Crossrail extension onto WCML

[aylesbury2]

I can definitely see the attraction, wasn't one of the original plans for Crossrail 20 years ago that it would take over some services to Marylebone?

Correct - plans were afoot in the early 90s for Crossrail to run to AYS from MYB, however these were obviously shelved for some reason (could anyone enlighten us?)

 

[muddythefish]

Has this extension been costed ?

 

[Moonshot]

Has this extension been costed ?

Dont know , but its an excellent idea.

 

[jopsuk]

No, that's part of what a feasibility study (which is what has been announced) will look at

 

[edwin_m]

If you were going to do a wholesale rebuild south of Hanslope Junction, then DF-DS-US-UF would be preferable as it then enables a single island platform for the minor stations and turnback sidings are trivial. Complications would come from the link to the Bletchley flyover (though there would be plenty of room to bring the lines down between the slow lines, the curvature would be interesting to say the least), the junctions around Willesden, but ironically, I think the tunnels around Euston are probably sufficient for getting the fast services to where they need to be - ironic as these will then all be rebuilt for the Euston rebuild! Given most stations on the southern WCML have an island flanked by two side platforms you could then just close the side platforms off for the minor stations and vastly improve the safety situation of having fast trains passing though as well.

The problem with putting the slows in the middle is that the fast lines need to do a high-speed S-bend at each end of each station so as to spread out and make room for the platform. Usually on these routes the slow lines spread out by a lower-speed S-bend which doesn't need as much space. So converting it would require buying extra land and possibly demolishing houses on both sides of the line at both ends of every station - quite a big deal. Far easier just to put a flyover somewhere near Roade.

 

[The Planner]

Im not sure why people have gone off on a massive solution finding mission before there is even a problem. The running lines wont get moved or swapped at all on the WCML as part of this or any part of the HS2 works. The throat of Euston will get tweaked but thats about it, and I am willing to bet what I posted earlier about the Crossrail connection will pan out, it will be using the existing diveunder at Willesden with slightly faster turnouts at Wembley off the slows.

 

[LNW-GW Joint]

Correct - plans were afoot in the early 90s for Crossrail to run to AYS from MYB, however these were obviously shelved for some reason (could anyone enlighten us?)

This was before the Heathrow branch was built, when they were looking for a second western route for Crossrail.
Crossrail will replace Heathrow Connect instead.
Aylesbury was always difficult with the mixed working with the DC Met.

 

[MarkyT]

Perhaps the connection could look something like this:
http://www.townend.me/files/cr1-wcml.pdf

As part of a larger layout like this:
http://cdn.londonreconnections.com/2013/Townend-Old-Oak-3.pdf

 

[The Planner]

Nice pictures, not going to happen though.

 

[Metrailway]

Correct - plans were afoot in the early 90s for Crossrail to run to AYS from MYB, however these were obviously shelved for some reason (could anyone enlighten us?)

This was before the Heathrow branch was built, when they were looking for a second western route for Crossrail.
Crossrail will replace Heathrow Connect instead.
Aylesbury was always difficult with the mixed working with the DC Met.

Aylesbury via Amersham was still planned to be a branch well after the Heathrow branch was built and included in Crossrail. There was never any plan for joint working with the Met. The whole point of Crossrail to Aylesbury was to remove the Met and Chiltern north of Rickmansworth, freeing capacity at Marylebone and Baker Street for more services to Uxbridge, Watford, and High Wycombe.

The problem with the Aylesbury branch was the cost of the brand new station at Rickmansworth and major works at Harrow on the Hill, both required to take the longer Crossrail trains.

 

[edwin_m]

The problem with the Aylesbury branch was the cost of the brand new station at Rickmansworth and major works at Harrow on the Hill, both required to take the longer Crossrail trains.

Besides which when is the demand from Aylesbury ever going to justify a 200m train several times an hour?

 

[Metrailway]

Besides which when is the demand from Aylesbury ever going to justify a 200m train several times an hour?

