Crossrail Numbers Rise Again

1. I managed to visit the UK and experience Crossrail this past year. I had a 4-day BritRail pass which had to be validated at the local National Rail ticket office. Both Harold Wood and Gidea Park staff declined to stamp the pass as they weren’t National Rail, but part of the London Underground! I wasn’t able to convince them otherwise. Impressive as the line is, I was disappointed at the state of the deep level stations with apparently difficult to clean surfaces on walls and floors.

2. Stratford – like Wakefield Westgate and Clapham junction, has trains that are timetabled as set-down-only. That’s why there’s a ARRIVALS board in the station.

   Long-distance (“Greater Anglia”) trains inward are shown as unavailable for passengers to take from Stratford to Liverpool Street by being hidden from passenger view as ARRIVALS only at Stratford.

3. Anecdotally the Elizabeth line is significantly more popular than other lines because it removes the need to transfer onto the Tube. (This was predicted in the business case, of course.) It would be interesting to compare the parallel-ish lines e.g. Chiltern and SWR to see if they have seen a fall in patronage from people migrating to the Elizabeth line.

4. You have not mentioned the “Elephant” that isn’t there …
   The ridiculous (IMHO) turning-round of many trains at Paddington/Royal Oak.
   One OOC is finished, it is surely time to relay from there to Greenford & electrify as far as High Wycombe?
   Then, all your trains will terminate well outside London, which is, operationally a really good idea, as well as providing a much enhanced passenger service.

   Abbey Wood
   Your mention of the Woolwich lobbying reminds me/us of the possible extension to … Bluewater? Gravesend?

   West London, excluding the airport.
   Well, that was not in the least bit surprising, given how the pre-crossrail trains were at 150-200% loadings in the AM peak(!)

   Airport
   Time to take “Heathrow Express” round the back of the barn & kill it.

   The future …
   Both more & longer trains & a balancing NW branch, surely?

5. I have previously commented about these numbers and concerns.

   SHENFIELD:-

   The 260% increase at Maryland is a shock for the Xrail planners. Previously unless travelling to LvSt it was more convenient to take the Central from Stratford.

   At Shenfield peaks if not delayed there is an appeal to take a Liz window seat for an easy Docklands transfer, rather than cram onto a full Anglia. Many Anglias are now fast from Billericay to Stratford.

   At Brentwood there was a TOWIE boom 10 years ago with no recovery since COVID. More of a local trend.

   Harold Wood had the best Xrail station rebuild over an extended period. The closed hospital has given new housing and better bus links bring in more demand.

   Gidea Park is surrounded by a housing estate with little changed.

   The Romford numbers include interchange with Overground Liberty and Anglia at 0.997. Plus the entry and exit numbers include passengers using those services and platforms. The 2 Elizabeth platforms at Romford are similar to the 2 at Ilford. The overground Liberty has not yet recovered to 2018/19 numbers.

   Peak hour services from Romford are packed. Service enhancement by skip stops to prevent ‘catching’ should be by missing a sequential one in turn. 1 CHx, 2 GMx, 3 SKx that way journey and interval time is unaffected during peaks. Similar for MP FG & ML. Everyone benefits as trains are so frequent, and rare that a passenger travels between adjacent fairly close stations.

   CH GM & SK are broadly similar traffic levels. 1 year change is misleading due to all the closures and reconstruction difficulties.

   Ilford’s growth is not out of trend with others but has benefitted most from industrial to high-rise development. There was an employment gap between industrial inbound to rebuilt outbound. The traffic levels have been concentrated from 5 platforms to 3 then 2.

   The Manor Park / Forest Gate numbers do not split out interchange with the reinvigorated GOBLIN. The older local population has been replaced with younger Romanian and Ukrainian families.

   Stratford likely has suppressed demand. The station is unpleasantly crowded and poorly maintained. The area is still under construction. Regeneration is continuing. The potential is closer to 75m rather than 50m. The line to Cambridge is underused not to mention interchange with ‘Europe’.

6. I suspect the passenger numbers at Whitechapel may be slightly supressed by the fact that journeys through Shoreditch station are “penalised” as being in Fare Zone 1 while the surrounding stations on that route are in higher zones (Zone 1 chargeable even if not exiting the train at Shoreditch, thanks DfT). Probably not suppressing the numbers materially.

   The Fare Zone 1 section on Windrush is avoidable by travelling via Stratford (Zone 2/3) and changing to Crossrail (to come back to Whitechapel in Zone 2); probably also not a material inflation in the numbers there through that cause

   I do hope that the heavy use of certain London stations does not give rise to a “rezoning” of those stations into Fare Zone 1 for entry/exit as a revenue enhancing measure.

7. @Alek Can you explain the CHx, GMx, SKx, MP, FG, & ML abbreviations please?

   General note: Please write out station names, lines etc, unless they are abbreviations in general use. LBM

8. Abbey Wood Branch:

   The build case was predicated on Canary Wharf demand. It’s absence is telling.

   Abbey Wood property prices have been falling for a decade. The Crossrail effect was not because of the delay. Poverty is a larger factor.

   Woolwich has intensive residential development facilitated by transport.

   West London:

   The suburban stations on all main lines were afterthoughts and have suffered from a tolerance rather than a priority for more than a century. An economic conflict rather than the political one it has become. The GWR does have space from dormant freight and service lines to augment capacity when afforded.

   The demonstrated effect of converting industrial zones to intensive residential use with transport should reopen an investigation into a NNML branch serving Perivale, Greenford, Northolt, and Ruislip. At least safeguarding a future option.

   Heathrow:
   It is only ‘served’ by the Abbey Branch. The marketing is swamped by Heathrow Express. The messaging from TfL is do not use Liz with premium surcharges and tales of overcrowded conflicts with commuters, keep your bags off the peaks. The Picc takes you more places with better changes for less.

   The Abbey/Shenfield branches were planned to be ‘balanced’. The result is spare capacity on Abbey and shortages on Shenfield. Balancing the Heathrow trains would help 2xT4 & 2xT5 ph on each. Branch passengers for Heathrow are more likely to use Liz for convenience and no peak premium.

   The Hayes numbers do not include western passengers from Reading changing from Liz to Liz.

   Heathrow/Air Travel is still in recovery mode. Not just to pre-covid but to where growth would have been without it.
   The early retirement of large 4 jets (380/747) in anticipation of new deliveries that have been delayed by production and engine shortages mean a still suppressed demand. Third runway approval will need reworked rail access plans.

9. Berkshire/Bucks:- Arguably this section saw the greatest economic boost from enhanced individual family home prices.

   every station tells its own story – but there are the predicted common factors.
   – Longer journey times without toilets and fewer seats.
   – Travellers from the west are more connected to the west end compared to the east who are just as likely to link with docklands, city, or west-end.

   During COVID the eastern rentals were vacated, whereas this section is more owner, senior, and more likely to have more wfh.

   Twyford “statistics do not disclose whether these are passengers to and from Reading or London or elsewhere (including the Henley-On-Thames branch)”
   023/24 Increase 1.564 million Interchange Increase 0.669 million
   The interchange will mostly be the Henley Branch with some GWR for intermediate stops on Liz.

   Overall the employment market changed permanently with COVID. Much work is now done remotely. Those who have business in London will only travel for the minimum requirement. Large swathes of rentals that were vacated within London were then first taken by those who needed to rto (office) and had previously endured long expensive commutes.

10. I meant like Watford Junction not Clapham Junction.

    Alek: There are 2tp from Shenfield to the airport (terminal 5)

11. Alex: “The 260% increase at Maryland is a shock for the Xrail planners. Previously unless travelling to LvSt it was more convenient to take the Central from Stratford.”

    because most trains skipped Maryland? None do now. Even the High Level extra train stop at all stations

12. @LBM Abbreviations certainly but we are discussing the data set
    “Can you explain the CHx, GMx, SKx, MP, FG, & ML abbreviations please? ”
    The Liz line skip stations are the minor ones between the major stations at Stratford, Ilford, & Romford. Three in each case. In peaks you can save 4 minutes of occupancy by skipping one station in each set of 3 thus provide for an extra peak service to meet capacity.

    Stratford to Ilford is Maryland (ML) Manor Park (MP) Forest Gate (FG)
    Ilford to Romford Seven Kings (SK) Goodmayes (GM) Chadwell Heath (CH)

    The problem of mixing skippers with stoppers in the peak is that one catches up with the other.
    By having three trains each skip one of the three stations then during the peak all trains travel at the same overall interval and speed just 4 minutes faster.

    An up train leaving Rom skips CHx, the next skips GMx, the third skips SKx. All arrive at Ilf at the same interval just 2 minutes sooner.
    Repeat from Ilf to Stratford first skips FGx, second MPx, third MLx. All arrive at Stratford at the same interval but 4 minutes earlier.

    The effect on 99% of passengers is one extra hourly service, 4 hourly announcements at the minor stops of “the next train does not stop here please stand back”, and similarly an announcement for “the next service to XX is fast to XX calling at XX. Passengers for the next station XX and station YY are advised to wait for the following service arriving in x minutes”

13. Whitechapel was designed and built as a significant interchange station. It was intended to provide relief for the Jubilee Line from Stratford. Unfortunately the Liz line passengers have an easy swap at Stratford from standing on Liz to a seat on the tube. The Anglia users have a compulsory change through congestion.

    The Whitechapel interchange figures collected by ORR are between Overground and Liz.
    The figure of 2023–24 Increase 35.247 million is for SW branch passengers to the tube, Shenfield to the District and all Windrush Line. A separate figure would be needed for entries and exits of the station building. It is an improvement ‘area’ but most of the improvement is the interchange, and most of that is Liz to Liz branch potentially another 10m on top of 35m for significance ranking amongst core stations.

14. Abbreviations – some people may already have easily forgotten or been extremely embarrassed to have ever heard of TOWIE

    The Only Way is Essex – a reality TV show featuring local ‘celebrities’ before social media influencers with weekly events on Brentwood High Street centered around a converted Coaching Inn then called the Sugar Hut. Street fighting and a knife murder closed the venue before COVID followed by closure of O’Neills, McDonalds, Slug & Lettuce and some other restaurants and bars. Half that end of the High Street still closed today. Many modern flats built on car parks were rented to the younger crowd of city types who enjoyed the nightly night life.
    Essex girls would take the train from Romford out to the Hut rather than the West End.

15. @PoP “HS2 not to be part of National Rail so that passengers transferring at Old Oak Common get classified as entries and exits.”

    My reading of ORR statistics has always been from a franchise accounting view, like the old Clearing House.
    So as a comparison HS1 is part of National Rail and the figure for Ashford is:

    2023/24 Increase 3.511 million Interchange Increase 0.862 million

    These are NOT entries and exits of the Station Building but the beginning and ending of that part of a journey on a particular operator.
    The total USAGE of Ashford for the year by passengers was 3.511 million of which 0.862million were changing trains run by different operators.
    Passengers changing SE services at Ashford are NOT counted.
    Passengers changing to SE from an HS1 arrival from Stratford are counted ONCE as an interchange passenger.

