Piccadilly Line Uxbridge branch - future improvements?

[Basil Jet]

Out of interest, in terms of capacity for passengers, is there actually any need for Piccadilly (or District) trains to run all the way to Uxbridge? Or would stopping all trains at Rayners Lane provide an adequate service (if only the infrastructure existed to turn sufficient trains there)? From Rayners Lane, the Met takes about 26 minutes to get to Baker Street, but the Piccadilly takes about 29 minutes just to get to Hammersmith - so I can't imagine many people between Rayners Lane and Uxbridge would choose the Piccadilly to get to central London. Still less the slower District if the lines swapped over. I therefore wonder whether building an additional turnback siding at Rayners Lane so all Piccadilly trains could turn back there, while possibly giving a more frequent service between Rayners Lane and Ealing Common would give better use of resources.

A new curve from North Ealing to Ealing Broadway would allow half (or all) of the trains to and from Uxbridge to reverse at Ealing Broadway. This would enable people to change to the Elizabeth Line at Ealing Broadway, making journeys to most Central London destinations a lot quicker, for instance Ealing Broadway to Tottenham Court Road is 14 minutes whereas North Ealing to Leicester Square is 28 minutes. It would also mean there was only one size train at Ealing Common, allowing level boarding there.

 

[Dent]

A shorter branch requires fewer trains to serve than a longer one for any given frequency, thus a higher core service can be offered for a smaller overall fleet size (and thus capital cost of fleet / maintenance facilities) and a lower operating cost (fewer Train Operators, less maintenance and power).

Piccadilly services to Ealing Broadway would be dependent on (at least) the upgraded signalling and the follow on train order being funded.

You seem to be claiming both that the reason for swapping the District and Piccadilly line destination is to enable an increased frequency without requiring more trains, and that doing so would be dependent on a follow on order for more trains. Which one of these two contradictory claims is it?

 

[notverydeep]

You seem to be claiming both that the reason for swapping the District and Piccadilly line destination is to enable an increased frequency without requiring more trains, and that doing so would be dependent on a follow on order for more trains. Which one of these two contradictory claims is it?

The first statement is general not specific (hence no mention of the Piccadilly line and no suggestion that this enabled an increase in frequency on the Piccadilly without extra trains). However, if one were to use the line as an example, I would have thought it obvious that you would need more rolling stock to extend same number of trains per hour (tph) to Rayners Lane or Heathrow instead of Ealing Broadway.

Piccadilly to Ealing Broadway is part of the plan for the upgraded signalling, but in this case more trains are required because of the higher frequency Central London services. the current order of 94 trains is sufficient to run a 27 tph Central London service with the current signalling (with a few modifications). There is no suggestion that the swap would occur prior to the re-signalling and requisite additional trains being procured, but these extra trains are a function of the increase from 27 tph to 36 tph. And yes, if all 36 tph went to Heathrow, Rayners Lane or Uxbridge that would need even more extra trains than the option with 6 tph to Ealing Broadway. But I stress, neither an increase from 27 tph nor the Ealing Broadway swap is committed or funded.

 

[Taunton]

The western end of the Piccadilly already has separate services to Rayners Lane, Uxbridge, Northfields, Terminal 5, and Terminal 4. The sequence has to be determined before trains leave North-East London an hour beforehand. If as suggested they take the Ealing branch as well, this is going to lead to unacceptably thin intervals on all these branches, and irregular intervals to them even worse than now.

Having once taken the Piccadilly from Uxbridge to Hyde Park Corner, the journey just seemed interminable. Next time went on the Met, change to Jubilee at Finchley Road.

 

[Dent]

The western end of the Piccadilly already has separate services to Rayners Lane, Uxbridge, Northfields, Terminal 5, and Terminal 4. The sequence has to be determined before trains leave North-East London an hour beforehand. If as suggested they take the Ealing branch as well, this is going to lead to unacceptably thin intervals on all these branches, and irregular intervals to them even worse

Taking the Piccadilly Line to Ealing Broadway as well as all the existing destinations is not what was suggested. The suggestion was to take the Piccadilly Line to Ealing Broadway instead of Rayners Lane and Uxbridge, which would then be served by the District Line.

 

[notverydeep]

Taking the Piccadilly Line to Ealing Broadway as well as all the existing destinations is not what was suggested. The suggestion was to take the Piccadilly Line to Ealing Broadway instead of Rayners Lane and Uxbridge, which would then be served by the District Line.

