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Post by The Tram Man on Oct 26, 2009 14:33:34 GMT
Am i the only one who would like to see the Epping-Ongar branch re-opened?
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Post by carlovel1 on Oct 26, 2009 15:07:57 GMT
You could well be , but it will not happen!
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Post by jakehn54 on Oct 26, 2009 15:08:49 GMT
Yes it would be great, not only to relieve the pressure on the parking around Epping, Theydon Bois and other stations but now LU run unstaffed stations they wouldnt cost that much to run.
Maybe trains could run through to Ongar in the peaks, with a 30minute frequency at other times like the Chesham Branch.
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Post by The Tram Man on Oct 26, 2009 15:15:11 GMT
That would be great. How much you think it would cost to re-open it?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2009 15:27:18 GMT
I think running costs around the early 1990's were around £6m a year!
I think at least £25m would need to be spent getting the track and infrastructure back to LU standards, if it were to ever happen. As much as I'd like to see it happen, I can't see it happening. Besides, Ongar isn't that far from Brentwood.
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Post by The Tram Man on Oct 26, 2009 15:46:50 GMT
Brentwood? But thats on the National Rails network. And if i havent missed something you cant go on Nation Rail with an Oyster card. However it is on the TfL map so i might be wrong.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 26, 2009 16:13:44 GMT
Ongar was closed before Oyster came about... hence my reference to Brentwood, because, according to research at the time, most passengers that used Ongar elected to use Brentwood.
This station is outside zone 6. The next station towards London, is Harold Wood, this *is* in Zone 6. IIRC, Ongar was also outside of the zonal system in place at the time it was open...
Users would most likely have had a Six zone travelcard, annual whatever and then had an equivalent period extension ticket to Ongar. Presumably, they pax would have just paid the difference between Harold Wood and Brentwood as an extension too!
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Post by plasmid on Oct 26, 2009 16:43:03 GMT
the central line just about copes with passengers during the peaks, extending the line back to ongar would produce a less frequent service to central london. the costs would far outweigh the benefits. also considering that the central line was 'upgraded in the 1990's' and there are no future plans for any work before 2020 it's not going to happen.
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Post by 21146 on Oct 26, 2009 19:02:21 GMT
I think running costs around the early 1990's were around £6m a year! I think at least £25m would need to be spent getting the track and infrastructure back to LU standards, if it were to ever happen. As much as I'd like to see it happen, I can't see it happening. Besides, Ongar isn't that far from Brentwood. £25,000,000? Two-thirds cheaper than the lifts at Green Park and would probably be used by more passengers too. |
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Post by andypurk on Oct 26, 2009 22:06:47 GMT
the central line just about copes with passengers during the peaks, extending the line back to ongar would produce a less frequent service to central london. All the following is my take on the 'problem' and I'm not advocating reopening myself. Extending the service back to Ongar wouldn't necessarily lead to a less frequent service on the Epping branch, as you'd only need to run some of the services all the way to Ongar, assuming the service runs through rather than a shuttle. If you started off with the branch having only a single train running at any one time, then you'd only need one extra train in service over the current requirements. Arn't there a few '92 units long term stopped? Getting a bit fantastic; if train availability became a problem, then you could always nick the '92 stock from the Waterloo and City and put a few extra cars onto the next tube stock order to replace them  |
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Post by The Tram Man on Oct 26, 2009 22:15:30 GMT
Yeah. Use ex. W&C stock for the shuttle/branch service. Great idea.
Perhapse painted in a sort of heritage scheme? 1938-stock livery? 1962-stock livery?
Now thats something i would lik to see!
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Phil
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Post by Phil on Oct 26, 2009 23:03:29 GMT
Admin:I know "The Tram Man" is new here, but the thread is drifting towards forlorn hopes, and we know where these things belong (Railway Ideas, Proposals and Suggestions board). If it disappears from here, you'll know where to find it.... And perhaps one of our knowledgable experts could explain to TTM, who's from Sweden, why it closed in the first place....
