London Gateway (M1) Parkway station

[LLivery]

Hi all. London's City Hall wants fewer cars coming into London and regardless of electric vehicles, congestion would still be an issue. But one thing London doesn't do well is Park & Ride. So, I'm wondering if a new Thameslink station alongside London Gateway services and Springwood Cresent (btwn Elstree and Mill Hill Bway) would viable?

Similar to the M3 Parkway station just outside of Dublin, it'd have a large car park, but it'd probably need to be multi-level considering the space. I'd demolish the current service station and combine it with the rail station as one building. Seeing many coaches also use the current services, you could also promote it as a coach-rail interchange. It'd avoid LEZ and ideally, like M3 Parkway, parking would be free if you're using the train out.

An entrance to Springwood Cresent to serve the local area would also be built and you could extend the 288 bus route into the station - fortunately, there's already a roundabout to turn them around. It could also allow some housing on the fields just north.

Ideally, I'd have Bedford TL fasts also call with the slows, encouraging people with "fast links" into Central London but I'm betting that'd be a timetabling mare.

For the name? London Gateway? M1 Parkway? Edgewarebury Parkway? Broadfields?

Thoughts?

 

[SargeNpton]

For the name? London Gateway? M1 Parkway? Edgewarebury Parkway? Broadfields?

Thoughts?

"Scratchwood"?

 

[Aictos]

Hi all. London's City Hall wants fewer cars coming into London and regardless of electric vehicles, congestion would still be an issue. But one thing London doesn't do well is Park & Ride. So, I'm wondering if a new Thameslink station alongside London Gateway services and Springwood Cresent (btwn Elstree and Mill Hill Bway) would viable?

Similar to the M3 Parkway station just outside of Dublin, it'd have a large car park, but it'd probably need to be multi-level considering the space. I'd demolish the current service station and combine it with the rail station as one building. Seeing many coaches also use the current services, you could also promote it as a coach-rail interchange. It'd avoid LEZ and ideally, like M3 Parkway, parking would be free if you're using the train out.

An entrance to Springwood Cresent to serve the local area would also be built and you could extend the 288 bus route into the station - fortunately, there's already a roundabout to turn them around. It could also allow some housing on the fields just north.

Ideally, I'd have Bedford TL fasts also call with the slows, encouraging people with "fast links" into Central London but I'm betting that'd be a timetabling mare.

For the name? London Gateway? M1 Parkway? Edgewarebury Parkway? Broadfields?

Thoughts?

Any stops should go on the St Albans to Sutton via Wimbledon services or at a push the Luton to Rainham services that is of course if its a viable business plan.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

I doubt there's any real merit in this idea. Most of the people who would use it as a way of getting into central London without being stuck in a traffic jam are people who currently travel in by train already. All this station would do is rob the railway of lucrative custom between this mooted station and stations in Hertfordshire, Bedfordshire and Northamptonshire. Not a good idea.

The number of motorists heading for inner/central London is quite small. Most motorists coming down the M1 are heading for the suburbs and would have no use for this new station. South of the M25, the M1 is no longer a very busy road.

 

[telstarbox]

Brent Cross West station is in the pipeline and will be just off the end of the M1...

Brent Cross West railway station - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[edwin_m]

Doesn't Luton Airport Parkway do this already?

 

[zwk500]

If you wanted to do a parkway style station why not just build more parking at Luton Airport Parkway and offer cheaper fares?

 

[Ianno87]

Yes, this is basically what Luton Airport Parkway already is.

 

[A0]

Hi all. London's City Hall wants fewer cars coming into London and regardless of electric vehicles, congestion would still be an issue. But one thing London doesn't do well is Park & Ride. So, I'm wondering if a new Thameslink station alongside London Gateway services and Springwood Cresent (btwn Elstree and Mill Hill Bway) would viable?

Similar to the M3 Parkway station just outside of Dublin, it'd have a large car park, but it'd probably need to be multi-level considering the space. I'd demolish the current service station and combine it with the rail station as one building. Seeing many coaches also use the current services, you could also promote it as a coach-rail interchange. It'd avoid LEZ and ideally, like M3 Parkway, parking would be free if you're using the train out.

