HS2

[Ron Ron Ron]

3 hours ago, jamie92208 said:

That is a coincidence Martin.  I posted a video of the production facility for all the concrete segments for the various viaducts in the Delta junction.  I wasn't quite sure where it was but the two parallel  channels that bisect thst site, form one boundary of the segment factory. It's at the Northern tip of the Delta Junction. They show up on the map that you posted. 

 

Jamie

 

 

Sorry Jamie, the concrete segment production facility is located off to the north of the map Martin posted.

For reference, you can make out the faint lines of the M42 and half of junction 9, at the top left of the map.

The production facility is approximately 1 mile NE of that motorway junction, i.e. off the map

 

The symbol denoting a sewage treatment work at Lee Marston, shown on that map, is almost 1 mile SSE of the site of the production facility.

Again, as I mentioned in an earlier post, this facility isn’t at the northern apex of the Delta Junction, but 1.8 miles north of it.

The viaducts around the complex northern apex of the Delta Junction, extend in part, north to the junction between the western arm and eastern arm of Phase 2 (as was).

That junction is/was located just to the north of the northern apex of the Delta Junction.

 

I’m not sure what’s happening with that junction, as it’s designed, funded and contracted as part of Phase 1, despite the residual eastern arm of Phase 2 (to East Midlands Parkway only) being canned by the former PM at the same times as he canned the western arm of Phase 2.

I assume the junction and a short stub will still be built.

Good news if it is, as it’ll provide in-built passive provision for a future resurrection of some sort of eastern branch.

 

 

 

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Edited October 13 by Ron Ron Ron

[rockershovel]

All sorts of nonsense in the papers.

 

- HS2 seems to be turning into another Concorde. That ended up as an engineering tour de force in pursuit of two red herrings - Anglo-French co-operation and supersonic flight at commercially viable cost. 

 

There has been quite a lot of research about maximum useful speeds and it seems fairly clear that 175-185mph is an important threshold. Look at the front ends on the Shinkansen trains. 

 

- Labour do appear to have ended up "holding the baby" regarding the London end. Ending at Old Oak Common is no good, everyone always knew it but the Conservatives hid behind the general show of activity. 

 

- quite a lot of "magical thinking" going on. HS2 has always been a profoundly political and ideological project. It costs very large sums of money. All of the cost ends up with the taxpayer. To claim that the engineering aspects can be considered in isolation... its rather touching, really and rather naive. 

 

This project has been designed using a process that ended up building the CTRL terminal in a completely different location to that originally envisaged (Ashford) and building a short-lived terminal at Waterloo which stood empty for a decade and has now been repurchased at further expense. 

 

This is Olympic-class folly. 

[lmsforever]

Went to W endover last Thursday on usual  visit to market and went via new road  ,noticed that the earth bank to right going towards London  had grown in height  and they had marked out a vehicle track up this bank, Not sure if this earth bank is being removed or a short tunnel  will be put in place?  If anyone wants to drive over this bank I wish them luck ,its starting to look complete around Wendover but theres a lot of detailing to do .A cover will be built over the line alongside the town so as no resident will see a train  ,what a waste of money they see Chiltern trains and no complaints !  The line as it crosses the road to Risboro  will be made up when the Stoke Manderville by pass is open some time  next year ,we hope !I hope that next year we will see if these projects are running to time and happen quickly then we will see a railway start to appear but I do wonder if the county council works run to time as at the moment they seem to be very slow with no sign of the rail bridge over the Marylebone line .So the line around  Aylesbury is progressing with one or two slow spots and I look forward to actually see trains running.

[jamie92208]

19 hours ago, lmsforever said:

Went to W endover last Thursday on usual  visit to market and went via new road  ,noticed that the earth bank to right going towards London  had grown in height  and they had marked out a vehicle track up this bank, Not sure if this earth bank is being removed or a short tunnel  will be put in place?  If anyone wants to drive over this bank I wish them luck ,its starting to look complete around Wendover but theres a lot of detailing to do .A cover will be built over the line alongside the town so as no resident will see a train  ,what a waste of money they see Chiltern trains and no complaints !  The line as it crosses the road to Risboro  will be made up when the Stoke Manderville by pass is open some time  next year ,we hope !I hope that next year we will see if these projects are running to time and happen quickly then we will see a railway start to appear but I do wonder if the county council works run to time as at the moment they seem to be very slow with no sign of the rail bridge over the Marylebone line .So the line around  Aylesbury is progressing with one or two slow spots and I look forward to actually see trains running.