Aylesbury's population today is a lot smaller than it was planned to be! Anyway it wasn't just Aylesbury, it was Amersham, Chesham and Northwood as well. The demand to Aylesbury and intemediate stations was considered to be greater than the demand along the 'rural' High Wycombe route.

IIRC there were only 4tph max going as far as Aylesbury with another 4tph being terminated at Amersham/Chesham.

The Met south of Harrow on the Hill was identified by LU to be one of the most overcrowded parts of the Underground in the 1980s and 1990s.

 

[cle]

Comparing the usage, the WCML stations are definitely better used than up to Wycombe. But it does make a little bit more sense. And the WCML slows seem to justify their own Crossrail, whereas the Wycombe slows are pretty scant and short.

Still, would require wiring and Euston needs the relief more than Marylebone, which still runs 2-3 car trains.

 

[AM9]

Has this extension been costed ?

On London local news a figure of £6 Billion was being bandied about, it sounds like the IEA have been asked to throw their 2 penn'th in.
And yes that was in addition to the current £15 billion total! Insane.

 

[Nym]

On London local news a figure of £6 Billion was being bandied about, it sounds like the IEA have been asked to throw their 2 penn'th in.
And yes that was in addition to the current £15 billion total! Insane.

15 additional trains with 9 cars at £1.4m per car comes in at £189m
Land and infrastructure costs in Old Oak for the 'cheap' link is likely to be around £150-250m as it uses a lot of current railway land, up to £300m if it's a properly nice tunnel.
Upgrades at Watford Junction would be optional but could come to around £100m for diverting platform 10 to re-join the DS to the North, running a new P11 alongside it to give a three island station to allow P9/10 to be used for non-crossrail terminating trains. Also associated changes to road access for the car park(s) for the extra foot fall.
£150-£180m for a depot in Brent (savings can be made at Old Oak and selling land to developers) or for bringing Bletchley into use for Crossrail (ECS from Tring) or new stabling facilities north of Watford.

I don't think I've missed anything significant there, one could lump in improvments to LOROL to connect OOC and Willesden Jcn together properly or divert through a double island loop as I've seen before but I reacon it can all be done inexpensively for under £1bn or very very nicely for £2bn.

 

[DXMachina]

Useful additional benefit of the Met and Crossrail meeting near the M25 is that it offers an alternative route to Croxley, Moor Park and the local stations west of Harrow On The Hill from Central and Eastern London

This possibly lifts passengers from the most overcrowded section of the Met lines as well as offering a route via Watford Junction that is potentially faster to the more outlying Met stops

 

[HSTEd]

15 additional trains with 9 cars at £1.4m per car comes in at £189m

I didn't realise a 9-car offering had won.... I thought they were going to be 10-car..... but anyway.
Wouldn't the transfer of Euston passengers likely force core loadings up to the point where it would be advisable to proceed to the 240m trains ASAP?

And how does one do 240m formations with these 22m carriages?

 

[Class377/5]

I didn't realise a 9-car offering had won.... I thought they were going to be 10-car..... but anyway.
Wouldn't the transfer of Euston passengers likely force core loadings up to the point where it would be advisable to proceed to the 240m trains ASAP?

And how does one do 240m formations with these 22m carriages?

They were expected to be 10 car 20m unit but now are a 9 car version of similar overall length.

 

[PeterY]

Tring seem a strange place run Crossrail to. Basically it's in the middle of nowhere and nearly two miles to Tring town centre.

Any problem on the southern section of the WCML Tring stoppers are the first trains cancelled.

Longitudinal seating. NO THANKS.

 

[swt_passenger]

Tring seem a strange place run Crossrail to. Basically it's in the middle of nowhere and nearly two miles to Tring town centre.

People are making a big assumption about it just being Tring services . The wording used in option K1 in the London and SE RUS reads as follows:

"The resulting 8tph via Watford Junction to Crossrail would replace most slow line services to London Euston."

 

[The Planner]

Tring is already set up for turnbacks and Watford wont get any new platforms as part of this, this will get done as cheaply as it can.

