Today saw the official unveiling of the first of Crossrail’s Class 345s, built by Bombardier in Derby. It would be rude, therefore, not to share with LR readers some photos of the new class in action.
Before leaping into photos and videos, it is worth pointing out that the internal fitting out is far from complete. The moquette is not the final design, nor have internal features been fully painted. Nonetheless, this represents a good opportunity to get a good feel for the new class, both within and without.
The run
The scene is set
Something lurks in the old APT shed…
An early run, in video
A number of photos of 345001 in motion
Meanwhile lurking in the shed…
Inside the Class 345s
“It’s not the final moquette!” Jon Hunter shouts, upon seeing LR
Howard Smith, Operations Director at Crossrail, in the cab
A few extras
We would have been remiss, of course, not to take advantage of the opportunity to gaze around Bombardier’s yard. Below are thus a few more images and videos for our reader’s amusement.
And we will finish with a short videos of some shunting.
Like what you read? Buy our magazine
Find out more about the challenges of building Crossrail in Feeding the Monster, our latest issue. Buy it now
338 comments
Comments are closed.
I know its not the final internal colour scheme but any idea what will change.
It looks really bleak. Very grey and drab. Miles away from the new sub surface tube stock.
I like the disk brakes, indeed I don’t recall noticing them on a train before. Any idea what the X’d out box above the front windscreen is? Overall, except for the moquette, I think they’ll go down a treat!
Like th look of them! Seems to be a bit of a tube train (well surface stock anyway) feel inside too
Re AlisonW
That box is the top high intensity headlight – which along with the other two lower down have allowed a bunch of bureaucrats and stylists to wrongly (in my view) decide that yellow ends are not required on new build UK trains any more.
Why it has a bit of tape over it I don’t know.
The class 220 have a similar designed axle and brake arrangement but most UK trains have framing outside the wheel so the brake disk is hidden away.
Could do with more luggage space maybe for the Heathrow routes?
Excellent coverage and congratulations on some bogie pix. Developed in Britain as the B5000 and imported from Bombardier’s bogie Centre of Excellence in Germany with the fancy name Ecoflex. Or is that two ‘x’s ?
Re Tim Burs
That LU surface stock feel is appropriate given TfL are basically treating Crossrail (sorry the “Elizabeth Line”) as an oversized tube line rather than part of the National Rail network – and also because of the number of passengers they will have to shift in the core.
Re Alison W,
X’d out – they have probably put insulating tape over the high level high intensity light fitting to show the bulb hasn’t been fitted yet or similar. [The obscenely bright light allows the front ends not to be painted yellow under the new rules.]
Discs brakes have been fitted to virtually everything in the uk for the last 45+ years, except you don’t normally notice them as they are hidden behind parts of the bogies. The difference is the swap from outside frame bogies to inside frame ones making them more visible (outside = bearing outside the wheel, inside = bearing inside or behind the wheel)
The change helping with a weight reduction of about 1.5tonnes /bogie.
The very dark green unit is probably the 6th 387 unit for GWR and the white 387 with blue doors is the first C2C 387 unit. [First 387 testing on GWML happend on Thursday night]
Bombardier’s timelapse building a carriage video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8V7kXcIowl4&feature=youtu.be
Looks great – and no more disfiguring yellow ends. At last the UK has caught up with the rest of the world where even the highest speed trains have only high intensity headlights and still manage to avoid skittling people.
I noted on the BBC’s lunchtime clip that the TfL Commissioner is already type trained on the Class 345 😉
Did you actually sit on the seats? Are the side seats the usual rock hard dreadful Bombardier offering? I see the ghastly armrests have been perpetuated. I also note that the rail industry is continuing to deny reality and assumes everyone is as thin as a rake whereas average body sizes are increasing. Externally I think the trains look decent enough although the slanty livery at the car ends looks odd to my eyes. Can’t wait to see the Overground livery on the class 710s due for GOBLIN and West Anglia.
Looks a bit small, a bit like an oversized tube train… No luggage racks either!
I’m not impressed by the livery. It’s a pity to move away from the consistent Underground, Overground, and Tram liveries, and purple lower bodysides / black window surrounds / white upper bodysides look too much like a unit that’s been revinyled after a TOC change than a fresh, purpose designed scheme.
I also hope the bodyside roundel placement will be different from how it is shown in the latest CGI images, which show a purple roundel on a purple background. Both hard to see and not compliant with TfL’s own roundel use rules.
They do look a bit gloomy inside although maybe the lighting will get tweaked. The seating looks the same as class 387 Overground stock which is like sitting on concrete, although most passengers won’t ever get a seat so won’t notice. Underground / Overground style armrests have always seemed fine to me. At least that’s an improvement on Class 700’s armrestlessness. Quite like the sleek front end. Nice to see a few bays on non – longitudinal seats for those who actually want a view and take their eyes off their mobiles.
I suspect that the interiors will look a little lighter in use because there are going to be LED information displays in the areas above each of the doors, showing live current position information.
Otherwise, I quite like them. Should be nice to have them on TfL-Rail quite soon.
I saw the “final moquette” in the London Transport Museum the other day … https://goo.gl/photos/AMUV1d76Pj97VfMu6
Nice to see a Gronk still earning its keep. Entered service (as D3838) in the first week of 1960 (and it’s by no means the oldest surviving example).
How many of the new trains it is shunting will still be operational in 2072?
dvd says “for those who actually want a view and take their eyes off their mobiles.”
… (or for those who find sitting sideways to the direction of travel unbearable – there may not be many of such people, but they do exist).
Very nice pictures, which, subject to the stated provisos, give a good feel of what these trains will look like. Which, in my entirely uneducated view, is “not bad”.
Great to see there is some bay seating but otherwise it looks very dull.
I accept it’s not the final moquette and all that but it would depress me to have to travel on this every morning. Give the thing some character.
My god, that front design is hideous, how much do these designers get paid to come up with such a dud. It looks likes a fish
Also, I agree with Paul III on the livery. Totally inconsistent with current TFL standards.
Also a final point, the detailing of the cab side door is very sloppy. The cab window is square whilst ALL the other windows are rounded, makes no sense.
Overall, IMHO, a very disappointing design
Re Elshad,
The cab door windows will open unlike all the others…
Good point, Elshad, about the inconsistency of the cab door window. But that might be fixed, and even if it isn’t, it’s not the end of the world. But your comment awoke a subconscious thought I had when I first saw the video, that the rounded door windows, particularly coming in neat pairs (obviously), and being so numerous (less obvious, but laudable), do make quite the trains quite visually striking, and rather different from anything else.
@Elshad
“totally inconsistent with current TFL standards.”
Is it so different to Page 95 of http://content.tfl.gov.uk/overground-train-graphics-standard.pdf ?
Even the “warning stripe” looks the same colour. The “Lower body” is the same TFL Corporate Blue.
IMHO it very much in keeping the current TfL design standards.
An opening window could still have a curved top. Either with curved-top glass, or else with curved bits of frame concealing a flat-topped pane (such bits of frame could also be added at the bottom). But admittedly such expedients would not be very form-follows-function, and they might muck up the air-tightness and eddie-proofness.
Well it’s a little bit underwhelming for a £15bn railway really. Just a re-hashed version of the Overground 378s with a different front. (I’m sure a bunch of people at Bombardier just spit out their dinner…. ) We can only hope that the interior is smartened up and brightened up a little bit. I wouldn’t be surprised though if it wasn’t far off the end result, TfL seem to have this thing for darker interiors lately. The New Bus for London interior is very dark as is the The New Tube for London design.
The lack of yellow on the front does seems a little strange and does smack of change for the sake of change, but I’m sure we’ll start to see more and more new trains without it. I guess the thing I don’t like the most though is the livery. Not exactly sure why the standard TfL white/blue with modal colour doors hasn’t been used. That would’ve looked very smart.
Ah well as long as it works.
They really ought to have more seats where passengers can look out of the windows. These trains will be going fairly long distances and, while back to the window is OK for tunnels or short journeys, they are not really what the customer wants, IMHO for longish journeys.
@Briantist When I say inconsistent I mean that there is no “skirt”, as there is on LU/LO, as the dark blue/purple extends all the way to the windows. Also, the white flashes at the car ends have never seen before.
It just doesn’t “look” TFL to me. Not to mention the roundel debacle
An opening window could still have a curved top.
As they did on, for instance, the Bulleid 4-SUBs and 4-EPBs.
Regarding the lack of yellow front, it’ll be interesting to see which yellow-front-less unit makes it into service first — the 5-BEL or the first 345 (7-LIZ?)
pertras409: How long is “longish”? Paddington to Slough, for instance, is forecast to be 27 minutes – maybe time for a quick glance at the countryside, but not really in the category of “I have finished reading the Metro and I really must watch the view for a while”.
Good luck getting them delivered! Bombardier Rail’s record in delivering vehicles here in Canada is shocking — they are now facing two lawsuits from frustrated purchasers.
Re DJC-0207,
Similarity to LO 378s (or not), it is what is hidden (the most passengers won’t see) that represents the changes of the 345s, new bodyshell, new variant of inside frame bogie (first time on Bombardier UK EMU let alone this variant), new computer system, new traction motor design, 20%+weight reduction, improved crash performance…
Re Jimweibo,
Derby have a pretty good record on delivery (and rectifying all the problems afterwards) but they have been investing heavily in test facilities over the last 2 or so years so that should improve.
@pertras409
“these trains will be going fairly long distances and, while back to the window is OK for tunnels or short journeys, they are not really what the customer wants, IMHO for longish journeys.”
Most won’t. There will only be 2tph to Slough. Only about a third of the trains will ever make it west of Paddington, and only 4 and hour go to the Airport.
That leaves a small section from the portal to Abbey Wood, and the current TfL Rail line where you will have 8 to 16 trains an hour.
Which means I’m guessing you’ve never looked out of the window from Maryland up to Gidea Park. It’s OK if you like that sort of thing: railways cuttings, the backs of buildings, sidings, the fast lines.
@pertras409
Here’s a video of what you can look out of the Elizabeth line train and see … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Pu_TZz3Lr0
@Briantist, petras409
That should do it now for line-side visibility comments…
@ Briantist. Being a rail enthusiast, nothing gives me more pleasure than looking out over tracks, cuttings, signals, and the fascinating paraphernalia that forms the railway line. Even in east London. Journeys on the North London line were forever slightly spoiled when llongitudinal seating became king. But my random surveys as a Sidcup line commuter show that at least eight of ten passengers pay no attention to what lies outside the window, despite having had the pleasure of watching the Bermondsey diveunder emerging from its chrysalis. And most Crossrailers will of course either be mostly burrowing through subterranean London or trying to gain an extra inch or two of personal space with barely a glimpse of daylight oblivious to the delights of Maryland and the Ilford flyover.
[Let’s assume you missed, or crossed with, LBM’s request for no more about lineside visibility. At a quiet moment, perhaps OK, but right now we’d like to focus more on these pictures of these trains, and not wander too far off track… Malcolm]
The sideways seats (if we must have them, I am not convinced) have the same design flaw as those on the 378s, they are not far enough forward from the window/wall to stop you banging your head if you sit down quickly and lean back a bit (as most of us do). On a Tube train there are a couple more inches.
The first time I sat on a seat on a 378 I severely banged my head.
Also, again like the 378s, it doesn’t seem if there are many barriers. A full train stopping suddenly will throw all the passengers onto those at the front, causing more fatalities than there would be if there were some places to stop the crush. Again, the S Stock has many more of these than the 378s.
I think the 378s are a safety hazard waiting for a disaster, and it looks like the Elizabeth Line (which will travel faster) are just the same
Geoff in Wembley: I take it your “stopping suddenly” refers to hitting something, or derailing, or other violent happening. Emergency braking (without any of those worsening events) should, I would judge, result in nothing worse than a number of minor injuries, even with a train half-full of standing passengers.
But yes, what might happen to those standing in these trains in the event of a real crash strikes me as cause for serious concern.
@john Elliott
(Curved tops to droplights on Bulleid emus.)
I don’t think they did. The top was a (straight) metal bar that latched to notches on the sides of the frame.
The fixed windows, including the toplights in the doors, did have rounded corners.
I was thinking more of the droplights as an example of ‘flat-topped window in a curved frame’.
Looks odd without the familiar splash of yellow on the nose.
The lack of lugage space is a HUGE mistake.
Why do they persist in putting those poles in the middle of the vestibules? It means people stand there and hang on to them and pile cases round them rather than spreading out a bit. I use S stock most days and it’s always a struggle getting on or off even fairly lightly loaded trains with vacant seats thanks to people standing round that stupid pole.
That front end looks ghastly, like a crossbreed of a Voyager train and a carp. The interiors look spacey and hi-tech. The inside doesn’t contrast much and a bit plain but then again, these things are going to be workhorses carting hundreds of millions of people a year as quickly and efficiently as possible so need to be made fit for that job, not too fancy, a bit like a New York City Subway car.
(Off-topic, but what is the width of these things? They look a bit narrow on the outside)
I think it’s a shame the front end is not finished with the sleeker looks that the slightly (aerodynamic?) raked nose offers. i think the area immediately below the wiper arm housing is rather clumsy. If the lights at the front had been raked where the upper (tail?) lights were raked into an 11 and 1 O’clock position I think it would have enhanced the design.
I listen to to the argument that modern powerful headlights mitigate the need for a yellow front end but I spend a lot of time watching approaching trains in all sorts of conditions and a big block of yellow (in daylight at least) wins every time.
The relaxation of the rules on yellow panels is apparently down to European harmonisation, at least according to this post. Salient sentence: “The only way GB can mandate yellow front ends would be for us to lobby our European colleagues to mandate them also”.
We had a long discussion on yellow fronts, terminated after many points by this ruling by John Bull. Please could we avoid re-covering that ground.
We also need not go any further into the issue of for how long we will be bound by European harmonisation principles, particularly views on whether such binding and/or freeing is good or bad.
Yellow fronts are going, and whatever we may think about it, or think about what other people think about it, that fact is unlikely to change.
From the rather limited cab view it looks quite different from anything i have seen that opeates on NR tracks. Maybe its more ‘tube stock’ focussed?
Ill stick with me new 700’s over these thank you very much…
Re TL driver
Its to comply with new crashworthiness standards (hence the aerodynamic cab).
NickD refers to (‘stupid’) poles in the middle off the vestibules, saying “people stand there and hang on to them”
I thought that was the idea. If they are not intended to be “hung onto”, I cannot imagine what they are for (surely not to hold the roof up). Some of us have lost (and maybe some never had) the knack of standing handsfree on a moving train. (I seem to remember it’s something to do with keeping the knees bent).
I also question why the longitudinal seats have armrests in the first place. Wasn’t this an issue on Central line 1992 stock with people breaking them off to the point of removing them for good?
I await to see the outcomes when in service.
Armrests to a certain extent help limit the intrusion of ‘our’ ever widening girth into adjacent seating areas.
I like that the car side profiles and passenger doors are very Networker – it’s nice to see some of the DNA from BREL days sneaking through.
I should think that the bogies without the outer facing beam also enable much faster execution of wheel changes, tyre and break part swaps etc.
They have finally got the innards of the external side dot matrix display flush within the inner bodywork – hurrah – so maybe a little less head banging after all (the next step will be to accommodate the things above the window rather than squashing the window height).
The interior bulkhead over the windows is interesting. The continuous line is neat, but I suspect it follows the space requirements for mechanics in the door bays, but could widen out elsewhere. I feel strongly that this makes the interiors feel more spatially constrained and tube train-y than need be.
I would welcome having some carriages entirely with longitudinal seating and some with both, especially as the transverse bays actually line up with the window pillars.
I’m quite happy with the fish-face front. The thing that gets me every time is how impossible it is to reconcile the orange catenary warning tape with the rounded bodywork on pretty well every stock. It’s always an awkward challenge, and I wonder whether it’s actually necessary atop a raked front; or at least break the tape where it negotiates some of the bumpy profiles between the side panels and front.
Also , another thing. They look rather ‘Japanese’ to me, like the Yamanote trains, with all the centre poles. People wouldn’t completely restrain themselves to them because there are strap hangers also to hold onto.
Hmmm, I see that whilst the usual Door Open buttons are present, there are no Door Close buttons (which I have always thought were rather pointless). Are these now going out of fashion, especially now that more recent rolling stock (e.g. Electrostars) are fitted with auto-closing doors?
“nor have internal features been fully painted.”
That makes a change from pre-coloured moulded plastic, found everywhere else.
Re Southern Heights (Light Railway) 29 July 2016 at 17:01
“No luggage racks either!”
There’s no point on an inner suburban train. Nobody uses them (can’t get near them without reaching over seated passengers, too small for laptop suitcases, not on the train for long enough).
The rounded windows in the doors make the doors more conspicuous and increase the contrast between the doors and the rest of the train, which is a requirement of the rail vehicle access regulations.
Re Kent Railman
I think he means because they are to be used on services to Heathrow, hence the luggage issue.
I will reserve judgement on the visual aspects including lighting until I’ve seen a complete example in the metal, although I am sympathetic to less glaringly bright interior that some recent stock.
As usual, and no doubt inevitable in London, we have a mongrel. Almost all London stock is trying to do more than one job and will never doo all tasks optimally, although one tends to dominate, these days usually accommodating the central crowds and limiting dwell times. The structure of the city and the nature of the rail networks mean that there is a lack of separation between urban, suburban, regional and airport link roles. Having said that, in this instance the proportion of passengers travelling longer distances will be smaller than with Thameslink for example, so there should be fewer feeling quite so hard done by.
I am always concerned about making life easier for the large numbers of standees by, for instance, providing adequate hand-holds, despite the strictures of those concerned with visual design who do not like any number of vertical poles. Too many designs fail standees badly but, at first glance, this design appears to do well. I assume the dark poles meet the criteria for contrast against the background. I also hope ride quality is decent despite the lower weight, something that materially helps standees, but also of course depends on the track quality.
Cantilevered seats, apart from easing cleaning, offer good opportunities for stowing luggage underneath which will be important given the lack of other specific provision visible. Passengers will need to be reminded of this, so I hope there are to be plenty of simple pictograms provided, including perhaps on the floor?
