| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:Time to reconsider the west london tram scheme | |
| Posted by: | Chris Veasey | |
| Date/Time: | 09/08/10 22:06:00 |
| In a nutshell, to name but a few:- Xrail will have very few interchanges with other rail routes in the sluburbs, so for most punters Xrail will be difficult to access or not worth accessing, even if their journeys have the slightest potential relevance to the Xrail route. This will be particularly so for the many who are conveniently served by the several existing Xrails - known as the Underground and North London Line. The Underground Xrails in particular have far higher service frequency than Xrail will, which together with their greater accessibility through closer station spacing will more than compensate for their comparative slowness. To take just one of many examples: in the unlikely event of another (large) consultancy firm prevailing on me to help out by filling in for a few weeks at Redbridge Council offices at Ilford (as I did for a short while some years back) do I do what I did then, and commute via the Piccadilly Line station that's close enough to see from my house and just a short walk away, or do I traipse up to Ealing Broadway to get Xrail (involving a total average expected access time - walking and waiting - of about half an hour, even if the Xrail trains run to time without cancellations?) Xrail will in any case not be as fast as is claimed, as it will have to interwork with other services using the same routes in the outer areas, and the unimpressive service frequency will be further impaired by unplanned and unpredictable (and probably unannounced in accordance with traditional railway malpractice) train cancellations. It is only a matter of time before pressure to speed up Xrail services linking Heathrow and the commuter towns beyond London (such as they are) will result in substantial reduction in the already unimpressive frequency of Xrail trains serving many of the local stations such as Hanwell and Acton (if Acton gets an Xrail station at all). Already the planned Xrail scheme will seriously DISbenefit punters on the Greenford branch who will lose their through service to Paddington. Xrail will have poor or non-existent interchanges with many existing rail routes in central London, particularly now the pressure is on to cut costs. Just as (for example)Thameslink has no interchange whatever with the Central Line which it crosses over in Central London. The only real motivation for squandering all those squilions on Xrail is to give bankers an easier ride to/from Heathrow. Surely we could save all that money and a lot more besides by tying all those bar-stewards to the exising rail tracks during service hours and letting nature and engineering take their course. |