I wish you luck. According to the Chiltern Society your County Council planning processes are causing a lot of delays to HS2. 

 

Jamie

Edited October 15 by jamie92208

[lmsforever]

I quite agree they are a blinking bunch of idiots.

[The Stationmaster]

1 hour ago, rockershovel said:

All sorts of nonsense in the papers.

 

- HS2 seems to be turning into another Concorde. That ended up as an engineering tour de force in pursuit of two red herrings - Anglo-French co-operation and supersonic flight at commercially viable cost. 

 

There has been quite a lot of research about maximum useful speeds and it seems fairly clear that 175-185mph is an important threshold. Look at the front ends on the Shinkansen trains. 

 

- Labour do appear to have ended up "holding the baby" regarding the London end. Ending at Old Oak Common is no good, everyone always knew it but the Conservatives hid behind the general show of activity. 

 

- quite a lot of "magical thinking" going on. HS2 has always been a profoundly political and ideological project. It costs very large sums of money. All of the cost ends up with the taxpayer. To claim that the engineering aspects can be considered in isolation... its rather touching, really and rather naive. 

 

This project has been designed using a process that ended up building the CTRL terminal in a completely different location to that originally envisaged (Ashford) and building a short-lived terminal at Waterloo which stood empty for a decade and has now been repurchased at further expense. 

 

This is Olympic-class folly. 

All a combination of two, oddly, different things - the machinations of the state apparatus and short termism on the part of private companies..  HS2 was never really about building a high speed line but is really about building something to relieve capacity problems on the WCMl but giving it a modern level of speed at the same time.  Its big problem has been that the very high speed bit has completely obscured the general world the reason for building the line in the first place and for that we can blame politicians and the media.

 

I'm not so sure what you are saying about CTRL.  Ashford international station was basically a 100% private investment project funded by the contractor who built in with the intention that they would recover the cost by receiving a percentage of the revenue which the station would produce.  Alas it didn't develop traffic in the way hoped for but never say never for the future.   The Eurostar London termini have both been a consequence of doing what was available with potential sites which were available and there was never any intention to take international trains away from Waterloo whatever might happen after CTRL opened - London would have had two international stations for two very good reasons.  Waterloo was near to the depot at North Pole and served a catchment area around the south east, south west, and west, of London.  St Pancras was never going to be anything more than inadequate to handle even the level of service at the time it was conceived but provided the most viable site in terms of connecting to CTRL with facility to also connect into the British network north of London and serve the north side of London.  That was rejected by the newly arrived private owners of Eurostar UK who pulled out if Waterloo to save money and got shot of North Pole to save route improvement money (and opted for a less capable depot at Temple Mills which could be built cheaply).

 

Two London termini might well be considered excessive but if the fully intended service ever arrives as originally planned St Pancras will be incapable of handling it let alone handling it economically.  In other words use if the level of capacity available on CTRL is always going to be constrained by the teminal situation at the London end.

[rockershovel]

You appear to be discussing my point in detail; which was that our system is completely incapable of producing a coherent rail strategy, and has long been so. 

 

AIUI, Ashford was intended to be the terminus of the 1974 Channel Tunnel rail link. The original route of what we now know as the Jubilee Line Extension served it, connecting to what we now know as Crossrail and on to LHR via what we now know as Heathrow Express - providing a direct connection between LHR and CTRL via Paddington, Euston, St Pancras and King's X. 

[roythebus1]

On 12/10/2024 at 02:18, MidlandRed said:

Have a look on Google Maps where it passes Harrietsham (Eythorne St) and Boxley - you don’t see it because it’s in green cut and cover tunnels to attenuate noise and visual amenity - it works reasonably well also for those villages - those mk1 Eurostars are incredibly noisy from a mile away if you’re walking (or sitting in a pub garden) in the North Downs. The first time I experienced it I thought it was an approaching low flying fighter jet. Thankfully the newer Eurostars and the Javelin units are much quieter! 

