We last looked at Crossrail’s rolling stock when the contract was awarded to Bombardier. Now TfL have made the first digital images of their new trains available to the public.
Bombardier won the contract, which is for both the supply of the 66 trains required and the running of Old Oak Common maintenance depot, back in February 2014. The trains themselves (which will be designated class 345) will be the first of Bombardier’s new Aventra EMUs, built in Derby and tested in Melton Mowbray.
Crossrail rolling stock under construction in Derby
They won’t be the only Aventras to eventually run in London, however. Not only do TfL have an option for another 17, but a variant of the stock has also been ordered for London Overground. There, 45 units will replace the 315s, 317s and 172s currently found on the Lea Valley and Gospel Oak – Barking lines, as well as the 378s on the Watford DC line.
External view of the 345
A 345 passing through the core
Crossrail’s units will be nine cars in length and over 200m long, although the first units to enter service will actually be a seven car variant operating on the Liverpool Street – Shenfield line from May 2017 onwards. Although currently branded as ‘TfL Rail’, this line is actually part of the Crossrail operating franchise.
Interior view, looking down the carriages
It remains likely that May 2017 and the introduction of these trains will mark the point at which ‘TfL Rail’ will be dropped as an operating brand and ‘Crossrail’ used instead.
Door space, viewed from the inside
That May launch date for the new rolling stock is the same one as was first mentioned back in 2014. Such dates are always worth watching for subtle slippage between press releases, and it’s pleasing to see that this hasn’t changed, suggesting things are still on track.
Bay seating viewed from the door space.
As the mockups show, the trains will feature walk-through carriages and a mix of longitudinal and transverse seating.
They also nicely highlight that you can think creatively about colour in train design without having to compromise on accessibility (which is actually about contrast). Crossrail’s trains are clearly intended to take its purple Roundel and branding, and run with it.
Bay seating and the wheelchair space.
According to the accompanying press notes both free wifi and 4G services will be delivered on board, as will multiple wheelchair and luggage spaces.
You can also find a flythrough video below.
Nicely done on the title – “Purple Train”. Even got broadly the right text style to recall the Prince of Purpleness / Raspberry Coloured hats and The Sign of the Times [1]. 😉
[1] to sort of name a few tracks I like.
I always mind the doors with you at Taplow,
I never meant to cause delays at Acton Main,
I only want to speed with you through Ealing,
Only want to speed through Ealing on the purple train…
Has the keel been laid for the Crossrail 2 article?
Yup. Started it (again) yesterday, so should go online next weekend I suspect.
Any idea why the articulation area so bulked up, and not full width as in the current Overground trains? The Aventura looks like it has a large electrical cabinet on each side of the bellows, but no access doors for them. I thought electricals were being moved underneath or in the ceiling to maximise passenger space.
Why aren’t the ends yellow?
I wonder what the material covering the seats is. The good old padded seats seem to be the magnets of germs and louses.
The use of ‘shadow’ passengers neatly sidesteps the issue of having the right ethnic mix, apparently that’s why in The Simpsons all the characters are yellow.
@Anonymous…..I’m guessing the ends will be yellow in the final design, since they are a safety requirement for all trains running on NR tracks.
Er, you do realise The Simpsons has multiple ‘non-yellow’ characters (e.g. Carl, Apu, Dr Hibbert)?
There do not appear to be many grab handles or poles around the transverse seating bays which could be a major problem on crowded routes.
Actually The rail safety organisation has a consultation out on not needing yellow ends, provided that the front lights are up to current specs and that risk assessments are done by the operator. It could come in as soon as this Devember if I recall correctly.
When I get my laptop out later I will try to find the link.
I’d be rather sad to lose yellow ends. Not sure why but it’s always been one of my favourite things about British trains.
I wonder if the livery hints at a re-design of all TfL rail liveries? The current LU livery- that Tram and Overground liveries are derived from- dates from 1990. There is of course nothing whatsoever wrong with it. But might we see the next Tube order turn up in a red-inflected version of this? Could the DLR new stock see a turquoise version?
On the technical aspect, I’m surprised as well by how “narrow” the walkthrough joints are. It’ll make it feel a bit more compartmentalised than a 378 or S-Stock
I only heard at 18:30 on Thursday 19th Nov, that Crossrail were releasing details of the visual design at midnight, and was expecting to read about it in the usual technical press newsletters on Friday morning. It’s nice that LR beat them all.
re Evergreenadam,
“There do not appear to be many grab handles or poles around the transverse seating bays which could be a major problem on crowded routes.”
Agreed – No one is going to want to stand in the aisle in the middle of that bay as there is nothing to hold on to, also the grab handles on the aisle seats would be better if they were the multiple (upto 3) hand position ones as seen on Bombardiers recent 377/6&/7 & 387s.
They seem to have assumed that passengers will only stand in one particular pattern which won’t really happen so you need more straps and handles / poles
LU trains run on Network Rail Lines without Yellow Ends – C,D & S Stocks as well as 72TS. All ran on NR lines with red ends.
The 72TS with Silver Ends ( the normal middle cabs) are banned from the Bakerloo during daylight so are moved during the hours of darkness !
Re Long Branch Mike
“Any idea why the articulation area so bulked up, and not full width as in the current Overground trains? The Aventura looks like it has a large electrical cabinet on each side of the bellows, but no access doors for them. I thought electricals were being moved underneath or in the ceiling to maximise passenger space.”
Possibly that the crash regulations have changed in the mean time so new designs have to comply with the new regulations.
Which also partially explains Porterbrook ordering 20x 387s from Bombardier recently (with options for 20x more) with no customer named so they could still get units with gangway connections on the cabs which are much harder to engineer under the new regs.
Even the cl700 Thameslink stock has run into problems as signing the contract took so long (circa 2 year delay) that contract “*apparently*” still had the old crash regulations specified so they are non compliant until they get few a modifications (drivers desk/console apparently deforms into the protect space for the driver too much so new /modified console?)
Bombardier and Britishness (an old chestnut!).
Yesterday Bombardier announced a new ownership structure for their transport (rail division). They are selling a 30% stake (with interesting options for both parties) to CDPQ and having the registered holding company in the UK [Bombardier Transportation (Investment) UK Ltd].
Less of a problem to claim Britishness now…
See:
http://www.bombardier.com/en/media/newsList/details.binc-20151119-bombardier-and-cdpq-enter-into-definitive-agreemen.bombardiercom.html
Yellow ends … ( & Tim Burns’ comment, too )
since they are a safety requirement for all trains running on NR tracks. … are they, still?
Quoting Alan Williams: “There’s a headlight on the front of every train that can be seen from space, so what do we need yellow ends for?”
& Peter
NO
I preferred the “Deltics” in their original livery, f’rinstance
LIKE THIS
The prototype “Brush4” ( “Falcon” ) looked good, too.
P.S. Agree re really surprisingly narrow intra-coach sections – what went worng there?
@ngh
“There do not appear to be many grab handles or poles around the transverse seating bays”
There are straphangers though, but it would have been good to have grab handles on the gangway side of the seat uprights.
Right, as far as yellow ends go, while there is a consultation out at the moment that on itself does not mean they will disappear, however many lights you stick on the front. Indeed as a track worker myself, I hugely value yellow ends and am fed up of non railway people telling me that we can quite happily dispense with what I regard as an essential safety feature* just so they can have ‘pretty liveries.
What people also need to remember is that the pictures / videos are ‘artists impressions’ and like all creative people they will probably leave out certain details if the detract from the overall ‘image’ they wish to project to the public. As such the people behind these videos / images may have deliberately left it out on the basis that whether yellow front ends are featured or not is a decision they have very little say over.
* Now is not the time or place to discuss this in detail suffice to say small pin pricks of light are a very bad way of judging approch speed however bright they are compared to a slab of yellow.
How is the color of the train’s front end related to safety?
Does not the fact that these trains will have free wi-fi make it seem all the more bizarre and unsatisfactory that the new Thameslink trains will apparently have no wi-fi at all?
Found it. The yellow ends thing that is. See http://consultation.rssb.co.uk/consultation/ConsultationDetail.aspx?ConsultationPackID=481. There is a document listed there called “GM/RT2131” – see paragraph 3.9. LUL (and steam and T&W Metro) trains have derogation from the standard I believe. Apparently DafT do not consider them “main line vehicles” and thus exempt from the regulations. No, me neither.
Re timbeau
“There are straphangers though, but it would have been good to have grab handles on the gangway side of the seat uprights.”
Not enough straphangers though (and none in the transverse seating area). The current location and spacing of the straphangers appears to limit how passengers can stand (if they want to hold on to something) which won’t be helpful with short dwell times and/or loadings at levels seen on the busiest services in London at the moment.
@Henning IN the bad old days of the ’60s when steam still ruled the roost, no-one gave any thought to warning on track staff about the approach of a train/ After all, an approaching steam train has smoke billowing out of the chimney, going high in the sky – a visual clue. Diesel and electric trains did not have this feature and so it was mandated that they have yellow ends. In those days, these trains did not have lights at the front that were of any power – and may only have been illuminated roller blind numbers – so were not visible night or day to on track workers. Then BR started to fit front headlamps and this has evolved to where we are today, where only now have the light requirements evolved to make them powerful enough to be seen by day – thus rendering the yellow front redundant. On the continent, trains have had headlamps for much longer than we have and so have not needed to go down the yellow front route.
(Sorry – know it is off topic)
Hi
Nice post, I think the trains look good and functional, not too much seating etc.
BTW. Apologies somewhat unrelated question perhaps, but if anyone knows you guys do..
Is there any logistical obstruction there could be against an extension at some point for crossrail/thameslink over the current Southeastern lines? I was thinking it would be great to have one of these trains also run between Abbey wood and blackfriars..Or would the future london bridge setup make this impossible?
Otherwise tunnelling between lbridge in NW direction would have to be done. In my view would fill more open space in the tube map than any crossrail II
@Tim: What does the color of the train’s front have to do with “warning on track staff about the approach of a train”? I must be missing some connecting reasoning here. If the front of the train is painted yellow, then it will be yellow no matter whether the train is in motion or not — that doesn’t seem to have any clear connection to looking for smoke billowing out of the chimney to find out whether the train is an approaching one.
I note in the video the claim that the passenger experience is paramount. Here’s hoping, despite what the images show, that the seats are a tad wider than have been provided on recent train designs / refurbs so fat lumps like me can actually find more than 10 seats in a train to actually sit on. Only the priority and tip up seats have that slight extra amount of room that make it palatable to sit down. I also wonder if the design of handrails and strap hangers is quite right. It’s obviously a compromise between allowing people to reach them but avoiding people banging their heads when walking through the train / getting up from a seat. Wasn’t there an issue with S Stock about handrails and strap hangers that required subsequent modification?
One final comment is that I see the small window design is perpetuated in certain places to allow for external electronic displays to be displayed. I do hope someone from Bombardier takes the time to provide a soft edge / padding on the lower internal edge because I have banged the back of my head so many times on class 378s when sitting down and leaning back slightly. The lower edge of the displays / opening windows on 378s can be really painful – I thought I’d split my head open when I last used a 378 and clonked my head again.
Yes, does seem a shame to not have a full width view through the articulated area. I think, from a passenger perspective, this is the stand out aspect of Overground trains and a great safety feature.
Any idea what is happening to the 378s from Watford to Euston that are getting a variant of the Crossrail train?
Re Chris,
“Any idea what is happening to the 378s from Watford to Euston that are getting a variant of the Crossrail train?”
Used to add more services on other overground routes NLL +2tph and ELL Crystal Palace +2tph are on the cards.
Are they going to string knitting above the DC line? Or is Crossrail going to be third rail?
@peezedtee – Thameslink will now have Wi-Fi, power sockets would add too much weight though
Giving trains black fronts in artists’ impressions is a tradition dating back many years – see, for example:
Class 317 http://web.archive.org/web/20110615001209im_/http://www.therailwaycentre.com/Artists%20impressions/317A.jpg
Class 319 http://web.archive.org/web/20120306001041im_/http://www.therailwaycentre.com/Artists%20impressions/Class319.jpg
Class 332 http://www.railway-technology.com/projects/heathrow-express-link/images/heathrow3.jpg
None of them have yet made it into service like that, thought the 332s got at least as far as the test track before yellow vinyl was added over the black front.
As for the rest of the livery, it looks dark and messy to me, like one of those class 158s with vinyls from four successive franchises at a time. The placement of the TfL roundel on a low-contrast dark background is considered unacceptable in the design standards guide (http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-basic-elements-standard.pdf) so I hope changes are made before delivery.
@henning
The main way in which we judge the speed things are approaching us is how fast they change their apparent size. The maths works out rather nicely so that you don’t need to know the actual size of the object, just the rate of change of the apparent size gives you the time until the object arrives, and this is a calculation that our brains are very good at doing.
In order for this to work, the front of trains needs to have a clearly visible area. Obviously it doesn’t strictly need to be yellow, but yellow is very visible in the environment in which trains operate, and I would imagine there are additional advantages in having a standard colour.
Given that we can judge the approach speed of cars in the dark by their headlights (otherwise driving at night would be almost impossible), I would think that there is some merit to the argument that trains with lighting to current standards don’t need the yellow, however I’m not sure why we should take the risk just so that trains look a bit prettier.
A single headlight, however bright, is no help at all. In fact I think that motorbikes going round with a bright light on in the daytime are putting themselves at risk, because it means that other road users see a point source of light which they can’t judge the speed of. But that’s getting rather off topic.
@Mark got there first. Steam trains had dark fronts and were difficult to see (they had red buffer beams but these were quite small, so the smoke was the only visual clue of their impending arrival).
Yellow was chosen for diesel and electric trains as it was much brighter than the green livery chosen for most units. I guess fluorescent paints/stickers were not available then or that might have been a choice. Remember track workers only got fluorescent bibs in the 80’s (I think) in order to make them more conspicuous too. Nowadays of course they decked out head to toe in flouro orange (hence Orange army).
One reason that the gangways might be narrower, (in addition to the equipment cabinets intruding), is that at over 22m the vehicles are almost certain to be narrower, (especially at the ends), than traditional 20m (378 and 700) or 17-18m (S-stock).
Personally, I really like the look without all the vertical poles – when you can see up to 200m down inside the train, having it clear of visual clutter makes it seem much more modern. In my mind the ICE trains are like that.
So … where’s the toilets?
Not directly on the train, but why is TfL introducing a new TfL Rail-brand only to ditch it within 2 years? I can understand why they don’t want it to be called Crossrail if it isn’t the right product. But surely the obviously solution is to call it Pre-Crossrail, which introduces the future brand, makes it clear it isn’t the full spec yet and avoids the confusion of a separate here-today-gone-tomorrow brand…
At the risk of being a wet blanket as it were, I must admit the interiors are nice, but the cab ends are just awful, it reminds me of those awful class 175 units on Arriva Trains Wales. One thing though, I always wondered why is it that the manufacturer itself needs to run the depot also, similarly to how Alstom own the Northern Line depots. Can TFL not just own its own trains?
@ngh, Even if the company is registered in Britain doesn’t make it a British company. Will the traction motors be designed and built here? Will the electrical equipment come from a British company? (And no Siemens UK does not count as a British company) What about the bogies? If the train was built by GEC, Metro-Cammell, Brush or BREL then yes, it would be British. Brush is still around, I wish they could have taken over Bombardier UK’s operation (which was formally BREL anyway I believe). Too much money is generated in this country but does not stay in it.
@Anonymous- The reason why the Simpsons characters are all yellow was because Matt Groening had hurriedly drew them that way before entering a Fox meeting before creating the show. He assumed that they would correct the drawings later but they were kept that way.
@Christian Schmidt There’s an explanation of the rationale in this piece from last year: https://www.londonreconnections.com/2014/mind-branding-gap-first-crossrail-services-launch-tfl-rail/
@Walthamstow Writer, perhaps the lower edge of the displays can all be painted yellow if there will soon be spare paint available…
And on you point of seat width, good point, if the seat backs have to be high enough for 90% of men, then perhaps there should be an equal standard for seat width and legroom?
The new trains may still be scheduled for May, but I note in Wired’s coverage that the year given for Crossrail to become “fully operational” has slipped to 2019.
@ Imm – there is no slippage. Crossrail has been on a phased programme running from Dec 2018 to full operation in Dec 2019 for many years now. This was done after the government finally agreed to fund the scheme following a cost engineering / scoping review to make it “affordable”. Phasing the work also ties in with the expected complexity in making signalling and control systems talk to one another with the link to the Great Western line possibly being the most challenging (assuming Network Rail resignal the line in the anticipated timescale).
For what it’s worth, TfL says that yellow fronts are not required, as the “latest headlights” will improve visibility.
Tiger Tanaka: Ownership and maintenance of trains is down to making the best use of available cash, ie subject to the limitations imposed by the Exchequer.
Now then, where are the loos? :O
@lmm IIRC it’s been the following since at least a year:
Dec 2018 Paddington Low Level – Abbey Wood
May 2019 Shenfield – Paddington LL
Dec 2019 full service to Heathrow & Reading
Can you add note to the article noting the absence of toilets? All the media coverage I’ve seem to omit this, which is a key downside to the design for me.