It is however the plan for the Piccadilly line to take the Ealing Broadway branch in addition to the continuing to serve Uxbridge, Rayners Lane (with the roughly the same peak frequency as now) and Heathrow (an increased frequency) once the signalling is upgraded. In consequence, it is also planned to redirect the displaced District line trains to both Wimbledon and Richmond to provide those branches with a higher frequency. There is no plan to serve the Acton Common to Rayners Lane and Uxbridge section with District line trains. However, this plan is just that - a plan, without the funding required for the upgraded signalling and other enablers.

 

[Dent]

It is however the plan for the Piccadilly line to take the Ealing Broadway branch in addition to the continuing to serve Uxbridge, Rayners Lane (with the roughly the same peak frequency as now) and Heathrow (an increased frequency) once the signalling is upgraded. In consequence, it is also planned to redirect the displaced District line trains to both Wimbledon and Richmond to provide those branches with a higher frequency. There is no plan to serve the Acton Common to Rayners Lane and Uxbridge section with District line trains. However, this plan is just that - a plan, without the funding required for the upgraded signalling and other enablers.

That's not the plan which was being discussed here. See the post which started the discussion about reporting the Piccadilly Line:

Isn’t it planned for the Picc to take over the Ealing Bdwy service from District and the District to take over the Uxbridge branch at least as far as Rayner’s Lane?

 

[Enthusiast]

How would swapping the Uxbridge and Ealing Broadway service require re-siting Chiswick Park? The current station would still be served by the same District Line tracks it is now, the only change would be that that destination of the Westbound trains stopping there would be Rayners Lane or Uxbridge rather than Ealing Broadway.

The proposal I read about (and the one I was referring to, but unfortunately didn't make clear) involved the District serving the Richmond branch only. Services west of Turnham Green would be the sole preserve of the Piccadilly. I can' find the official TfL document on it but here's a local newsletter from the time:

https://www.actonw3.com/default.asp?section=info&page=acttube059.htm

"The decision appears to have been made by Transport for London (TfL) to press ahead with a major restructuring of local underground services. This would see the District line service to Ealing Broadway ended and services switched to the Piccadilly line. The rolling stock would transfer to the Richmond and Wimbledon branches of the District line allowing an increase in regularity for these services.

The change would mean that Acton Town and Ealing Common stations would only be served by Piccadilly line trains rather than both services as currently."

That article does not mention Chiswick Park but the document I read did. There were two alternatives - either arranging for the Piccadilly to stop a Chiswick Park (presumably by arranging the tracks so that they could cross to the former District platforms on the outsides of the four) or rebuilding Chiswick Park on the Richmond branch. The latter, IIRC, was favoured so as to allow Piccadilly trains their non-stop run between Hammersmith and Acton Town.

EDIT: This article - not a TfL document (memory again) - is probably the one I had in my mind:

Upgrading the Piccadilly: Calling Time on Mind the Gap? - London Reconnections

The leading source for independent news and analysis about transport in London and beyond. Award-winning coverage of transport infrastructure and politics alongside stories about the history of the Capital's transport networks.

www.londonreconnections.com

Under the heading "The Ealing Common Problem" it mentions a proposal to re-site Chiswick Park onto the Richmond branch and even provides a redrawn diagram showing that station being served by District and Overground services on that branch. All a bit pie-in-the-sky now, I imagine.

 

[Basil Jet]

here were two alternatives - either arranging for the Piccadilly to stop a Chiswick Park (presumably by arranging the tracks so that they could cross to the former District platforms on the outsides of the four after passing Turnham Green) or rebuilding Chiswick Park on the Richmond Branch. The latter, IIRC, was favoured so as to allow Piccadilly trains their non-stop run from Hammersmith to Acton Town.

Are you sure making Turnham Green a permanent Picc station wasn't part of the plan? Otherwise anyone from the Richmond branch who wanted Heathrow would have to go all the way in to Hammersmith.

 

[notverydeep]

That's not the plan which was being discussed here. See the post which started the discussion about reporting the Piccadilly Line:

OK to address @Central 's specific point, no this is not correct, there is no plan for the District (I typed Piccadilly here originally - doh!) line to take over services to Rayners Lane and Uxbridge.

If memory serves, there was a comprehensive study of all the options to change services around at the West end of both the District and Piccadilly lines around about 2008-2009, just prior to the Subsurface upgrade) to understand what if anything could be gained from any of the options to change how these worked (options that have been talked about throughout my as a Transport Planner and no doubt were talked about by my predecessors and will be talked about my successors). There are a number of options that at first glance seem operationally more efficient, or at least address a particular issue (such as compromised height platforms) - playing around with District services to Edgware Road was one that repeatedly came up.