Yes I know, I live about a mile from HS1 just south of Mersham tunnel. We used to know when it was about 8 pm as 2 E* trains would follow closely going to London. We don't hear the new units at all.

[Michael Hodgson]

On 13/10/2024 at 20:00, DenysW said:

* Apparently you haven't seen a proper shower of Sh1t until you've driven sheet piling through a sludge rising main. Word of mouth data

HS2 isn't going to run from Euston it will be coming from China where they don't do things by halves  ....

 

https://www.newsflare.com/video/681420/sewage-pipe-bursts-in-china-sending-fountain-of-yellow-liquid-several-stories-high-and-shattering-car-windows

[MidlandRed]

13 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

All a combination of two, oddly, different things - the machinations of the state apparatus and short termism on the part of private companies..  HS2 was never really about building a high speed line but is really about building something to relieve capacity problems on the WCMl but giving it a modern level of speed at the same time.  Its big problem has been that the very high speed bit has completely obscured the general world the reason for building the line in the first place and for that we can blame politicians and the media.

 

I'm not so sure what you are saying about CTRL.  Ashford international station was basically a 100% private investment project funded by the contractor who built in with the intention that they would recover the cost by receiving a percentage of the revenue which the station would produce.  Alas it didn't develop traffic in the way hoped for but never say never for the future.   The Eurostar London termini have both been a consequence of doing what was available with potential sites which were available and there was never any intention to take international trains away from Waterloo whatever might happen after CTRL opened - London would have had two international stations for two very good reasons.  Waterloo was near to the depot at North Pole and served a catchment area around the south east, south west, and west, of London.  St Pancras was never going to be anything more than inadequate to handle even the level of service at the time it was conceived but provided the most viable site in terms of connecting to CTRL with facility to also connect into the British network north of London and serve the north side of London.  That was rejected by the newly arrived private owners of Eurostar UK who pulled out if Waterloo to save money and got shot of North Pole to save route improvement money (and opted for a less capable depot at Temple Mills which could be built cheaply).

 

Two London termini might well be considered excessive but if the fully intended service ever arrives as originally planned St Pancras will be incapable of handling it let alone handling it economically.  In other words use if the level of capacity available on CTRL is always going to be constrained by the teminal situation at the London end.

You’ve overlooked the fact that St Pancras International is these days connected directly to the whole of Kent via South Eastern High Speed, Peterborough, Bedford, Sevenoaks, Sutton, Brighton, S and N London via various Thameslink routes, the EMR network to the north and is within very close walking distance of Kings Cross and the routes it serves, and within 10 mins walking distance of Euston. It also connects directly to various underground routes. 
 

Compared to that, Waterloo is a comparative PITA to get to from all of those areas (but great from Reading and the rest of the erstwhile LSWR - and the parts of South Eastern which use Charing Cross). 
 

Otherwise I agree entirely with the points made in your post 😀👍

[adb968008]

18 hours ago, The Stationmaster said:

All a combination of two, oddly, different things - the machinations of the state apparatus and short termism on the part of private companies..  HS2 was never really about building a high speed line but is really about building something to relieve capacity problems on the WCMl but giving it a modern level of speed at the same time.  Its big problem has been that the very high speed bit has completely obscured the general world the reason for building the line in the first place and for that we can blame politicians and the media.

 

If a plan to cut an ordinary line across the chilterns had been proposed theres no way it would have ever got approved. At best it would have a widened Chiltern mainline.

[adb968008]

6 hours ago, MidlandRed said:

You’ve overlooked the fact that St Pancras International is these days connected directly to the whole of Kent via South Eastern High Speed, Peterborough, Bedford, Sevenoaks, Sutton, Brighton, S and N London via various Thameslink routes, the EMR network to the north and is within very close walking distance of Kings Cross and the routes it serves, and within 10 mins walking distance of Euston. It also connects directly to various underground routes. 
 

