How important is OOC to HS2?

[HSTEd]

Because reservations are likely to be compulsory, this would have no benefit - people will only be interested in their booked train and not others.

I'm not really sure compulsory reservations are tenable when substantial numbers of trains will terminate less than an hour after leaving London.

Reservations weren't even offered on the only domestic high speed service last time I checked!
In any case, given the total lack of capacity limitation I'm not sure what compulsory reservations would even achieve beyond making the service less attractive to users.....

EDIT:

Even LNER gave up on compulsory reservations when they could no longer hide behind coronavirus.

But this is rather off topic.

 

[Bletchleyite]

And either way, people cope at pretty much all major termini with trains to the same destination being at different platforms, usually across considerably more than 10.

 

[coppercapped]

Fair point. I would suggest that Oxford St/west end, Westminster/Whitehall, and the city of London are the major destinations in central London for people arriving into terminal stations. Paddington is further from any of those by some margin.

One thing that nobody has picked up on is that the destinations in 'Central London' for people arriving at the termini vary with the time of day.

Overwhelmingly posters have assumed that all passengers are going to their places of business. Early arrivals almost certainly are, later arrivals less so. The latter are more likely to be visiting friends and family, going shopping, visiting museums or exhibitions, going for meals, seeing the sights and so on. Whereas a short onward journey is of most interest to the first group — and TfL's previously mentioned Central London Rail Termini: Analysing passengers' onward travel patterns report concentrates on the peak hours flows[1]. The distribution patterns once the passengers have arrived at the terminal for the second group will be much more scattered and were NOT the subject of this report.

It should be noted that various statistics demonstrate (and I can't be bothered to look them up again) that the proportion of passengers travelling for all the mix of 'leisure' reasons is higher than the average for both LNER and GWR. I maintain that for these groups of passengers the location of their terminus within London is not critical.

And if the argument is that an Old Oak Common stop for the long distance GW trains running on the Mains is necessary for 'connectivity' and rapid access to the financial areas, then exactly the same argument holds true for the LNER trains. By this logic a stop at Finsbury Park is absolutely essential to give an easy and quick direct connection to the financial institutions around Moorgate and the Bank via the Northern City line.

[1] Page 8: ...a survey of passengers was undertaken at each terminus on a representative weekday in either spring or autumn 2010 (not during school holidays) during the morning and evening peaks, between 7:00 to 10:00 and 16:00 to 19:00.

No other terminal station has such a dismal entrance as Paddington, which is very much in keeping with the expectation that not many passengers walk in

As most passengers for the other terminals arrive by tube, I don't see the significance of what the door to the street looks like. If such doors are really needed then Paddington would need at least four: from Eastbourne Terrace; Praed Street; Bishop's Bridge and the Grand Union Canal towpath.

 

[tomuk]

And if the argument is that an Old Oak Common stop for the long distance GW trains running on the Mains is necessary for 'connectivity' and rapid access to the financial areas, then exactly the same argument holds true for the LNER trains. By this logic a stop at Finsbury Park is absolutely essential to give an easy and quick direct connection to the financial institutions around Moorgate and the Bank via the Northern City line.

The only station that you can't reach from KX that you can from Finsbury Park is Essex Road so there is no advantage to stop at Finsbury Park. It's not exactly fast either.

 

[coppercapped]

The only station that you can't reach from KX that you can from Finsbury Park is Essex Road so there is no advantage to stop at Finsbury Park. It's not exactly fast either.

Whoosh!

Similarly for passengers from 'The West' on fast GW trains. All that a stop at Old Oak Common means is that they can transfer to Crossrail one station earlier...

...what's the point?

To return to the subject of this thread — OOC is important to HS2 as it is predicted to reduce the passenger numbers at Euston by some 30% (because the Tube is limited in capacity in that area) as they transfer to Crossrail. By connecting also to the westbound suburban services on the GW route it makes for good connections to Heathrow and the towns along the Thames Valley.

 

[Irascible]

Similarly for passengers from 'The West' on fast GW trains. All that a stop at Old Oak Common means is that they can transfer to Crossrail one station earlier...

...what's the point?

I guess for the five people a day who want to go to some stop between Reading ( well, Slough ) & London in the absolute quickest way possible!

FP-Moorgate might not be quick, but it's quicker than going all the way to KX & down the Northern line... I haven't actually timed it but I'd suggest "a fair bit". Past experience would suggest the chances of anyone managing to get on it at FP in the morning peaks are fairly small ( I gave up trying fairly quickly ), but maybe that's changed since I last regularily used it.

 

[tomuk]

Whoosh!

