How could London Marylebone capacity be increased?

[AMR]

Basically I thought you could buy the bottom floor of the bank as well as the glass roof to make 5/10 new platforms to make them the same length as the longer ones. This is expensive but thats what you need in the rail business. Cheap fixes never go down well.

A lot of residential property to buy up for what look like short platforms.

 

[Bald Rick]

You don’t just buy the bottom floor of a building and move the trains in. You knock it down, clear the site, then start again. If you think Euston is contentious, doing this at Marylebone would be more so. It would be several billion quid.

 

[mr_jrt]

...that's basically what I was suggesting earlier in the thread. You sell the air rights over the station and bulldoze the building. The replacement building goes over the station. Odds are, you would be extremely lucky to even break even if you gave the entire replacement larger building to the bank as payment for the current one. Would be nice, but I doubt Marylebone needs that capacity now the option of a bored long mainline-sized tunnel is more viable than it was in 1899. That's a lot of platform for the suburban services Chiltern offer, and that's before you consider that OOC might end up being a better destination than Marylebone for a large proportion of them.

 

[AMR]

You don’t just buy the bottom floor of a building and move the trains in. You knock it down, clear the site, then start again. If you think Euston is contentious, doing this at Marylebone would be more so. It would be several billion quid.

So if its needed its needed.

 

[Bald Rick]

...that's basically what I was suggesting earlier in the thread. You sell the air rights over the station and bulldoze the building. The replacement building goes over the station. Odds are, you would be extremely lucky to even break even if you gave the entire replacement larger building to the bank as payment for the current one. Would be nice, but I doubt Marylebone needs that capacity now the option of a bored long mainline-sized tunnel is more viable than it was in 1899. That's a lot of platform for the suburban services Chiltern offer, and that's before you consider that OOC might end up being a better destination than Marylebone for a large proportion of them.

And you wouldn’t need to expand Marylebone unless it was 4 tracked in ... which it isn’t going to be.

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So if its needed its needed.

Euston is. Marylebone isn’t. And everything has a price!

I really, really need an Aston Martin and an underground garage to put it in. That’s not happening either.

 

[AMR]

And you wouldn’t need to expand Marylebone unless it was 4 tracked in ... which it isn’t going to be.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Jan 2021 ==



Euston is. Marylebone isn’t. And everything has a price!

I really, really need an Aston Martin and an underground garage to put it in. That’s not happening either.

Ok, I think your idea of money cost is a little tinted, a job like this would cause around 5-10 billion. A bus shelter in a town south of Manchester a Northern City is part of a 1 billion regen scheme and 75% of funding is for that. So this isn't as expensive as you think for doubling the size. Especially for a already congested city which needs to expand.

 

[BrianW]

Care to provide evidence for that quote ?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 18 Jan 2021 ==

A near miss/misquote?

Don't let it pass you by

Buses do not deserve their low profile. Two out every three journeys made by public transport are made by bus compared with less than one in five by rail (including underground and metro). But politicians shy away from them; their image is poor. Margaret Thatcher is supposed to have said that...

www.theguardian.com

Did Margaret Thatcher say bus users over the age of 25 were failures? – Full Fact

The quote appears to have been coined by a poet. It has since been attributed to Mrs Thatcher, but we don’t know whether she ever quoted it.

fullfact.org

‘Anyone over the age of thirty catching a bus can consider himself ...

In Zadie Smith’s most recent novel, NW (2012), characters are always on the move, taking buses, or missing buses; talking to strangers on buses, getting off a stop too early to escape them. They mo...

journals.openedition.org

 

[Bald Rick]

Ok, I think your idea of money cost is a little tinted, a job like this would cause around 5-10 billion. A bus shelter in a town south of Manchester a Northern City is part of a 1 billion regen scheme and 75% of funding is for that. So this isn't as expensive as you think for doubling the size. Especially for a already congested city which needs to expand.

Sorry I don’t understand what you mean.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

The closure threats had little to do with the Thatcher government - it was entirely a BR lead initiative that. As indeed was the closure from Calvert to Nottingham & Sheffield - that wasn't a Beeching proposal.

BR London Midland, packed full of ex Midland / LMS men *hated* the GC and saw it as the old competition.