The use of large amounts of longitudinal seating is no surprise but still a disappointment. Purely personally, I tend to stand (If I can find a suitable hand-hold…) rather than sit longitudinally. My greatest practical objection is the encroachment of feet and legs into the standing space. I often wonder whether the space in front of these seats is counted at the same density, or at all, towards the area for standing. I always found the theoretical calculation of capacity compared to practical use an issue and tried to either not count a strip or allow a lower density in the whole floor areas between such seats. Personally I would prefer to see more use of 2+1 seating, as in the Paris Metro MF01 stock. Admittedly the numbers are not large (they are after all very urban vehicles) and there are large numbers of tip-up seats in the (wide) doorways, traditional in Paris, that offer perches in the peak when tipped up, not something I like.
The tall (tombstone) transverse seat backs seem to be particularly inconsistent in this application if, as I understand it, their primary (only?) purpose is to retain seated passengers in a collision. The huge majority will be either standing or in longitudinal seats and not so protected. Not that there should be collisions in the first place, particularly on a fully modernised urban railway without level crossings.
RNHJ has hit the nail right on the head. Longitudinal seating wastes space because those thus seated have to put their feet somewhere. Basically the waste equals the surface area of the longitudinal seats because with aircraft style seating one puts ones feet under the seat in front. My other objection to longitudinal seating is that even those lucky enough to be seated can have a standing passenger right in their face which is hardly optimal if the train brakes suddenly.If the need is for a higher than average allocation of space for standing, why not have rows of 2 and 1 aircraft style arrangement thus giving a greater aisle width for standing? It might even be advantageous to stagger or alternate the 2s and the 1s eg: 2-1, 2-1, 1-2, 1-2, 2-1 etc to optimise positioning of holding points. Not everyone is either tall enough or flexible enough to strap hang. I realise comments about looking out of windows are discouraged but may I raise the general point: is rail travel purely utilitarian or might some passengers actually choose to travel for some degree of pleasure. Frankly these new trains to me look totally utilitarian and really are nothing more than full gauge tube trains, horrible.
RNHJ says: ” Not that there should be collisions …”
Of course not, but secondary safety is taken very seriously in railway rolling stock design. Although collisions have, over time, become less frequent, average speeds have simultaneously risen. Although in principle the money which is now spent on making trains crash-survivable could instead be spent on making crashes even less likely, such a policy would receive widespread condemnation when a crash, however rare, actually occurred.
Something I’ve not been clear on since the Elizabeth Line name came about. The trains will enter service in May 2017 under which name (TfL Rail, Crossrail or Elizabeth Line)?
For trains that spend at least 50% or more of their normal running life above the surface (As CR1/Liz-line trains will do) then longitudinal seating is an ergonomic & public-relations disaster. ( IMHO )
AIUI TfL are still proposing all-longitudinal for the replacement stock for the NE London/Inner Anglia lines, which will be a disaster, in terms of passenger-relations.
[ I do have a detailed explanation for this opinion, but please take it as read at the moment? As I could go on for several pages as to why this is so, ok? ]
I don’t know why we have to go on about longitudinal seating all the time. It must get close the to banned subject list. Entirely subjective, all been said before and I doubt if anyone is going to have a different opinion as a result reading the comments on it.
Anyway I do wish people would get facts right instead of trotting out the same old rubbish time and time again.
Crossrail trains will have a mix of longitudinal seating and transverse seating. The trains are expected to be busiest at each end due to the double-ending of the busiest stations. Therefore the end carriages will have longitudinal seating to maximise capacity in these carriages. In the centre of the train there will be transverse seating. Note that by putting it there, for the people who particular want this type of seat, it maximises their chance of actually being about to get it as it will not be in so great a demand. As Captain Bleedin’ Obvious would have said, it doesn’t matter what type of seat is provided it you have no chance of actually being able to sit on it.
And, Greg, I suppose this is similar to the public relations disaster that happens with the C7 stock? Daily we are hearing complaints from Londoners and tourists about how unfriendly and unwelcoming the stock it is and how it is a retrograde step compared with the wonderful D stock with its transverse seating that was popular and fully utilised such that when people were standing you could be sure there would be no free transverse seats.
And please do not make the mistake of considering how busy the trains are today and whether some transverse seating is appropriate. Trains last for a long time. You have to consider what is most appropriate in ten or twenty years time.
@pop
Seating configurations can be, and frequently are, changed during the lifespan of rolling stock.
Interesting that the transverse seats will be towards the middle of the train. What proportion of each will there be? The initial short formations will presumably have middle cars missing, and thus fewer transverse seats.
The point about footroom is relevant, although I imagine the space under the longitudinal seats doesn’t go to waste.
Thameslink and Crossrail, in use, will not be very different to the user. After all, both have the same number . stations in Zone 1
timbeau,
Seating configurations can be, and frequently are, changed during the lifespan of rolling stock
Which is why I mentioned ten years time. The trains are not even in service yet. If seat configurations need changing then they are usually changed during a major refurbishment and the earliest one can realistically expect this is after seven years. So looking ten years ahead would seem to be a suitable minimum.
A little bit pointless showing it off, when the interior is unfinished in the wrong moquette, panels are missing, and lighting not complete.
I’m glad I’ll be driving Class 700s rather than these, as well. They have a nice flat desk in the cab and look a lot brighter.
I don’t like the head/tail lights and horn grille – they look ugly and dated. In fact they are a massive disappointment compared to the artist’s impression of them which had a much tidier front end. The Class 700s and also 707s being built for SWT with a different application of yellow on the front both look sleeker and brighter (because of the yellow) although 345s would still look ugly with yellow on.
That’s enough moaning about them though. The three sets of doors each side will make them good for their job of running on a very busy railway, and as long as they are reliable they should serve London well.
@ Timbeau. The four stops of Thameslink are just one fewer than the five of the Northern Line for the same journey. The four of crossrail are 5 fewer than the 9 on the Hammersmith and City line for the same journey. It doesn’t just feel different, it is different, because Liverpool St to Paddington is physically further than London Bridge to King’s Cross.
Why have they gone to all the trouble of fitting seats with the wrong moquette?
Re JayKay
To get them weighted for testing
Yeah, but why not use the correct moquette? Presumably it isn’t yet available, but isn’t that a bit of an oversight? Or is this sort of thing standard practice?
What an massive shame that they went from this very nice design in the original drawings (http://www.themanufacturer.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/Bombardier-Aventra-which-will-be-running-on-Crossrail.jpg) to the ugly front disaster which we have now
Shame the nice design in the original drawings has got the Crossrail transfer and the destination of Abbey Wood as mirror images of what they should be.
Re Elshad
If you removed the cab and paint of both of those units, any average person could probably tell the difference! To me they don’t look the same class
@JayKay
“Why have they gone to all the trouble of fitting seats with the wrong moquette?”
I don’t know as the Elizabeth Line moquette is in the London Transport Museum!
The correct https://goo.gl/photos/gQyF39Ly9XT7dPUSA
For those questioning why “incorrect moquette” or “not finished”. The first train is produced to test all sorts of things: does it actually go together properly and as intended, does it actually work and so on.
To test out building the seats and fitting them, any old moquette will do.
To test out fitting them to trains, only some cars need fitting out. Indeed having seats and cladding inside a test train is a nuisance when access to the various bits of equipment is required during testing.
I thought the interior looked remarkably complete for a first train. No doubt there is a another purpose in all this – as with so much of Crossrail – they want to show off successful work in progress.
By comparison the first Victoria line train only had one car fitted out.
As you said, any old moquette will do for weight tests. During tests it will get all dirty from engineers’ overalls, test equipment plonked on it and so on. So why waste the new stuff at this stage?
@Anon of Croydon: there are actually five Thameslink stops in Zone 1, from St Pancras to Elephant or London Bridge, compared to nine on the Northern Line City branch. Crossrail also has five, compared to twelve on the Central Line. Both Crossrail and Thameslink are more like an SBahn or RER limited stop line, compared with the UBahn or Metro like tube.
I’m afraid I don’t understand the point you are making about the longer distance Crossrail covers in Zone 1. Surely the same number of stops in a shorter distance makes Thameslink more metro-like than Crossrail, not less?
timbeau: Although engineers are not immune from having dirty overalls, it is somewhat stereotyping to suppose that they will wear such dirty overalls when engaged in testing, any more than managers, cleaners, journalists or anyone else who happens to sit on the seats in the prototype train. All the engineers that I know seem to have very clean habits.
Indeed, I work with electronics and software engineers, for whom getting their hands dirty is anathema. But testing a train can involve getting down in the oily bitsexposed, and parts exposed to road dirt underneath and if, as I suspect, some of the equipment is also under the seats, it will be necessary to lift them up to get at it.
For the same readon, it is common for vehicles under test not to be fully fitted out, and/or have the upholstery covered with dust sheets.
Very disappointing. [SNIP]from Bombardier.
[Opinions are subjective on such matters. Anyone who is unimpressed by this particular design is welcome to say so, but should do it with some reference to what, in their opinion, is wrong, and if possible how it might be improved, or what it compares with. The same applies to an opinion about the whole output of any particular manufacturer. Malcolm]
Not sure why anyone would call it dross, looks fine to me and don’t forget some aspects of the design and particularly the interior have been specified by the customer in conjunction with Bombardier.
Given the litany of criticism one wonders why TfL and Bombardier even bothered giving this first shot of things and allowing press, TV and bloggers to visit Derby. Perhaps they shouldn’t bother in future and just wait for the trains to enter service and not bother telling anyone about it? And then we won’t have blog articles and photos and Mr Bull wouldn’t get to enjoy Midlands ales in Derby pubs. 😉
These are not a new version of an Inter City train nor a replacement for Eurostar or going to be whizzing round the Swiss Alps offering luxury accommodation and snow capped views. They are a “work horse” train which will be slogged back and forth carrying hundreds of millions in their likely 40 year life. I suspect the majority of commuters, once past the initial novelty phase, will be simply pleased to be able to squash inside these in the likely expectation of a quick, reliable, air conditioned journey to their destination. In answer to the earlier comment about “utilitarian travel” then I think, yes, almost all urban rail travel is like that and in growing cities like London will become ever more like that where we might have exceptions today.
@ Greg – I am sure TfL have said that the new trains for West Anglia will have a mix of side and transverse seating. I think the GOBLIN stock will be all longitudinal. And given PoP’s remarks we should leave it there and not have a treatise on the matter.
I like a comfy seat as much as the next person but I have to accept that these days it’s getting ever harder to find them, even off peak.
Regarding the *number* of seats on the units, it’s probably fine in the outer suburbs. On the GWML, Crossrail’s 200m long trains will be replacing 50m-100m long (usually) Turbos, and on the Shenfield route there will be a step change in frequency. So the *number* of seats provided should be fine unless there is a really massive increase in usage stimulated by the new journey opportunities, shiny new infrastructure etc. On the other parts of the system the new trains should be very good people movers.
Notice I haven’t got into the question of longitudinal seating from Liverpool St to Reading.
In the last comment, I should have said that the number of seats will be fine in the off peak. I realise that some of the services mentioned are probably full to bursting point at 08:15 on a Monday.
Re what the inside looks like, there is no point in worrying as the carriages will be so full you won’t even see the moquette!
And yes, while the _trains_ may spend 50% of their life above ground that isn’t where the majority of its pax will be, so views are immaterial.
One obvious reason to make the driver’s cab door look as different as possible to the passenger doors is to stop passengers from trying to use it. It might have been better to continue the grey band onto the driver’s door to help ‘camouflage’ it.
On luggage racks, experience on Thameslink suggests that airport passengers wouldn’t put their luggage on overhead racks even if they were provided (too heavy and awkward).
Ha, if you want to complain about Standing, I just read about Mumbai’s new 12 car commuter trains (closing doors, air con!). A 1000 seats and over 4000 standing! The future for South Central!
rational plan , 417 sweaty bodies per carriage thank god they are air conditioned. Are they double decked?
I keep going back to the previous LR article which contained the design renderings of the class 345. For me it looks as though the design had been implemented pretty faithfully. Without unduly criticising JB’s photography, the ‘dark’ impresssion might simply be an unsuitable shutter/aperture combination as a result of large amounts of outside light coming through the windows.
As to the number of seats……..
The journey time from Reading to the City is likely to be of the same order as that from Amersham to the City. For those who choose to take a though train, the accommodation seems to be equivalent on both class 345 and S stock (respectively). In general, it is not passengers from those destinations who will struggle to get a seat (or fail to get a seat for the whole journey when travelling from the City), it is people from intermediate stations who are used to getting a seat today but might not at some point in the future who will be affected…..but……
For GW destination, in general, the trains, both Crossrail and GWR trains will be longer and more frequent than today, and this I suspect the overall number of seats will go up, not down. I am not familiar enough with the other ends of the line to offer a comment on the likely seats/standing issue there.
However all this is in stark contrast to when the S stock was introduced where there was a net reduction in seats with no near term prospect of increased frequency to compensate. Metroland commuters were not happy!
James GB,
on the Shenfield route there will be a step change in frequency
Sadly not true in the peak hours and one of the commonly-held beliefs that seems to be developed on the “things must be better afterwards or they wouldn’t be doing this” principle.
As an example, in the high peak (07.45 – 08.45) there are currently 15 trains between Gidea Park and Stratford in the up direction. After all the effort of building Crossrail this will increase to … 16. Of those sixteen, four of them will terminate at Liverpool Street (High Level).
The capacity benefit comes not so much from an increased number trains, which will be minimal, but from longer trains and (dare I say it) more suitably configured seating arrangements.
There will also be a benefit in having an assumed consistent service with trains every five minutes apart rather then the slightly erratic timetable of today. This will be offset by the need to fit in the 4tph Gidea Park – Liverpool Street terminators which will be of limited value as they will be just 2½ minutes after the previous train to central London and 2½ minutes before the next one.
Off peak the service will improve – from 6tph to 8tph. However, we didn’t need to have Crossrail built and nor did we need new rolling stock to achieve that – although the faster acceleration might help get out of the way of the problematic freight trains.
Alison
No, the trains will be spending something like 80% of their time above-ground, if not more, actually.
PoP
Except, at Stratford at present, we have something like 100 people getting off every coach of the LST-terminators, to transfer to Central/Jubilee/DLR services.
I would guess at least half of those will now stay on the CR1/Liz-line trains.
Um.
Seating:
I wonder if the transverse seats will need their “cushions” ( Board-hard pads, actually) replacing significantly more often than the longitudinal ones?
Exterior finish comments …
I assume the roundels were left off because this is the first test train & will need a refurb, before going into full-service?
I do agree that the “paint job” around the nose, especially at the lower levels, is inferior to that shown in the previous pictures. Again, though, this could be altered before actual normal service, couldn’t it?
Greg Tingey,
I can’t see how trains will be spending 80% of their time above ground. Is this one of the 72.3% of statistics made up on the spot? Or are you including time spent overnight and at other times in the depot? Do you consider Heathrow to above ground or below ground?
With all Abbey Wood – Paddington services almost entirely below ground and a substantial portion of the time of Heathrow – Abbey Wood/Shenfield services below ground that leaves the very few services to operate out to Maidenhead and Reading to make up the rest. I am not even going to waste my time computing this. It is clearly so far in error.
Except, at Stratford at present, we have something like 100 people getting off every coach of the LST-terminators, to transfer to Central/Jubilee/DLR services.
I would guess at least half of those will now stay on the CR1/Liz-line trains.
My reply was in response to a comment on capacity and I made it clear I was talking about capacity. There are clearly other advantages but it wasn’t my intention to list them.
@Greg/PoP
Even if Greg’s 80% figure were correct (it may be for a through Reading-Shenfield train, but there won’t be many of those) the proportion of the passenger-mileage above ground will be much less, as loadings will inevitably thin out as you get towards the extremities.
Reading passengers will have the choice of standing on an HST (or a class 800) for twenty minutes, or sitting on a Crossrail for much longer, but not having to change at Paddington. It will be interesting to see what people do in practice. It may well differ depending on direction (in the evening, if you haven’t got a seat by Paddington you might choose to bale out and try your luck upstairs, where all seats are up for grabs)
@timbeau – but surely your CrossRail ticket will not be valid on FGW long distance services?
An all operator annual season from Reading to Paddington would surely be valid for either.
@Pedantic of Purley
OK, I’ve done the maths!
Core, 8.5km underground, 24tph peak/16tph off;
Whitechappel to Pudding Mill Lane Portal, 4.5km 12/8tph;
Portal to Shenfield 27km above ground, 12/8tph;
Whitechappel to Abbey wood 12/8 12km under, 2km over;
Paddington to Hayes, 17km above ground, 10/6tph
Hayes to airport, 4/4tph, 6km underground, 1km above;
Hayes to West Drayton, 6/4tph, 4km above;
WD to Maidenhead, 17km above, 4/4tph
Maidenhead to Reading, 2/2 tph 19km above;
PLUS Liverpool Street to Gidia Park, 21km above 4tph PEAK ONLY
PEAK: 596 train km/hour below underground, 482 tkm/h above or underground 55%
OFFPEAK: 394tkm/h under, 442 over – underground 47%
Re Graham H & Timbeau,
Reading passengers will also have a high probability of standing on a 12 car 387…
PoP
My “80%” was grabbed out of thin air, I admit.
But Abbey Wood for a short distance, then through N Woolwich, all of Shenfield – Pudding Mill Lane, Royal Oak to Heathrow ‘ole & Stockley Jn to Reading, plus, of course, for short while, resting in Royal Oak turnback sidings.
Certainly more than 60% I would have thought?
@Purley Dweller – and you might pay more for that flexibility?
Re Graham H,
Indeed and I suspect we will also see more pick-up and set-down only IEP services at Reading when there are alteratives capacity wise in the future…
Correction – extra Peak trains not offpeak
PEAK: 596 train km/hour below underground, 566 tkm/h above = underground 51%
OFFPEAK: 394 tkm/h under, 358 tkm/h over = underground 52%
https://ukfree.tv/styles/images/2016/train_calc.png
Looking at the service level in this month’s Modern Railways suggests that there will be trains not stopping at Reading at all in 2018.
