Paddington Terminators

but it doesn't show if the submission was rejected

rsdworker - the Bakerloo has had proposals to extend it to Peckham/Camberwell and even further afield from time to time - the argument is that there is spare capacity south of about Oxford Circus, as starting from the Elephant is not presently very attractive (and the station is even convenient for the Elephant, in fact). But nothing is ever done and there's always something more urgent/politically sexy. Bozza did mention the southern extension as desirable a year or two ago but i doubt if he has the cash handy. Still, it's the best chance for some years, Ken having been so anti-LU.

I never knew that tunnels had eyes. They always used to have mouths.

I still think it's practically pointless to have the WCML as the second Crossrail western branch, mainly because the WCML is a mature market.

The Chiltern mainline however has a lot of suppressed demand, and the upgrade to electric 10/12-car trains would dramatically increase passenger numbers, unlike the WCML proposals could only relieve Euston to any significant extent. Coupled with the fact that Marylebone is horrifically congested due to only having 3 long platforms and 3 short ones, it needs the relief far more than Euston (with it's 19 platforms) does.

...these DC lines proposals don't even have the benefit the WCML slows options do - not needing any works as the platforms are both long enough and already have OHLE. They would require all the same works as the Chiltern option for much less gain. If anything, the Chiltern option would only require a simple grade-separated junction at OOC and not the tunnel that this proposes.

WCML is certainly not a mature market. Part of the reasoning behind HS2 is that this will allow more local services south of Rugby to serve the growing market on the southern end of the WCML.

Chiltern mainly run 4 car 168s or Class 67 + 5 Mk3s +DVT to Brum and this is sufficient for this line even in peaks so making these services 12 cars is pointless. If you are talking about the locals, the reason for suppressed demand is mainly due to the lack of a stoppers at a clockface timetable and this is not caused by the capacity of Marylebone. The lack of services to stations between Marylebone and High Wycombe is because you are running InterCity, local, and freight services on a two track main line. Diverting services to Crossrail does very little to change this.

Network Rail said in their London & South East RUS published in 2011 that any additional need for capacity on the approach to Marylebone can be done with no infrastructure improvements, just lengthening current services and changes to timetabling.

Checking the plans for Crossrail dated December 1991 it was to branch beyond Paddington calling at Wembley Park, Harrow on the Hill, Moor Park, Rickmansworth, Choreleywood, Chalfont and Latimer, branch to Chesham, Amersham, Great Missenden, Wendover, Stoke Mandeville, and Aylesbury. at the time it seemed a good plan, better than reversing trains at Paddington. It would have probably led to the closure of Marylebone. Money then could not be found until Crossrail came under Tfl and the branch to Abbey Wood included as a replacement for the Jubilee extention southeast. The cost being the abandonment of Aylesbury and Reading cut back to Maidenhead. Reading will still happen and the station rebuild has made allowance for Crossrail to arrive there. There is a worry that Reading could fill the trains with passengers changing before the trains get to maidenhead.

Euston's platform losses are only temporary though - and it has too many as-is. These factors combined mean it doesn't need relief for platforms at least. West Coast need maybe 8-9 platforms and London Midland need 4-5. LO has 1. That leaves a contingency of 3-4 spare platforms whilst maintaining the rather lax platform occupation Euston enjoys. Even without evicting LO, building the new HS platforms and running West Coast into those gives ample slack for the reconstruction for it to be a non-issue.

My point about it being a mature market is that Crossrail is likely to take over the Tring stoppers - these are already 12-cars long and electrified, and the lines are near-as full preventing higher frequencies. What growth can Crossrail provide to these? Euston has capacity for more services if you can get them there - reassigning West Coast's paths to the suburban operation will manage this fine.

Yes, Crossrail would ease access to the centre...but TCR is already very easy to get to (the CX branch of the Northern isn't overloaded), so it improves access to Farringdon, Liverpool St., Whitechapel and Canary Wharf then, all (bar Canary Wharf) of which can be easy reached by fixing the interchange with the SSL at Euston. I'm not saying these aren't beneficial - just that offering these destinations to Chiltern line passengers is more beneficial as their existing options are to crush load onto the Bakerloo from Marylebone and change, or walk to Baker St. and get the SSLs. My proposal you can have your cake AND eat it

Fair points. I'd imagine the works would at the very least restore or add loops to all stations out to High Wycombe though (if not linking a few together into longer four-track sections), and by leaving the Northolt-Neasden section of line to the mainline services, you would be able to increase frequencies.

The via Amersham services definately do need some sort fo upgrade though - it's disgraceful how poor they are given how close to London they are. If anything, I'd agree a tunnel form Neasden to OOC would be a option, but I'd probably run them down into Euston due to its spare capacity. That would leave Marylebone solely to the mainline services.



The problem with Marylebone isn't line capacity on the approaches though - as they say, it's easy to upgrade that - it's platform capacity. Marylebone isn't getting any more platforms any time soon.

metrailway - given the relatively close difference in journey times from Birmingham to either Marylebone or Euston, the case for having upgraded WC at a cost of £12bn looks pretty weak. I would expect Chiltern to respond to HS2 with reduced, simplified fares and an even tighter journey time, and I would expect Chiltern to scoop the pool.