 

[Class 170101]

I agree with The Planner on this one it will be done as cheaply as possible. However it probably strengthens the case for Crossrail not having 10 trains terminating at Paddington / Old Oak Common so if they are quick perhaps some savings can be made in not constructing the turnback siding etc.

As for remarks about changing the configuation of the running lines on the WCML to look similar to the ECML (between Peterborough and Kings Cross). The engineering access for this would go out the window as to block the slow lines would require two separate possessions. This is unlikely and on the ECML usually only one slow line is blocked at a time.

 

[Stats]

I agree with The Planner on this one it will be done as cheaply as possible. However it probably strengthens the case for Crossrail not having 10 trains terminating at Paddington / Old Oak Common so if they are quick perhaps some savings can be made in not constructing the turnback siding etc.

14 trains turn at Paddington and with the best will in the world I cannot see 14tph directed up the WCML so you're still going to need the turnback. I would expect the service to be at most 2tph to Tring (possibly 4tph in the peaks) supplemented by an additional 2tph Watford Junction.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

14 trains turn at Paddington and with the best will in the world I cannot see 14tph directed up the WCML so you're still going to need the turnback. I would expect the service to be at most 2tph to Tring (possibly 4tph in the peaks) supplemented by an additional 2tph Watford Junction.

Agree. Also, I would imagine you probably want the turnback for flexibility. The last thing you'd want on a line like that is services killed in central London, where the line will be at its busiest, because of disruption at - say - Southall.

 

[LexyBoy]

I didn't realise a 9-car offering had won.... I thought they were going to be 10-car..... but anyway.
Wouldn't the transfer of Euston passengers likely force core loadings up to the point where it would be advisable to proceed to the 240m trains ASAP?

And how does one do 240m formations with these 22m carriages?

Presumably one would do 242 m formations? I don't know how tight the stations are for 240 m, but even if you can't quite squeeze 242 metres on you could just have the last set of doors not open - IIRC the trains will be fitted with SDO for some of the Anglia stations. With 3 sets of doors per side this shouldn't make much difference in dwell times.

Hopefully the option for extension will be reviewed soon into operation - though judging by previous experience one might expect it will be ignored until the design is outdated and the cost has risen...

Longitudinal seating. NO THANKS.

Good thing there will be transverse seating then!

 

[swt_passenger]

14 trains turn at Paddington and with the best will in the world I cannot see 14tph directed up the WCML so you're still going to need the turnback. I would expect the service to be at most 2tph to Tring (possibly 4tph in the peaks) supplemented by an additional 2tph Watford Junction.

London and SE RUS clearly reports it as an 8 tph service, and not just a token service to Tring. It also refers to 'most' slow line services, and it also suggests turn backs at Bletchley, but probably not Milton Keynes as being too far.

--- old post above --- --- new post below ---

Presumably one would do 242 m formations? I don't know how tight the stations are for 240 m, but even if you can't quite squeeze 242 metres on you could just have the last set of doors not open - IIRC the trains will be fitted with SDO for some of the Anglia stations. With 3 sets of doors per side this shouldn't make much difference in dwell times.

The Class 345 9 car train is supposedly 'just over 200m' according to Crossrail, but the online spec allowed for 'up to 205m' - Modern Railways reported each car being 22.5m, so around 202 or 203m. Possibly the end cars are slightly longer than the 7 intermediates but it's only overall length that matters. I've also seen written descriptions of them as a 205m unit - possibly based on the maximum in the spec...

The Crossrail platform tunnels were planned to be 245m between headwalls to allow for eventual 240m trains (presumably with that same 5m extra allowance), but were originally only going to be fitted out as necessary for 200m trains. Scaling up the 345 to an 11 car version pro-rata it would therefore be about 247m long, but could well be a bit less depending on the slight difference between intermediate and end cars.

However there are also descriptions on the Crossrail website suggesting the station boxes are well over the above lengths, with Paddington being described as a 260m box. So what we are possibly looking at is only minor differences between where they build the public facing 'platform end' and the real end of the platform a few metres behind it where they'd normally hide engineering stuff; so there seems no problem extending the platform by a metre or two, and therefore little likelihood of even an 11 car version needing any SDO.

