Extending Crossrail up the Chiltern Mainline

[EllieAquitrain]

It appears to me all these proposals are similar to what I'd call "branch-phobia". In the same way some people can't bear to see railway lines terminating anywhere that isn't the seaside or, for metro, the edge of the conurbation, so retrofit a project to 'fix' that (Okehampton - Bere Alston, Stratford - Honeybourne, the Waterloo & City Line in general), I reckon that also applies to services terminating short of the end of their infrastructure.

I'm not saying anything like "never extend lines"; many can be useful (Crossrail to Dartford/Ebbsfleet, Northern Line to Battersea, Overground to Barking Riverside, Jubilee Line Extension to name a few in London alone). I'm saying I think some people only support such projects because it frustrates them to see the lines on the map not connecting.

 

[David Goddard]

Like those that keep asking about "when will Chessington to Leatherhead be completed"

 

[cle]

At first glance, these 12tph should really go somewhere. But having them start at OOC will be critical for HS2 and GWML passengers and capacity there. In turn, that will relief the strain of interchanges at Paddington - or at least split it up somewhat. Chance of a seat and a quicker change should see OOC be preferable.

Perhaps in a future where the western corridor is booming, Relief line paths are identified, stopping patterns toyed with and Covid is long behind us, we might see some of them run on to Heathrow or the Hayes bay/West Drayton, but only a handful. They will be needed at OOC, especially before HS2 reaches Euston!

 

[Jamiescott1]

Part of the decision making process when people decide where to live in a commuter town is "how long is my commute and which London terminal do I arrive in".
If you're suddenly diverting lots of wycombe trains away from Marylebone and increasing the journey time, then you're inconveniencing a lot of commuters.

If my train went paddington instead of Marylebone, then that's an extra 10 minutes each way to commute once in London, in addition to the longer journey time

 

[tbtc]

It appears to me all these proposals are similar to what I'd call "branch-phobia". In the same way some people can't bear to see railway lines terminating anywhere that isn't the seaside or, for metro, the edge of the conurbation, so retrofit a project to 'fix' that (Okehampton - Bere Alston, Stratford - Honeybourne, the Waterloo & City Line in general), I reckon that also applies to services terminating short of the end of their infrastructure.

I'm not saying anything like "never extend lines"; many can be useful (Crossrail to Dartford/Ebbsfleet, Northern Line to Battersea, Overground to Barking Riverside, Jubilee Line Extension to name a few in London alone). I'm saying I think some people only support such projects because it frustrates them to see the lines on the map not connecting.

YES!

See also "extend the Tweedbank line to Carlisle" and "Alloa to Dunfermline" - plus the recent suggestion that the Sheffield - Gainsborough Central service be extended to Barton on Humber, because some people can't bear the idea of a service terminating at a station without buffers.

This is the kind of nonsense responsible for the situation where Arriva planed a "Northern Connect" diagram scheduled to run Nottingham - Sheffield - Wakefield Westgate - Leeds - Bradford - Halifax - Rochdale - Manchester Victoria - Manchester Piccadilly - Manchester Airport each hour (managing two reversals on its guided tour of all the north of England bottlenecks) - because we can't simply have a service terminate "short".

 

[Sad Sprinter]

It appears to me all these proposals are similar to what I'd call "branch-phobia". In the same way some people can't bear to see railway lines terminating anywhere that isn't the seaside or, for metro, the edge of the conurbation, so retrofit a project to 'fix' that (Okehampton - Bere Alston, Stratford - Honeybourne, the Waterloo & City Line in general), I reckon that also applies to services terminating short of the end of their infrastructure.

I'm not saying anything like "never extend lines"; many can be useful (Crossrail to Dartford/Ebbsfleet, Northern Line to Battersea, Overground to Barking Riverside, Jubilee Line Extension to name a few in London alone). I'm saying I think some people only support such projects because it frustrates them to see the lines on the map not connecting.

Guilty as charged.

But this is hardly surprising. Branches are one of the things that make railways interesting. I'm quite surprised to see the number of metro systems around the world that are comprised of mostly end-to-end lines. Efficient maybe, but you don't get the plethora of services that you may get on the London Underground, or the rare odditties such as Hainault via Woodford trains (saw one of those in December which made my morning-sad I know), Tooting to Mill Hill East via Charing Cross trains or what have you. It's why people always want to stick Ramsgate, Liverpool or Brighton back on the XC map-it's literally just interesting and makes a hobby such as rail enthusiasm more engaging when you see a complicated map or timetable to study.

