Next LUL line?

[Mutant Lemming]

How shortsighted they were in running the Piccadilly to Heathrow instead of the District.

 

[Eagle]

How shortsighted they were in running the Piccadilly to Heathrow instead of the District.

Well until the 1960s both Piccadilly and District trains ran to Hounslow. The withdrawal of District service on the branch came well before the planning of the Heathrow extension in the 1970s. Presumably the reason was because the Piccadilly uses the fasts and the District the slows.

 

[trentside]

The Piccadilly provided the best solution at the time. Building the Heathrow extension with sub-surface sized tunnels would have been far more expensive, and cost was a major consideration, and with the District responsible for the stoppers between Acton Town and Hammersmith, journey times to central London would have been increased.

The Piccadilly also connects the West End and a great deal of London's major tourist areas, with good access for hotels and other transport - e.g. KGX/STP. I think in some ways it's far better.

 

[Ivo]

I've been thinking a little about this recently, wondering whether it would be possible to introduce a limited stop Slough - Heathrow - Central London service. I'd imagine that by utilising the four tracking from Northfields you could introduce a limited stop service from Slough, serving the Airport and then express to London calling at Acton Town, Hammersmith then all stations to Arnos Grove.

Something wrong with Hounslow? Similarly, I take it the slows would utilise the loop route?

Sounds good though

 

[trentside]

Something wrong with Hounslow? Similarly, I take it the slows would utilise the loop route?

Nothing at all wrong with Hounslow - I think there would be some justification in providing fast journeys to London. The trains could also call at Northfields to provide connection onto the local stopping services (taking advantage of the four platform station, with cross platform interchange).

By the loop route, do you mean Terminal 4? If so, yes. You could also run some terminators to Terminal 5 by leaving a siding between the running lines.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

The Piccadilly provided the best solution at the time. Building the Heathrow extension with sub-surface sized tunnels would have been far more expensive, and cost was a major consideration, and with the District responsible for the stoppers between Acton Town and Hammersmith, journey times to central London would have been increased.

The Piccadilly also connects the West End and a great deal of London's major tourist areas, with good access for hotels and other transport - e.g. KGX/STP. I think in some ways it's far better.

The was notihng to stop the Piccadilly being all stations and taking over Ealing Broadway and Richmond services and the DR running fast Acton Town to Hammersmith. As for access to Central London the DR services could have run round the Circle linking most of the mainline stations and Victoria Coach Station directly to Heathrow with far bigger trains able to take the luggage of airport bound passengers. The Piccadilly was the cheap option all round and was far from being the best solution. In the end a whole new railway with proper sized trains ended up being built taking people to a station the District could have taken them to directly.

If we stay on the cheap option tack then surely the cheapest way to link the West with Heathrow is to stop more trains at Hayes & Harlington to pick up the Heathrow Connect service.

 

[Slugger Onions]

If it gets trains away from the chronically congested Clapham Junction and Waterloo, then yes definitely.

Would the route of the safeguarded corridor be very suitable for a crossrail/RER style service though?

It looks like a great alignment for a metro line but would very many inter-county commuters from those trains diverted from Clapham Junction want to get to Hackney?

Just my opinion but to me it would seem more sensible to link the busiest of those services (via a tunnel) to busy services terminating at another London terminus than to ruin a good metro alignment.
And perhaps the Chelsea-Hackney line could reduce the traffic on those routes anyway if it was more rapid (and thus attractive) that the existing District line?

Crossrail and Thameslink seem like great schemes but this one I'm not so certain about.

 

[Rational Plan]

With Airtrack dead ideas are shifting about increasing rail access to Heathrow.

First there is Wandsworth's Airtrack lite scheme, that combines existing services into Heathrow, thereby avoiding the level crosssing problem. The only problem with is, the main benefits of the airtrack scheme was the additional capacity the extra trains provided to the existing network.

The current RUS looks at improving Crossrail by looking at Western links to Heathrow to allow through running.

This sees 10 crossrail trains an hour to Heathrow, four of which rejoin the Great western east of Langley and four go terminate at Staines.

Slough council commisioned Atkins to look at improving rail links to the airport.

The options were:

Use the freight line from Colnbrook to get to the Great Western, with a new western facing junction and a tunnel from T5 to the freight line (£550 million.

A new tunnel to from T5 to Langley. This costs £740 million but is much shorter and has few curves.

Extend the Piccadilly to Slough on a direct course £1.19 billion.

This would be wildly popular locally, especially is there were a couple of intermediate stations. It would be the most useful for airport workers as it would link all the main sites and provide a direct link to Hounslow, which has strong links to Slough.