By 1983 their efforts to run it down had been so successful that modernisation or closure were the options and it was Peter Parker who initiated the consultation on closure, it wasn't at the government's behest. Arguably it's inexcusable that they hadn't maintained the signaling systems as you set out - that's basic maintenance. It shows the sheer disregard BR LM had for the route.

It's worth remembering that it was a couple of Tory MPs who were among the most vociferous opponents of closure.

It may be true that the Midland Region management were biased against the ex GC route, but it is still the case that it wastefully duplicated the routes from St. Pancras and Euston. I remember British Rail's London advertising campaign: "If you want to go to Rugby, go to Euston". "If you want to go to Leicester (or Sheffield or Nottingham) go to St. Pancras." It also was less suitable for most freight traffic because accessing the line in London from the east was such a round-the-houses detour. The commercial reality was that B.R. had no real use for the route and were entirely right to close it..

 

[A0]

It may be true that the Midland Region management were biased against the ex GC route, but it is still the case that it wastefully duplicated the routes from St. Pancras and Euston. I remember British Rail's London advertising campaign: "If you want to go to Rugby, go to Euston". "If you want to go to Leicester (or Sheffield or Nottingham) go to St. Pancras." It also was less suitable for most freight traffic because accessing the line in London from the east was such a round-the-houses detour. The commercial reality was that B.R. had no real use for the route and were entirely right to close it..

The thing is the GC was better engineered than certainly the Midland to Leicester (gentler curves, fewer gradients) which allowed higher speed running - to this day that's part of the reason why London - Leicester journey times are relatively poor.

In terms of freight, not sure why it was a 'detour' ? Reversal at Neasden from the NLL surely ? And that could easily have been alleviated with a new curve.

Even Beeching didn't recommend its closure - instead it was recommended it be retained as a secondary route. But not for the first time, BR ignored Beeching, did their own thing and quite happily let him take the blame - the routes between Sheffield / Derby and Manchester being a case in point, where Beeching said to retain Woodhead and Matlock but close Hope Valley and BR did the exact opposite.

 

[mr_jrt]

At the time, maybe. Given the capacity constraints on the southern end of the WCML are between Rugby and London however, doesn't seem such a wasteful duplication now in my mind. I think the southern section would be extremely useful for WCML relief, even if only to get the freight off the WCML slow lines to free up paths there. Depending on the speed differential maybe even routing the odd fast service that way might be beneficial too. Along the Chiltern line and up to Willesden could have been an option with some changes at OOC.

Rugby to Nottingham might have been useful as a regional route given later closures. Getting from Rugby to Leicester means going via Nuneaton rather than direct, so perhaps that would have been useful. Leicester to Nottingham perhaps less so, unless capacity there has constraints I'm unaware of.

 

[JonathanH]

At the time, maybe. Given the capacity constraints on the southern end of the WCML are between Rugby and London however, doesn't seem such a wasteful duplication now in my mind. I think the southern section would be extremely useful for WCML relief, even if only to get the freight off the WCML slow lines to free up paths there. Depending on the speed differential maybe even routing the odd fast service that way might be beneficial too. Along the Chiltern line and up to Willesden could have been an option with some changes at OOC.

At the cost of having to put some rather complicated junctions in around Finchley Road? The destination of the freight needs to be considered as well. WCML freight goes to destinations that can't easily be reached from the Chiltern lines. Routing it all via Ealing Broadway could not have ever been considered.

To be on topic, putting freight down the Chiltern line somewhat negates the need for more platforms at Marylebone as well because it wouldn't be possible to accommodate the additional passenger services as well as the freight.

 

[The Planner]

As often discussed, I would suspect most, if not all, of the line south of Princes Risborough would need to be 4 track to accommodate whatever the GC produced in todays world. It is nigh on impossible now to get freight north of Princes Risborough.

 

[mr_jrt]

At the cost of having to put some rather complicated junctions in around Finchley Road? The destination of the freight needs to be considered as well. WCML freight goes to destinations that can't easily be reached from the Chiltern lines. Routing it all via Ealing Broadway could not have ever been considered.

To be on topic, putting freight down the Chiltern line somewhat negates the need for more platforms at Marylebone as well because it wouldn't be possible to accommodate the additional passenger services as well as the freight.

