Extending the District line to Uxbridge

[Samuel88]

Apparently in a few years time the Piccadliy line will be taking over the Ealing Broadway branch of the District line. I personally feel that this is a bad idea as the Uxbridge branch already suffers during times of disruption as the Heathrow branch always gets priority.
So instead of adding a third branch to the Piccadilly line why not send all non Heathrow trains to Ealing Broadway and extend the District line to Uxbridge?

 

[Bald Rick]

Apparently in a few years time the Piccadliy line will be taking over the Ealing Broadway branch of the District line. I personally feel that this is a bad idea as the Uxbridge branch already suffers during times of disruption as the Heathrow branch always gets priority.
So instead of adding a third branch to the Piccadilly line why not send all non Heathrow trains to Ealing Broadway and extend the District line to Uxbridge?

Principally because there aren’t enough District line trains, but there will be enough of the new Piccadilly line trains.

 

[swt_passenger]

This isn’t speculation, it’s a published TfL plan.

There are at least a couple of existing threads about this in the LU sub-forum. It’s all about providing capacity to terminate far more Piccadilly Line trains at the west end of their route once that line is upgraded. The displaced District line trains will be used to increase the overall service frequency at Richmond and Wimbledon.

Main discussion can be found here:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/threads/piccadilly-line-to-ealing-broadway.157702/

A link to the source of the TfL plan can be found here:
https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...h-to-acton-express-lines.147510/#post-3105682

 

[Taunton]

So instead of adding a third branch to the Piccadilly line why not send all non Heathrow trains to Ealing Broadway and extend the District line to Uxbridge?

Fourth branch, actually, as Heathrow has separately the T5 line and the T4 loop. Which are a problem already as the order of the trains from the opposite side of London can be very disrupted. It can be further disorganised when, as I noticed a couple of days ago, 1 and 3 were only to Northfields, 2 was Rayners Lane, 4 was Heathrow T5, and Heathrow T4 Loop was not even on the board. Which, of course, was extolling a "Good Service". A poor approach to an airport service. It is incidentally a fiction that trains to the T4 Loop also then serve the central terminals, as they normally take an extended layover at the T4 station, sometimes the best part of 10 minutes and enough to delay the one following, and are almost always overtaken to the centre by a subsequent T5 service.