 

As someone living in that catchment i’d much prefer a 30 minute drive to Ebbsfleet than an hour trek to St Pancras on Thameslink, or Waterloo for that matter… indeed my last trip to Brussels, we went via LHR as its become easier than Eurostar…

 

HS2 is a complete no go for me in South London.. no way i’m schlepping to Old Oak to catch HS2… i could be half way to Birmingham on the M40 by the time Ive got to OC, and without the onward faff when I get there… Paddington as is, is trek, for what is considered ‘the starting line’ of a long distance GW journey… West London connections to the south are rubbish, verging non existent.. to assume people will voluntarily just go the hard way with 2-3-4 connections ‘just because’ is fallacy.

 

Whilst I dont like Euston, and think the whole building of an underground palace is nothing more than a construction industry money pit rather than making a true “for all” Londoners solution out of HS2, it is the least worst option as it keeps the problem of getting up north in the same building it is today.

 

The big misses to me in HS2 was Ealing Broadway as a major interchange (Tube, and Access to both NLL and WLL), and could do the HEX transfer, and secondly making the Elizabeth Line more network standard, so HS2 stock, could have used it, give it junctions to major other lines thus allowing it to not “terminate” in the capital and offer Kent, Anglia and South coast residents direct access to northern destinations without the hassle of changing, tubing and schlepping across the creaky tube system… imagine a return of 1S67 via HS2, WLL… Mancunians could get to Gatwick faster too.. there would be no need for money pits and white elephants in OC and Euston.

 

There seems to be a belief everything the Victorians did was wrong, but fundamentally they got it right.. Ealing Broadway, Watford Jn, Clapham Jn and Stratford all exist for the purpose of helping those avoid the capital and get more direct to a destination, without the hassle of going in, what they lacked was the ability to go continuous thru due to private nature of the companies, an issue not prevalent today. The problem for continuous through trains is its not good for construction industry revenues.

 

Edited October 15 by adb968008

[KingEdwardII]

28 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

fundamentally they got it right.

Can't agree with that.

 

The Victorians made London into an obstacle course by design. They never had the concept of through traffic to connect different regions of England. That is still largely the case - even the Elizabeth line is really a glorified tube line and does not provide through trains from east to west. Thameslink provides some connections north-south, but it is still rather limited.

 

The Victorians may have been great engineers and they achieved many things, but in this case, there was a serious failure of imagination and ambition.

 

Yours, Mike.

[phil-b259]

40 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

As someone living in that catchment i’d much prefer a 30 minute drive to Ebbsfleet than an hour trek to St Pancras on Thameslink, or Waterloo for that matter… indeed my last trip to Brussels, we went via LHR as its become easier than Eurostar…

 

HS2 is a complete no go for me in South London.. no way i’m schlepping to Old Oak to catch HS2… i could be half way to Birmingham on the M40 by the time Ive got to OC, and without the onward faff when I get there… Paddington as is, is trek, for what is considered ‘the starting line’ of a long distance GW journey… West London connections to the south are rubbish, verging non existent.. to assume people will voluntarily just go the hard way with 2-3-4 connections ‘just because’ is fallacy.

 

 

Not if the M25 is being it’s usual car park! In fact when planning a recent journey to the Cumbria the plan was to take the train to Preston then hire a car precisely to avoid the traffic hells which are the M25 and the M6.

 

In any case the M25 a stressful drive even if it isn’t jammed solid so taking Thameslink to St Pancras then nipping across to Euston or changing to the Lizz line at Farringdon then changing to HS2 at Old Oak is going to a much nicer journey than the slog in the car can ever be.

 

 

[Bernard Lamb]

19 minutes ago, KingEdwardII said:

Can't agree with that.

 

The Victorians made London into an obstacle course by design. They never had the concept of through traffic to connect different regions of England. That is still largely the case - even the Elizabeth line is really a glorified tube line and does not provide through trains from east to west. Thameslink provides some connections north-south, but it is still rather limited.

 

The Victorians may have been great engineers and they achieved many things, but in this case, there was a serious failure of imagination and ambition.

 

Yours, Mike.

The ring road system, at least the norhern section of it, was built long before the Victorian age. If we want to name and shame, then it is an earlier generation of wealthy land owners that we should focus on. Any rail route going furter south would hit a heavily built up area and would have involved an astromnomical cost. even if agreement could have been reached. Euston only got as far into London as it did, by accepting the demands of the land owner to use the name.