Wouldn't be anywhere near Finchley Road. Bearing in mind we are talking about what would have been done in years past, you would just continue down the NNML at Northolt and across a link over/under the OOC depot to the WCML at Willesden, or something similar. Likewise, the freight just needs to reach the yard at Willesden. That would be a bit more difficult if you wanted to avoid running via West Ealing, but a chord from the NNML's goods lines to the Dudding Hill line would probably have been possible back in the day.

 

[A0]

At the time, maybe. Given the capacity constraints on the southern end of the WCML are between Rugby and London however, doesn't seem such a wasteful duplication now in my mind. I think the southern section would be extremely useful for WCML relief, even if only to get the freight off the WCML slow lines to free up paths there. Depending on the speed differential maybe even routing the odd fast service that way might be beneficial too. Along the Chiltern line and up to Willesden could have been an option with some changes at OOC.

Rugby to Nottingham might have been useful as a regional route given later closures. Getting from Rugby to Leicester means going via Nuneaton rather than direct, so perhaps that would have been useful. Leicester to Nottingham perhaps less so, unless capacity there has constraints I'm unaware of.

Rugby's academic - as a place it's of little or no significance and only enjoys the service it currently does due to it's position as a junction on the WCML and the fact there used to be an amount of railway works there.

Where the GC had some uses was - the ability for the same train to serve Leicester, Nottingham and Sheffield and Manchester without a reversal. Yes you can do it on the Midland but only by reversing at Nottingham and Sheffield. It also offered a reasonably good NE and East Midlands > South Coast route by avoiding Birmingham with the connection from Woodford Halse to Banbury.

The LNER saw the value in the GCR - hence the Woodhead electrification and had WW2 not intervened, it's easy to envisage the LNER electrifying the whole route.

The reality for Marylebone now is as a terminus for the Chiltern Line to Birmingham and possibly a through service to Milton Keynes at some point when EWR is up and running.

 

[cle]

The throat and line up to Neasden will never be more than two tracks, and 6 platforms is a decent amount. Other stations handle more with less.

Marylebone growth lies in:

- Running longer services / full length or at least minimum 4 cars. May come with stock renewal.

- Growth in actual demand. Is there much more that isn't served? House-building in Aylesbury (+Vale), High Wycombe, Bicester will create more. The smaller places are among the most NIMBY in the country, so I wouldn't expect material growth from Gerrards Cross etc...

- Oxford as a hub. Commercial developments (and thus in-bound), plus eventual wires, station rebuild, EWR and possible Science Park route. All of this will see activity increase at Oxford. Chiltern if wired (imagine the irony if they got to Oxford first!) would be competitive on journey times again. Parkway is still growing organically as patterns evolve. I could see a third Chiltern tph for more local service - it's a good place to terminate.

- Wires and journey time improvements. Could stock be better utilized? Or if uniform, turned quicker (per Fenchurch St) ?

- Line capacity upgrades. No major quadding is likely, but capacity projects could be opened up further between the Ruislips (4 all the way) and up to re-working Denham, the Beaconsfield loops, Aylesbury doubling (likely dead, via Monks), even reinstating the Wembley Stadium loops. Or closing the Sudburys. High Wycombe re-alignment / platforms. Plenty of ideas but all require big $.

- OOC bays. If those service do come, Marylebone would have capacity for more. But those services still hit the mainline, so that might enable more via Amersham. Perhaps MKC would be routed that way, and run much faster. No High Wycombe - MKC connection with that route however.

 

[MotCO]

Good point- thinking of how Thameslink transformed Blackfriars- Holborn Viaduct/ Farringdon- Kings Cross suburban etc -where might Chiltern trains head to through and beyond central London?

The obvious cross-London link would be out to Charing Cross or London Bridge, to provide Northwest - Southeast connections. Charing Cross also has a similar number of platforms as Marylebone, so that might make traffic flows easier to manage; it's not as though you are trying to squeeze all of Victoria's terminators through a tunnel to Marylebone. However, Charing Cross traffic is also accommodated by Thameslink, so would the need for a Thameslink-type service via Marylebone also be required?

In terms of maximising the use of Marylebone, one of the best comments above is that you need a standard train so that any train coming into Marylebone could be used for the next service out to anywhere, and there would be no type-training issues. This would mirror the Victoria-line type operation in maximising the number of trains operated.

