Shelved Plans re Selhurst Triangle Bottleneck

[themeone]

Burnham says he will "look again" at the shelved plans to resolve the Selhurst Triangle bottleneck north of Croydon. Sutton Guardian Article

Andy Burnham has vowed to get the Croydon rail bottleneck plans "back on track" after it was hit by major delays due to the pandemic.

The Prime Minister addressed the stalled plans, also known as the Croydon Area Remodelling Scheme (CARS), which aims to tackle the long-standing bottleneck around East Croydon and Windmill Bridge Junction.

 

[zwk500]

Something needs to be done, but whether we will see the full CARS scheme with all it's grade separation must be a bet with very long odds. Unless there's a large pot of investment coming from somewhere very unexpected.

 

[Magdalia]

This was the PM answering a question from a local MP at PMQs last Wednesday. It is already being discussed in relation to Gatwick expansion see here, starting at #173:

How will Gatwick station cope with a second runway?

Then have to think why do trains to/from Gatwick still terminate at places like Reading, Southampton, Bedford if there are lots of journeys from beyond. The only reasonable answer is historic. No, the answer is reliability. Extending trains over a longer distance serves no real purpose...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[physics34]

Spend the money on electrifying the uckfield line, the north downs and the marsh link instead.

If all current coastal to london trains were 12 coaches not many being 8, the reigates were 8 or more (platform expansion needed), bring back the missing hourly train via worthing to London, reinstate the Cat/Tat to Vic peak trains and the Gat Ex stopped at Croydon and Clapham, that would increase capacity hugely.

 

[NSE]

Spend the money on electrifying the uckfield line, the north downs and the marsh link instead.

If all current coastal to london trains were 12 coaches not many being 8, the reigates were 8 or more (platform expansion needed), bring back the missing hourly train via worthing to London, reinstate the Cat/Tat to Vic peak trains and the Gat Ex stopped at Croydon and Clapham, that would increase capacity hugely.

There isn’t the capacity to extend all coastal trains to 12 coaches. Also, what’s the hourly Worthing one missing? Littlehampton is back up to 2tph, giving Worthing half hourly to London.

Personally I’d rather see the Victoria - Brighton fasts bought back every half hour.

 

[SynthD]

If all current coastal to london trains were 12 coaches not many being 8, the reigates were 8 or more (platform expansion needed), bring back the missing hourly train via worthing to London, reinstate the Cat/Tat to Vic peak trains and the Gat Ex stopped at Croydon and Clapham, that would increase capacity hugely.

The Croydon Area Remodelling Scheme is needed for that wishlist, you have listed half of the plausible benefits.

 

[Magdalia]

Spend the money on electrifying the uckfield line, the north downs and the marsh link instead.

Which money? The project was paused in 2022 and it has not been allocated any money since.

Brighton Main Line upgrade proposals - Network Rail

In 2018, we brought forward proposals to deliver faster, more reliable services and improved connections on the Brighton Main Line and the lines that feed into it.

www.networkrail.co.uk

The Brighton Mainline Upgrade Programme, which comprise the Croydon Area Remodelling Scheme (CARS), Norwood Junction station improvements and a third platform at Reigate was paused in 2022 at Outline Business Case stage by the previous government. No further development work has taken place since this point, and the programme is not currently funded.

There are currently no plans to apply for any planning consents (such as a Transport and Works Act Order). Or undertake any associated compulsory land purchases.

 

[London Trains]

There isn’t the capacity to extend all coastal trains to 12 coaches. Also, what’s the hourly Worthing one missing? Littlehampton is back up to 2tph, giving Worthing half hourly to London.

Personally I’d rather see the Victoria - Brighton fasts bought back every half hour.

In what way isn't there enough capacity to extend them to 12 coaches?

The Brighton fasts can't return in their old path as the Eastbourne services took its path when the Eastbourne and Littlehampton services stopped splitting/joining at Haywards Heath, but I agree that the Brighton fasts should return, by getting rid of the scam that is the Gatwick Express, and replacing it with a Southern service that calls at Clapham Junction, East Croydon, Gatwick Airport and Haywards Heath.

 

[NSE]

In what way isn't there enough capacity to extend them to 12 coaches?

The Brighton fasts can't return in their old path as the Eastbourne services took its path when the Eastbourne and Littlehampton services stopped splitting/joining at Haywards Heath, but I agree that the Brighton fasts should return, by getting rid of the scam that is the Gatwick Express, and replacing it with a Southern service that calls at Clapham Junction, East Croydon, Gatwick Airport and Haywards Heath.

