc on the via HW metro services, and move some tripcocked Turbos (165/0s) onto the via Am line!

There's 28 2-car and 11 3-car 165/0 so there's plenty enough to cover the Aylesbury via Am service with 5-car trains and still have units left over for covering some of the other services (Obviously Oxford and Birmingham have their own mainline stock).

 

[AlastairFraser]

EWR isn't planned to be electrified - that doesn't mean it's being designed in such a way as to preclude it. Ultimately it's highly likely to be electrified - particularly the Oxford - MK stretch. The point at the moment is that Oxford isn't wired - I suspect if Oxford had been wired, the case for wiring the western section of EWR would have been a 'done deal' from day 1. Electrifying the Bedford - Bletchley and then onto Cambridge is likely to be more expensive, not least because of the clearance works needed on the Marston Vale and the sorting out of a number of level crossings.

I fail to see why you'd have to double track Risborough though - you'd extend the Marylebone-Amersham-Aylesbury's onto MK.



I think you need to put your crayons away.

Do you actually know the area ? Have you actually looked at a map ? Considered the space available, the environment it runs through ?

<sarcasm alert> Yes, I can just see 6 miles of double deck line from Rickmansworth to Chalfont and Latimer as the answer - it's only running through open countryside after all, who could possibly object ?

On EWR, the problem is Oxford wiring will probably be completed around the same time as EWR opens. Therefore, it will be disruptive and frustrating for the stakeholders when it has to be closed to be electrified.
The reason you want to double track the Princes Risborough branch is because I'll wager Aylesbury Vale Parkway might want to be served by more than one train an hour.

 

[Bletchleyite]

The reason you want to double track the Princes Risborough branch is because I'll wager Aylesbury Vale Parkway might want to be served by more than one train an hour.

Most trains to AVP run via Amersham, unless we're still on the "can the Met Line service" subthread.

 

[AlastairFraser]

Most trains to AVP run via Amersham, unless we're still on the "can the Met Line service" subthread.

And someone was suggesting running Chiltern services with dual voltage units,4th rail to Amersham,OHLE to Aylesbury. Then the Amersham line units would not be able to continue onto AVP.

 

[Bletchleyite]

And someone was suggesting running Chiltern services with dual voltage units,4th rail to Amersham,OHLE to Aylesbury. Then the Amersham line units would not be able to continue onto AVP.

Unless AVP was going to drop down to a connection from East West Rail, and lose its through London service entirely, it would be mad to electrify to Aylesbury but not continue it on to AVP.

If EWR is going to be diesel only, logic would be to continue the EWR service on to Risborough, then Chiltern as a TOC have no diesel islands.

 

[AlastairFraser]

Unless AVP was going to drop down to a connection from East West Rail, and lose its through London service entirely, it would be mad to electrify to Aylesbury but not continue it on to AVP.

If EWR is going to be diesel only, logic would be to continue the EWR service on to Risborough, then Chiltern as a TOC have no diesel islands.

I agree, but they were suggesting it would be on a diesel Marylebone-MK service via Princes R'boro.

 

[corfield]

Are you sure about that? Everything I've read over the years has stated the original plan was to move Rickmansworth station east to roughly where the supermarket is now, and rebuild it as a four-platform station. Aside from that, the only other bits that got descoped were the extension of the four tracking from Watford South Junction to the new Rickmansworth station and a pair of loops at Chorleywood:

View attachment 79413

Personally, I'm all in favour of upgrading the Chiltern bits. Rebuild Ricky to take 8x20m NR trains, and then slowly do the works up to Aylesbury to get the rest to 5 or 6x20m but passively provide for 8x20m. Once that's done, improve the track speeds, and finally string up the knitting. North of Ricky a third track with loops at the stations is intriguing, but given how much it would cost to rebuild Ricky, the idea of rebuilding all the stations to Chalfont would likely kill that off, surely? Surely it would make more sense to either squeeze in the serve between the Chilterns or to curtail the Met at Ricky, even if only during the peaks?

That's really interesting - I'm assuming they only quad tracked as far as they did to separate the Watford services? The Chesham branch being insufficient to justify going further?


Why isn't a Chiltern Main Line (CML) Metro service out to Ruislip economically viable? I understood the Class 172s were acquired for this purpose but lack of paths has prevented it.

Given this is now in speculative ideas, if say the work had taken quad tracking to Amersham, could you segregate from there to Harrow, or would the Met suffer without the fast options? Chiltern fasts could pick up the fast aspect of it.

Of course now this is in speculative - what if Marylebone had been built up further, more platforms, more of the approach tunnels completed/in use - how might that have changed things (I assume something like quad tracking on the Children Main Line ex Joint GWR & GCR, perhaps all the way to Ashendon?)

 

[corfield]

On a slightly different note, at risk of diverting this thread, although it is now I think Chiltern/Marylebone dedicated. What was the original layout for MYB if completed in full, expected to be?

10 platforms, 7 tunnels under lords (quad tracking?, more?). I assume Rosemore Road bridge was built with space underneath for all the extra (6 vs original) platform leads?

I suspect that had it been completed as planned, then given the footprint, the temptation to "Broad Street" it by the 1980s would have been too much. Perhaps that the station was truncated and thus amenable to being kept roughly as it whilst the land having never been used for railway could be easily sold without fuss helped save it.

 

[mr_jrt]

I would imagine Marylebone would only ever have had 4 lines coming in at most, and the extra tunnels near the station would have only ever been headshunts at most - don't forget the the western side had a massive goods yard on it, it was only the passenger bits for planned platforms 5-10 that were sold off. Goods is where the money mainly came from, especially given the other railway markets had mature passenger customer bases by the time the GCR built their London extension.