An entrance to Springwood Cresent to serve the local area would also be built and you could extend the 288 bus route into the station - fortunately, there's already a roundabout to turn them around. It could also allow some housing on the fields just north.

Ideally, I'd have Bedford TL fasts also call with the slows, encouraging people with "fast links" into Central London but I'm betting that'd be a timetabling mare.

For the name? London Gateway? M1 Parkway? Edgewarebury Parkway? Broadfields?

Thoughts?

Not needed - there's already Luton Airport Parkway station just off Junc 10 of the M1, which is signed as such on the south-bound M1.

If you're coming in on the M1 from south of there you'll head to a local station - either NR or the top of the Tube network e.g. Stanmore, Canons Park, Edgware etc.

 

[LLivery]

Ahh I didn't even think of Luton Airport Parkway as I just associate it with the airport. But now I think about it, there are signs on the M1 for it. Fair enough.

 

[PerryPacer]

Hi all. London's City Hall wants fewer cars coming into London and regardless of electric vehicles, congestion would still be an issue. But one thing London doesn't do well is Park & Ride. So, I'm wondering if a new Thameslink station alongside London Gateway services and Springwood Cresent (btwn Elstree and Mill Hill Bway) would viable?

Similar to the M3 Parkway station just outside of Dublin, it'd have a large car park, but it'd probably need to be multi-level considering the space. I'd demolish the current service station and combine it with the rail station as one building. Seeing many coaches also use the current services, you could also promote it as a coach-rail interchange. It'd avoid LEZ and ideally, like M3 Parkway, parking would be free if you're using the train out.

An entrance to Springwood Cresent to serve the local area would also be built and you could extend the 288 bus route into the station - fortunately, there's already a roundabout to turn them around. It could also allow some housing on the fields just north.

Ideally, I'd have Bedford TL fasts also call with the slows, encouraging people with "fast links" into Central London but I'm betting that'd be a timetabling mare.

For the name? London Gateway? M1 Parkway? Edgewarebury Parkway? Broadfields?

Thoughts?

I think the best way of doing this would be increasing car-parking capacity at places like Elstree & Borehamwood (MML), Hadley Wood - located near large fields (!) (ECML), King's Langley (WCML) and Gerrards Cross (Chiltern Line) in the north, increase the services at those stations and it could deliver similar benefits to an 'M1 Parkway' scheme without the added cost of building completely new platforms, but I can definitely see where you're coming from.

 

[Bald Rick]

Three other things

This would cost the railway more revenue than it generates. Fares would be in the travelcard zone - probably 5 - and people who currently drive to Luton, or live near the M1 but drive to St Albans / Harpenden (there’s quite a few) would drive here instead and halve their fares and not pay for parking.

Secondly, fitting it in the timetable would be a nightmare. The timetable already allows for Brent Cross West stops, but getting in another on the slows south of St Albans almost certainly means a rewrite, and that affects south of the river too.

Thirdly, geology. Our Victorian (and Edwardian) forefathers did us no favours when they built / quadrupled the line. The area around Scratchwood is poor ground, and the embankments were not built to anywhere near today’s standards. It is the scene of regular movement of the track, and flooding too where the line switches from embankment to cutting. To get a new station in would mean a (much) wider embankment, and stitching new embankment on to the old (poor) one would be quite a challenge. It might need the whole lot to be dug out and rebuilt.

 

[Kremlin Stooge]

Hi all. London's City Hall wants fewer cars coming into London and regardless of electric vehicles, congestion would still be an issue. But one thing London doesn't do well is Park & Ride. So, I'm wondering if a new Thameslink station alongside London Gateway services and Springwood Cresent (btwn Elstree and Mill Hill Bway) would viable?

Similar to the M3 Parkway station just outside of Dublin, it'd have a large car park, but it'd probably need to be multi-level considering the space. I'd demolish the current service station and combine it with the rail station as one building. Seeing many coaches also use the current services, you could also promote it as a coach-rail interchange. It'd avoid LEZ and ideally, like M3 Parkway, parking would be free if you're using the train out.