Re yellow fronts
1) I think the standard GM/RT 2131 is now published in its final form and comes into force early next year. Thus if a train’s marker and headlights conform to the TSI for locomotives and passenger vehicles (TSI LOC and PAS in the vernacular) no yellow front is required.
2) Whenever I did my track training (every 2 years for about 30 years), there was a very simple rule…….. “see a train, get out of the way”. I don’t understand how the comments about “judging the speed of the train” have any part in a safe system of work.
3) I think the images look very nice.
@130
” “see a train, get out of the way”. ”
It does help if you can tell whether it’s coming or going, which a point source won’t as readily as an area.
two other factors
– steam trains are much noisier, so you could hear them coming
– many jobs out on the track now require ear defenders
@Solar
“Are they going to string knitting above the DC line? Or is Crossrail going to be third rail?”
Crossrail (1) will be entirely ac. However, although similar in some ways to the Crossrail 345s, the new trains (class 710?) ordered for LO will differ bin others – for example they will be 4-car units, not nine, and in particular those for the Wat-Eus line will be dc-capable.
It looks as though the top of the saloon windows more or less line up with those on the doors, meaning that unlike on the Electrostars, standees who ‘move right down inside’ will actually get a decent view out, rather than being restricted to what the track-side verges have to offer. The grab poles look a similar offer to the 378s – commendably neat and tidy, if a little sparse in places. Do the silver centre poles mark a return to stainless steel finish? The powder coated ones tend to suffer wear and tear more quickly than the rest of the surface finishes.
It’s interesting how the New Tube for London designs promise futuristic dynamic information displays etc. integrated with the advert panels, but ‘reality’ has them, more modestly, replacing the ceiling dot matrix bars only.
Re Tiger,
That why I used the phase “claim Britishness” rather than “British”. It will help with the press releases that most newspapers copy ‘n’ paste but not much more.
Electrical equipment from the ex-ABB Bombardier bits in Switzerland and Sweden. Bogies were made in UK up till now but I suspect the inside frame ones may be made elsewhere. Aluminium bodyshell extrusions – Germany…
Ngh. For info, no bogies have been made in Derby for at least 10 years.
Timbeau…. trains coming towards you have white lights. Of course there are circumstances where a train with white lights isn’t moving, but they need to be treated with caution as they could move at any time. There are lots of rules about positioning of lookouts and what they must do when they see a train coming towards them (ie it wasn’t there before and it is now). Increasingly, protection for track workers doesn’t rely on mk1 eyeball of lookouts.
T.R. 20 November 2015 at 13:15
Those
“Dec 2018 Paddington Low Level – Abbey Wood
May 2019 Shenfield – Paddington LL”
are the dates I have.
I like to hope that if both train and railway construction go well, those services might start a little earlier
Re 130
“no bogies have been made in Derby for at least 10 years”
That is why I said UK not Derby!
The current electrostar bombardier bogies (BR design heritage) have a UK supply chain for example:
http://www.william-cook.co.uk/brochures/williamcookrail.pdf
(note “Cook” can be seen on all the separate castings that are welded together if you look carefully)
Whereas the new inside frame bogies have a UK/German design heritage so may not have a UK supply chain for components.
100thirty
GM/RT 2131 has been published (available here) and comes into force at the beginning of March.
Timbeau, etc
The 4-car Class 710s will come in two flavours: AC + DC with longitudinal seating, for GOBLIN and Watford DC, and AC only with with longitudinal and transverse seating for West Anglia[1]
“The first units to enter service will actually be a seven car variant operating on the Liverpool Street – Shenfield line from May 2017 onwards.”
Is a platform extension planned at Liverpool Street so that nine-car trains can run into the station? Or did I dream that?
[1] According to Wikipedia, referenced to Rail Magazine, Issue 778, Page 14
and Alan Griffiths
My guess that if thing go really well we might see a “preview service” Paddington LL to Abbey Wood. The Shenfield thing might be a bit too much, involving NR, etc. You really can’t divert trains early.
Re edgepedia,
Preview service – but if the first stock delivered is already in service on Liverpool Street – Shenfield would they have enough stock delivered tested and drivers trained to do that?
Fewer seats = more standing. Glad I won’t be commuting in 2017 when these trains take over the Shenfield-Liverpool Street service! Also no provision for toilets – why?
Toilets – especially disabled ones – take up a lot of space. Several operators have recently built trains without them, e.g South Eastern’s 376s, and many lines have never had them – such as the Underground, Overground (except the Goblin), and the SWT inner suburban services (which actually go out as far as Windsor, Guildford and Dorking). Southern even removed the toilets from its class 456s
@130
” Increasingly, protection for track workers doesn’t rely on mk1 eyeball.”
It is still, though, the last line of defence
Tiger T
Can TFL not just own its own trains?
Err … no, that would be Nationalisation which is deemed evil, bad, & smelling of witcxhraft ( or something)
Get Graham H to explain to you the niceties of leasing/owning/concession-ing trains etc – I guarantee your head will hurt before it’s over!
I do get rather fed up with the toilets issue. It always seems to be the first question when at a Crossrail talk even if the rationale behind it has been explained in the talk. The answer is always the same. Makes no sense for a metro train through central London. All the stations outside the central area (and some within) will have toilets. The trains are frequent.
So, go to the toilet before you catch the train. Failing that, get off the train, go to the toilet, get the next train.
This month’s Railway Magazine has a news item about the development of high-visibility jerkins for track workers in its “Fifty Years Ago” feature.
ngh: – apologies…. misread your post re manufacture of bogies.
The vertical poles look a bit awkwardly placed for the wheelchair users.
@Pedantic of Purley:
There is a map… http://content.tfl.gov.uk/toilets-map.pdf
Re. Trains with yellow beards…
I have never understood this peculiarly British obsession with yellow front panels. I’m aware there were perfectly valid reasons for introducing these back in the day, but in an age of near-blinding xenon and LED headlights, it does seem increasingly anachronistic. (Hell, the dipped xenon headlights on some cars I’ve seen would overpower a lighthouse!)
I’m not aware of any other country that adopted this technique.
Given typical human reaction times and how fast modern trains can be, I don’t think hanging around waiting to work out if the yellow blob in the distance is getting bigger or smaller is a particularly safe option anyway. All the information you need is readily available in the colour of its headlights: Red? Not dead! White? Take flight!
A message to all those commenting on yellow front ends:-
If you do not work trackside on a mainline railway then you have no right to tell anyone what to do about yellow ends, so please stop telling us who do that it is perfectly fine to ditch them simply on the basis of what you read.
If you DO work trackside then, and are happy for them to go, then I would say I understand / respect where you are coming from, but I personally disagree with you.
Also a few general points to consider:-
(1) Working on open lines with lookouts is still widely used and for many basic paroling / examining task, and contrary to what some may have you believe, is perfectly safe when implemented correctly while making efficient use of time / resources.
(2) On long straight sections of track, or indeed multi track lines moving to a place of safety too early or when it is not needed due to the train not being on your line, while admirable is actually very wasteful of resources, particularly given the service frequency on the likes of the GWML.
I have to say I agree with Anomnibus – all (as in ALL) other railway operators in the world rely on lights to warn track workers and our national safety record clearly shows that they are right and we are wrong. I don’t believe that UK track workers are unusually stupid,far from it. In any case, track workers are not supposed to hang around watching out for approaching trains – that is what the PICOW is for…
[PICOW means Person in Charge of Works on UK railways. LBM]
Re: Trains with yellow fronts.
I find it quite interesting that the one comment on this subject from an avowed track worker has apparently been completely ignored. The rest of us, sitting in our armchairs, are quite ready to tell him, and any of his colleagues who share his view, that the extra re-assurance they get from this widespread safety measure is quite bogus, and they do not need it. Condescending, or what?
The importance of using a rectangle (or two headlamps) for judging speed is not in distinguishing 70 mph from 110. It is distinguishing a stationary train from one moving towards us. Track workers who are sufficiently cautious to refuse to move in front of a stationary train may be of limited effectiveness.
Yes, a single motorbike headlight (whether in daylight or not) may be difficult to judge the speed of. But it is safe, and rarely wrong, to assume what the speed is of any moving motorbike will be : too fast.
I’m a bit surprised that nobody has mentioned the current situation with Bombardier. The company is bleeding cash as it tries to get its new aircraft into production. Part of the rail division has just been bailed out by the government of Quebec’s pension fund.
Bombardier has a huge contract to supply light rail vehicles for Toronto. There were supposed to be sixty of them on the streets by now, but Bombardier has only been able to deliver 11. Toronto will very likely launch a lawsuit against the company within weeks. I hope TfL has better luck with these new trains!
Anomnibus @ 1816
For an example of another country, how about Eire’s adoption of bright orange bits on the front of their locos? Or yellow on more recent liveries.
Does anybody know what happened to this design of train? Which I think is a much nicer design. http://crossrail2.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/crossrail-train-front4.jpg
@Malcom -no, it’s not condescending. Many track workers have been convinced by the long standing view of their union, based on the situation 50 years ago, at a time when red buffer beams and oil lamps had not yet disappeared from the system. The yellow front was a sop to unions then (sorry to be cynical, but that was the case) and the statistics do not bear them out. The rail industry is nothing if not traditional (in the full and literal meaning of the term) and in this case, the serious question which people are uncomfortable in addressing is why the UK is right and the rest of the world is wrong, given that our safety record is not outstanding.
I’m a bit surprised that nobody has mentioned the current situation with Bombardier. The company is bleeding cash as it tries to get its new aircraft into production. Part of the rail division has just been bailed out by the government of Quebec’s pension fund.
I thought about mentioning it in the post, as I’ve actually been following what’s happening there quite closely as I’ve been fascinated by the fallout of their failed gamble on the C Series passenger jet for a while. Ultimately I decided it wasn’t pertinent here though as their rail arm is pretty solid at the moment, and the Quebec bailout is now a done deal.
So in the end I decided it didn’t really add much from a London perspective at the moment at least. That may change if the impact of events elsewhere starts to bleed into their output from Derby (as the fallout from the Japanese tsunami did on 378 construction).
Graham H
Firstly PICOWS have not been used for over 14 years now!* – which says to me you have no recent front line experience of working on NR and as such I do not regard you as qualified to tell me I do not need yellow ends.
Secondly – its got nothing to do with the Unions. I have a brain, eyes and am perfectly capable of thinking for myself. Just because you don’t like what I say doesn’t give you the right to insulate that my opposition to the removal of yellow ends is due to union pressure or being hostage to tradition.
FACT:- I find them very helpful to me as a track worker on NR.
FACT I will be campaigning to keep them come what may.
*At the site of work you have a COSS “Controller of Site Safety” who sets up the “Safe System Of Work” in accordance with a specific hierarchy from a complete block of everything down to “Unassisted Lookout protection” It is the job f the “Lookout” to warn the group of approaching trains – the point at which they do so having been specified by the COSS when setting up their SSOW
Graham: I’m not convinced. Our safety record is doubtless influenced by many things done right and wrong, and saying that it is “not outstanding” is hardly a convincing demonstration that one particular safety measure taken here and not elsewhere is unnecessary.
If yellow fronts were doing some sort of harm, then it might be worth working to convince their “users” (track workers) that the comfort they provide is illusory (if that is the case). Even so, track workers’ (and unions’) concerns should not be just ignored or pushed aside. But who suffers from a yellow-front rule? No-one at all.
@Malcolm -without wishing to saw the sawdust, my point is simply that there is no conclusive evidence that – for accidents to track workers being run down inadvertantly by trains – the yellow panel has made any difference. The rest is aesthetics.
At the risk of upsetting some of the posters here I do think the absence of toilets on these trains is a serious mistake and contrasts badly with the new Thameslink trains. Also, it seems that at most stations that have toilets they are actually outside the barrier – hardly a convenient (pun intended) option if you are already on your journey. With some journey lengths -Reading to Canary Wharf for example – being in excess of an hour (longer than London to Brighton) this is a retrograde and unwelcome development which smacks of cost-cutting rather than rational thinking.
Graham says “the rest is aesthetics”. I would prefer to reassure a track worker and upset an aesthete rather than pleasing the aesthete and making the track-worker fear for his life. And “no conclusive evidence of benefit” is not the same thing as “evidence of no-benefit”. (The latter is what would be required to remove an existing safety measure).
See also Phil’s robust response.
@Malcolm – fair enough although the world has been populated by irrational fears for many years (think of many medical traditions which have been subsequently proved to be at best harmless and at worst a nuisance).
I’d suggest we move on from the “yellow fronts” topic now. It’s safe to say that all the relevant points have really been made.
gerryherts,
I hesitate to play out the arguments yet again but there a suburban/outer suburban routes where they are around an hour long – Tattenham Corner to Victoria for example – that don’t have toilets on all the trains. And probably few people will actually go on a slow train from Reading to Canary Wharf when changing at Paddington will be quicker.
The accepted standard used to be (I don’t know if it still is) was that railway journeys in excess of an hour should generally have toilets. This is not the same as insisting on toilets if the train time from terminus to terminus is more than an hour. The idea is to cater for the majority of journeys actually made.
I believe you are wrong about toilets on Crossrail being outside the barrier. Why do you think that? Ignore Briantist’s link to the map which is the current existing situation and in any case there is no commitment by London Underground (as far as I am aware) to provide toilets – though they sometimes do.
Where will this argument logically end? Underground trains? (West Ruislip to Epping is over 1 hour 20 minutes). Do you make journeys of longer than an hour in your car? Does it have a toilet?
I feel that a train ticket should give me the right to have free access to toilets beyond the ticket barriers. I resent the the absense of toilets at stations or charging for them, and will miss the LBG ones after the redevelopment. Suggesting people should detrain for toilets, or miss trains because they are seeking them before departure seems unreasonable. I don’t think short journey times should be excused, as I’d hate to be trapped on a train for extended periods, which is not uncommon on the suburban network, with a full bladder.
The inconsistent provision of toilets on stock just confuses passengers who can’t recognise a 376 as it pulls into the platform.
On the Shenfield side at least the 345s replace the 315s which don;t have loos. Through the core they’re essentially a tube train. On the GW admittedly it’s a big change.
But then it’s hardly, historically, been unusual for London Metro area mainline EMUs to not have loos.
The news release to staff adds “begins on the Liverpool Street to Shenfield line in May 2017. Twelve new trains will carry passengers on this section of the line by September 2017.” So a phase in and only 12 7-coach trains. Probably some platforms will still need lengthening at that time, but I suspect the limitation will be Liverpool St where maybe only two platforms will be lengthened for the residual service after Crossrail opens. Until then the full Shenfield service will need more platforms, hence shorter trains. This indicates that in the event of occasional problems in the tunnel, the full Shenfield service will not be diverted to the current terminus. Paths will probably have been reallocated by then anyway. What will happen the day the Shenfield service diverts through the new tunnel in May 2019? Perhaps the full fleet will be available by then, and the first trains can be lengthened before the Great Western route starts in December 2019 (shown as May 2019 in the news release to staff?).
After discussion with fellow Mods, we are locking the door on any further discussion on train and station bathroom provisioning. Commentators have aired facts, arguments and opinions pro and con. It can be an emotional topic, but we feel there is nothing to be gained by continuing the discussion. Any further comments on loos will be snipped without notice. LBM
Here’s something no one seems to have noticed yet…..the unit ends do not have doors for tunnel evacuation. Presumably this is due to the provision of two walkways in the Crossrail tunnels (one for passenger evacuation, the other for emergency/maintenance access)?
[As John Bull stated earlier, we are no longer entertaining any yellow cab end discussion, so I’ve snipped the rest of this comment. LBM]
Anonymously,
Was that photograph before the contract was signed?
Although there may be options I’m not aware off, if you wanted to buy a new train to run on the UK railway you would have a choice between the Bombardier Aventra (Class 345, etc), the Siemens City (Class 700/Thameslink) and one of the Hitachi trains (AT300 or Class 800/801 for the GWR, etc, AT200 or Class 385 for Scotland, or the AT100).
There are new crashworthiness standards that have changed the design of the ends of trains; I would expect the testing required to be expensive. The purpose of this post was to say that a change to the standard cab design was unlikely, but I note that the Hitachi Scotland trains have end gangways and a top speed of 100mph (see here), whereas their standard AT200 design have a full width cab and a top speed of 125mph (see here).
Taz
The current Shenfield service is every 10 minutes / 6 tph.
IIRC, the normal CR1 service will be the same, so that, outside the peak hours, no Shenfield trains will pass the Pudding Lane portal to go to LST.
However, in the peak hours, as at present, there will be extra trains, & they will go to LST & return from there.
LBM
Any further comments on loos will be snipped without notice. LBM
Err, shouldn’t that be “Flushed without notice”?
Ahem.
