Looking forward to the next ten years

[whole diary]

[Tim]

Pity about the Gerrards Cross through lines. Don't suppose Tesco could be told to "go away" as I gather many residents would have liked.

The 'Tesco tunnel' allows for four tracking. It is in their Q&A somewhere...

Paul

You mean the "Tescos value" tunnel 

[devon_metro]

I forgot about freight!

Something needs to be done. Otherwise, HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) will have to be AXED to release paths. I suppose the HX could be axed/reduced...

The only other possibility is to terminate Oxford slows at Reading/Maidenhead. Or extend XR^▸ (Crossrail) to Banbury.

What a ridiculous comment to make. The last thing to be axed will be high speed trains. They make far larger profits than local services. If I am travelling in that direction I don't want to travel to Reading, I want to go to London as do most people on trains bound for London.

[John R]

Pity about the Gerrards Cross through lines. Don't suppose Tesco could be told to "go away" as I gather many residents would have liked.

The 'Tesco tunnel' allows for four tracking. It is in their Q&A somewhere...

Paul

Hopefully this will be the Tesco Finest tunnel. The Tesco Value tunnel was the first one!

You mean the "Tescos value" tunnel 

[Btline]

What a ridiculous comment to make.

No need to be nasty - I don't want it anymore than you!  

I'm just worried about the implications of XR^▸ (Crossrail) west of London. Sorry.

[Btline]

I forgot about freight!

Something needs to be done. Otherwise, HSS^▸ (High Speed Services) will have to be AXED to release paths. I suppose the HX could be axed/reduced...

The only other possibility is to terminate Oxford slows at Reading/Maidenhead. Or extend XR^▸ (Crossrail) to Banbury.

I believe Hex will still be operating

The Oxford slows will be, I think not sure on this, at Slough which is the thing that annoys Twyford passengers as they will have to change to get to London also any Reading passengers who want to got intermediate stops between Maidenhead and London will need to change

At a recent meeting of the the RCTS where we had a Crossrail presentation the poor presenter who had only been in the job three months was told in no uncertain terms that Crossrail does not work West of London and causes massive disruption to the current pattern of commuting and leisure travel on the GMWL main and relief lines. In particular  to well used trains from West of Maidenhead to station to Ealing Broadway and vice versa.

If there are no stopping services from the West of Maidenhead to Paddington then even humble Taplow loses out. Currently either by changing in London (a hassle) or Reading I can get  to most stations in GB^▸ (Great Britain) with only 1 or two changes. Are people going to get on at Taplow change at Maidenhead then Reading?

G.uard sums it up admirably.

Whatever operational decisions are taken for CrossRail, perhaps it is worth considering that it is a London-centric project.  As such, the system will be geared up to deliver passengers from/to the dormitory suburbs and the big city.  Any improvements outside that ambit, experienced by outlying stations will IMO^▸ (in my opinion), be coincidental, or at best somewhat grudgingly provided, though nevertheless welcome.  And...despite all the hoo haa; even if CrossRail does reach Reading, it will still be quicker for a passenger from there to say... Liverpool St., to catch a fast service to Pad and change to the Underground.

Even better than the underground for passengers to Liverpool Street is to cross to Eastbourne Terrace to catch the next one of the 14 tph Crossrail turnround trains which they have just passed in the sidings at Westbourne Park this will be empty, so they don't have to travel with the hoi poli from Maidenhead eastwards.

Although I hope the presenter was not scalded too much, I am glad people are waking up to this problem.

I don't know who came up with the XR route, but I would like to ask them why they missed off Reading and Ebbesfleet Int!

Clearly passengers should be having more of an imput.

[Electric train]

Reading was missed out of the Bill because the XR^▸ (Crossrail) project did not want the cost of rebuilding Reading Station, the rebuild of Reading has subsequently happened, my guess is that XR to Reading will follow soon after XR is commissioned.

[John R]

Particularly if the line is being electrified anyway, which appears increasingly likely.

[devon_metro]

What a ridiculous comment to make.

No need to be nasty - I don't want it anymore than you!  

I'm just worried about the implications of XR^▸ (Crossrail) west of London. Sorry.

It's not a case of being nasty, more so a case of thinking laterally.

[Btline]

I'm not suggesting they do axe HSTs^▸ (High Speed Train), but I was making the point that paths would have to be freed somehow!

Anyway, it looks like FGW^▸ (First Great Western) will be able to use the slow lines after all, so no point in discussing it further.

But XR^▸ (Crossrail) needs to be re-done.

[Electric train]

Part of the XR^▸ (Crossrail) project is to resignal the Slough Panel Box and Slough IECC^▸ (Integrated Electronic Control Centre) with the new ERTMS^▸ (European Rail Traffic Management System.) (European Rail Traffic Management System) which if the theory is right will crate more paths

[eightf48544]

Part of the XR^▸ (Crossrail) project is to resignal the Slough Panel Box and Slough IECC^▸ (Integrated Electronic Control Centre) with the new ERTMS^▸ (European Rail Traffic Management System.) (European Rail Traffic Management System) which if the theory is right will crate more paths

ERTMS the Cambrian seems to have gone very quite!

Aren't the Dutch and Belgians still having trouble on the HSL from Brussells to Amsterdamm, still no high speed services due to software incompatibilities and the inability of one manufactures transponders on the loco to talk to another's balise on the track, although they should both work to the same common standard.

There is still a lot of work to be done on ERTMS for it to be made viable for the GWML^▸ (Great Western Main Line).

The other point electric train makes that if the theory is right there will be more paths.  I'm not sure the theories behind ERTMS are right for very busy lines with lots of stations and junctions. There was an article in a recent Modern Railways about how much extra capacity ERTMS could provide through London Bridge which was not much due to the limitations of turning trains round at Charing Cross and Canon Street. Although it might help sorting out the junctions East of London Bridge.

Thus ERTMS may allows trains to run fster and closer together you are still limited by the number of station stops and terminal capacity. Thus it will probably work between Brussells and Amsterdamm on the HSL, but London to Reading is different kettle of fish.

TVM^▸ (Ticket Vending Machine) 430 although French seems to work well as does LZB in Germany which has an added advantage it can be overlaid on existing signalling so not all trains using the line  have to be equiped.

[DevonTrains2008]

And now we have new high speed trains to look forward to...