An entrance to Springwood Cresent to serve the local area would also be built and you could extend the 288 bus route into the station - fortunately, there's already a roundabout to turn them around. It could also allow some housing on the fields just north.

Ideally, I'd have Bedford TL fasts also call with the slows, encouraging people with "fast links" into Central London but I'm betting that'd be a timetabling mare.

For the name? London Gateway? M1 Parkway? Edgewarebury Parkway? Broadfields?

Thoughts?

At first view it seems like a good idea, but someone will have to fund such a development, and demonstrate to their backers (whether private or public sector) that there is a decent return to be gained on the capital investment.

 

[LLivery]

Three other things

This would cost the railway more revenue than it generates. Fares would be in the travelcard zone - probably 5 - and people who currently drive to Luton, or live near the M1 but drive to St Albans / Harpenden (there’s quite a few) would drive here instead and halve their fares and not pay for parking.

Secondly, fitting it in the timetable would be a nightmare. The timetable already allows for Brent Cross West stops, but getting in another on the slows south of St Albans almost certainly means a rewrite, and that affects south of the river too.

Thirdly, geology. Our Victorian (and Edwardian) forefathers did us no favours when they built / quadrupled the line. The area around Scratchwood is poor ground, and the embankments were not built to anywhere near today’s standards. It is the scene of regular movement of the track, and flooding too where the line switches from embankment to cutting. To get a new station in would mean a (much) wider embankment, and stitching new embankment on to the old (poor) one would be quite a challenge. It might need the whole lot to be dug out and rebuilt.

That all (unfortunately) makes sense. Never would've guessed it was also poor ground - learn something new every day.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 27 May 2021 ==

At first view it seems like a good idea, but someone will have to fund such a development, and demonstrate to their backers (whether private or public sector) that there is a decent return to be gained on the capital investment.

I would've said a maybe a collab of NR (GBR)/the LGA/the owners of the service station. But now considering LAP - the returns probably wouldn't appear unless the whole idea was scaled down and those fields were built on.

 

[Mikey C]

Brent Cross West station is in the pipeline and will be just off the end of the M1...

Brent Cross West railway station - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

That's not a parkway style station, indeed there won't be any parking near it!

I understand the reasons why "Scratchwood Parkway" wouldn't work, and indeed from a revenue point of view why it would be bad for the railway, so I'm not suggesting it should happen, but I can see the logic of the proposal as

1) The M1 is literally next to the MML there (unlike at Luton Airport Parkway)
2) The M1 south of the M25 is surprisingly quiet so there is "excess capacity" between the M25 and Scratchwood
3) The service station is quiet and a bit pointless now, it would easily be massively scaled back/converted into a park and ride
4) If people are already driving to the outskirts of London, and taking the train in from Edgware/Stanmore etc, there this might clear some of that traffic away from those areas?

 

[zwk500]

That's not a parkway style station, indeed there won't be any parking near it!

I understand the reasons why "Scratchwood Parkway" wouldn't work, and indeed from a revenue point of view why it would be bad for the railway, so I'm not suggesting it should happen, but I can see the logic of the proposal as

1) The M1 is literally next to the MML there (unlike at Luton Airport Parkway)

I suspect that the time from the Nose of the Sliproad to parking your car at Luton and Scratchwood are very close.

2) The M1 south of the M25 is surprisingly quiet so there is "excess capacity" between the M25 and Scratchwood

But the M1 between J8-6A is very busy and there's no south-facing Sliproads at the M25/M1 interchange, so any traffic on the M25 will still have to use local roads to access Scratchwood (even if only very briefly).

4) If people are already driving to the outskirts of London, and taking the train in from Edgware/Stanmore etc, there this might clear some of that traffic away from those areas?

Arguably the extra road traffic is worth it for the benefit of spreading passengers across the Tube network rather than packing the already full MML even more.

 

[Bald Rick]

I suspect that the time from the Nose of the Sliproad to parking your car at Luton and Scratchwood are very close.