Similarly for passengers from 'The West' on fast GW trains. All that a stop at Old Oak Common means is that they can transfer to Crossrail one station earlier...

...what's the point?

good connections to Heathrow and the towns along the Thames Valley. maybe? Westfield? BBC Television Centre? QPR? In the future Acton Town Central Line, Overground. Dudding Hill, Chiltern?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Feb 2022 ==

I guess for the five people a day who want to go to some stop between Reading ( well, Slough ) & London in the absolute quickest way possible!

FP-Moorgate might not be quick, but it's quicker than going all the way to KX & down the Northern line... I haven't actually timed it but I'd suggest "a fair bit". Past experience would suggest the chances of anyone managing to get on it at FP in the morning peaks are fairly small ( I gave up trying fairly quickly ), but maybe that's changed since I last regularily used it.

Finsbury Park to Moorgate is 15mins via Northern City. LNER into KX/ take 5 mins from passing FP and its 6 mins on the Circle Line to Moorgate.

 

[coppercapped]

good connections to Heathrow and the towns along the Thames Valley. maybe? Westfield? BBC Television Centre? QPR? In the future Acton Town Central Line, Overground. Dudding Hill, Chiltern?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 3 Feb 2022 ==

Once again - all the places you mention can be reached using the suburban services on the GW route which will call at OOC. By 'suburban' I mean Crossrail and the twice-hourly GWR semi-fast to Reading, then stations to Didcot (and eventually Oxford). If one is coming from 'The West' on a GWR long distance service these can all be reached by changing at Reading into the suburban trains, or for a sub-set of the longer distance services at Slough.

As I asked in a previous post - how many people will be coming from, say, Taunton every day to spend a day at Old Oak Common shopping centre or Westfield when all of that which London has to offer is next door? The answer I suspect is - none.

Future connections for the Overground, Dudding Hill, Chiltern and all the rest of them are so far in the future they belong under the heading 'Fantasy' not 'Speculation'. There are no business cases for any of them, there are no plans and certainly no funding. If any get built it will happen in twenty years at the earliest.

Finsbury Park to Moorgate is 15mins via Northern City. LNER into KX/ take 5 mins from passing FP and its 6 mins on the Circle Line to Moorgate.

 

[MarkyT]

good connections to Heathrow and the towns along the Thames Valley. maybe? Westfield? BBC Television Centre? QPR? In the future Acton Town Central Line, Overground. Dudding Hill, Chiltern?

The only way mega-cities like London will be able to develop sensibly in the future is by becoming more polycentric, as Tokyo has. Simply increasing the density of the existing dense core ever further is not going to be sustainable, in transport and other terms. This process started in London with Docklands, but that doesn't have a long-distance mainline directly going through it, so connections had to be developed instead. Stratford is part of that result, which clearly IS on a mainline, and TOCs aspire to stop more trains there; it is starting to become a major centre in its own right too. It makes sense to develop future centres at similar transport hubs on mainlines around London. As they grow, they will naturally attract new local public transport networks, which can also serve a long-distance terminal, if the hubs are so equipped, to act as distributors/collectors for the services calling at that terminal. I tend to think of GWR long-distance stopping at OOC as SHARING HS2s local connectional network in a similar way to Kings Cross and St Pancras sharing their tube and bus connections today, rather than primarily facilitating the connections between the long-distance networks themselves (although there will inevitably be some people doing this). While no one has yet mentioned it, I feel also that OOC will be a far more convenient drop-off and pickup point for many people being driven to or from the station than Paddington, or even wanting to park their own car at the station, although I don't know what parking provision is intended. Certainly, the quantity of brownfield land in the area could easily support some significant parking provision if desired. This could serve to greatly increase the attractivenes of both HS2 and GWR long-distance services for the many west London residents who might be put off by a backtrack in the wrong direction all the way to Paddington or Euston first. A West London Parkway perhaps (although I'd never call it that personally, mainly because it will be far more than that anyway!).

 

[Horizon22]

Fair point. I would suggest that Oxford St/west end, Westminster/Whitehall, and the city of London are the major destinations in central London for people arriving into terminal stations. Paddington is further from any of those by some margin.

No other terminal station has such a dismal entrance as Paddington, which is very much in keeping with the expectation that not many passengers walk in

You do of course have a brand new entrance that looks all shiny on Eastbourne Terrace due to the Crossrail works. The other issue is there's a stonking great Hilton hotel out the front and unlike other terminals it wasn't decided to make the entrance front and centre there. There are comparatively large distances between all modes of onward transport (including taxis) with the exception of walking off the front of an arrival (not P12 or P14) and getting onto the Bakerloo or Circle/District.