@timbeau: Reading passengers already have the option of a likely seat on a train to Waterloo that takes roughly as long to parts of central London as Crossrail will. London Terminals tickets from Reading are valid on National Rail as far as London Bridge, Cannon St, and City Thameslink. Out-boundary Travelcards are valid to anywhere in London, of course.
No-one knows yet what fares TfL will offer but the existing interavailable season tickets should be valid at least as far as now, offer a lot of flexibility and can’t be increased by more than RPI without breaking an election promise.
@PoP
Strictly speaking, after Crossrail opens there won’t be an “Up” direction. Does this mean that there would be platform renumbering at some stations?
@ James B 2341 – it is worth noting that even with the existing class 315s and a not exactly sparkling infrastructure performance TfL Rail’s passenger numbers are way ahead of budget. The growth has been very strong and I suspect a decent proportion of that is down to “soft” factors like being on the tube map, having a more distinct public brand than before plus “hard” factors like fares coming down a bit from before.
I look forward to seeing what happens out west when the new longer Class 387s start running the Paddington – Hayes shuttles and whether that triggers growth. I expect TfL taking on Heathrow Connect in 2018 will give things a further push as that route will appear on the tube map then. Obviously a load of other things may also change that have a more significant impact on patronage but they’re an unknown for now.
@ Graham H 1032 – when Mike Brown was interviewed by the BBC last week he was asked about fares on the new services. He did the usual spiel about “TfL fares, including the (lovely new Mayor’s) fares freeze applying in the zonal area” but then added “beyond that area I can assure you that fares will be competitive and we will offer Oyster and Contactless travel” which I found a rather startling thing for him to say – the “competitive” aspect not the rest. Makes me wonder if we are to have a repeat of the Gatwick Airport pricing “battle” but between Paddington and Reading. I guess, in theory, you could price differentially between Crossrail and FGW high speed services provided those latter trains don’t stop at Slough in future. PAYG / contactless fares would be determined by which gateline you used at the London end of things (as they will be for Gatwick Express users having distinct gatelines). I’ll put the Waterloo – Reading line fares and ticketing post Crossrail to one side for now. 😉
Dare one ask what a putative ticketing arrangement would be at, say, “London Tottenham Court Road”, if Reading-London Terminals tickets are valid at Waterloo (upstairs), London Bridge (upstairs), etc. Crossrail with a ‘most stations’ service – skip-stop at best – would be unreasonable to charge more than Reading-SR termini, surely?? Or maybe not?
In practical, policy and revenue terms, the emergence of Crossrails and Thameslink begins to suggest that wrapping up of Tube Zone 1 within London & SE pricing might need to be considered, as ever more ways of travelling, interchanging and exiting/entering on L&SE-scale journeys are revealed with the new below-ground travel options…
@Nameless
Unlikely – why bother? I was not aware there was a consistent platform numbering policy anyway.
In any case, why would there not be an “up” direction. Thaneslink has one – there is a point somewhere in the core where trains switch from being “up” to “down” – I think it’s somewhere near City TL, although curiously that is where trains stop going downhill and start going up again!
“I suspect we will also see more pick-up and set-down only IEP services at Reading”
And how do you police that? If it stops and opens the doors, people will get on.
@Ian J
“Reading passengers already have the option of a likely seat on a train to Waterloo that takes roughly as long to parts of central London as Crossrail will”
Not many – Reading to Waterloo is 66 minutes – in that time Crossrail claims it can get you to beyond Whitechapel. Indeed, it’s claiming 53 minutes to Bond Street by Crossrail, so you have a fighting chance of getting to Waterloo quicker by Crossrail than via Staines! (Both are 2tph).
With the option of fast trains between Reading and Paddington as well, very few people use the Waterloo-Reading services end-to-end. Indeed, even from Richmond it is usually quicker to pick up a GW service at Paddington rather than at Reading (well, it is when the Bakerloo Line is calling at Paddington!)
@WW
“you could price differentially between Crossrail and FGW high speed services provided those latter trains don’t stop at Slough in future. ”
But what about the semifast services to Oxford, Newbury etc? Would they still stop at Slough? Remember also that Crossrail’s publicity is advertising 4tph to Twyford and Reading, which includes the FGW Oxford trains.
How do you separate fast and slow trains at Reading – which has just been expensively rebuilt: would you rebuild it again to allow for separate barrier lines for each platform?
And given that London-bound HSTs are often crush loaded after Reading, how on earth do you check that everyone on board has a “high speed valid” ticket?
@ Timbeau – I was “musing” as to possibilities not setting out a new policy that requires the Timbeau “demolition with detail” response. 😉
There is nothing subjective about the fact the longitudinal seating is less space efficient than transverse. This can be readily established using a tape measure. Similarly, airline style (unidirectional) is more space efficient than facing blocks.
If you use longitudinal seating, you have to add about 15cm behind each seat to allow for angles of the seat back and window sloping in opposite directions, and about 15cm in front to allow for the fact that your feet are not either underneath the person in front (airline style) or overlapping with the person sitting opposite. A further (slightly subjective) disadvantage is that it leaves much less for standing passengers to hold on to.
It is hard to tell from the pictures, but it appears that the 345 has blocks of 8 facing seats in the same space as 6 longitudinal seats, and the practical standing capacity between either set is virtually the same. That’s a potential reduction in capacity of around 80 (seated and total) passengers per train.
The (only) advantage of longitudinal seating is that it is easier to get in and out of the seats, although I don’t find this to be a problem in practice with transverse seating even in 3+2 configuration.
Regarding luggage racks it seems odd not to fit these (but this area doesn’t appear to be finished at present). Obviously there is less need on inner suburban stock, but they do see plenty of use when fitted. Particularly useful for standing passengers ironically, as they don’t have the option of putting their bags down on their laps.
[Comments about longitudinal seats not deleted because it was primarily factual. Straying close to the naughty zone but not crossing it. PoP]
@ Guy 0633 – the latest TfL press release (about Padd B’loo reopening) has a footnote about Crossrail / Elizabeth line opening and names. I’ve pasted it below.
The Elizabeth line will open in phases:
– TfL Rail services commenced in May 2015 between Liverpool Street and Shenfield.
– In May 2018 the TfL Rail service opens between Paddington (National Rail) and Heathrow Terminal 4, replacing the existing Heathrow Connect service and part of the Great Western inner suburban service.
– In December 2018 the Elizabeth line will open. Services will run between Paddington and Abbey Wood; Liverpool Street and Shenfield as well as Paddington Main Line to Heathrow Terminal 4.
– In May 2019 the Elizabeth line through service extends from Shenfield to Paddington.
In December 2019 the Elizabeth line will be fully open, extending to Reading and Heathrow Terminal 4.
The Elizabeth Line name does not kick in until Dec 2018 therefore the 345s will run under the “TfL Rail” banner for about 18 months in East London and 7 months in West London. I am assuming here that TfL will rebrand as per the wording in the press release.
Another question:
The Liverpool Street High Level to Gidia Park all-stops trains that run 4tph during the peak. Will they run, as the current services do, as “up only” in the morning and “down only” in the evening?
I have noted that on occasion these “empty to depot” trains often mess up the TfL Rail service around 9am-10am.
@Jonathan Roberts
It’s already the case that ‘London Terminals’ tickets are not valid at Farringdon, so that someone coming from the south with a ‘London Terminals’ ticket can use it at Blackfriars, City Thameslink and St Pancras, but not Farringdon – which is a bit absurd, especially when you think in the future that Farringdon will have more ‘TOC’ based services than true LUL. On that basis I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that ‘London Terminals’ tickets will be valid at Paddington and Liverpool Street (whichever direction you’re coming from) but not at Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road or Farringdon. Interchange at Farringdon will not be stopped, so a south London commuter would also be able to get to Paddington or Liverpool Street on a ‘London Terminals’ ticket so long as they used Thameslink and changed at Farringdon. Going via Charing Cross and the Bakerloo line to Paddington would, though, incur an additional fare.
Funnily enough, there’s space for (some) luggage under the seats…
@WW
“In December 2018 … Liverpool Street and Shenfield as well as Paddington Main Line to Heathrow Terminal 4.”
Does that mean that Elizabeth Line trains will go from the Liverpool Street High Level to Stratford as per the current TfL Rail service, or from the Crossrail platforms at Liverpool Street where the trains to Abbey Wood go from?
It’s not clear why they would run from Paddington to Liverpool Street to Abbey Wood underground, but not to Shenfield.
@ Quinlet – not sure I agree with your view about London Terminals acceptance in the future. It will take something of a shift in practice *and* money to remove the Zone 1 add fare for travel beyond what is deemed London Terminals. TfL have not removed that option from TfL Rail or West Anglia services where a cheaper fare for travel into the terminal station still applies. Even many decades on it has not gone for use of Thameslink despite there having been many opportunities to “do something” over the years. I’m waiting with bated breath to see how Crossrail is handled in ticketing terms and whether we get any surprises.
Re Briantist,
The spread sheet – Isn’t Paddington to H&H mostly above ground not underground.
Re WW,
GWR 387s and longer services. Just 5 weeks till the first (8 car to H&H) one start so not long to see what happens, passengers might not be crush loaded for few weeks till they fill again!
Re Timbeau,
Run as pick up / set down only and don’t advertise them! The non IEP services will have more capacity int the future.
quinlet: Are you sure that ‘London Terminals’ tickets from south of the river are truly valid to St Pancras? I know we’ve discussed this before, at some length, but I though the conclusion was that although the tickets might let you through the barriers, if they do it is because of limitations in the barrier software, and not because going there on such a ticket was actually legal.
If that was correct, then we could expect something similar on Crossrail, where travel to the first-reached of Paddington and Liverpool street would be permitted on such a ticket, but not to the other.
Other possibilities might include tickets only valid either to “Zone 1”, or else to a specific named terminal. After all, the London Terminals concept was really (so I understand) invented to deal with travel from somewhere like Croydon, where the trains might go to any of a range of different terminals, but not one after another (except that for this purpose, London Bridge, WAE and CHX were grouped, as were Blackfriars and City).
It’s all a bit complicated.
@ngh
“The spread sheet – Isn’t Paddington to H&H mostly above ground not underground.”
Yes, I have corrected for this. I’ve also created another section to show the timings.
https://ukfree.tv/styles/images/2016/train_calc_correction.png
So, correctly (I hope!) Elizabeth Line trains will be underground for:
43% of the peak distance and 45% of the off peak distance; or
53% of the peak time and 50% of the off peak time;
It might be slightly different as some western sections will omit some stops.
@Malcolm
NRE have just this week introduced a new “other services you can travel on” and “Other valid routes” feature to their website.
If I look at a train from Brighton (East Sussex) [BTN] to London Bridge [LBG] it now specifically says –
“With this ticket, using National Rail services you can travel to / from the following London stations:
London Blackfriars [BFR],London Charing Cross [CHX],London Cannon Street [CST],City Thameslink [CTK],London Bridge [LBG],London Victoria [VIC],Vauxhall [VXH],London Waterloo East [WAE],London Waterloo [WAT]”
if you pick a Brighton to St Pancras ticket, it shows you specifically can’t travel Via London Victoria and the Victoria Line.
Malcolm,
If I go to my local station at Crystal Palace and ask the ticket machine for a single to St Pancras, then specify Thameslink as the route, the machine sells me a London Terminals ticket. Both these and my old monthly season ticket to London Terminals are accepted by the barriers at STP and I’m fairly sure I’ve had my ticket checked in the Thameslink core and no comment was made. When travelling on Oyster from St Pancras to Palace via Thameslink the charge is the same as for Palace to Victoria or London Bridge.
Briantist,
The Liverpool Street High Level to Gidea Park all-stops trains that run 4tph during the peak. Will they run, as the current services do, as “up only” in the morning and “down only” in the evening?
Yes.
Or more specifically, only in passenger service in peak flow direction. As now, the trains will use the fast lines out of service in the reverse of the peak direction to maximise useful journeys with minimal rolling stock.
@ngh
“Run as pick up / set down only and don’t advertise them! ”
All very well, but IEPs are quite large objects and it’s difficult to hide them when they call at Reading. Even if it is officially calling only to set down, how do you stop people boarding once the doors are open?
(Not advertising the Reading stop on trains leaving Paddington is more effective, but you only need to look at a timetable to see if a stop is scheduled)
@quinlet
(London terminals tickets) Just because the ticket works the gate doesn’t mean you used a valid route to get to that gate.
@Jonathan Roberts
“if Reading-London Terminals tickets are valid at Waterloo (upstairs), London Bridge (upstairs), etc. Crossrail with a ‘most stations’ service – skip-stop at best – would be unreasonable to charge more than Reading-SR termini, surely?? ”
But only “upstairs” – if you travel Reading – Paddington – Waterloo (tube) you pay more.
Even in existing Oysterland this is the case – three different fares from Wimbledon to Blackfriars, depending on whether you go via Earls Court, Streatham, or Waterloo.
cf also Clapham Junction to London Bridge, via Waterloo, Peckham Rye, or Canada Water.
“London Terminals” tickets from the Southern used to say “London SR” and were valid at any SR terminal. It gets more complicated from west/south of Basingstoke, as “any permitted route” tickets are then also valid at Paddington – but via Reading, not Oxford Circus!
In theory at least, a ticket from an originating station in Scotland is valid via Reading or Cambridge, as well as more conventional routes, and thus to any London terminal except possibly Fenchurch Street!
WW
“the latest TfL press release”
OK where do I find it?
The usual problem is navigating TfL’s labyrinthine “system”, I’m afraid.
So far, I’ve gone TfL Home / More / corporate / publications & reports (filtered by “tube” for B’loo re-opening ) & … de nada.
Filtering for “Paddington” gets a lot of reports, but not (I think) the one you mention.
ngh
Run as pick up / set down only and don’t advertise them!
Which will work for about 2 months & then revert, in loading-terms. This was tried on the Stansted-stoppers from LST & was so futile that they gave up & now advertise the stops anyway ….
Re timbeau,
The regulars will work things out but enough will get the nudge to use other services of which there will be more (& longer and faster than currently) the over crowdin on certain services HST (IEP) will be reduced. You could always set both escalators to up at Reading!!!
Re Greg,
GWR have already been running some experiments.
@Greg
“navigating TfL’s labyrinthine “system”, I’m afraid”
Try finding any bus in Ham at the moment on the “live bus information” system. It completely ignores the temporary routes covering the two dead ends either side of the roadworks, simply telling you that neither of the regular services will be calling, in either direction, in the next two hours. (In fact, there will be none for about the next 8,380 hours, as one is diverted and the other suspended for the duration!)
I could only find out anything at all because I happened to know the number of one of the temporary routes. But live running information is there none.
@ngh
“GWR have already been running some experiments.”
What sort of experiment?
Re timbeau,
Pick up only on certain very busy west bound HSTs at Reading, not advertising at Paddington etc. and carefully monitoring the effectiveness (and not stopping at Reading on Friday evenings, the busiest day on those services) so they have some data to calibrate planning with.
@Greg Tingey
“OK where do I find it?”
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases or Google “tfl press release”
@timbeau
Really? I just go to “Live Arrivals” https://tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/stations-stops-and-piers/
Search for a location and once there pick “Find stops or routes nearby”.
It knows about all “official” bus stop closures, but not ones caused by temporary roadworks.
@timbeau – it would be open to FGW to introduce an operator-specific season (to which a Zone 1 could be bought as the usual add-on). Whether they will do so, and how they price the FGW season + Z1) depends on how badly they want the traffic .
Greg Tingey,
The long way is TfL home page, scroll to bottom, click/tap Media, click/tap Press Releases
@ Greg – why don’t you bookmark the TfL pages you like to read? It’s how I do it. Whenever TfL change their website I spend a few hours, and yes it can take that long, to adjust the urls that apply for all the pages I regularly visit. Sorry if that sounds like teaching you to suck eggs but you continually moan about the TfL site. I really don’t find it to be anywhere near as impenetrable as you seem to do.
@ Briantist – I thought we had been through all of this Crossrail phasing issue before? TfL have clarified the timing of the branding but it’s really pretty simple.
Now – TfL Rail applies Liv St (surface) to Shenfield
May 2017 – TfL Rail still applies even though shiny new trains come into service out of Liv St
May 2018 – TfL Rail branding applies Liv St (surface) to Shenfield; Paddington (surface) to Heathrow T4
Dec 2018 – Elizabeth Line (ugh) branding applies Liv St (surface) to Shenfield; Paddington (surface) to Heathrow T4; Paddington (low level) to Abbey Wood. This means both Paddington and Liverpool St will have Elizabeth Line platforms in operation at surface and lower levels. To answer your specific point the main Shenfield service will still be running from the surface platforms at this time. The tunnels to Stratford won’t be open!
May 2019 – As Dec 2018 but almost all Elizabeth Line services will serve Liverpool St (low Level) apart from the 4 tph peak only services into Liv St (surface). This is because the tunnel link between Whitechapel and Stratford opens and is linked into the GEML.
Dec 2019 – As May 2019 but all Elizabeth Line services at Paddington will depart from the low level platforms as the line is linked through on to the GWML via the Westbourne Park portal. In normal operation Liverpool St will always have peak time Elizabeth Line services from both surface and lower levels.
@ ngh – I am aware the 387s start shortly on the GWML.
I go with the notion that pick-up and set-down restrictions at Reading would work. The platform staff there are fairly active and the departure boards have always had a ‘fast trains to Paddington’ section that allows passengers to wait up above to choose their platform. Generally speaking the new IEP timetables have just about as many trains stopping at Reading as do now. It’s the introduction of additional fast services that allows GWR to contemplate some through non-stop trains in that timetable.
I puzzle over whether luggage racks are need on the Crossrail trains or not. Class 444 on SWT has no official luggage space other than fairly generous longitudinal overhead racks, and commuters make good use of these. Given the Heathrow service will attract a fair number of passengers with substantial bags, it’s surprising that nothing seems to have been done to accommodate them. I thought that there might be standing spaces by the carriage walls adjacent to the doors, but the pictures seem to show seats right to the doors. Those spaces on other stock are very handy for big bags. The passenger can sit next to the standing space and hold their monster-on-wheels with one hand. My experience is that people will move if a passenger boards who obviously needs to use that seat. The layout shown will result in big bags intruding into the gap between opposing knees and probably causing real trouble at busy central stations.