When you look at the Metropolitan Railway corridor today it's hard to see how the GCR even conceived having a quad track mainline, but when you then consider that the Jubilee Line tracks are essentaially the former Met local tracks built in stages from 1913 to 1932, that you quickly realise where the intended land from 1899 went. It's also the reason for the curious situation where the intercity railway has the worst alignment on the elevated sections through Kiburn et al - because GCR is on the outside of the formation, it has to bump out at each station, creating slow speeds that would be very expensive to ease.

 

[MarkyT]

I would imagine Marylebone would only ever have had 4 lines coming in at most, and the extra tunnels near the station would have only ever been headshunts at most - don't forget the the western side had a massive goods yard on it, it was only the passenger bits for planned platforms 5-10 that were sold off. Goods is where the money mainly came from, especially given the other railway markets had mature passenger customer bases by the time the GCR built their London extension.

When you look at the Metropolitan Railway corridor today it's hard to see how the GCR even conceived having a quad track mainline, but when you then consider that the Jubilee Line tracks are essentaially the former Met local tracks built in stages from 1913 to 1932, that you quickly realise where the intended land from 1899 went. It's also the reason for the curious situation where the intercity railway has the worst alignment on the elevated sections through Kiburn et al - because GCR is on the outside of the formation, it has to bump out at each station, creating slow speeds that would be very expensive to ease.

Only Kilburn and Willesden Green really have significant reverse curve 'wobbles'. Kilburn would be the most difficult to smooth due to the separate viaducts. Willesden Green would be easier in principle and ideally would require removal of the unused northbound Met platform, buildings and the old signal box, requiring a major reconstruction of the road overbridge at the south end. Unlikely to be worth it so close to the terminus though, and more crucially only just over a mile and a half from the long quarter-mile radius curve at Finchley Rd, which is an unavoidable constraint on the terminus approach speed. The widened Met with the old Bakerloo branch that morphed into the Jubilee became the segregated 'crossrail' for the mainline. An alternative history might have seen a paired by direction 4 track layout with a flyover at Finchley Road/ West Hampstead for the Met to join shared slows on the outside. Who knows what might have evolved.

 

[Mikey C]

Where the Chiltern 165s are really annoying is stopping routes on the Main Line, where as 75mph units they are out of place on what is a 100mph railway. Obviously it's a nonsense having diesels chugging into London in 2020 full stop, but they are less of a problem on the 75mph Amersham/Aylesbury route

 

[corfield]

Thanks for that - so it seems even if there was capacity at MYB, the approaches are very constrained, hence I guess another push alternate route, although that still is constrained at Finchley Road. Strange for a line (GCR) that was built to such a high running speed elsewhere but I guess they were short of money and the land was already built up. If MYB had been built up further the I assume quad tracking to/from Neasden would have sorted some of those issues out.

In terms of Met/Chiltern shared lines, am I correct to say the 2 semi-fast Amersham services switch to LU metals at Moor Park only running on the LU only Fasts south of Harrow? Thus Met Fasts are the only ones on the shared section with Chiltern south of Moor Park? I’m going off wiki which isn’t very clear.

Also the transfer of Met fasts at Harrow North Jn is done on the flat?

 

[A0]

On a slightly different note, at risk of diverting this thread, although it is now I think Chiltern/Marylebone dedicated. What was the original layout for MYB if completed in full, expected to be?

10 platforms, 7 tunnels under lords (quad tracking?, more?). I assume Rosemore Road bridge was built with space underneath for all the extra (6 vs original) platform leads?

I suspect that had it been completed as planned, then given the footprint, the temptation to "Broad Street" it by the 1980s would have been too much. Perhaps that the station was truncated and thus amenable to being kept roughly as it whilst the land having never been used for railway could be easily sold without fuss helped save it.

Allegedly it was built as two track, but with clearance under the Lords tunnels for at least two more - though there is some debate about the other tunnels further out for example those over the WCML at South Hampstead. No doubt it wouldn't be cheap or easy, but it is doable.

The GCR tended to be quite frugal with its infrastructure but also built with an eye on the future and making future expansion easy.

 

[mr_jrt]

IIRC, Lords has 3 tunnels under it, because that land wasn't coming back up again, ever. 2x2 track & 1x3 track, giving the 7. These tracks made it as far as a little way up Wellington Road, where the spare lines, used as headshunts, ended. The westernmost tunnel was probably just speculative and might be useful as headshunts for the goods yard regardless, the middle bore was intended for future express lines, and the three track bore was intended as the local lines and a headshunt for the old depot on the eastern side. Beyond the Wellington Road, only a single double track bore was built as far as where the GCR lines emerge to fly over the WCML at South Hampstead (though the abutments were built for 4 tracks), and the Hampstead tunnel on the other side to a little south from Canfield Place was also a single double track tunnel, but a short stub tunnel and second double track portal was built at Canfield place, where the GCR emerges just south of Finchley Road.

I presume that the GCR managed to built the Hampstead and St Johns Wood tunnels without demolishing everything above them, so there's no reason to assume you couldn't build another alongside the same way as easily as they built the existing ones. How disruptive those were to build I do not however know. Would be interesting to find out.

South of there the gaps have been closed up, so what was once multiple tunnels is now in effect a single tunnel from the WCML at South Hampstead to Lodge Road, just north of Marylebone.