Extending Crossrail to Reading - ongoing discussion, merged topic

[whole diary]

[Btline]

An interesting article entitled "Electrification: Time for battle lines to be drawn?" (link below.)
http://www.railnews.co.uk/2008/01/opinions/200801_alanmarshall.html

Excellent article, giving more reasons than "electrification is good." The author explains how stock and infrastructure will have to be renewed anyway soon.

But- methinks the government will miss out this golden opportunity and just order some more Virgin Voyagers!

[eightf48544]

Good case for electrification.

MML^» (Midland Main Line. - about) is probably best to start as with some infills it could link East and West Coast lines, Birmingham Derby.

However there also needs to be some other infills.

Ipswitch Felixstowe (mainly freight) although through passenger services from London become a possibility.

Colchester -  Sudbury elimination of Diesels.

Coventry -  Nuneaton diversionary and gets rid of diesel units on Trent Valley.

If MML and Birminham - Derby done then Nuneaton Leicester becomes a candidate as does Derby - Stoke. Elimination of Deisels on WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line).

Walsall - Rugely as Coventry Nuneaton above.

Manchester Deansgate to Wigan and Preston for Manchester Glasgows plus, Blackpool (infill) and Barrow (infill).

Original Liverpool Manchester Mainline heavy pasenger traffic plus diversionary route via Newton le Willows connections North and South to WCML already electrified.

If L&M electrified Huyton to Wigan. Liverpool Glasgow. Blackpool, Barrow and Manchester via Wigan get diesel untits off WCML.

Preston - Blackpool enough said.

Carnforth - Barrow get diesel untits off WCML.
Barrow - Carlisle diversionary route but very marginal until rest filled in.

Oxenhope - Windemere elimination of diesel traction in North West marginal  later.

Carlisle - Newcastle the key link between ECML^▸ (East Coast Main Line) and WCML.

East Coast links Leeds York via Church Fenton and Leeds Hambeldon South Junction, already prposed to give Leeds London circular.

If MML and these infills get done then it makes case for Settle and Carlisle and GSW route through Dumfries.

Given the will I would suggest that this could all  be done in 10 years. Each mi,e would beome relatively cheaper (economy of scale) the design teams could move from line to line.

It would achieve the elimination of of lots of Diesel miles under exisitng wires.

If this were done then the case for the GW^▸ (Great Western) mainline would be irresitable. Elimination of all high powered diesel traction (1000 hp plus). for passenger trains.






 

[Btline]

I would say no to the following:

Preston - Blackpool enough said. A lot if trains to Blackpool come from across the region (on non electrified lines) so maybe not worth it.

Carnforth - Barrow get diesel untits off WCML^▸ (West Coast Main Line). Only every 2 hours- worth it?
Barrow - Carlisle diversionary route but very marginal until rest filled in.[/i] No- a rural route. has to use Pacers for some of it anyway. A very slow diversion as well!

Oxenhope - Windemere elimination of diesel traction in North West marginal  later. As of December 2007, this is now a shuttle as FTPE^» (First TransPennine Express - website) have used all their stock of 185s on their Glasgow- Manchester  services
 
Carlisle - Newcastle the key link between ECML^▸ (East Coast Main Line) and WCML. Too rural, not much of a diversion. Some ECML are HST^▸ (High Speed Train) anyway (going to North Scotland).

This would be my scheme:

INTERCITY:

*GWM line
*MM line
*XC^▸ (Cross Country Trains (franchise)) line
*Glasgow to Edinburgh line
*Edinburgh to Aberdeen

COMMUTER:
*Snow Hill Lines
*The Chase Line (Walsall)
*Chiltern Lines

[Btline]

After Crossrail, will FGW^▸ (First Great Western) stop HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) at Maidenhead and Tyford to compensate for local Crossrail trains stopping at Maidenhead?

[swlines]

Doubt it. What HST^▸ (High Speed Train) services would you propose stopping?

Swansea's have a relatively long journey time as it is, likewise with Cotswolds and Plymouth/Penzance. Bristols have to meet the requirement due to their heavy business use.

Perhaps Oxfords, but then you'd have to depart the Bristol behind later.

[Btline]

Some will have to stop, otherwise locals will have to travel to London to get any further than Maidenhead!

It will be bad, we need faster trains. No HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train) should stop between Reading and Paddington - at least off peak.

[swlines]

There will still be Turbo services which will be able to stop, running semi-fast as far as Maidenhead I guess.

[IndustryInsider]

I'm still hoping (and expecting) for common sense to prevail and the Crossrail scheme gets extended to Reading. It makes so much more sense as then all suburban trains eastwards from Reading would be Crossrail except perhaps for the half-hourly through stopping service from Oxford. Some could be curtailed at Maidenhead, but Twyford passengers will not be keen to lose their four off-peak trains an hour to London which is Crossrail terminates at Maidenhead they will surely have to?

[Lee]

The Crossrail Bill has received Royal Assent (link below.)
http://nds.coi.gov.uk/environment/fullDetail.asp?ReleaseID=374882&NewsAreaID=2&NavigatedFromDepartment=False

[eightf48544]

Btline has highlighted one of the major problems of Crossrail in that it doesn't work West of Paddington.

To the East, Crossrail splits 12 tph to Shenfield which is virtually what you have now and 12tph to Abbeywood which is new and doesn't conflict with any other services.

However the Relief lines West of Paddington can only take 10tph so 14 tph Westbound terminate at Paddington (Eastbourne Terrace). They are even building a platform to allow people who don't get off to alight before the train turns round.

Of the 10 tph the split is 4tph to LHR 2tph terminating at West Drayton and  4tph at Maidenhead.