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Post by superteacher on Oct 26, 2009 23:26:41 GMT
It closed in the first place due to it being run down by LT for years, with the puposeful provision of an extremely sub standard service, which in its latter days could barely be described as peak hours, particularly in the morning! The sub standard service caused an even greater drop in passengers, thus giving LT an excuse to close it. Blake Hall had to go, of that there is little doubt, but North Weald and Ongar could have survived.
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Post by andypurk on Oct 27, 2009 1:17:46 GMT
As I understood it, one of the main reasons for closure (apart from the lack of passengers etc.) was that the electrification wouldn't have been able cope with the electrical load put on it by a full length 1992 stock train.
The Epping to Ongar section of line was only fed from the Epping end and the distance to Ongar (nearly 10km) meant that the voltage there was lower than normal. The route was always limited to just 8 (electric) cars in service east of Epping, either 1 x 8 car train or 2 x 4 car trains. Modern electrification methods, with composite conductor rails made of aluminium with a steel contact surface, may have been able to overcome this problem without the expense of a new substation. However, aluminium conductor rail was a 'new thing' at the time of the closure of the Ongar line and so it would be unlikely that it would have saved the route.
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mrfs42
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Post by mrfs42 on Oct 27, 2009 1:23:21 GMT
ITYF that a full 8 car train to Ongar was exceptionally rare - there were instructions for the staged starting of trains after a crossing at North Weald so the supply did not become overstretched with two trains drawing starting current. (Well, I'm pretty sure there were, I think I've read a copy in my collection; but goodness knows where it is)
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Post by andypurk on Oct 27, 2009 7:17:32 GMT
ITYF that a full 8 car train to Ongar was exceptionally rare - there were instructions for the staged starting of trains after a crossing at North Weald so the supply did not become overstretched with two trains drawing starting current. (Well, I'm pretty sure there were, I think I've read a copy in my collection; but goodness knows where it is) Yes, that's the case, I wasn't saying that 8 car trains were the 'norm', just that the branch was limited to those possibilities. The North Weald starting instructions, I had forgotten about. |
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North End
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Post by North End on Oct 27, 2009 8:16:52 GMT
the central line just about copes with passengers during the peaks, extending the line back to ongar would produce a less frequent service to central london. All the following is my take on the 'problem' and I'm not advocating reopening myself. Extending the service back to Ongar wouldn't necessarily lead to a less frequent service on the Epping branch, as you'd only need to run some of the services all the way to Ongar, assuming the service runs through rather than a shuttle. If you started off with the branch having only a single train running at any one time, then you'd only need one extra train in service over the current requirements. Arn't there a few '92 units long term stopped? Getting a bit fantastic; if train availability became a problem, then you could always nick the '92 stock from the Waterloo and City and put a few extra cars onto the next tube stock order to replace them I don't think the Ongar branch would integrate well into the main Central Line service, due to it being a long single-track branch. It would forever be an operational headache, particularly in times of disruption, leading to passengers not using the service due to unreliability. Ideally, if Ongar were to re-open as a single line, you would run it as a shuttle service from its own dedicated platform. However in the evening peak the best option would be to run some through trains from central London in the direction of peak flow only. A lot of the problem with Ongar was unreliability of connections from central London. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2009 9:15:28 GMT
I don't see how still LU would cover it's operational costs. According to the 2001 census the number of people living in the parish of Ongar who commute to work using either public transport or private transport is less than 2,500. Presuming that figure has doubled - which I doubt - in the past years, thats still less than 5,000 people per day and that presumes that everybody would use the tube link.
Brentwood - Liverpool Street is about the same time as Epping - Liverpool Street. Brentwood appears to have a regular service into London.
So why would anybody use a slower, less frequent service ?