    This is where I believe the underlying problem with Liz line figures comes from. They are not on the same basis and interchange passengers are being counted as an entry and exit.
    The entry/exit figures are not building barrier figures.
    The interchange between operators is occurring within tunnels.
    The Farringdon interchange is underreported despite some Oyster transfer tappers.

16. dataportal.orr.gov.uk/media/lvscie3h/station-usage-2023-24-statistical-release.pdf

    The GOBLIN/Suffragette interchange with Liz is NOT within the station by definition it is a ticket valid out of station interchange.
    The system knows and validates this as a single journey with an interchange but ORR counts this as an exit and entry (with different operators at the same station it would be one interchange).
    The improvements to a neighbouring line have boosted usage figures for Liz Manor Park and Forest Gate without highlighting them as interchanges rather than local demand.

    Page 15 “For April 2023 to March 2024, we have not published estimates for interchanges taking place at London Liverpool Street and London Paddington. This is because we know that
    interchanges taking place to or from Elizabeth line services at these stations have not
    been included in the source file used to derive our interchange estimates. We would
    expect the magnitude of each of these interchanges to be large, but we are unable to
    confidently estimate this. It is possible that interchange estimates at other stations on the Elizabeth line route have been overestimated as they include some modelled interchanges
    that are likely to have actually taken place at London Liverpool Street or London
    Paddington”

    Paddington and Liverpool St are ‘adjacent’ Liz stations. Effectively a valid OSI behind barrier lines. Is this correct? Are all passengers changing trains counted twice even if it is one journey / ticket?
    Many passengers on services previously arriving at Paddington or Liverpool St now pass through on the same train without touching the station so usage would be expected to fall considerably from the Shenfield branch replaced with new city workers on the Abbey branch.

    Whitechapel branch transfers are not counted because both are Liz services & tickets. Passengers could ‘change’ trains anywhere in the core if meeting others. Travel beyond the fare zone is not permitted but hard to estimate and not accounted.

    ORR methodology:
    “These statistics on station usage are estimates primarily based on ticket sales, sourced
    from LENNON (Latest Earnings Networked Nationally Over Night), the rail industry’s
    ticketing and revenue system and local ticketing data. These data sources and the
    methodology used provide the best approach possible given Great Britain does not have a
    fully gated rail network or robust count data for every station.

    Since the opening of the central section of the Elizabeth line, there has been a known issue with LENNON overestimating contactless and Oyster Pay As You Go (PAYG) journeys on
    the Elizabeth line. To correct for this we have used data supplied by Transport for London
    (TfL) as a direct replacement for these ticket types in the LENNON data.”

    My conclusion: incomplete, there is a minefield of external links and sets to follow. Hard to figure what is or not included, how derived, and what is intended.
    There is a fundamental question about the basis of Liz line data that needs investigation.
    It would be useful to see some sample week month usage barrier traffic mapping for the core stations.

    We had Liz peak services terminated at LivSt where passengers could exit and re-enter at LL for a continuation journey.

17. Alek
    As LBM says …..
    Um, err .. if you are going to use abbreviations for station names, then, perhaps it might be a good idea to use the National Rail agreed set, thusly:
    Shenfield – SNF / Brentwood – BRE / Harold Wood – HRO / Gidea Park – GDP / Romford – RMF / Goodmayes – GMY / 7 Kings – SVK / Ilford – IFD / Manor Park – MNP / Forest Gate – FOG / Maryland – MYL & Stratford – SRA
    And so on for all the others?

    [Agree with Greg – sort of. If you use standard abbreviations then at least we can look them up. But the basic rule is don’t use station abbreviations. If you really must do, then spell it out the first time and refer to the abbreviation subsequently e.g. Stratford(SRA) – Liverpool St(LST) then you can refer subsequently to SRA-LST. PoP]

18. @PoP My Ashford example probably does not work as HS1 and all SE services would be lumped together so the interchange traffic would be Southern for Hastings and Brighton?

    At OOC HS2 would be the only WestCoast service but interchanges would include GWR & Liz. (Possibly HeX & Lumo?) They could have barrier counts for OOC/LL or OOC/HS as a distinguisher. I am anticipating internal barriers for security.

19. @Greg,LBM,PoP noted & apologies. Will spell them out

20. Greg 11:36

    The ridiculous (IMHO) turning-round of many trains at Paddington/Royal Oak.
    You raise this so often with slight variations. I think we all agree in principle with your premise. But, as I keep pointing out, west of Acton Main Line you have to intermingle freight trains both to/from Acton Yard and Acton Wells Junction. This involves slow long trains which don’t fit in well with Crossrail trains. It is more complicated than that but basically true.

    There is currently no provision to extend to High Wycombe direct via what is known as the New North Main Line route from Old Oak Common and it is hard to see how that route could be reinstated. It was not shortsighted to abandon the link – it was just there was no way anyone could see to maintain it without severely compromising other aspects of the regime.

    Time to take “Heathrow Express” round the back of the barn & kill it.
    A sentiment a lot of us hold but, as you know full well, contractually Heathrow Express has a right to operate at least until June 2028.

21. Alek 13:39

    Thanks for the additional insight.

    The 260% increase at Maryland is a shock for the Xrail planners. Previously unless travelling to Liv St it was more convenient to take the Central from Stratford.
    It is a complete mystery why they are surprised at this. To me it is fairly obvious there is a world of difference between a service to Liv St (not that far away) and one to the heart of central London. It is hard to believe they originally wanted to exclude Maryland from Crossrail to get over the problems of long trains before selective door operation. They seem equally caught out by Acton Main Line.

    At Shenfield peaks if not delayed there is an appeal to take a Liz window seat for an easy Docklands transfer, rather than cram onto a full Anglia.
    That seems to be a classic case of push the problem further down the line – literally. Solving one problem and creating another one of the same magnitude.

    Many Anglias are now fast from Billericay to Stratford.
    I couldn’t find any evidence of this in the current timetable. Maybe they did but abandoned it. I can see it creating problems for some passengers and also messing up the even interval timetable.

    Brentwood maybe should have been in a class of its own as it doesn’t quite fit the Shenfield branch trend.

    I am a fan of skip-stopping but I know what TfL would say. They would argue that the time saving in skip-stopping with the better acceleration of Class 345 means the benefit is now minimal and causes confusion and they prefer to run all-stations services. I know this isn’t the case on the line west of Paddington but this is largely forced by the requirement to run a broadly similar service to/from Reading compared with the pre-Elizabeth-line service and the knock-on consequences.

    I think you would have to do something more brutal to make skip-stopping worthwhile but then you start exacerbating the problem of a crowded platform at Stratford in the evening peak as people wait for their train. Far better to make sure they get on the first train that comes.

22. Alek 15:23

    Twyford “statistics do not disclose whether these are passengers to and from Reading or London or elsewhere (including the Henley-On-Thames branch)”
    023/24 Increase 1.564 million Interchange Increase 0.669 million

    Yes, we have that but Twyford is a bit of an oddball. There must be some passengers just going to Twyford from Henley-on-Thames or vice versa. Statistics for this station for daily averages will be skewed by the crowds using it (when the service isn’t disrupted on the busiest day of the year) for the regatta. It is served by GWR which is probably a better option for London and equally good for Reading so, effectively, neither the entries & exits nor the interchanges tell us very much. Remember that Crossrail when authorised was only intended to go as far a Maidenhead. Operationally, overall, the extension to Reading was sensible but it is hard to see how Twyford is of any significant benefit to Elizabeth line users.

23. Can someone explain how Crossrail/National Rail figures are determined at stations where the same ticket gates are used by Underground travellers. Are there any reliable travel surveys at this early stage to determine the National Rail/Underground split in patronage at such stations?

24. @Londoner The underground split was worked out long ago with the Capital Card permits. It is estimated but ‘most likely’ route for journey end points. It was an issue for example on C2C and the parallel District line and the answer was by negotiation.
    =======================================

    Shenfield Branch peak capacity utilisation

    More thoughts on how to maximise what we have available for current growth rates

    Selected Door opening (SDO ) is way more complicated than skip service patterns for regular users. To simplify understanding the peak hour services could be classed into ABC groups.

    Assume 14 tph – Heathrow has a higher proportion of irregular users so services stay as all stations all day
    2tph Heathrow T5 HWV
    2tph Heathrow T4 HAF
    4tph Shenfield A / Paddington A
    4tph Shenfield B / Paddington B
    2tph Goodmayes C / Paddington C

    STATION annotations: during peak hours lettered trains do not call at these stations
    A: 7 Kings – SVK, Maryland – MYL, Gidea Park – GDP *
    B: Goodmayes – GMY, Forest Gate – FOG, Brentwood – BRE *
    C: Manor Park – MNP ( Chadwell Heath – CTH reversals)
    * Shenfield A/B morning peak, Paddington A/B afternoon peak

    Timetable
    2tph Heathrow T5 HWV 00, , 30
    2tph Paddington C 03, , 33
    4tph Paddington B 07, 20 , 37, 50
    4tph Paddington A 11, 25 , 41, 55
    2tph Heathrow T4 HAF 15, , 45

    2tph Shenfield T5 HWV 00, , 30
    4tph Shenfield A 03, 20 , 33, 50
    4tph Shenfield B 07, 25 , 37, 55
    2tph Goodmayes C 11, , 41
    2tph Shenfield T4 HAF 15, , 45

    Rationale is to serve the maximum peak passenger load.
    The schedule is structured on quarter hour Heathrow all stop services.
    Inbound morning peak followed by a CTH starter reversal into service at GMY.
    The following B train from SNF stops at CTH while the starter begins service at GMY.
    The next A train calls CTH, GMY & skips SVK.
    At the major stations intervals are 5m on and half hour quarters, 3 or 4 mins odd quarters.
    At the minor stations intervals will vary 5 to 7mins

    The CTH center reversers utilise stock more efficiently on the intensely loaded section.
    Skipping CTH allows time to clear the path for the following service without disruption.
    (No train clearance beyond pre-announcements so sleepers will return into service in 8mins’ish.
    If a safety issue a relief driver could board at 7 Kings to clear the train before reversing)
    On the peak reverse direction the emphasis is on returning light stock into peak flows as quickly as possible so skipping the least used outer stations adds minutes to the Shenfield reversing time.
    BRE & GDP drop to 8tph during the peak in the reverse direction.

25. Londoner in Scotland: The numbers are not split between Underground at National as stations where the gate lines are shared. TfL have not published figures for their tube-only stations for quite some time.

    (The code we use for our desktop app uses these figures to determine the order of autocomplete) .

26. Taplow is close to a main road with less congestion and thus easier access compared to Maidenhead, Burnham and Slough, and cheaper, if somewhat limited, parking.