@ Malcolm – you are correct that we have been here before with London Terminals tickets, coding and how the ticket gates (not barriers please!) cope (or not) with the “London BR (now Terminals)” concept. As has been said just because a ticket might work a gate does not mean it is valid. I would also not be astonished if the person with the Crystal Palace to St Pancras ticket actually had Zone 1 encoded and the Maltese Cross symbol printed on it. That would pass muster in a ticket inspection.
It is perfectly clear that you cannot whizz across Zone 1 on whatever route with tickets issued to London Terminals. They stop being valid at whatever terminal you reach from whichever direction you travel from. There is only one exception involving NR services and I suspect it may even have now gone and that was tickets issued for travel to Old St and Moorgate on the GN would work on the tube from Kings Cross at those times when a service was not run into Old St and Moorgate. I remember doing the base data for that decades ago. It may now have been stopped following the longer operating hours / weekends on GN services but I’d be surprised if any hasty changes have been made.
We must wait to see if TfL and DfT conjure up easements to or removal of the long standing concept of “London Terminals”. Given it will cost money and neither party is awash with it then I will be surprised if it does go.
WW: Yes, but as my earlier confusion showed, this “cannot whizz across zone 1” is difficult to spell out algorithmicly. Because, in a sense, staying on a train beyond London Bridge as far as Charing Cross is “whizzing across zone 1”, but it has always been allowed, presumably because there is actually no other (NR) was of getting to CHX, and CHX is obviously a London Terminal. The anti-whizz rule could be encoded as “not via Farringdon”, and the same restriction could work for Crossrail.
The Moorgate rule which you mention is actually a derogation from another “principle”, to wit “not valid on LU services”.
Presumably there is yet another rule of some sorts which prevents a Southend to London Terminals ticket (if there is such a thing) from being used to get to Euston via Stratford, Canonbury and Willesden Junction, or other such fandangos.
@Fandroid
The NRE data for railway stations already includes the ability to have “ghost destinations” where faster trains arrive at the destination before the slower ones.
For example, the London Overground trains at Watford Junction “claim” (to the public) to be going to South Hampstead until they get to Watford High Street station, at least as far as route planning and live departure boards are concerned.
I rather imagine that the Crossrail trains might omit London Paddington from their list of stops at Reading: but they will be going to Shenfield or Abbey Wood, so I’m not sure quite how this fits in with the current “ghosting” scheme.
@Briantist
” I just go to “Live Arrivals” https://tfl.gov.uk/travel-information/stations-stops-and-piers/ Search for a location and once there pick “Find stops or routes nearby”.”
Have you tried that for any stop on Route 371 today?
“It knows about all “official” bus stop closures, but not ones caused by temporary roadworks.”
This is not a bus stop closure (only four stops are actually closed – two each way), but a five-week-long re-routing of a three mile stretch of one route and total suspension of another. And you will search in vain on “live arrivals” for any of the three temporary replacement routes (565, 571, 572)
There is some information here, but not if you go straight to “live arrivals” as most users would.
http://content.tfl.gov.uk/emails/bus/petersham-road-map.pdf
@Malcolm – the whole thing would be cleared up if anyone of us had ready access to the routeing guide (does anyone?)
@WoW I can’t find the previous discussion to know whether this is adding value, but I hope it does. Using your example of Crystal Palace there are two tickets priced the same (£24.10 for 7-day adult season) one with a destination of “London Terminals” and one “London St Pancras with a ‘Not Underground’ restriction”. The latter exists purely because the former isn’t valid. For those interested the equivalent of the St Pancras routed ‘Not Underground’ for those from the north of Thameslink is “London Thameslink” which covers as far south as London Bridge and Elephant & Castle.
With regards to London Terminals or station groups it is that a single journey is allowed to continue providing you stay within the station group. For example a ticket from Orpington to London Terminals is valid at City Thameslink, Vaxhaull (via Waterloo), but not at St Pancras as Farringdon is not a London Terminal (or deemed one for ticketing purposes. City Thameslink and Waterloo East are despite not really being terminals). The National Rail Enquiries site season ticket calculator will helpfully tell you what other London Terminals the ticket is valid at.
@Graham We all have access to the routing guide. The issue is that it’s almost a Mastermind specialist subject due to the complexity and length. Skipping the interpreation of station groups, there are several main ways a route may be valid. These are if it’s a direct train without changes, the shorted distance or on a set of mapped routes between intermediate points. Certain obvious things are restricted including some doubling back and ignoring route restrictions on the ticket. In addition to this there are then positive and negative easements to allow or restrict routes that wouldn’t otherwise. The routing guide is where I suspect most of the Scotland to unusual London Terminal ideas would fall down.
On space for bulky luggage, there appear to be banks of tip-up seats by some of the vestibules, which will be useful at Heathrow where there will be a combination of heaviest demand and full availability of space. It won’t be clear until someone publishes carriage layouts whether these will be by every vestibule, and whether there will be other provision for wheelchairs with a partition board.
A short observation on seat orientation that has not yet been noted: Although the standing space is quite similar whichever orientation, it is clearly the case that people ‘move right down inside’ much more willingly between longitudinals. This is from simple observation between D and S stock or comparing Silverlink with LO days. Just be thankful that it hasn’t yet got as far as this:
https://melbourneurbanist.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/yamanote-line-japan-rail-carriage-interior1.jpg
@WW: The mention of ‘competitive’ tickets from Reading is certainly interesting (and suggest TfL won’t be applying the ‘ghost destination’ technique at Reading that Briantist mentions).
There is a fine line for TfL to tread – given the fares freeze, journeys beyond Greater London are one of TfL’s few genuinely new revenue sources and helping themselves to a slice of GWR’s market must be tempting. It wouldn’t be the first time a hidebound state operator proved more commercially buccaneering than the titans of free enterprise. But go too far and the trains will be full by the time they reach Greater London.
We must wait to see if TfL and DfT conjure up easements to or removal of the long standing concept of “London Terminals”
Another option would be to introduce an equivalent of the “London Thameslink” destination that Southeastern Passenger mentions, covering all central London Crossrail stations but not the tube, at a cost more than London Terminals but less than an outboundary Zone 1-6 travelcard.
I’ve noticed that recently the bay at Ilford has been removed and replaced by a turnback at Chadwell Heath. Will this be in regular use?
@SouthEasternPassenger – many thanks for the link – it’s something I ought to have studied recently but one of the advantages of an all systems pass plus a TfL staff pass is that one never needs to- and as you imply, life gets shorter.
@IanJ -it’s slightly surprising that there seems to have been no commercial negotiations as yet, given the prospective renewal of the GW franchise (presumably with DfT pulling the strings and using FGW as their agent) – one can’t imagine DfT wanting the renewal to take place without the issue being settled. Of course, if TfL felt they wanted to compete without DfT intervention, I guess they could introduce an operator-only fare as has been done by others on East Coast. Quite whether that game is worth the candle is something that both TfL and GW might find less than clear – for the reasons you mention.
Look remarkably like the Overground trains and Hong Kong MTR stock. Any difference?
WW, SeP, etc: the key thing with respect to the “London Group” is that it’s a doughnut, excluding Farringdon, so tickets to/from London are in general not valid on Thameslink between KXSP and City Thameslink. (As I recall, an exception is HS1, where London tickets are valid through the TL core.)
When Lizzie opens it will be interesting to see if stations between Paddington and Liverpool St are included in the London Group: I would think it highly likely that Farringdon (plus the new stations?) would continue to be excluded.
@South Eastern Passenger
It’s a very helpful description, but I’m not sure it would pass the Trades Descriptions Act. From Ashford there are trains to St Pancras – clearly a London Terminal – both via HS1 and via Thameslink. Unless a ticket is marked as ‘not via Farringdon’, I think I would object strongly to being told I could not use a through train from my origin to my destination, which is a London terminal. I think I might object even more strongly if I was told that there was no legitimate route from Ashford to St Pancras without either paying a high speed supplement or an additional Zone 1 fare. This could also lead to the somewhat absurd situation that a HS1 routed ticket from Ashford to St Pancras was cheaper than a non-HS1 ticket.
The “ghost destination” technique has been used on the Great Western lines for years at Oxford, with all-stations London trains having “Ealing Broadway” shown as the destination.
@Ian J
“But go too far and the trains will be full by the time they reach Greater London.”
That’s to say, 1/12th of trains will be full. Only 40% of Elizabeth Lines trains will go any further west than Paddington, and only one train every 15 minutes will actually make it out of Greater London*
* = OK, plus 12/8tph making 5km trains past the M25 to Shenfield.
[Let’s not get too bogged down into what percentage of trains or passengers do exactly what. But the point is well-made even without the (possibly disputable, but please don’t) numbers. Malcolm]
I spotted the tip-up seat zone on the photos. That would be absolutely fine for passengers with luggage starting in a relatively empty train at Heathrow. However, the big problems are with westbound trains heading there. It’s probably safe to assume that tourists will be starting off from central London or its immediate fringes, and also that most if not all seats will be occupied in the central core. That means that, westbound, most if not all tip-up seats will be occupied when the passenger with large bags gets on the train. Standing passengers might be content to move to make room, but will a seated passenger be willing to sacrifice a seat on behalf of a bag?
@Fandroid – ” will a seated passenger be willing to sacrifice a seat on behalf of a bag?” In future they will have to. I have decided to start the Bag Rights Movement -too often, bags are the subject of antibag hate crimes.
Thanks for the various remarks about ticketing but I am aware of the special treatment for some Thameslink journeys. For those “getting hot under the collar” about irrational fares and the concept of London Terminals then it has existed for many, many years. The problem is that if you remove it then someone loses a lot of revenue for cross London travel. No one is in a position to cope with that financial loss as things now stand. It may be the case that Crossrail and a more intensive Thameslink services affords an opportunity for change but I am doubtful about that because both “franchises” [1] need to generate vast sums of money to recoup the investment made in them.
To cover Malcolm’s point about London Bridge – Charing Cross then yes there is a string of London Terminal stations there and NR fares apply. It is noteworthy that the opening of the Jubilee Line Extension did not trigger the creation of an “interavailable” section of route between NR and LU services (as applies on Thameslink between L Bridge / E&C and West Hampstead) on that south / cross Thames axis.
I suspect the scope for cleverness on fares alongside FGW services is constrained somewhat by the terms in the Crossrail Agreement that DfT and TfL signed up to. Regrettably almost all of the fare provisions are redacted in that agreement. My guess is that the crucial issue is the extension of Oyster and Contactless to Reading and whether / how it applies to FGW services. That may also have a bearing on what the fares are. We have the rather messy precedent of Gatwick Airport being on Oyster that shows there are not easy answers. Hopefully the next iteration of Oyster will bring some additional flexibility in pricing terms but I can see why DfT / FGW might want a higher fare applying to high speed services between Paddington and Reading even if the passengers might not.
[1] yes I know they’re concessions / management contracts!
Nameless,
Strictly speaking, after Crossrail opens there won’t be an “Up” direction. Does this mean that there would be platform renumbering at some stations?
Platforms don’t get renumbered unless there is a very good reason to do so as it causes confusion. Established practice trumps theoretical convention.
One could argue as to whether there will still be an “up” direction on cross-London services and at what point it ceases to exist (but let’s not). Also we appear to be getting contradictory messages as to what extent the Gidea Park shorts will be considered part of Crossrail so maybe they are still “up” and “down”.
Stationless,
I’ve noticed that recently the bay at Ilford has been removed and replaced by a turnback at Chadwell Heath. Will this be in regular use?
In the strict meaning of the word, no.
From the Crossrail website, Chadwell Heath station page:
I know this is way off the original topic, but I will take a chance and wonder how TfL will deal with London Terminals cards for currently-southeastern passengers should TfL take over metro routes? I presume an overground-only annual card would have to be created as a travelcard is so much higher in cost. Can anyone enlighten me?
@ Giovanni – clearly we don’t know for certain that a TfL transfer is planned. However the precedent of retaining fares and season tickets to London Terminals for TfL run services was established when TfL took over West Anglia and the Shenfield line. After a lot of political lobbying the tickets / fares were kept. I’d expect the same to happen for South Eastern if only to avoid unnecessary complaints and political pressure.
@quinlet – This is what the National Rail Enquiries website says and I agree that it is a somewhat counter intuitive. The example origin of Orpington I quoted also has direct trains to St Pancras via Thameslink so is the same situation.
There is an Ashford – St Pancras “not valid on HS1 – not underground ticket” which is a very similar price to the Ashford – London Terminals “not high speed” one, so you don’t pay more for avoiding HS1.
Even with all this, I think it is largely theoretical. As far as I know it’s not enforced at St Pancras because it’s a reasonable mistake to make and one with no/little financial gain. It is enforced more at Farringdon which is more clearly not a London Terminal. Many passenger groups are unhappy about the current ‘London Terminals’ situation, which probably factors into the enforcement.
I think the 345 cab has a passing resemblance to Bombardier’s Talent 2 in Germany. http://www.bombardier.com/content/dam/Websites/bombardiercom/Projects/talent-2-electric-multiple-unit-3651.jpg/_jcr_content/renditions/original
Will services into Liverpool Street upper level have dedicated platforms? If so I wonder if they will be branded (if Network Rail allows) or whether TfL will almost play down the upper level services on account of it confusing people with the core services through the, er, core. I notice none of the maps released so far indicate what is in effect two stations – although admittedly I’ve no idea of the route passengers arriving at Crossrail on the upper level by mistake would take to reach the subterranean platforms. (Have any station maps been released? Will it be through the same entrances as you currently take to the tube?)
Regular commuters in the City may prefer to catch the timetabled high level services because a) they get a seat b) they’re used to the existing route from office to upper level platform and vice versa c) it may even be quicker for them than taking the escalators down to the subterranean (and long) low level platforms. (Again I don’t know how timing compares.)
I assume whatever happens there will be plenty of announcements on inbound Liverpool St services suggesting passengers for the core change at the preceding station than at Liverpool Street itself, unless that’s likely to cause more congestion there.
@Brianist and timbeau. Re the incorrect “live” information data on tfl feeds. Over last weekend whole swathes of central London roads were closed, open to cycle only. Buses curtailed or diverted. Yet ibus signs at bus stops throughout central London continued to show forthcoming buses that would never come. Even though the cycle events have tfl as a sponsor, no one at tfl seems interested in updating their own data feeds.
@ Anon 5 – there is already limited branding for Overground and TfL Rail at Liverpool St Main Line. Clearly nothing really changes until Dec 2018 when the Elizabeth Line branding comes into being. There will have to be very clear signing to get people between surface and low level platforms for the 6 months through to May 2019 when the GEML is linked to the tunnel section. I expect there will be a massive publicity and information campaign through 2018 and into 2019 to communicate and manage the service transition. TfL have to get it right – far too much at stake not to.
In terms of access at Liverpool St I believe there are two ways into Crossrail – one from the new entrance outside Broadgate in Liverpool St itself. The second is via a new linking corridor between the main LU ticket hall (off the NR concourse) and the Crossrail ticket hall. Raking back through the planning documents in the City of London’s planning database (ref 11_00310_XRAIL-PART_III_-_DESIGN___ACCESS_STATEMENT-179649.pdf) it seems the new connection will be built near the top of the three escalators that go down to the Central Line from the main (B) LU ticket hall. This is to the right hand side of the gateline as you walk in from the NR concourse. The interchange is within the LU and Crossrail paid areas. In effect the new corridor runs parallel to the Circle / H&C tunnels.
From the City of London website.
The plans for the Liverpool Street end of the station include the modification of the main London Underground ticket hall and the construction of a new Broadgate ticket hall at basement level with an entrance in front of the UBS building in Liverpool Street (west). An underground pedestrian link connects the Crossrail station with the existing Network Rail and Underground stations, providing covered interchange between all three stations.
@anon 5
“Regular commuters in the City may prefer to catch the timetabled high level services because a) b) c) (I don’t know how timing compares.)
d) it will be quicker because they will not call at Whitechapel
“I assume whatever happens there will be plenty of announcements on inbound Liverpool St services suggesting passengers for the core change at the preceding station than at Liverpool Street itself,”
That will be Stratford (I’m not sure of the layout there – will Crossrail services diverge west of the station, or will they have dedicated platforms at Stratford, in which case the change to the core services would be better done at Maryland)
@ Timbeau – the divergence to the tunnel portal is west of Stratford. Crossrail will, I assume, continue to use platforms 5 (w/b) and 8 (e/b) with all trains stopping there affording same platform interchange if you wanted it. Quite how they will fit everyone on those platforms given today’s overcrowding (and future expected growth) remains a mystery.
timbeau,
Crossrail merely takes over what is now TfL Rail at Stratford so no change there. The divergence will be at Pudding Mill Lane where the portal will be in the middle of the two tracks leading to and from Liverpool St on the “electric” lines.
The portal and the nearby junctions make quite a significant dramatic structure but unfortunately not easy to take a good picture of. It is quite well seen from the DLR which, as you will recall, had to be significantly moved at this location to provide the space necessary for this major addition.
What most people don’t seem to have grasped is that Liverpool St isn’t the only London Terminus that will feature Crossrail trains on a regular basis. There will be very early morning and very late night trains to and from Heathrow that will run during Crossrail engineering hours so these will start from and terminate at Paddington Main Line station. At least that is what I have heard.
fandroid & others on luggage-racks.
Yesterday, I returned from Virginia Water to WAT (arr approx 18.10) & the reverse-commuting is a “bad” as that on the GW & the train was utterly wedged from Feltham inwards. The class 450 luggage-racks were very well used, including by my rucksack.
They are needed, so one does wonder about this omission.
Southeastern Passenger
Thanks for that – Routing Guide now bookmarked (!)
WW
I strongly suspect the overcrowding at p/f’s 5 & 8 @ Stratford will diminish, because people presently transferring to the Central line, will not be doing so, once through operation begins ……
@ Greg – I suspect you are correct in the short term (2-3 years) but I don’t think it will last. Far too much happening rail wise (and likely on bus routes too e.g. possible cuts to route 25) in East London for numbers not to keep increasing. I think we will see some unexpected journey patterns starting to emerge once new / enhanced rail services start opening. That will affect Crossrail at Stratford just as it will other services. There are also housing and development issues at Stratford that will increase demand there.