[Well done. Yes. LBM]
I personally find hanging straps to be uncomfortable and not very reassuring. I am fairly tall, 1.8m, so am subject to bigger overturning forces than most at train starts and stops. The rigidity of a vertical pole is a much more to my liking. I don’t remember modern Underground trains having straps any more. (Are there any on the new Sub-For surface units? My recall is hazy here)
those who don’t like the ‘clutter’ of poles
Sorry, fumbling fingers again. I was going to mention the Alstom articulated units that are becoming the standard for many German S-Bahn systems. They pioneered through gateways. They have poles throughout, curved at the top, and the aesthetic effect is very pleasant indeed. No clutter there.
I am deeply sceptical about any transport company that thinks it’s a great design wheeze to impose their corporate colours on interiors. Can we not just have good interior design? Why is there a need to inflict the corporate identity in such a gross manner on the captive passengers? Crossrail purple may be just about acceptable, but why not just rely on logos? If you want a really crass example think Premier Inns! Let us be soothed by a good colour palette, not shouted at by the corporate identity freaks!
@Edgepaedia/Anonymously – that was one of the striking features of the CR design front end – no “hamster cheeks” – and I wondered how that feature had been avoided.
On cab end doors – the tunnels are wide enough for an evacuation walkway similar to the DLR deep bored tube sections, and with fixed car formation, staff will still have internal access between the two cabs.
http://www.tunneltalk.com/images/crossrail/Comparative-tunnel-sizes.png
One big issue not yet noted is space for bikes. This is what the 378s with extended vestibules do really well (LO and some Southeastern). I can’t see bikes being allowed off peak in the core section due to the extent of integration with the deep level Central Line stations, but provision should be expected for local trips out towards Reading and Shenfield. The wheelchair bay in the illustration is unsuitable due to the partition next to the vestibule, and it’s not long enough (and t shouldn’t be shared with bikes anyway). It will only work if a good proportion of the transverse seats next to the vestibules are tip-up too.
Sorry – longitudinal seats (in the last sentence).
[As promised, toilet discussion flushed. LBM]
@fandroid
“Are there any [straphangers] on the new Subsurface units? My recall is hazy here”
https://www.flickr.com/photos/stanstedtransportphotos/9686062269
@edgepedia
“Class 385 for Scotland”
is that official? – I had read they were to be 381: not that either has much logic to it.
Greg Tingey 21 November 2015 at 10:07
“Taz
The current Shenfield service is every 10 minutes / 6 tph.
IIRC, the normal CR1 service will be the same”
Increase from 6 to 8, but I can’t remember which official source that is from.
There are straps on LO trains – as can be seen in this picture
https://www.flickr.com/photos/tflpress/7677958050/
In my experience they are actively dangerous and I am surprised that they are allowed. They are made from quite rigid plastic (much less flexible than those which old tube trains had) and are perfectly positioned to bang me severely on the head if I go anywhere near them. I am admittedly rather above average height, but I don’t think that’s sufficient justification for inflicting physical pain.
Of course, that very rigidity makes them more useful as things to hold on to, the more floppy they are, the less effective they can be in bracing a standing passenger. So if making them rigid makes them dangerous, and making them floppy makes them useless, the conclusion is pretty clearly not to have them at all.
Just my opinion, but if vehicle front ends are considered to be faces, I think designers have successfully created a very friendly and pleasing appearance in this case. I’m not so convinced about the large areas of dark grey on the upper car body sides, but that certainly provide a lot of contrast to the doors.
@marek – I am 6’3″ and have never had an issue with ‘dangerous’ straps – either floppy or rigid. Neither did I encounter problems with the ‘knobs on springs’ which were commonplace at one time. In fact, the additional flexibility and ‘give’ afforded by these methods of support made their use rather more comfortable than hanging on to a fixed rail or pole. There was, of course, a ‘knack’ to ‘straphanging’ which may have been lost over time – that of using the flexibility of the supports to complement that of the body in resisting accelerative forces?
@marek, Pain is a bit of an exaggeration, those modern straps are irritating if you hit them (which I often do on the S7s) but hardly painful!
What’s more annoying (as someone else has mentioned) are the destination display boxes on the 378s which are really annoying and make it impossible to sit at a normal angle without banging your head every 5 minutes!
The clean sheet S8s with their large windows are far nicer than the 378s for standees; the 378s to me always seemed to be a bit of a compromise with their shallow windows, made even worse by the destination display boxes, giving terrible visibility outwards! The pictures suggest that the 345s are much more like the S8s
I travel by Overground twice a day and frequently have to use those straps. My only complaint is that they are too high. I am about 5’5″ in my heels and have to stand at an awkward angle to hold on.
Edgepedia
20 Nov 15 at 16:25
The current proposal for work at Liverpool St is described in the Anglia Route Study (consultation draft):
“2.4.4 Following the introduction of Crossrail services, the number of platforms at London Liverpool Street station will reduce from 18 to 17. This is to enable platforms 16 and 17 to be lengthened to accommodate Crossrail trains; platform 18 will be taken out of commission.”
North Devonian refers to a knack in straphanging. Indeed so, there is also of course a knack in travelling in standing mode, whatever you are or are not holding on to. It mainly consists, if I recall correctly (since I rarely practice it these days) of keeping the knees slightly bent. No idea why that should work, but it does.
Not looking forward to a nearly hour long journey to Twyford with no available seats before Slough. Not getting any younger!!
Perhaps Crossrail won’t be as crowded as the current services?
timbeau @ 11:26
(Class 385s for Scotland) Rail Magazine is the reference given by Wikipedia.
Paul @ 15:08
Thanks, I wasn’t dreaming then.
One slightly interesting point about the renders that nobody seems to have commented on is the choice of Reading for the destination on the front. It wasn’t that long ago that the official position, in defiance of common sense, was that Crossrail was stopping at Maidenhead and that was that. Given that TfL concept art generally makes a point of featuring the destinations they consider the most important as part of selling the package (see the Deep Tube renders all advertising a destination of “Heathrow”), I wonder what this says about the thought process behind choosing Reading?
The train reminds me of the Stockholm Pendeltåg.
The comments about the class 378 are true and are because of what it was based on. London Rail knew it would have to use an existing platform (bodyshell), and needed to make sure that they weren’t stuck with clones of the class 376 which is, in my view, the ugliest interior of any train built in the 21st century. (Desiro, which is altogether nicer, wasn’t suitable for the duty either). However there were inevitable compromises.
The straps were added at the insistence of LOROL’s chairman (a very tall man). Human factors studies seem to give a “pass” for horizontal rails that “common sense” suggests are too high. As the same design team did S stock, they were similarly high, and the straps were also added (consistency and after complaints). All that said, bashing into a strap isn’t as bad as bashing into a rail. And at 5′ 10″, I bash into the straps too.
@swirlythingy…I wouldn’t read too much into the choice of destination for the mock-up; it is no different to using Paddington, Abbey Wood or Shenfield. People only get excited because Reading was only added fairly recently, and this was only because of the GWML electrification. If the line was already electrified, I strongly suspect Reading would have been included from the outset. In fact, I have a vague recollection (feel free Graham H or someone else to correct me if I’m wrong) that the 1990s incarnation of Crossrail was originally proposed to go as far west on the GWML as Oxford!
@anonymously
“I have a vague recollection (feel free Graham H or someone else to correct me if I’m wrong) that the 1990s incarnation of Crossrail was originally proposed to go as far west on the GWML as Oxford!”
There is this 1993 study – Aylesbury is included but not Oxford
http://husk.org/www.geocities.com/athens/acropolis/7069/gbcrossrail.gif
@timbeau – correct (and more than just a study);Oxford was never part of CR1 v1.0.
@Edgepedia 21 Nov 0828 & others. There is a picture here (http://www.themanufacturer.com/articles/bombardier-wins-145m-rail-contract/) from a year ago of the new GTR (artists formerly known as Thameslink & Southern) stock which seems to be the last hurrah for the Electrostar series. Cheeks are quite hamster-like. 108 cars for 145mn seems like an “end of line” price. COSS qualified folk will notice an important detail, also visible in earlier images of the Aventra family.
It seems that the class 710 order for the Overground will keep the Aventra production line in business after delivery of the Purple Train, if Wikipedia is right. Price comparison with the GTR order is odorous as Mrs Malaprop would say.
Long Branch Mike
20 Nov 15 at 01:16
Regarding the gangway areas being apparently narrower than on 378s. I believe that in the 378s they resited all the usual technical stuff from the carriage end cabinets (as seen on the normal Electrostars) into the underseat areas, so spread along the entire length of the train.
The seating design and layout of these 345s seems to have lost all this available volume, as the seats are now either 2+2, or side mounted or side ‘hinged’ (for prams/wheelchairs etc), but also with space below.
Perhaps they have had to put all the moved stuff back at the carriage ends in the Adventra, although taking up less space than in an ordinary Electrostar?
As an aside, I don’t think ‘articulation’ is correct usage, this normally implies a shared bogie carrying the ends of two carriages.
@ Timbeau & Graham H, easy tiger! Don’t frighten the Treasury. CR1 may get to Aylesbury yet. With an isochronous extension beyond the monastery boskage.
@paul
“As an aside, I don’t think ‘articulation’ is correct usage,”
No, it isn’t – the misunderstanding I think originated with articulated buses, which happen to have a walk-through facility as well as being articulated
But these are also articulated, despite the complete absence of any corridor connection whatsoever
http://img14.deviantart.net/f3c6/i/2006/073/6/e/articulated_bus__bombay_by_coshipi.jpg
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BI7oY8MCAAIabRl.jpg
I love that Bombay bus pic!
Well off topic, but here’s another interesting bus configuration
http://www.hess-ag.ch/images/niederflur04.jpg
@100andthirty: Very familiar to me. In Utrecht where I live the students going to the campus ride in these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Van_Hool_AGG300
They run every few minutes in peak hours and are very full, so it’s not surprising a tram line is being constructed to replace this bus route!
@timbeau/Graham H….Oops, my mistake. Perhaps it was a recollection based on a childhood memory of a TV journalist engaging in exaggeration/crayonism (delete as appropriate), following on from the then recent example of Thameslink Brighton-Bedford services.
I still find it bemusing that electric trains will reach Reading in 2017, some 25 years after they were first proposed to go there as part of Crossrail! It’s a wonder anything gets built in this country at all…..
(PS Does anyone know why the resurrected Crossrail wasn’t earmarked to take over the Ayesbury via Amersham services?)
(PS Does anyone know why the resurrected Crossrail wasn’t earmarked to take over the Ayesbury via Amersham services?)
Politics!
It’s a minor point, but I always hoped that Crossrail would become part of the London Overground classification – my hope is that one day that will cover all inner-suburban services (as covered on this site recently), and Crossrail is part of that. I see the Overground as the S-Bahn to the tube’s U-Bahn, with Crossrail at its heart, but I suppose the name “Crossrail” is too strong a brand to drop.
Albert JP. It was in Utrecht for the first time a fortnight ago that I saw the articulated buses but couldn’t find the right photo!
@Anonymous 2015-11-22 17:41: IMHO it’s more like some difficulties on connecting the Met (around Neasden?) to the Crossrail around Old Oak Common.
@Anonymously I remember (and I think I might have in a box somewhere) an early eighties description of a Paddington suburban electrification proposal in Modern Railways. It was a similar time to the 210s being trialled on the line which would have been able to run in multiple with a 317 (early bimode)
Patrickov!
The Reason why I say politics is because it was. If I remember correctly, the 1991 plan was
for Crossrail to Start at Shenfield in the east, to Reading and Aylesbury in the west.
After the 1991 plan was killed of in the House of Commons. It was resurrected in the early 2000’s
now if my memory serves my correctly, the mayor at the time didn’t have the total support of his party,
some members of which, were concerned that a vast amount of money was being spent on a project
in London that already, had an over supply of rapid transit systems, where as their part of
London did not. You have to remember that the Jubilee Line had just been extended to Stratford,
and nobody had any immediate plans for extending the purposed branch from North Grenwich to
Thamesmeed. Some thing had to give, the fact that connecting to the Met through an expensive tunnel meant that it that part of the project was at risk.
My prediction for why the Aylesbury branch wasn’t taken over is that while the Reading and Shenfield lines have fast and slow (Crossrail taking over the slow), the Aylesbury/Chiltern lines don’t. Carto Metro has them as one each way all the way off the map, past Amersham.
I’ve had some crayonista thoughts about this in the past (where do crayonista thoughts and discussions belong?) but I suspect that the lack of both a fast and slow set of lines will be a problem anywhere future crossrails go. Alexandra Palace and Wimbledon are being used for this reason.
In response to this post, see the picture of the actual 387/2 stock built here. Perhaps we shouldn’t read too much into the finer details of these early rendered images which, as seen, might not perfectly correspond to the final product.
Anonymously said “I still find it bemusing that electric trains will reach Reading in 2017”
To be somewhat pedantic, they reached Reading in 1939.
@Toby
“My prediction for why the Aylesbury branch wasn’t taken over is that while the Reading and Shenfield lines have fast and slow (Crossrail taking over the slow), the Aylesbury/Chiltern lines don’t. ”
It is quadruple as far as Moor Park. Beyond that, Crossrail would have taken over all Aylesbury services, so there would be no need for any more four-tracking than there already is.
My recollection was that the diversion of Aylesbury services into Crossrail, together with the diversion of Wycombe/Banbury services to Paddington, was intended to release the valuable real estate known as Marylebone Station. No-one could have forseen the success story that is Chiltern Trains.
@PurleyDweller
“It was a similar time to the 210s being trialled on the line which would have been able to run in multiple with a 317 (early bimode)”
Not that early – the Southern had been running hybrid formations (33+4TC+8VEP) out of Waterloo in the evening peak for several years to allow an Eastleigh semifast and a Salisbury semifast to share a path as far as Basingstoke.
@Toby – why should the absence of separate fast/slow lines be a problem; after all, the first version of CR was to go to Aylesbury.The reason why CR1 v2.0 didn’t go anywhere near the tube had much to do with (a) the headaches that would have posed for the tube PPP, and(b) the Treasury’s wish to descope (or better still, destroy) the project (and perhaps (c) Chiltern’s very long franchise). Now we must wait for CR3 or whatever.
BTW a propos crayonism – don’t even think of going there…(in Another Place, they have dealt with that problem by setting up a “Fantasy Rail Proposal” thread, which few have dared to admit what they are doing by adding to it.). There is a special moderator’s naughty corner for crayonistas.
@ Simon JT 22 November 2015 at 17:51 Seems like Crossrail in the brand for new cross-London rail routes, with Crossrail 2 consultations using the same colour. Will end up a collection of purple routes, as there are a collection of orange Overground routes.
@taz
The publicity for the CR2 consultation has a sort of olive green colour scheme. Whether this will ever appear on the Tube map remains to be seen. (What colour would Thameslink or NCL be if they were to be reinstated on the Map?)
@Malcolm…..Well, those ex-SR third rail services are easily overlooked! But my bad….I should have said 25kV AC electric trains ?.
@Graham H…..The Tube PPP and Chiltern franchise length sound like credible reasons, but if Treasury stinginess was another factor, how on earth did the Abbey Wood via Canary Wharf branch get past them???? That must have added several billion to the total cost at the very least….
@ Albert JP / 100 and thirty – before the liveries / route contracts changed in Utrecht.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/24759744@N02/6163429110/
from when I was last in the Netherlands. Route 12 is an impressive operation but should really be a rail based service given the demand levels. I see from a Google search that a light rail line to De Uithof is being built now for opening in 2018 but it follows a different route to bus 12.
The official line on the sifting process for Crossrail 1 branches as of the early 200s is here. Oxford did indeed get considered on the longlist, as did Newbury, Southend, Chelmsford and Southminster, but:
the Crossrail Board agreed that, taking into account rolling stock and other issues
associated with refranchising, the maximum extent of services on Crossrail should be
Aylesbury, Watford Junction, Reading, Shenfield and Ebbsfleet.
The western options taken forward were Watford via the DC lines, Aylesbury, and Great Western to Heathrow and Reading. The various options for getting from Crossrail to the Chiltern or Watford lines seem to have been similar to those recently proposed for a WCML-Crossrail link – ie a choice of tunnel or surface via the Dudding Hill line. Interestingly, it was assumed that the Great Western line would be six-tracked as far as Airport Junction and a major rebuild of Ealing Broadway would be needed.
Eastern branches were as built, except that it was assumed that the Canary Wharf branch would take over the North Kent line to Dartford, would surface at Plumstead not Abbey Wood, and would have a station at Woolwich Arsenal. There was also an alternative tunnel route via Charlton.
One problem that taking over the outer Metropolitan Line faced was that the benefits to passengers weren’t huge compared with, say, the Great Western, since Met Line passengers already had through services to the City (and cross-platform interchange to the West End) via a shorter route than Crossrail.
Hmmm, interesting. I’m still surprised though that once the Canary Wharf branch was added to Crossrail, it still managed to get pass HM Treasury. Placing myself in the head of one of their bean counters, it would have been pretty easy for them to say:
“Where did this second eastern branch suddenly appear from? This was never in the 1990s plan. All those areas are already served by Jubilee line/DLR/NR services; they don’t require any more. And it will cost an extra £x billion to boot! Therefore, if you want this project to get any money from us, I’m afraid you’re going to have to drop that part of the plan.”