These options were all evaluated to understand their impact on passenger journey times, passenger numbers and costs. Almost all of them create more losers than winners among potential passengers, such that even ones that did reduce cost, ended up losing even more potential revenue. This is unsurprising really, people tend to find places to live with more convenient links to where they work - break more of these convenient routes than improve from the change and you tend to increase interchange and thus journey time. Of course over the long term, people would find different places to live, but this immediate disbenefit creates a lot of 'inertia' and explains why routes rarely change once established.

However the study did find one exception. More people would gain from a change to the Ealing Broadway service than would lose. The key winners are District line passengers on the busy Wimbledon and Richmond branch, whose frequency would be increased in a way that is hard to do any other way, as there are no spare paths beyond the 32 tph envisaged at the end of the Subsurface Upgrade. However the Piccadilly line upgrade envisaged 36 tph, which meant that significant increases on the busy Heathrow branch could still be made with 6 tph going to Ealing Broadway (that 6 tph would probably have ended up as Northfields reversers anyway). So more people gain, than lose (mainly passengers from Chiswick Park to Ealing Broadway wanting exclusively District line destinations). Since that study, upgrade plans have been in line with this envisaged end state.

The study looked at, but rejected an entirely or partially District service to Uxbridge and Rayners Lane, but to replicate the existing peak frequency on this corridor (12 tph) with District line trains would require a reduction of the service to Wimbledon and / or Richmond, or would end up with large numbers of High Street Kensington reversers which are much less useful than through trains to Central London. Added to this the S Stock fleet is now long complete and the type out of production with nowhere near the numbers of trains that would be required to support that option.

The London Reconnections article added to @Enthusiast 's post #38 above covers much of this. The '2024' map however is a bit premature...

 

[DynamicSpirit]

OK to address @Central 's specific point, no this is not correct, there is no plan for the Piccadilly line to take over services to Rayners Lane and Uxbridge.

Just as well really since that's what the Piccadilly line already does!

However the study did find one exception. More people would gain from a change to the Ealing Broadway service than would lose. The key winners are District line passengers on the busy Wimbledon and Richmond branch, whose frequency would be increased in a way that is hard to do any other way, as there are no spare paths beyond the 32 tph envisaged at the end of the Subsurface Upgrade. However the Piccadilly line upgrade envisaged 36 tph, which meant that significant increases on the busy Heathrow branch could still be made with 6 tph going to Ealing Broadway (that 6 tph would probably have ended up as Northfields reversers anyway). So more people gain, than lose (mainly passengers from Chiswick Park to Ealing Broadway wanting exclusively District line destinations). Since that study, upgrade plans have been in line with this envisaged end state.

Thanks, that makes sense. So what you're saying is, the sensible option TfL found was to stop the District line from serving Ealing Broadway with those trains instead going to Richmond or Wimbledon to increase frequencies there. The Ealing Broadway service would instead be provided from the increase in frequency on the Piccadilly line core when the upgrade to that line/new trains are complete, and so could be done without any reduction in services to the other Piccadilly branches.

Is that correct?

 

[Enthusiast]

Are you sure making Turnham Green a permanent Picc station wasn't part of the plan? Otherwise anyone from the Richmond branch who wanted Heathrow would have to go all the way in to Hammersmith.

Yes, looking at the "2024" redrawn diagram, it seems it was. This was all a very long time ago!

 

[notverydeep]

Just as well really since that's what the Piccadilly line already does!



Thanks, that makes sense. So what you're saying is, the sensible option TfL found was to stop the District line from serving Ealing Broadway with those trains instead going to Richmond or Wimbledon to increase frequencies there. The Ealing Broadway service would instead be provided from the increase in frequency on the Piccadilly line core when the upgrade to that line/new trains are complete, and so could be done without any reduction in services to the other Piccadilly branches.

Is that correct?

Doh! I have now replaced Piccadilly with District in that sentence...

Yes - that was what the study found.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Getting back to my suggestion of terminating all Piccadilly line trains at Rayners Lane:

Service Planning is not about simply fulfilling needs though, the objective is to maximise passenger benefit within available resources (although I suspect anyone living in Ickenham and commuting to Hammersmith would consider their journey to be a need). Piccadilly services to Uxbridge exist because it minimises the total journey time of the current and forecast future passengers across the two lines.

But how many people are we talking about here? The market for Uxbridge to Hammersmith/Richmond/Acton/etc. is going to be tiny compared to the market for Uxbridge to Central London, and it's not like changing at Rayners Lane is difficult: It's literally, wait on the same platform! And if you provided the infrastructure to reverse more Piccadilly trains at Rayners Lane so you could therefore improve frequencies East of Rayners Lane, you'd be talking of typically adding no more than a few minutes to the journeys of this small number of people, who would simply take the first Metropolitan train and do this same-platform change to the Piccadilly line at Rayners Lane. To my mind, maximising passenger benefit says, Piccadilly trains would be better off spending more of their time nearer central London rather than spending time carrying what I'm guessing is mostly empty air between Rayners Lane and Uxbridge.

