Crossrail 2 continued

In my best 1950s documentary voice-over voice...
But with the railway comes regeneration and developers are falling over themselves to build smart new homes so that ordinary Londoners can take advantage of the improved travel opportunities.

I would assume that New Southgate would not be the terminus but merely the connection to the existing network.

I have just looked at the Wikipedia article on Crossrail 2 and it seems to suggest five terminus stations at the Southwest end of the line.

If this is the case does this not cause problems with frequency and delays through the central section. Especially if the operators wish too increase the frequency to 30 trains per hour.

The reason I ask is this is that I was always under the impression that the more terminus stations you have at the ends of a line like this the more problems there are if one of the trains is slightly late. Which is why most of the London Underground lines have at the most two terminuses at each end.

But then again, having a number of termini means that if you get delays in the core, you could easily switch a train around so that it ends up going back through the core when it should have. This is sometimes done on the district in disruption

The Central London core of the District actually has four scheduled destinations, as it also includes the Circle Line to Edgware Road. Although as you say there are no scheduled trains from the core to Olympia, trains are sometimes run there during times of disruption - usually to get a train sent back east sooner than it would otherwise be able to. And of course the Olympias (but not the Circle trains) add to the fun at Earls Court.

Historically it also had trains to South Harrow/Uxbridge and to Hounslow!

To be pedantic, the term you are looking for (i.e. the plural form - as in multiple objects / places - of the word "terminus") is the word "temni"

Adding a "s" at the end of a word to indicate more than one is not always correct - even if the BBC etc insist on doing it to the word "referendum" (the plural version of the word is "referenda" NOT "referndums")

Coming back on topic though, I would suggest that you shouldn't read too much into the number of branches on the South Western side of the map as there is no guarantee that they will all end up in the final draft as it were. In particular you need to factor in the following:-

Kingston branch:

2x level crossings requiring property demolition to remove, a lack of proper termini (e.g. Kingston being an elevated  simple two platform station with a 'wrong direction' bay & Twickenham with its 4 platforms being an important overtaking point for faster trains on the Waterloo - Reading axis). Plus there is the need to accommodate the Sheperton trains in the event they don't get subsumed into Crossrail (whichever direction they approch from) and the issue that withdrawing all the trains that currently go 'round the loop' from Waterloo will represent a break from the long standing service pattern - (Think the Thameslink Wimbledon loop fiasco here)

Epsom / Chessington branch :-

2x level crossings (both of which are London side of the split for the Chessington branch), a lack of propper termini (e.g. Epsom station being shared with Southern services from Croydon). Plus there is the need to accommodate the Chessington / Epsdom trains in the event they don't get subsumed into Crossrail and trains to Guildford via Epsom, Leatherhead & Effingham Junction

SW main line to Woking :-

Lack of a decent termini plus the fact that currently all terminating services need to cross the fast lines to / from the central bay.

Hampton Court: -

Actually a pretty good option (assuming Waterloo services go) as the station could be expanded to 3 or possibly 4 platforms fairly easily (from the current 2) The downside of course is that it doesn't serve the Kingston / Epsom areas, but might be a good option to terminate the bulk of the service if finding paths elsewhere is hard. In this respect it could be thought to mirror the proposed New Soutgate / Alexandra Palace branch (which exists partly because the WAML on its own (not having the number of branches the SWML does*) cannot justify a 30tph service.

* Also having the river Lea running alongside is a restrictior on lineside developments - essential for generating revenue.

Thus what you could get say is something like 4tph Twickenham - Hertford E, 4tph Woking - Broxbourne, 4tph Epsom - Cheshunt, 2tph Chessington - Cheshunt, 16tph Hampton Court - New Southgate.

Of course with enough money and will the constraints I have mentioned on the Kingston  / Woking / Chessington / Epsom lines could be removed but it would be naive to simply assume all these branches can have a 6 tph service as they stand and even 4 tph would be a struggle given the interworking with other NR services on some of them.

In some respects this is not dissimilar to the dilemma Crossrail 1 has faced and even with significant improvements being made, the slow / relief lines from Royal Oak westwards are still compromised by having accommodate freight and FGW passenger operations as well as Crossrail trains limiting the options. The Eastern branches however are pretty much self contained so a high tph is possible. With Crossrail 2 the two northern branches become mainly self contained (assuming 4 tracking of the WAML) and its the SWML section that faces issues from multiple operators and service patterns.

Ultimately though the big flaw of the whole project from my point of view is that because of the undeniable need to provide relief to the underground serving the northern termi of Euston / St Pancras / Kings Cross, the NE segment emerges in the wrong place to be actually helpful in terms of relieving the NR lines into Liverpool Street. Ideally what you want is something that links the SWML and the WA routes by way of Victoria, Tottenham Court Road & the City (connecting with the WA lines via both Clapton and Stoke Newington in the vicinity of Hackney) thus catering for both city and leisure travellers but as I said above that doesn't work if you want to serve Euston or particularly the likes of Dalston. It is also perhaps noting that in the past it various transport specialists have observed that while having Crossrail (1) linking Paddington to Liverpool Street makes sense from a geographical (and Heathrow - Docklands) perspective, if you went on sheer passenger numbers and where congestion was most acute at NR terminal stations, the best 'fit' in terms of balancing branches etc are the SWT into Waterloo & the GE / WA lines into Liverpool Street and not the GWML.