No more Circles

the Circle is the only link for people from Aldgate/Liverpool Street to Victoria/Embankment, so whatever replaces the Circles should encorporate this.

How about (off the top of the head) Wimbeldon to Wimbeldon? This would leave Earls Court as a turning back point should the service get behind/have a problem.

As i say, that will no doubt have flaws but its off the top of my head!

The T-Cup solution isnt bad either

How about:

District Line Wimbledon - Barking via KX service using District and Ex-Circle C Stocks (District T/Ops take the Train to Edgware Road and Edgware Road T/ops take the Train onto Barking)
Leaving Wimbledon - Upminster services to go via Victoria as usual with D78 Stock.

Usual H&C: Hammersmith - Whitechapel via KX using C Stocks (With Edgware Road T/ops)

Met services as usual to Aldgate with A Stocks.

I've often thought that a Hammersmith/Wimbledon via Aldgate and a Whitechapel/Whitechapel via Gloucester road may be an option.

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To edit this post a bit. Citysig and others have stated that the circle goes pear-shaped becuse there is no "terminus" for recovery purposes. That could be overcome by having Whitechapel/Whitechapel inner rail and Olympia/Olympia outer rail services.

This would make the running times out and back in either direction virtually the same. As I have said before the circle gets far, far, too much time to go round. In my day they got 48 minutes and although they used to try to fiddle things they rarely ran late. Nowadays they get 56 which only encourages the buggers to faff about and hold everything else up.

Also timetables should get their act together and and use "common headway" for all intermixing services. This damn "10 minutes here" "8 minutes there" business is bloody ridiculous. In the 60's minimum time Upminster/Western branches was 80 minutes. Now it's 85 and they STILL run late. That's not progress thats regress.

You know what I'm going to say don't you (probably because I've said it before ;D )

First off, whether or not they are a pain, the Circle Line will return by mid-August. It will never be scrapped as it is a public institution.

But, to avoid repeating everything I've said in the past, I will "go with the flow" for the purposes of this thread. Besides, much as I tend to stick up for the service, I don't like them either, and the past few weeks have been a nice change (it goes without saying that I would rather the events leading up to the suspension had not been as they were.)

Most of the above service suggestions form, in one way or another, the well-known tea-cup or pan-handle patterns. In the past these have all been disasters, mainly due to the fact that any delay can slaughter the whole service. It is too reliant on drivers "meeting in the middle."

If there is a delay from the District side, you find H&C side trains waiting for drivers to arrive. Get too many waiting and you end up having to turn them back and cause gaps in the service. And so it goes on.

The only way in which a tea-cup or pan-handle service will ever work better, would be if all drivers were passed for both H&C and District lines. That just will not happen.

This type of service also uses a lot of stock and operators - due to the length of the trips. If it becomes the dedicated service, you increase the pressure of reliability. One delay at one station can lead to gaps miles away in areas which only have the pan-handle service. Any delay in the service can still be seen over an hour later.

Then of course, what about the confusion to passengers. Let's say it's a Wimbledon-Wimbledon via Kings'Cross service. You're standing at Putney Bridge trying to head to Baker Street. How best to display this information to ensure you go the correct/shortest way?

Is the "panhandle" the Hammersmith-->Liverpool St----> Victoria----->Edgware Road----->Barking option?

If so as this is a "merger" of the H&C and Circle lines why would this need a driver-swap en-route?

And the people who insist on such a service running should be confined in one.

However to be constructive, how about a Liverpool St - Edgware Rd via Victoria?

That is one way of running a "panhandle." However, when you begin to concentrate on a single line, you start to run out of drivers. The round trip (Hammersmith-Hammersmith) would be in the region of 4 hours. To run a 4-minute service each way (8 minute "Circle" and 8 minute H&C) that's somewhere in the region of 60-70 trains and their drivers. Until the new Sub-Surface stock arrives we are a few trains short. Even then we would need quite a few extra drivers.

A panhandle using a District Branch does at least give you the use of "their" drivers on "their" bit. Wimbledon-Wimbledon would be under 2 hours, meaning for a 4-minute service, around 30 trains and drivers would be needed. We have the trains, and by sharing the workload, we also have the drivers.

But then, if we're talking about spending money to get rid of the Circle, then any combination of teacup or panhandle could be looked at - regardless of cost.