There is a document on the Crossrail website which you can find by Googling "Crossrail Service Pattern" but this extract ought to bother anyone travelling from Twyford or wanting to travel from Reading or Twyford to intermediate stations to Paddington.


"3.3 The table below shows the changes to existing services during the peak periods that have been assumed during the planning of Crossrail.
Maidenhead
(GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line))
^ The majority of First Great Western Link services that start east of Reading in the morning peak would be replaced by Crossrail.
^ Some First Great Western outer suburban services that start west of Reading would be amended to operate non-stop between Reading and Paddington. Residual services would operate between Reading and Paddington with station calls at principal stations and between reading and Slough with station calls at all stations.
^ The Greenford to Paddington service would be replaced with a Greenford to West Ealing service at increased frequency."

Which to my mind is  complete nonsense and fails to take account of the current commuting patterns on the line. It assummes that everyone from Twyford Westwards wants to go to London. However, from my commuting days I know that there is a heavy flow from Reading and Twyford to intermediate stations as far Ealing Broadway. It also means that anyone travelling from East of Maidenhead to Twyford and Reading will probably have to change. This will affect leisure flows as you can get virtually anywhere on the rail Network from Reading so a lot of people prefer to travel via Reading vice changing stations in London. Will they want an extra change just to get to Reading.

At one stage there were plans to build a platform on the tamper sidng at Slough for a Reading Slough diesel shuttle stopping pattern and frequency unquoted. Not sure if that's still on.

Crossrail also completely stymies freight traffic East of Reading. I'm sure the residents of West Wiltshire will be very pleased with the extra lorries on the road carrying stone.

I'm still hoping (and expecting) for common sense to prevail and the Crossrail scheme gets extended to Reading. It makes so much more sense as then all suburban trains eastwards from Reading would be Crossrail except perhaps for the half-hourly through stopping service from Oxford. Some could be curtailed at Maidenhead, but Twyford passengers will not be keen to lose their four off-peak trains an hour to London which is Crossrail terminates at Maidenhead they will surely have to?

Extending to Reading would certainly allieviate some of the problems but I can't see Crossrail running other than all stations Reading Paddington so Maidenhead Twford and Slough would still probably lose their fast peak services.

The problem is Crossrail is conceived as an RER or inner urban railway. The problem is it decants onto a a mainline railway  upon which a pattern of usage has been built up over the years which Crossrail disrupts by terminating at Maidenhead.

[tom-langley]

If you ask me it seems crazy not to run it to Reading!

There is some sort of depot being built at West Drayton for Crossrail, surely the money spent doing that would be better spent extending to reading. In the grand scheme of things the electrification costs to enable this must be tiny compared to the cost of tunnelling under London.

Reading is already a natural terminus for suburban services into London which works very well for people going both ways enabling people coming form intermediate stations to go to Reading at get a fast train to the west, and people coming off fast trains at reading can get straight on a local stopping train. Why introduce an extra change at Maidenhead? There is also a depot at Reading which I am sure would be able to accommodate Crossrail as with the reduction of local turbo services they will get moved somewhere else, which saves building an extra depot at West drayton.

This is typical short sighted thinking.

[swlines]

There is some sort of depot being built at West Drayton for Crossrail, surely the money spent doing that would be better spent extending to reading. In the grand scheme of things the electrification costs to enable this must be tiny compared to the cost of tunnelling under London.

It's normally wise to have a train depot at both ends of the line - therefore if there is a problem at one end at least you can have half your trains out, rather than none.

[tom-langley]

Yeah not quite what I meant Swlines, I was trying to say use the depot at Reading cause, its allready there and I suspect will have spare capacity when Crossrail comes in.

[Electric train]

Apart from the shortage of platforms at Reading, which will be alleviated by the Reading redevelopment there is also a power supply problem going to Reading, it would mean a Grid supply at Reading the Grid at Early this is a 132kV site is not suitable and would need considerable investment.

The Grid supplies in the west are likely to be at Westbourne Park and Iver both from the 400kV super grid, I believe the Old Oak and Hayes feeds are being kept as back up.  The overhead line system is envisaged to be auto transformer and not the usual booster transformer system.

The reason for overhead line taking its supply from the 400kV grid is that the railway single phase load cause all sorts of problems on the 132kV system especially the power requirements for Crossrail trains at 6MW

[eightf48544]

Apart from the shortage of platforms at Reading, which will be alleviated by the Reading redevelopment there is also a power supply problem going to Reading, it would mean a Grid supply at Reading the Grid at Early this is a 132kV site is not suitable and would need considerable investment.

.

This is typical short sighted thinking

Presumably 400KV will be required at Reading for GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line) electrification so could be provided in advance for Crossrail. The "bean counters" can have fun allocating costs, but at the end of the day you and I will pay for it. I'd much rather pay for electrification than troops in Iraq.

So Tom Langley is right it's totally short sighted thinking. If Crossrail is not going to be open West of Padd until 2017 then there is more than enough time to electrify to Plymouth, Swansea all routes including Swindon - Wesbury and Trowbridge - Bath and Swindon - Gloucester - Severn Tunnel Junction. You'd probably be able to do Bristol - Birmingham via Worcester and Kidderminster as well in the time.

The great thing about electrifying is once you get the gangs rolling they can put up wire at a phenominal rate. The problem is that probably most of the best BR^▸ (British Rail(ways)) electrification engineers have retired. There is the HS1^▸ (High Speed line 1 - St Pancras to Channel Tunnel) team but presumably they've been dispersed to to other jobs plus they weren't wiring an existing railway.