...then I'm afraid we'll just have to agree to differ. I'll go with what HS2 say though, and that means 14 platforms will be available at all times during construction, which is quite enough. As you say yourself, the Southern termini manage with much fewer platforms, so I don't really see what the problem is.
The lengths of platforms 9 & 10 are a bit of an issue, yes. I think their current use with 9 as LO and 10 as the shuttle from Watford Junction's bay is the best you can manage for now, if more paths could be found for more shuttles then that would help manage the overcrowding caused by the masses at Watford piling onto the services from further afield. LM does regularly share platforms 7 & 12 and sometimes 13 though, so it's not too much of an issue for running more 12-car services. More stock would be nice, but going by LM's seating availability charts, they seem to be managing current demand fairly well. Problem is that there are too many people wanting to travel on the 12-car services because of the timings and not enough wanting to travel on the 8-car ones...so short of 16-car trains there's not much you can do other than increase the frequencies...which there aren't paths for, regardless of whether they run into Euston or onto Crossrail.
I'm confident they've planned for that The majority of north-of-Birmingham services will be running via HS2, and will being using the 10 HS platforms. If you factor in the classic-compatible platforms then Euston will still have 14 WCML platforms to cater almost solely to Birmingham-Euston traffic. Ultimately, aside from EU regs, they need the additional land to the west of Euston because it will end up with 6 more platforms in total than it currently has.
True. CR2 will relieve the Victoria line though, and I would imagine that Crossrail will abstract a lot of the traffic from Paddington, freeing Hammersmith and Circle capacity. Running the Chiltern services onto Crossrail would also help avoid those passengers joining the SSL at Baker St.
There are probably only 11-13 services because that's all the station and line can handle. Also, the shortage of platforms at Marylebone causes the awkward need for platform sharing - further reducing the lengths you can operate. If we want to grow patronage on the railways you have to have regular and frequent services. Crossrail offers this by virtue of removing terminal constraints, constraints that Euston does not and will not have, but Marylebone has now, and will only get worse.

Indeed - This is exactly what I would like to see. There may be an argument for extending the 4 tracks to Princes Risborough to prevent the creation of a bottleneck however - or you go the RP2 option and build two new fast lines on an avoiding line around HW.
On a tangent - I also propose as an overall package of works that a branch of the Jubilee from Neasden serves these stations, letting the Chiltern mainline services sail through non-stop.
Possibly. I do dislike driving through there, but I suspect unless the Highways Agency chips in it'll just be a new two-track bridge next to it that would get built.
If my Jubilee branch came to pass you'd have a change to a fast Met train at Neasden

A bit of a tangent - but something I submitted for Watford Junction's proposed redevelopment was major changes to the platforms to cater for the post-HS2 usage Watford Junction can expect. Basically, knocking through to restore platform 5 to create a 5&6 northbound fast island platform, converting 7&8's island into a southbound fast island, then converting 9&10 into a northbound slow island, and building a new 11&12 southbound slow island. Crossovers north and south between the inner slow lines would enable them to be used as terminal bays as well. The curvature speed restrictions shouldn't be too much of a problem as everything on the slow line would be stopping at Watford (as most already do), and there's room to ease them both north and south within railway boundaries if need be.

...yes, that's what I meant by EU regs...also that they need to be straight 400m platforms.

I'd say so, yes. Would relieve the Jubilee between Baker St and Bond St too.

I was not saying Henly and Twyford passengers would fill a crossrail train. It would be the passengers changing at Reading to go to stations beyond Paddington that would. As it stands with a terminus at Maidenhead the passengers would be reluctant to change twice, first at Reading wait for a slow train and then change at Maidenhead. Maybe that is why trains will start empty from Paddington and go east to cater for Main line passengers. Reading could become a non stop station for long distance trains once Crossrail is up and running.

An easier option would be the addition of a new slow platform, using the southern connection to platform 10 and a new northern connection from the Up Slow. This would allow platform 9 to be used for reversing trains from Euston without being in the way of longer distance services. It would also allow 12 car trains.



The EU regs only say that the maximum length of the trains is 400m, not that the platforms have to be that long. Indeed, they also mention that the length of the trains should be set by existing platform lengths on the non-high speed lines served.

However, 400m platforms make sense, as the general train length for High Speed units is 200m.

I'm less confident about Chiltern Main Line's prospects! Since HS2 services will be about twice as fast as Chiltern services and be frequent (3tph), the vast majority of the lucrative business traffic* will use HS2 instead of the classic main lines. So this leaves the West Coast and Chiltern lines to fight it out for leisure traffic. The WC will be fine as it also serves the City of Coventry, Northampton, Milton Keynes, and Watford so there will always be good usage of any residual* InterCity WC service between Birmingham and London. On the Chiltern Main Line, however, there is no major intermediate source of traffic so any InterCity service will inevitably be lightly loaded when compared to the WC.

Back to Crossrail - I wouldn't be surprised if the planned 4tph to Heathrow is not sufficient and we might see a few more Paddington terminators going to Heathrow in the future. After all 45 million people (excluding transit pax) use Heathrow every year and if Oyster is accepted on Crossrail Heathrow services, we could see an significant demand for a cross London service.

*30% of all traffic on HS2 will be people earning over £70,000 per annum according to the IFS. According to HS2's Technical Appendix - Appendix 2: Day 1 Train Service Assumptions for Demand Modelling there will only be one InterCity WC service between Birmingham and London. I am presuming that Chiltern will only have 1tph as well due to lack of demand. I'm less than impressed with the degrading of Coventry's service as it is one of the biggest major long distance flows to London Euston (ahead of places like Glasgow, Preston and Birmingham International, all of which will gain HS2 services and keep residual WCML services).