As the TfL report says, this is what 6/10 tube users are doing (of the 60% of all users taking the tube)

I am pretty sure I read HS2 will not carry passengers between OOC and Euston (or vice versa) because it would muck up the very tight planned dwells at OOC.

I think it seems reasonable that OOC will have lots of "pick up" & "set down" only (direction dependent) for both HS2 and GWML services. Crossrail / relief line services will be slightly different.

 

[MarkyT]

If one is coming from 'The West' on a GWR long distance service these can all be reached by changing at Reading into the suburban trains, or for a sub-set of the longer distance services at Slough.

Apart from the local stops along GWML itself, adding in some cases perhaps 30 minutes at the very least to the overall journey time compared to a notional single OOC interchange. A significant figure especially when considering many of these potential destinations are in less dense parts of London and surrounding counties that can more realistically be reached by car all the way if rail journey times are needlessly extended. This is about seriously increasing the potential market for rail.

As I asked in a previous post - how many people will be coming from, say, Taunton every day to spend a day at Old Oak Common shopping centre or Westfield when all of that which London has to offer is next door? The answer I suspect is - none.

Future connections for the Overground, Dudding Hill, Chiltern and all the rest of them are so far in the future they belong under the heading 'Fantasy' not 'Speculation'. There are no business cases for any of them, there are no plans and certainly no funding. If any get built it will happen in twenty years at the earliest.

London will become more polycentric. That is inevitable. And many business locations are outside the central activity zone today that can be difficult or time-consuming to reach by rail.

An example: I used to travel occasionally between Basingstoke and Croydon for work sometimes for a single meeting, sometimes for a period of a week or more. If I had to change at Woking and then Clapham Jn from a fast, or via Waterloo and back to Clapham it could easily add 30 minutes compared to the journey with one change at Clapham Junction, but clearly in the peaks nothing on the SWML stopped there so I always tried to time my work hours and meetings so that I could avoid the peaks and thus get a pleasantly brisk journey. Cheaper Non-London fares were also available via that route. Needless to say, I think far more longer-distance trains SHOULD stop at Clapham Junction on the LSWR (and, of course, the Gatwick Expresses of the Brighton Line)!

 

[Horizon22]

I feel also that OOC will be a far more convenient drop-off and pickup point for many people being driven to or from the station than Paddington, or even wanting to park their own car at the station, although I don't know what parking provision is intended. Certainly, the quantity of brownfield land in the area could easily support some significant parking provision if desired. This could serve to greatly increase the attractivenes of both HS2 and GWR long-distance services for the many west London residents who might be put off by a backtrack in the wrong direction all the way to Paddington or Euston first. A West London Parkway perhaps (although I'd never call it that personally, mainly because it will be far more than that anyway!).

The roads in the area aren't great as the site is still somewhat hemmed in by railways (North Pole Dept, new OOC depot, and sites north at Willesden, central line), Wormwood Scrubs, and the Grand Union canal. Maybe the A4000 and some roads will be improved as part of the whole Park Royal scheme and a better link to the A40, but I doubt it.

 

[stuu]

As most passengers for the other terminals arrive by tube, I don't see the significance of what the door to the street looks like. If such doors are really needed then Paddington would need at least four: from Eastbourne Terrace; Praed Street; Bishop's Bridge and the Grand Union Canal towpath.

They just don't, that's the point! Paddington is an outlier in terms of how many people walk in because it is so far away from anywhere most passengers want to go. That is where this whole debate started.

The significance is that pretty much every major rail terminus worldwide has a big facade onto the street. Paddington is quite an outlier in that respect, because next to nobody walks in.

This forum seems to suffer even more than others on the internet from people believing their opinion is the only correct one. I use long distance trains from the south west to London, I will almost certainly change to Crossrail at OOC every time I go to London. Coming home I will almost certainly use Paddington. I think this will be a very common pattern for anyone who uses the trains regularly

 

[quantinghome]

Changing at OOC from GW long distance services on to Crossrail would certainly be more convenient than Paddington.

On the more general subject of long distance services having stops 'outside the core', we should remember that London rail termini were also outside the main city core when constructed. In fact most of them were built on what was, at the time, the fringe of London's built-up area. So in a way having long distance trains stopping at places like Stratford and OOC is nothing new.

 

[Irascible]

Finsbury Park to Moorgate is 15mins via Northern City. LNER into KX/ take 5 mins from passing FP and its 6 mins on the Circle Line to Moorgate.