Just not enough units for the services to all be 12 coaches.

No, i’m aware the path is gone but I’d still like to see them back haha.

 

[cle]

The Brighton fasts can't return in their old path as the Eastbourne services took its path when the Eastbourne and Littlehampton services stopped splitting/joining at Haywards Heath, but I agree that the Brighton fasts should return, by getting rid of the scam that is the Gatwick Express, and replacing it with a Southern service that calls at Clapham Junction, East Croydon, Gatwick Airport and Haywards Heath.

From the HH / Brighton POV, this exists via Gatwick Express today. It just needs those calls, or at least Clapham.

 

[alf]

A Clapham stop can be very time costly. Can easily be 2 to 3 mins stationary.....Seriously reduces line capacity.
A train following from Victoria cannot leave just 2 mins after a non stop Gatwick express without an extended time from Victoria to Croydon due to stopping outside Clapham for a free platform. . Same vice versa & there is the marketing downside of longer journey time to be balanced againt the door to door appeal of one’s car.

 

[edwin_m]

Just not enough units for the services to all be 12 coaches.

Buying more units, adding depot capacity and perhaps some power supply strengthening, is a lot quicker and a lot cheaper than re-building Selhurst. And need doing anyway, to take advantage of whatever capacity re-building Selhurst would create!

 

[London Trains]

Just not enough units for the services to all be 12 coaches.

No, i’m aware the path is gone but I’d still like to see them back haha.

I agree that there aren't enough units for everything to be 12 coaches, but there is certainly scope for a lot more services than now to be 12 coaches, as there are a lot of units which only work one or two services in the peaks and go back to the depot/sidings for most of the day.

Not using 6 units (assuming they are 8 coaches) on pointless GatEx Gatwick shuttles from December would go a long way to strengthening services too.

I also don't see any reason why everything can't be 12 coaches on Saturdays, as there are a lot of units used on peak extras which are spare at the weekend - 6 units from the London Bridge to Coastway peak extras, 7 units from the peak time Gatwick portions of the Reigate services, 6 units from the Norwood Junction to London Bridge peak extras, and quite a few more.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: Sunday at 13:20 ==

From the HH / Brighton POV, this exists via Gatwick Express today. It just needs those calls, or at least Clapham.

Yes exactly, effectively I'm just suggesting to "rebrand" the service to Southern and add Clapham Junction and East Croydon stops.

 

[NSE]

I agree that there aren't enough units for everything to be 12 coaches, but there is certainly scope for a lot more services than now to be 12 coaches, as there are a lot of units which only work one or two services in the peaks and go back to the depot/sidings for most of the day.

Not using 6 units (assuming they are 8 coaches) on pointless GatEx Gatwick shuttles from December would go a long way to strengthening services too.

I also don't see any reason why everything can't be 12 coaches on Saturdays, as there are a lot of units used on peak extras which are spare at the weekend - 6 units from the London Bridge to Coastway peak extras, 7 units from the peak time Gatwick portions of the Reigate services, 6 units from the Norwood Junction to London Bridge peak extras, and quite a few more.

I don’t disagree you could extend more, however it isn’t as easy as it sounds. You’d need to shuffle around diagrams to get the units attached and so on. Doable yes, but not necessarily easy.

 

[Class15]

A Clapham stop can be very time costly. Can easily be 2 to 3 mins stationary.....Seriously reduces line capacity.
A train following from Victoria cannot leave just 2 mins after a non stop Gatwick express without an extended time from Victoria to Croydon due to stopping outside Clapham for a free platform. . Same vice versa & there is the marketing downside of longer journey time to be balanced againt the door to door appeal of one’s car.

Just make the GatEx departure from victoria a couple of minutes earlier - in order to run non-stop I assume there’s a longer gap there than if both call at Clapham?

 

[cle]

Same vice versa & there is the marketing downside of longer journey time to be balanced againt the door to door appeal of one’s car.

The car is not a credible competitor on any journeys which involve Clapham Junction or Victoria/Central London, and Croydon, Gatwick, Brighton. It just isn't. It's not like the MML/M1, for instance.

And my POV here is that we could afford to lose a path by evenning out intervals (to enable Clapham / EC calls for every service) - we might lose 1 path per hour total, which is probably still more useful and utilitarian than 2tph mostly empty Gatwick Express passing through.