What should/will happen to Paddington post Crossrail/OOC?

[JonathanH]

They plan to step it up to 30tph in the core and 15tph west of OOC in the coming decades. The infrastructure for that is being built or planned now.

East of OOC? I can't imagine that 15tph west of OOC would ever be needed.

 

[Horizon22]

It is indeed the easier option, but I think the idea is that not that many people will make the choice. Or they don’t want Crossrail.

They plan to step it up to 30tph in the core and 15tph west of OOC in the coming decades. The infrastructure for that is being built or planned now.

30? 24tph is the max I've ever heard.

Let's not forget in 2018 Thameslink was meant to be 24tph and that has never happened.

 

[HSTEd]

As for a flyover at Old Oak Common that's rather more fanciful that just speculative! It's quite a constrained site and you'd probably be knocking down North Pole Depot. The relief line connection via Greenford has more merit but again, there's unlikely to be an extensive service possible.

Doesn't this rather depend about where the current Crossrail lines into the depot split from the lines through the platforms at Old Oak?

There appears to be room for six running lines plus the pair of tracks into the depot.

So you might be able to rig something up using the existing flyover east of old oak that allows the two lines to still reach the depot but leapfrogs the Chiltern services over the two normal Crossrail lines.

EDIT:

I include a diagram of what I mean - this would be east of Old Oak.

Purple lines are Crossrail/Relief Lines, Black are the Regular Fast Lines to Reading, Green would be the Chiltern/Relief Lines

 

[JonathanH]

Let's not forget in 2018 Thameslink was meant to be 24tph and that has never happened.

The Thameslink Core is admittedly a different railway. On the basis of demand purely between St Pancras and London Blackfriars 6tph would be perfectly adequate. Clearly, there are more routes feeding in which justifies the higher frequency.

Back to Paddington, I wonder whether platforms 11, 12 and 14 could just be filled in with the bicycle spaces moved there.

 

[swt_passenger]

Marylebone could I guess be redeveloped as something else, land value there is massive. But is there going to be enough capacity in Paddington freed up to take the whole Chiltern service? If not it wouldn't really be worth it; a split service would be a right pain.

No there isn’t enough spare capacity at Paddington, it’s been discussed in a number of previous threads. TfL Rail currently use two platforms most of the day, with HEX using only one, rather than the two they usually had. You’re basically looking at one spare platform becoming available when Crossrail starts, but then GWR still aren’t running their whole IEP timetable.

 

[HSTEd]

No there isn’t enough spare capacity at Paddington, it’s been discussed in a number of previous threads. TfL Rail currently use two platforms most of the day, with HEX using only one, rather than the two they usually had. You’re basically looking at one spare platform becoming available when Crossrail starts, but then GWR still aren’t running their whole IEP timetable.

Well my understanding is the off peak service density out of Marylebone is 10 services, including the via Amersham trains to Aylesbury.
If we drop the Amersham trains but add a second train to Aylesbury via High Wycombe, that leaves us with nine trains to fit in.

At GWR, if we gave the two trains an hour to Didcot to Crossrail as AIUI they use the relief lines anyway and are thus going to be slow regardless, that takes us to a surplus of 7.

With HEx retaining one platform that would be 7 services onto two platforms, which is a bit tight but likely not totally unworkable as some of them are commuter trains.
If HEx was to fail in the aftermath of the collapse of global air travel then its 7 services on three platforms that is no problem really.

 

[Horizon22]

No there isn’t enough spare capacity at Paddington, it’s been discussed in a number of previous threads. TfL Rail currently use two platforms most of the day, with HEX using only one, rather than the two they usually had. You’re basically looking at one spare platform becoming available when Crossrail starts, but then GWR still aren’t running their whole IEP timetable.

It would be more than that P11&P12 are exclusively TfL Rail most of the day. P14 has 2tph (1tph currently) and could (with timetable changes) be used more extensively. P9-10 also don't have extensive usage at all times of the day.

The issue will be that, post Crossrail, Paddington will pretty much not have a metro service of any kind (excluding Didcot Parkway trains and that's more outer suburban) and will become pretty much exclusively high-speed and the Heathrow Express. Intercity workings normally demand longer turnarounds and thus fewer tph on each platform, reducing capacity.

 

[tomuk]

Doesn't this rather depend about where the current Crossrail lines into the depot split from the lines through the platforms at Old Oak?

