Elizabeth Line service increase again?

Subject to having enough rolling stock and platform capacity at OOC this should be easily accomplished - just extend all the trains that currently terminate at Paddington.

Maybe also send some trains beyond OOC but that is a different issue.

Would have cost more... but from a point of view of transport integration, connectivity with more of the UK, (etc) it would have been a very good idea.

If they could improve capacity on the Shenfield branch, surely the only place they could run to would be Liverpool Street high level? The core could take 30tph but it would then be an uneven balance with the Abbey Wood branch.

Unbalanced services can make timetabling and service recovery more difficult and can cause problems at passenger interchange points.
AIUI though it's not just a simple case of Shenfield being busier than Abbey Wood - the Shenfield branch (particularly at the east end) is much peakier than the Abbey Wood branch. On the Shenfield branch demand (excluding Stratford at least) is much more typical of the commuter railway it was for decades while at least as far as Woolwich the Abbey Wood branch is much more of a metro.

I don't think other lines have been affected as much as expected! link

If financial cases have been built on 2% new trips, then surely revising that to 30% new trips should show that proposed lines are much nearer self-financing, and need for Government grants will be much reduced. Easier to make their case.

This morning at Maryland I ended up on the platform for an hour before there was a train with any space on board!

Some relevant excerpts from the additional trains addendum to the last Programmes & Investment Committee meeting:

A very bad situation - no you should not have waited so long, nor even contemplated walking.

To my eyes the blame lies with the people who descoped the Great Eastern Main Line in general and its connections with Ilford depot.

In the old days trains starting at Ilford's bay platform virtually guaranteed that passengers would be able to board at the three intermediate stations between Ilford and Stratford.

If the Class 345 trains really are too long for the bay platform at Ilford* then there is a need to modify the track layout between Ilford and Seven Kings so that these trains can enter service (in a westbound direction)  before Ilford station. Even a train every 20 minutes would be highly beneficial!




*could a train fit if the bay platform track was relaid at a diagonal with the eastern end going as far over as land ownership allows on the other side of the mobility lift? oh and at the western end the adoption of a similar narrow platform solution as was done for S8 trains at Baker Street?

My thinking is that we need positive 'can do' attitudes to problem solving. Even if it means thinking outside the box. Severely overcrowded trains are unpleasant - and potentially dangerous.

The service also needs more frequent trains, which might mean CBTC - although ETCS might be better as it seems set to become a UK railway standard so will be compatible with other services too.

What passengers (I include me in this comment) using this route do *not* need are ivory tower deskbound pen-pushers who suddenly decide that a signalling system which has worked well for 40+ years is no longer safe and needs 'gerrymandering' in a way that reduces train throughput from 22+ trains an hour to 15 trains an hour (as happened to this route in circa 1990, causing extreme overcrowding)

What I hadn't mentioned was that there was considerably increased demand because the Central line was suspended at the time, plus there were cancellations due to the Elizabeth line's own overrunning engineering work and problems on the GW Main Line. I'm not surprised it was busy, but I was surprised it was that busy!

As for your final observation... we've been here before and I'm going to sound like a broken record trying to inform and educate on this.
Any signalling system approaching 40 years old in 1990 was potentially no longer safe due to the type of wiring then used and the fact that the insulation degraded over time. Rolling stock acceleration and speed characteristics had also changed over the 40 year life, and it was entirely possible that the signalling design was no longer fit for purpose - it's also remembering that the layout design would have been completed several years earlier (i.e by 1986/7 at the latest) when train service frequencies may have been different.

I think it is rather disingenuous to describe many of my colleagues in train service planning and signalling design as 'ivory tower deskbound pen-pushers' - they are absolutely experts in what they do.

Various LU lines suffer from the same problem as having their signalling and headways specified when passenger levels were lower, with a reduced ability to cope when ridership unexpectedly increases.

But surely all systems should be future-proofed with capacity built-In for service increases?

So at the time, nobody thought that demand may increase?

Sounds like a good opportunity to raise fares

That's TfL's answer at the Blackwall and Silvertown tunnels.