    I would speculate that it’s attracting a significant number of “drop off” passengers and thus abstracting passengers from the other nearby stations, including the above plus a bit of Chiltern and Windsor/Marlow. Despite being only half-hourly, the through service to Central London is much more attractive than the previous overcrowded GWR stoppers to Paddington, and IIRC these were all-stations from Taplow (with the possible exception of Acton Mainline).

    Also worth a mention is that pre-Crossrail, many of these Western branch stations had no Sunday service at all.

    Totally agree by the way that the boosts at Acton and Maryland were entirely predictable for anyone with experience living in these kinds of suburbs, which it seems may not include the planners!

27. “the actual numbers are not too important – it is the trends and comparative numbers that are significant. So long as the methodology does not change too much from year to year the figures are in some way meaningful.”

    The new Secretary of State for Transport since November 2024 is Heidi Alexander now in control of the national transport budget. She was previously Deputy Mayor of London for Transport. Her first meeting with Mayor Khan is likely to be TfL now has seven of the busiest rail stations in the country with tens of millions of additional passengers, tickets, revenue. Let’s take another look at all those grants, loans, projects.

    Since no one is seeing this overflowing bounty clearly the station figures are not correct or comparable. It is necessary to understand what is going on and not promote this flag waving of ours is bigger.

    The delayed overspent £19-£25bn project is being justified with the deliverable of working as intended. It does as advertised carry more people more comfortably. It is popular and busy but the reported numbers are out of proportion with the user experience. We all experience crowded stations like Camden Town or crush loads like Northern line peaks, but not on the Liz unless there is a service failure.

    Service recovery is one of the revealed weaknesses where the stationary unit failure and lack of toilets make headlines. The cleanliness of opening is becoming grubby with difficult surfaces, was the intent to pressure wash, steam clean, annual repaint?

    London led the way for the world with underground design where surface buildings were all built to a design standard for easy recognition of system entrances. The station platforms were then styled individually like pub signs for quick recognition of intended destinations. The architectural Liz decided to make monument tokens out of it’s buildings only identifiable if spotting a purple roundel, then standardising all station platforms relying instead on display units and announcements.

    Interchanges were hard to fit and design but seem to be working.
    TCR Tottenham Court Road has some regeneration with new flats and usage of the previously vacant Centre Point with the loss of cinema (Dominion where I saw Star Wars premiere), theatre, music and hi-fi stores, Virgin Megastore. The 2019 Tube had 42m (entry/exits), in 2023 it is 59m. These are not unemployed Museum visits or retail or night economy but maybe 41m actual entry/exits with 18m journeys to interchange with Liz. Onto this the Liz national rail is reporting an additional 64m passenger journeys. According to ORR TCR has a combined 122m annual passenger station entry / exits – busier than LivSt. Can we agree that these reports are not useful. More than half these passengers are changing trains within the tunnels being counted twice and like any large city central zone acting like a metro.

28. Alek – CRS codes used since the 1980s for these stations. They’re very well picked.

    Abbey Wood ABW
    Acton Main Line AML
    Brentwood BRE
    Burnham BNM
    Chadwell Heath CTH
    Custom House CUS
    Ealing Broadway EAL
    Farringdon ZFD
    Forest Gate FOG
    Gidea Park GDP
    Goodmayes GMY
    Hanwell HAN
    Harold Wood HRO
    Hayes & Harlington HAY
    Heathrow Airport Terminal 4 HAF
    Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 HWV
    Heathrow Airport Terminals 2 & 3 HXX
    Ilford IFD
    Iver IVR
    Langley LNY
    Liverpool Street LST
    Maidenhead MAI
    Manor Park MNP
    Maryland MYL
    Newbury Park ZNP
    Paddington PAD
    Reading RDG
    Romford RMF
    Seven Kings SVK
    Shenfield SNF
    Slough SLO
    Southall STL
    Stratford SRA
    Taplow TAP
    Twyford TWY
    West Drayton WDT
    West Ealing WEA
    Whitechapel ZLW
    Woolwich WWC

29. Alek:

    “STATION annotations: during peak hours lettered trains do not call at these stations
    A: 7 Kings – SVK, Maryland – MYL, Gidea Park – GDP *
    B: Goodmayes – GMY, Forest Gate – FOG, Brentwood – BRE *
    C: Manor Park – MNP ( Chadwell Heath – CTH reversals)
    * Shenfield A/B morning peak, Paddington A/B afternoon peak”

    Looking at elizabeth-line-dec-2024.pdf each and every train that stops at Stratford stops at Maryland. These patterns are no longer used.

30. @Alek

    Selected Door opening (SDO ) is way more complicated than skip service patterns for regular users

    I respectfully disagree with this statement. Short platforms are a tangible, permanent constraint on specific stations that are easy for anyone to understand and, with suitable signage and announcements on walk-through trains, have a minimal impact on passengers, regular or not. Worst case is you have to push through a crowded train to get to an exit. There is no cognitive overhead required prior to boarding.

    On the other hand, skipped stops mean that *every* traveller to an affected station must, on *every* journey, evaluate the time and/or study the departure screen before boarding a train to be certain they can get to their destination. There is no tangible justification for those affected, and as well as extended waits, for regular travellers this adds stress and anxiety to a journey, where they may already be tired after a long day and forced to navigate a crowded platform before waiting longer in the dark/cold/rain. For first-time or occasional travellers it can create confusion and frustration.

    For the sake of saving a minute here or there it just isn’t worth it.

31. Here in Beckton the Elizabeth Line has made a notable difference all across London, half the DLR now get out at Custom House. Tottenham Court Road has proved to be the station for walking on as far as Covent Garden or Piccadilly Circus. Incidentally, DLR to Liz transfers at Custom House don’t register as such whenever the transfer gateline is unstaffed and the wide access gate is left open – although the fare charged is the same, it’s just the attribution. There seems quite a lot of traffic through here for the new City Hall as well, some walk on, and some go one stop back on the DLR, although due to the station design such interchange is tedious.

    Skip-Stop has a number of downsides, a principal one being when the service has become disorganised and trains are missing or out of sequence, some stations end up with extended intervals whilst nearby stations have two trains one behind the other, or nonstops queued behind a stopper. Having to determine the skipping pattern and how Shenfield trains will sequence before one leaves Heathrow, knowing just which Paddington starters it will run between, is unreliable. I did experience such skip-stop on the Chicago CTA long ago, they had exactly this problem and eventually gave it up.

32. @Paul & MrB
    Station 2023-2024 % increase 23->24 % Total Route Trains Affect
    Stratford 56.571 28.2 41.4% 14
    Maryland 4.714 69.1 3.4% A 10 1.0%
    Forest Gate 7.177 47 5.2% B 10 1.5%
    Manor Park 5.371 44.4 3.9% C 12 0.6%
    Ilford 13.163 50 9.6% 14
    Seven Kings 5.08 34.3 3.7% A 10 1.1%
    Goodmayes 5.794 40.3 4.2% B 10 1.2%
    Chadwell Heath 5.97 13.1 4.4% C 12
    Romford 14.82 27.8 10.8% 12
    Gidea Park 3.61 28.7 2.6% A/B 10 0.09%
    Harold Wood 4.224 29.2 3.1% 12
    Brentwood 3.713 13.1 2.7% B/A 10 0.09%
    Shenfield 6.519 27.7 4.8% 12
    Total 136.726 A 2.13%
    ( C 28.4% ) B 2.80%
    C 0.6%

    Formatting (missing) but copying & summing above data for the Shenfield branch.
    The exercise is about how to intensify the service (when necessary) cheaply. As you can see during peaks EVERY traveller gets a 10 tph service as now. The issue is how to squeeze in more.
    In my scenario to encourage use of Liz for Heathrow I included a 4 tph on each branch throughout the day calling all stations. However during peaks the idea is to rotate the trains in a circle as fast as possible.
    As far as sequencing the starters leave in order A B C from Westbourne Park (Paddington) with the reverse from Shenfield B A then C enters before the B at Chadwell reversing. Sequencing from Shenfield will allow Heathrow to be behind the A by a couple of mins.
    If you allocate the most experienced drivers to Hrw authorised to utilise performance they may be able to recover a couple of minutes compared to the skippers before being caught up.
    Heathrow joiners at Paddington may be as you point out not ideal but once through the core the spacing can be adjusted from Stratford onwards.

    EVERY TRAVELLER AFFECTED
    We are skipping the least used stations with an ADDITIONAL 4 trains per hour to give a better service.
    There are 137m entries and exits on the branch so I have shown the % at each stop. The letter Route pattern is the skip, then number of trains per hour, giving a % of travellers affected.
    For the peak contra-flow outers I put a maximum of 20% of entries affected, is it worth stopping 2 in 12 peak hour trains for fewer than a tenth of a percent of entries?

    The letter Route A/B trains would affect less than 5% of travellers. The inconvenience is waiting for the next train. The C train is the Goodmayes terminator that always skips Manor Park twice an hour, only 0.6% of all travellers.

    At Stratford an announcement of the next train does not call at X skip should mean only 0.6 to 1.5 % of passengers wait for the next train.
    An on train announcement before Ilford about the next skip stop should alight at Ilford and take the next train would be 1% of passengers.
    A Goodmayes terminator (C pattern) 2 tph could leave 29% of passengers waiting, if crowded advise announcement to board train if space and change at Ilford.
    Regular users will know which A or B does not serve their intermediate station. Travellers starting from those stations will have announcements and notices. Occasional users tend to listen for calling pattern confirmations, on train announcements will advise if a change of train is needed.

33. Alek
    Have we forgotten the acronym: “KISS”?

34. The one number that I don’t understand is Paddington. The published figures for the Underground show that it had similar numbers last year to pre-EL/Covid. The NR station, including the EL, is supposedly up by nearly 20m passengers. This makes no sense, as now the suburban passengers are going straight through Paddington and if anything, numbers should have gone down, not up. Also there will be people using the EL instead of HEX, so again, numbers at PAD should reduce. GWR do run more services now than in 2019 but is it really enough to increase passenger numbers by about a third?

35. Bucks Council really haven’t made the most of the much-improved station and train service at Iver station, provided so far as I am aware at no cost to them. The centre of Iver itself is just over a mile away, an easy flat cycle ride or a brisk walk for some, but the only road is narrow with high volumes of large lorries; there is plenty of space to have provided a high quality shared-use path alongside but instead the existing pavement hasn’t even been swept since the Lizzie opened and is rough, muddy and overgrown. The bus service consists of 3 journeys a day during shopping hours only and drops you on an unpaved grass verge some distance from the station. On-street parking anywhere near the station is all permit controlled and there’s no car park so driving isn’t an option either and most Iver residents drive to another station further away instead (or all the way, of course!). Such a missed opportunity!

36. @Herned PAD is easier than LST.
    Half the trains arriving at Liz terminate so count as arrivals.
    People who were previously on the Central change to Circle etc are now NEW passengers.
    Same passenger, ticket, fare but double exit/entries.

