For a depot just send them down to one of the various EMU depots as willesden. If the Dudden hill line is electrified for the west London orbital. that would negate the need for a new depot.
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Aylesbury electrification - how would this happen?
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But in what world is Aylesbury suitable for a brand new fleet of EMUs? In this world we're imagineering, the Chiltern lines are getting a brand new fleet of trains, probably replacing everything they currently have.
Standard procedure would be for a new depot to be built to carry out the major maintenance, e.g. Northampton, Northam, Filton... Electrification to Aylesbury purely to use the depot that was built for something else would be pointless, just build something new at Bicester or something.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Aside from those working there I don't think Aylesbury depot is particularly popular with locals as it's right in the built up area, though if it became an EMU depot that might be different. One thing of note is prominent signs banning drivers from using compressor speed-up to charge the air system when starting up a unit (that's when the units are revved up while stationary after startup). It's probably also very lucrative development land, unlike a random field somewhere along the main Chiltern route.
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I suspect were this approach taken it would mean additional Baker St-Aylesbury services rather than cramming people onto the existing ones.
I think overall I'm more inclined to think moving the infrequent LU Met services (Amersham/Chesham/Watford) onto an electrified Chiltern might be a better bet, concentrating the Met on the shorter distance services within Greater London. Though Marylebone itself is a bit of a constraint at present (both in terms of platforms and passenger capacity to get onto the Tube in particular) - how much it remains so depends on whether Great British Railways continues with lower fares via High Wycombe.
Bicester would probably be a decent location as it would be able to maintain the trains for EWR too without lengthy ECS moves
I second this. Chiltern would probably operate a better service to Watford from the north. Even a 1tph Aylesbury-Watford would be better than the current meagre TFL service.
However I think TFL shouldn't completely abandon the Met Watford branch and All the London bound services from Watford should be Met line.
All the Met line services beyond Watford I would definitely transfer to Chiltern.
Started a new thread for Aylesbury electrification discussion and reported this one for the mods to move remaining posts - you may want to move over there:
Aylesbury electrification - how would this happen?
(Also, I’ve always thought that third rail is the best idea for the tunnels out of Marylebone, particularly for already dual-voltage Aylesbury services) yeah if new conductor rail was allowed this would be the best option. Would you have changover for Birmingham trains at Harrow on the Hill but...www.railforums.co.uk
There's not enough capacity for that many services (e.g. extra stuff off the Met Line) into London.
To be honest, just get rid of Chesham and run a frequent bus service between Berkhamsted and Amersham, and stick it in journey planners so people can do something like Hemel - Aylesbury with minimal fuss.
You could probably run some longer trains from Aylesbury Vale Parkway - Marylebone via Amersham, and at rush hour make sure they don't stop from Amersham or Chalfont up to Harrow. Then overlay some Amersham - Harrow shuttles, all Chiltern. Platform 5 you can terminate and reverse, and you could add in Moor Park stops to get the connections for Watford. Hopefully the Met line does eventually get extended to Watford Junction.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
While 5-car is about as long as AVP-MYB usually gets (though there might be the odd 6, I forget) they do exactly that. The 0619 on a weekday morning is all stations to Amersham then fast to Marylebone (I could have sworn that a while back it even missed Amersham but this seems to have been reinstated), and the 0723 is the same but with an added Harrow stop. The 0619 is a particularly nice train as it is a pair of 168s to get them down to Marylebone for use on other services - there are a couple of those in the evening going back too.
Even if fares between London and Birmingham are aligned at a higher level, there would still be a need to provide a reasonably fast 2tph from Marylebone to Banbury and beyond, and Marylebone to Oxford, with some other slower services, so I don't think there is lots of capacity which could be released at Marylebone.
As posted on the other thread (entirely my fault), there's a lot of options here.
Get rid of Met line services via Rickmansworth in entirety, and procure a suitable Metro fleet that does diesel and AC according to the Chiltern plans for 'discontinuous electrification'.
Watford Junction extension of the Met line as a must, allowing at least 6tph. Also, extend the Bakerloo through, which as part of the Lewisham / Hayes extension can be factored in as a capital cost. That way London Overground only has to run a shuttle from Euston to Queens Park, or, at most, Willesden Junction low level bay.
Quarter-hourly all-day service from Aylesbury to London. Half-hourly back from Vale Parkway, with an all-day express path non-stop from Chalfont to Harrow. Close Chesham, replace it with a bus service from Amersham to Berkhamsted, and run it in the journey planners.
Overlay this with an Amersham to Harrow on the Hill shuttle, using Platform 5 to reverse. Dedicated tracks from Watford South Jn would mean Met line trains only using the slow lines between Moor Park and Harrow.