The solution would be for the TBMs to continue south when, eventually, they get to Euston.😃

Bernard

[phil-b259]

8 hours ago, adb968008 said:

.

The big misses to me in HS2 was Ealing Broadway as a major interchange (Tube, and Access to both NLL and WLL), and could do the HEX transfer, and secondly making the Elizabeth Line more network standard, so HS2 stock, could have used it, give it junctions to major other lines thus allowing it to not “terminate” in the capital and offer Kent, Anglia and South coast residents direct access to northern destinations without the hassle of changing, tubing and schlepping across the creaky tube system… imagine a return of 1S67 via HS2, WLL… Mancunians could get to Gatwick faster too.. there would be no need for money pits and white elephants in OC and Euston.

 

There seems to be a belief everything the Victorians did was wrong, but fundamentally they got it right.. Ealing Broadway, Watford Jn, Clapham Jn and Stratford all exist for the purpose of helping those avoid the capital and get more direct to a destination, without the hassle of going in, what they lacked was the ability to go continuous thru due to private nature of the companies, an issue not prevalent today. The problem for continuous through trains is its not good for construction industry revenues.

 

Please remember that the original plan was to run HS2 on the surface from Old Oak to Ruslip at a significantly lower cost. It only got put in a tunnel to buy off NIMBY opposition.

 

Moreover following the line of an exsisting railway corridor (albeit underground) means less in the way of problematic obstructions like building foundations utilities etc.

 

Diverting via Ealing Broadway would have significantly increased costs (compared to the original surface route) particularly as you would need to build the 6 platforms entirely underground (as opposed to in a big ‘box’ structure constructed from the surface) and bought very little by way of advantages. 
 

Yes it might well have made it easier for those living along the district Line towards Central London easier to access it but that’s about it - most of the rest of the potential users of an Ealing Broadway call will find Old Oak just as convenient.

 

As for north / south trains - though these were indeed popular under BR when compared to the numbers whose start / endpoint was London the numbers were tiny.

 

Similarly despite the convenience of not having to change train the numbers using Thameslink to access Gatwick from the North of London are negligible!

 

In fact if you go and do your research you will find that when BR was planning Thameslink in the first place it was done so on the basis of more efficient rolling stock utilisation (because it no longer sat around blocking platforms at London termini between runs) and the ability to sell off land like the Holborn Viaduct site for property development.

 

Similarly if you strip out the Heathrow factor, the number of folk from Brentwood who regularly go to the likes of Maidenhead or Reading on the Lizz line will be tiny - the big advantage of the Lizz line (apart from rolling stock utilisation and freeing up platforms in the mainline stations above) is the ability to distribute passengers over a number of locations in central London (or whisk them on to Canary Wharf).

 

Were the Liz line built around a similar concept as Thameslink (e.g. a Clacton to Newbury service offered) the numbers using it to make end to end journeys wouldn’t be significantly larger.

Edited October 15 by phil-b259

[Michael Hodgson]

30 minutes ago, phil-b259 said:

Not if the M25 is being it’s usual car park! In fact when planning a recent journey to the Cumbria the plan was to take the train to Preston then hire a car precisely to avoid the traffic hells which are the M25 and the M6.

 

In any case the M25 a stressful drive even if it isn’t jammed solid so taking Thameslink to St Pancras then nipping across to Euston or changing to the Lizz line at Farringdon then changing to HS2 at Old Oak is going to a much nicer journey than the slog in the car can ever be.

 

 

I remember a time there wasn't an M25.  How would you like it if we had todays traffic volumes still using the North and South Circular?   Or perhaps the A1 to Tower Bridge and out the A2 to cross London - or better still, down Oxford Street?

[adb968008]

2 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

 

As for north / south trains - though these were indeed popular under BR when compared to the numbers whose start / endpoint was London the numbers were tiny.

 

because the trains were every lampost and gate post all station long duration schleppers…

Had that been a voyager, on 2hr express timings to Watford, it would have been better.. as is (and I suspect Virgin wanted) to run this down to the point that a Pendo to Euston, knuckle dragging to Victoria, and a Southern fast was much quicker, even if it was awful with suitcases and a very tricky journey for elderly / disabled.