Graham H re “Bag Rights” – not to mention the ignominy of intimate searches. Those break-away terrorist knapsacks have a lot to answer for, bringing suspicion on law abiding bags.
@OB 🙂
Bag rights
I think it is noteworthy that the major terrorist attacks on trains have been on suburban trains (Madrid) or metros (LUL) – understandably so as these are where passengers are most crowded. Yet the response interns of bag searches has been on inter city trains. This is, undoubtedly, a consequence of the realisation that it’s just not possible to do bag searches on metros and suburban trains. An estimate I saw for Cannon Street suggested that there should be 25 parallel search lines to maintain the evening peak flow of passengers. It’s clearly nonsense, as was realised as after 7/7 the idea of bag searches was scaled back to a trial at Paddington which later got further scaled back to searches of volunteer passengers only! Even this didn’t last long. Which all goes to show that much of the precautions are for show only and inconveniencing passengers doesn’t matter at all
@ Quinlet – while taking your point about passenger volumes being impossible to process efficiently there are some metros where electronic scanning of people and bags is compulsory. The Delhi Metro imposes 100% person and bag checking before you can use the Metro – I’ve just double checked their website and security provisions. Goodness knows how they manage it given it’s a big and growing system. I think there may be Chinese metros with similar provisions.
@quinlut/WW…If they do, they were probably designed with security checks in mind from the start (adequate circulation areas, gateline provision etc.). Replicating that in any other metro (even fairly newish ones such as the Washington DC Metro) is therefore a non-starter.
@WW
I concur with your finding of the Delhi Metro. I was there 10 years ago, and they have armed Army units checking the bags and persons of every passenger entering stations.
@WW: I think there may be Chinese metros with similar provisions
Beijing’s does (with about two and a half times London’s passenger numbers!)
@Anonymously: they were probably designed with security checks in mind from the start
The first line of the Beijing metro was designed (by the Russians, who learnt how to build metros with help from London Transport) in the 1950s, and they have only been doing security checks in recent years, so I doubt it.
If Delhi and Beijing do check every passenger’s bags then the staffing implications must be very significant. No doubt in Beijing the state can just fold the costs into its overall budgets, though this must be more difficult in Delhi because of the greater degree of accounting separation between different tiers of government. Were it to be required in London I have no doubt that the costs would be passed straight onto TfL, much as happens with airlines.
3 years ago Delhi metro checked bags at about half the stations I visited, without vast lanes of checkers. Of course their wide salary ranges means you could find cheap checkers who couldn’t afford to ride the metro, unlike London. The trains were utterly rammed, even so few years after opening.
I’m not a fan of security theatre
Surely the queue for the security check is itself a large crowd and just as vulnerable?
There’s a good video on You Tube from Bombardier, time lapse construction of a 345 carriage in 2 minutes 11 seconds… https://youtu.be/8V7kXcIowl4
@JR
see above:
“ngh
29 July 2016 at 16:44”
Indeed, the Brussels airport bombings earlier this year targeted the check-in area outside security.
@John B
But if you don’t check bags at every station entrance it somewhat undermines the purpose of checking at all. Would be bombers would only have to identify a station where bags were not checked – very easy if it’s fixed and not difficult if it varies. The security chain is only ever as secure as its weakest link.
@quinlet – as the IRA were wont to say “You have to get lucky every time; we have to get lucky only once”
@Walthamstow Writer
China – yes, the Shenzen Metro (also operated by the Hong Kong MTR) has security checks at stations, and yes it does cause long queues.
@PoP My understanding is that the primary reason for the Chadwell Heath turnback is that it is the only way to path ECS moves from Ilford in the evening peak with the enhanced Crossrail service. Running them down road to Chadwell Heath into the siding and back out again on to the up results in less confliction due to slow speed of the existing turnouts and spreads the departures out of both ends of the depot. The ability to turn back service trains there is an added bonus.
@Anon 5 To provide platforms long enough in Liverpool Street for the full length class 345s platform 18 will be sacrificed and 16 and 17 will be lengthened out into the throat. Hopefully they will be long enough to take 12 x 20m too so providing maximum flexibility for AGA services too.
My short verdict: not greatly impressed. As someone who works in the industry I’ve always enjoyed rail travel but I’m finding with each new train it becomes more of a trial to be endured. I remember the networker fleet being introduced to the Thames Valley and they were a great step forward, working heating and air con, better information, bright clean interiors. These will be an improvement for just one reason: people can get on them.
Several commenters above have said that they’re utilitarian and that’s all we need. I don’t buy that, why should we not try to make each journey as pleasant as can be in the circumstances. Good design seems to have died with Network South East, this can be seen with everything from indicator boards to platform surfaces. Witness the death of uplifting touches such as the Eddie Pond murals on trains or pleasantly designed station light fittings.
My take:
With apologies for bringing the subject up again but 2+1 seating is a good compromise and takes up no more space than benches when the space for legs is taken into account. But more than that cushions should be well padded and comfortable and there should be enough leg room for a normal sized human being. Charging sockets, even if only USB, are becoming standard fit on buses so why not trains? As has been said a few times above we should be thinking 10-15 years ahead.
Although we haven’t seen the final moquette the whole train looks very grey inside. Rumour has it that Ann Gloag insisted on the red seen on South West Trains against the advice of designers who wanted drabber colours that hide dirt better. Wouldn’t it be good to see more colour used in conjunction with some clever LED lighting to make a bright welcoming interior.
Above window luggage racks are well used on many trains. The only reason I can see that they’ve been excluded is to make room for advertising. How about forgoing that little bit of revenue in favour of a bit more comfort? I suspect a limited number of vertical racks may also make sense given the Heathrow market.
The lack of toilets has been controversial but on balance I think it’s the right decision. But lets use those savings to make sure stations have adequate provision which is clean and well maintained. I think the young, able bodied people specifying these things forget that lack of toilets can be a real barrier to the elderly and those with medical conditions. This problem will only get worse with an ageing population.
NSE tried to combat falling passenger numbers by making the product more attractive, albeit on a limited budget. I think the explosion in passenger numbers in recent years had brought with it a certain arrogance in the rail industry that ambience and comfort no longer matter. Purely from a commercial point of view commuters may have to put up with what they’re given but off peak travellers generally have a choice. Although central London will always be the main market these trains should also provide a pleasant alternative to bus and car for those travelling on local journeys outside the centre.
And to prove it is possible take a look over the channel at Paris’s transilien: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Interieur_Transilien_Z_50000.jpg
Just as an aside several comments have pointed out that most trains won’t make it past Paddington. I would suggest that the potential for development has been vastly underestimated to the west. Housing growth has been restricted in the past by a relatively poor service going to an obscurely located terminal, once those restrictions are lifted the local service will quickly be seen as inadequate.
Well stated, Starlight!
Excellent posting from Starlight. Agree with everything said.
Starlight 01:59
” there should be enough leg room for a normal sized human being. ”
What is a normal human being? I suffer severely from lack of legroom on current rolling stock being 6ft4in with long legs. Average height is increasing but seat pitch is not. I usually head for the disabled priority seats on the basis that my height is a disability as far as train designers are concerned. Rant over!
Starlight,
Just as an aside several comments have pointed out that most trains won’t make it past Paddington.
That’s because there are no train paths for them! It doesn’t matter how many housing developments there are, if you can’t find the train paths you can’t run the trains. They would probably run those trains now if they could. A single booked freight train (whether it runs or not) from Acton Yard takes up multiple passenger train paths.
Re Pedantic,
And the Acton Diveunder will help a little with that with that from the December timetable change as will elimination of DMUs longer term.
2tph extra could run on the reliefs than currently do but there isn’t any stock till the EMUs arrive…
EMU and freight work far better together then DMU and freight too.
But a significant number will never be able to go beyond OOC unless there is major investment on the GWML hence the WCML / Chiltern CR proposals.
The easy capacity solution for GW Crossrail is therefore lengthening out to 11car rather than running extra services.
@ Starlight – I am not sure we are able to make a fully fair comparison between the two train designs. The 345s are not finished yet, the lighting didn’t look complete and the photos were taken inside a train inside a shed. If we are going to make a comparison about colours and lighting let’s wait to see the end product in daylight. You may well reach exactly the same conclusions then as now but I feel it will be a bit fairer.
I haven’t travelled on those newish Transilien trains in Paris. However I have used those suburban lines and the RER and the trains aren’t / weren’t wonderful. You can have all the jazzy moquette seats you like but if they’re dirty and graffitied and 50% of the train is locked out of use in the evenings due to anti social behaviour then I’d rather have a clean, well used and well maintained train in London even if the seats are a bit uncomfortable and not to every enthusiast’s taste. I have also looked at the Bombardier technical spec for the Z50000 trains – they are very wide which is no doubt facilitated by the more generous loading guage in France. That allows the more generous seating layout but even then there are not many 2+3 seats on those trains.
While I don’t dispute the need, as you state, for good toilet facilities this has been raised by the Assembly T’port Cttee *every* single time Crossrail’s Chairman and CEO have sat in front of them. Every time we get the same answer – stations, including the new ones, will have toilet facilities for passengers. Therefore the trains don’t need them and won’t get them. I also suspect it reduces the risk of damage to trains and other anti social behaviour.
I do wonder if the omission of luggage racks is down to concerns over the impact passengers with luggage may have on internal passenger flows if they spend excessive time stowing and er, destowing(?) their belongings, blocking other passengers in the process and thus potentially increasing dwell times.
Typing this on a Voyager from Edinburgh to Glasgow. Never been on one before and hope to never have to again. The seat pitch makes even a 455 seem spacious.
I’m only on it for an hour, but this train started at Truro, nearly 12 hours ago.
When will designers of long distance trains make their seats as comfortable as those in their main competirion- the motor car?
I remarked on seeing the 707 mock-up that there was only one comfortable seat- the one with a view ahead. Time was when drivers were expected to stand!
@ Walthamstow Writer
I hope I am proved wrong, although initial impressions aren’t favourable, and despite my reservations I can’t wait for my first experience of crossrail.
I think it’s very unfair to characterise the argument about design as one of enthusiasts vs the general public. As Timbeau says the private car is still the main competition, even for many flows with London and the south east. I can’t imagine that Ford dismiss the idea of making seating comfortable or improving interior design in the belief that only motoring enthusiasts will care. Ian Walmsley covered the subject of hard seats in Modern Railways and stated that the main driver is cost. For one recent multiple unit a more comfortable option was in the region of £2 extra per seat base, something the operator wasn’t prepared to fund.
Agreed that we’re probably much better than the French at maintenance, but it shouldn’t be an either/or question, why not steal the good bits! It is something I’ve got a bit of passion for but that’s because I’d like to see a railway that people actively choose to travel on rather than it simply being a least worst option. The way I see it the cost of attractive design is fairly minimal if incorporated in a project from the beginning but very expensive to change afterwards. I won’t bore everyone with the many examples of poorly designed infrastructure I can think of over the last 10-20 years….
As I said I think the toilets are probably the right decision, lets just hope the station facilities are up to scratch. After all it should in theory be much cheaper to maintain.
Regarding services west of Paddington I don’t dispute the capacity issues. It’s more that most members of the public I’ve spoken to seem to be expecting a higher frequency almost tube style service. I believe there’s going to be a more than a bit of disappointment when in reality it’s only broadly the same service as now. Add in the amount of potential development being sold on that image of a tube style service and I think the various other WCML/Chiltern proposals will become more pressing than many people think. Anyway that’s going way off topic so mods feel free to snip!
@Starlight: I remember the networker fleet being introduced to the Thames Valley and they were a great step forward, working heating and air con
That’s not my recollection of the Networkers to Oxford – they had air conditioning, but it didn’t work on hot days. Like most Networkers they also had/have terrible 3+2 seating that was too narrow for three people to sit comfortably in a row. Network SouthEast’s design was far from perfect and I would bet money that people complained about the new trains when they were introduced.
More generally, seating is an extremely subjective subject that seems to be prone to people assuming that their personal preference is universal.
An antidote to this is to observe how people actually behave when on trains, and see, for example, that many people will stand even when there are free seats, and then think about what kind of seats people avoid using.
@IanJ – the main driver for the retention of 3+2 seating was the way in which the overcrowding definition forced operators to maximise the number of seats (hence, for example, those wretched seats which block the inter-carriage gangways on the 450s). Left to their own devices,operators would greatly have preferred more leeway (literally!).
@ Starlight – on some flows I’d agree that the car is the competitor. However for a great many others into and within Greater London it no longer is. Realistically who drives to Moorgate or Tottenham Court Road for work or leisure purposes and then pays the congestion charge and huge parking costs? People simply don’t.
I framed the “argument” in the way I did largely because the only people who get aerated about train designs are enthusiasts. I’ve never heard such vociferous views from “normals”. I also happen to think it’s completely unrealistic for people to expect to always get a seat on any train or tube for commuting trips. For some unknown reason people cling to this expectation and it is perpetuated by the media. Goodness knows why given the levels of peak crowding that have existed in London for decades. Just look at old Thames News clips from the 80s and see how packed the tube and BR services were. OK demand has gone up considerably and the peak has spread and off peak demand is much higher but that’s all to the good in terms of efficiently moving people around the City. Interestingly I’d expect enthusiasts to also be ranting about things like bright colours and “art” being used inside trains. I was reading a “discussion” (ahem) about the new trains due as part of the Greater Anglia franchise. Although we have virtually no details about the trains or their interiors they are apparently already a disaster, “hopeless”, “inappropriate” and won’t be used by the passengers on the line. Dearie me.
On your point about seat quality then it’s not really down to the operator is it? It’s really down to the DfT who set out their requirements that have to be met plus whatever weight constraints Network Rail have for the infrastructure. The DfT are more and more prescriptive these days and despite the rhetoric about “looking after the passengers” it’s all about big premium payments / minimal subsidy. We are having a “blip” at the moment because of the actual / political need to replace old or poor quality rolling stock but I don’t see that approach lasting for much longer. With TfL then clearly there is more direct control exercised there and there is obviously a policy to have certain rolling stock layouts and certain seat designs. Being a “fat lump” I don’t really like the narrowness of new tube and Overground seats and I loathe the rock hard arm rest design. I told the former Vic Line GM that the seats on the 09 stock *mock up* at Euston (remember that?) were hard and too thin. My comments were ignored and yet I heard later that one of his regrets about the design was the seats as they are now very uncomfortable as usage has compressed the seat cushions to the thinness of cardboard. So on a personal level I can see your point and partly agree but I don’t think my personal seating preferences or those of enthusiasts carry enough weight to bring about different seat or internal layout designs. I also don’t think, for commuter or urban travel, that seat comfort is such a massive issue for passengers. Other factors regularly come much higher in their list of satisfaction criteria.
@IanJ 06.15 “An antidote to this is to observe how people actually behave when on trains, and see, for example, that many people will stand even when there are free seats, and then think about what kind of seats people avoid using.”
In my experience – clearly limited but over many years – is that people look the person they will be sitting next to up and down before making a decision of whether to be squashed next them for 20 minutes. The comfort of the seat is secondary! Make what you will of their choices….
@WW
“I also don’t think, for commuter or urban travel, that seat comfort is such a massive issue for passengers.”
For commuters, no. For optional (“leisure”) travel it can be. (People who decide not to travel at all are as much lost revenue as those who opt to use their cars)
As for longer-distance travel, (such as my Voyager), I’d put up with those conditions – for a couple of hours – on a plane. But for ten hours, for a journey where I could use my car instead? No thank you.
Branson said he wanted to make his trains more like airliners. Unfortunately, he succeeded.
@Timbeau: Richard Branson travels first class, not cattle class…
I’ve been on EMT Voyagers in First and it’s OK, the rumbling of the engines is about the worst of it… Second, I will agree is not very roomy…
@Souther Heights
EMT runs Meridians (class 222) not Voyagers (classes 220, 221). The oily bits underneath are the same, I believe, but having never been on one I don’t know how the passenger environment compares.
The Voyagers were commissioned for Cross Country when it was part of Brandon’s empire.
@ Timbeau
The interiors of Meridians and Voyagers are virtually indistinguishable, apart from the colour palettes and eau de toilette “fragrance” that seems to permeate throughout the latter. I’ve never understood why this seems to be an issue with one and not the other, but it’s not a subject for further discussion here.
THC
@THC: I can’t difference on the outside either! As far as EMT are concerned I see either “HST” or “Voyager” (I have one in N, must give it a run again sometime).
I fully agree with the eau de toilette point….
N scale eau de toilette must be something of a first… [Sorry, frivolity over for today].
So what would be required in terms of infrastructure etc. before more CR trains could be run west of Paddington (assuming proposals to run services via the Chiltern Main Line or WCML don’t get of the ground)?
[Apologies if this has already been covered on a different thread].
Anonymously: I don’t think extra infrastructure requirements have been explicitly spelled out in these pages, though there have certainly been mentions from time to time of some of the constraints. Very simply, there are not enough tracks.
A full answer might perhaps require a series of articles, such is still proceeding in respect of Brighton. There is no immediate prospect of that. But there may be someone here sufficiently knowledgeable to be able to give some indication of some feasible interventions.
@ O775John – you are absolutely correct about the sub conscious but instantaneous assessment of “personal space intrusion” people make. Being “rather portly” people take an instant dislike to sitting beside me because I’m wider than average and they clearly judge their personal space will be invaded if they sat beside me. I could be very offended but if you challenged someone about it they’d not know they’d make the judgement they clearly had. We all do it. It gets more interesting in different parts of the world where the concept of “acceptable” personal space is very different. Hence Europeans feeling uneasy when travelling in crowded SE Asian cities or even just waiting in a crowd or a queue.
Proxemics is a fascinating subject!
But the design of the public transport vehicles takes no account (and cannot effectively do so) of such things as personal space. But as soon as a seat is available all sorts of factors come into play subconsciously.
Your personal space is invaded if someone comes to sit beside you and gets quite close but that is as a result of the narrowness of the seat and so not your problem as unless we all had the same body dimensions it was bound to occur due to the “bad” design of the seat taking no account of real humans!