    Something like this is also happening at LST and is noted by ORR for those two.
    Also true of TCR.
    There is some abstraction like Bond St taking from Oxford Cir.
    Moorgate is consistent even though you would expect LST to now count some.
    Barbican has ‘lost’ 5m or so to Farringdon.

    It is to do with the Liz not being a tube even though it is in the Core and acts as one.
    Passengers within the central zone are being counted multiple times.

37. “Honourable Non-Crossrail mentions”

    What of lowly Emerson Park? A half-hourly service like the Greenford line, can it be regarded as a “lightly used feeder”? I wonder if the number and percentage of London-bound travellers that are going to Romford rather than Upminster, from Emerson Park, have increased since Crossrail started? Possibly not, as the underground connections, (and Crossrail at Whitechapel) may be reached quicker on the way to Fenchurch Street with a train that does not stop at every station.

38. Twopenny Tube: Having walked the line at some points, I guess the question the Liberty Line would be… could you add a new station at Brentwood Road, with a passing loop to allow for the number of train services to be doubled.

    Emerson Park is used by local schoolchildren mainly, Google suggest this might be nearby Emerson Park Academy

39. Anyone commenting on Skip/Stop actually use the Shenfield branch?

    I do, daily from Forest Gate. Most mid-week mornings, if there is anything other than perfect 4 minutes spacing, each following service becomes practically impossible to board. Its like the usable equilibrium has already been reached.

    A displayed delay on the way into the station of more than 5 minutes and I now abort and head for the bus and then District Line to get into the City.

    The system out East is already, at least at peak, full.

40. @2pT I gave EMP a shoutout above but here it is

    2015/16 259,490 (65.86%)
    2016/17 277,678 (7.01%)
    2017/18 307,588 (10.77%)
    2018/19 349,632 (13.67%)
    2019/20 321,964 (-7.91%)
    2020/21 93,550 (-70.94%)
    2021/22 196,476 (110.02%)
    2022/23 240,118 (22.21%)
    2023/24 304,760 (21.01%)

    This is the National and London suburbs travel trend – down 15-25% due to 4 day week, wfh, job cuts, online retail, less night-time activity.

41. @Doug

    The Abbey branch has 50m passengers with 12 trains between 7:30-8:30
    The Shenfield has 135m passengers with the same 12 trains as originally designed in the same hour plus 3 additional GDP starters to LST terminus.

    The concession is now run by Tokyo Metro & Sumitomo for whom 10secs matter yet alone minutes.

    You say there is insufficient capacity or reliability is more important?
    My observation is that the peak loads are unbalanced not even. There are currently 4 HAFs ph on the Abbey Wood that could be better utilised on the Shenfield.

    Some would say that the branch is ‘full’ at 4 min intervals.
    135/280 is 70% which is more than the allocated 15/27 units. Transferring 2x HAF brings us to 17/27 63% capacity.

    Arguments for skip are;
    no point stopping a full train.
    full train loadings take longer to clear platforms.
    skip reduces 2min of travel time shortening the journey
    utilisation is higher with faster rotation
    reducing 60min to 56min allows an extra train per hour

    Gidea Park depot starters take longer in terms of track occupancy
    Chadwell Heath reversals relieve the inner crush loads without occupancy penalty
    This could be the extra service for the FOG and MYL by running 4 CTH reversals in place of 3 GDP.

    Looking at the outer 3 intermediate stations of GDP HRO BRE during the peaks against the peak flow the passengers are so low that a 15 min interval is more than adequate for the priority objective of clearing the crowd on the peak platforms by running fast between Romford & Shenfield for a quicker return to real revenue service. Those passengers would be picked up the stopping Heathrows.

    FULL STATION NAMES ONLY ACCEPTED PLEASE. LBM

42. @BB Brentwood Road is too close to the mainline to be a middle passing place for doubling, not that there is any capacity shortage.

    Network Rail has cut down all the trees so it may soon be possible to locate the previous loop.

    “A run-round loop was constructed 500 yards to the west to enable extra trains to run between Emerson Park and Upminster. When push-pull working began in 1934 the loop was no longer needed and taken out in c. 1936.”

43. @Alek

    Brentwood Road is the only location that would make sense as the other end of the line is well served by Upminster Bridge LU station.

    As I said this was from walking the line a few times. Brentwood Road is not currently well served by the 248 and 370 bus routes that link Romford and Upminster.

44. Heathrow numbers will be constrained by having only 6tph and the cost being around double that of the Piccadilly line from central London.

    It’s also not ideal that T4 gets 4tph compared to T5 getting 2tph, considering the air passenger numbers at the respective terminals.

    I seem to recall that increasing to 4tph to T5 is not currently confirmed.

45. Yep, Heathrow’s low frequency is suppressing user demand. There is also the reality that motor vehicles are the dominant travel mode to/from the airport. Around 60% of access is not via public transport and a good chunk of the later are on buses (esp. workers) and coaches (Heathrow is a huge coach destination).

    Re. Whitechapel, I’m not surprised at all. Overground-EL link is a key strategic interchange for a chunk of inner north, east and SE London. Getting from Islington and Hackney to CW or New Cross to Heathrow is now quicker or easier. If you’re on the EL coming from the east meanwhile, Shoreditch, Dalston, Camden and even Hampstead Heath now have a quicker route than changing onto the Northern Line at London Bridge or Moorgate. Hard to overstate this – e.g. someone living in Woolwich wanting a night out around Shoreditch can probably now get out of relevant Overground station faster than they’d arrive London Bridge only on the North Kent Line (which still has a lengthy change onto the Tube). For District/H&C passengers there is now a faster trip to Oxford Street and West London plus quicker and direct connection to Paddington* and Heathrow.

    *I know Paddington is walkable from Lancaster Gate, but many who don’t travel to terminal regularly are unaware.

46. Heathrow
    As pointed out by PoP, “HEX” have a permit to um, err, “charge excessive fares” until 2028, but, as noted, their px numbers are falling & continuing to do so.
    Are they now making a loss on this service, I wonder, even at their fares? Could they persuaded to give it up?
    Or even buy them out – though, as always when dealing with HAL, that could be difficult.

47. @BB Possibly you are envisaging doubling the number of intermediate halts on the Liberty?
    There might not be a business case for that and it is a different issue to doubling the frequency.
    TfL have an aspiration to run a minimum 4 tph service on their lines. Since there is an existing track bed available for a loop near the mid-point it could make sense when traffic levels merit bearing in mind the build it and the demand will come phenomenon seen around the city. 500 yards west of Emerson Park Halt places it at the point where The Ravensbourne passes under the track. Still masked by trees on both sides as one of the councillors has been lobbying for the residents campaign to save ‘their’ trees.

    My research did not yield details. The loop likely was only for two coaches + engine but could be extended.

48. A likely factor in the relatively slower growth of passenger numbers at Chadwell Heath compared with nearby Goodmayes is that Chadwell Heath is in Zone 5, whereas Goodmayes is in Zone 4. The price differential between the two Zones for a London Travelcard is quite significant (almost £12 on a weekly, almost £500 on an annual), so I suspect that passengers within reasonable walking distance of Goodmayes will opt to travel to London from there – rather than Chadwell Heath.

49. @Alek – The verbosity you’ve needed to explain your skip-stop plan really highlights why it’s too complicated! As @Doug has also highlighted the resulting uneven intervals would create their own problems.

50. @Alek I’m not really envisaging anything.

    Just making an observation that the end of the Liberty Line closer to Romford would be the place to add an extra stop – because of the faster Liz Line trains at Romford because the other end of the line at the Upminster end runs alongside the District to Upminster Bridge making stops at that end of the Liberty line likely to be used.

    I’m looking at the WebCAT PTAL for that area and it drops from 6b (Best) in Romford to 2 for Brentwood Road when it crossed the Liberty line.

    But yes, passing loops and extra trains (and their overnight storage) are not without cost, so an observation in line with the article rather than a proposal.

51. Before rebuilding Liz stations again what is the theoretical maximum peak capacity.

    Core could handle 30tph (every 2 mins)
    12 tph branching for the Abbey leave 12 slots to be filled from/to LST which is one every 10 minutes from one of two platforms.
    To maximise utilisation LST run ECS contra-peakflow non-stop on the fast lines. AM into P4 or 5 at Shenfield, PM arrivals at P4/P5 designated LST leave on the Billericay underpass to cross onto the up line through P1 straight back to LST.
    Another step keeping ALL peak flow trains at 2min intervals would be ALL trains call at Stratford, Ilford, Romford, Shenfield plus 1 intermediate station between each. That serves the most people most efficiently, 30tph for the most, 10 tph for the smaller stations.

    For the west side disruption situation the calling pattern outbound would be assigned dynamically.

    (least words for the most commenters)

    Running end to end is the least disruptive with an option to cut short for service recovery when problems occur. Homeward intermediate passengers encouraged to take the first service to their preceding major stop then step back to a following service for their minor.

    @Carllo The intermediate stations tend to be suburban housing with a trend for apartments after Liz line authorised. The Chadwell Heath (Z5) load is higher than at Seven Kings and Goodmayes (Z4), morning traffic is horrendous so I doubt there is abstraction. The year changes are more influenced by the ongoing weekend closures with bus replacements to Newbury Park Central line.

52. Carllo,

    A likely factor in the relatively slower growth of passenger numbers at Chadwell Heath compared with nearby Goodmayes is that Chadwell Heath is in Zone 5, whereas Goodmayes is in Zone 4.

    I tend to agree with you and I must admit I had totally overlooked the effect of zones. At the same time, if the morning loading factor is as great as Alek claims, then I would expect commuters to stick with Chadwell Heath to increase their chances of getting a seat. On the other hand, if getting a seat is next to impossible, perhaps it is better to walk to Goodmayes and reduce the time spent standing.

    An alternative explanation (well it is not really an explanation) is that as a general rule the rate of growth decreases the further you get from Stratford until you get to Romford. Ilford is the obvious exception but this can be explained by other factors. However, Goodmayes is an exception too which suggest something else is going on but we don’t know for sure what it is.

    Beyond Chadwell Heath different rules seem to apply but then thing change between Chadwell Heath and Romford. A lot of the land is actually green belt and the gap between these two stations is surprisingly large.

    So, as Chadwell Heath is the furthest out station before Romford, you would expect the growth at Chadwell Heath to be lower. The thing is this isn’t really an explanation at all, only a supposition of a rule of thumb without an explanation for it.

53. @PoP “A lot of the land is actually green belt and the gap between these two stations is surprisingly large.”

    Crowlands – the station that never was (killed by the war)

    https://web.archive.org/web/20221211034435/https://www.romfordrecorder.co.uk/news/21468044.heritage-crowlands—station-never/

54. Alek,

    It wasn’t the war that killed Crowlands. It was the post-war green belt policy. This will be covered sometime in 2025 when we take a deeper look at Shenfield Electrification.