Many schemes have evaluated curtailing the Piccadilly line in the way you suggest (it would make the signalling upgrade much easier), but these invariably find that you have to spend more money (especially on redesigning Rayners Lane station to cope with more reversing trains - 12 tph at peak times) to make things worse overall - passengers would have longer journey times and additional interchange, which causes them to make fewer trips, which reduces revenue.

I get that you would have to spend money on the infrastructure - but I'm not convinced it would be a huge amount: An additional siding West of Rayners Lane ought to do it and it looks on Google maps like there would be ample space, although you may need to slew some of the other tracks over.

 

[notverydeep]

Getting back to my suggestion of terminating all Piccadilly line trains at Rayners Lane:



But how many people are we talking about here? The market for Uxbridge to Hammersmith/Richmond/Acton/etc. is going to be tiny compared to the market for Uxbridge to Central London, and it's not like changing at Rayners Lane is difficult: It's literally, wait on the same platform! And if you provided the infrastructure to reverse more Piccadilly trains at Rayners Lane so you could therefore improve frequencies East of Rayners Lane, you'd be talking of typically adding no more than a few minutes to the journeys of this small number of people, who would simply take the first Metropolitan train and do this same-platform change to the Piccadilly line at Rayners Lane. To my mind, maximising passenger benefit says, Piccadilly trains would be better off spending more of their time nearer central London rather than spending time carrying what I'm guessing is mostly empty air between Rayners Lane and Uxbridge.



I get that you would have to spend money on the infrastructure - but I'm not convinced it would be a huge amount: An additional siding West of Rayners Lane ought to do it and it looks on Google maps like there would be ample space, although you may need to slew some of the other tracks over.

Looking at the TfL open data shows that there are 1,975,000 annual Piccadilly line journeys to / from Piccadilly line stations south of Rayners Lane to / from the remaining stations between Eastcote and Uxbridge. Removal of through trains would mean all of these journeys would include an interchange and second wait for a connecting train. These passengers generate sufficient additional revenue that over the life time of the Piccadilly line upgrade they pay for the extra trains required and the ongoing operational costs over and above the costs of a 36 tph Central London service. Passengers value this time and this means that on average this group would make fewer trips - the loss of revenue can be calculated.

The current signalling can only sustain 24 tph in Central London, which is achieved with the current fleet size including the trains also required for services beyond Rayners Lane towards Uxbridge (though modifications to the existing signalling will increase the Central London frequency to 27 tph once the 94 first batch 2024 stock arrives). Curtailing Piccadilly line trains at Rayners Lane would also be a significant loss of total frequency towards Uxbridge. While the Rayners Lane infrastructure changes are not on an enormous scale they just add to the case for continuing the current Piccadilly service to Uxbridge. Removing would cost more money and generate less money...

 

[Taunton]

Looking at the TfL open data shows that there are 1,975,000 annual Piccadilly line journeys to / from Piccadilly line stations south of Rayners Lane to / from the remaining stations between Eastcote and Uxbridge. Removal of through trains would mean all of these journeys would include an interchange and second wait for a connecting train. These passengers generate sufficient additional revenue that over the life time of the Piccadilly line upgrade they pay for the extra trains required and the ongoing operational costs over and above the costs of a 36 tph Central London service. Passengers value this time and this means that on average this group would make fewer trips.

The current signalling can only sustain 24 tph in Central London, which is achieved with the current fleet size including the trains also required for services beyond Rayners Lane towards Uxbridge (though modifications to the existing signalling will increase the Central London frequency to 27 tph once the 94 first batch 2024 stock arrives). Curtailing Piccadilly line trains at Rayners Lane would also be a significant loss of total frequency towards Uxbridge. While the Rayners Lane infrastructure changes are not on an enormous scale they just add to the case for continuing the current Piccadilly service to Uxbridge. Removing would cost more money and generate less money...

Though people are well used to this anyway - those coming westwards on the Piccadilly know not to wait for a through Uxbridge, but just get the first train and change at Rayners Lane if necessary. Off peak it's only every 20 minutes through to Uxbridge, doubled to every 10 minutes with the Rayners Lane trains. It really does seem unlikely that any revenue loss would be significant, or even noticeable, especially given the few who seem to actually stay on board at Rayners Lane.

Presumably the 1.9m annual journeys are based on Oyster ticket data, and do not take into account the significant proportion already changing at Rayners Lane.