 

I know, my own mother is 80… and shes getting a bit old for the Victoria and Northern line friday night crush and Eustons insane rammed packed ( I wont say dangerous) mass passenger swarms.. so were looking at christmas options of flying her, or going in the car to get her as railway isnt attractive and i ‘m not taking the risk.

Even todays Southern Watford to East Croydon day trundle isnt helpful as most Avanti stuff avoids Watford stops too..meaning more changes, more delays… plus we need to change on the south London side too..

imo its just not a friendly solution, and it feels by design not to be, due to the desire to route everyone through Zone 1.

 

Am I really the only person who has family north of Watford, living in the South ?

 

2 hours ago, phil-b259 said:

 

Similarly despite the convenience of not having to change train the numbers using Thameslink to access Gatwick from the North of London are negligible!

 

In fact if you go and do your research you will find that when BR was planning Thameslink in the first place it was done so on the basis of more efficient rolling stock utilisation (because it no longer sat around blocking platforms at London termini between runs) and the ability to sell off land like the Holborn Viaduct site for property development.

 

Similarly if you strip out the Heathrow factor, the number of folk from Brentwood who regularly go to the likes of Maidenhead or Reading on the Lizz line will be tiny - the big advantage of the Lizz line (apart from rolling stock utilisation and freeing up platforms in the mainline stations above) is the ability to distribute passengers over a number of locations in central London (or whisk them on to Canary Wharf).

 

Were the Liz line built around a similar concept as Thameslink (e.g. a Clacton to Newbury service offered the numbers using it to make end to end journeys wouldn’t be significantly larger.

You answered my own point i was making there… in two places

 

Through HS2 trains, no Euston palace, passengers distributed…

Thats my whole point.

 

I dont believe i am the only Northerner, living in the South, nor do I believe I am the only Northerner who does not live in a flat on Euston Road… no do I believe most people within a mile radius, who can afford such mansions regular use Euston for long haul either.

 

so who is using Euston from the North ?

Not commuters.

So Tourists, Business travellers, students, familes..

All of whom wont have Euston as a final destination.

 

Its no coincidence the busiest tube stations in London are all Rail Termini…

The fact Euston is in the spotlight is demand exceeding capacity.. surely part of the solution is to avoid ?

 

But when avoid means OC, plus 4 changes, or Euston plus 1,  then OC has failed.

 

Has it escaped notice that a 10 min walk from Euston to St Pancras down Phoenix road, may actually get you to Thameslink / South and North more pleasantly and faster than Elizabeth Line with 4 escalators at Farringdon to go south and probably another 4 at OC… in addition to that extra change of train at OC. it certainly does today over Victoria and Tube to Euston, so I dont see the future changing on that one.

 

But of course hyping up demand helps business cases to justify spend, and Euston land is a gold mine for the construction industry.

So this current chaos serves their political needs at getting attention and tax payer money to the problem, at just the time out of control costs put a stop to Euston after the construction industry dug a big hole and took up much land that caused the land problem.
 

i’m sorry the industry can say its political and blame govt all they want, but they know what they are doing and how to feed off of it, they are not just a bunch dumb yes men doing as they are told… they hold a lot more clever certificates, golf memberships and nice cars than most politicians, for a reason. They know how to play the game. With all those HS2 tunnels, environmentalists must be the construction industries best friend… A lot of the scruffy tshirt, unshaven tree huggers I went to Uni with today are engineers. I appreciate theres more Engineers than Politicians in this thread so i’m already in a minority thought track.

Engineers, Politicians and Environmentalists are three identical marbles in the same trouser pocket.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited October 15 by adb968008

[adb968008]

1 hour ago, phil-b259 said:

Not if the M25 is being it’s usual car park! In fact when planning a recent journey to the Cumbria the plan was to take the train to Preston then hire a car precisely to avoid the traffic hells which are the M25 and the M6.

 

In any case the M25 a stressful drive even if it isn’t jammed solid so taking Thameslink to St Pancras then nipping across to Euston or changing to the Lizz line at Farringdon then changing to HS2 at Old Oak is going to a much nicer journey than the slog in the car can ever be.

 

 

Theres a reason the M25 gets full…

Obviously people are voting with wheels, than rails.

And even if its packed, it must still be better than the alternatives.