55. @PoP Like Northern Heights and Denham, all dreamed up during the war for the victory, or at least implementation halted by the outbreak. Just filling in the unusually long gap to Romford for the reader.

56. The 1990’s Crossrail proposal only had the Shenfield branch to the east which would have taken all trains. With the service split with a docklands branch, demand could only be met with short-workings into the Liverpool Street terminus. These have been trimmed back from the original proposals. If the central tunnel section is to be filled to capacity between both branches, the only way to meet demand to Shenfield will be to increase such short-workings up to the maximum of alternate trains!

57. @Taz. Another way is to increase the service volume on the central tunnel section tph to 30 – the digital signalling has that capability built-in – and skew branch frequencies if you need to, to favour Gidea Park and Shenfield.

    You might need to lease those other 3 trains on the notional order list. You might also need those other reversing sidings at OOC to be available, to accommodate a higher volume of trains reversing west of the central area, or perhaps in peaks ORR would tolerate a higher volume of passenger trains through on the relief lines as far as Hayes or Heathrow, vs protected freight paths.

    And might that in turn rely on cessation of HEx, to create enough tunnel line capacity, if some extra trains went to Heathrow? That would incur a higher payment to Heathrow Airport for the privilege of using its tunnel tracks, so there’s a new cost issue to address if you divert off the GW tracks.

    All this illustrates the possible extent of dependencies, with any one change relying on others also happening and being worth doing. The timing of any change might be several years in the future.

    Extra trains between Gidea Park and Liverpool Street buffers has the strong merit of being a less complex change. However, with the post-Covid diminution of the previously high percentage of East London commuting to the City as a destination, plus the greater attractiveness of a direct through service to popular points west, will a more frequent LST terminator be sufficiently well used to avoid intense crowding on the next through Elizabeth Line train to Farringdon and the West End? If not, it’s the 30 tph through frequency (15 to 18 via Stratford) that will be needed!

    More all stations trains to Gidea Park will provide a more trusted outcome at every intermediate station, than the lucky dip of skip-stopping. Any penalty performance regime would be ludicrous to try to enforce on a skip-stopping timetable.

    A more intensive central tunnel operation also increases the sensitivity of achieving a 95-100% performance target. Simple, consistent timetabling is key for that objective, subject to adequate hourly train capacity so that the service doesn’t fall over because of being over-crowded. Full marks to TfL for ditching the last remnants of skip-stop operation several years’ ago on the Shenfield line.

58. OK, I’ll add my pennyworth to this.

    Lets assuming there really is, or will be the need to increase capacity on the Shenfield branch beyond what is already planned and by adding an extra carriage (which we do not actually know is either feasible or cost-effective).

    It is certainly true that the plan before the Abbey Wood (or Ebbsfleet) branch was added was for at least 18tph. This was was kept in the revised plan with two branches by adding the Gidea Park Shorts (Liv St National Rail – Gidea Park in peak, in peak direction only).

    TfL doesn’t like the Gidea Park shorts and it got cut down from 6 to 4tph during the construction process. Subsequently, we have only seen 2tph and they mess up the time timetable as other Shenfield trains have to be slowed down or stopped in the tunnel in the Whitechapel area to enable an even interval on both the branches and the central area. So we now end up with fewer tph on the Shenfield branch than they did in 1950 (14 v 15). Admittedly the trains are longer and have more capacity due to fewer seats.

    Any solution involving more trains means a ridiculous number of trains all the way to Shenfield as with a more frequent service you can’t terminate some trains short due to modern rules about being sure the train has no passengers when going out of service into the reversing siding. This already causes problem with the 2tph terminating at Gidea Park. As the numbers show, it would be far from idea to terminate eastbound trains short of Romford.

    The obvious solution to that part of the problem to me is to convert the current down platform at Gidea Park into a central reversing platform. You then need to add a new down platform by making the cutting steeper on the north side of the tracks. This looks easily doable – if expensive. However, if you assume it costs £60 million to do then you easily get that back by saving at least three trains by only sending half the trains in the peak periods as far as Shenfield – which will be more than adequate for the demand there and mainly affect Harold Wood and Brentwood since most Shenfield passengers would probably use the non-stop Greater Anglia service to Stratford and Liverpool St.

    If the above were done then you would have two possibilities that I can see. One is providing an uneven eastern branch service as Jonathan Roberts suggests. You might even be able to stretch to a Gidea Park, Shenfield, Abbey Wood repeating pattern with 30tph so split 20/10 on the branches. And maybe increasing the number of carriages to 10 on the Abbey Wood trains though that would create problems keeping stock separate – especially in times of disruption.

    Alternatively, you could reinstate and enhance the Gidea Park shorts. This would lead to an uneven interval on the Shenfield branch between Stratford and Gidea Park (roughly 4/2/2 minutes) which one would have to live with and accept that passengers at Stratford in both directions may not be able to board the first train.

    As Jonathan Roberts points out, anything has knock-on effects. Do people actually want to use Liverpool St National Rail station? Could the Central line cope with this? Can the platforms at Stratford cope? Do the central platforms get too crowded as Abbey Wood passengers wait for their train? Could the Shenfield branch signalling cope (or be enhanced so it could cope)? Even with suitable signalling could the Shenfield branch cope with 2 minute headways? Whatever happens in this scenario, skip-stopping is out of the question.

59. Jonathon Roberts
    “Those other reversing sidings at OOC to be available” – for emergencies.
    They simply should not be used in normal service, to turn trains around.
    We all know ( I hope ) that you need to terminate through suburban services as far out as conveniently possible. Both for operational reasons & it gets you more bang for your buck …
    Hence my support for the supposedly-problematic ( Mainly because it isn’t fashionable ) extension to High Wycombe, along the old NNML.

    [Greg, taking this to its logical conclusion produces absurdities. It only makes sense to extend as far out as conveniently possible if there are a worthwhile number of passengers to be had. Look at the length trains run on Chiltern Railways. Are the passengers there to make this worthwhile? PoP]

60. “a ridiculous number of trains all the way to Shenfield”
    As a junction Anglia are stopping their services for interchange between branch lines and for intermediates stops. This vacates some uncomfortable potentially dangerous space for Shenfield passengers to occupy. Relying on this pattern is not really planning future capacity.

    “most Shenfield passengers would probably use the non-stop Greater Anglia service”
    As a destination the Anglia platforms like the LST may suit some, equally not the majority. For those the time difference is not as great. The Anglia trains between Shenfield and Stratford are not at full speed due to congestion in the peak. Their interchanges are not optimal. The Liz offers more comfort and better connectivity, if removing 6 stops saving 12 mins the difference is not that great so attracting yet more passengers.

    “could the Shenfield branch cope with 2 minute headways”
    by uprating to the control system from the core? At Shenfield Liz departures are from the island P5/6. If every 3rd train crossed into P6 then 2 arrivals at P4 pass into the 3 reversing sidings to depart P5.

    “Do people actually want to use Liverpool St National Rail station? ” If the alternative is being left behind on the platform. During the peak more do or the area around Aldwych/Shoreditch.
    Stratford is a vacating stop for interchange and increasingly a destination so available if not overcrowded for a switch. LST is a parking spot for branch relief services.

    “Can the platforms at Stratford cope?”
    The Stratford station rebuild should provide better egress (escalators?) to clear the platforms faster.

    Overall the purpose of the discussion is to better understand the real and potential demand and how flexible a potential solution needs to be. As JR hints at and potentially the fate of the Wharf has demonstrated it is peak workflow patterns that are subject to the greatest change in a century. City construction suggests the financial backers are betting on a commuting future, if you pay the workers enough there will always be a commuter demand.

    Careful monitoring of actual loads and trends is needed. There is a peak within the peak (2/3) so pricing is also available, shortening the 3 hours could move some demand earlier or later. I myself avoid the morning peak as I believe that is the greatest crush problem.

    Whatever comes the Liz needs to have the flexibility to respond. Is there a current vehicle availability issue from maintenance? There needs to be a full discussion before adding on the HS2 for a decade.

    “A more intensive central tunnel operation also increases the sensitivity of achieving a 95-100% performance target. ”
    That seems like a very artificial parameter and one that could be adapted to the needs of the service. Is a departure within 2 mins of scheduled ‘on-time’. There are better targets for the Liz that suit the objectives, moving the greatest number of passengers within their desired time slots.

    I am not understanding why LST shorts are being run on Fridays, is there any loading?

61. It’s worth injecting into this discussion that substantial London employers have enacted return-to-office mandates since the period of passenger figures we’re talking about. They’re controversial, some people believe they will fail, either being ignored, or won’t deliver the productivity boost bosses are looking for. Nevertheless they are happening.

    So far, a soft 2-days a week nudge from some employers has often escalated to an enforced 3-day mandate. It’s not clear if this will continue to a widespread 4 or 5 day expectation, if it will be enforced core hours or flexi-time, or if there’ll be an element of backsliding. BUT it does seem to me that numbers are more likely to edge upwards in the next few sets of figures as many employees are dragged back to their commutes.

    Given this, I think we should consider declarations along the lines of “commuting patterns have changed permanently” with some degree of caution. The raw sentiment is almost certainly correct, but we shouldn’t assume that the change has reached an end state, or that overall numbers will never recover. Indeed, the railway may be able to cope better with more flexbile start/end times becoming the norm, or may be challenged by even more journeys being squeezed into the midweek in preference to Fridays and Mondays. We just don’t know yet.

62. “modern rules about being sure the train has no passengers when going out of service into the reversing siding”

    If a second driver boards as a guard in the passenger section during a reversal at Shenfield could it be still ‘in service’, especially if close station reverse moves became a thing.

    [Not sure what ASLEF would think of that. PoP]

63. @Pedantic of Purley suggested a reversing platform at Gidea Park to save trains for a boosted service, the current Shenfield service proving adequate. As he said, the earliest such reversing point would be Romford where room for an additional platform may exist above the current walking route. However, this would mean that London trains might depart from platforms 4 or 5, and the restricted town location would make construction difficult.

    I must put in a plug for my former local station at Harold Wood, which is within the GLC boundary and still has the coal yard awaiting development. It would probably require multi-level parking over the site to maintain current capacity, and could perhaps promote over-site development to help pay for the cost of an additional platform alongside the current platform 4. Being further east, it might reduce the service saving by one train compared to Gidea Park, but present an easier construction task.

64. Taz,

    I am not that familiar with Romford. I used to live there but only for the first year of my life. From my limited knowledge, I got the impression it would be too difficult.

    I had not considered Harold Wood because I couldn’t see how you could get a central reversing platform without knocking all the station buildings down. And would the track fit under the road bridge? I would consider a centre terminating platform as vital regard this as you would have too many conflicting movements otherwise. One thing in Harold Wood’s favour, as you point out, is that it is within the GLA boundary and so the proposal would be an easier sell to the people of Harold Wood and save some political backlash. Certainly, the distance between Gidea Park and Harold Wood is not that great (around 2.2km or 1.4 miles) so most of the fleet saving would still be achieved.