Whoever convinced them otherwise probably deserves some kind of medal!
As for Aylesbury……if and when the Chiltern line is electrified (it’ll soon be the last remaining diesel commuter service left within London, along with the Greenford branch), a decision will have to made as to what to do with the Aylesbury via Harrow and Amersham trains, which of course run on LU metals north of Harrow up to Amersham. All of the options I can think of (remaining diesel-powered, dual electrification between Harrow and Amersham, dual voltage trains, handing over all Met services north of the Watford curve to Chiltern to run into Marylebone, even extending the Met line to Aylesbury!) might be considered unfeasible or undesirable for a variety of different reasons. Which then only only really leaves an extra western Crossrail branch…..
The document linked makes reference in its last paragraph to the importance of private investment – Canary Wharf (and Heathrow) offered the only direct private investment in Crossrail*, so it isn’t so surprising that the Canary Wharf and Heathrow branches were the most “locked in”.
There were various schemes around in the 1990s for links under the river from the North Kent line to Docklands – “Union Metro” that was once part of the Channel Tunnel Rail Link proposal, and some (often combining passenger and freight) that were mooted around the time the Woolwich DLR extension was planned.
*A tiny fraction of the project cost, but as with the Jubilee Line the private investment tail got to wag the public investment dog.
last remaining diesel commuter service left within London
It will likely be possible to catch diesel trains from East Croydon to Victoria and London Bridge, or from Clapham Junction to Waterloo, for a long time to come.
Which then only only really leaves an extra western Crossrail branch
…or the status quo. You rarely go wrong in predicting London infrastructure by betting on the status quo. Perhaps with added bi-mode operation.
@Ian J…..Er, I did include the status quo (‘remaining diesel-powered’). And with the exception of the upcoming Class 800, I’m not aware of any other bi-mode multiple units that are or will be in use within the UK.
Personally I think either the status quo or dual voltage trains are the most likely options.
And in relation to your other point, I really meant to say ‘last remaining unelectrified passenger lines within London….’
East Croydon to Victoria with diesel is rather hard nowadays as all the Uckfield trains go to London Bridge. Clapham Junction to Waterloo is just about possible, but one unadvertised train an hour each way (Clapham Juction is an up direction set down only and down direction pick up only) does not make much of a commuter service.
Anonymously,
Regarding Canary Wharf and the government bean counters – I think you have missed the point entirely.
Crossrail was not originally planned to go to Canary Wharf or Abbey Wood. It was Shenfield only on the east. This was an expensive project and as business would have regarded it almost as an upgrade rather than something new would have been very reluctant to support it let alone agree to contribute towards it.
The branch to Abbey Wood which would serve Canary Wharf would have made Docklands substantially more attractive to big business who where therefore willing to accept business supplementary rates as the price of getting a much needed line. So, quite possibly, the Abbey Wood extension has more than paid for itself in that sense.
Also, without the Abbey Wood branch, it is unlikely Crossrail would have got such enthusiastic support from London First which almost certainly influenced the government and, given what a knife-edge decision it was, unlikely Crossrail would have been built at all.
All covered years ago in Why branch to Abbey Wood?
@Ian J
“Eastern branches were as built, except that it was assumed that the Canary Wharf branch …………..would surface at Plumstead not Abbey Wood, ”
At least they got that right, then.
http://www.crossrail.co.uk/construction/tunnelling/railway-tunnels/thames-tunnel-plumstead-to-north-woolwich
(As an aside, that article says that the North Woolwich – Plumstead tunnerl is “the only point where the Crossrail route crosses the River Thames”
Not quite
https://www.flickr.com/photos/93448689@N02/13855892063
@anonymously
“Chiltern line …..will soon be the last remaining diesel commuter service/ unelectrified passenger line left within London, along with the Greenford branch)”
The first three stations on the Oxted branch are also in Greater London, and probably see more passengers than the stations on the Greenford branch and the Northolt Park line combined.
(The Aylesbury line is electrified from before the first stop (Harrow on the Hill) to beyond the London boundary)
@timbeau
“The first three stations on the Oxted branch are also in Greater London”
Actually only the first two stations are in London. Upper Warlingham Station is in Surrey.
@Peter Heather
You’re right, of course – it was added to Zone 6 along with the Caterham branch stations, presumably because tickets are interavailable with Whyteleafe station across the road. I would guess that Ewell West slipped through SWT’s otherwise impregnable net for a similar reason.
Most of us are going to get old, and a good few of the most will get arthritic. At the moment Hammersmith and City line travellers have a bizarre variety of gaps and heights between trains and platforms to overcome – one of the worst is at Ladbroke Grove, where you have to climb out of the trainonto the westbound platform with very little to use as support. “Mind the gap between the train and the platform” doesn’t cover it. Have these trains been designed to fit the platforms or have the platforms been realigned to fit the trains? TfL isn’t good at these things – not just trains either. Boris’s unventilated buses are another lethal piece of arrogance.
Anonymous125, the platforms used by the Hammersmith & City were built by a number of different companies and organisations between 1863 (eg Baker Street) and the 2008 (Wood Lane)[1]. The current trains are a recent design for the Hammersmith & City, Circle, District and Metropolitan lines; I don’t think the height of the door sill was different from the older stock?
Platform heights have changed over the last 150 years; some station were built on curves, and that creates a gap between the train and platform; to cure this problem it would be necessary to move the platforms. To change the platform height it would probably be necessary to close stations for extended periods. However, from this photo
I can’t see where the problem lies at Ladbrooke Grove.
[1] I may have forgotten a later station
Crossrail to Aylesbury died in favour of Crossrail to Kingston (remember that!) when options were re-examined (and the net widened) in the early 00s. This was the same study that gave us Maidenhead instead of Reading.
Aylesbury either needed a tunnel from Kensal to Neasden that added lots to the cost, or a snake-like route on the Dudden Hill line that meant that journey time improvements weren’t great, especially for those coming from Met line stations. Either way the Cost-benefit wasn’t going to work – either too expensive, or not enough benefits.
I’m not sure operational contracts were factors. Kingston was cheap (just some track and rolling stock for 4tph) and entirely within Greater London: there was little chance a TfL report would be able to pick the more-expensive alternatives (most of which had maybe two stops in Greater London. The exceptions being DC lines or Met branch to Watford/Uxbridge takeovers) over it, even though Kingston was removed about 2 years later (replaced by nothing, to Hounslow’s displeasure) due to being impractical to operate!
Edgepedia,
Unwittingly you have highlighted the problem. The height of the platforms at Ladbroke Grove was exceptionally high and perfect for C stock but S stock has a lower step – so that you get level access at most stations. At Ladbroke Grove, exceptionally for stations not served by a mixture of tube and sub-surface stock, you now step down into the train.
@si
“Kingston was cheap (just some track and rolling stock for 4tph)”
This was the Crossrail-to-Richmond proposal.
http://neighbournet.com/server/common/ecross04.htm
By no means cheap, because of the cost of tunnelling from Paddington to Turnham Green (partially reviving an old Central London railway proposal [1].
There was local opposition because of
– loss of the District Line service to Richmond (4tph to Paddington was not seen as an improvement)
– land-take near Richmond to fit in a flying junction
– capacity constraints between Richmond and Twickenham
– possible loss of direct services from Kingston to Waterloo (the circuitous Crossrail route being of no more benefit to Kingston than the now-canned Crossrail 2 use of the loop would have been for Twickenham. Again, if all that was being offered was 4tph, that would not have been an improvement.
[1] in its grandest form, ISTR it would involve a new branch from Shepherds Bush to Turnham Green and take over the Richmond branch. Earlier versions looked like this
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9c/Central_London_Railway_1920.png/400px-Central_London_Railway_1920.png
Later ones – after the Picadilly had taken over the spare LSWR tracks west of Hammersmith, involved a tunnel following the line of Goldhawk Road from Shepherds Bush to Turnham Green.
In its grandest form the plan allowed for the District’s former Richmond paths to be used for Rayners Lane/Uxbridge, thereby allowing the Piccy to run an improved service to Heathrow.
The Central’s Richmond trains would have used the existing Ealing paths (giving two branches more equal in length and loading). To maintain the North Acton – Ealing Broadway link the Bakerloo would have been extended/diverted from Willesden Junction via North Acton to Ealing Broadway.
There were also proposals at times to quadruple across the river between Richmond and Twickenham (there is an interestingly wide gap between the railway bridge and the 1930s road bridge) https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.4603375,-0.31408,3a,75y,77.07h,74.65t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sZBeGuK7RrfISRw37fv6ZJw!2e0!7i13312!8i6656
and continue over LSWR tracks to Shepperton
@PoP….My apologies; I had no idea this issue had been covered in an earlier article. Having read that and your comment, one would be tempted to think that Canary Wharf is now at the centre of the known Londoniverse, and that all transport projects must bow down before it and run there, wherever possible!
I always knew that CR relied on backing and financial support from businesses to get the green light, but thought there were enough of those within the City and West End for this to work without relying on those in the Canary Wharf area as well. But perhaps not….
Anonymously,
No reason for you to expect there to be an article on it. And it was a very old article.
Without wishing to plug my old articles too much (lengthening of nose begins) the one on Politics and London Transport makes the point that the way that Crossrail was sold to the treasury was by showing that the long term effect was to boost tax revenue to an extent that far exceeded the cost of construction. With the rise in house prices, which in places must be at least partly attributable to Crossrail, and the consequent extra stamp duty I suspect one factor for this boost in treasury income has already far exceeded its predictions.
Another factor for the approving of the finance of Crossrail 1 then was the realisation that well paid jobs in Canary Wharf that would be helped by Crossrail would increase tax-revenues. The fear factor was also played out with big business suggesting that London could lose it dominance as a world financial centre if Crossrail wasn’t built – implicit was the presumption that this was referring in particular to serving Canary Wharf and Heathrow.
Another great article! One that certain commentators on the Study in Sussex / BML2 thread would be well advised to read…..
Can I please make a suggestion to the moderators for improving navigation around the website? I know one can search for articles or view articles related to a particular topic (e.g. Crossrail), but it would help me and others if there was an option to browse lists of previous articles by title in chronological order (i.e. arranged by year). This would allow me to see at a glance which specific topics have been previously covered, and prevent any future omissions or mistakes when commenting in future.
Anonymously at 22:00
Fully agreed. I am addicted reader but somewhat reserved commentator as I feel that if I ‘step out of line’ with regard to previous threads then I am highly likely to get ‘jumped on’ by commentators more experienced on this forum than myself. Whilst the moderation is above excellent I still feel like a ‘newbie’, compared with some of the other more prolific and, dare I say, voluble commentators.
I normally try and do a few sneaky site improvements over the Christmas break. Will stick it on the list of things to try out.
@timbeau: Eastern branches were as built, except that it was assumed that the Canary Wharf branch …………..would surface at Plumstead not Abbey Wood, ”
At least they got that right, then
Perhaps I should have said, “it was assumed that the Canary Wharf branch would surface in Woolwich with its first surface station at Plumstead”. The difference matters because since it was then decided not to run Crossrail trains beyond the interchange with the North Kent line, Abbey Wood makes a better railhead for Thamesmead etc than Plumstead. On the other hand, Crossrail doesn’t serve Woolwich as well as was first proposed.
In fact the originally proposed tunnel would have been very close to where the DLR Woolwich tunnel was built: I wonder if the same geological sampling was used to inform both projects?
@anonymous125: TfL isn’t good at these things
Seems a bit unfair given that on some lines (like the Victoria Line) they have made it possible for the first time to have truly level boarding by installing platform humps. It sounds like what is needed is Ladbroke Grove is a platform dip.
@ Ian J – “In fact the originally proposed tunnel would have been very close to where the DLR Woolwich tunnel was built: I wonder if the same geological sampling was used to inform both projects?”
The BGS borehole scan viewer shows separate series of boreholes for the DLR Woolwich extension and Crossrail (and for the Jubilee line stages 3 and 4 – unfortunately restricted so it isn’t possible to see if the boreholes were made after the change of name from Fleet Line to Jubilee line in 1977 or that the earlier records were renamed)
@Ian J – not quite so. In the early 1990’s the Northern line platforms at Totteridge & Whetstone, Finchley Central and West Finchley were completely rebuilt so that the 1956/ 1959/1972 stock door sills were precisely level with the platform edge.
Unfortunately, the 1995 stock has higher floors and there is now a step up into the train at the first two stations. However when the track was subsequently renewed at West Finchley, the rail level was dropped so there is again no step.
Ian J. As an ex civil engineer who was involved in a fair amount of tunnelling, I can assure you that although the DLR site investigation borehole logs would have been used by the Crossrail team to get a general picture of the subsurface conditions, they would have insane not do their own set of investigations on the Crossrail tunnel route. Tunnelling is a very risky business, and although good site investigations are guaranteed to pay for themselves several times over, the designers are still only getting tiny samples of the underground conditions from their borehole logs. Anywhere near to a large river is going to be a) extremely wet and b) have extremely varied underground conditions. Modern TBMs are designed to cope with all this stuff, but still big problems turn up with alarming regularity. (Think- DLR Lewisham extension, or Heathrow central station).
–
Having (coincidentally) just popped over to Frankfurt, I was a bit surprised to find that the lovely new S-Bahn trains had (some) longitudinal seating and, guess what, hanging straps in the same areas. Being Germany, they are terribly sophisticated, with stirrups on springs. Kinder to the hands I suspect, but no kinder to heads!
@Fandroid: I was more thinking about the “desktop” option selection phase of Crossrail, when they were thinking in broad terms about, for example, whether to go under Woolwich town centre or not. Of course this would have been followed up
@nameless: the underlying assumption seems to be that it is more worthwhile concentrating on the step between train and platform at stations with step-free access from the street. Even so, I think the Victoria Line has platform humps at non-step-free stations.
@Fandroid, continued…
by more specific drilling at the next stage of investigation, but the hardest thing to work out in retrospect is how particular options were ruled in and out.
@Ian J: would they be stations they enable step free interchange with other lines, even if you can’t exit the station (e.g. Stockwell doesn’t have a lift, but step free interchange would work).
Ian J /Londoner
Yes & No
Walthamstow Central has platform humps, as do, IIRC all Vic-line stations, but it certainly ain’t step-free to the street!
None at Pimlico for obvious reasons!
@Londoner, Greg: I guess they are useful at anywhere with the potential for step free interchange, plus anywhere where trains reverse or go out of service, like Walthamstow, given the ban on carrying passengers on such movements – even though all they could then do is get on another train and go back in the direction they came.
@IanJ : I presume you are talking about humps. Your mention of trains going out of service leads to the inevitable conclusion that the humps should really be built at every station. At any station it is possible for a train fault to be discovered, and the passengers turned out to wait for the next train. (The only, perhaps theoretical, exclusion would be stations on lines which have no step-free stations).
“The difference matters because since it was then decided not to run Crossrail trains beyond the interchange with the North Kent line, Abbey Wood makes a better railhead for Thamesmead etc than Plumstead.”
Thought rather unfortunately, the main road link for much of Thamesmead to Abbey Wood, has seen a large increase in congestion the past year meaning getting to Plumstead is now quicker.
With new developments happening and added traffic lights on the roads to Abbey Wood station, the poor neglected folk of Thamesmead now see their bus journeys taking longer. This will likely slow down even more with 3k+ more homes planned the next 5 years. So, a speed increase to central London from Abbey Wood of 10-20 minutes, but buses taking 10-20 minutes longer without reworking roads.
And walking/cycling not really an option for much of Thamesmeads residents with dual carriageways and elevated sewer banks making it difficult. That sewer bank does offer a direct path to Plumstead though…
“It remains likely that May 2017 and the introduction of these trains will mark the point at which ‘TfL Rail’ will be dropped as an operating brand and ‘Crossrail’ used instead. ”
First official confirmation I’ve seen of the schedule for introducing Crossrail branding: The narration on this recent TfL Youtube video begins “From 2017 Transport for London will be introducing Crossrail services between Liverpool Street and Shenfield.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fhMLV4adGIQ
Roy,
The TfL paper ‘Crossrail – Moving to the Operating Railway’ (which IIRC may have been referred to in an earlier ‘Crossrail’ article), also suggested that May 2017 will be the start of Crossrail branding, if you go by the text of page 18:
http://content.tfl.gov.uk/rup-20150212-part-1-item-09-crossrail.pdf
It is certainly the current intention to change the branding from TfL Rail to Crossrail in May 2017 but there is no commitment to do so. They want some wriggle room in case there are potential problems (e.g. with the trains). If they feel that the service then is not up to the planned quality expected with the Crossrail “brand” then, based on the comments of senior Crossrail staff, I have no doubt they will defer it.
Since the new trains are to be phased in over some four months, it seems to me to be inappropriate to rebrand the service when there is only a small chance of seeing one. And then there may be teething problems to overcome. So perhaps when they are 50% or more of the service would be more appropriate? The TfL info leaves open that possibility.