Extend the Piccadilly to Slough via the Windsor lines (£770 million), with a new tunnel under Windsor linking up the two lines. It's not recorded how the existing Windsor train service to Waterloo would integrate.

Extend the Piccadilly up the the Colnbrook freight line to a New Heathrow hub station at Iver, at a cost of £1.1 billion. I assume this option included a 12 platform station and an M25 link.

Recently it has been announced that the preferred option is a part tunneled route direct to the Great Western, avoiding the existing freight line. This is not yet part of any government policy but various press reports surfaced a few months ago about a new £700 million link to Heathrow to the great western. If they can get rid of the ticket surcharge for accessing heathrow then it will be a tremendously popular route as the whole area near heathrow is regularly gridlocked at peak.

 

[Wolfie]

'Boris Johnson will demand the Government funds a new Tube line if he is to back fully the high-speed rail project.

Mr Johnson, who says he will press for funding for a new north-south Crossrail line, said: "You cannot possibly go ahead with HS2 unless you have a plan for alleviating the massive congestion at Euston and that means another Tube line."'

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/stand...ld-a-new-tube-line-to-cope-with-hs2-crowds.do

 

[Mutant Lemming]

Will there actually be a need for increased capacity on routes to Heathrow if the new estuary aiport gets the go ahead ?

 

[tbtc]

'Boris Johnson will demand the Government funds a new Tube line if he is to back fully the high-speed rail project.

Mr Johnson, who says he will press for funding for a new north-south Crossrail line, said: "You cannot possibly go ahead with HS2 unless you have a plan for alleviating the massive congestion at Euston and that means another Tube line."'

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/stand...ld-a-new-tube-line-to-cope-with-hs2-crowds.do

Does this mean that we get an extra line on the Midland Metro/ Manchester Metrolink/ Sheffield Supertram too?

 

[Slugger Onions]

Will there actually be a need for increased capacity on routes to Heathrow if the new estuary aiport gets the go ahead ?

I'm not sure if you were being sarcastic, but is there any chance of Boris Island being anything other than empty PR spin?

 

[MCR247]

Does this mean that we get an extra line on the Midland Metro/ Manchester Metrolink/ Sheffield Supertram too?

Ahem.

 

[VTPreston_Tez]

Basically, the Chelsea-Hackney line is Epping-Wimbledon, the Crossrail linking Heathrow, Reading and Maidenhead. I would like to see a new high-speed LUL line calling at Amersham, Chesham, Bushey, Edgware, Kentish Town, Camden Town, Euston, Bond Street, South Kensington, Clapham High-Speed (new station), Clapham Junction, Balham, East Croydon:
Then either:
Greenwich Meantime (Greenwich), Greenwich Central (new station), London City Airport, Gallions Reach, Rainham, Grays
Or:
Lewisham, Woolwich West (new station), Woolwich Arsenal, Woolwich East (new station)
Thoughts?

 

[LE Greys]

Basically, the Chelsea-Hackney line is Epping-Wimbledon, the Crossrail linking Heathrow, Reading and Maidenhead. I would like to see a new high-speed LUL line calling at Amersham, Chesham, Bushey, Edgware, Kentish Town, Camden Town, Euston, Bond Street, South Kensington, Clapham High-Speed (new station), Clapham Junction, Balham, East Croydon:
Then either:
Greenwich Meantime (Greenwich), Greenwich Central (new station), London City Airport, Gallions Reach, Rainham, Grays
Or:
Lewisham, Woolwich West (new station), Woolwich Arsenal, Woolwich East (new station)
Thoughts?

I still think I prefer the idea of turning the Chelney west and going up river to Fulham and Barnes (which currently have very limited Underground connections) then to Southall and Heathrow - splitting at Gunnersbury or Chiswick. For the Lewisham-Woolwich line, I'd make it an extension of the Bakerloo (which was going to go to Camberwell once) running via Camberwell, Peckham Rye and New Cross. Extending the Victoria to Stretham might work as well.

Then there's the old Northern Heights idea. Edgware - Mill Hill the Hale - Mill Hill East - Northern Line to Highgate - Stroud Green - Finsbury Park - Drayton Park - Highbury & Islington - Canonbury, then down the ELL. Possibly also take over the High Barnet branch and (try to) divert the Northern Line back to Alexandra Palace. The Edgware-Bushey section is probably impossible.

 

[VTPreston_Tez]

In due time, both will probably be done. We need a high-speed line through Central London, linking HS2 with the South West Line, via Bond Street and Kensington would be the best way as it opens up new gateways in London as well as linking Scotland to Bournemouth, Southampton and Weymouth in another way.