    In the case of Harold Wood my only familiarity is from what I have observed from a train so take my opinions with a huge dose of salt.

65. Alek,

    “could the Shenfield branch cope with 2 minute headways”
    by uprating to the control system from the core?

    I thought someone would come out with this. The core is a bespoke CBTC system introduced because nothing else was around at the time. It was needed for frequency reasons and because the ‘standard’ alternative (ETCS/ERMTS) was not as mature is it is and still does not cater for platform doors. CBTC is very expensive and it is only in use for a relatively short distance (Paddington – Stratford plus the branch to Abbey Wood). It was also a nightmare to get working adding years to the project.

    You have to go with ETCS implemented properly with short block sections – not as an overlay on the current signalling. And it means that any train that could potentially be diverted over the ‘electric lines’ plus night freight that uses it must be ETCS equipped. Even then you might not get 2 minute headways possible.

    I am not understanding why LST shorts are being run on Fridays, is there any loading?
    Probably it is not necessary at present. But introducing a separate timetable just for Fridays has all sorts of implications from rostering to rotating trains correctly to Friday passengers being confused. You can’t just remove them because all the other trains have padding to ensure an even interval when leaving the Stratford – Whitechapel section. That applies in both directions.

    As Paul says, we can’t assume what is true today will be true in the future. Far better and simpler just to run the few extra trains that are required for this rather than introduce an unnecessary complexity.

66. New reversing platform –
    Every current station is too constrained for splaying a 300 yd running loop around an island reversing platform.
    However there is an existing station site (wrong side of Romford) where such a provision could be made. It is on an embankment so could have 1 elevator and ramp and stairs to a subway for both side exits. There are small housing estates on both sides for some capture.
    Footpath to Bridport Ave and Southern Way to the north.

    The reversing platform would be a starter for inbound traffic and the down side for other journeys with a reversal at Romford. Maintenance vehicle access from Crow Lane, there is a vacant plot.

    Supervised reversals at sidings – what on train staff would be available. Could a couple Revenue Protection crew be posted for the am peak?

    Office work patterns – with some employee discretion people are doing their hours and tasks within fewer days by working longer hours. A full return to 5 day weeks starting at 9am could exacerbate peak loadings with more people and concentration.

67. If there is no break down between Underground and National Rail passengers at stations with shared gate lines, this really calls into question the comparability of ORR data for National Rail journeys at London stations, and the stations’ ranking in terms of use.

68. @Londoner Yes plus it is shameful to rank a not particularly significant road junction as a major economic national asset above Manchester Piccadilly or Birmingham New St.
    The Liz Line station ORR data should be gate line entries & exits to the station.
    The intersection of the Liz with the Northern somewhere under the streets in the vicinity of is not the significant report.
    For accounting purposes and indicators of usage could the central zone underground line interchanges be reported separately from the Liz Stations. If reported the same way Camden Town and Kennington would likely make the Top 10.

    CBTC – we are a decade away from full intensity so systems and computing will be better. The Liz between Stratford and Brentwood will be locked out to any other traffic in the peaks (Shenfield P4 is shared with the Southend branch). Can it be short block control only during peaks.

    Timetable notations MO FX (Mondays Only, Friday excepted) used to be common. The even spacing is a priority to deal with platform crowding?

69. I do wonder out here in Surrey that the true level of ridership is under reported due to scale of ticketless travel. So is it fair to say that Elizabeth line stations being full barrier all day can more accurately measure passenger numbers?

70. Alek
    Really? Where?
    IIRC, from Maryland, eastwards, all the stations, apart from Romford itself are at or below road-level, until you get to Shenfield ….

71. Alek: “Timetable notations MO FX (Mondays Only, Friday excepted) used to be common.”

    I suspect that was generally more to do with the transition from weekend to weekday placement of trains, locomotives, and crews, rather than anything to do with anticipating changes in demand.

72. Today’s thought
    Core is feeding a service every 2.5 mins 12 tph x2
    If there were a 3 min gap each side of an Abbey that would leave a 6 min gap for an LST to blend in.
    Do that 6x ph with 2 x 2 min gaps on the unused Abbey gaps gives the 4 min headway used presently.
    Boosts the Shenfield branch to 12 + 6

    Were the 4 additional trains approved for OOC, what about follow on cars for lengthening to 10. The sidings and core can take them leaving more SDO?

    [Could be please do without hard to comprehend slang like “each side of an Abbey”? It was bad enough with station abbreviations. PoP]

73. Harold Wood gets a comment just for having the excellently named “Gubbins Lane”, now that would be a great address for a hoarder….

    Not sure if getting another track under the Gubbins [Lane bridge] for an extra platform would be viable but I’ve never been there so I’m going to refrain from speculating.

74. Alek 1st Feb 22:06

    it is shameful to rank a not particularly significant road junction as a major economic national asset above Manchester Piccadilly or Birmingham New St.

    This comment triggered something in Jonathan Roberts who has presented me with solid data (not just speculative feelings) to show that, in fact Tottenham Court Road station on its own generates as much traffic as the three main stations in central Birmingham (New St, Snow Hill and Moor St). Furthermore, the realistic catchment area of Tottenham Court Road station is the same size as all of central Birmingham.

    Tottenham Court Road station has an unusually large catchment area as, along with a few other Crossrail stations, it is double ended giving it two entrances getting on for 300m apart – considerably longer than Mansion House to Cannon St or Cannon Street to Monument.

    The road junction may not appear to be particularly significant but, if you ask people what they regard as the centre of London, I bet a portion of people will describe the junction at Tottenham Court Road (e.g. Centre Point, junction of Oxford St and Charing Cross Road, Tottenham Court Road station).

    If Crossrail 2 ever gets built then Tottenham Court Road station is due to get a further entrance on Shaftesbury Avenue and it is been suggested then that the station would be renamed Soho to take into account how spread out it (and it’s catchment area) is. It would probably then truly be thought of by many as the centre of London and would probably top the ORR annual entrances and exits data.

75. @GregT Crowlands is the only site I could see that has physical space for a new reverse platform. All other sites are constrained by their surroundings. The Jetsums Lane bridge is not full height and the dip floods, it is also signal controlled.
    If such a platform is useful it may as well be somewhere quieter. It could take a pedestrian subway and be featured as a bicycle path station with secure bike locker storage. Rather than widen the embankment these days I envisage a concrete pier structure like at Shenfield.
    The Rom valley probably explains the embankment. One island platform is cheaper to build. With the shallow gradient stairs could go one way with a shallow ramp the other.

    Zone 1 stats for analysis should distinguish between LU and ORR entry and exits to the Station, and LU/ORR interchanges with each of the lines. Jubilee. Northern-W, Northern -C, Thameslink. How it interworks with the Central. Does it seem like the Liz data is being treated comparably to the other slow, electric, suburban lines that have been converted connected over the last 90 years.

76. Alek,
    Reversing at Crowlands, just short of Romford, is plain bonkers.

77. Shenfield Line station enlargement for additional platform

    Looking at existing stations for additional platforms only one candidate stands out. It even had an additional line included in the authorised Crossrail programme as a freight relief loop.

    Goodmayes P1 (down Liz) has a freight track behind it.
    For:
    There is a vacant arch with catenary through the bridge.
    There is plenty of length for both platform and an extended loop.
    The existing P1 through line that would reverse has the possibility of a safety overrun.
    Retaining it as a through line permits more comfortable use for straight line running off-peak.
    Through running retains flexibility to pass or park faulty units and such.

    Challenges:
    The track bed was always slow running and the turn-out at the town side of the bridge could be speed restricted (not a bother for a stopping service).
    The station canopy is supported by a screening brick wall at the stair end so some openings could be cut into it.
    Half the platform had a head shunt so the country end would need widening to fill that in for a new P0 platform face.
    The track bed has been occupied by control equipment so some boxes would need to be relocated. An upgrade program is replacing cabling with less intrusive fibre.
    PO can be shifted beyond the brick wall as the adjacent site is being redeveloped and a new station entrance is proposed along the platform.
    The stairs down to PO/1 would serve both down Shenfield services and the LST starters. Most people would head to the next stairs as now for the P2 up line.

    Goodmayes II is on the Anglia side for a P5/6. There is space for double track freight through a double arch under the road bridge and along the previous fright yards. One track was proposed for the Crossrail freight loop.
    P4 would need to be widened and double faced for use as the weekend or diversion Liz line service. The structure on the back of P4 is the closed toilet block that could be reconditioned.
    As an island platform P4/5 the footbridge repairs would need to be finished and the stalled lift shaft installed.
    The new platforms have space to be built to the 11 car length.
    The middle of the platforms could be augmented with new footbridge barrier exits where Network Rail has a vehicle access to the freight line work site AND the new Tesco housing site. Could do double duty as a pedestrian crossing location.
    Having the Anglia lines on P4/5 leaves a cleaner P2/3 island for up starters and through services.
    This option is more expensive and disruptive as it involves splaying the Anglia lines over. The current down Anglia becomes the up Liz through P3.

    A reversing in service platform at Goodmayes replaces the intended reversing at Chadwell Heath.

78. Against. It doesn’t make any sense to reverse at Gooodmayes when you could go three further stops to Gidea Park and in the process serve Romford.

    There is no point in speculating what’s possible if there is no point in doing it. Have a worthwhile objective first then examine the feasibility of it – not the other way round.

79. Oxford Street tube passengers

    London Underground annual entry and exit
    Bond St 2019  37.49 2023  37.42
    Oxford Cr 2019 78.07 2023 51.11
    TCR 2019 41.99 2023 58.73

    Oxford St 2019 120.06 2023 109.84

    The trade reports that a third of west end retail spend is on Oxford Street, that visitor numbers are down but turnover is up 10% (basically no change in volume adjusting for inflation).

    The Liz was intended to shadow the Central and relieve congestion both on the trains and at Oxford Circus Station.
    So those LU reporting numbers are consistent with expectations.

    The 2019 data is consistent with historic data reporting the distribution of visitors at the 3 arrival points.
    It does not report or measure passengers travelling through the station, using the platforms, changing trains or interchanging lines.
    If the Central London Railway were taken out of the equation say it was on a 99 year lease, and became a reporting unit for national statistics, then passometers would be fitted within the complex with exits from the CLR and entries to the corresponding LU line platform. These would be completely new passenger journeys and not affecting the Oxford Street visitors or trade.
    Shortening a bus route then transferring doubles bus journeys and passengers even if captured on a hopper fare. A similar effect is seen here.
    Through traffic is being measured now where it was not before.
    Provide a relief line for the CLR to divide the load and add a couple of branches to Abbey Wood and Heathrow and you bring in some additional visitors and much more through transit traffic. Instead of passometers and divided tickets the ORR is estimating where journeys are being broken and counted as exiting one network carrier and entering another.
    On that 2023 column we now have people counted leaving a tubey not-a-train and boarding a proper full size one and vice versa. An exchange of cargo, the economic equivalent of taking in each others washing to boost economic output measures.