 

The M25 is circular, not through London, so if the belief of HS2 is that no one is going north to south, east or west, but only Central, where is everyone on the M25 going ?, as its not a ‘way in’ to Central London.

 

The traffics jams on the M25 speaks for itself.. its always A3-M3-M4-M40-M1 which magically happen to be North -South flows…

Edited October 15 by adb968008

[Michael Hodgson]

27 minutes ago, adb968008 said:

I know, my own mother is 80… and shes getting a bit old for the Victoria and Northern line friday night crush and Eustons insane rammed packed ( I wont say dangerous) mass passenger swarms..

 

 

I think you can say dangerous.  According to Green Signals the ORR gave effectively been saying that by telling them to put their house in order as regards overcrowding.

[adb968008]

1 hour ago, Michael Hodgson said:

 

I think you can say dangerous.  According to Green Signals the ORR gave effectively been saying that by telling them to put their house in order as regards overcrowding.

Without going OT about Euston i’m not sure what they can do.

 

i dont see how the advertising screens being on or off makes a difference either.. I doubt anyone missed a train for watching an advert.

 

Opening platforms earlier for boarding is certainly an option… running more trains would be another.. passengers arent hanging around there for fun.

 

its always been a free for all when the platform is called, for decades. Similarly its always been a game of dodgems for arriving passengers trying to get through the hall to exit… old KX used to be the same… a too narrow door way to the barriers from the old plaza booking hall.

 

If more Avanti stopped at Wembley ctrl then it could be encouraged as a secondary boarding option…Willesden Jn would have been better for local connections but that boat sunk in the 1960’s…

 

An odd ball but maybe have LNWR replace Southern on the Watford- East Croydons and use the 3rd rail fitted 350s on an extended ECY service instead of into Euston from further North (Crewe/Northampton) , promoting both KennO and Clapham as Zone1 avoiders, perhaps even the unloved terminal platforms at Blackfriars.

That has the added benefits of solving Southern 377 shortages and a use for the 3rd rail 350’s.

Feels like Euston is paying the price for closing Broad Street and Moorgate.

 

Edited October 15 by adb968008

[The Stationmaster]

3 hours ago, adb968008 said:

As someone living in that catchment i’d much prefer a 30 minute drive to Ebbsfleet than an hour trek to St Pancras on Thameslink, or Waterloo for that matter… indeed my last trip to Brussels, we went via LHR as its become easier than Eurostar…

 

HS2 is a complete no go for me in South London.. no way i’m schlepping to Old Oak to catch HS2… i could be half way to Birmingham on the M40 by the time Ive got to OC, and without the onward faff when I get there… Paddington as is, is trek, for what is considered ‘the starting line’ of a long distance GW journey… West London connections to the south are rubbish, verging non existent.. to assume people will voluntarily just go the hard way with 2-3-4 connections ‘just because’ is fallacy.

 

Whilst I dont like Euston, and think the whole building of an underground palace is nothing more than a construction industry money pit rather than making a true “for all” Londoners solution out of HS2, it is the least worst option as it keeps the problem of getting up north in the same building it is today.

 

The big misses to me in HS2 was Ealing Broadway as a major interchange (Tube, and Access to both NLL and WLL), and could do the HEX transfer, and secondly making the Elizabeth Line more network standard, so HS2 stock, could have used it, give it junctions to major other lines thus allowing it to not “terminate” in the capital and offer Kent, Anglia and South coast residents direct access to northern destinations without the hassle of changing, tubing and schlepping across the creaky tube system… imagine a return of 1S67 via HS2, WLL… Mancunians could get to Gatwick faster too.. there would be no need for money pits and white elephants in OC and Euston.

 

There seems to be a belief everything the Victorians did was wrong, but fundamentally they got it right.. Ealing Broadway, Watford Jn, Clapham Jn and Stratford all exist for the purpose of helping those avoid the capital and get more direct to a destination, without the hassle of going in, what they lacked was the ability to go continuous thru due to private nature of the companies, an issue not prevalent today. The problem for continuous through trains is its not good for construction industry revenues.