£25 million to build is a comparable cost to the opening of Aylesbury Parkway
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2009 15:35:47 GMT
ITYF that a full 8 car train to Ongar was exceptionally rare - there were instructions for the staged starting of trains after a crossing at North Weald so the supply did not become overstretched with two trains drawing starting current. (Well, I'm pretty sure there were, I think I've read a copy in my collection; but goodness knows where it is) 8 car 92ts have made it to at least North Weald a long time ago... You are right about the current draw issue; because the line was 'single end fed' there was only permitted to be one train on the line at a time. The returns on revenue at the time did not justify a substation on the line. |
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mrfs42
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Post by mrfs42 on Oct 27, 2009 15:41:19 GMT
I'll have a dig around for the instructions, because I'm fairly sure that instead of only one train at anyone time the instructions were hinting more in the direction of 'not more than 2 DMs drawing large amounts of juice at the same time' - otherwise the crossing loop at North Weald would have been redundant.
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Post by superteacher on Oct 27, 2009 18:16:15 GMT
There were 2 trains in peak service until 1975 - the North Weald passing loop went in 1976.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2009 20:50:14 GMT
I think at least £25m would need to be spent getting the track and infrastructure back to LU standards, if it were to ever happen. Would LU ever be able to recover the costs, even today, even if North Weald airfield was to be built upon? A number of people who live in the Brentwood area use Shenfield station instead, so another nail in the coffin, for both Ongar and Brentwood stations. An unreliable service and 1 train every ten minutes at Ongar and Brentwood respectively, or a train 3-10 minutes in the peak at Shenfield (including all stations trains in that)? I would have thought it would be a no brainer. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 27, 2009 23:30:12 GMT
I suspect it was the Great Eastern electrification that killed the Ongar line, although it took a long time dying.
The trip from Ongar to central London by Underground was slow and uncomfortable. It was better to drive to a mainline station and get a fast and comfortable train to Liverpool Street, and then bus or Underground to destination.
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Post by plasmid on Oct 28, 2009 9:08:26 GMT
This is where the full design speed of the 92 stock would help. With the limited speed due to cheap design they don't make it through the extended branches as quick as they used to. If such a high speed underground train service was offered then it might attract people to use it. And even if they didn't extend the Ongar branch increasing the top end speed of the 92ts would provide a more frequent service to inner London as trains would be able to complete a journey and turn around quicker...there's more hope.  Actually that's not a bad idea should they open the Ongar branch (yeah right)...update the kit on a 92ts to be able to run a full 62mph service on the Ongar branch only. |
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Post by Chris M on Oct 29, 2009 11:39:19 GMT
This is getting into the realms of ideas and proposals, but if the Ongar branch was extended to meet the mainline at Chelmsford that would provide a lot more potential journeys. Although Chelmsford to Stratford and Liverpool Street would normally be quicker by National Rail it would provide an alternative for times of disruption, and expand the public transport journey options for commuting to Chelmsford from north east London (and vice versa) and also give public transport access between much of East Anglia and north-east London.
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Post by superteacher on Oct 29, 2009 16:00:09 GMT
62mph on the Ongar branch? That would be fun, considering the state of the track!!
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Post by plasmid on Oct 29, 2009 18:55:40 GMT
With erm, new track of course. Lol.
I suppose that would bump up the costs even more though, ha!
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Post by Deleted on Oct 29, 2009 19:07:16 GMT
New track, new trackbed as the track area was littered with rabbit holes, new signalling. lengthened platforms and new ticketing machines and gates.
I can't see this hapening in the current or future climate.
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Post by t697 on Oct 29, 2009 19:49:59 GMT
8 car 92ts have made it to at least North Weald a long time ago... I know for certain that 8 car 92TS went to Ongar twice. It was for a type test to check operation on a long single end fed section such as if a sub-station was switched out. The first trip revealed that more work was needed. The second one was to prove the 'fix'. That time a now retired Line Controller / Network Controller challenged the test crew to run non-stop Epping to West Ruislip. They nearly did it too, finally having to come to an absolute stand at the West Ruislip home signal. All manual driving in those days of course. |
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roythebus
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Post by roythebus on Oct 29, 2009 19:58:05 GMT
ISTR 8 car trains running for North Weald air display in the late 1960's!
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