Reinstating passing loops on the Chiltern Sudbury stations

[BrianW]

My point was that it is easier to get rid of the current owners than it would be getting residents out of houses, I'm not saying it is easier to get the powers to do so at all.

Re the second paragraph, here we go again constantly moaning about money on the speculative part of the forum (on a post where I even said if you had the money) without saying anything constructive. This forum is becoming a cesspit.

While speaking of 'getting rid' of people (or bususinesses) would not be my choice of words, you are entitled to expres matters your way, and by and large discussions on this Forum are conducted civilly however strongly put.

While many seem to expect a Rail Forum to be pro-rail it is vital that all proposals are questioned; there is no bottomless pit and good decisions need to assess priorities as part of that.

That part of the capital has long had many rail lines from which to choose, and people can decide where to live, work, study and travel accordingly. There are many parts of the country in greater need of attention (IMHO )

 

[London Trains]

Deleted

 

[stuu]

How come you haven't questioned others for making very similar suggestions then? Seems like you are purposely targeting me.

Without wanting to sound like a stalker, Mr Rick is very consistent about the cold hand of reality, whether it be on speculative threads or elsewhere

 

[Mgameing123]

If there are capacity issues, would a bidirectional passing loop be practical?

Or as I've mentioned before, why not offset bidirectional passing loops? So two stations, perhaps miles apart each have three platforms. Two standard up & down and one bi?

You could also maybe do quad tracking between Wembley Stadium to a point a little after Northolt Park?

 

[Bald Rick]

How come you haven't questioned others for making very similar suggestions then? Seems like you are purposely targeting me.

I promise I’m not!

 

[Mgameing123]

If hundreds of millons of pounds isn’t too expensive for enabling this kind of interchange, then I don’t know what is.

hundreds of million pounds is a decent price to pay for what could a major mobility hub!

 

[NCT]

We are talking nearly Reading money for nowhere near Reading level benefits.

 

[SynthD]

How comes Chiltern don’t restore the fast lines through beaconsfield?

The platform loops would be short, possibly too short to use effectively.

hundreds of million pounds is a decent price to pay for what could a major mobility hub!

That is the point where you could show how it would qualify as a major mobility hub. Yes, connections can be made, but will they? Reading's benefits were far ranging, as the station was affecting reliability of multiple lines. Fixing that sped up passengers who stayed on their trains.

 

[Mgameing123]

The platform loops would be short, possibly too short to use effectively.

That is the point where you could show how it would qualify as a major mobility hub. Yes, connections can be made, but will they? Reading's benefits were far ranging, as the station was affecting reliability of multiple lines. Fixing that sped up passengers who stayed on their trains.

From West Hampstead you would have direct trains to the City, Canary Wharf, Stratford (via 2 lines), Richmond, Clapham Junction, Sheppards Bush for Westfield, Uxbridge, Harrow, Aylesbury, Amersham, Watford, Luton Airport, Bedford, Oxford (if Chiltern Oxford trains stop there) and High Wycombe. It would massively boost local, regional and maybe even intercity rail connections.

 

[NCT]

West Hampstead would do the job only marginally better (even that's debatable) than Marylebone - Baker street, for what would be fairly astronomical costs ...

 

[leytongabriel]

I'm thinking that there might be some parallels ( not all!) with Cambridge Heath and London Fields now on the Weaver Overground line. They used to have a miserable rush-hour only service, are close together, and Cambridge Heath was said to be too close to Bethnal Green tube to be viable.
Now with a proper suburban service, usage is in a totally different category, even though they are still ungated. And what is interesting is that a lot of it, (and the majority of passengers from Cambridge Heath) is now northound rather than into London.

 

[Bald Rick]

hundreds of million pounds is a decent price to pay for what could a major mobility hub!