There appears to be room for six running lines plus the pair of tracks into the depot.

So you might be able to rig something up using the existing flyover east of old oak that allows the two lines to still reach the depot but leapfrogs the Chiltern services over the two normal Crossrail lines.

EDIT:

I include a diagram of what I mean - this would be east of Old Oak.

Purple lines are Crossrail/Relief Lines, Black are the Regular Fast Lines to Reading, Green would be the Chiltern/Relief Lines

The HS2 station is between the Relief Lines and the CrossRail depot I don't see where your green Chiltern tracks would fit.

 

[HSTEd]

The HS2 station is between the Relief Lines and the CrossRail depot I don't see where your green Chiltern tracks would fit.

My understanding is that the classic station has eight platforms, and that the NNML diverges from the GW alignment west of the GWML station.

So the Chiltern trains would just occupy the two northernmost platforms at the Old Oak Common classic station.
The next two south of that would be Crossrail/Relief trains - then four platforms for fast services (possibly two shared with Crossrail for reserve purposes)

EDIT:

Although obviously the site is in flux and aerial photography is annoyingly blurry in the area, but it certainly looks, prima facie, like there is room for six running lines plus two to the Crossrail depot throughout. Or just six running lines after the depot tracks diverge.

 

[mmh]

I’d hope a contingency plan of sorts had been created, with some terminating at Paddington high level and some at Paddington low level (reversing into and out of turnback)

That sounds remarkably passenger unfriendly, and a recipe for worse crowd control. "Where's the train going from? Well it could be up here or it could be downstairs..."

 

[tomuk]

My understanding is that the classic station has eight platforms, and that the NNML diverges from the GW alignment west of the GWML station.

So the Chiltern trains would just occupy the two northernmost platforms at the Old Oak Common classic station.
The next two south of that would be Crossrail/Relief trains - then four platforms for fast services (possibly two shared with Crossrail for reserve purposes)

EDIT:

Although obviously the site is in flux and aerial photography is annoyingly blurry in the area, but it certainly looks, prima facie, like there is room for six running lines plus two to the Crossrail depot throughout. Or just six running lines after the depot tracks diverge.

But that doesn't work because Crossrail need 4 platform faces and the turnback for the service to work, if you are proposing that some Crossrail services are sent up the NNML in place of Chiltern services then that is a different matter.
The current 'pencilled in' proposal for the NNML and Chiltern is for some terminal platforms in the development/green space between the new HS2/GWML station and OOC Lane.

 

[HSTEd]

But that doesn't work because Crossrail need 4 platform faces and the turnback for the service to work

And yet at Paddington Crossrail only has two platform faces and was expected (before OOC station was proposed) to turn back just as many trains as would be turned back at Old Oak Common?

 

[JonathanH]

And yet at Paddington Crossrail only has two platform faces and was expected (before OOC station was proposed) to turn back just as many trains as would be turned back at Old Oak Common?

...and sidings beyond the station. At OOC, the corresponding sidings are at the station.

 

[HSTEd]

...and sidings beyond the station. At OOC, the corresponding sidings are at the station.

But are they required to be there?

Aerial photography shows at least five tracks (with what appears to be an abandoned bridge span for a sixth) for a significant distance west of the location of the Old Oak Common station.

There are also six tracks through Acton Main Line. Which gives you two fast lines and four (real or virtual) platform faces for Crossrail.

It appears, again prima facie, reasonable that turnback sidings can be provided west of Old Oak Common if required. It's not actually necessary that all Crossrail trains turning back turn back in the same place after all.

The current 'pencilled in' proposal for the NNML and Chiltern is for some terminal platforms in the development/green space between the new HS2/GWML station and OOC Lane.

For the record I wouldn't mind this solution - at least until we could get NNML electrified out to Aylesbury and turn most of the suburban Chiltern line into a Crossrail branch

 

[HST43257]

That sounds remarkably passenger unfriendly, and a recipe for worse crowd control. "Where's the train going from? Well it could be up here or it could be downstairs..."

But how realistic is it for all trains to be in 1 of them?

 

[stuu]

30? 24tph is the max I've ever heard.

Let's not forget in 2018 Thameslink was meant to be 24tph and that has never happened.

