Croxley Link

[astock5000]

londonreconnections.blogspot.com/2008/08/proposal-to-extend-metropolitan-line-to.html

the East of England Regional Assembly has agreed to contribute approximately £120 million, which includes £13.8 million set aside to cover the risk that it comes in over budget.

Whilst this is obviously a massive step forward, the proposal is not completely out of the woods yet.

[Deleted]

Finally some good news!

[Deleted]

i'm interested as to how this would tie in with the ssr signalling upgrades, i guess with the contract retendering there is now the potential to include the extension in the signalling design

[cetacean]

See the update to the post - the EERA don't have their own money to spend, so all they've done is suggest the DfT fund it, the same DfT that have repeatedly refused funding. Hence we're in much the same position as before.

[Deleted]

Is there actual demand for the proposed Watford-Aylesbury service or is that just in there to reel in potential supporters?

[metman]

There probably isn't any demand! Most Aylesbury passengers head towards London!

[amershamsi]

It's really obvious why people at Aylesbury go to London rather than Watford - by train they can't really go anywhere else (High Wycombe, of course)! If they travel to Watford, they'd drive, as taking the train involves three changes and the car journey is rather quick once out of Aylesbury.

Then again, it's more the Amersham, etc to Watford/Aylesbury journeys that will benefit from the Aylesbury-Watford route.

And again, those journeys into Watford don't really show up on the train radar as you have to change at Moor Park, and walk to the town centre from Cassiobury Park.

[max]

There has to be a lot of similarity with the local run here from Walton to Colchester Town. On a Saturday morning, each of the inward trains typically has over 100 people get off, which presumably is why Beeching left it alone.

Aylesbury to Watford would serve more potental customers and take them to a larger shopping centre.

And don't forget that many WCML trains stop at Watford Junction, has to be more convient to pick them up from there than go all the way down into Euston.

Definitely worth some sort of experimental service for a couple of months to gauge the potential demand.

[peterc]

With a line into the main business centre of Watford there will be a lot of scope for journey to work and probably some return school journeys to Ricky. As Max says it would be worth trying.

[Deleted]

Before you get too excited - there wont be much VWC stopping at Watford Junction after December 2008 - just an hourly Euston - Birmingham and a few early Manchesters etc but good connections in all other directions.

Plus the Harrow - Watford DC will need resignalling as the present SSI is a bit minimalist on headways

[astock5000]

Aug 13, 2008 18:43:41 GMT @davesgcr said:

Before you get too excited - there wont be much VWC stopping at Watford Junction after December 2008 - just an hourly Euston - Birmingham and a few early Manchesters etc but good connections in all other directions.

I never heard about this. What is the reason thay want less trains to stop at Watford Junction?

[Deleted]

Most of the West Coast main line calls go in Milton Keynes (now being massively remodelled with an overtaking capability) - its all to do with the general speed up of the West Coast which entails more faster non stop runs to the North - e.g Preston - Euston non stop with Crewe calls going into a "semi fast" Manchester via Wilmslow , or the North Wales service.

Its been out for consltation for the last 12 months or so.Mixed feelings as Watford generates quite a few long distance travellers who want to go somehwere else other than Brum !

[Deleted]

I have just bought a second car because they won't build the Croxley link for me! Two weeks ago I started a new job in Ricky and live in Bushey. Car takes 20 minutes, TfL Bus+Train or TfL Bus+Herts Bus takes an hour.

I figured that 80 minutes of my time every day is worth more than the depreciation on a second-hand banger, petrol and parking.

Even if there were no Watford-Aylesbury trains, I would still have been happy to take the bus to Watford High Street and the train to Ricky (via x at Moor Park), as I reckon it would have taken about 35 minutes.

[Deleted]

I never heard about this. What is the reason thay want less trains to stop at Watford Junction?

Shorter time from the North to London? Competing with MML?
This Croxley link has been talked about for literally ages, I really can't see it happening, but if it did. :-)

[superteacher]

It's amazing how such a relatively simple project can be such a major issue. They can build Crossrail (a truly huge project), but have been faffing around with Croxley for years.

[astock5000]

Aug 17, 2008 15:02:05 GMT superteacher said:

It's amazing how such a relatively simple project can be such a major issue. They can build Crossrail (a truly huge project), but have been faffing around with Croxley for years.

Is that because it is too far away from London (Crossrail will be built, ELL extensions are being built, DLR gets extended, Croydon Tramlink doesn't...)?

[Deleted]

Is that because it is too far away from London (Crossrail will be built, ELL extensions are being built, DLR gets extended, Croydon Tramlink doesn't...)?

I suspect so - to put it bluntly, its a Hertfordshire project (as far as the Powers That Be seem to be concerned) rather than a London one.

Hell, the only reason I wrote about it is because I grew up in Stevenage. ;D

In seriousness, as I mentioned in the update on that article it looks like another small step in the right direction. The money does, however, still need to come from the Regional Fund Allocation which is funded by the DfT- something Mr Thant tipped me off to and something cnplus (the original source) either glossed over or weren't aware of.

I emailed them asking them to clarify where they got their information from but didn't get a reply.

From trawling through the rather dull minutes/statements of the EERA it seems that their recommendation that it be funded this way will carry some weight (or at least EERA themselves think it will), but I can't seem to find any independent verification of that, nor of who gets the final say on where the funds from the RFA go.

[Ben]

As its been pointed out before, the project in its conception has been in a no-mans-land for decades, and its all because of the fragmentation of government in the surrounding areas. Who controls the transport, who ownes the land, who funds the project, who the local council is, which authority the area is in, etc etc. It got a glowing review in the London Rail plan of 1974 and was recommended for further investigation by the local authorities. And I'm fairly certain Oracle mentioned that someone wrote into UndergrounD at one point suggesting a link to the Ricky Church Street branch as part of the quadrupling of the met main line.

It has a large and long pedigree, but until it is built will remain a testament to the beurocracy of the system.