From West Hampstead you would have direct trains to the City, Canary Wharf, Stratford (via 2 lines), Richmond, Clapham Junction, Sheppards Bush for Westfield, Uxbridge, Harrow, Aylesbury, Amersham, Watford, Luton Airport, Bedford, Oxford (if Chiltern Oxford trains stop there) and High Wycombe. It would massively boost local, regional and maybe even intercity rail connections.

West Hamsptead already has direct trains to all of those places except those on the Met (for which a simple change at Finchley Road or Wembley Park is easy) or Chiltern. Itis already a fairly major mobility hub. So you are spending a lot of money to make it just a little but more of a mobility hub.

 

[duffield]

...

How comes Chiltern don’t restore the fast lines through beaconsfield? Also why don’t they build a station at Wembley Park?

Why would Chiltern have any interest in infrastructure changes that would give them zero benefit, since they would come to fruition only after their contract ends in 2027?

 

[Instinct04]

I think that the West Hampstead Interchange would be much more trouble for what it’s worth really..

All that construction to benefit a few people who will change from EMR to Chiltern services.

I know it’s inconvenient, having to go all the way into the city. But there’s really no alternative. There isn’t enough space at present, and any construction would be to disruptive and costly to justify it.

HOWEVER:

You could stick some platforms at Neasden. This would be to allow EMR passangers come from WH, up the jubilee line and change onto Chiltern services to Oxford/Banbury/Aylesbury etc. You could even get Met line trains to stop there too (providing connections to Wembley Park, Finchley Road, Uxbridge and Baker Street) as there are already platforms there.

I know the idea of a Neasden interchange has been dismissed before in this thread, but it’s really the only place along this stretch of line where there is space to build platforms on the Chiltern tracks.

 

[150219]

I could see a potential Neasden Interchange station being quite the operational inconvenience, especially on Wembley event days. It would be approximately 1.5 miles from Wembley Stadium and really slow traffic down. The down signal protecting Neasden South Junction and the opposite up signal would probably need moving, even if there's sufficient space on the up line to fit a platform and I'm not convinced there is. The most realistic place for a down platform would be the industrial premises opposite Neasden LU station, so they'd need to be rehoused somewhere.

The most realistic proposition was the West Hampstead interchange which was already binned for reasons well explained by BaldRick.

As it goes, I'd just be happy to keep the stations as they are.

 

[Farigiraf]

HOWEVER:

You could stick some platforms at Neasden. This would be to allow EMR passangers come from WH, up the jubilee line and change onto Chiltern services to Oxford/Banbury/Aylesbury etc. You could even get Met line trains to stop there too (providing connections to Wembley Park, Finchley Road, Uxbridge and Baker Street) as there are already platforms there.

I know the idea of a Neasden interchange has been dismissed before in this thread, but it’s really the only place along this stretch of line where there is space to build platforms on the Chiltern tracks.

That would still mean an additional change, even if it's just a 4-stop journey. There would be a negligible time save compared to continuing on to St Pancras then taking the tube to Baker Street or Marylebone and it would be just as, if not more, complicated. A very expensive rebuild of West Hampstead would allow for 1-transfer connections for journeys like Luton to High Wycombe but these passenger flows are minimal.
However, if the West London Orbital gets greenlit then Neasden will need a rebuild anyway, and then you could include Met Line and/or Chiltern platforms as part of the rebuild rather than a separate project which would have a very low benefit/cost ratio.

 

[cle]

There is nowhere that important on Chiltern to generate the demand - it’s a very secondary mainline that got its life reprieve from a discount outlet. Let’s be real.

Yes you can get to Oxford and Birmingham by slower routes, but there is no airport, no interchanges like Reading, no counter-direction demand to outer jobs (eg a Slough or Watford) - and inbound volumes are tapped by crazy NIMBY golf villages and the Green Belt. Also some decent tube service.

It’s just not worth it. Chiltern is a great service given what it serves - the best thing for them is TOD and home building in some of the more likely towns, HW, Aylesbury, Bicester, Ox Parkway, Winslow, and densification that way.