Taz,
I am speculating here but I suspect that they will hold back introducing new trains, already delivered and tested, into public service until May 2017. They will rapidly introduce at least some of them. If you have 12 in service then by my reckoning that means that all the off-peak trains will be new Crossrail trains. So to get 50% of the off-peak service using new Crossrail trains could possibly take just days.
Does anyone understand how Crossrail are going to manage the build up in service? Clearly the first stage can be achieved using Ilford depot and the transfer of Heathrow Connect can use trains stabled at Old Oak Common. However when you get to December 2018 you need a lot more trains to run the tunnel service but *in theory* the route only has Plumstead sidings to rely on. Will it be the case that trains will run out of service to / from Ilford and OOC to provide the tunnel service but under special signalling conditions given no passengers can travel through the portals at that point?
Also how does the 7 car to 9 car transition happen? I assume there must be a point prior to May 2019 when Liv St surface platforms can take 9 car trains so MTR can lengthen the 7 cars to 9 to give a fleet ready for the service into the tunnel. I appreciate that some of the fleet may be delivered as 9 cars and will only ever be used for tunnel / into the tunnel services.
If anyone has any clues as to the process I’d be interested to know because the potential logistics look rather fascinating (from an armchair!).
Re PoP,
And if the initial trains are the temporarily short 7 car ones as originally planned (till LST short platforms are sorted), it is even easier to get the stock manufactured as the extra 2 cars/unit deferred till later will save at least a month off manufacturing time for 12 units so you could get another 3 units build instead of the extra 2 cars /unit.
The 7 to 9 car thing is something I don’t understand. If you can run 9 cars prior to diverting the trains into the tunnel why not do it now? They have had plenty of years to plan and I can’t see this being overlooked.
My understanding is that they need Crossrail to Shenfield from central London open before they can lengthen the platforms at Liverpool St (and lose one in the process). So the only way I can see this work is if there is a degraded service whilst they take trains out of service to lengthen them – a bit like happened on the Jubilee line. Of course if all the trains have been delivered by then this need not be that great a problem as there will be quite a few waiting for the future inclusion of the Reading services.
Re PoP,
7 car is actually an advantage initially as you can get more units built sooner and more time to sort platforms elsewhere.
They could run some 9 car trains from day 1 into LST as P15 is long enough*, but there are length issues on 16, 17, 18 (solvable with SDO equipment fitted to the units) with P17, 18 a 9 car would foul the points so cut the usable platforms from 4 to 3.
(* but timetabling wise it might not work having 25% of units at 9 car)
The 5 car lengthening on LO has been very quick so you only need 1 spare unit to cover while 1 is lengthened. So run units as 7 car and lengthen them gradually so there is 7/9 car mix underground?
However there are the peak extras which will presumably need to remain 7 car till the P16&17 works are complete so it might only need a few units swapped from 7 to 9 car initially for the tunnelled section opening, with the others remaining at 7 car till the platform works are completed at which point they can gradually be lengthened. Shouldn’t be any issues if the platform screens say what the train length is…
@ngh
“They could run some 9 car trains from Day 1 into LST as P15 is long enough ”
Operators don’t like doing this as it reduces flexibility when things get out of sequence. The reason so few ten-car trains are using platform 5 on the main line suburban side at Waterloo is that if a 10-car turns up when the platform is already occupied (e.g by a late departure of an outgoing service) it has to wait for that platform to clear – and so do all the eight-car trains behind it, despite platforms 1 to 4 being long enough for eight.
Re Timbeau,
Hence my asterisked comment:
(* but timetabling wise it might not work having 25% of units at 9 car)
It is theoretically possible but probably not workable in practice…
Re WW and PoP,
Having had think over lunch, 7 car probably isn’t a problem at all:
LST – Shenfield starts in May ’17 and
Paddington – Shenfield starts in May ’19
So presumably 2 years of 7 car existence?
Heathrow – Paddington Starts in May ’18 all delivered as 9 car.
Abbey Wood – Paddington starts in Dec ’18 (all delivered as 9 car).
So that gives plenty of time (5+months) for extra newly delivered 9 car units to be tested (and have run in service on other routes) for 9 car Paddington to Shenfield on the first day of service. The average build rate of 9 car unit should be slightly better than 1 unit a fortnight so an extra 20x 9 car units could be built in a 5 month period.
There is then a couple of months to lengthen any 7 car units not needed for peak extras while the platform works at P16/17/18 at LST are done, then swap the recently lengthened 9 car units for the 7 car ones as the platform work is completed and then lengthen the remaining 7 car units and take delivery of the remaining 9 car units (Maybe just a handful needed for the Paddington GWML services after taking account of 2nd batch of lengthened units?)
@ngh
Have I missed something? ‘1 unit a fortnight’ means two per month. So five months gives us ten units.
My comment at 20 November 2015 at 23:18 – The news release to staff adds “begins on the Liverpool Street to Shenfield line in May 2017. Twelve new trains will carry passengers on this section of the line by September 2017.”
So four month phase in. Will it be two months before a 50% chance to see one on the rebranded Crossrail?
Re Liverpool Street platform extensions, are they being lengthened to 11 x 23m cars, or will some trains be limited to 9 cars if the options for train lengthening to 11 cars are exercised?
What is the plan for the 360s on Heathrow Connect when the 345s roll out?
Stationless, 23:53
I don’t believe any plans for the 360s have ever been made public. You can of course find various ideas online, mostly involving the other existing 360 operator.
My thoughts are:
*Before May 2019, after which most of the Shenfield trains will be diverted down the tunnel, they need the three platforms at Liverpool Street
*The simplest/best/cheapest way to turn three short(ish) platforms into two longer ones is to temporarily close them. This would best be done when not having the peak hour LST trains would have the least effect, i.e. Easter, August or Christmas
*Does it really matter if at Christmas 2019 some of the Shenfield to Paddington trains are 7-cars long? So I would be thinking of a blockade Christmas 2019 or Easter 2020
During the blockade to lengthen the Jubilee line trains wasn’t it explained that they could not operate the existing PEDs with two different lengths of trains, because the risk to waiting passengers of a failure allowing too many doors to open on a short train was far greater than a short train in a long platform elsewhere. It had to be all or nothing.
Edgepedia,
Yes, but you need all the platforms at Liverpool Street. You can’t close one of them even if you could do it instantly by waving a magic wand. The only way you could close one is if you diverted the Shenfield trains somewhere else – but it is presumed they can’t be diverted until the trains have been lengthened (see Paul’s comment).
Shades of There’s a Hole in my Bucket and The Gas Man Cometh.
Paul refers to the risks of opening PEDs and passengers stepping into a void.
That sounds very reasonable. Interesting to think that, if they had wanted to operate for a short period using mixed length trains, the safest way might have been to leave all the platform edge doors open for the whole time, thus simulating a platform elsewhere. (Although airflow considerations might make that dangerous too, so the trains would probably have had to creep in and out of the platforms at 5 mph).
Re PoP, edgepedia, Paul,
I have seen a date mentioned somewhere for sorting the platforms I’ll try to find it over the weekend. I think it is as soon as they start going down the hole.
P15 is already long enough for 11 car CR so some peak extra could run.
PoP
The Gas Man Cometh
Ok, I had forgotten the PEDs.
We’re assuming Crossrail haven’t set up a system for running 7 and 9 car trains, as it’s unlikely to be free. Therefore, perhaps most likely scenario, on opening, is that the 8 tph off-peak service will be 9-car running through to Paddington, and the peak extras will run as 7-car trains through the Liverpool Street. This would give a sufficiently large fleet of 7-car trains for it to be viable.
How quickly could the 7-car trains be converted into 9-car trains. Didn’t they convert the whole of the Jubilee line fleet over a weekend?
Following this discussion, I expect that the Liverpool Street platform work is more of a time constraint than converting 7 car trains to 9 car. Any insider views?
Edgepedia
at 20:03
The main Jubilee lengthening took place over a Christmas and New Year ‘week’, but IIRC they started on a few trains just before the closure and finished a few a few days after, but there were enough available to run the full service on re-opening.
Crossrail rolling stock heading elsewhere?
http://www.citymetric.com/transport/islamic-republic-iran-plotting-steal-crossrails-trains-1821
No, it’s simply the crayonistas promoting an extension from Shenfield to Qom (via Hayes).
By the way, and building on last December’s discussion about 7 car and 9 car trains and PEDs, there is no technical reason why PEDs couldn’t be made compatible with both 7-car and 9-car trains (and 9 car and 11 car trains when they have to be expanded). There are various techniques, both incorporated into CBTC systems or an independent system using the basic principles of Selective Door Open – almost SDO in reverse! However I’m not saying that this facility has been incorporated into the Class 345 and Siemens Trainguard specification – I just don’t know.
Jubilee Line Extension signalling and PED interface was such a muddle, that it was a miracle it ever worked at all and no one ever asked for the system to control both 6 and 7 car train/PED interface even if the system of the day had been capable.
@GH
This would appear to require a change to 3rd rail, presumably between Abbey Wood and Ashford (not the one in Middlesex). Sorry if this is wrong but my knowledge of the SR is both patchy and rusty.
Even if this extension was truncated it would be worth it just so that we could use Crossrail to get from Hayes to Hayes.
(but surely the nominative must be craijonistae)
@GH “extension from Shenfield to Qom (via Hayes)”.
@nameless ” we could use Crossrail to get from Hayes to Hayes.”
Depends which Hayes GH meant.
… or by going just a little bit beyond Oxford (which is only a little way past Reading), from Stratford to Stratford… (there is also a Bromley to Bromley possibility in there somewhere)
It must be getting rather late if we are trying to deduce the likely intentions of an imputed virtual crayonista. Is Crossrail purple in Second Life?
As far as Hayeses are concerned, I’d prefer to bypass both.
“This would appear to require a change to 3rd rail, presumably between Abbey Wood and Ashford ”
And then it would only require the proposed connection from Crossrail’s Heathrow branch to Airtrack to be able to do Ashford to Ashford.
Crossrail 2 also has potential for St Margarets to St Margarets,
Waterloo (Merseyside) to London Waterloo has the advantage of third rail electrification at both ends(!) but Charing Cross (Glasgow) to Charing Cross (London) might be a bit of a challenge.
And if you used HS1, you could do Waterloo Merseyside to the original Waterloo but you couldn’t go via London Waterloo without reversing at the former Eurostar platforms and continuing via Fawkham Junction. I always thought that the final route chosen for HS2 eliminated some useful through running options.
Gillingham – Gillingham
Only requires a “modest” 3rd rail extension at one end, too!
@Greg (Gillingham)
Are you going via Ludgate Junction and Factory Junction,
@Nameless “”Waterloo Merseyside to the original Waterloo but you couldn’t go via London Waterloo””
You could: WCML, Haykerloo, Beckenham Junction spur.
Or kill two birds with one stone by reopening the Waterloo Junction linkspan
(For Waterloo you would also need to reverse in Brussels or take a loop through the centre of the city and then loop round to the east to turn south)
@Greg Tingey
Southeastern trains already do Gillingham-Gillingham on their in-train announcements with both Jill & Gill in the same message.
Sorry, but can I please call “totally off topic” on this please?
[You can. Malcolm]
Malcom & Briantist
Can we start a game of “Mornington Crescent”, instead, then?
[No.]
Spoilsports!
An interesting turn in the Heathrow access costs battle with compliments of the ORR.
Heathrow was originally meant to contribute £230m to Crossrail – this was reduced to circa £70m after construction had started as the CAA stated that Crossrail would provide no benefit to Heathrow (apart from reducing NOx emission 🙂 ) but paying a reduced amount would provide plenty of benefit to the CAA as they could claim they helped keep landing etc fees down and acted in the (air) passengers interests!
Heathrow then decide in late December that they want to charge extortionate access charges to Crossrail for the use of the services.
£597/train for infrastructure debt repayment and £138/train for maintenance and running costs equating to about £40m /year.
DfT and TfL were not amused.
Thankfully ORR have come along with helpful consultation on their draft decision of the interpretation of an EC directive:
http://orr.gov.uk/__data/assets/pdf_file/0012/20811/charging-framework-consultation-2016-02-11.pdf
So bye-bye to the £597/train charge bit, a nice 4/5th reduction.
The £138 bit is still steep compared to NR costs but that is another matter and not part of the consultation!
@ngh – thank you for the link. The consultation document is a fascinating read, not just because it reeks of legal advice on how to avoid the probably inevitable JR, but because of the inability of either the CAA or HAL to produce conclusive evidence abut why they took the decisions they did.
How about NR charging £138 for every Heathrow Connect train not using the surface platforms at Paddington?
Graham H
At the risk of the moderators, can I suggest that CAA/HAL appeared to be motivated by pure unadulterated greed & hope (mostly fulfilled) that the “mystique” of air travel (shudder) would see them through.
And they got away with it.
Incidentally, this utter twaddle about air travel is STILL doing the rounds …
There was some rubbish of this nature, & about promoting smaller airports, on the “Today” programme this morning, which had me shouting at the radio(!)
ngh
I also note Para. 58 of the ORR report
58. Schedule 11 of the Joint Operating Agreement contains a financial model demonstrating how the HEX service would provide a return on HAL’s investment in the Heathrow Spur. HAL has shown ORR figures which it argues shows the Heathrow Spur has generated revenues which are equivalent to approximately 80% of the full operating and Historical Long-Term Costs in each year, on average, over the last 10 years. HAL also argues that “given that the contribution would increase in the coming years (so that, in the years after 2018, the revenue figure would exceed the cost figure, and would do so to an increasing extent), it is reasonable to project that, absent the commencement of Crossrail services, 100% of the long term costs of the Spur would be recovered from Heathrow Express revenues”
23. HAL considers that this level of cost recovery, when taken together with its initial recovery assumptions24, indicates HAL has met the Paragraph 3 Test.
Oops, as the saying goes
Para 62 is good, as well.
Can we look forward to an interesting display of puffery about the “vital” HeX link from HAL & how they can’t possibly do without the money & how “vital” air travel is, etc ..?
Chris L – surely you mean Heathrow Express – there’ll be no Connect service at all by the time this Heathrow Access issue arises. In any case, NR charging extra to HEx won’t balance out HAL charging extra to TfL will it?
Re Graham H,
How many of the BAA or CAA board members or equivalent from the early 1990s will still be around let alone them having copies of anything…
They both should have retained all the documents but did both of them actually do this properly especially as both have moved or downsized offices (CAA) since.
One person may have passed the documents to their successor who then never having looked at them shredded them on their own retirement. The importance may not have been seen as relevant at the time as the proposals pre-dated the directive.
It is obvious that there are mountains of available debt financing paperwork available but the non submission suggests the financial model had nothing about Crossrail income in it hence sinking their case. The lenders and bond holders should also have so good quality info.
Re Chris L,
Heathrow Connect (run by GWR & HAL) will have died before the sub surface platforms even open…
@ngh – I wouldn’t expect the private sector to keep any back papers at all (no sign of it whenever I worked for lenders) but I might have expected better of the CAA as an accountable public body. BTW I was discussing last week the Heathrow charges with a friend who had worked for both ORR and acted as the CAA’s sponsor in DfT – how we laughed…
@paul & @ngh
that was my point – the Connect service is for HAL. They won’t be paying access charges once Crossrail enters Heathrow.
Was suggesting a balancing payment.
@Chrisl – different pockets in different garments, surely?
My reading of the ORR document is that HAL is already earning a return on the investment in the HEX tunnels as the cost was added to the Regulatory Asset Base against which they can set their charges – presumably for take off and landing slots. If HAL’s proposal had succeeded, then they would have effectively been able to charge twice for the same asset.
@100andthirty. Well spotted. Despite regular rants from the likes of BA’s parent company, the high slot fees at Heathrow have so far failed to put any airlines off to sufficient degree that they really want to transfer to one of London’s other four airports. It would be nice to have an article on the way the Oystercard is going to be extended to the likes of Heathrow’s Crossrail stations and Reading. A precedent has been set with the way that the world-famous mollusc has been applied to journeys between St Pancras and Stratford (I’m introducing a policy of economising on key strokes so have left off the pointless suffixes).
@ Fandroid – I’d happily have a go at such an article if there was the remotest hint of what official policy actually is and how it aligns with the practicalities or otherwise of extending Oyster and CPC acceptance over the BAA link. However I’m not aware of anything that would not be rampant speculation on my part. It is possible LR Towers have insight via their “connections” but that’s for them to know and the rest of us to ponder.
It will be the next Mayor who signs the Mayoral Decision instructing TfL on what to implement in respect of Crossrail fares. Depending on who wins there may be radically different approaches to what is agreed given the Mayor has NO control over fares set by a TOC or HAL. Any idea of fares freezes do NOT apply to National Rail fares.
