My idea for District Line Division

[waterboo]

Hello all,
The western section of the District Line in its simplest description can be seen as complicated. There are three separate branches for Wimbledon, Richmond, and Ealing Broadway. Services to these stations suffer due to the limitations in capacity at Earls Court. Therefore, do any of these ideas (or your own) sound reasonable:

Separating the district line into two services:
- West London Line [UXBRIDGE/RICHMOND -> HIGH STREET KENSINGTON]
- District Line [WIMBLEDON -> UPMINSTER]

Provided that a new crossover is built west to platform 4 at Earls court, then Platforms 1 and 4 and 2 and 3 can operate independent of each other removing the bottleneck.

- Piccadilly Line takes operation of the Ealing Broadway Branch.

The only problem that I can recognise is that capacity will be taken away from Heathrow Airport because Ealing Broadway will require more trains. However, with the New Tube for London looming, surely this can be addressed.

So, what do you think??

 

[Mojo]

Why would Ealing Broadway require more trains? District line currently runs every 10 Min to Ealing Bdy, and the Rayners Lane service is also every 10 Min.

What about:
customers going to The City from west London?
the Edgware Rd to Wimbledon service?
capacity from Earls Ct to The City and beyond? Running only services from Wimbledon via The City would result in either capacity issues east of Earls Ct, or over supply to Wimbledon.
Olympia?

 

[freetoview33]

What about Crossrail?

 

[Dstock7080]

Provided that a new crossover is built west to platform 4 at Earls court, then Platforms 1 and 4 and 2 and 3 can operate independent of each other removing the bottleneck.

Not sure what you mean of new crossover west to pfm.4?
(trains can already run from Gloucester Rd into pfm.3 & 4)
A new crossover from West Brompton to pfm.1 is to be installed.

Only two platforms exist for reversing at High Street Kensington.

 

[Quakkerillo]

Not sure what you mean of new crossover west to pfm.4?
(trains can already run from Gloucester Rd into pfm.3 & 4)
A new crossover from West Brompton to pfm.1 is to be installed.

Only two platforms exist for reversing at High Street Kensington.

If a train wants to get to platform 4 from the West, it'll join the same stretch of track as trains from Wimbledon to platform 3 for about 1 train length.
If it could get to platform 4 without crossing the Wimbledon line, let alone using it, then you could have trains arriving at 3 and 4 simultaneously.
So I assume that's what OP meant.

 

[Dstock7080]

currently pfm.1 & 2 are EB, 3 & 4 are WB which is where the confusion lies.

 

[jopsuk]

Acton/ hammersmith services need to go through the City arguably more than Wimbledon ones do.

When I get out the crayons I certainly advocate sending the district to Uxbridge and the Piccadilly to Ealing, with some heavy engineering through Ealing Common to make that four track and physically separate the District and Piccadilly, allowing level boarding to be fully implemented throughout.

As a side project I'd bring the Central and Piccadilly together at Ealing Broadway, tunnel under to West Ealing and send both to West Ruislip via Greenford.

 

[swt_passenger]

How about going the other way. Have all S8 trains on the Metropolitan line as now, and all the S7 trains on a District Line 'network', subsuming both the H&C and the Circle...

Having all lines the same colour on the tube map supposedly works for LO and the DLR after all...

 

[waterboo]

Acton/ hammersmith services need to go through the City arguably more than Wimbledon ones do.

When I get out the crayons I certainly advocate sending the district to Uxbridge and the Piccadilly to Ealing, with some heavy engineering through Ealing Common to make that four track and physically separate the District and Piccadilly, allowing level boarding to be fully implemented throughout.

As a side project I'd bring the Central and Piccadilly together at Ealing Broadway, tunnel under to West Ealing and send both to West Ruislip via Greenford.

You could possibly overcome this by in fact extending to Edware Road. With an interchange at Notting Hill Gate for the Central Line, Hammersmithers will be able to get to the city quicker. With crossrail coming along soon, perhaps the Central Line could absorb those passengers.

I do not believe that Wimbledon will be overserved, but I do believe that there are reversing points at Parsons green for a quick return to the city, therefore some trains can terminate there.

 

[Mojo]

If you were to wholly segregate the District and Piccadilly then you'd probably need to do something at Acton Tw, as being available to "run round" a train is particularly useful as there are occasionally delays caused by various issues such as awaiting crew reliefs.

 

[waterboo]

If you were to wholly segregate the District and Piccadilly then you'd probably need to do something at Acton Tw, as being available to "run round" a train is particularly useful as there are occasionally delays caused by various issues such as awaiting crew reliefs.

That would be a very good solution to improving reliability on the line. But I don't think its segregation of the Piccadilly and district line that is trying to be achieved, but rather the segregation of Earls court to run two lines/services.
Having said that, I do believe that a major modification of Acton Town will be needed when Sub Surface Resignalling occurs.

 

[Dent]

Hello all,
The western section of the District Line in its simplest description can be seen as complicated. There are three separate branches for Wimbledon, Richmond, and Ealing Broadway. Services to these stations suffer due to the limitations in capacity at Earls Court. Therefore, do any of these ideas (or your own) sound reasonable:

Separating the district line into two services:
- West London Line [UXBRIDGE/RICHMOND -> HIGH STREET KENSINGTON]
- District Line [WIMBLEDON -> UPMINSTER]

Provided that a new crossover is built west to platform 4 at Earls court, then Platforms 1 and 4 and 2 and 3 can operate independent of each other removing the bottleneck.

- Piccadilly Line takes operation of the Ealing Broadway Branch.

The only problem that I can recognise is that capacity will be taken away from Heathrow Airport because Ealing Broadway will require more trains. However, with the New Tube for London looming, surely this can be addressed.

So, what do you think??

1. Your stated aim is to improve Earl's Court, why does this require swapping the District and Piccadilly lines to Ealing Broadway and Uxbridge?

2. You have left the sections between High Street Kensington and Edgware Road and between Earl's Court and Olympia with no service.

3. Given your proposed services, a better use of the platforms would be 1-2 for to/from High Street Kensington, and 3-4 to/from the City. That way no tracks would need to cross at Earl's Court.

4. High Street Kensington only has two terminal platforms. Will this be sufficient to reverse two routes, each of which used three platforms to reverse at their other end?

 

[Busaholic]

Acton/ hammersmith services need to go through the City arguably more than Wimbledon ones do.

When I get out the crayons I certainly advocate sending the district to Uxbridge and the Piccadilly to Ealing, with some heavy engineering through Ealing Common to make that four track and physically separate the District and Piccadilly, allowing level boarding to be fully implemented throughout.

As a side project I'd bring the Central and Piccadilly together at Ealing Broadway, tunnel under to West Ealing and send both to West Ruislip via Greenford.

When I worked in the Central Line control HQ at Oxford Circus over forty years ago an interchange between Central and Piccadilly at Hanger Lane/Park Royal was being actively discussed, in fact, as a trainee manager, I was deputed to 'look into it' about two days before I was relocated to Cobourg Street and the Northern/Vic.

 

[Mojo]

3. Given your proposed services, a better use of the platforms would be 1-2 for to/from High Street Kensington, and 3-4 to/from the City. That way no tracks would need to cross at Earl's Court.

There's no conflict anyway. Trains heading towards West Ken already pass under trains coming from West Brompton, and trains heading from High St Ken already pass under the lines to/from The City.

 

[Dent]

There's no conflict anyway. Trains heading towards West Ken already pass under trains coming from West Brompton, and trains heading from High St Ken already pass under the lines to/from The City.

So what would the "new crossover" referred to in the original post be require for?