If Aylesbury Depot is that bad, extend the wires north to Calvert to hook up with an eventually electrified East West route. Use all the land at either Quainton Road, or Calvert, for a depot as well as a link between EWR / Aylesbury, so that trains can run from Princes Risborough to Milton Keynes (every 30 minutes, also electrified). You would need a dynamic loop somewhere on the Aylesbury - Risborough bit.
Keep Aylesbury depot as a strategic set of carriage sidings / stabling, with north end exit / entry to get to / from Claydon / Vale Parkway.
Released Met line stock allows a few extra Uxbridge trains or extra capacity towards Watford Junction.
Get rid of Met line services via Rickmansworth in entirety, and procure a suitable Metro fleet that does diesel and AC according to the Chiltern plans for 'discontinuous electrification'.
Watford Junction extension of the Met line as a must, allowing at least 6tph. Also, extend the Bakerloo through, which as part of the Lewisham / Hayes extension can be factored in as a capital cost. That way London Overground only has to run a shuttle from Euston to Queens Park, or, at most, Willesden Junction low level bay.
Quarter-hourly all-day service from Aylesbury to London. Half-hourly back from Vale Parkway, with an all-day express path non-stop from Chalfont to Harrow. Close Chesham, replace it with a bus service from Amersham to Berkhamsted, and run it in the journey planners.
Overlay this with an Amersham to Harrow on the Hill shuttle, using Platform 5 to reverse. Dedicated tracks from Watford South Jn would mean Met line trains only using the slow lines between Moor Park and Harrow.
If Aylesbury Depot is that bad, extend the wires north to Calvert to hook up with an eventually electrified East West route. Use all the land at either Quainton Road, or Calvert, for a depot as well as a link between EWR / Aylesbury, so that trains can run from Princes Risborough to Milton Keynes (every 30 minutes, also electrified). You would need a dynamic loop somewhere on the Aylesbury - Risborough bit.
Keep Aylesbury depot as a strategic set of carriage sidings / stabling, with north end exit / entry to get to / from Claydon / Vale Parkway.
Released Met line stock allows a few extra Uxbridge trains or extra capacity towards Watford Junction.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Certainly, but it might not be as passenger-heavy if London-Brum is the same price (walk up) by both routes. Once HS2 comes along you've also got the pressure to get people onto there and not to price them onto existing services.
What's happened to the Oxfords might give an indication of what we might see - potentially more slower and more regular-interval services to prioritise the commuter stations over a competitive Birmingham-Marylebone service (e.g. more stops at places like Haddenham, Wycombe and Risborough), but probably cheaper fares of some sort than the WCML. It could mean fewer passengers at MYB though even if it doesn't mean fewer train movements.
cactustwirly
Established Member
It's no different to Reading which is also quite built up.
Aylesbury is a good location as its quite central in the Chiltern network and requires minimal ECS workings.
A random field off the Chiltern network would be expensive as it would require more ECS workings, and would be difficult to get planning permission for as most of the route is in the Chilterns. Unless it was somewhere like Banbury
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
Reading depot has a park behind it and an industrial estate on the other side. Aylesbury has housing right up to it.
Also Reading is now an EMU depot, mostly.
Somewhere north of Bicester would be fine, there are plenty of fields to buy relatively cheaply and the trains could easily start service southbound at Bicester North in the morning (or run ECS to Oxford/Banbury and start there), and that's the bulk of the main commuter service.
I'd go south of Bicester personally, as there'd be no need for reversal on the main lines to get to/from Oxford and EWR. There's a whole lot of not much going on round there, only Haddenham station before Princes Risborough.
Bicester North has a reversing siding to alleviate any access moves there.
Bletchleyite
Veteran Member
There is considerable commuter traffic from Bicester North - really that is the outer edge of the commuter belt, though there's also some from Banbury it's rather less (perhaps compare to Rugby vs. Northampton). Though units could run ECS to there I suppose.
As I added - Bicester North has a reversing siding and the up platform is bi-di, so bringing trains into service there would be pretty easy.
Bicester Village is also bi-di on both tracks with access to the main line, so starting southbound from either Bicester station wouldn't be an issue.
Though this is hardly the biggest issue in terms of depot location.
Do Amersham / Aylesbury need a frequent enough service that Chesham couldn't be served at all? It has a similar number of passengers as Berkhamsted, Kettering and Bognor Regis. I wonder how popular extending such a bus service to Hemel Hempstead town centre would be, although the existing service is only roughly hourly.