    The other side of that book-keeping entry is

    National Rail annual entry and exit
    Bond St 2023–24 38.308

    TCR 2023–24 64.219

    Oxford St ??? Not 212.367

    It is very hard to conceive of drivers behind additional demand beyond some residential relocation or shift from bus nothing like +80%.
    There has been some intensification of residential flats development near Liz stations replacing retail and car parking but this is a slow evolution over time representing a gradual contribution to demand.

80. Alek: You’re very odd. Literally no-one has called the Central line the “Central London Railway” since 1937.

    If you Google the magic phrase “b6ab04fc-9062-4291-b514-7fa218073b4c” you will find the FOIR Station use of Tube, Rail and Bus from 30 March 2021.

81. Alek 4/2/25 20:30,

    We are starting to get concerned and frustrated by your comments. You seem to be coming to a conclusion then selectively collecting and interpreting facts to fit your conclusion (or, on occasions, not bothering with the facts).

    I am not entirely clear on the point you are trying to make but, assuming I understand it correctly, here is my response.

    It is certainly true that there are a lot of issues concerning double counting. The article emphasised that if the methodology remained the same then trends (increases or decreases) would be a fairly reliable and accurate.

    We know that changes in measuring can create phantom increases in passenger journeys. A classic case was after privatisation when the government pronounced an increase in passenger journeys thus showing their policy was successful. What actually happened was that there was no longer any national counting so the government added up all the figures from the rail companies and (hey, presto) more passengers. Of course, what was happening was that passengers starting and completing their journeys with different rail companies got counted at least twice.

    We also know the absurdity of a journey by Underground and National Rail being counted as two journeys if you add National Rail travel and Underground travel. So a journey from Wapping via Whitechapel to Tottenham Court Road is one National Rail journey as is Chingford to Tottenham Court Road via Liverpool St. However, a journey from Stepney Green to Tottenham Court Road via Whitechapel is an Underground journey plus a National Rail journey.

    However, none of this matters if considering last year’s figures with this year’s figure to establish trends.

    The fundamental flaw in your argument, if I understand it, is that the effect of the Elizabeth line can reduce the passenger number count and I expect in many cases has done so. Through journeys such as Oxford – Cambridge by a passenger who did not realise you could buy a through ticket for the Underground are now just recorded as one passenger journey whereas it would have been recorded as three journeys with two on National Rail. Possibly more significant is people who would have previously taken a bus between stations – possibly due to lack of accessible access on the Underground. They would be counted as two rail journeys plus a bus journey.

    I tend to dislike anecdotal evidence but it can be good in checking it fits with the facts. At Tottenham Court Road one cannot imagine the numbers using the Crossrail platforms would in any way fit on Central line trains. Furthermore, the Central line is still busy at this station (as it is at others in central London) although there is an element of unreliability and trains being unavailable on the Central line. The increase in passengers is true regardless of how you count passenger numbers.

    What would be interesting to know is where passengers go to when the Elizabeth line is unavailable. I think for optional journeys many of them are simply not made.

82. I have summed the ORR dataset for the average station on the Maryland to Shenfield branch.
    I have noted what may be a relevant demand factor for changes.

    Apr 1997 to Mar 1998 1,464,813
    Apr 1998 to Mar 1999 1,811,681 City ‘bubble’
    Apr 1999 to Mar 2000 1,871,327
    Apr 2000 to Mar 2001 1,885,257
    Apr 2001 to Mar 2002 1,949,330
    Apr 2002 to Mar 2003 2,060,142
    Apr 2003 to Mar 2004 N/A
    Apr 2004 to Mar 2005 1,886,090
    Apr 2005 to Mar 2006 1,818,882
    Apr 2006 to Mar 2007 2,747,790 Polish EU from 2004
    Apr 2007 to Mar 2008 3,073,355
    Apr 2008 to Mar 2009 2,772,425 Bank failures
    Apr 2009 to Mar 2010 2,578,373
    Apr 2010 to Mar 2011 2,770,386
    Apr 2011 to Mar 2012 2,922,238
    Apr 2012 to Mar 2013 3,099,117
    Apr 2013 to Mar 2014 3,399,095
    Apr 2014 to Mar 2015 3,606,319 Romanian EU transitional
    Apr 2015 to Mar 2016 4,019,248
    Apr 2016 to Mar 2017 3,917,953
    Apr 2017 to Mar 2018 3,727,409 2016 Brexit
    Apr 2018 to Mar 2019 3,915,089
    Apr 2019 to Mar 2020 4,027,880
    Apr 2020 to Mar 2021 1,378,331 Covid
    Apr 2021 to Mar 2022 2,755,122 Covid
    Apr 2022 to Mar 2023 4,848,926 Liz opening
    Apr 2023 to Mar 2024 6,679,471

    May be helpful when considering what the figures might show

83. Interpreting the ORR data for the GB Rail Network

    The GB rail network has a 200 year history. It reached it’s largest extent and traffic during the Great War for which records were not kept. Just before and after there were more than 1.5 billion yearly passengers.

    The present recording system by ORR starts from 1997. The lowest number during COVID was at the level of 1871, the highs are back to record levels but on a much reduced network.

    The data is based on ticket sales representing a passenger journey from an origin to a destination. Where a journey involves a change of operator then this counts as an interchange. The same passenger is then counted as two or more journeys for each operator used.

    The ‘headline’ number for the FYE 2024 is 1,612 million ‘passengers’- that is an abbreviation of passenger journeys.

    It consists of all the entries and exits of the National Rail network (summed to 2,853.7 records which pair to 1,426.8 tickets) plus the trips that created 219.4 interchanges. 1426.8 + 219.4 is 1646.2 journey legs or 34 million more than reported. The ORR makes a note about assumptions on ‘split-ticketing’ so might be an adjustment.

    ORR note about the overstatement of passengers at the Elizabeth termini of Paddington and Liverpool St. It is under review without much explanation or how it will be resolved. At other stations a change of operator is recorded as an interchange but here the Elizabeth platforms are ‘outside’ the terminus with transferring passengers exiting one part and entering the other. The sources are barrier counts and ticket validity but numbers are large taking a lot of reconciliation.

    The central London interchanges of the Elizabeth line with the Northern line and the Jubilee line, unlike other nodes on the underground, are exits of one system and entries to the other. The National Rail platform is the end point of the National Rail journey recorded as an entry/exit (boarding/alighting). Correspondingly the LU is recording the same data on their side as an entry/exit end of a tube journey.
    LU does not normally record traffic at line transfers though they are monitored for safety and congestion, perhaps setting hourly passing traffic for advertisers or busker pitches. These numbers are estimated as there are alternative possible routes to navigate the underground for example Waterloo to Elizabeth line.

    The ticket system allocates the quickest routing to an origin – destination pair (unless an intermediate ticket reader indicates an alternative path). Using the Elizabeth for part of a journey makes a trip faster but multiplies the trip into 2 or 3 passenger journeys with line transfers creating entry/exit points for ticket revenue allocation.

    Bond Street and TCR have barrier counts for people at street level so could publish that detail as a footnote for comparability with other surface ‘Stations’.

84. The unofficial peak number of passengers carried by the Railway Executive Committee during WW1 is 1.7bn in a year. A number that ORR estimates has now been matched.

    Is there any analysis already carried out making such a comparison, potentially for the millennium for example.

    In 1914 GB had 23,000 miles of rail track and 4,000 stations employing 700,000 workers. When the war was declared, the government took over 130 separately owned railway companies, leaving more than forty-six others to remain independent being either short or light railway systems.

    In 2023 GB has 20,000 miles of rail track and 2,656 stations. In addition some of the track mileage from 1914 is still in service carrying passengers either as light rail or metro. In 1918, the London Underground carried 67% more passengers than in 1914.

    On a comparable basis of the same network when was the peak passenger carrying figure surpassed?

85. Alek : Again, your terminology is imprecise.

    There is no “GB National Rail”. There is “National Rail Enquires” who run, on behalf of the Rail Delivery Group the live train data systems and timetables.

    Perhaps you mean to mean “Network Rail” (Network Rail Infrastructure Limited)? This company owns and runs the track and associated signalling and some 20 larger stations. But has limited direct interface with the public.

    Or is your prefix means you are referring to “Great British Railways Transition Team” who are doing sterling work trying to sort out a integrated rail network with human-understandable pricing . But “Great British Railways” still doesn’t existing outside a BBC Two TV show.

    In Greater London (the area controlled by the Greater London Assembly and London Mayor) the tube infrastructure belongs to Transport For London (owned by the GLA) and Network Rail. So, the Liz Line runs almost all on Network Rail track, as contracted access service operated by MTR Elizabeth line the operating contractor.

86. BB, National Rail is the grouping of passenger rail operators in GB covered by the National Rail Conditions of Travel, i.e. the various TOCs and open-access operators, and including the Elizabeth Line and London Overground (but not the Underground). So in this respect Alek’s terminology is pretty precise.

    BTW, Network Rail owns nearly every station served by National Rail (not just the 20-odd larger ones), but most of these are leased to TOCs, and it owns nearly all the track that National Rail uses, an exception to both being TfL’s Rail for London ownership of the Elizabeth Line central core.

87. Betterbee: “the grouping of passenger rail operators in GB” is actually called the Rail Delivery Group or RDG.

88. Alek: I’ve been looking thought the Sectional Appendix pages in EA1010 (sequence 008-004) and EA1011 (001 to 008) and and looking the services used to be able to pass other trains.

    The Liz Line used the up and down electric and the other trains use the up and down mains.

    This must mean that the old not-all-stops services used to make use of the fast lines.

    I’m sure that Greater Anglia now make use these Up Main and Down Main to provide 13tp to/from Southend and Southminster, 9tph to/from Ipswich, Clacton, Colchester and Braintree and 2tph very fast from Norwich/ Ipswich.

    The GA timetable suggest that there are non-stopping Shenfield-Stratford (set down only) -LST trains at 6tph.

    I’m not sure how your skipped-stop trains is even possible without the benefits to those living in Essex being removed.

89. Alek’s terminology may or may not be precise, but please bear in mind that not all readers are railway experts. I find some of these posts impossible to understand. Please could all contributors try to write in a way which is comprehensible to the average member of the public.

    [You are not alone. See my later comment on 12th February. PoP]

90. Brian B: ‘“the grouping of passenger rail operators in GB” is actually called the Rail Delivery Group or RDG.’ Unfortunately this is not accurate, as can be seen by comparing the membership of the National Rail grouping as given in Appendix A of its Conditions of Travel https://assets.nationalrail.co.uk/e8xgegruud3g/77fuBWp62YPSrGwBP1mNQX/5f912e6484a2dc7efbad3b4ed0c9b383/National_Rail_Conditions_of_Travel_2024.pdf with RDG’s membership https://www.raildeliverygroup.com/about-us/passenger-freight-track/licensed-associate-members.html: clearly they are not the same thing. NatR is precisely defined (see below) as passenger only (the context in which Alek used the term), while the RDG has a much wider membership.