 

Ealing Broadway's value as an interchange has been ruined by the Liz Line service meaning that GWR trans can no longer call there without severe delays and the simplest interchange possible near to London has been lost.  It might well have cost a small, sorry very big, fortune to route HS2 that way but it would make a far more sensible interchange that the straggling desert of Old Oak which is one of the worst places in west London to get to by public transport (other  than certain 'bus routes) as it is beyond reasonable walking distance from every other station in the area.  

 

And who, apart from people travelling from Slough (and at a stretch Maidenhead) is going to change at Old Oak from/to a GWR train to join or leave HS2?  The only thing HS2 will sensibly connect with at Old Oak is the Liz Line and that doesn't need umpteen platforms and massive expenditure on layout alterations on the GWML to achieve.

 

3 hours ago, KingEdwardII said:

Can't agree with that.

 

The Victorians made London into an obstacle course by design. They never had the concept of through traffic to connect different regions of England. That is still largely the case - even the Elizabeth line is really a glorified tube line and does not provide through trains from east to west. Thameslink provides some connections north-south, but it is still rather limited.

 

The Victorians may have been great engineers and they achieved many things, but in this case, there was a serious failure of imagination and ambition.

 

Yours, Mike.

Oddly the late Victorians, and the Edwardians, made quite lot out of various through and connectional workings in London despite the imposition of having very limited through routes.  He ce a lot of through local passenger train working via Snow Hill Tunnel and some longer distance trains via the West London Line.  through various connectional possibilities given at Addison Road;  and GWR through coaches to Dover via that route at one time plus of course the GWR running local services into Victoria.  So quite a lot of wider London/cross London working went on back then.

 

Certainly no major central London station for through running of long distance trains so maybe it's a pity that Watkin's dream never materialised in the way he had in mind?

[corneliuslundie]

Basically, the idea of services through London was scuppered by the insistence that the railways could not enter the central area - only eventually breached properly by the tunnel from KX to Farringdon.

So you can blame the citizens of the city at that time. They weren't interested in through journeys so why should anyone else want them?! As has been said, there were various efforts to provide services linking the main stations, But presumably their demise was because of lack of use.

As one who used Thameslink for some years, I can assure you that there were few through passengers. The main advantage was serving several stations in central London so that you could travel from the north to London Bridge (as I often did) etc. But the northbound rush-hour trains only really filled up at KX.

Jonathan

[KingEdwardII]

34 minutes ago, The Stationmaster said:

Watkin's dream never materialised in the way he had in mind

Indeed, Watkin is a clear example of someone who had the vision for through running, but even with his position of authority, he was not able to make it happen. A lost opportunity.

 

Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester direct to Paris, Brussels.

 

Or on a more parochial scale Newcastle to Southampton via London on a single train. Today this involves 2 changes.

 

Yours, Mike.

[adb968008]

38 minutes ago, corneliuslundie said:

 

As one who used Thameslink for some years, I can assure you that there were few through passengers. The main advantage was serving several stations in central London so that you could travel from the north to London Bridge (as I often did) etc. But the northbound rush-hour trains only really filled up at KX.

Your saying Farringdon, City and Blackfriars are little used stations ?

 

I really beg to disagree.

 

Farringdon had 40 million LUL entries / exits in 2023…, and 31 million National rail…

71mn on four platforms… thats a staggering amount.

In comparison thats over 2.5x the number of passengers using Manchester Piccadilly.

 

City Thameslink had 6 million… which proves that almost all of them are going North of or South of the Thames… i’d be staggered if most of them were simply going Farringdon to the south.

 

Blackfriars adds another 12 mn… with 9mn on the Tube… This is as big as Manchester Piccadilly again.

 

Combine the three your looking at over 100mn passenger entry exits, or nearly 2mn a week… and your suggesting most of them dont go beyond StP/KX  from the north, and trains are empty to the North until that point, so this lot are all southerners ?

 

If thats really the case then close the tunnel from St Pancras to Farringdon… and repurpose HS2 to use it south.. as evidently thats where the people are.

 

 

Seriously TL and EL sucess are evidence that thru trains are needed, even if the passengers change enroute… as they are clearly going where people want them to go… where they end is less important, as long as its not ending before its gone through… as this is clearly the secret sauce.

thats why OC is so bad, and Euston is the least worst.

 

Edited October 15 by adb968008