I would also just say that there has been an attempt, in the past, to extend PAYG to Heathrow on the Connect service but it foundered. I am not clear why it did but I expect the different philosophies about revenue protection are a major factor. HEX runs on the basis of open stations, no gates or validators and I assume some form of on train ticket inspection. There is also free transfer between terminals at Heathrow. I expect HEX are therefore wholly against gating their stations and a reliance on validators, given the premium fares charged, is probably rather naive. There would be a great incentive to not validate and simply incur a maximum fare charge *unless* the maximum fare was increased to be something like £30 which is 4 times its current level. I can’t see a Mayor signing off on such a scheme given the adverse effects it would have on Londoners travelling within the zonal area. Even having the Heathrow link outside the Daily Capping regime (as with HS1 and Gatwick Express) is unlikely to work if the unique entry / exit points (i.e. the HEX stations at Heathrow) are gated. That is the only way the charging works for HS1 and GatEx – there is a point or points on the network where the use of a card at a gate registers that you have decided to use / have used the premium service (and please no detailed corrections about the intracacies of platform working at Victoria main line!). It is also worth saying here that to use a peak train at Gatwick requires a card balance of at least £14, £8 off peak and to use Gatwick Express you must have a card balance of £19.80. In other words there’s no dipping into your PAYG deposit – all the money is grabbed on entry! The peak daily cap for Gatwick travellers (not using Gatex) is £30.50 and £19 off peak (no aligned peak and off peak caps for those beyond Zone 6).
I expect some clever people are trying to work out solutions to ticketing to Heathrow via Crossrail but given any solution requires the consent of HAL and we’ve seen their attitude when it comes to money I’d not be very hopeful. Let’s face it – they really don’t care about Crossrail coming to the Airport. It’s a competitive threat. They have no obvious incentive to cooperate nor to charge reasonable sums of money for whatever modifications may be needed. All the pressure will be on Crossrail / TfL / the next Mayor to ensure people can use Crossrail to Heathrow and pay as low a fare as can possibly be achieved. I can see some people expecting to pay the same as the tube which is probably a laughable idea at this point in time. I am sure there will be a solution because there has to be one but I do wonder at what cost to the public purse and to passengers’ wallets.
@WW. Connect passengers do have their tickets checked between Hayes and Heathrow. I don’t know what the policy is for those without tickets. I do know that HEx passengers pay a premium (Penalty Fare?-Never!!!!!) if they buy on the train, so if HAL provided the ticket checkers, they could possibly reap a tidy little earner on Crossrail when it comes. My experience tells me that Connect is really not very busy between Hayes and Heathrow (the effect of quite a big surcharge)*, so ticket checks are a practical proposition. I don’t travel on it in the morning peaks, but I suspect that many users at that time are airport employees who I am fairly certain get subsidised season tickets anyway. As another contributor has pointed out, Connect has heavy loadings between Southall and Ealing Broadway even at ‘quiet’ times of day. What I think I am trying to say is that Oyster validators at an ungated Heathrow would probably work if TfL and HAL can come up with a way of continuing to check tickets as happens now.
*Elsewhere we discuss fares per km. Hayes-Heathrow T2&3 must be a candidate for the UK top ten.
@WW “There would be a great incentive to not validate and simply incur a maximum fare charge *unless* the maximum fare was increased to be something like £30 which is 4 times its current level.”
You’d also need to up the cost of buying a new Oyster, otherwise PAYG customers, finding they had forgotten to touch out and now had a balance of -£30, would simply spend a fiver on a new card.
@ Paul III – I suspect they would prevent that by forcing people to have a card balance of £30 before letting anyone *in* at Heathrow as is being done at Gatwick. I agree with you that it’s much more problematic for journeys *to* Heathrow because people will be able to board anywhere and simply change on to Crossrail given there are so many open interchanges on the tube network which then links into Crossrail. Gatwick is easier because the main London interchange point is (probably) London Victoria so some element of control can be exercised. [I know it’s not watertight because you can get on to the BML via all sorts of routes and then change again at East Croydon. No need for detailed treatises from anyone.]
WW
… and I assume some form of on train ticket inspection. Yes – on the one occasion I have used this err, “service” (Someone else was paying) there was a quick sweep down the unit by staff.
As for HeX not wanting CR1 coming to Heathrow, if they get too obstructive ( & I think they will, on past form ) then CR1 are under no obligation to run to the airport, at all, are they?
They can, instead. extend services down the line to Slough or Maidenhead or Reading & tell the world that there are no Heathrow services, because of the ( let’s say ) “obstructive & un-cooperative attitude” of the airport authorities – “Not our problem. guv!” & dump it straight back, as a steaming hot-potato right into the politicians laps.
I foresee fun times ahead.
@ Greg – I think life is more nuanced than you are suggesting. Clearly part of the private funding for Crossrail is because it will link Heathrow to the City and Canary Wharf. Politicians will expect Heathrow to be served. Therefore TfL can’t really “go into a huff” because a lot of pressure will be applied to them. However Heathrow can’t be seen to be too awkward either. If I’ve remembered what’s been said here in the past then there aren’t loads of spare paths beyond Hayes and Harlington so the trains are unlikely to be diverted anywhere. This then imperils the frequency at inner area stations unless there is a turnback at Hayes or Stockley. I don’t know what Crossrail’s track will be in the west. The simple fact is that the parties have to agree something and there have to be reasonable charges for access. In short it all boils down to money.
WW
I am forced to agree that you may have a point here:Therefore TfL can’t really “go into a huff” because a lot of pressure will be applied to them.
[Belaboured points about HAL snipped. LBM]
I disagree that it all boils down to money, because in this case it probably boils down to politics – can TfL & the Mayor (etc) afford to let themselves be seen to grovel to HAL, I wonder?
@ Greg – Sorry but I disagree. There will have to be a financially based settlement. It’s clear there is an expectation that someone will pay something for access to HAL’s infrastructure. I can’t see the Mayor (whoever it is) being remotely concerned about “groveling” to HAL. They simply won’t do it. A solution will be found because it has to be. HAL is not exactly invulnerable to pressure from its customer base (the airlines) over efficient rail access to the airport.
There is the potential for some “very big boy’s politics” to be played if it proves necessary but I doubt Crossrail will ever feature in whatever discussion goes on. I am sure some Machiavellian scenarios are already lined up to achieve a wide range of objectives given much wider pending decisions relating to environmental policy, aviation policy, runway expansion etc etc. Whatever transpires I expect any “issues” pertaining to Crossrail and DfT / TfL / City Hall will quietly disappear in some “great meeting of minds” over more contentious matters.
@ngh, Graham H: It might not be that the documents do not survive, but that HAL and the CAA decided not to supply them to ORR in making their application because they wouldn’t have helped their case, or else that there simply was no policy on surface access charges at all…
@100andthirty: ORR says “We have noted that, in 2001, in arguing against moving from a “single till” to a “dual till structure”, BAA submitted to the Competition Commission that the Heathrow Spur was not a standalone commercial investment”
– in other words, they have tried to walk both sides of the street on this one (and the CAA has gone along with it).
Heathrow can’t be seen to be too awkward either
Not least because the Heathrow spur is now covered by EU rules on pricing and access*, which are very clear that they can’t charge more than the marginal costs of access except in very specific circumstances (which is what the ORR document is all about), and they can’t discriminate between train operators.
* interestingly the DfT could have opted Heathrow out of the directive, but chose not to.
@IanJ -your last point especially interesting and entertaining.
Ian J
That bit about EU rules on pricing is very interesting.
However, I Just looked at the Crossrail web-site & it seems that, for all the other s-sub-surface stations, (very) outline plans of the caverns are shown. But for Heathrow, nothing.
I have always assumed the platforms at Heathrow T1,2,3 & T4 are already long enough & have enough capacity for the new CR1 trains, that are expected to arrive & therefore that no new construction is underway there?
Re Ian J,
Your first paragraph: I very much suspect the documentation exists but that it contradicts Heathrow’s current case.
ORR is likely to have to have arguments with Heathrow over roads issues too in the near future, I suspect Heathrow might have got lulled into false sense of security as the CAA has never been particularly harsh to Airport operators and they are finding the ORR to be bit harsher. Heathrow Runway 3 assumes the taxpayer picking up the tab for lots of transport improvements and ORR & DfT may be challenging that one especially with squeezed budgets and NR back in the public books…
Re Greg,
Long enough for 9car 345, but I’m not sure about a future extension to 11car though.
Is the CAA not a public body, and so subject to ministerial overview just like ORR. Indeed, it’s a regulator, so the similarities should outweigh any differences.
One of the fundamental problems that Crossrail faces is the sheer length and number of stations on a journey, and the differential demand through the journey. I can foresee that 9-car trains may be overloaded between say Canary Wharf and Farringdon, but extending to 11-car would mean that unnecessary vehicles are dragged all the way from Abbey Wood to Reading and back (and as they are fixed formation, all day every day as well). Running additional short journeys does not overcome the issue where passengers at Canary Wharf will just board the next service.
Mr Beckton,
But this is no different from all of London Underground. True the trains are bigger. Thameslink will be almost the same – they at least have the option of running non-Thameslink stock at quiet times of the day or week. It is also not that much different from the DLR which currently has very little wriggle room to alternative between 2-car and 3-car sets and I strongly suspect that nowadays they remain in fixed formation.
If anything, Crossrail would fare better than most main line size stock services because of the two-way traffic which means at least it is unlikely that the trains will be almost empty even if they are not almost full.
Don’t forget it is almost certainly TfL’s preference to increase frequency on Crossrail to 30tph before resorting to 11-car trains – whether Network Rail will go along with that is another matter.
PoP: I am bemused by your reference to two-way traffic on Crossrail. I assume you mean the fact that it has no central London terminal (forget Paddington for the moment), which means that the emptiest moments for the trains will be out at the far end. But I still don’t see how that prevents the trains being “almost empty”. These trains, like any others, will be almost empty at the times (if there are any) when very few people want to travel.
Malcolm,
These trains, like any others, will be almost empty at the times (if there are any) when very few people want to travel.
Perhaps I should have added “except at very quiet times of the day”. What I was meaning was that, unlike a lot of services, Crossrail won’t be nearly empty due to little “against the flow” direction. Possibly Canary Wharf – Abbey Wood may be surprisingly quiet in the morning peak. Apart from that you will have people commuting to Reading, people going to Heathrow and the “double backers” going to Shenfield for their fast train.
Even if there are quiet times of the day, I would suggest that nowadays they are not long enough to justify jiggling around with different length stock just to match capacity with demand for a two or three hour period. In any case these times tend to be when services are thin anyway because trains are just starting to leave the depot in the morning or arrive back at night.
Re PoP,
I suspect that is TfL starting point thinking but it probably depends where the capacity issues hit first.
If the Shenfield or Heathrow branches need more capacity then 11 car may be the more sensible solution first (or the only option in some cases with Heathrow), for most other stations more tph is probably the sensible solution especially if it is just involves running more Abbey Wood – Paddington services with no NR surface involvement. On the GWML (excluding Heathrow) just extend some of the Paddington turnback trains.
I suspect it will also depend on the service patterns the trains run which we still don’t know what they’ll do.
For example for reliability (e.g. only 1 NR surface section on the Journey) you would probably run:
Shenfield – Paddington
Abbey Wood – Heathrow / Maidenhead / Reading / Paddington
@PoP: I see what you mean.
However, near-emptiness against the peak flow, wherever it happens, on the face of it, could not justify shortening trains, because the same trains must also make the in-flow journey, before or after. But the days of lengthening and shortening trains within the day seem to be over.
But yes, on a “single-ended” line, especially a long one, there will be a small number of diagrams going against the flow right in the middle of the peak, going with-flow just before the peak and just after, and such a diagram would be a candidate for a shorter train.
Malcolm 16 February 2016 at 14:35
“These trains, like any others, will be almost empty at the times (if there are any) when very few people want to travel.”
I recall Peter Handy giving the example of a Central Line train arriving at Epping about 08:00 am.
The Heathrow spur network statement declares platform lengths as follows:
CTA – 2 x 204m
T4 – 204m and 200m
T5 – 2 x 217m
Crossrail trains are thought to be somewhere around 205m depending on source. A few metres at the back stuck in the tunnel would probably allow even the 200m platform to be used.
http://www.heathrow.com/file_source/Company/Static/PDF/Companynewsandinformation/rail-network-statement-june15.pdf
@Graham H: from the document:
When the Department for Transport (DfT) initially issued guidance on the Regulations in November 2005, it indicated that the Heathrow Spur would be covered by the exemption… In November 2007, DfT revised the guidance to indicate that the exemption would not appear to apply to the Heathrow Spur if Crossrail were to provide passenger services to Heathrow from further afield than Paddington station.
Someone in the DfT carefully laid an elephant trap in 2007 and Heathrow don’t seem to have noticed.
@Fandroid:Indeed, it’s a regulator, so the similarities should outweigh any differences.
Different regulators have different focuses – CAA’s is about getting a good deal for passengers in a largely private sector industry (ie lower landing fees), ORR’s is about getting a good deal for taxpayers from the public money that goes into rail (and roads).
@ngh: on Crossrail service patterns: I have it in the back of my mind somewhere that Canary Wharf is guaranteed a through service to Heathrow which would fit in with your suggested pattern.
One issue which has been bubbling under but could cause a fuss when Crossrail opens is that Crossrail won’t go to Terminal 5. I can’t see BA being happy about that.
Transfer from CR1 @ T123 to Piccadilly line – free, after all ….
@IanJ – How interesting! And HAL never noticed. They and their charges would appear to be toast… (HAL still not noticing, apparently)
@Greg: Transfer from CR1 @ T123 to Piccadilly line
More likely transfer from Crossrail to Heathrow Express at T123 (also free, and same platform). But it’s not going to help BA sell seats to business travellers coming from the Wharf and the City when all their competitors’ terminals have a direct train and BA’s have to change.
Re Ian J,
Different focus of the regulators. Agreed, that is nice simple precis. CAA and ORR have some mutually exclusive aims and the concept that ORR do not share the CAA aims is still surprising for HAL. It will be very difficult to keep both happy (along with the environment agency getting in after the NOx levels supreme Court Case etc.) before R3/T6 come into play.
The only solution that does keep every regulator happy is probably a Heathrow congestion charge, electric only airside vehicles and as many trains as possible at sensible fares and access charges with even more shopping at the terminals.
R3/T6 will need even higher passenger /staff access by zero tail pipe emission (public) transport probably with WRATH or the new local council southern rail access proposal via Feltham. The problem for HAL is that the CAA and airlines will try to hold down the airport fees limiting their ability to borrow unless they can find other revenue streams and increase the RAB hence HAL need the taxpayers or travellers to pay for as much of the rail infrastructure as possible and travellers to pay large fares which doesn’t sit well with DfT, ORR, PAC etc. and HAL would have to subsidies staff fares from potentially extortionate levels.
With NR seemingly taking a front seat role on WRATH, HAL’s ability to have expensive tickets may be limited.
The current attempt looked like an attempt to manoeuvre a swap of the rail assets out of the RAB so they could get some more new terminal / runway in (Terminal 2 Phase2?) for borrowing purposes.
At the moment I think HAL will find it very hard to create a financial model for R3 /T6 (Inc T3 rebuild etc) that keeps airlines / CAA and ORR/DfT/PAC happy and works for the lenders.
I notice that HEx have been advertising some £5.50 online booked weekend fares which appears to set a nice pricing prescient!
Terminal transfers – As Crossrail will effectively be the T4 to T2+3 free shuttle in the future the HAL proposals always looked a bit cheeky.
With the Heathrow platforms at 9 car CR length and a potentially uncooperative HAL (i.e. no more tph) then the only obvious way to add capacity to Heathrow (indirectly) would be to send a GWML “sweeper” service immediately in front of each service to/from Heathrow to try to extract all the non airport passengers from the airport services, but that leads to some less than ideal service intervals west of Paddington unless you start running lots more services than initially planned.
“I can foresee that 9-car trains may be overloaded between say Canary Wharf and Farringdon, but extending to 11-car would mean that unnecessary vehicles are dragged all the way from Abbey Wood to Reading”.
But in 10 years SE London and NW Kent should (I know…) see a huge number of additional homes. And if Paramount Theme Park opens at Swanscombe in 5 years that should give a big lift to off-peak traffic.
BBC video of the 3rd & 4th unused extra platforms at T5 heavy rail station for future expansion:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35617315
It also looks like there are easy options for “extending” the 2 in service platforms for longer Crossrail services in the future.
News on Evening Standard site that Crossrail is to be renamed The Elizabeth Line . Announcement came today when Queen with Mayor Boris and Transport Secretary visited Bond Street Station.
So looks like direction signs to Crossrail will need replacing ..!
Whether future breakdowns will attract Lizzy services headlines we will have to wait to see ….
So is Crossrail 2 going to be known as the Elizabeth II line?
Please see link below to Crossrail site with official announcement of name change to The Elizabeth Line –
http://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/articles/crossrail-to-become-the-elizabeth-line-in-honour-of-her-majesty-the-queen
@Anonymice
By the time it’s built, the Georgian Line will probably be appropriate.
@timbeau – George Line surely (doesn’t sound quite right, tho’) … If the present PoW is on the throne, you would have the option of the CarolIne….
Just to note that I’ll likely have a piece on Crossrail’s name up this evening,
so I wouldn’t get too involved in discussing it here.