So…maybe no seating in some carriages but benches/perches or similar and a slightly more generous size of seats in others would be preferable (despite the cattle truck” wails from the tabloid press) and then short distance travellers could choose a “comfortable stand” and perhaps those unpopular middle seats in 3+2 carriages could be done away with and a more effective use of floor area result.
I realise there are practical and legal standards /limits to this but there is a limitation on expansion in both track and train size so interior design is about the only variable left!
Standing in a well-designed carriage made for that purpose has surely got to be better than standing in the aisle of, for example, a packed HST from Paddington to Charlbury with dwell times ridiculously extended due to the near-impossibility of getting past one’s fellow travellers!
@0775John:people look the person they will be sitting next to up and down before making a decision of whether to be squashed next them for 20 minutes
I think this is very true for relatively full vehicles, but my observation is that once a train carriage gets more than about 80% fully-seated then a proportion of passengers will start choosing to stand rather than sit even for journeys of about 20 minutes. Maybe the standees are just very picky about seat-mates?
the design of the public transport vehicles takes no account (and cannot effectively do so) of such things as personal space
I’m not sure that that is always the case. For example, door widths have to take into account not just how many people can physically fit through at once, but also the way that people will tend to allow a certain amount of personal space around each other while walking. If the door is too narrow then in practice you will only get a single file instead of double file through them and dwell times will be longer.
I do agree though that once you get past a certain level of crowding (especially in smaller vehicles like tube trains) then all considerations of personal space disappear. People also adapt to the circumstances – eg. people in longitudinal seats will bend their legs underneath them rather than stick them out if there are people standing in the middle of the carriage – which is why I find claims that transverse seating takes up as little space as longitudinal implausible – the leg-space freed up isn’t available for use in transverse seated vehicles.
proxemics – the study of the amount of personal space that people feel it necessary to set between themselves and others.
timbeau
Branson said he wanted to make his trains more like airliners. Unfortunately, he succeeded. this delusion still persists, especially amongst politicians who still appear to err, “think” that flying is cool/sexy/desireable, great Ghu knows why this is so.
Eurostar also seem to suffer from the same delusion.
Anon/Malcolm
6 tracks out to at least Airport/Stockley Junction is what’s needed.
Expensive – even more so, when you consider the problems of getting between Ealing Broadway & W Ealing with an extra pair ….
@Greg
“this delusion still persists, especially amongst politicians who still appear to err, “think” that flying is cool/sexy/desirable”
The flying ‘brand’ does imply very quick (ie ‘sexy’ travel), but the flip side is quite cramped seating for most flyers, which most people don’t think about until they are in the aeroplane. Of course train businesses are keen to exploit the sexy ‘fast’ angle of flying, with their understanding that this also allows them to cram more people in per carriage, with the potential upsell that paying extra for first class more roomy travel. All very deliberately thought out.
@long branch mike
It’s not just the crammed in seats that makes flying unattractive, it’s also the whole airport experience with lengthy check-in times and lengthy security checks. The airports wink at this because the long waits give a captive market for the shops, and as we see, airports are becoming more and more shopping centres with aeroplanes attached. Eurostar has managed to achieve much the same but without the shops.
@quinlet and others – what puzzles me is why airlines – and especially Branson – “don’t get it”. I dare say (I’m not old enough to have experienced it) that air travel in the ’50s was glamorous – fly your car over to Le Touquet for 6gns and all that – but it is these days a major turn off. About as attractive as using a motorway service station toilet – very similar, in fact.
Graham H…..nah…..motorway toilets are positively luxurious compared with those on a plane!
@quinlet
“Eurostar has managed to achieve much the same but without the shops.”
Have you been to St Pancras recently?
“especially amongst politicians who still appear to err, “think” that flying is cool/sexy/desireable”
They probably go business class, and get whisked past all the customs, security and passport control.
Interesting to see Railway Magazine had a report by someone travelling from Aberdeen to Penzance on a Voyager recently. However, his experience was not typical for the normal passenger, as he went First Class – which does look quite pleasant, it has to be said. If he had been in steerage it is unlikely he could have extracted himself from the seat after spending all day in it.
@Ian J
In the dim and dusty recesses of my recollection, slam door non corridor open stock (eg class 305) had space for a row of standees between each pair of facing transverse rows of seats. There had to be enough room so people could get to the doors without climbing over those seated.
The seats weren’t padded with concrete, either.
@quinlet – 12 August 2016 at 14:50
. . . airports are becoming more and more shopping centres with aeroplanes attached. Eurostar has managed to achieve much the same but without the shops.
See this
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/st-pancras-international-was-londons-valentine-to-europe/2016/08/05/0c6192ea-42f4-11e6-bc99-7d269f8719b1_story.html
highlighted by Ian Visits today.
@Nameless….I’m just about old enough to remember travelling in those compartmented non-corridor stock when they were in use on the Orpington to London slow trains (pre-1995). Even at rush hour, there were never any people who stood in those compartments that I can remember (even if there was just enough floor space, there was barely anything to hold onto!). Seats were more comfortable, but the difference isn’t as great as everyone seems to remember (they were just springier, which was just as well considering the train suspension!). I was quite frankly glad to see the back of those old, worn out and potentially dangerous (lean-open windows, no central locking, poorer crash-worthiness etc.) slam-door stock.
@Ian J….That matches up with my recent experience when I boarded a train at London Bridge which my brother and sister-in-law were already on from Cannon Street around 19.30. Although there were plenty of seats (mostly middle ones in 3×2 formation), both of them amongst many others were standing. Their reason? They wanted two adjacent seats so they could sit next to each other (awww, young love ?).
@Malcolm/GT…..Six tracks? Really? Are there really that many stopping trains on the relief lines between Paddington and Airport Junction to require that many tracks (especially since the vast majority of those services will be absorbed into Crossrail)? No other main line running out of London with slow commuter services has more than four tracks, AFAIK.
And if the answer to that question is ‘the freight trains’, then why can’t these be diverted onto a parallel line with spare capacity (the Chiltern Main Line via the NNML chord?) to make room for more commuter trains?
Here’s an idea….would carriages with *extra* wide sliding doors (each door the width of a D-stock door, so a pair of double doors would be twice this width) with expanded circulation space next to these doors for standing passengers help? Hopefully with appropriate floor/platform markings and passenger education, these would be wide enough to allow simultaneous boarding and alighting, reducing dwell times.
This of course would result in less seating, but since there would be fewer passengers standing in the seating areas (with most standing near the doors), then you could at least retain some longitudinal seating in a 2×2 arrangement.
And FWIW, luggage racks seem to be well used (including by yours truly!) on all of the mainline rail services I’ve used that have them, so I would try to retain them, if at all possible. Toilets though can be dispensed with on short-distance stopping commuter trains as long as station ones can be provided….they’re more trouble than they’re worth (take up valuable space, prone to vandalism and misuse, often Out of Order etc.).
@ Anonymously
Suggest reading the latest Chilterns route utilisation strategy before diverting extra services (especially freight) on to it, you might not find the capacity you’re hoping for.
Oh & in regards to a 6 track main line out of London, cough, WCML, cough!
cough, Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace, cough!
I am fairly sure there are others, depending on your definition of a “main line out of London” and other pernickety details.
But even if Paddington to Airport Junction were the first one to be proposed, so what? There always has to be a first time.
Think you could make an argument that Jubilee/Met/Chiltern is in effect a 6 track railway as far as Wembley.
@Anonymously
I was talking about open, ie non compartment, stock with luggage racks and A60 style Widney spring straps as well as seat-end handles to hang onto. These were often packed by the time you got near Seven Sisters. They had significantly better standee facilities compared to the replacement 315’s.
So far as windows were concerned, those on NLL EMU’s and others were barred.
I still think that much of the all steel slam door mk2 based stock was prematurely retired.
Finally, I beg to differ on seat comfort. Seats fitted to many NR and TfL types of stock have been dreadful. The rot started with the original 313 seats. Thinking about it, comparing the cushioning to concrete is a bit generous. I’ll stop here.
As for not standing between the transverse seats, I distinctly recall doing just that from years of commuting from Lewisham in pre-DLR days on 405s or similar – with luggage racks to hold onto. Getting off wasn’t a problem, because the next stop was invariably London Bridge. It was a case of not getting on if you could see that you wouldn’t be able squeeze in enough to be able slam the door on yourself. I often went in the guard/parcel compartment behind the cab. I don’t think people were supposed to, but one lucky person would have the seat in the far corner. On a bad day, by Lewisham you could have over 20 people crammed in there, with nothing much to hold onto. Before the old stock went, I already had considerable nostalgia for the chance to sit on the deep springy seats with the distinctly musty aroma. Comparing the overall travel experience between now and then, however, I would choose now, harder seats or not. (I went on a D today, and I did wonder whether it would be the last time I ever sit next to the window facing forward on the Underground. The glimpses through open back windows lining the Barons Court canyon are a source of fascination)
@timbeau, John UK
Of course I’m aware of the plethora of shops at St Pancras. However, the key point, as far as Eurostar is concerned, is that they are nearly all before you get to check-in and security control. Once you are beyond there, there is not very much during the waiting period. Recently Eurostar have been advising passengers to check in an hour before departure (or at least they did on my last two trips to Bruxelles) and this is sheer purgatory either with crowds at St Pancras or with the choice of WHSmith or Cafe Nero as the only offerings at Ebbsfleet. Ashford has two cafes and a bit bigger waiting area but nothing to take the edge off a somewhat needless enforced wait of nearly an hour.
I’d be less grumpy about the lack of toilets on trains if station toilets were free. Will they be free on the Crossrail route?
You don’t get near the theoretical standing density on trains as people just won’t move down the aisles, and you don’t get optimal boarding times because people don’t stand back to let others off. Without luggage space people put bags on seats and seem most offended when I ask to sit down. I’m sure you could get much better performance if you could beat good manners into commuters.
I know I’m only being pedantic here but Starlight mentions that the Jubilee/Met/Chiltern line is 6 tracks as far as Wembley. In actual fact the 6 tracks go as far as Harrow while at Wembley there are EIGHT! (Nine if you include the Jubilee reverser.)
Various on compartment (or even “open”) seating stock.
I can well remember using Quint-Arts on the Chingford branch ….
But the seats were DEEP – & the ride wasn’t too bad – Gresley articulated bogies, of course (!)
@Nameless…I’m not disagreeing with you re. seats. I just don’t think the difference in ‘comfort’ (which is fairly subjective from person to person) is so great as to make a big nostalgic fuss about it. I do find though that legroom (along with provision of table seating in standard class) has got significantly worse, even in refurbished train sets (*cough* GWR HSTs *cough*), in an effort to squeeze in as many seats as possible. Who says InterCity train travel post-privatisation hasn’t become more airline-like? ?
@NickBXN…I’d completely forgotten about that musty smell! Yes, one could hold onto the luggage racks, I suppose (assuming you’re tall enough and your arms are long enough), but it probably wasn’t very pleasant for the person sitting underneath you. Also, don’t the S8 on the Met have some longitudinal seating?
@Snowy/Malcolm…..I stand corrected! In my defence, Finsbury Park to Alexandra Palace was only recently six-tracked, and I’ve always thought of the Watford DC tracks as a ‘Tube’ line (although strictly speaking I realise they aren’t). I’m still curious though as to what exactly is needed to run more CR trains west of Paddington, and why more tracks is the most optimal solution.
Anonymously
Technically, Ally Pally Finsbury Park was re-6-tracked )for passenger use), &, of course, KGX FPK was also 6-tracked until the period of cuts & downsizing in the 1970’s-80’s period ….
@Anonymously
The problem is not nostalgia. It’s sciatica. These seats actually hurt.
As for FP to AP, what about the goods lines. I’m sure limited stop Hertfords used these in the late 70’s.
FP to AP (then Wood Green) in the 60s and earlier: There were six passenger tracks and two goods tracks as I recall. Passenger use of the goods tracks sounds unlikely to me. As stated above, the “slow number 2” tracks were removed (subject to depot access complications) and recently re-instated.
As for Paddington, no-one here has done a proper Pedantic-style analysis of bottlenecks, and I don’t suppose 6-tracking is the only possible infrastructure intervention. And as Greg says, it would be somewhere in the “very expensive” to “politically impossible” range.
Comparison of one terminal to another is complicated by whether you include parallel (co-sited or nearby) underground tracks, or indeed parallel NR tracks (e.g. the Hertford Loop). Best to address each overloaded route on its own merits, I reckon.
Indeed Croydon has 6 or more tracks to central London, of course – the terminal is irrelevant, as Lady Bracknell did not say.
@Anonymously.
Even on the Orpington route, standing room only conditions existed in compartment stock days. Indeed, as a commuter from Herne Hill, actually getting on at all was sometimes enough of an achievement.
@nameless
“Much of the Mark 2 based all steel rolling stock was prematurely retired”
Only two classes, 310 & 312, were of Mark 2 monocoque construction. The 310s dated from the 1960s, built for the Euston- Birmingham electrification, so were well over thirty years old when withdrawn. The 312s were about ten years younger, having been built for the GM scheme (and some expansion on the GE and in Birmingham)
For completeness, one might include class 488, the original Gatwick Express trailer sets, which were Mark 2 loco hauled carriages rewired to work as cabless EP fitted trailer sets.
Much as I miss the old slam-door stock,I seem to recall that many had,in their construction,large amounts of asbestos and so were scrapped for this reason,as refurbishment for the limited time left was uneconomic.
On a related note,I have in my possession a seat-squab from a 4SUB in Trojan moquette…anyone wishing to relive the authentic “musty aroma” experience can,on application…
The voluntary standee problem is fairly easily explained. There are always some passengers who try to deter anyone from sitting next to them by either sitting in the aisle seat or by placing ‘personal items’ on the adjacent seat (or indeed both). A proportion of other train users are not willing to get into a (slightly) confrontational situation in order to sit down. I saw these tactics way back in the 90s travelling from Reading to Paddington on HSTs. I soon realised that if was ever to sit down, I would need to metaphorically develop sharp elbows. In the end I was deliberately targeting those who had put up the most difficult barriers! I have now mellowed, but the sharp elbows are still needed far too often.
Longitudinal seats solve this problem almost entirely. However, I was on a Victoria Line train recently where one passenger was spreading himself out so much that no-one used the seats to each side and no-one could use the one opposite either!
Hard seats on the new Victoria Line stock are not as a result of wear. They existed from the start! Being used to the bounce (and resulting dust clouds) of Bakerloo seats, I very nearly damaged my spine by dropping down too fast on to the board-like seats on the new trains.
Those who complain about legroom should try some buses! There is just not physical room for my upper legs to fit into many of those.
Lol….whoever thought that passenger train seating could be the setting for some rather extreme passive-aggressiveness!
@timbeau…..I’m not saying that standing-only conditions never existed in slam-door compartments. I just don’t recall ever seeing it in the compartments I travelled in as a child (a proportion of those journeys were though in the company of schoolfriends, which was usually enough to put off even the hardiest of passengers….on those rare occasions where an adult joined us to sit in those compartments, you could cut the atmosphere with a knife!).
@Anonymously – standing in compartment stock certainly occurred down here in SWTland when the service collapsed – particularly when the corridor side of the car was away from the platform (and the corridor was full anyway). Another trick was, in non-corridor stock, where people tended to distribute themselves five-a-side, for latecomers to insist on everyone budging up to make room for a sixth…
@Anonymously – I can confirm that for 7 years of school commuting from Bromley South to West Dulwich, standing was pretty common in the compartment slam door stock of the day. The return journey around 4 – 4:30 was considerably less crowded as might be expected.
@Paying Guest – oddly, I never recall the T stock on the Met being filled with standees but then I didn’t often travel during the peaks in the ’50s.
@Grham H
“Another trick was, in non-corridor stock, where people tended to distribute themselves five-a-side, for latecomers to insist on everyone budging up to make room for a sixth…”
Bulleid stock was officially six a side (as evidenced by it being 3+2 in open stock with an aisle), with up to 132 in the 11-compartment “Queen of Sheba” stock. Mind you, in those, passengers’ knees were almost touching each other – if not actually meshed – making standing, or even getting in and out, nigh impossible. After the first ten were built, the spacing was increased to what became the standard 10-compartment arrangement.
The famous “musty aroma”, wasn’t due to the weather, cigarette smoke and inadequate heating by any chance? 🙂
As to West of Paddington capacity issues. The problem is freight use, combined with stopping trains, which leads to such low frequencies on the slow lines.
An interim solution is the creation of a fifth track between Langley and Hayes. This is achieved from linking up various old freight sidings. The extra paths this would create between Acton freight and Slough, should be worth a few extra trains an hour, combined with more services going via Heathrow and the Western Link. But while I’ve seen a few simple proposed track diagrams, I have no idea as to the cost or how many actual paths it would be worth.
I feel this may be the only additional investment until at least the 2030’s. The Great Western will have only just been subject to a massive rebuilding and electrification and they will expect the extra capacity to last a while (ha ha).
If growth continues, then pressure will be on for some form of High speed network for the South West. Much more likely to be lots of medium size projects. Such as 4 tracking between Didcot and Oxford and Didcot to Swindon. A possible bypass for Swindon. Various high speed bypasses to speed up travel in the SW.
At the London end once no alternative is available, then it would make sense for a new high speed bypass line, to avoid the expense of dealing with existing track and stations.
So a tunnel from Old Oak to at least Slough could be viable and allow for an intensive metro service from at least West Drayton and the airport. But any big solution is at least 20 years away.
@Rational Plan
The West and South Wales might be a prospect for HSn (where n is some value greater than 3), but the south west has no centres of population large enough to get any return on the investment. Even electrification to Exeter, by either route, seems not to be in anyone’s plans. Indeed, simply keeping Cornwall and western Devon connected to the rest of the network at all in the face of the Dawlish problem (not you, Graham H!) will be the priority.
But why a bypass for Swindon? Brunel’s alignment predates Swindon (which only grew up as a town after the Gloucester branch was built) and there are already through lines for non-stoppers.
If the will and the money were available, the single most cost-effective improvement that could be made to the former GWR network is a second Severn crossing (not necessarily a tunnel – a line across a barrage, if one were to be built, would be easier to build and to operate)
Can I now nudge the discussion away from solving problems all over the West Country. Even if done the approved way round (first identify the problem, then look for solutions), it is not very London-related. The reverse process, of looking for problems to which a given solution can be fitted, is even more unwanted.