That seems a little optimistic, but as it wasn't a journey I took regularily I'll stand corrected. Getting out of Moorgate from the Circle is a chunk of time saved, although if you're after the DLR at Bank getting down to it might eat all of that back...

--

I'm going to agree that changing at OOC for Crossrail on the way in is probably going to be more attractive - if the south-west trains are picking up significant commuter traffic from Reading then it probably makes sense. For journeys from further west it's a bit more dubious, but eh - when your A roads are lanes & your railway doesn't get above 100 until it's east of most of the population centres in the region, 5 mins is a minor irritant. A fair chunk of us are prepared to take an extra hour on the other route anyway. My beef is with people saying Paddington is awful, when I think it really isn't.

On an ad-hoc basis no-one I know here would go to London to go to some out of town retail park, they're gonig to go to museums or art places or something similar. Bristol seems considered a long way for quite a lot of 'em.

 

[MarkyT]

They just don't, that's the point! Paddington is an outlier in terms of how many people walk in because it is so far away from anywhere most passengers want to go. That is where this whole debate started.

The significance is that pretty much every major rail terminus worldwide has a big facade onto the street. Paddington is quite an outlier in that respect, because next to nobody walks in.

Quite a few used to walk out and down the road towards Hyde Park to get the Central Line at Lancaster Gate. Suspect that may have dwindled a bit since the improvements to the H&C platform access and the great increase in frequency available there now, although the Central is still undoubtedly quicker to the City. The same used to apply coming back but the convenience disparity was not the same as you could always get either a H&C or a 'proper' circle in the old days and get out at whichever Paddington station (H&C or District) you arrived at; it was the City-bound direction that was the challenge with the service split making which Underground station to head for a bit of a lottery, although with the Wimblewares it usually made best sense to go for the District station and change at Edgware Rd. if neccessary The Lizzie will trounce all these for convenience and journey time, however, to the City at least, whether changing at OOC or Paddington.

 

[quantinghome]

Quite a few used to walk out and down the road towards Hyde Park to get the Central Line at Lancaster Gate. Suspect that may have dwindled a bit since the improvements to the H&C platform access and the great increase in frequency available there now, although the Central is still undoubtedly quicker to the City. The same used to apply coming back but the convenience disparity was not the same as you could always get either a H&C or a 'proper' circle in the old days and get out at whichever Paddington station (H&C or District) you arrived at; it was the City-bound direction that was the challenge with the service split making which Underground station to head for a bit of a lottery, although with the Wimblewares it usually made best sense to go for the District station and change at Edgware Rd. if neccessary The Lizzie will trounce all these for convenience and journey time, however, to the City at least, whether changing at OOC or Paddington.

True. Also Docklands - previously the best route from Paddington was Bakerloo and change at Baker Street to the Jubilee line. Crossrail will replace that.

There will still be some areas of central London better accessed from Paddington than OOC - the area from Kensington to Westminster, Euston Road, but with the West End, City and Docklands all better accessed by Crossrail, there is bound to be quite a shift from Paddington to OOC, at least going East.

 

[HSTEd]

Pity OOC can't have a moving walkway to North Acton, or just move North Acton to the east a couple hundred metres.....

 

[cle]

The only way mega-cities like London will be able to develop sensibly in the future is by becoming more polycentric, as Tokyo has. Simply increasing the density of the existing dense core ever further is not going to be sustainable, in transport and other terms. This process started in London with Docklands, but that doesn't have a long-distance mainline directly going through it, so connections had to be developed instead. Stratford is part of that result, which clearly IS on a mainline, and TOCs aspire to stop more trains there; it is starting to become a major centre in its own right too. It makes sense to develop future centres at similar transport hubs on mainlines around London. As they grow, they will naturally attract new local public transport networks, which can also serve a long-distance terminal, if the hubs are so equipped, to act as distributors/collectors for the services calling at that terminal. I tend to think of GWR long-distance stopping at OOC as SHARING HS2s local connectional network in a similar way to Kings Cross and St Pancras sharing their tube and bus connections today, rather than primarily facilitating the connections between the long-distance networks themselves (although there will inevitably be some people doing this). While no one has yet mentioned it, I feel also that OOC will be a far more convenient drop-off and pickup point for many people being driven to or from the station than Paddington, or even wanting to park their own car at the station, although I don't know what parking provision is intended. Certainly, the quantity of brownfield land in the area could easily support some significant parking provision if desired. This could serve to greatly increase the attractivenes of both HS2 and GWR long-distance services for the many west London residents who might be put off by a backtrack in the wrong direction all the way to Paddington or Euston first. A West London Parkway perhaps (although I'd never call it that personally, mainly because it will be far more than that anyway!).