 

[mr_jrt]

Difference of course with the Chiltern lines is the rather massive constraint that is Marylebone. Removing services from it is the only way you're going to be able to run more on the line, and OOC is really the only place they can go. ...and if you think people have issues with terminating services within a central area, just wait until you hear what they think about terminating incoming ones on the edge of one!

If the Chiltern line is so quiet and undeserving then HS2 passengers will still have their spare capacity to use, but you've freed up a few platforms at Marylebone and provided a direct service between the Crossrail corridor and the under-utilised growth corridor up to High Wycombe.

If the Chiltern line is so busy it will consume all the capacity, then it needs the line...

 

[daodao]

Difference of course with the Chiltern lines is the rather massive constraint that is Marylebone. Removing services from it is the only way you're going to be able to run more on the line, and OOC is really the only place they can go. ...and if you think people have issues with terminating services within a central area, just wait until you hear what they think about terminating incoming ones on the edge of one!

If the Chiltern line is so quiet and undeserving then HS2 passengers will still have their spare capacity to use, but you've freed up a few platforms at Marylebone and provided a direct service between the Crossrail corridor and the under-utilised growth corridor up to High Wycombe.

If the Chiltern line is so busy it will consume all the capacity, then it needs the line...

it is completely unacceptable to terminate any Chiltern line services at OOC, in the middle of nowhere and miles from central London, if one wishes the Chiltern line to remain viable. If there is a capacity problem at Marylebone, or the site is considered valuable real estate that is best used for other purposes, then the solutions are:

• Re-extend the Metropolitan line to Aylesbury and electrify the Amersham-Aylesbury section using the LUL 4th rail system.
• Extend Cross-Rail to High Wycombe to cover local services, and electrify this section
• Close local stations between South Ruislip and Marylebone and divert long-distance services (running beyond High Wycombe) to run non-stop to OOC and then Paddington

 

[Meerkat]

it is completely unacceptable to terminate any Chiltern line services at OOC, in the middle of nowhere and miles from central London, if one wishes the Chiltern line to remain viable. If there is a capacity problem at Marylebone, or the site is considered valuable real estate that is best used for other purposes, then the solutions are:

• Re-extend the Metropolitan line to Aylesbury and electrify the Amersham-Aylesbury section using the LUL 4th rail system.
• Extend Cross-Rail to High Wycombe to cover local services, and electrify this section
• Close local stations between South Ruislip and Marylebone and divert long-distance services (running beyond High Wycombe) to run non-stop to OOC and then Paddington

With connections onto Crossrail and HS2 OOC will be less middle of nowhere than Marylebone!

 

[leytongabriel]

With connections onto Crossrail and HS2 OOC will be less middle of nowhere than Marylebone!

How many people won't want to get involved in the kind of complicated tiresome 'connections' that transport planners have installed at Kings Cross St Pancras or in places on the Jubilee line? New law - the more recent the connection the worser it is.

 

[AlbertBeale]

How many people won't want to get involved in the kind of complicated tiresome 'connections' that transport planners have installed at Kings Cross St Pancras or in places on the Jubilee line? New law - the more recent the connection the worser it is.

Absolutely! I mostly avoid the Jubilee east of Baker Street, if there's any feasible alternative route (unless my journey starts and finishes on it), since all the interchanges are such a hassle.

And the Midland Main Line to and from the Met and Circle underground at St Pancras is connection which is much worse now than before the station refurbishment. And London Bridge connections are less comprehensible now too. It's amazing how even with updating existing connections they're often made much harder after the "improvements".

 

[mr_jrt]

Same argument for not routing via and having passive provision for platforms on the NLE at Vauxhall. Too many people would interchange, apparently. Assuming that the NLE eventuially makes it to Clapham Junction, quite why somebody would get off their mainline train there and change to the NLE to get to Victoria by interchanging at Vauxhall I could never quite fathom. Likewise, I could never quite fathom why they would get off their nice mainline train at Vauxhall to continue onwards to Bank on the Northern Line when they could stay on it and change at Waterloo for the W&C. Likewise, you have Waterloo East to get to London Bridge, and so on. Interchanges have to be awful nowadays, apparently. Is it still the case that the best way to interchange on the tube at Kings Cross is to ignore all the signage completely as that way you avoid the scenic route?