 

[The Planner]

There is nowhere that important on Chiltern to generate the demand - it’s a very secondary mainline that got its life reprieve from a discount outlet. Let’s be real.

Oh behave. Bicester Village opened in 95 and was a shadow of what it is now. Chiltern was redoubled by 2001. The whole Evergreen programme was to compete with the M40.

 

[Mr. SW]

I've had a look at a West Hampstead interchange and thought "No". The work entailed just not justify the means. The Chiltern Line platforms would only be of any use coming from/going to the High Wycombe/Ruislip direction. Coming down from the Aylesbury/Rickmansworth direction, there's absolutely no point in it. If there was interchange with the Midland and North London Lines, the traffic would be so small. It would, in many cases, be simply easier to double back on yourself and go to Baker Street/Marylebone. Or (Heaven Forfend!) use a bus! They have those now. Or even walk, if you wanted to.

Neasden I haven't looked at deeply, but I think an awful lot of the same applies.

The West London Orbital will solve some of what ever problems there are in theory but extending a reinstated New North Main Line down to Old Oak Common, even if it was just
a small two-platform stub-end terminal, will blow both West Hampstead and Neasden interchanges completely out of the water.

 

[Mgameing123]

That would still mean an additional change, even if it's just a 4-stop journey. There would be a negligible time save compared to continuing on to St Pancras then taking the tube to Baker Street or Marylebone and it would be just as, if not more, complicated. A very expensive rebuild of West Hampstead would allow for 1-transfer connections for journeys like Luton to High Wycombe but these passenger flows are minimal.
However, if the West London Orbital gets greenlit then Neasden will need a rebuild anyway, and then you could include Met Line and/or Chiltern platforms as part of the rebuild rather than a separate project with minimal gain.

Agreed and they don’t even need to be used. Just providing them just for future use cases or disruptions on the Jubilee Line would do fine.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

However, if the West London Orbital gets greenlit then Neasden will need a rebuild anyway, and then you could include Met Line and/or Chiltern platforms as part of the rebuild rather than a separate project which would have a very low benefit/cost ratio.

Does the West London Orbital plan include a new station at Neasden?

 

[Farigiraf]

Does the West London Orbital plan include a new station at Neasden?

The Dudding Hill line crosses the Jubilee/Met/CML just south of Neasden station, and the plan is for a station there. If the WLO does get funded, it may involve resiting Neasden jubilee line station to the east of Neasden Lane to be closer to the WLO platforms, or it may use a long walkway like at Hackney Downs/Central, or the two sets of platforms may only be connected by an OSI (unlikely). There doesn't seem to be anything official about what they plan to do at Neasden, just aspirations for a station there.

Left: West London Orbital route map. Right: Satellite view of area around Neasden station. Jubilee line in grey, Dudding Hill Line in orange.

 

[Mr. SW]

As far as I can tell, there are no plans to make any serious changes to Neasden Station. There are plans however to develop land in the immediate vicinity: Thus:

Community Hub

neasdengoodsyard.co.uk

Community Hub. "...an overview of our proposals for Neasden Goods Yard."
But I cannot see anything other than an Out-of-Station interchange between the the proposed West London Orbital Station and the existing station. You could, if you felt you wanted to, try some ideas.
From my notes:

They are all hopelessly rubbish, particularly the the alternatives, the one alongside the railway being particularly bad.

 

[Farigiraf]

As far as I can tell, there are no plans to make any serious changes to Neasden Station. There are plans however to develop land in the immediate vicinity: Thus:

Community Hub

neasdengoodsyard.co.uk

Community Hub. "...an overview of our proposals for Neasden Goods Yard."
But I cannot see anything other than an Out-of-Station interchange between the the proposed West London Orbital Station and the existing station. You could, if you felt you wanted to, try some ideas.
From my notes:
View attachment 187976
They are all hopelessly rubbish, particularly the the alternatives, the one alongside the railway being particularly bad.