This, one million percent. Notably the Shinkansen calls at Ueno and Shinagawa, but also all at Omiya and Shin-Yokohama in the greater Tokyo region. Tokyo station would break with all those users. And the Yamamote line and the various radial smaller rail networks which branch off of it have given rise to centres which are as important as most western CBDs are.

For London, it is natural that OOC becomes one of these - per Stratford. It will be a little behind on the retail side, due to Westfield SB gobbling up a lot ot the same demand, but it being the UK and being NR, I expect a mall there regardless. Even Paddington, through the Basin, became more of a centre in its own right. Rio Tinto moved on, but M&S's HQ is still there, which will draw business travel from across the region and country. They are not the only company either - many in the Basin/Docks developments. OOC already has a boom in the residential buildings (much of the Imperial spread - like at BBC Worldwide) - and so the accompanying activity has followed.

Notably Stratford is one of few non-zone 1 termini for services - i.e. the West Anglia. OOC may play a similar role for Chiltern in time. I've always advocated that if Windmill is done and East Croydon gets its additional platforms, shorter trains might terminate there one day (e.g. extras from East Grinstead/Cat/Tats/Reigate etc) to add frequency and leave the 12 cars for the London trains. If people change there between LB and Victoria - but also for other services and to exit there, why not have a local sub-set and build it further as a hub. It's a shame that Lewisham cannot accommodate the same, especially if it had the Bakerloo one day - but I digress. And CW will evolve in different ways, but very connected to Stratford.

One thing which hasn't been said - if the outer 'West' services calling at OOC is a problem or under-utilized / wildly unpopular once folks get used to Crossrail and HS2 and the other connections (and OOC becomes a destination) - then they can just stop doing it. Or partially do it, if works with pathing. It's not irreversible, it's a proposed stopping pattern. The platforms are happening regardless.

 

[coppercapped]

The only way mega-cities like London will be able to develop sensibly in the future is by becoming more polycentric, as Tokyo has. Simply increasing the density of the existing dense core ever further is not going to be sustainable, in transport and other terms. This process started in London with Docklands, but that doesn't have a long-distance mainline directly going through it, so connections had to be developed instead. Stratford is part of that result, which clearly IS on a mainline, and TOCs aspire to stop more trains there; it is starting to become a major centre in its own right too. It makes sense to develop future centres at similar transport hubs on mainlines around London. As they grow, they will naturally attract new local public transport networks, which can also serve a long-distance terminal, if the hubs are so equipped, to act as distributors/collectors for the services calling at that terminal. I tend to think of GWR long-distance stopping at OOC as SHARING HS2s local connectional network in a similar way to Kings Cross and St Pancras sharing their tube and bus connections today, rather than primarily facilitating the connections between the long-distance networks themselves (although there will inevitably be some people doing this). While no one has yet mentioned it, I feel also that OOC will be a far more convenient drop-off and pickup point for many people being driven to or from the station than Paddington, or even wanting to park their own car at the station, although I don't know what parking provision is intended. Certainly, the quantity of brownfield land in the area could easily support some significant parking provision if desired. This could serve to greatly increase the attractivenes of both HS2 and GWR long-distance services for the many west London residents who might be put off by a backtrack in the wrong direction all the way to Paddington or Euston first. A West London Parkway perhaps (although I'd never call it that personally, mainly because it will be far more than that anyway!).

An interesting concept - but from Saxon times London has always been polycentric. Firstly there was 'Londinium' around the river crossing and by 1066 the West Minster had been built some way away. It's grown outwards ever since by absorbing surrounding villages which have remained identifiable centres in their own right: Saxon 'Chelsey’ and ‘Kenesignetun' became Chelsea and Kensington; also Tulse Hill; Ealing; Homerton and all the rest.

The Old Oak Common development is a re-purposing of much of the old Park Royal industrial estate. This has become possible, both here and in other areas, because of the decline in the number of industrial manufacturing sites and the increasing imports of replacement products.

Not everybody considers this as an improvement - there is a loss of jobs in manufacturing industry and all of its supply chains which in general has not been replaced by well paid 'high tech' manufacturing industry. Where are, for example, the silicon chip plants and the associated suppliers of very pure chemicals? And the knowledge and well paid jobs which support such industries?

And still, with the best will in the world, I cannot see the redeveloped Park Royal/Old Oak Common area becoming 'a go-to' development for shopping or employment on anything more than a local level. By this I mean a 10 to 15 mile radius, possibly a bit more for the higher paid jobs and specialised attractions. It will be one of several such developments around London's periphery each of which attracts business from its sphere of influence.