Re Timbeau,
CR2 – I suspect they will be looking for any excuse not to call it the Charlie Line when it opens…
ThreeFourFive comments moved to trash so far for discussing the new name of the Crossrail line.Last updated 16:06
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Article to come shortly.
I have managed to satisfy my own curiosity about the transition from Class 315 to Class 345 operation by wading through the Crossrail Concession Agreement.
In rough terms there are 15 Reduced Length Unit 345s (RLUs) on the Eastern side of Crossrail during 2017 and into 2018. As RLUs come into service then the number of 315s reduces but they are not eliminated until 2019. Full Length Unit (FLUs) are deployed on Paddington – Heathrow services from day one of MTR Crossrail taking over. There is then a build up of FLUs at Old Oak Common to allow trial running and then trial ops on the tunnel section from Paddington to Abbey Wood. They will be 47 trains (15 RLU / 32 FLUs) at this point. From Dec 2018 RLUs run Liv St – Shenfield and FLUs run Paddington Abbey Wood and Paddington (main line) – Heathrow. There is then a further build up to 62 units to allow for through services from Paddington – Shenfield / Abbey Wood from May 2019. At this point 10 RLUs are then extended to FLUs with 5 RLUs retained for peak flow services into Liv St (main line). At an unspecified point (no date is given) in 2019 the platform lengthening at Liv St (main line) is complete allowing 5 RLUs to become FLUs. There should then be 66 FLUs ready for full through services in Dec 2019 (61 diagrams are needed). There are small numbers of top up “spare units” added at various points to give a little more fleet flexibility. The need to keep RLUs in service but also have a lot of FLUs ready for operation in the core means that some proportion of class 315s have to remain through to 2019 to cope with the short platforms at Liverpool St main line. Well that’s how I’ve interpreted what is in the Concession Agreement. More knowledgeable people are free to correct as necessary.
Video of the Cl345 unit assembly in Derby published today:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V7kXcIowl4&feature=youtu.be
The first completed 7car unit seen at the end of the video will start testing at the Old Dalby test track in August.
Will these trains have loos?
No
@Bill Davies, Graham H: I look forward to a “Go before you go” advertising campaign ?
@OB – just remember the late Queen Mother’s advice, no doubt honed through many tedious State ceremonies, about going when you can can, not when you wish.
Hidden implicitly in Graham’s very short reply was the message “please don’t let’s go here yet again”. It is not limited to London Reconnections, the general public has a difficult-to-explain fascination with this question. The whole of London Underground, along with local trains all over the country, and all local buses and all private cars, have managed without the expense of mobile toilets ever since these vehicles were invented. The trains on which toilets are generally provided are those on which a significant numbers of passengers will be travelling for more than about 75 minutes (this limit is obviously slightly arbitrary, discussion of whether it should be 60 or 90 or whatever is not really necessary).
@Malcolm
” local trains all over the country, …………. have managed without the expense of mobile toilets ever since these vehicles were invented.”
Outside London, toilets have been fitted on almost all trains since the 1960s. (I am struggling to think of exceptions. The only trains operating on NR outside London not so fitted are the PEP family of emus (classes 313 (Coastway)/314 (Glasgow) and 507/508(Merseyrail), and the Parry People Mover on the Stourbridge shuttle. Glasgow’s Class 320s did not have them as new, but have had them retro-fitted.
(One might, on a technicality, include class 994, the Tyne & Wear metro cars running over NR track to Sunderland)
timbeau: I expect you are right here, and I was wrong. My reference to “local trains” was not meant to be limited to NR metals, but all the same I did overgeneralise somewhat. I hope the rest of my comment would still make sense if I had written “certain other local trains” instead of the phrase I used.
“Go before you go” is a good slogan. Recently Gatwick – famed for long passport queues – had a poster campaign urging inbound travellers to “P before Q”
Most Crossrail stations will have toilets, though this LondonReconnections article talks about the inadequacy of some of them.
Malcolm. It seems unreasonable to include ‘all local busses and all private cars’ in your list.
Whilst Trains contain something of a ‘captive audience’ this is not true of other modes of transport. A car driver can stop at almost any point on a journey. Even on a motorway (incidents excluded) there are frequent opportunities to turn ‘off piste’. It is also a rare bus driver who will not respond positively to a ‘urinary emergency’ by allowing a passenger to alight. Waiting for said passenger to return is, of course, another matter.
Will all new rolling stock have carriage weight sensors, capturing the loading data will be useful for modelling usage.
A2CV
AFAIK – yes to your question – certainly the case for the new CR stock.
Meanwhile, one of the “Industry Articles” mentioned on the L-R main page has a very interesting take on how to & how not to run city centre metro services. And looks to be very Crossrail-relevant.
The message ( with much discussion ) seems to be: Double-Deck stock is a big mistake – though as I said, some commenters beg to disagree.
@GregT – It’s just as well that all stock on a route will be equipped; the issue with the self weighing train of the late ’80s was that you couldn’t be sure that it had been diagrammed to follow a typical useage pattern – the risk was that it had spent its time going to Shepperton or on the coastal services all day, and I didn’t fancy going into bat with the Treasury on the question. The longer term issue that the punters are getting fatter all the time doesn’t help, although the abandonment of 3+2 seating is an excellent sign of progress…
Pretty much all UK rolling stock has been fitted with weight sensors for the last 30 years. What has been missing is the “data collection, transmission and analysis of the data to make useful information” (short-hand, data gubbins). I still recall getting a report on passenger loadings of a D stock where the data gubbins had been specially fitted back in the 1980s.
It is much more routine now, either using the sensors controlling the air springs and traction/brake forces or by using sensors above the doors.
My conclusion from reading the article which Greg mentions is that the message from the article was that “One particular application of Double Deck stock now seems to have been a big mistake”. My conclusion from also reading the interesting comments attached was “Double Deck stock is sometimes a big mistake”. It is still evident that, in the right circumstances (world-wide), Double Deck stock can have a lot to offer.
However, it seems generally agreed, both there and elsewhere, that those circumstances do not seem likely to arise in the UK, at least in the immediate future, and quite possibly they never will.
That article also mentions the need for many central stations to spread the load. I can’t help think of Crossrail 2 plans for only TCR between Euston StP and Victoria.
@Taz – Quite – don’t get me started again… The issue of CR2 relying on the rest of the tube network for end-distribution within the CAZ is one of the arguments (amongst others) for preferring the metro version with more scope for building, say,the middle Piccadilly station (only available for shorter trains).
Re: 130 – As per previous exchanges on LR, sensors* mounted over doors with associated counting and data transmission equipment are (in my opinion) far more likely to be the way forward than physical load weighing, for the simple reason that they can give a reliable loading in terms of number of people and for their ability to break down individual vehicles into discrete areas, e.g. saloon/vestibule or first/standard, by judicious equipment location.
*Current suppliers offer infrared or optical sensing; I can’t help wondering whether automatic analysis of CCTV images might be the next thing…
This data can then be manipulated to give useful loading information – the trick then is to create the feedback loop where this information is used for operational or revenue (or even reputational) benefit, such as by telling passengers that there really is space in the next carriage, or – and I don’t think we’re there yet – advising passengers where to stand on the platform for the least crowded part of the next train *in real time* (obviously you can use historic data to predict today’s loadings); the aim of all this would be to reduce dwell time as much as to make commuters happier (ha!).
Re: GH – technological progress over time, reducing unit cost, weight and complexity, is of course what enables significant if not total fleet coverage. The past is another country etc.
Balthazar. How precise the counting needs to be is a matter for debate. My view is that load weighing is easy and good enough for most purposes. Turning the data into useful information that can be presented to passengers is quite challenging. Using an example. Take Victoria, Victoria line, SB in the evening peak. Trains leaving Green Park will inevitably be full or have a little space at the back. If this information were to be displayed at Victoria passengers would be misled as most of the front half of the train will leave at Victoria. Passenger counting isn’t clairvoyant and other information is necessary to predict what space is likely to be available.
Re: 130 – hence the need for historic data to be taken into account by the algorithm.
Agree about the challenge: my understanding is that the latency in the systems at their current level of development (the architecture requires that data be transmitted from train to ground-based central processor, then manipulated, then the resulting information transmitted to station systems) prevents useful application on frquent-stop metro/commuter services at this time. This situation will change!
@Balthazar My initial point was that surveying the entire service rather than the loading of a specific set reduced the need for further analyses to establish typicality.
My work for the financiers underwriting the new Brussels airport link did require a much greater degree of accuracy, as it was the basis on which they got paid. We trialled various forms of counter; infrared rather than light beam gave the best result, but even then was only about 97% accurate. Infrared is also much more suited to in-vehicle railway counts, as it identifies the punters from overhead as columns of heat, whereas positioning light beams such that they are not obscured by people standing in doorways or by luggage parked there, is tricky. Weighing poses problems with longish time series, as punters have tended to get fatter in recent years, and the mix of ages and other factors also changes over time, requiring further bespoke surveys.
Re: GH – I would have thought 97% would be sufficient for most applications, and you identify a similar issue with load weighing (which, as already mentioned, cannot distinguish different areas within the vehicle).
Since 130 thinks that sensing technology is too accurate while GH reckons it’s not accurate enough, I hypothesise that it must be about right!
Well, we thought so, too, and advised the clients so. I think they were disappointed, tho’ that there wasn’t anything that gave 100% – all at the margin as far as the bankers were concerned.. Of course,it led to a further round of negotiations between the banks and their client…
I hadn’t reckoned with passenger counting as a charging mechanism. I can quite understand why 100% accuracy would be required. I have no idea how anyone would prove or disprove that accuracy in a practical situation, although I would question whether those who proposed such a system were in touch with reality. It is rather like the difference between calibrated volt meters and those cheap things you can buy that indicate more or less the right voltage. Passenger counting technologies are rather like the latter; but not cheap!
Oh come on ..
You simply cannot have 100% accuracy.
99.9… ( however many “9” s you want, yes, but 100% – never.
It’s one of the mathematical/physical rules.
Are there people around who still want these impossible ( by definition) criteria?
Greg Tingey,
Greg Tingey
12 January 2018 at 23:21 (Edit)
Oh come on ..
You simply cannot have 100% accuracy.
99.9… ( however many “9” s you want, yes, but 100% – never.
In one sense you are totally wrong and you are certainly wrong if you take this as a generalised statement.
If you state a level of accuracy you want and I can always exceed it regardless of the value you choose then in mathematical terms this is called ‘tending to a limit’ or the limit of a function and is the entire basis of calculus and hence the basis of a lot of mathematics. This principle is the very reason you can have a precise speed at an instant even though an object is accelerating. It is not an approximate speed, it is 100% accurate. No ifs, no buts.
Railways could never have developed beyond something rudimentary without calculus.
Basically, much of mathematics over the past 300 years would have to be thrown away if we accepted you were correct.
However, in this case we are taking about discrete objects so different rules apply. We can in principle have 100% accuracy (in the sense that you were thinking of) although as everyone must be aware this is impossible in practical terms if weighing a train to determine the exact number of people without putting ridiculous constrains on it – such as everyone must weigh exactly the same amount or restricting the maximum number of passengers to one.
Note also that train weighing can be a hundred percent accurate (as opposed to being 100% reliable to it being totally accurate) simply down to luck. Of course that luck will rapidly run out the more times you use it.
Re: 130 & GH – of course, since neither 100% accuracy nor counting-for-charging are relevant to what we’re talking about here, those objections simply fall away.
(Reminder: the sub-subject under discussion is the reasonable estimation of actual train loading for the purposes of useful feedback to the operation of a railway system.)
PoP
NO
You are failing to distinguish between mathematics & practical engineering.
In maths, you are entirely correct. The world of the infinitely small point & the line with no width, of course. Um.
But, in the real ( engineering ) world, there will always be an error-bar in the measurement, somewhere.
The trick is, of course to get the error-bar(s) small enough that they don’t matter.
P.S. I even have an MSc in Engineering Measurement ( Metrology ) dealing with this very subject …
Related topic: Many people don’t realise that accuracy & precision are nowhere near the same thing, f’rinstance
@PoP
Newton’s calculus deals with theory, and can indeed define a precise figure.
But there is a distinction between precision and accuracy. You can only have 100% accuracy if you are counting discrete objects (27 bananas, 328 people, £12.57), If you are measuring a property like weight, length, etc; accuracy is down to however precise your measuring system is, and how many decimal places you are prepared to go to. (In the limit, Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle tells us that if you measure two related properties (e.g speed and acceleration) simultaneously, the more precisely you measure one, the less precision there can be in the other)
So in your example there will be a precise speed at any instant, but the question is whether it can be measured accurately.
97% accuracy in weighing a carriage is probably good enough to estimate the number of people on board to within two or three, once it has been calibrated for the average weight of a typical passenger – which will vary depending on the type of service: (proportion of children, typical amounts of luggage carried, weather (people wear heavier clothes in winter), etc).
They clearly haven’t got it right on the displays on SWR’s 707s, which claim there are still seats available when it’s standing room only. (Bit of a gimmick anyway, as they have wide gangways and so you can see all the way down the length of the 5-car units.
Timbeau
Yes, that’s it
Re Timbeau,
“Heisenberg’s Uncertainty Principle tells us that if you measure two related properties (e.g speed and acceleration) simultaneously, the more precisely you measure one, the less precision there can be in the other)”
I think you are confusing Heisenberg with the Observer effect. Hesienberg’s Indeterminacy (Uncertainly was a mistranslation) only applies to one set of related properties position and momentum for a particle in the quantum realm and is a limitation due to the Planck Constant effectively setting a lower bound.
@Balthazar – I’m sorry to be rude but it isn’t up to you to decide what we talk about. Nor is it the case that just because you don’t want us to talk about something that the various points people made become irrelevant to the argument actually being discussed. In the particular case, if – as is so – the bank is being paid 5 Euro per user, it is entirely relevant whether you can count every last punter or not. For the purposes of adjusting the train suspension or estimating overloading, something less is acceptable.
GH: Is the bank really being paid 5 Euros per user? This is more than the fare revenue from the passenger. I was under the impression that the fare revenue covered the running costs of Crossrail, with something left over to pay off some of the construction costs.
@aneconspeaks – you mean the Brussels airport link? If so, the idea was that the link and the new station were fully funded by a PPP deal in which the banks took the revenue and construction risks in return for a useage fee. I advised them on the operating and revenue risks; my engineering colleagues dealt with the construction risks. I seem to recall that the bulk of the costs related to construction of the link (tricky because it involved tunnelling under a live runway – something that would be more than frowned on in the UK) and the construction and operation of the station. Operating costs of the railway and capital costs of any additional stock were absorbed by SNCB – and were thought to be trivial in this context, being part of a much larger plan to reorganise the entire Belgian IC and Regional Express network..
The financiers were to be remunerated by a fee per passenger using the new station. The collection of this fee caused endless trouble,particularly once we discovered that SNCB would refuse to collect it as part of their ticket sales, and that a Royal Decree of 1894 defined tickets in such a way that there appeared to be no legal way round this. Turnstiles posed their on problems (luggage, lack of the right coins for arriving air passengers, and so on). Eventually SNCB caved in,after trying on the idea of a sales commission.
One only hoped at the time that HAL/HAHA weren’t taking lessons ….
BTW – you are right about the high level of the fee in relation to the fare, especially the very short distance trips – and we spent much time and effort looking at various fee dodging scenarios of the sort with which we have become all too familiar in the UK, underriding, especially. At one point, the banks considered putting their own revenue protection staff on the trains. That would have been fun, as in “I am fining you for not having a ticket in the name of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Fund”….
Brussels airport link and other PFIs being discussed in other threads (and don’t get me going on schools or hospital PFIs) leads me to conclude that PFIa and PPPs must have seemed like a good idea at the time but at this end of the telescope they look plainly daft.
@130
Could you please explain the abbreviations and the differences between them ?
LBM….. Public Finance Initiative and Public Private Partnership. I doubt that there is a clear and distinct difference between them that would apply across continents, e.g., a Canadian PPP might look like a Belgium PFI as more of a thought than an accurate example.
Is it safe to mention the Schönfeld/Willy Brandt U/S Bahn link(s) to the putative airport at this point?
@LBM – “Public/Private Partnership” and “Private Finance initiative” – for any practical purposes there is no difference. One was simply a rebranding of the other by Gordon Brown so as to look innovative…
@130 – this was always the Achilles heel of the PFI initiative – you hocked your future income. In the worst cases, the luckless (careless) client hocked nearly all his future income. Some NHS Trusts have gone under for that reason. of course, the politicians’ spin on this was that you got the benefits upfront which enabled future growth/efficiency sooner. Ahem..
A PFI also locks the school / NHS / whatever into a contract which may not be ideal in changed circumstances – such as changes in government policy which can’t be carried out as quickly as the politicians would like because the public sector body is locked into a contract designed under the old policy.
T & others
What happens to those contracts ( This also ties to the “Leasing the Lizzie” thread ) when one party, say the contractor, goes bust? As looks very likely to happen to Carillion “Real Soon Now”
Someone will have to take over the maintenance of the Railway / Hospital / Airport / Prison etc Construction projects are a n other whole can of worms, of course.