 

[Non Multi]

I presume a Clapham Junction platform 1+2 style solution could be applied to Marylebone platform 1 and the wall-side siding, to provide a new 4 car length 'platform 0'.

Platform 1 could also be extended beyond Rossmore Rd bridge, thus regaining most of the donated length.

Presumably, the wall-side siding is more useful as it currently is, which is why it's not been pursued.

 

[BrianW]

Some more excellent contributions- thank you, including eg the 'busway' 'idea', which I recall.

Thinking freight- not part of my original thoughts- I recall a proposal for some kind of massive 'facility' at Denham, but Googling gets me nowhere. Anyone anything on this?

I also recall the much-expected total closure of Marylebone, such was the lack of need as seen with the low traffic and decline of the time. The reduction or elimination of 'competing' or 'duplicated' routes was very much in the ascendant, hence no need for Marylebone, no Birmingham trains from Paddington, no Snow Hill, four tracks reduced to two, or singled ... how different now.

I also recognise the unrealised potential of the Great Central. Bearing in mind the thought/ hope/ plan of 'Intercontinental' travel, incl freight, how was it envisaged London would be got through or round?

Regarding future 'need'- I recognise the Nimbyism of the Chilterns, but goverment has decided to promote the Oxford- Cambridge arc with further expansion of Bicester and 'nodes' along the line. The 'Garden City' idea at Bicester wilted under the recognition that folk could not be expecetd to trake a tram between home and work there. It was hoped they would not become commuters to London or Birmingham. I find it hard to imagine that Winslow and similar will not want a service to London, esp being deprived of 'their' stop on HS2. Whether they will expect a 'direct' service or a change at Bicester 'Central' or MK South (aka Bletchley)- more to speculate upon?

 

[The Planner]

Regarding future 'need'- I recognise the Nimbyism of the Chilterns, but goverment has decided to promote the Oxford- Cambridge arc with further expansion of Bicester and 'nodes' along the line. The 'Garden City' idea at Bicester wilted under the recognition that folk could not be expecetd to trake a tram between home and work there. It was hoped they would not become commuters to London or Birmingham. I find it hard to imagine that Winslow and similar will not want a service to London, esp being deprived of 'their' stop on HS2. Whether they will expect a 'direct' service or a change at Bicester 'Central' or MK South (aka Bletchley)- more to speculate upon?

I suspect that a change at Bletchley would be quicker than via Aylesbury (if that happens)

 

[cle]

Is big home-building planned at Winslow too then? Bletchley and generally west of the WCML in MK need more development, and it will become rather useful.

Cowley and Oxford Science Park surroundings could intensify too. Taking Cambridge (North/South) as the blue prints, even though they are on the mainlines.

 

[mr_jrt]

I also recognise the unrealised potential of the Great Central. Bearing in mind the thought/ hope/ plan of 'Intercontinental' travel, incl freight, how was it envisaged London would be got through or round?

Edward Watkin's vision was to use the various properties he was in control of to create a through route, and that was the GCR to London, the Metropolitan Railway through it, and using the St Mary's curve for the East London Railway, accessing the SER to get through to the south coast and his channel tunnel.

 

[The Ham]

I wonder if there's scope to do something akin to Crossrail but more orbital in nature.

Probably linking Old Oak Common, Clapham Junction (maybe even then going onto Clapham itself) and East Croydon (or keep slightly North and connect to Southeastern services allowing onwards connection to Ashford).

If you could route it between Old Oak Common and Clapham Junction to serve Ladbroke Grove, Notting Hill Gate, South Kensington and Chelsea it would provide a lot of interchanges to underground lines, which although may add passengers to those lines may remove the need to go into London and back out for quite a lot of places, which could reduce pressure (classic example being those going to the museums at South Kensington).

You've then got an option to pair services from Chiltern with those branches off the Brighton Mainline and be able to prove an increase in frequency where otherwise they would be overlooked because of the pressure to serve Central London stations.

 

[SynthD]

Thinking freight- not part of my original thoughts- I recall a proposal for some kind of massive 'facility' at Denham, but Googling gets me nowhere. Anyone anything on this?

East of the split between the lines to Paddington and Marylebone you can find a road-rail waste distribution site. It sends a few trains a day to Calvert.