Not at normal commuting times. You’ll be hard pushed to take longer than 5 minutes from the M1 J10 to the LAP car park. To get to Scratchwood would be 20 minutes at best with no traffic, and can easily be much more. The traffic only eases once past J7.


The main point, of course, is that people driving up the M1 are rarely going to anywhere that Thameslink serves.

 

[A0]

I think the best way of doing this would be increasing car-parking capacity at places like Elstree & Borehamwood (MML), Hadley Wood - located near large fields (!) (ECML), King's Langley (WCML) and Gerrards Cross (Chiltern Line) in the north, increase the services at those stations and it could deliver similar benefits to an 'M1 Parkway' scheme without the added cost of building completely new platforms, but I can definitely see where you're coming from.

I have to ask the obvious question - Why ?

No point in Elstree - that's next to the M1 and we've already covered where the M1 has a 'parkway' station a few miles further out at Luton.

Kings Langley is in the middle of nowhere - yes it's close to the M25, but you're not going to go around the M25 to get to Kings Langley - parkway's work better on the routes heading into a city, not those heading around it.

A better way to look at this is for each of the 'main' roads into London, where are the obvious railheads that are already used as such - which I think is pretty much as follows:

A13, A127 - no real point, it's just as easy and probably faster to get the train from a local station.

A12 - best is a couple of the Central Line stations e.g. Newbury Park or Redbridge.

M11 - Central Line again - Epping or Debden

A10 - usually faster by train on the routes which shadow it. Not much 'longer distance' traffic.

A1 - Stanmore or Edgware tube - or further out, Stevenage.

M1 - See above.

M40 / A40 - Hillingdon LUL.

M4, M3, A3, not sure there is an obvious one - nearer London you'd use the local station, further out it would be quicker by train to begin with. I suspect alot of the traffic heading in isn't aiming for Central London but instead places like Heathrow.

M23 probably Purley.

M20 / M2, suspect most people would use the train from a local station if heading in from Kent - if not then Ebbsfleet.

 

[ChiefPlanner]

Three other things

This would cost the railway more revenue than it generates. Fares would be in the travelcard zone - probably 5 - and people who currently drive to Luton, or live near the M1 but drive to St Albans / Harpenden (there’s quite a few) would drive here instead and halve their fares and not pay for parking.

Secondly, fitting it in the timetable would be a nightmare. The timetable already allows for Brent Cross West stops, but getting in another on the slows south of St Albans almost certainly means a rewrite, and that affects south of the river too.

Thirdly, geology. Our Victorian (and Edwardian) forefathers did us no favours when they built / quadrupled the line. The area around Scratchwood is poor ground, and the embankments were not built to anywhere near today’s standards. It is the scene of regular movement of the track, and flooding too where the line switches from embankment to cutting. To get a new station in would mean a (much) wider embankment, and stitching new embankment on to the old (poor) one would be quite a challenge. It might need the whole lot to be dug out and rebuilt.

The immediate area was a fairly nasty tipping site with a bad reputation in the past for itinerant inhabitants (scene of a fairly bad murder I recall reading somewhere) , so I suspect massive land decontamination would be needed at considerable cost.

Whereas Luton Airport Parkway now has a terrific train service , not least to St Pancras with the electrics. (of course , were this the old Southern there would be M1 signs pointing out "frequent electric trains to all parts" ! )

 

[Mikey C]

M20 / M2, suspect most people would use the train from a local station if heading in from Kent - if not then Ebbsfleet.

I know people who have driven in to the likes of Falconwood or Sidcup and taken the train from there.

 

[PeterC]

Similar to the M3 Parkway station just outside of Dublin, it'd have a large car park, but it'd probably need to be multi-level considering the space. I'd demolish the current service station and combine it with the rail station as one building. Seeing many coaches also use the current services, you could also promote it as a coach-rail interchange. It'd avoid LEZ and ideally, like M3 Parkway, parking would be free if you're using the train out.

The coach station is specifically for one company (Sheerings I think) interchanging passengers from local distributors to their holiday tours. NatEx interchange directly with the Tube at Golders Green or Finchley Road.