 

[Altnabreac]

My guess is the 8tph WCML slows would consist of:

4tph from Tring as an all day service and formed by using the paths of the following services:
The current 2tph Tring terminators.
The current 1tph Milton Keynes - Euston slow.
The current 1tph Milton Keynes - South Croydon.

With regards the Milton Keynes slow 1tph it runs only 6 minutes behind the London Midland Birmingham – Northampton – Euston service that is fast to Euston from Leighton Buzzard. If the hourly Cheddington call were added to the preceding fast Leighton Buzzard service then the xx.47 Milton Keynes could instead start at Tring without much loss of connectivity.

The Milton Keynes – South Croydon Southern service is then either cut back to start at Watford Junction or runs fast Watford – Leighton Buzzard in a different time slot to free up the 4th Tring slow path.

The other 4tph will be from Watford Junction calling Bushey, Harrow & Wealdstone & Wembley Central. This would allow removal of the 2 peak London Midland Watford – Euston services and could allow Tring services to skip stops south of Watford. These could either be peak only or 2tph peak, 2tph off peak.

The other 6tph terminators west of Paddington are proposed in the London & SE RUS for Heathrow. This assumes that HEx is not granted new track access rights on GWML post 2023 and Heathrow Airport is willing to allow these extra services to run onto the private airport rail infrastructure.

The likelihood of this happening will depend on the passenger numbers on HEx post crossrail. If they are losing more and more people to the 4tph direct to city and canary wharf and HEx is cesing to be the current cash cow, you'd suspect a Crossrail expansion to Heathrow will be easier to agree. Don't expect any movement until at least 2 years post Crossrail opening though as both Tfl and Heathrow will want to see what effect Crossrail has before negotiating.

 

[edwin_m]

The Class 345 9 car train is supposedly 'just over 200m' according to Crossrail, but the online spec allowed for 'up to 205m' - Modern Railways reported each car being 22.5m, so around 202 or 203m. Possibly the end cars are slightly longer than the 7 intermediates but it's only overall length that matters. I've also seen written descriptions of them as a 205m unit - possibly based on the maximum in the spec...

The Crossrail platform tunnels were planned to be 245m between headwalls to allow for eventual 240m trains (presumably with that same 5m extra allowance), but were originally only going to be fitted out as necessary for 200m trains. Scaling up the 345 to an 11 car version pro-rata it would therefore be about 247m long, but could well be a bit less depending on the slight difference between intermediate and end cars.

However there are also descriptions on the Crossrail website suggesting the station boxes are well over the above lengths, with Paddington being described as a 260m box. So what we are possibly looking at is only minor differences between where they build the public facing 'platform end' and the real end of the platform a few metres behind it where they'd normally hide engineering stuff; so there seems no problem extending the platform by a metre or two, and therefore little likelihood of even an 11 car version needing any SDO.

I suspect the bodyshell is 22.5m and the gangways/couplers make it up to a bit less than 23m, in which case the entire unit excluding the end couplers could be 205m. As far as I know the CCTV monitors will be in the cab and an emergency walkway will continue into the tunnel from each platform end so there is no problem with one or both cabs stopping slightly beyond the headwall. In fact this may be the intention, as it means the driver can exit the cab into a non-passenger area and there is no need for a separately worked platform screen door to align with the cab door.

 

[mr_jrt]

Comparing the usage, the WCML stations are definitely better used than up to Wycombe. But it does make a little bit more sense. And the WCML slows seem to justify their own Crossrail, whereas the Wycombe slows are pretty scant and short.

Still, would require wiring and Euston needs the relief more than Marylebone, which still runs 2-3 car trains.

I'm inclined to disagree - Euston has ample platform capacity...Marylebone may run some short trains, but don't forget all the longer Birmingham services, nor the fact they double up short trains on single platforms.

Relief at Euston will be for the Underground, not the platforms.

 

[Chris125]

I'm inclined to disagree - Euston has ample platform capacity...

It does now, but during and after the HS2 rebuild?

Chris