 

[The Planner]

East of the split between the lines to Paddington and Marylebone you can find a road-rail waste distribution site. It sends a few trains a day to Calvert.

Not sure that is what they meant, I suspect it was along the lines of some sort of proposed marshalling yard or Intermodal terminal.

 

[Railwaysceptic]

The thing is the GC was better engineered than certainly the Midland to Leicester (gentler curves, fewer gradients) which allowed higher speed running - to this day that's part of the reason why London - Leicester journey times are relatively poor.

In terms of freight, not sure why it was a 'detour' ? Reversal at Neasden from the NLL surely ? And that could easily have been alleviated with a new curve.

Even Beeching didn't recommend its closure - instead it was recommended it be retained as a secondary route. But not for the first time, BR ignored Beeching, did their own thing and quite happily let him take the blame - the routes between Sheffield / Derby and Manchester being a case in point, where Beeching said to retain Woodhead and Matlock but close Hope Valley and BR did the exact opposite.

Dr. Beeching left BR in 1965 and the abandonment of many of his ideas was caused primarily by the October 1964 change in government and the trenchant anti-railway bias at the Department Of Transport. Dr. Beeching included the Great Central (GC) route in his "third" category of lines: those about which no clear decision could yet be reached. He did not specifically endorse the route; he recognised that it would be foolish to close it impetuously.

That the GC route was better engineered than most of the Midland route is only one factor in the equation. BR's concern in those days and particularly post Beeching was to reduce duplication as much a possible, so either the GC or the Midland route had to go. In total the Midland route was more use to them.

The only ways to access the GC route (i.e. not today's Chiltern Main Line but the route via Aylesbury and Woodford Halse) was via a huge Princes Risborough detour or via Neasden and Neasden South Junctions and not from the North London Line. Using the Midland and WCML routes for freight was more simple and direct and did not involve reversals.

 

[A0]

Dr. Beeching left BR in 1965 and the abandonment of many of his ideas was caused primarily by the October 1964 change in government and the trenchant anti-railway bias at the Department Of Transport.

The Beeching report was published in 1963, and whilst the highest number of miles closed in a single year was 1058 in 1964, the Labour government was elected on the basis of "reversing Beeching" which it did nothing of the sort - the total mileage closures in the period 1965-70 was over 2500 miles - or the same amount closed in the 1952-1962 period (Pre Beeching.).

It was only in 1971, under a Conservative government, did the closures slow right down and between 1971 and 73 there was no more than 50 miles closed in any one year.

So to claim the change in government led to the abandonment of Beeching's ideas - both among the government of the day or BR management - is utter balderdash.

 

[Energy]

and the trenchant anti-railway bias at the Department Of Transport.

The minister for transport at the time, Ernest Marples, had a bias for road, it happens that he had a tarmac business.

 

[BrianW]

East of the split between the lines to Paddington and Marylebone you can find a road-rail waste distribution site. It sends a few trains a day to Calvert.

Thank you. The site you refer to is this one:

Victoria Road Waste Transfer Station - West London Waste

Victoria Road Waste Transfer Station Victoria Road transfer station handles over 150,000 tonnes of waste each year. Waste collected from homes is delivered by the London Boroughs of Brent, Ealing, Harrow and Hillingdon. The waste leaves the site on trains heading to a state of the art energy...

westlondonwaste.gov.uk

What I had in mind was along the lines (bad pun!) of The Planner's observation.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 20 Jan 2021 ==

Edward Watkin's vision was to use the various properties he was in control of to create a through route, and that was the GCR to London, the Metropolitan Railway through it, and using the St Mary's curve for the East London Railway, accessing the SER to get through to the south coast and his channel tunnel.

Wow! so intercontinental freight and passenger via Baker Street, Liverpool Street (Met) and Brunel's Thames Tunnel?

Route and Track Diagrams

 

[MarkyT]

Wow! so intercontinental freight and passenger via Baker Street, Liverpool Street (Met) and Brunel's Thames Tunnel?

Route and Track Diagrams

...imagining an interminable half mile of Manchester bound intermodal behind a 92 grinding through Euston Square while awaiting my circle line to Paddington, as a NoL Eurostar passes in the other direction!