Go here to see what I think is the first actual photo of one of the new S Stock trains. By 2015 these will be running all services on the Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan Lines, with the first in passenger service some time in 2010.
[via District Dave]
Hertfordshire County Council are about to submit a new business case for to the Department for Transport, less than six months after the last one, and three months after that was rejected for not being "compliant". The cost has gone up from £95m to £150m, suggesting the original bid was rejected for underestimating costs.
All they need now if for the DfT to agree to fund the bulk of the cost (£120m), which is exactly the position they've been in since forever. They've received a boost in that the East of England Regional Assembly have given their backing, which may or may not be worth anything.
The scheme is to divert the Metropolitan Line's Watford branch to Watford Junction by building a 500m connecting viaduct to link it up with an mile-and-a-half long disused branch line (pictured), which will need to be rebuilt. The new route includes two new stations. Here's a diagram of all the bits and pieces on Google Maps.
[via uk.transport.london]
TfL have announced a proposal to replace the Chesham shuttle at the far end of the Metropolitan Line. Currently most trains from London run to Amersham, with Chesham served by a half hourly shuttle from Chaltfont & Latimer, with the odd through train during peak hours.
The proposal is to get rid of the shuttle and have the through trains alternate between going to Chesham and Amersham. Amersham is also served by Chiltern trains, so will have 4 trains an hour to London on weekdays rather than 6.
The impetus for this is the introduction of S stock to the Metropolitan Line in the next year or two, which will be made up solely of 8 car trains, rather than pairs of 4 car trains as now. The bay platform at Chalfont & Latimer used by the shuttle is only 4 cars long and would be difficult to extend.
The date given for the new service pattern is May 2009, which may indicate the Modern Railways story about the introduction of S Stock being postponed to after 2012 is nonsense.
The subsurface lines (District, Circle, Metropolitan, Hammersmith & City) are all due to have their trains replaced by S Stock from 2009-2015, which will feature air-conditioning and walk-through connections between carriages. The first two trains are already under construction.
The plan was to replace the elderly trains on the Metropolitan Line first like-for-like with 8 car trains, followed by 7 car trains on all the other lines. Since the Hammersmith & City and Circle lines currently use 6 car trains, some platforms would need extending and many sidings could no longer be used. The TfL board papers have consistently mentioned "affordability issues" with resolving this issue.
That brings us to an article in the latest issue of Modern Railways which claims the plan has been scrapped. Instead the Hammersmith & City and Circle Lines will be first to get the new stock because - according to MR - the H&C is due to become a "major Olympic artery". They'll be delivered as 6 car trains with the 7 car upgrade looked at again after the Olympics. The Metropolitan Line will be next to get new trains (possibly only 7 cars to begin with due to the needed "infrastructure improvements") and finally the District Line will get its 7 car trains.
No source is given, though it's implied the changes are part of the re-negotiated contract with Bombardier (who are building the S Stock) that follows the collapse of Metronet. On the other hand, Bombardier themselves announced agreement had been reached without these changes back on April 1st, a claim that's even repeated on page 46 of the same magazine.
And if it means anything, District Dave's prjb (one of the people at LU designing the trains with Bombardier) says the prototype train is 8 cars long, No word yet from him about the article.
I've made a diagram of the new Circle Line, so it's clearer what the proposal is and what issues it causes (click to enlarge).
I've included the other lines and their frequencies. As I understand it, each service on the network runs at roughly 7 trains per hour (tph), so that trains align when they meet at junctions. Hence one line on my map represents one 7 tph service, and the overall line thickness where they run alongside each other represents the total frequency on that section of track. I'm assuming that apart from the changes to the Circle, there'll be no significant changes to other lines.
You can see how there'll be double the number of trains on the branch to Hammersmith, but it also illustrates the big downside, which is the separation of the north and west sides of the [present] Circle Line. All trains from High Street Kensington terminate at Edgware Road, and all trains on the north side go to Hammersmith or up the Metropolitan Line, with none going towards High Street Kensington.
The major operation concern: the number of trains running over the flat junction at Praed Street, which will increase by a third because Circle Line services go over it twice on each journey.
The Watford Observer reports that the latest business case for the Croxley Rail Link has been declared "non compliant" by the DfT, due to Transport for London not committing to an amount to contribute. But the DfT are still willing to talk to the council about what went wrong.
The picture is the closed Croxley Green station with a Metropolitan Line train going past if you squint hard enough. Took me ages to take that.
Or, if you're an optimist like the Watford Observer, it just "edged closer to approval". Hertfordshire County Council have just rolled the dice once more by submitting the project's business plan to the Department for Transport, in their latest bid to get the required funding.
They want £95 million to divert the Watford branch of the Metropolitan Line to Watford Junction, via the disused Croxley Green branch. It requires 500m of new connecting viaduct and 1.5 miles of replacement track on the branch line, figures very similar to the East London Line's northern extension (and likewise involves the probable closure of an unlikely looking existing tube station).
The project is not terribly exciting, completely irrelevant to Londoners, and doesn't have a great chance of happening. But it is the only extension of the tube network on the table right now.