(I’m not accusing any recent commentator of actually doing this, just identifying a tendency, which should be striven-against please).
@Southern Heights – That musty aroma was far more to do with the windows being left open (or dropping down) when the trains went through the wash, thus soaking the moquette, which in turn became somewhat mildewy.
@Graham Feakins…..Yuck!
@rational plan…..OK, so where are most of these freight trains originating from and heading to via the GWML slow lines? And what would be the best way of moving away as many of these as possible onto other lines?
And why should stopping trains be a problem if there are no skip-stop services using those lines?
I should say, some semi fasts also use the slows for part of their journeys, even if they are not stopping at many stations.
I’d read that a Swindon Bypass was an option if they four tracked as far as the Bristol Parkway.
Anonymously,
Stone from the Somerset quarries. Lots from Brentford and Colnbrook. Theale is another favourite. There is very little that can be diverted away and there is lots. Pick up Acton Main Line on Open Train Times for a few hours in the middle of the day.
Each way, at least one an hour, sometimes two, plus trains up/down the ramp to/from the WLL
Temptation for sarcastic quip about the trains back in the day ever getting to the wash.
@Fandroid 10:16 – last week I trod on a guy’s bare foot when boarding a Victoria line train – he was doing the ‘man spread’ in an end seat, wearing flip-flops, with his foot extended past the draught screen.
Interesting you mention the Bakerloo bounce: Being a light person I sometimes got near-whiplash on 67 stock when someone would sit heavily on the seat adjacent. I found it so uncomfortable and annoying that I was initially concerned when I saw that the replacement stock also employed double seats, reversing the trend to singles on the 95/96s. It brings back an occasion in the early 90’s when I hosted a visitor from Munich , where the U-Bahn’s smooth ride could let you play a decent game of snooker, should one have a table handy. She was in near hysterical laughter at the sight of people bouncing up and down in unison on such tiny seats, with the old pre-refurb hand grips wobbling about overhead. Sorry to risk moderators saying “that’s enough nostalgia – ed” but I just wanted to underline how much things have come along and I have some degree of trust that Bombardier and TfL ‘mean business’ with the Aventra and won’t do worse.
On transverse seats in facing bays, I do find it difficult when stretching legs and shifting position of feet involve trying not to disturb the person opposite. Unless I’m in a group, I actually prefer ‘airline’, hence a mix rather than all one or the other should be on offer. After all, a lightly loaded carriage with a table to yourself can’t be bettered.
It will be interesting in 2018, when we can directly compare the relative merits of the contrasting designs of Thameslink and Crossrail trains under the pressures of full operation – against each other, as well as ‘before and after’. Cue some ‘I told you so’s etc.
@ Graham H and others, maximum I experienced on the LTS at times of disruption, (during the Misery Line days), was 24 in a single compartment, 6 a side sitting and 12 squeezed in standing, cosy wasn’t the word, luckily on most occasions the crush eased by Barking!
Blimey!
@NickBxn -My 1844 Railway Travellers Handbook has pages of useful phrases for travellers including “Shall we endeavour to compose our legs”. (How it must have hurt the more prudish Victorians to use such a suggestive word as “legs”…)
My only gripe with the slam-door trains was the poor ride quality. It’s easy to forget what a difference continuously-welded track can make to a train with rubbish suspension and very springy seats. In the early ’00s, I briefly tried commuting from home in Lewisham to a job in Guildford via a “peaks only” semi-fast service that called at New Cross Gate and ran via Leatherhead and Effingham Junction. The stretch between Guildford and Effingham Jct. still had some jointed track and the ride was like sitting on a galloping horse. My back would be in agony when I arrived at Guildford. I soon went back to changing at Waterloo, preferring the Class 442 “Wessex Electric” trains whenever I timed it right.
As for the GWML: the reason many of south London’s termini get away with fewer tracks on their approaches is simply that there are more of them: the SE&CR could send trains to Victoria, Blackfriars, Cannon Street, and Charing Cross. Even the LB&SCR had both London Bridge and Victoria to play with. The GWML, ECML, etc. only have the one. Furthermore, there isn’t as much freight on the south London routes, though the maze of lines down there adds some flexibility.
The SWML is an interesting comparison: its main line is four tracks and paired by direction rather than the GWML’s paired-by-use (“fast lines + slow lines”) approach. Both have their pros and cons – the SWML had to build lots of expensive flying junctions to avoid conflicts with services to and from branch lines, while the GWML could get away with basic flat junctions to connect with theirs.
If you have a slow train on the GWML’s Up Relief line (the London-bound slow line), and a faster train is catching up with it, then you have to cross the Down Relief (the slow line heading out of London) first to reach the Up Main line and overtake. This means you really don’t want to be doing this while a train heading in the other direction is approaching, which adds a constraint to your timetabling.
As switching lines usually requires slowing down first, and you’re doing it twice here, that means the train then has to accelerate back up again to overtake that freight and it’ll need more time to do so. It then has to repeat the process once it’s sufficiently far ahead of that freight to get back onto the Up Relief line. The diesel trains used on the route aren’t as quick off the mark as their electric counterparts, so this adds even more headaches when drawing up your timetable.
Many GWML stations also don’t serve the Main (fast) Line so you have to get back onto the Slows to stop at the next station. And that example takes no account of freight, which has to join and leave the main line on whatever side its branch is. Sometimes, that’s on the fast side, sometimes the slow.
That headache is now a migraine.
We’ve just seen a major rebuild at Reading to provide more flexibility not only for passenger services, but also for freight flows.
Express trains on the GWML are already about as long as they can realistically get, so the main issue for them is keeping the slows out of their way. Many stopping services tend to be relatively short by today’s standards, so there’s certainly scope for capacity enhancement there simply by lengthening trains and, if necessary, platforms too.
Realistically, I don’t think flying junctions are going to be possible given the land-take needed for them and the associated costs. Adding an extra pair of tracks for a long stretch therefore makes sense as there are various tricks that can be used to keep the costs down.
@NickBxn…..Your German friend would have *loved* the pre-1977 Glasgow Subway ?.
@Purley Dweller…..Wow, that’s far more than I thought! Any chance that some of these could be routed on the line at quieter times (nights, early AM, late PM), to create space for more passenger trains during the day?
Anomnibus comments above: “The diesel trains used on the [GWML]route aren’t as quick off the mark as their electric counterparts, so this adds even more headaches when drawing up your timetable.”
I agree and as I observe, diesel trains over here are generally not as swift and as able of foot as their Continental counterparts. See e.g. here for a cab view last year of an Abellio diesel unit in Germany, which would easily match any electric unit on the track traversed:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OeWdvWZI7uM
Three minutes in should do (but I shan’t recommend stopping there!), if only also to behold the speed negotiated over the crossover just after departing the station, which would likely give NR’s track folk kittens over here. Should one skip/play further in, you will also witness the smart braking for stations and repeated setting off acceleration, plus the speed permitted through curves, almost unseen on many parts of NR. I have long questioned why that should be (I have answers but none terribly satisfying).
@Greg T: KGX FPK was also 6-tracked until the period of cuts & downsizing in the 1970’s-80’s period
I’m not sure that is completely fair – in effect at the time of electrification two tracks were added from Finsbury Park to Moorgate via Old Street, so there was less need for suburban capacity to Kings Cross. And, British Rail proudly proclaimed, taking track out of one of the three Canal Tunnels would free up space for the express rail link to Maplin Airport.
@Fandroid
I preferentially sit on an aisle seat not because I’m selfish and want to stop other people getting a seat, but because I’m not built like Kate Moss and don’t want to spend a journey squashed between the wall and another passenger.
@Graham F
Some years ago I saw a comment in the railway press on the comparative performance of diesel and electric trains at various locations, observing that a VEP could easily outdrag an HST at Reading up to the point where the lines to London diverge (a VEP, of course, had lower gearing, optimised for acceleration rather than high speed). Another comparison was between Hastings diesels and their electric counterparts, where both types had identical electrical equipment – the only difference being where the electricity came from.
I note from the September Modern Railways that the SWT class 707 have in part 2+1 seating as “…with bench seats… you reduce standing capacity with (seated) people’s feet sticking out”.
I also note from that issue the statement that Bombardier says that the “while the 345 is not designed for extension to 11 carriages it could develop a solution to make this possible”. That seems short-sighted but I suspect the drafting of the performance specification will be the cause, rather than some omission by the manufacturer. A pity.
Sorry; I should also have sadi that presumably, it will make a reduction in headway much more likely than a lengthening of trains (with all the station works involved as well) to accomodate future growth.
@RNHJ
Read: If you want to lengthen the trains, it’ll cost you.
Bombardier knew that the option to extend to 250m was required, so I’d guess that they are picking up on some quirk of the tender wording in order to justify charging ‘development costs’ in addition to the cost of additional cars
whenif the trains end up needing to be lengthened.This may already be well known (but it was news to me).
According to Diamond Geezer today, a recent TFL consultation document shows the proposed Crossrail service specification which suggests that none of the Shenfield services will run to Heathrow (and that Abbey Wood services will go no further than West Drayton) except for ‘occasional peak services. I had assumed that there would be a mix of Shenfield and Abbey Wooders running to Heathrow but it seems not.
[From Diamond Geezer’s post:]
Here’s another way of looking at the service pattern, which might help make things clearer. Suppose you’re at one of the central stations, somewhere between Paddington and Whitechapel. Here are the destinations you’ll be able to reach from the eastbound platform. …
[There is plenty of London Reconnections discussion, fairly recent, here and in following comments. Diamond Geezer’s post, as you mention, also provides a fresh perspective on the same information. Malcolm]
My apologies. Gremlins crept in towards the end.
[Fixed, and comment added. Malcolm]
These drawings of the Class 345 obtained via a FOIA request bring up some interesting questions:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/reque…0Rev%203.0.pdf
The first and last cars (the DMS) have all longitudinal seating, with no transverse seats.
The middle car (the TS) has all longitudinal seats due to the wheelchair bays.
When introduced as 7 car sets, obviously 2 of the MS vehicles will be omitted.
That link should be:
https://www.whatdotheyknow.com/request/349041/response/857315/attach/3/Q234%20BMB%20R1%20XMO%20CR001%2050011%20Rev%203.0.pdf
Hope that works for you.
@Westfiver -in terms of the psychology of the thing, perhaps placing the more attractive bay seating at the set ends would help spread the load along the platform?
@Graham H
The busiest stations will be double-ended, so surely the set ends will be the busiest parts of the train?
@ Westfiver – thanks for sharing that info on the interior layouts. At least now the sceptics can see there will be a mix of seating on the trains. They won’t be happy, of course, but at least we can see what is planned.
@timbeau – fair enough.It would be nice to know if that debate has been had.
@WW
Are sceptics ever happy? …
Not sure this is the right place for this comment but I don’t know where would be! I came across LR while following a Google for ‘diver trams’ and it took me to the 2012 article about the underground tram system, which I found fascinating. Other communicators seemed to think a use should be found for the remaining unused sections – I agree and wondered if it could be used by cyclists and pedestrians? Perhaps Sustrans might have some suggestions! I’m not a Londoner but was a keen walker and cyclist before I became disabled and I know that there is nowhere in the land that couldn’t benefit from more pedestrian/cyclist/disabled throughways and access!
@PatriciaC – I doubt that this the right place for your comment – none of the Elizabeth Line’s tunnels is disused and none has ever been part of a tram system. If you meant the former Kingsway tramway subway, nearly all of that has been reused as a road, apart from a short stretch under the top end of Kingsway, and a very short space under the down ramp by Waterloo Bridge. If you meant the former Post Office Railway, the tunnels are of sufficient height to accommodate just a single file of cyclists/pedestrians (so everyone would travel at the pace of the slowest walker) and there are no ramps or other suitable access ways for cyclists – so some very expensive civils and property acquisition would be needed.
As far as I am aware the only tunnel on the (pre 1953) London tram system was the Kingsway subway, which is now largely occupied by a road. (There is a long tunnel on Tramlink but, far from being redundant, the BML 2 lobby have proposed an alternative use for it.
Tram tunnels are quite common outside the UK- Brussels has several.
The first class 345 (345002 so not numerically first before a pedant corrects me) has now arrived at Ilford depot, a couple of days later than planned. There is a video clip on Youtube showing it being hauled at a fair old whack through Berkhamstead early today.
From the side it looks very similar to a networker with the rounded edges to windows especially in the doors.
Will be interesting to stand on Abbey Wood’s platform with a Networker one side and a 345 the other. 25 years difference and side on they’ll look identical.
Very stylish train: commuters will spend a significant portion of their lives in these vehicles which underlines how important good industrial design in commuting is: it is the architecture of people’s day-to-day.
It will transform perceptions of commuting and stations particularly in Eastern London. TfL did a good job cleaning up those older BREL 315 but the Aventra will represent a quantum leap aesthetically.
When I lived and worked in Paris the suburban rail (Francilien) networks was (and in parts still is) very dilapidated: the introduction of the Bombardier Francilien train (which I think has influenced the Aventra) transformed attitudes and perceptions: even a few years on you don’t see these trains vandalized or with graffiti.
Was the specific Aventra design – though partly derived from the Paris equivalent – also shaped by DCA of Warwick?
Ed: I suspect the Networker and 345 will only look identical if the Government and the Mayor are of the same party and so have put them under the same organisation in control.
Given Grayling’s avowedly-Political statement that the cross-party-supported plan to transfer the line to TfL control is not going to happen we might be waiting some time. To the continued detriment of commuters.
Not just Paris, whenever I go to France I’m shocked at the degree to which SNCF allow heavily graffitised trains to remain in service – reminiscent of photos of the New York Subway at its nadir.
The engineering of the Aventra and the Francilien is quite different. For example the former is longish 2-bogie cars, the latter is shortish articulated. The method is construction is lkkely to be different too. As far as I am aware, the construction methods in Derby are unique (in a good way!). Francilien has been designed to take advantage of a more generous gauge not available in UK. The styling is, I believe, unique to each train influenced by the national culture. I have no doubt that there will be common parts but probably ag quite low level (switches, contactors etc)
Alison W
Given Grayling’s avowedly-Political statement that the cross-party-supported plan to transfer the line to TfL control is not going to happen we might be waiting some time. To the continued detriment of commuters.
Are you seriously suggesting that the control of CR1/Liz-line will not be joint TfL/NR or that TfL will not be allowed to operate the service – because CG says so??
If you are correct, then the line simply won’t open – will it?
Because the operating requires a unitary command & operation of the trains, if not of the signalling sytems – which will … err … “simply” talk to each other at the boundary interfaces near Pudding Mill & Royal Oak.
@ Greg – I think Alison W was referring to TfL not taking over South Eastern and thus not buying more 345s for that operation which would then be alongside Crossrail 345s at Abbey Wood. That’s how I read it.
It is too late for Mr G to start wrecking Crossrail – he’d be in deep doodoo if he did with business in London being massively critical of him never mind what the political damage would be.
“Because the operating requires a unitary command & operation of the trains, if not of the signalling systems – which will … err … “simply” talk to each other at the boundary interfaces near Pudding Mill & Royal Oak.”
I’ve seen evidence that is just what is planned. Crossrail trains use one signal system in the central tunnels, then transission (“hand off”) to other “Network Rail” signal systems at either end. (IRSE lecture circa 2014.)
Readers may also care to take a look at Wiki’s articles on class 345 and note the signalling system they are equipped with.
Surely this is nothing new? The concept of “handing off” trains between one signal area/signal box to another is how all signalling used to be done in olden days.
Alongside the delivery of Crossrail first train to Ilford come news that the fires overhead wires have been switched on between Maidenhead and Airport Junction . See Network Rail item below –
http://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/articles/first-electric-wires-for-crossrail-programme-switched-on-in-thames-valley
As for trains at Abbey Wood given Crossrail under TFL. are building their own tracks to Abbey Wood I doubt if Chris Grayling announcement is likely to affect this section. As to west of Paddington well Maidenhead is the PM constituency so I can’t see her letting him play around with that line ?
As for train types at Abbey Wood well the recent LO order for WA are basically sister units to Crossrail Adventras as indeed are the trains ordered under the new WA award and so they could be ordered of South Eastern be it for TFL or a new franchise.
@Dave.Cardboard:
As well as the transitions between the CBTC signalling in the tunnels and Network Rail’s signalling systems at either end, there will also be a handoff somewhere on the Heathrow spur between Network Rail signalling and the ETCS which will be the only signalling system in the Heathrow tunnels. Eventually the Great Western Main Line will have ETCS too but I wouldn’t hold your breath for it – let alone ETRMS Level 3 which the Wikipedia article optimistically refers to.
Melvyn 12 December 2016 at 23:30
“Alongside the delivery of Crossrail first train to Ilford”
What’s this? Wasn’t expected until April 2017.
@Alan Griffiths – This one perhaps and indeed as WW mentions above?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZsIDjCImUBs
April/May 2017 is the in-service date. There is a lot of staff familiarisation, testing for compatibility with the infrastructure (platform clearances, electrical interference etc) and other things still to be done before that can happen.
And, probably a “soft” introduction, with some trains running in normal services, out of peak hours &/or at weekends, as well – also for everybody’s familiarisation purposes?
Stephan C has kindly noted a TFL paper on ordering 4 more trains to increase off peak service in the core to 20 tph and more trains on the branches peak and off peak!
[Bad link snipped to avoid confusion. LBM]
hmm lets try http://content.tfl.gov.uk/16-elizabeth-line.pdf
Re Rational Plan,
WW actually noted them yesterday on the weekly reading list article already and suggested holding fire because of the potential for articles.
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2017/friday-reading-list-24-february-2017/#comment-286174
Several LR authors pondering articles based on what is and isn’t said in those TfL investment board papers. What isn’t said is sometimes the most interesting…
ngh / rp / ww
The “killer” sentence in that TfL paper is:
This proposal delivers significant passenger benefits as represented by a BCR of
13.9:1
Somehow, I think that might do it?
