Central line re-extention to Ongar via North Weald

Hi.

The two extremities of the Central Line were built on the premise that by the 1950's the areas along the route would be built up suburbia. However with the Green Belt coming in to force this didn't happen. My guess would be that the line to Ongar was almost complete so they opened it anyway, whereas the line towards Denham in the west wasn't and they canned the project beyond Ruislip. Essentially the line was a quirk of history and while a full tube line would be great it might be more realistic to provide a light rail service. TfL won't spend money on a line very few people will benefit from especially when it's outside the subsidy area.

As for extending the line to nearby towns, it looks unlikely another tube line will be built so the best option would be to build Crossrail 2 to connect at Woodford with the Epping branch and afterwards run along the M11 to Bishops Stortford and Stansted with a parkway station at Harlow.

This would cost an enormous amount of money that I as a tax and fare-payer would never want to pay for a few rural towns in Essex. There's a very, very good reason this line was closed, and i t's not coming back.

It would be a long journey from Chelmsford to London via Ongar and Epping. Also, the countryside is very rural between Ongar and Chelmsford along the A414.

Epping to Ongar is partly viable, but I agree with those who say it will never be profitable. It would be an interesting exercise to see just how many lines aren't that profitable!

One of the problems with Central Line East of Woodford was the County Council refusing to subside running costs. Hence higher fares in that area. Most other councils used to. Not saying it would have saved closuresbut would have helped.

Indeed it is, but Epping now has a subsidy from the local council.

Maybe it could be done in stages? To Coopersale, then North Weald, then the final push to Ongar as each section gained traffic.

The discussion about whether the Ongar line should have been extended to Chelmsford has been raging for over 50 years. The arrgument against was always that the 12-mile [?, surely it's more] extension if built would take too long for travellers to get to London. It was bad enough from Ongar, and I know! The direct BR route was much faster.

Was there ever a bus service to Chelmsford from Ongar?

As regards Denham, I still cannot see why this was ever seriously proposed since it was then and is now quite rural. I know that it was thought that there would be building in the area, and at the time you had a film industry, and the Orbital road from Uxbridge to Watford. The route was already heavy rail so it would have been easyish to extend. However, the withering away and dying of the GWR Uxbridge High Street branch which was meant to be part of a loop with the Vine Street branch could not have helped the viabikity, especially as it met the GWR main at Denham [from Subterranea Britannica]:

It was never intended to build a terminus at Uxbridge High Street. Early in the 20th century the GWR proposed to extend the West Drayton branch in a loop around the west side of Uxbridge to a junction with their line at Denham. The existing station at Uxbridge (Vine Street) was to be closed with a new station built on the west side of the town. Following local discussions a route running close to the town centre was authorised in 1899. This included a station on the north side of Uxbridge High Street from where the line would cross the road on an iron girder bridge and then run on an embankment and in a cutting round to the West Drayton branch close to Uxbridge Station

I only suggest a staged approach because it would take the pressure away from an ever growing number of commuters arriving at Epping by spreading them out over a couple of stations. Anyone know the distance from Epping to Coopersale along the route?

dare I suggest having Harlow-Chelmsford (and beyond at each end) and then extending some Central line services to North Weald to interchange with the cross Essex line. Having it as a feeder/orbital line would be better than having tube trains go so far out and stop so many times.

And probably highly desirable for 2012... however I suspect Greenbelt will prevent such a development...

Nice idea, but the Central really can't cope with any more peak passengers at the eastern end.

I can see Crossrail 2 go all the way to Stansted Airport. The Central Line, not so much. If anything the current Central Line is a candidate for shortening, not extending...

What is is about the Central Line that makes people want to get their axes out. Lets look at some real facts here, instead of knee-jerk opinions.

First, the Central Line's eastern problems stem mainly from overloading by Liverpool Street services, passengers arriving at Liverpool Street to Stratford and trying to squeeze onto already full trains. This is the main reason why Crossrail was proposed. It doesn't actually need a 20 billion pound solution to fix, any duplicate tube from Central London/Liverpool Street to Stratford would work.

Beyond that, I don't see much evidence that the branches to Hainault and Epping are doing much to detract from the rest of the line. They don't contribute the largest numbers of passengers, and they are almost perfectly balanced in terms of demand (operational problems with branches usually stem from unbalanced demand, as on the Piccadilly Line). They certainly don't need 20 billion pound Crossrail 2 to grab one of them. Chelsea-Hackney has mutated from a potentially reasonably priced line built to deep-level tube standards into yet another money-pit nightmare. The consequence of this is that I probably won't see it working in my lifetime.

Perhaps the Central Line should be simpler, but why should it be shorter? Lets look at some data here. First, Journey Times:

Epping to Liverpool Street is given as around 38 minutes by TfL (depending on the time of day). Compare (all times are approximate due to different timings, I've looked at rush hour trains in each case):

Hayes to Cannon Street: 40 minutes
Crayford to Cannon Street: 42 minutes
Barnehurst to Cannon Street: 36 minutes
Caterham to London Bridge: 46 minutes
Hampton Court to Waterloo: 39 minutes
Hounslow to Waterloo: 42 minutes
Carpenders Park to Euston: 42 minutes
Hertford North to Moorgate: 40 minutes
Enfield Town to Liverpool Street: 32 minutes
Brentwood to Liverpool Street: 37 minutes

There is nothing out of the ordinary about Central Line journey times compared to these, and in many cases timings are somewhat better than rough BR equivalents. They are what you would expect for a provincial town connected to London by a two-track railway.

And don't forget (many people do) that once on that Central Line train, it will probably take you to somewhere useful, unlike most BR trains where changing to the Underground to complete a journey will add around 10 minutes interchange time. Looks to me that if ££££ are going to be spent on RER services, then there are should be far important priorities than grabbing the extremities of Underground lines.

Lets look at station usage: the most recent figures for Epping are given as 3935 station entries per day. Lowish by Underground standards, rather good by BR standards. You won't find any equivalent BR station which can even approach this, apart from major cities, places with very fast trains to London, or major interchange points. I conclude that the people of Epping are rather pleased with what they have, so why take it away from them, or spend extra money giving them more, when there are vast tracts of London which are awful for public transport.

Finally, that argument that the trains are uncomfortable, so that even though lots of people get on at Epping, they are rather unhappy traveling to London. 1992 stock is a terrible design, with the most uncomfortable seats on the Underground. Designing a comfortable seat isn't that clever, its just the **** *** attitude that LRT/TfL has taken to passenger comfort for many years. I even dispute that longitudinal seats are necessary for capacity. Find me one scrap of evidence that in everyday running, a train designed for comfort (e.g. 1938 stock) has significantly less effective capacity than 1992 stock. Look at 1992 stock in the rush hour, with that uninviting tangle of legs, rucksacks and bags between the seats. Do you see people standing two-abreast? Of course you don't, I therefore propose that 2+1 transverse seating would have the same capacity as longitudinal seating, with increased passenger comfort. BUT transverse seating is also more expensive than longitudinal seating. There is no reason for tube stock to be uncomfortable for longer distance passengers, apart from poor design.

I agree with all of it apart from the remarks about longitudinal seating... There is not enough space for someone sitting by the window to get off quickly in rush hour, meaning that people are less likely to sit in the window seats. Just look at the Metropolitan line, only two people sit on those seats despite the fact that they are designed for three, even during the rush hour.

People dont sit three abreast in the Met line not because of fear of not getting out, but because people want their personal space far more than they were content with in the 60's