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Post by Tubeboy on Oct 24, 2006 2:43:59 GMT
I read in the local paper [Finchley and Hendon times] that the Green party in Finchley or Barnet [cant remember which] want the Northern line to be extended to South Mimms, so that motorists can leave their cars at the M25 and use the tube into town, thereby cutting car use/air pollution in the capital.
This would obviously require a lot of investment, particularly in terms of increasing the capacity of the overall line to accommadate the extension. At the present time, in the peaks, trains from Barnet are full to bursting by they time they get to Finchley Central. What do other members think of the proposal?
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Post by Deleted on Oct 24, 2006 4:57:01 GMT
The tube is really suitable only for short-distance journeys. One trip to Epping or Heathrow should be enough to convince anyone of that.
The Greens would do better to press for better services and car parking on the existing main lines.
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Post by mrjrt on Oct 24, 2006 8:08:14 GMT
Personally, High Barnet should be returned to mainline stock IMHO. When the overground reaches Finsbury Park the oppertunity is there for the taking. With mainline stock an extension as originally planned to Potter's Bar or South Mimms would make perfect sense. The tube is needed in urban areas due to density...but that far out where services are overground, larger stock is probably the better bet. Tube may have made sense when it was built as the populations were much smaller, but now it needs its full-size carrages back.
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Phil
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Post by Phil on Oct 24, 2006 13:18:13 GMT
They'd be far better off getting an increased service to Potters Bar. Unless capacity is so stretched there that they can't reverse a few peak hour trains there for KX/Moorgate (and that may be so ?? Anyone??) it would be a far easier option.
In any case, Barnet to South Mimms is stupid compared with Cockfosters to Potters Bar/South Mimms. Latter has far easier gradients (but still pretty steep in places).
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Post by CSLR on Oct 24, 2006 13:46:45 GMT
Barnet to South Mimms is stupid compared with Cockfosters to Potters Bar/South Mimms. An express route between South Mimms and Llandudno would be even better. Then, instead of struggling through the crowds into London each morning, commuters could pick up their laptops and go to work on the beach in North Wales. |
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Post by compsci on Oct 24, 2006 15:07:53 GMT
I've been told by the train service director of FCC (save up your questions for next time I meet him) that the current limiting factor on any service increases (apart from sending some Letchworth terminators to Royston) is a chronic shortage of rolling stock. This is partially caused by the delay in getting stock back when someone decides to jump in front of it, and the Potters Bar crash unit, which will almost certainly never return to service. They're trying to find some more EMUs, possibly some spare 321s from SIlverlink.
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Post by mrjrt on Oct 24, 2006 21:31:09 GMT
... that the current limiting factor on any service increases (apart from sending some Letchworth terminators to Royston) is a chronic shortage of rolling stock... Mmmm. Call me foolish, but isn't the soultion to that quite easy....aka, build more trains?  |
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Post by mrjrt on Oct 24, 2006 21:53:03 GMT
In any case, Barnet to South Mimms is stupid compared with Cockfosters to Potters Bar/South Mimms. Latter has far easier gradients (but still pretty steep in places). When sitting looking at a map and the various proposed lines over the northern side of greater London a while back, there looked ot be some great oppertunities for interchange. HB to Potter's Bar, giving better local transport to that area and enabling that station to become a regional hub on the scale of, say Watford, where most services stop and the option of skirting London completely for outword services becomes practical. Pic to HB for interchange (it's only a single stop's worth!), then across to Barnet common, serving the larger Barnet area, and possibly terminating at Borehamwood for interchange with the MML The Met (now Jub) from Stanmore to Elstree for interchange with the northern, and on to Borehamwood for interchange with the MML and the Pic. Then obviously, the Northern from Edgware to Watford and Finchley to Edgware with interchange at Mill Hill  . Those services would have provided a wonderful amount of coverage, and fufill the criteria of no more than two interchanges between destinations. It has always annoyed me, even before I knew the history behind it, that all the routes are radial, meaning that if I wanted to get from, say, Barnet to Hendon, it's quicker to take the looooong bus trip. Just look at all those fingertips of lines between Stanmore and Cockfoster's, and then now count the interchanges between them. Camden Town, King's Cross, and Waterloo.....just 3!, and hardly conveinient for the orbital zone 4-6 traveller. Meh, pipe dreams again, sorry! |
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Phil
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Post by Phil on Oct 24, 2006 22:22:58 GMT
It has always annoyed me, even before I knew the history behind it, that all the routes are radial, meaning that if I wanted to get from, say, Barnet to Hendon, it's quicker to take the looooong bus trip. Ah yes the 107 bus route - ran past my house when I lived in London. Connected the following stations: Enfield Town (GE), Enfield Chase (GN), Oakwood, New barnet (GN), High Barnet, Edgware, then spoiled it all by going to Queensbury not Stanmore! Took an age, but ran through some nice semi-rural areas in places, virtually along the edge of the green belt. |
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Post by Chris M on Oct 25, 2006 14:27:58 GMT
... that the current limiting factor on any service increases (apart from sending some Letchworth terminators to Royston) is a chronic shortage of rolling stock... Mmmm. Call me foolish, but isn't the soultion to that quite easy....aka, build more trains? Yes, in theory. From what I gather though the DfT are insisting on micro managing and and putting obstacles in the way of TOCs/ROSCOs getting more trains. I believe that Great Western have been refused permission... Chris |
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Post by bwhughes on Nov 3, 2006 19:21:22 GMT
HB to Potter's Bar…The Met (now Jub) from Stanmore to Elstree…
From what I've seen on Video 125 DVDs, both High Barnet and Stanmore have steep walls or a hill towering above the buffer stops. If the street level is high enough above the level of the terminus platforms, tunnels could be dug starting from under the streets of Stanmore and Barnet.
Well, I suspect that the gradients would have to be incredibly steep though, to avoid the pipes and sewers.
If this is not possible, it would be logistically difficult because the new lines would require trains to reverse before turning off the existing line to the new route.
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Post by bwhughes on Nov 3, 2006 19:46:14 GMT
From what I gather though the DfT are insisting on micro managing and and putting obstacles in the way of TOCs/ROSCOs getting more trains. I believe that Great Western have been refused permission...He's right. One only has to look in any recent RAIL magazine to see exactly how hacked off the people involved with the railways are with the DfT.  Cancelled light rail projects (that the cities they were for deserve so much). Massive premiums imposed on franchise holders...  The huge premiums are probably a major factor in preventing operators such as First Great Western and First Capital Connect from getting more rolling stock - they are compelled into satisfying the Treasury rather than providing a value-for-money service for commuters. At the rate the DfT is going we could not expect to see extra rolling stock being introduced on the Network Rail lines to Potters Bar, which would definitely be a much better way of carrying people into and out of London from there than a lengthy ride on the Northern Line using an extension... Extensions of the Tube up to the M25 would be excellent for satisfying local needs, but it is rather too far out to travel to the central area by Tube. However, it would probably be quicker for TfL to take the situation into their own hands and press for extensions beyond Barnet and Stanmore, than hoping that FCC will improve the services on its own lines, as the franchise will be around for a long time yet...
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