Closure of a London Underground line?

[theexplorer]

Curtailing the Beckton line on the DLR at Canning Town would make sense should Tower Gateway, giving there is plenty of interchange opportunities there. Bank would not be able to accommodate extra services displace from Tower Gateway.

[Chris L]

Dec 3, 2021 8:52:26 GMT theexplorer said:

Curtailing the Beckton line on the DLR at Canning Town would make sense should Tower Gateway, giving there is plenty of interchange opportunities there. Bank would not be able to accommodate extra services displace from Tower Gateway.

No real money saving in doing this. The main (and soon to be enlarged) depot is at Beckton. New trains have started construction and would be expensive to cancel.

The trains would terminate at the low level platforms (as they do at the certain times of the day). Interchanging passengers would overcrowd the stairs, lifts and escalators.

There is a long term proposal to close Tower Gateway station and replace it with a stop on the Bank line.

It would need to be a true part of the Underground to achieve the saving.

[Chris M]

There is no way Bank can handle more DLR passengers until after the station upgrade is complete. There is no way that Tower Gateway could handle anywhere near the required amount of trains, nor the whole number of passengers - I would also forecast an increase in the number of road accidents involving people crossing Minories. There would also be a lot of additional interchange traffic at Limehouse and while the DLR station there would likely cope I don't think the c2c station with its narrow passages and platforms could do so safely.

[Chris L]

To save a lot of money it requires complete closure of a line (or a complete branch) so that maintenance of the track and signalling can be abandoned and trains withdrawn.

[jimbo]

Dec 3, 2021 9:27:59 GMT Chris L said:

Dec 3, 2021 8:52:26 GMT theexplorer said:

Curtailing the Beckton line on the DLR at Canning Town would make sense should Tower Gateway, giving there is plenty of interchange opportunities there. Bank would not be able to accommodate extra services displace from Tower Gateway.

..... New trains have started construction and would be expensive to cancel. .....

The Piccadilly and DLR new rolling stock are both committed, but may need to be reviewed. (source Implications of Reduced Funding for TfL paper to the TfL Finance Committee meeting on 24 November 2021)

[antharro]

As per Tom's reminder earlier in this thread, we do not want this to become a political discussion. A post has been removed from this thread for this reason.

[stapler]

Nov 30, 2021 21:37:46 GMT Tom said:

As a child I can remember the majority of Central line trains from West Ruislip reversing at Loughton with only a 3tph service between there and Epping, bringing that back would result in a lower demand for trains (it's just shy of 18 minutes running time there and back, excluding dwell time at Epping).

Loughton was traditionally the limit of the more intensive service. But that was before Epping became the drive-to station for cheap fares for the whole of Essex and beyond (as you could tell when there were still printed licence discs with the post office stamp of issue on). Reducing Loughton to Epping to 3tph would nowadays just not be practicable.
Someone driving half an hour from Epping can save £2000pa on GA costs, if s/he can find anywhere to park.

Quote modified - Tom

[jimbo]

Closure of an LU line is again mentioned by TfL Commissioner Andy Byford at the public board meeting of the recent London TravelWatch Board (video) if Government funding is only sufficient for a Managed Decline of services. However, he is talking of a 10% reduction in rail services, and I think he is giving a measure of that as the equivalent of closing one whole line in a system of ten equally sized lines. You could count LU as a system of ten lines if you wanted to.

[brigham]

Closing an entire line is most likely sabre-rattling.

Economies could be made. The one-off cost of building a car park could allow the curtailment of services at the farther extremities of what were originally urban railways.

'Managed decline' is another political concept. 'Greater efficiency' does not necessarily equate with decline.

I'm all for transport subsidy. We would be back in the turnpike days without it; but the gigantic over-investment in the TfL rail network needs to be brought under control. A £16 billion new tube should surely be balanced with savings elsewhere.

[class411]

It's obvious which line they should close.

The Elizabeth Line.

We've done with out it for over a hundred years of The Underground, so, um, yeah.

[spsmiler]

Since the people running the London Underground have not really wanted the longer distance Met service so here is one idea that might save some money. As well as create an uproar in Metroland and at the cemeteries where Metropolitan Railway peeps are buried.


Give the main line Harrow - Amersham / Chesham and North Curve to Network Rail and Chiltern Trains plus withdraw all LU trains.

LU would retain the local line to Watford, and not need to fund resignalling of the main line.

Cringe

[aslefshrugged]

The Tube isn't TfL's biggest problem, before Covid it was the only part of TfL that operated with a surplus (profit). The big deficit is buses, they've been operating at a loss for decades but if fares were brought up to meet cost they would be so expensive that passenger numbers would collapse.

There are no more efficiencies to be made, TfL has been cutting back wherever possible since 2015/16 when it had an annual operating deficit of £1.6bn. That was down to £0.4bn by 2019/20 and was on course to breaking even in a year or two. Lockdown has put everything back to square one but the only thing to cut now is services which is why TfL have launched a consultation on proposed withdrawal of bus routes (consultation is a legal requirement)

[bpk]

Jun 30, 2022 8:06:21 GMT brigham said:

Closing an entire line is most likely sabre-rattling.

Economies could be made. The one-off cost of building a car park could allow the curtailment of services at the farther extremities of what were originally urban railways.

'Managed decline' is another political concept. 'Greater efficiency' does not necessarily equate with decline.

I'm all for transport subsidy. We would be back in the turnpike days without it; but the gigantic over-investment in the TfL rail network needs to be brought under control. A £16 billion new tube should surely be balanced with savings elsewhere.

The idea of building a car park to allow for reduced services to extremities of the line goes against current national policy. Plans are afoot to demolish LU car parks to build “affordable” housing which may have a very minimal parking provision once completed. Also, services to the “extremities” aren’t exactly over-served as it is. On the Central line, many trains terminate at Northolt, North Acton, White City and Loughton. The passengers would argue that there aren’t enough trains being run to the extremities, especially past the latter.

As AslefShrugged has said, there aren’t many more sensible efficiencies to be made.

[trt]

Jun 30, 2022 15:08:40 GMT spsmiler said:

Since the people running the London Underground have not really wanted the longer distance Met service so here is one idea that might save some money. As well as create an uproar in Metroland and at the cemeteries where Metropolitan Railway peeps are buried.


Give the main line Harrow - Amersham / Chesham and North Curve to Network Rail and Chiltern Trains plus withdraw all LU trains.

LU would retain the local line to Watford, and not need to fund resignalling of the main line.

Cringe

Are there any stations which are TfL operated (and therefore staffed) which could sensibly be handed over to National Rail?

[Chris M]

Jul 1, 2022 12:30:51 GMT trt said:

Jun 30, 2022 15:08:40 GMT spsmiler said:

Since the people running the London Underground have not really wanted the longer distance Met service so here is one idea that might save some money. As well as create an uproar in Metroland and at the cemeteries where Metropolitan Railway peeps are buried.


Give the main line Harrow - Amersham / Chesham and North Curve to Network Rail and Chiltern Trains plus withdraw all LU trains.

LU would retain the local line to Watford, and not need to fund resignalling of the main line.

Cringe

Are there any stations which are TfL operated (and therefore staffed) which could sensibly be handed over to National Rail?

The shared stations at the top end of the Met would seem the obvious candidate.

The Bakerloo line Queens Park to Harrow & Wealdstone could easily be given to LO, but whether that would reduce staffing costs for TfL as a whole I don't know. Staff to detrain at Harrow & Wealdstone and Stonebridge park would still be needed.