Re Greg,
That is the TfL BCR. If the TOC (GWR) that is losing extra services in the peak to make way for these extra services has already agreed to lease brand new EMUs most of which still haven’t left the factory and that cost is included the BCR won’t be as good…
The BCR will be good because it is effectively a stealth ORCATs raid on GWR on the Slough – Maidenhead (- Twyford) section. If the extra services go to Reading then even better for TfL !
ngh
What about the overall BCR – for the passengers, then?
Quite frankly, I couldn’t give a monkey’s about the poor deprived TOC’s & nor should anyone else, since, as we discussed some time recently, that the railways are, effectively nationalised, anyway (!)
Greg: that is a non-sequitur. However “effectively nationalised” Network Rail and TfL might be, the TOC’s are part of private enterprise, answerable to (among others) their shareholders. And whether or not we like it, they are part of the railway structure that we have. Schemes that benefit the public side of the industry at the expense of the TOCs will cause loud TOC squeals. Squeals that will not be ignored just because some people do not like the said TOCs.
Malcom
Maybe, maybe not.
Look at the development of the BML being discussed on a n other thread – individual TOC’s are not in the frame, where it comes to improvements there, are they?
So what makes the TOC using the line out of Paddington special, then?
[ No jokes about the old, “real” GWR, please! ]
@malcolm/Greg
Indeed – if it is judged by whoever decides these things that it is an ORCATS raid then the TOC will want compensation, presumably to be paid by DfT (or possibly TfL) to GWR in this case, so that the effect on GWR is a 1/1 BCR. This may reduce the BCR (as it affects the public purse), but surely not to less than unity.
The whole point of a benefits-cost ratio is that it looks at the plusses and minuses across society, whether monetised or not. Hence, it can have a very different outcome to a financial analysis. Therefore, there should not be a TfL BCR that is different to a GWR BCR because TfF should have taken the variation of income to GWR into account.
In principle, that is.
@answer=42 – there will, however, be differing views on the treatment of monetisation, on which opinions will differ according to your standpoint. For example, the Treasury has very definite views on the impact of a project on tax revenues, and behind the valuation of that, on the shadow price of taxation. TfL might well not agree as they have a simply London focus.
@Greg
“Look at the development of the BML being discussed on a n other thread – individual TOC’s are not in the frame, where it comes to improvements there, are they?
So what makes the TOC using the line out of Paddington special, then?”
The differences are
1. only one TOC is involved (TSGN) , so there is no transfer of revenue
2. the whole thing (particularly any possible version of BML2) is so far in the future (if ever) that no current franchise agreement is affected.
That is why the new franchise for the West Coast route, to take effect from 2019, is having to take HS2 into account, even though that is still almost a decade away.
Incumbent TOCs are very protective of their revenue streams – try suggesting a simple rezoning of a Greater London station to a TOC, (never mind a takeover by TfL) mid-franchise, and however logical or equitable it looks, the reply is always the same: the fares structure is an integral part of the franchise agreement.
(Just to show how much TOCs value the status quo, there has been a long standing campaign by the MPs of two different parties, representing both constituencies served by my local station, to be rezoned to Zone 5. (It is the only station within a 10-mile radius of Charing Cross to be in Zone 6, and results in the anomalous situation that passengers for a Zone 5 station further down the line have to travel through Zone 6 to get there).
The franchisee remains instransigent, and ins 21 years has so far outlasted four MPs. (including a Cabinet Minister and a Minister of State for Transport)
Re: timbeau – as no single TOC agreement has ever lasted 21 years, that must mean that the status quo was accepted as a basis for renewing the revenue assumptions by the franchising authority at the time of refranchising (i.e. by one of OPRAF, SRA, DfT, whichever it was).
Or to put it another way, the MPs should be putting pressure on the franchising authority in the run-up to refranchising, not on the TOC during the franchise.
That’s the whole point of the system: private sector bidders are given defined constraints to bid against at the time of bidding, but the authority reserves the right to change the constraints at the next bid competition (obviously that’s a simplification, but I think it will serve to illustrate the principle if not the minutiae of the practice).
timbeau: completely incidental to why you mentioned it, but doesn’t an Oyster journey which passes through a zone 6 station require a fare level which would be valid in zone 6? In which case, in what sense can the stations “further down the line” be called zone 5 stations?
If the answer is “it’s on a loop”, and zone 5 fares are only available on the other side of the loop, then it seems to me that “further down the line” may be a rather misleading way of describing the situation.
If a station is in zone 5 and someone travels to zone 1 from it and there is a sensible route available without going into zone 6 then surely, for pay and go at least, you only pay the zones 5 – 1 fare regardless of the route actually used.
@ Malcolm – the fare structure is riddled with inconsistencies and oddities. Trying to apply pure logical reasoning is not the best way to approach matters or to challenge statements.
PoP: I accept WW’s point about the numerous inconsistencies, which should probably lead to an early end to this digression. However, I don’t see your claim being consistent with what I know about the treatment of Shoreditch High Street. Or is passing through zone 1 different from passing through zone 6?
@ Greg / Timbeau – whether we like it or not the current system requires TOCs to be “protective” of their revenue streams (even where TfL take revenue risk). They also have to defend their risk position (as enshrined in their contract) on behalf of their paymasters (whether DfT or TfL). No one can shrug their shoulders and go “oh it’s only a few million quid, doesn’t matter” or “we don’t care if that new train service nicks thousands of our passengers”. That is why things are difficult to change unless someone can chuck some millions on the table or political imperative as happened with the rezoning of stations in and around Stratford and the adoption of the “TfL West Anglia” farescale on the line via Ponders End and Waltham Cross.
I will be very surprised if DfT sanction the loss of 5 GWR peak time services just to accommodate TfL. I also suspect there may be an element of “commuter rebellion” depending on precisely where the trains serve. I expect some people will still want the “get on at the terminus and get a seat” choice rather than cram inside a cross London train. I am also somewhat surprised TfL are going after more GWML paths when there is still no agreement over the charging regime for access to Heathrow. Perhaps the financial situation is so dire that “revenue grabbing” is the next weapon to be deployed to shore up the TfL budget?
@Malcolm
Yes, it is different – travelling across the centre is an accepted Z2-Z1-Z2 journey and you pay both to zones. But I know of know other place where an advertised direct service from a Zone 1 station to a Zone 5 station passes through Zone 6. Yes in practice a PAYG user will only pay for five zones, but a Z15 Travelcard holder will be in some difficulty if inspected en route, despite the routing guide showing it as a valid route.
A similar issue is going to happen at the other end of the loop during the Great August Shutdown, when another Z5 station is going to be closed for 24 days and the nearest alternative is in Zone 6.
@Balthazar: other TOCs have been quite amenable to political persuasion regarding rezoning and extending Oyster coverage mid-franchise. And yes, the franchise has been renewed twice. But everyone keeps passing the buck – “it’s in TfL’s hands” – “it’s in the TOCs hands” – “it would need to be agreed with the other TOCs” (there are no other TOCs operating on the line, let alone the station), “it would be incompatible with the bus Zone the station is in” (which reveals a staggering ignorance of bus operations in London, especially given who the parent company is).
But I sense the digression is heading for the pruning shears. So to get back to the point, GW will want their revenue guaranteed if more Crossrail trains are to start running on their patch, just as East and West Coast are busy packing any spare paths to stop Open Access Operators muscling in. This is not how it was meant to be – franchises were, I believe, seen as stopgaps until open access start ups had got up to speed. In fact, there are only four Open Access operators now running regular timetabled services (including Heathrow Express/Connect and Eurostar, both of which operate wholly or partly on their own track). As at least one has fallen by the wayside, I don’t think they have had any greater success than franchises, of which at least three have either jumped or been pushed before the end of their franchise terms.
Re: WW – ‘No one can shrug their shoulders and go “oh it’s only a few million quid, doesn’t matter”’
As I pointed out above, the franchising authority has the ability to do precisely that, by defining the requirements of a new franchise to include whatever outcome is deemed desirable BUT the quid pro quo is that the self-same franchisng authority is the holder of the budget that is a few million quid lighter as a result.
Which is exactly how it should be: if the authority decides an improvement should be made, it has to be paid for somehow. One might cite free-to-use passenger wi-fi and toilet retention tanks as examples – neither has a free-standing business case nor a legal obligation* but the DfT has (correctly in my view) deemed both to be necessary in new franchise awards.
*Unlike accessibility upgrades to achieve “targeted compliance” with the requirements of the Technical Standard for Interoperability for Persons of Reduced Mobility (PRM-TSI)**, which is rooted in UK equalities legislation where the deadline is defined. (Noting that although the PRM-TSI is an EU standard, the 31/12/19 ‘PRM deadline’ was made in the UK for the UK, again a correct decision in my opinion.)
**Crikey, do I really have to spell that out each time I use it…? (OK, I know the answer is ‘yes, unless it’s already been explained in the same thread’.)
@timbeau – changing zones does affect every operator in the Travelcard area because of the way the revenue is pooled and divided back out again – no need for them to share tracks. That is why change is so difficult…
Malcolm,
Apart from what timbeau says, Shoreditch High St is not the same sort of situation I was talking about because generally there is no alternative recognised route that doesn’t avoid zone 1.
It works in a different way too. Supposing you want to go from East Croydon (zone 5) to Elephant & Castle (zone 2). It may be the case that it is quicker to go via Blackfriars (zone 1). You can do that but you will still get charged the zone 5 – zone 3 fare. You have done nothing wrong.
timbeau
Kingston, I assume?
Bringing this back to the proposed extra Crossrail trains beyond Paddington, I note that the paper suggests:
…a revision of the Peak services operating pattern across the network to
provide a regular interval of trains, including a train approximately every five
minutes proceeding west from Paddington.
As the two eastern branches will each see a train every five minutes in the peak this directly implies that, in the peak, all of the trains from west of Paddington will go down the same eastern branch with the other branch having no trains beyond Paddington. This could end up being an unwelcome surprise to people wanting to do certain commutes.
Canary Wharf provided funding on basis of having the Heathrow trains, so seems they will get all through trains. Makes sense to avoid through trains from GER to GWR as they would be subject to external delays at both ends. Passengers from Shenfield need only wait on a central area platform, out of the weather, for a train to all western destinations, or cross the platform at Whitechapel for stations to Abbey Wood. A regular interval service is important to spread loadings and reduce dwell times.
Re: Anon E. Mouse – Maybe, but on the other hand (a) note the use of the word “approximately” in the text you quote and (b) can Heathrow turn around a Crossrail train every five minutes on top of 4tph Expresses?
@balthazar. It says “every five minutes west of Paddington” but that’s not saying they all go to Heathrow. Unless I missed something?
Re: IslandDweller – yes, I totally agree with you. I was commenting on the contributions from Anon E. Mouse (all peak services west of Paddington to the same point) and Taz (Canary Wharf must have direct Heathrow services), but in my opinion there is an error in their combined reasoning.
@Balthazar
It think what it means by “approximately” is simply that they cannot run regular intervals due to having to fit around GW services. The paper definately seems to imply that the intention is to run as close to regular a service as possible (for the reason that Taz mentioned). Also, unless there has been a big change in thinking, I suspect that the intention is still to only run a train every 15 minutes to Heathrow which it should definitely be able to cope with.
Yes, it may be simpler to look at it from a West to East perspective. All trains from Heathrow must go to Canary Wharf – since if they do not the relevant masters of the universe may have to wait 30 minutes, or change, and that was not the tune for which the pipers were paid. Outcome is then no through trains between the Shenfield branch and anywhere west of Paddington.
Pop: Of course, I see now the issue of alternative avoiding routes. But does what you say about charging imply that ECR (East Croydon) to EPH (Elephant) via Blackfriars (BFR) has a pay as you go fare as if avoiding zone 1, but cannot be legally done on a zones 2-5 season? That strikes me as odd.
There is a thread running on Rail UK forums that is quite clear that a zone 3 to 1 travel card on Oyster is valid for a journey via, say, a zone 5 station (no touch out/in at the z5 station) provided there is enough PAYG credit on the card to cover the complete journey (although the Oyster system won’t recognise the via point and will simply accept the travelcard). This was confirmed by the UK’s independent Oyster expert. Travel across z1 without a z1 isn’t allowed and will be assumed unless touching the appropriate colour reader. Sorry this is a bit vague as I don’t have personal experience of any of this.
@130
“zone 3 to 1 travel card on Oyster is valid for a journey via, say, a zone 5 station (no touch out/in at the z5 station) provided there is enough PAYG credit on the card to cover the complete journey”
And the converse is also true, as I discovered that when I made a trip from Zone 1 to Zone 3, and back again by a different route (out from Moorgate, back to Liverpool Street). The System must have read my out-and-in at the Zone 3 station as an “Out of Station interchange” (OSI) – I wasn’t there very long – as I only got charged a Zone 1 fare.
Re: Malcolm at 11.25 – but that reasoning leads to 16tph (Crossrail from Canary Wharf every five minutes, plus HEx) turning around at Heathrow, doesn’t it? Which surely isn’t right, i.e. we have achieved proof by reductio ad absurdam that there is something wrong with the reasoning.
Balthazar: No. Every train from Heathrow will go to Canary Wharf, and every train to Heathrow will come from Canary Wharf. But the other two similar claims are false – not every train from Canary Wharf will go to Heathrow, and not every train to Canary Wharf from the west will come from Heathrow.
timbeau: Not getting at you, it would apply to anyone, but I have never heard of anyone charged less than they expected on Oyster PAYG phoning the help line to try to pay the difference. Whereas if one is charged more…
It’s probably the “big organisation” syndrome. Plus the fact that TfL collecting the extra fare, even if one did offer it, would probably cost more in admin costs than the amount offered.
@Balthazar
You’re forgetting that Heathrow isn’t the only Crossrail destination west of Paddington. I suspect that the plan for 12tph west of Paddington is:
4tph to Heathrow
and
8tph to some combination of West Drayton, Maidenhead and Reading.
@Malcolm
plus the fact that I don’t check my journey history very often, and when I did happen to notice it several weeks later I also spotted an unresolved journey I hadn’t claimed back. Swings and roundabouts………..
If you want to see the strange complexity of the Oyster/Contactless payment charges there is the TFL Single Fare Finder:
https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/fares/single-fare-finder
I’ve just been on the phone to Oyster because my Stratford to Wimbeldon via Waterloo (try it with the above link!) didn’t get a touch-out due to having an in-station meeting. This meant I got overcharged for the day by £10.80 because “the system” uses an £18.50 daily limit if you miss a touch-in or touch-out.
This seeems to at odds with the stated numbers here:
https://tfl.gov.uk/fares-and-payments/oyster/using-oyster/maximum-journey-times
@ Balthazar – clearly we don’t have enough detail about what the proposed change will mean for w/b peak departures. However we do know from two rounds of TfL Consultation that the basic service pattern is split in two – Abbey Wood – Heathrow and Shenfield – Paddington / West Drayton / Maidenhead / Reading. My reading of the latest idea is for TfL to take on extra peak paths currently used by GWR and possibly more trains to Reading daily. This would reduce the residual GWR suburban operation by a fair chunk looking at it.
I suspect there are no extra trains planned for Heathrow because the track access charging issue is not resolved. TfL are not going to make any public suggestions about extra services if it could impact the determination of track access charges. Furthermore it’s a little difficult to seek Board authority against an indeterminate business case (as would apply with Heathrow).
One other thing I have just thought about is that if the core off-peak frequency was raised to 20tph then a 15 min interval service to Heathrow would involve trains alternating between Abbey Wood and Shenfield (assuming a regular 10tph service to each branch). Conversely, if it was so entrenched that all Heathrow trains go to Abbey Wood then the intervals would have to alternate between 12 and 18 minutes (so as to be multiples of 6 minutes).
Re Anon E Mouse,
You are making some big assumptions including that X tph are evenly space at 2.5minutes for 24tph or 3 minutes for 20tph, the reality is likely to be different.
The easiest way to get 20tph in the core off peak is to use the peak timtable and just not to run the remaining peak extras as currently happens all over the NR network i.e. spare slots are left off-peak. This conveniently helps with the freight paths off peak on the GEML and GWML.
Note the TfL paper doesn’t say that both eastern branches will get an extra 2tph off peak with the uplift from 16 to 20 tph, the reality is that it will be far easier to increase the Abbey Wood service level from 8 to 12 tph and leave the Shenfield frequency at 8 tph thus improving the Canary Wharf service. This would have no effect on the GEML freight paths off peak and depending on the Western terminus limited effect on the GWML freight paths. It will also work well with retaining the 15 minute service interval to Heathrow from Canary Wharf.
As I said several days ago what isn’t said it the paper is often more interesting…
@ngh
Sorry, I didn’t make it clear in my earlier comment that I was only being speculative. (That’s what I get for commenting late at night when in need of sleep!) I did, however, show that I was making the assumption (which as you say might not hold) of a regular 10tph service to each branch by which I meant a 6 min. interval service combining to form a 3 min. interval service (again, it would have been better if I had included that in my previous comment). I do agree with you that sending the extra off-peak trains to Canary Wharf makes sense from an operational point of view.
And … as dicussed previously, it’s almost certain that once through-running past Padders commences, then CR1 /EL is going to be wedged to the doors within a year, if not sooner. Thus rendering all these speculations extremely moot.
ngh 6 March 2017 at 09:48
“Shenfield frequency at 8 tph” is what we have been led to expect.
A train every 7 1/2 minutes instead of our current train every 10 minutes.
That leaves slots in between for
1) freight trains, crossing movements at Stratford, at Forest Gate junction and elsewhere and
2) the weekend c2c trains twice an hour to and from Shoeburyness.
Re Alan Griffiths,
I’d actually expect some asymmetry in the (off peak) time between services on the Shenfield branch with something like 6 minutes and 9 minute intervals rather than 7 1/2 minute intervals. With the freight services targeted to start about 7 minutes into the 9 minute interval along the shared section of running.
Or 5 and 10 which fits in to the core train every 5 minutes from Canary Wharf leaving a 5 minute gap in the core 4 times an hour.
Purley Dweller 6 March 2017 at 19:16
The would imply through trains from Shenfield to stations west of Hayes & Harlington .
And the varying intervals would be a pain. W used to have that when every third slow train didn’t stop.