DynamicSpirit
Established Member
Network Rail's solution to overcrowding seems to place a very high priority on longer trains. In much of the country where trains are only 2 or 3 carriages, increasing to 4 carriages seems very sensible. But around London, most commuter trains are already 8 carriages. Increasing to 10 or 12 carriages doesn't seem to me a great idea, especially for local services. Clearly something needs to be done about overcrowding, but I'd much rather see the focus put into increasing the frequency of services.
My reasoning (which is really from the perspective of a commuter) is:
Some of these problems could in principle be solved if Network Rail started putting additional entrances to stations along the length of the platform, but I don't see any sign that they're doing that, and I'm not sure whether from a security perspective having only one entrance is seen as desirable anyway? Believe me though, it is incredibly frustrating if, because of where the station entrance is and where you're coming from, you have to walk the entire length of a platform outside the station to get to the entrance only to then have to walk back some distance along the platform to get a place where you'll have a seat. That's yet another problem that, in the absence of more work on the stations, will become worse with longer trains.
In the end, which would you rather have? A train every 6-7 minutes with a shortish walk along the platform, or a train every 10 minutes with a long walk along the platform? Clearly the former is going to be far far more attractive to almost any passenger.
So why are Network Rail putting so much emphasis into delivering the latter and - as far as I can see - around London, almost no emphasis into the former? I realise that more frequent services will presumably require resignalling work and may require track work at the terminal stations to allow increased capacity, and that is all very expensive, but isn't extending platforms and any other work to allow longer trains also expensive?
I'm curious what other people think. Is there something I've missed that makes more frequent services too problematic?
My reasoning (which is really from the perspective of a commuter) is:
- Increasing the frequency of services helps passengers hugely: They can be more flexible about when they start their journey, and their journeys will be quicker (less time waiting, especially if they have to change trains). Somewhere around the every-10-minute-frequency mark there will also be a threshold where people will tend to just turn up anytime and wait for the next train, without worrying about checking and working round the actual train timetables - which itself is a big boost to convenience. Making trains longer carries none of those benefits.
- The longer you make trains, the further many people have to walk to get to a seat. This problem is made worse by the fact that so many stations have only one entrance, right at one end of the platform. And it's not uncommon that there's a road bridge blocking the platforms where the entrance is, so that any platform lengthening to accomodate longer trains has to go at the far end - not good for passengers.
- For people travelling long distances, walking a long way along a platform is inconvenient (and I'm sure for some it is a disincentive to rail travel), but for short journeys where you might only be on the train for 15 minutes, it starts to look absurd. You can almost spend as long walking along the platform as you spend on the train! The results are obvious and predictable: Trains that are packed out with many people standing at one end (usually the 'London' end) but spare seats at the other end. Longer trains will just make that problem worse.
- Then there's the problem that TOCs often reduce train lengths at quieter periods, which means passengers then often don't know where on the platform they need to stand to get their train, and end up having to run along the platform when the train arrives. Clearly if there's 6 or 8 carriage lengths of wrong-place-to-stand instead of 4 carriage lengths, that problem becomes far worse. To some extent you can solve that with better information systems, but I think it'll be next to impossible to prevent some passengers from being confused.
Some of these problems could in principle be solved if Network Rail started putting additional entrances to stations along the length of the platform, but I don't see any sign that they're doing that, and I'm not sure whether from a security perspective having only one entrance is seen as desirable anyway? Believe me though, it is incredibly frustrating if, because of where the station entrance is and where you're coming from, you have to walk the entire length of a platform outside the station to get to the entrance only to then have to walk back some distance along the platform to get a place where you'll have a seat. That's yet another problem that, in the absence of more work on the stations, will become worse with longer trains.
In the end, which would you rather have? A train every 6-7 minutes with a shortish walk along the platform, or a train every 10 minutes with a long walk along the platform? Clearly the former is going to be far far more attractive to almost any passenger.
So why are Network Rail putting so much emphasis into delivering the latter and - as far as I can see - around London, almost no emphasis into the former? I realise that more frequent services will presumably require resignalling work and may require track work at the terminal stations to allow increased capacity, and that is all very expensive, but isn't extending platforms and any other work to allow longer trains also expensive?
I'm curious what other people think. Is there something I've missed that makes more frequent services too problematic?