Outside the morning peak it is normally a pretty easy run from there into central London, I can't see any incentive for a coach operator to use an interchange there, passengers would want to change directly to the Tube not to a main line train.

 

[edwin_m]

The coach station is specifically for one company (Sheerings I think) interchanging passengers from local distributors to their holiday tours. NatEx interchange directly with the Tube at Golders Green or Finchley Road.

Outside the morning peak it is normally a pretty easy run from there into central London, I can't see any incentive for a coach operator to use an interchange there, passengers would want to change directly to the Tube not to a main line train.

It does offer some opportunities for direct links to South London via Thameslink. But a coach operator could call at Luton Airport instead almost as quickly, soon to be easily accessible to Thameslink via the new transit shuttle, and serve airport passengers as well as this market.

 

[Andrew1395]

The fact that Dublin (<600,000 population) has park and ride just shows how different it is from London in terms of sheer size. London has park and ride. It’s called the Home Counties.

 

[LLivery]

The coach station is specifically for one company (Sheerings I think) interchanging passengers from local distributors to their holiday tours. NatEx interchange directly with the Tube at Golders Green or Finchley Road.

Outside the morning peak it is normally a pretty easy run from there into central London, I can't see any incentive for a coach operator to use an interchange there, passengers would want to change directly to the Tube not to a main line train.

Makes sense. I guess I was looking for a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

The fact that Dublin (<600,000 population) has park and ride just shows how different it is from London in terms of sheer size. London has park and ride. It’s called the Home Counties.

I never thought of it like that. Of course, Dublin can never be compared with London - the population of the entire island of Ireland is smaller!

 

[flitwickbeds]

But the M1 between J8-6A is very busy and there's no south-facing Sliproads at the M25/M1 interchange, so any traffic on the M25 will still have to use local roads to access Scratchwood (even if only very briefly).

It does via M25 Junction 21A.

This proposal might also be an opportunity to finally realise the ultimate plan for M1 J3. There is now only a service station there, accessed by an awkward roundabout you have to drive "the wrong way round" for part of.

The original plan was to have a link road from M1 J3 to the A1 Stirling Corner roundabout, just 0.7 miles away.

It's so frustrating that, for two roads running so close together (a bit further down there is literally just a car showroom in between them), it is so painful getting between them.

 

[Bald Rick]

It does via M25 Junction 21A.

This proposal might also be an opportunity to finally realise the ultimate plan for M1 J3. There is now only a service station there, accessed by an awkward roundabout you have to drive "the wrong way round" for part of.

The original plan was to have a link road from M1 J3 to the A1 Stirling Corner roundabout, just 0.7 miles away.

It's so frustrating that, for two roads running so close together (a bit further down there is literally just a car showroom in between them), it is so painful getting between them.

This proposal isn’t a proposal.

And the reason there is no link between the M1 and A1 there is simple - height.

 

[flitwickbeds]

This proposal isn’t a proposal.

And the reason there is no link between the M1 and A1 there is simple - height.

The height difference is an issue at the point the car showroom is, yes. I only mentioned it to demonstrate how physically close the two motorways get. The 0.7 miles between junction 3 of the M1 and the Stirling Corner roundabout on the A1 would have no such height problems.

 

[Bald Rick]

The height difference is an issue at the point the car showroom is, yes. I only mentioned it to demonstrate how physically close the two motorways get. The 0.7 miles between junction 3 of the M1 and the Stirling Corner roundabout on the A1 would have no such height problems.

It wouldn’t be to the Stirling corner roundabout on the A1, it would have to be a little closer. The gap is about 900metres, and vertical distance is 40 metres. That’s an average gradient of 4.4%. But you have to allow for transitional vertical curves in and out of the gradient; for a 4.4% gradient into level with a design speed of 80kph you need a crest curve if 242 metres, and a sag curve of 88 metres. That would make the rest for the gradient around 6 %.

The ‘Desirable maximum’ for an all purpose dual carriageway is 4%.

 

[BluePenguin]

I know people who have driven in to the likes of Falconwood or Sidcup and taken the train from there.

Orpington is another favourite being in zone 6