I don't think it would necessarily be a major issue with tube services south of Harrow-on-the-Hill being frequent, but I can't see removing all direct services from northwest of Moor Park to the Jubilee line at Finchley Road and King's Cross St. Pancras and the City of London being massively popular. Crossrail to Chalfont and beyond would solve most of those issues (beyond the lack of a cross-platform interchange to the Jubilee), but if the budget were there to do that, that wouldn't be where I'd finish.
It is a lot easier to move trains than people. If Aylesbury has traincrew then they will still need to sign on and off there, and have work to do.
On the other hand, it is not essential for the traincrew and the trains to be in the same place, see the GN with traincrew at Kings Cross and Hitchin but trains at Hornsey and Letchworth.
The November 2024 EWR consultation technical report had a bit to say about depots and sidings, but not much, see sections 14.4 and 14.5.
It does not provide a list of potential locations, only maps, but does include two possible depot locations either side of Bicester, and another between Bletchley and Winslow (figure 146).
That is different from having the main depot for the maintenance of a fleet there. If the main line operator continues to serve the routes that it does then there will probably be a need to stable trains in or near to Aylesbury. So retaining a crew depot whilst moving the major depot elsewhere is entirely plausible.
MatthewHutton
Member
To be fair a depot in a field between Haddenham and Princes Risborough would probably reduce the number of empty stock moves.
I don't think tube-size trains and mainline-size trains sharing platforms at Watford High Street will be allowed.
You may be thinking of the old triangle depot, some sidings of which have been retained for overflow stabling but most facilities have moved over to the north side.
There is terraced housing partway along parallel Cardiff Road for about 300m immediately behind the new depot at its eastern end. When DMU operations first moved over from the old triangle site, there were many complaints from local residents about overnight noise with stories in local papers. I expect complaints will have declined since the electrics have largely taken over. Beyond the housing, Cardiff Rd continues for another 500m to join Cow Lane, but becomes industrial in character.
The Planner
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They are up to Harrow?
The rules about what you can introduce as a new thing now are different to what you're allowed to carry on doing from before. The step down into the tube trains is significant.
Western Lord
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The Metropolitan line does not use tube-size trains.
No, but the proposal upthread was to extend Bakerloo trains from Harrow to Watford Junction in lieu of the Overground. The only solution would be two single lines through Watford High Street Station, so each platform could cater for one type of train, with a scissors crossing immediately to the north, and accept whatever constraint that would put on the timetable(s). Not that I think the Croxley-Watford High St link is any kind of priority, as it only caters for a niche of travel in the grand scheme of things.
I recall previous suggestions to build additional side platforms for the lower-floored tube stock. The high floor Met trains would open their doors onto the existing centre island. The idea might work on the down side, but recent development close to the tracks on the up side likely makes it impossible for the London-bound direction. An alternative idea might be to slew the tracks further apart for a distance as required towards London and build a lower level extension of the island between them with Met and Bakerloo services stopping at different places along its length. This would avoid separate access arrangements for separate platforms, but the line is transitioning into a 300m radius curve at this point so horizontal stepping distance might be a challenge.
RPM
Established Member
Slightly off topic, but most of the adjoining housing at Aylesbury was built after the depot was established, so those living there should have known about noise issues prior to moving in.
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Use of the turnback siding at Bicester North is kept to a minumum as noise/vibration issues to adjoining properties have been a very hot potato in the past.
RPM
Established Member
The vibration is relevant. It comes from the zig-zag weld along the railhead (I forget the proper name for it).
Interesting, thanks!
In speculative mode, the Lioness could be run by new tube stock and given dedicated platforms at Euston. This would allow all platforms shared with the Bakerloo to be made level for both lines.
The Jubilee West Hampstead and Willesden Green terminators could be extended to Wembley Park and take over the stopping lines to Harrow-On-The-Hill. From there, half could take over the Uxbridge service, allowing that line to be rebuilt level with the Piccadilly and so getting rid of nearly all the compromise height platforms in London. The other half could take over the stopping lines to Moor Park and the Croxley Link to Watford Junction, so Watford High Street could be rebuilt for two tube gauge lines.
This would knock two branches off the Metropolitan Line, so you could build a new line (with no demolition) from Northwood Hills fast lines to (electrified) Denham to give the Metropolitan a branch to High Wycombe or Oxford. The new faster Met would also take over the service through Wendover.
Much of the remaining Chiltern service could run to Marylebone via the new route, thus removing some or all fast trains from the Sudbury route, allowing a better local Marylebone service at the Sudburys. This would end the ridiculous present situation of the twin track Sudburys route being crammed and the six-track route through Preston Road being less than half full. (Denham to Neasden Junction via the new route would be a kilometre longer than the Sudburys route, but I don't know if it would be faster or slower - hopefully faster due to no platforms apart from Harrow-On-The-Hill).
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