 

[The Ham]

I suspect that (like Crossrail 2 will still have metro services going to Waterloo due to the complaints from those for whom that was the station they wished to go to rather than everyone needing to go to the City) that there would need to be a hybrid setup.

That would likely mean that there would be a mix of Marylebone services and OOC (& through the Crossrail core) services.

However to facilitate this would require more services further out to ensure a reasonable frequency of services (at least 2tph to each central London option), which would likely be costly to provide the upgrades to facilitate this.

 

[mr_jrt]

...I can't imagine there's that many people wanting Marylebone itself, and for those that do you change at Paddington to the Bakerloo, or to the Circle and walk from Baker Street or Edgware Road.

 

[AlbertBeale]

Same argument for not routing via and having passive provision for platforms on the NLE at Vauxhall. Too many people would interchange, apparently. Assuming that the NLE eventuially makes it to Clapham Junction, quite why somebody would get off their mainline train there and change to the NLE to get to Victoria by interchanging at Vauxhall I could never quite fathom. Likewise, I could never quite fathom why they would get off their nice mainline train at Vauxhall to continue onwards to Bank on the Northern Line when they could stay on it and change at Waterloo for the W&C. Likewise, you have Waterloo East to get to London Bridge, and so on. Interchanges have to be awful nowadays, apparently. Is it still the case that the best way to interchange on the tube at Kings Cross is to ignore all the signage completely as that way you avoid the scenic route?

You can't get the new bit of the Northern Line to Bank anyway without a further change, even if you could easily change from the main line to it at Vauxhall or anywhere else in the first place - it can only access the Charing Cross branch. Some of the early propaganda (years ago) for routing the new Northern Line branch to the development zone around Nine Elms (rather than extending it somewhere to the south where there's more need) was that it would link Nine Elms, Battersea, etc, to the City [since they already had West End links via main line trains to Victoria and the Victoria Line underground]. But of course that was always dishonest - there was never a feasible plan to connect a new route to the tunnels at Kennington in a way that would have enabled City branch trains to use the new route. But of course developers' money won out over existing Londoners' needs.

 

[kevin_roche]

There appears to be a plan to have some of the Elizabeth line trains turn round at Old Oak common rather than Westbourne Park. Are any changes needed to the lines between Paddington and OOC to allow more trains to use them? They are already planned to take 12 trains per hour, I don't see how they can handle more without some extra lines or signalling changes. Does anyone here have any idea if the plan is feasible and if so what is planned to make it work?

 

[CW2]

There appears to be a plan to have some of the Elizabeth line trains turn round at Old Oak common rather than Westbourne Park. Are any changes needed to the lines between Paddington and OOC to allow more trains to use them? They are already planned to take 12 trains per hour, I don't see how they can handle more without some extra lines or signalling changes. Does anyone here have any idea if the plan is feasible and if so what is planned to make it work?

As far as I am aware, once the new station at Old Oak Common is operational then the turnback facility at Westbourne Park will be largely redundant, with all the trains which were planned to reverse there now doing so at Old Oak Common instead. The existing signalling and track layout will obviousy be modified to take into account the new station, but nothing extra between there and Paddington as far as I know.

 

[Horizon22]

Bringing this up on a separate point - the connection between GWML and the line up to South Ruislip has been ripped up so this is all a bit of a moot point unless HS2 / Crossrail decide to reinstate it.

It might instead be an idea (speculative nonetheless, inspired by me passing by Greenford the other day!) if nothing concrete has been planned for the line to rip up the track and turn it into a cycleway - an express route all the way to OOC for Ealing / Greenford / Ruislip commuters and beyond.

 

[cle]

Once upon a time, West Ealing to High Wycombe was mentioned, as an extension of the Greenford service - offering the Crossrail connection at West Ealing (onto the London-bound platform, no less).

Then again, 4tph was promised too (and wires on the various branches) - those have disappeared too.

 

[Horizon22]

Once upon a time, West Ealing to High Wycombe was mentioned, as an extension of the Greenford service - offering the Crossrail connection at West Ealing (onto the London-bound platform, no less).

Then again, 4tph was promised too (and wires on the various branches) - those have disappeared too.

Utilising the Greenford branch is certainly more practical in my eyes than utilising the Greenford - Hanger Lane - Acton section.