    For confirmation, a couple of definitions from the National Rail Conditions of Travel:
    * “National Rail Network means the network of railway lines over which Train Companies operate scheduled passenger railway services”, and
    * “Train Company means a company operating passenger railway services which is required to apply these Conditions to persons purchasing Tickets, under a condition of the passenger license granted to the company by theOffice of Rail and Road. References in these Conditions to Train Company also extends to the authorised agents of that company. A list of these train companies can be found in Appendix A [i.e. TOCs etc].”

    So no place for RDG’s non-TOC etc membership! Perhaps we need a guiding mind to fix up this confusion…

    Andrew C: I agree; and apologies for the denseness of this post, seeking to supply some precision and explanation about confusing terminology.

91. @Betterbee: I see you have to refer to the train ticket Terms and Conditions to find a reference to “National Rail” and as I said the RDG use “National Rail Enquires ™ ” (white on blue circle logo) but on a day-to-day basis no one at the RDG (with it’s actual staff), ORR, Network Rail, etc etc uses “National Rail” for anything.

    National Rail is a legal term, not an active organization at least since privatization.

92. @Alek: I don’t meant to be inappropriate, is there any chance you might be able to summarise your postings to a pithy point or two?

    Your repeated postings suggest that you are vexed about something but I can’t see beyond a distrust of simple statistics?

    Do you have a blog? I’ve had my own for almost 23 years and you can perhaps use tables and graphs to explain in a way that are hard to comminate in text-only format-free comments.

    [Reluctantly I have to agree. See my later comment on 12th February. PoP]

93. Brian B: it’s good that you now acknowledge that National Rail does exist (as do passenger-focussed bodies/websites such as Trainline, BritRail, The Man in Seat 61, RailUKForums, MyTrainTicket etc etc and ToCs’ retail functions, since the entire national rail ticketing system is based on its existence), and Alek’s use of that terminology was – and continues to be – precise.

    Back to the debate (even if I am getting just a little lost..).

94. Betterbee: I’m of the opinion that if there isn’t a plaque on a building somewhere with the name on it then it’s just a “legal nicety” rather than actual organization.

    Perhaps “National Rail” is a modern Magna Carta in that respect ?

95. Looks like Crossrail breaks all three of the golden rules of metro planning:

    Don’t branch too early
    Don’t branch too often
    Don’t branch unevenly

    In retrospect, it might have been better to end Crossrail at Gidea Park rather than Shenfield. Southend trains could easily have handled the outer stations.

    South of the river, a different terminus after Woolwich would have generated an extra level of demand, such as Welling or Bexleyheath. Maybe (crayons on overload) Welling, Blackfen, Sidcup, St Mary Cray and Orpington. Stop wherever the Romford branch is balanced.

96. Max
    Plenty ( Well, enough ) space at Shenfield, but not at Gidea Park
    Agree that SE branch is too short – should go to Bluewater or Gravesend ( £ money )

97. Alek, Andrew Conway, Brian Butterworth,

    Having had a few days when I hardly looked at the comments, I was a bit shocked by the number of comments by Alek especially after my own comment of the 5th February. I have to agree that I find them hard to read. It is a weakness of the comments feature that tables cannot be neatly presented but, on the other hand, do we really want masses of tables in comments?

    The comments are unduly long and seem to be getting longer despite the warning and they appear to be incoherent as if putting down all he can think rather than taking time to summarise and put it succinctly. Sometimes less is more.

    I have now hidden a lot of the recent comments by Alek despite me thinking that within them the were actually valid points made. Unfortunately they are clothed in a sea of waffle.

98. @Max
    I agree – I think these issues were well understood by the planning and development teams, but practicalities and cost constraints got in the way. I remember the many years of iterations of Western branches – High Wycombe, Kingston via Richmond, Tring; all trying to balance the East. There’s the still ongoing discussions about running onward to Dartford or Ebbsfleet and of course the “Superlink” proposal that took the whole Crossrail scheme to the level of Thameslink.
    In the end we ended up with what we have because that was what was possible within the available funds and practical constraints.
    I’d like to think extensions East from Abbey Wood and West from OOC will help balance things better sometime in the future, but maybe the Bakerloo extension or CR2 will be more of a priority.

99. Paul,

    I would question how unbalanced Crossrail is on the east. It is true that the Shenfield branch has around 50% more passengers than the Abbey Wood branch but I strongly suspect that there is much more local suburban traffic on the Shenfield branch. Furthermore, the Canary Wharf area still has a lot of potential development that will probably take place – most noticeably Wood Wharf. And continuing ones journey eastward (so there is no Crossrail exit) is I suspect more prevalent at Abbey Wood than Shenfield which distorts the figures in favour of the Shenfield branch.

    I don’t really get it about balancing the branches on west either. You already have 12tph in the peak direction in the peak from Hayes & Harlington to Paddington. That is only two short of the 14tph between Stratford and Gidea Park. On both sides I think you would be struggling to add many more peak period trains – on the west in particular with its varied stopping pattern. Having another branch would seem to be unworkable.

100. Q. If trains can be reversed after Paddington why not the other places? Is it the defined ‘end-of-the-line’ that allows use of Shenfield sidings and the driver still walks through the train?

     [I really don’t understand this. On the first point, the reason trains can be reversed at Paddington using a siding is because there are a LOT of staff present so it can be quickly carried out. On the second point, the Crossrail trains at Shenfield normally reverse in the platform. Driver walks along the platform. He/she doesn’t check whether there are passengers still on the train – as new ones have already boarded. PoP]

101. Reversing trains
     At Shenfield there is more dwell time to walk the train in the platform to confirm it is cleared as empty for the siding. I am unclear what happens if someone is ‘found’, what if uncooperative, incoherent, disturbed, passed out, injured. The staff member has the safety of the platform and the train stays?
     What happens with the current peak reversers at Gidea Park.

     Assuming the peak service remains as at present what can be done about the low number of Off-Peak passengers at Brentwood and why?

     We have previously understood “why we don’t extend underground lines and Ebbsfleet”.
     The Elizabeth Line is running 98 off-peak trains on weekdays the 8.41kms from Harold Wood to Shenfield in order to serve Brentwood Station. As someone already pointed out Brentwood is also passed by 3 tph by Greater Anglia.
     This is a return distance of 10.45 miles by 9 carriage trains for 250 work days.
     Total wear is 2.3 million vehicle miles per year. More if weekends & BH are adjusted.

     [I think the notion that trains only run to Shenfield in order to serve Brentwood is fundamentally flawed. Trains run to Shenfield to serve both Brentwood and Shenfield and because Shenfield is the first really practical place to terminate trains. Time is a more appropriate measure rather than distance and Harold Wood to Shenfield is only an 8 minute journey which is not unreasonable for a suburban journey of 2 stops. PoP]

     Instead with an Off-Peak service of 8 tph the two slow/electric platforms at Harold Wood could reverse 4tph each, they could manage 6 if the demand continues increasing.

     Fast lines off-peak changes
     Southend Line 3 tph stop at Brentwood.
     One of these already stops at Romford, the other 2 make additional stops at Harold Wood. These allow interchange with the Elizabeth Line.
     Chelmsford Line has 4 tph, one already stops at Romford, the other half-hour one that stops at Shenfield can instead stop at Harold Wood.

     The tables contain operating cost but this sounds ‘profitable’ for TfL.
     Note the distance from Gidea Park to Harold Wood station is less than 1.5 miles, less than a mile to the Gidea Park reverse siding.

     Passenger benefits are faster journeys to Romford and Stratford from Brentwood and Harold Wood.
     Greater Anglia makes 5 more stops per hour and collects fares from 2 stations off-peak.

     [And where in all this hypothetical stuff is the longer journeys to everyone already on the train factored in? As long as Greater Anglia is run by a private TOC I don’t think they would be particularly interested in stopping at these stations for the small amount of money they would receive from the extra passengers. Remember that a lot of these off-peak journeys would be subject to capped daily payments so Greater Anglia would not even receive the raw face-value fare. Also it costs serious money to to stop a train running at a line speed of 70/75 mph at a station and accelerate back to line speed. PoP]

102. To everyone who have previously commented,
     I would like to thank everyone for their valuable insight, however, as a casual reader who might not understand all of the railway terminology, I am struggling to understand a lot of the ideas and acronyms proposed in this comments section. Simplification of these ideas would be hugely appreciated.

103. Yuvan
     In this thread, there is one prolific commenter, riding a hobby-horse, who seems to use his own um, confusing terminology
     Whereas, if one looks at an actual “BR”/National Rail timetable … there is a full set of 3-letter acronyms that cover every station in the country
     E.G. LST = Liverpool St, SRA = Stratford, IFD = Ilford, RMF = Romford, Shenfield = SNF
     And so on.
     If you can find the National Rail Electronic Timetable ( google for it) you can get the full list.

104. Yuvan: Please put the word “Miscellany” in the search box at the top right for a enjoyable rabbit hole of explanations.

     Yes really.

105. @GregT or in this very handy little interface we wrote and used by Network Rail.

     https://nr.whoosh.media/app/stations/SFA/picker

     The list imports the usage data from ORR and TfL and then order the list by it.

106. @Yuvan : For an explanation of the challenges with Elizabeth Line data refer to the London Reconnections article The State of Rail: Breaking Down The Numbers.

     This article updates the last annual numbers against just the prior year based on Station numbers. The comparison seeks to avoid any of the wider factors affecting the line.

     TfL will receive 10 additional Elizabeth Line trains in 2026 and the Commissioner last week requested options to double the Heathrow T5 service. The Mayor previously stated that 4 would be required to extend the Paddington route to Old Oak Common.
     Neither of these possibilities will affect the number of trains running through the central core.

     Improved lines have shown continuing annual growth stabilising to a new level in 10 years. If more traffic is expected the capacity can be raised by additional services at the Liverpool Street Terminus or raising the core frequency. Using existing trains more in the intense inner portions requires they spend less time on the outer less busy parts. This requires either travelling less distance or taking less time with stops during the peak hours. The design capacity of the core is 30 trains per hour (tph) and operationally 24 tph is currently used.

     TfL’s consultants Arup are making an Elizabeth line post-opening evaluation study. The initial report published in spring 2024 looked at the performance loading traffic on the line. A comprehensive report is expected in spring 2025 that will expand on the effect to London’s public transport.

     Comparisons with other systems are qualified as the Elizabeth has a regional role, an airport link, a cross city line, and a hybrid underground line. The statistical reports do not correspond with other parts of the National Rail database. Some people want to better understand why.

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