@timbeau – very much a risk that was at the back of the minds of those advising governments and finance houses. A classic case on which I advised related to a PPP for new prisons in Estonia (apparently the government’s top priority) in which the paymec was based on the number of prisoners accommodated (note – not on the capacity of the prisons); it didn’t require much reflexion to see that a change in sentencing policy by some future government would pull the financial rug from under the provider. A big no.
Graham H – talk about perverse incentives…..contractor encouraging crime to fill the coffers (prisons)!
@130 🙂 Maybe the contractors’ own activities might help with such targets? (Never did a job in Sicily,however).
Returning to Taz’s earlier point that “I can’t help think of Crossrail 2 plans for only TCR between Euston StP and Victoria” the misleading thing here is that Victoria-TCR-Euston is not actually very far. Though the media regularly call Euston “North London” and Victoria “South London” they are both very much central.
And with the anticipated cost of expanding TCR again for CR2 – not so much in fiscal terms but in landtake – I don’t see the possibility for a fourth major below-ground station in the central area happening due to the problems during the many years of construction (CF cr1)
@Alison
Indeed, the proposed station spacings on XR2 will be very similar to XR1, although the former would only have one station between the National Rail termini inside the Circle Line and XR1 has three (including Farringdon). The distance from Paddington to Bond Street is about the same as Victoria to TCRd
Timbeau: Quite. This is because the circle line is of course not shaped like a circle, and it has very different N-S and E-W diameters.
The CR2 station spacing would have (probably) been different if the “metro” option had been chosen. But it was not.
@TIMBEAU
I’ve been working a system that allowed me to compute the travel distance (in metres!) to each and every London station by rail (tube, NR and Overground) including out-of-station interchanges, all from Charing Cross. This isn’t the same as the “bird flies” distance, but following train lines including their junctions.
I’ve “changed” the zones on this tube match to make them more consistent..
https://drive.google.com/open?id=12RaP7zycZJsGxjwKmaYebtXmGPzGLSSU
The calculations from all the existing stations puts the “centre” of Zone 1 station distances at 2.8km; Zone 2 at 7.27km, Zone 3 at 11.29km, Zone 4 at 15.56km, Zone 5 at 19.13km, Zone 6 at 23.57km, Zone 7 at 25.47km and Zone 8 at 26.2km – all travel from Charing Cross.
So yes, Kennington to the south and Highbury & Islington to the north somehow in Zone 2 but High Street Kensington is in Zone 1!
Good map, interesting results. London has mostly has a horizontal bias in its shape and development, and this is reflected by Uxbridge and Upminster jumping two zones, but Morden, HB, and Cockfosters staying put.
[Out of interest, how did you come across a July 2017 map that wasn’t password protected for editing; noticed in the recent editions of the .pdf they changed all the rail lines to outlined shapes instead of strokes, and then password protected it. Perhaps they are fed up of people drawing better versions!]
Must have been quite an undertaking to recalculate real distances instead of bird-flies. How did you go about it?
Re Ben,
PDF passwording isn’t worth the paper the password is printed on 😉
(Equivalent to installing window locks on a building with no doors on the external entrances.)
One of the core algorithms used in pdf creation was actually developed in the late 1960s to reverse engineer crystallographic microstructures to understand the thermodynamic and kinetics behind the formation of that particular microstructure. The simple test cases they originally used involved reverse engineering individual snowflake formation. This “reverse” algorithm was build on the “forward” algorithm that was developed a year earlier hence stuff can easily be extracted form pdfs using the “forward” algorithm without the need for a password.
The reverse algorithm was also key to improving the continuous steel casting that is now the norm for long product production for example rails…
@BEN
“Must have been quite an undertaking to recalculate real distances instead of bird-flies. How did you go about it?”
It is a little involved! I used a Weighted Graph and used wrote an implementation of the Dijkstra algorithm. It just needed the locations of all the stations (checked against Wikipedia, TfL and National Rail Enquires data), all the junction locations (see Rail Atlas and carto.metro) and the way they interconnect (carto.metro for London Transport, “Darwin” for the rest of the network).
I also took the Out Of Station Interchange data from TfL too and used this unweighted.
Here’s the results
https://drive.google.com/open?id=1GQgOTxvL1XyhiiWP0hsVyU6x293YcjQt
I know that it’s easy to draw concentric circles on a London map and see how the Zones work out, but I was interested how fare/fair the Zones were in terms of distances travelled.
It’s certainly odd that a station that isn’t even in Greater London is in Zone 4 (Grange Hill)
I can’t see the map as I get a google login screen…. Can it be put somewhere truly open?
@SOUTHERN HEIGHTS (LIGHT RAILWAY)
Apologies for not having the right access. Here’s the image “free to air” [Corrected by Malcolm as suggested by Briantist.]
https://ukfree.tv/styles/images/2018/FaresFairTubeMap-betterZones-BitOfFun.jpg
And also the “data” [Mod comment: note that clicking this link downloads a file to the user’s computer, which the user may then have to go looking for. This is discouraged, but may work for at least some. Malcolm]
https://ukfree.tv/styles/images/2018/Data%20based%20on%20SHORTEST%20tube,%20rail,%20OSI%20from%20Charing%20Cross%20station.xlsx
@Briantist: Thanks for that! Very interesting!
Central London is inevitably longer east-west than it is north/south because its early development was along the river – indeed the river was the main traffic artery for much of London’s history.
Briantist – your map is very interesting, but measuring distance from Charing Cross along (presumably the shortest) railway lines is inevitably going to put stations on circuitous routes – and particularly orbital ones – at a disadvantage (compare Walthamstow Central and Walthamstow Queens Road). I would also be very interested to see the results if extended to NR routes.
Not sure I understand how you redefined the Zone boundaries – did you take the mean (or median) distance from CX of each station in the existing zones, and then redefine the zones as radii based on those distances?
Incidentally, there appears to be an error – at Cheshunt you have Zone 8 lying between zones 5 and 7.
@timbeau – whilst what you say is partially true of central London, there have been times when both central London and the London conurbation have been a rather different shape. For example, Between 1800 and 1830, the aristocratic centre of London was focused on the distinctly north-south Regent Street, the clubs and theatres of St James and its court and the overall shape of the conurbation was noteably rectangular. Again, by 1880-1900, as the rash of early tube schemes and the pattern of tramway development showed a heavy n-s bias – the trams had reached Enfield and Croydon a good decade before they reached Ealing and Ilford. The E-W shape re-emerged with the Edwardian era and the growth of places like Northfields.
It troubles me that the livery doesn’t follow TFL’s usual style (see Tube and Overground trains, and trams).
Does anyone know if this is due to change for the switchover from TFL Rail to Elizabeth line?
It currently doesn’t look remotely TFL-ish, except for the tiny roundel which is barely visible on the dark background. And the main colour is a washed-out purplish blue which doesn’t feature anywhere in TFL’s usual colour palette.
@Gavlar
“And the main colour is a washed-out purplish blue which doesn’t feature anywhere in TFL’s usual colour palette.”
I thought that was the point – it’s not the Tube, it’s not the Overground, it’s not a tram (which each have their distinctive house colours). Neither Overground orange or tram green were part of London Transport’s traditional house colours either. (The Overground is only orange because that happened to be a spare colour when the East London Line was split from the Met)
@TIMBEAU
The details of the Liz Line look are here…
http://content.tfl.gov.uk/elizabeth-line-design-idiom.pdf
Re in conjunction with (Google it..) “tfl design idiom”.
Overground orange is a different colour (slightly darker) than that of East London line orange.
It seems to be something of a missed opportunity that TfL haven’t sought to consolidate their colour palette over time to eliminate colours which are very similar, eg Crossrail and Taxis, or River services and the Vic line. Conversely, the same dark blue is used for the Picc line, is used to refer to TfL, TfL Rail, and London Underground, and is exceptionally similar to Corporate Blue too. This all suggests that the design work is the product of many different people over the years who perhaps haven’t been able to notice the inconsistencies, or have been too un-empowered to change anything.
@BEN
Take a look at page 6 of…
http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-colour-standards-issue04.pdf
TfL Corporate Blue, Tfl Rail Blue (2/3 with white), Piccadilly Line blue are not “similar”, they are the same. On a tube map, all the stations are this colour:
PMS 072, C100 M88 Y0 K5, R0 G25 B168, NCS S 4060-R80B
(PMS= Pantone Matching System, CMYK for 4 colour printing, RGB for screen use, NCS is Natural Colour System)
I think you will find that the Elizabeth Line purple was chosen not because “CrossRails” are a separate entity like LO, but because it was intended to be seen as part of the family of LU lines, and purple was one of the few available colours not yet used on the tube map. As I may have remarked before, when we transferred the Drain to LU, we were presented with a colour chart which showed what was available – as I recall, apart from the Drain’s eau-de-nil, there were a lighter brown, a dark grey, a mid-blue, a cherry red, and a purple. The constraint was – and presumably still is – the range of colours which can be produced for enamel signs,
@GRAHAM H
I can’t help wondering if the Liz Line is going to get a solid purple line as originally intended, or will keep the one-third-white line is has now, but in purple.
This would mean that “one third white” line now means “big trains”, rather than “more limited service” that is has before now (Overground, DLR, Trams and TfL Rail)
But, I guess this brings us back to all that the tube map doesn’t actually tell you about service intervals:
https://ukfree.tv/styles/images/2018/Tube%20map%20showing%20train%20off-peak%20frequencies.pdf
The only place where the Piccadilly (solid blue) and TfL Rail (2/3 blue) clash at the moment is the airport, but the two purple lines will clash between Farringdon/Barbican and Moorgate/Liverpool Street, which will potentially more confusing because the Met will stop at four stops and Liz at just two.
@Briantist – very different shades of purple. though. (There seems to be some genuine difficulty in the UK in distinguishing, let alone describing, what are basically a blueish purple (close to a foxglove colour) and a reddish purple (eg Roman Imperial purple, the product of the murex sea mollusc), as well as something in between (eg the Liz Line colour). The French seem much better at identifying and distinguishing between different shades, as the Metro map shows, with its ochres, marrons, and verts fonces).
@ Briantist
It’s been pretty clear that on TfL ‘tube’ maps used to publicise the service introduction that the line is cased (ie two parallel lines with white in the middle). I can’t imagine that changing from these draft maps.
However on NR maps the line will be solid (cf TfL Rail, LO and DLR), as cased lines show limited service (and NR is pecked – I think that’s the correct term).
PS: The Elizabeth Purple (Liz Lilac?) and Metropolitan Maroon are rather different – the former is rather blue #6950A1, the latter rather red #9B0056. I’d imagine the Liz would be more easily (though still not easily at all) confused with the Piccadilly than the Met.
@Si
Interesting, the train system indicators on the Crossrail trains already shows the service as a single purple line in Liz Line colours. I have photographic evidence for both the eastern and western side!. Given how awful the software is to write for that on-train display system (I’m partially responsible for the Class 707 trains displays, for my sins) I’m not surprised that it couldn’t probably cope with a 1/3 white, 2/3 blue ** line display on the train.
I note with interest that the Picadilly and TfL Rail lines on the London Tube & Rail aren’t the same colour, at the moment. But I do like the out-of-station interchange walking person.
I do agree with @GRAHAMH that the problem is with having two purples on the map and not having the language to distinguish between Pantones 72, 235 and 266. It’s a shame they wasted the light green on the Waterloo and City!
Still, I’m happy to call the Victoria Line “cyan”, which always seems to confuse other people….
** http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-line-diagram-standard.pdf page 6
@SI
Photos as mentioned above…
https://ukfree.tv/styles/images/2018/11_04_2018%2012_29%20Office%20Lens.jpg
Non-standard use of a dotted line, did you say?
https://ukfree.tv/styles/images/2018/IMG_20180430_134119.jpg
@Briantist
On the TfL map, it will be cased. In-car static diagrams too. In car screen diagrams, NR maps, etc might be solid, but those two will be cased.
I lived most of my life on the Met line and never heard it’s current colour called ‘purple’ – maroon, magenta, mauve, but not purple (I know some maps, and the websafe colour, are clearly purple). Maroon is the most common. We do actually have the words, we just don’t tend to use them, even when we can tell the difference.
The Eliz Line colour reminds me of that adopted for the Victoria Line when under construction. It was soon ruled too dull for a new line, and the current colour was adopted by darkening the Picc line blue. Unfortunately, that then was indistinguishable from the Northern line black under tunnel lighting conditions of the time!
Overground orange is not only similar to the former East London Line colour, but also to the North London Line colour on the London Connections map of the time! Was this in anticipation of them coming together?
@brianist
Yes, that is what I said in my comment, I fear you have taken the quoted word out of context. I had that document open when writing:
“Conversely, the same dark blue is used for the Picc line, is used to refer to TfL, TfL Rail, and London Underground, and is exceptionally similar to Corporate Blue too. ”
I chose my words deliberately in my previous comment because four of those blues have identical values and NCS references, whereas for some reason ‘corporate blue’ has exactly the same CMYK and RGB values, but a different NCS matching number (different lighting at stations giving a different perception?).
If you want a interesting factoid, it used to be in an earlier edition of that guide that the sample colours did not match the CMKY or RBG values detailed for them.
@Taz
Would that be the violet-like colour Hutchinson used on his dreadful maps? I’m sure I remember someone elsewhere saying it was changed because it proved problematic to reproduce on enamel signs. If this is the case it suggests some progress in enamel, if it couldn’t be considered an option in the 60’s but could in the 90s (?) as @GrahamH relays.
@BEN
My apologies, I think I missed that subtly.
It’s interesting to see the colours arranged in a Rainbow…
https://ukfree.tv/styles/images/2018/tfl%20rainbow%20board.png
I’m a bit stuck for a colour name to line name list. I’ve got as far as….
Hot-pink, Crimson, Orange, Citrus … Deep-green, Willow ……. Mauve, Brown and Noir
Anyway, the trains are painted and in service, and the signs are up…
https://ukfree.tv/styles/images/2018/IMG_20180515_152910.jpg
I’m just waiting for Graham H to tell the story of how that W&C light green was picked from the potential options 🙂
I think Briantist will chuckle! (or alternatively face palm)
@Taz
On the old NSE era London Connections map, before privatisation and the separation of the East London Line, all British Rail lines were shown in orange, so the NLL has been orange well before London Overground existed! I’m guessing it’s a coincidence
@Timbeau
I’m not troubled by the Elizabeth line purple but by the greyish blue (not purplish blue as I first thought) on the livery of the new TFL Rail trains, behind the roundel.
https://twitter.com/elizabethline/status/995249749220642817
Surely that colour can’t be due to stay after the transition to Elizabeth line? It doesn’t appear in the TFL standards that @Briantist mentioned. It also makes it difficult to see the roundel.
THIS is how they ought to look. Just change the orange to purple and you’re done.
http://londonist.com/london/transport/take-a-look-at-the-new-overground-trains-now-with-wifi
In my time working for the Underground I was the client for the first Signs Manual (and the first computer produced Tube maps).
At that time Burnham Signs acted as advisers on vitreous enamel colours. They had a panel on the wall in the factory which showed the colours that had been used and those that could be produced.
When a colour was required it was normally the next one on the panel.
The W&C colour was chosen in this way.
If things had gone to plan Crossrail would have been pale green.
However, trams came to Croydon and a colour was needed for the interchange flag boxes at Wimbledon. This jumped the queue and took the pale green. The signage on the Tram stops adopted the colour too.
I left the company soon after.
The vitreous enamel colours are created with frits (powders) produced in the Potteries. These are in solutions that are screened or sprayed onto the signs. Essentially it is glass fused onto low carbon steel at very high temperatures. The complication with Underground signage is that have a number of colours on them which are applied individually and then fired in a furnace. There has to be an order for the colours to create the end product as each firing changes the colours.
We now come to the problem with Crossrail. The colour chosen can’t be created in vitreous enamel.
As has been seen in some of the images the architect responsible for signing has chosen to use glass cladding panels with the line diagrams printed on the reverse. High level signs will be vitreous enamel with the Crossrail colour applied in different ways.
CL: I guess that is why the Chelsea-Hackney line on the 1994 all-lines planner (as shown in Ken Garland’s book) is in the pale green then, though I can’t work out what colour the “Cross Rail” line is meant to be there it is of the parallel lines type.
@ CL – Thanks for explaining why Crossrail stations do not have flat vitreous enamel panels for line diagrams. I had wondered why, when visiting Farringdon, they had opted for glass panels. It struck me as odd and non standard (and expensive) but you’ve explained why. It will be interesting to see how TfL goes about adapting existing signage to reflect Crossrail’s existence.
@ C L – Given the ubiquity of enamel signs on the TfL network, it does seem surprising to go for a colour that is known to still be impossible to create.
“High level signs will be vitreous enamel with the Crossrail colour applied in different ways”
This doesn’t sound like a promising solution for quality appearance or neatness!
I don’t suppose you remember some of the other colours once considered available?
If purple can’t be done on enamel, how will interchange with CrossLiz be shown on the vitreous enamel signs still used on other lines?