Agreed, I think that if you're going for this sub-par compromise then it would only serve Neasden itself, rather than being an interchange, and I don't think travel from Neasden to southwest London is high enough to justify an expensive new station, let alone chiltern/met line platforms at the Jubilee line station as well. As much as it doesn't feel right, at that point the money would probably be more usefully spent on a station serving an area without a rail service, such as somewhere about halfway between Harlesden and Neasden (Church End/Roundwood).

 

[Railwaysceptic]

The Dudding Hill line crosses the Jubilee/Met/CML just south of Neasden station, and the plan is for a station there. If the WLO does get funded, it may involve resiting Neasden jubilee line station to the east of Neasden Lane to be closer to the WLO platforms, or it may use a long walkway like at Hackney Downs/Central, or the two sets of platforms may only be connected by an OSI (unlikely). There doesn't seem to be anything official about what they plan to do at Neasden, just aspirations for a station there.

View attachment 187936
Left: West London Orbital route map. Right: Satellite view of area around Neasden station. Jubilee line in grey, Dudding Hill Line in orange.

Thank you for reminding me. So yes, it makes sense to have a comprehensive rebuild of Neasden Station and that in turn means that adding platforms for Chiltern trains is a good idea.

 

[Mgameing123]

Thank you for reminding me. So yes, it makes sense to have a comprehensive rebuild of Neasden Station and that in turn means that adding platforms for Chiltern trains is a good idea.

I’d say platforms for all lines regardless if they are used or not.

But it’s not an alternative to West Hampstead as it’s effectively 2 changes instead of 1.

Only West Hampstead or Finchley Road would work.

 

[zwk500]

Thank you for reminding me. So yes, it makes sense to have a comprehensive rebuild of Neasden Station and that in turn means that adding platforms for Chiltern trains is a good idea.

It doesn't make sense to have a comprehensive rebuild of Neasden Station. That would cost hundreds of millions and cause a lot of disruption. The OSI will be no different to New Cross to New Cross Gate, or Catford to Catford bridge, or West Croydon to East Croydon.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Sep 2025 ==

I’d say platforms for all lines regardless if they are used or not.

So you're buying up about a dozen houses, in London?

 

[Mgameing123]

It doesn't make sense to have a comprehensive rebuild of Neasden Station. That would cost hundreds of millions and cause a lot of disruption. The OSI will be no different to New Cross to New Cross Gate, or Catford to Catford bridge, or West Croydon to East Croydon.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 7 Sep 2025 ==


So you're buying up about a dozen houses, in London?

Cheaper to do it now than later.

A comprehensive rebuild of Neasden is neccesary if we want to improve rail interchanges. It’s a huge problem that suburban trips are much easier by car than by rail and the only way an orbital line like the Dudding Hill Overground would work is by having as many interchanges as possible. Look at rail line like the Ring S-train in Copenhagen. If you look at a station like Danshøj on Google Maps, you will be able to see how they redesigned the stations and repositioned them to be where the Ring line heads under the Høje Taastrup Line.
Obviously Neasden doesn’t need to be exactly like this example but the idea is that we should try make the interchange as short as possible if we want to make an interchange attractive to more custom.

 

[zwk500]

Look at rail line like the Ring S-train in Copenhagen. If you look at a station like Danshøj on Google Maps, you will be able to see how they redesigned the stations and repositioned them to be where the Ring line heads under the Høje Taastrup Line.

Look at all that space in Copenhagen around the line to where the lines cross at Neasden. It's not a comparable situation at all.

 

[Topological]

Feasibly, could you have one Chiltern platform on the Jubilee Island (currently single face) and then stagger so that the platform on the Chiltern in the other direction was to the East of the B453 where one of @Mr. SW suggested walkways is?

No idea if that is any use, or improves costs, but that might help thinking about interchanges?

Some work is needed on the B453, but otherwise the notion of OSI makes full sense here.