The stations and signalling are designed for 30tph, and the platforms are long enough for trains to be extended to 11 cars. The signalling needs to be capable of 30tph from day 1 so that delays can be recovered

However, actual 30tph needs significant investment to happen as the are only enough trains to run 24tph, so won't be for a good while

 

[cle]

But that doesn't work because Crossrail need 4 platform faces and the turnback for the service to work, if you are proposing that some Crossrail services are sent up the NNML in place of Chiltern services then that is a different matter.
The current 'pencilled in' proposal for the NNML and Chiltern is for some terminal platforms in the development/green space between the new HS2/GWML station and OOC Lane.

Clearly it's ann interesting conundrum. Perhaps a solution looking for a problem, but on the other hand, the land from Marylebone itself - and parts of the alignment up to Neasden - could finance the works, be they additional running lines, dive unders/fly overs etc...

A different tack then - other than the few who walk to work from Marylebone, would Chiltern terminating at OOC (Wycombe lines) - with 15tph Crossrail to jump on to plus other connections, Overground, HS2, Crossrail west/LHR) - be that much worse than the Bakerloo options at Marylebone?

A set of four bays could comfortably run the Chiltern service. In Japan, some very intensive 'secondary' networks are turned in 3-4 platform bays. Notably they don't all run to central termini either.

 

[Bletchleyite]

A set of four bays could comfortably run the Chiltern service.

When Marylebone consisted of four bays, it couldn't comfortably run the Chiltern service, which is why a considerable sum of money was spent on turning a couple of sidings into platforms. Even with those it can be tight at times.

So no. 4 only just works for the MML, which is 6tph standard hour (2 Sheffield, 2 Notts, 2 Corby). Chiltern is 9tph (2 Oxford, 2 Aylesbury via Amersham, 1 Aylesbury via Risborough, 2 Wycombe, 2 Brum).

 

[HSTEd]

When Marylebone consisted of four bays, it couldn't comfortably run the Chiltern service, which is why a considerable sum of money was spent on turning a couple of sidings into platforms. Even with those it can be tight at times.

So no.

Well we would be running nine trains instead of ten, and unlikely to be much in the way of peak services in the new era.
And ofcourse, once HS2 is built there wouldn't be much point running fast Birminghams when both ends would be right next to HS2 platforms.

 

[Bletchleyite]

Well we would be running nine trains instead of ten, and unlikely to be much in the way of peak services in the new era.

It's 9 now, I've corrected my post. Still three more than the MML's 6, and it doesn't take much disruption for those four platforms to be grossly inadequate for that. Arguably it was designed for when the MML was far less intensively served.

And ofcourse, once HS2 is built there wouldn't be much point running fast Birminghams when both ends would be right next to HS2 platforms.

You might put more stops in them, but you aren't going to attach them to the Wycombe stoppers any more than you'd have all the Northamptons as extensions of Tring stoppers. So there won't be a reduced number of trains. It's only two to each destination - quite thin.

At most you could remove one (just have it hourly on the longer distance run, with Bicestrians pointed towards Village). Well, 8tph is still too many for 4 terminal platforms, because 6 already is on the MML!

It'd only really work if you dropped at least 3, so Brum to hourly, Aylesbury via Wycombe as an extension of a Wycombe stopper and Aylesbury via Amersham an extended Met Line service, but that wouldn't please many people.

 

[mmh]

At most you could remove one (just have it hourly on the longer distance run, with Bicestrians pointed towards Village). Well, 8tph is still too many for 4 terminal platforms, because 6 already is on the MML!

Apart from all the places where far more trains are handled at terminuses with fewer platforms.

 

[coppercapped]

At the moment Paddington has 13 platforms, 2 of which in the off-peak are used solely by TfL Rail. It is obviously the terminus of the GWML although some would argue its one of the most distant London termini compared to the centre. It was the 11th busiest London station last year (although likely an outlier).

When TfL Rail essentially becomes the Elizabeth Line and runs through the Central section & bypasses mainline Paddington, for anyone in the inner Thames Valley that needed to change at Paddington to get further into London, that need is removed - you could even change at Ealing Broadway if you were on a slightly faster Didcot Parkway - Paddington service. Obviously past Reading, changing at Paddington for Crossrail will be the natural course of action. The station is already a bit constrained with the TfL Rail services still running (Heathrow Express on one platform only most of the day) and the removal of these services from the NR station would allow a bit of breathing room and scope to amend the high-speed service a little. However the opening of Old Oak Common in 5-6 years seems like it would be totally different.

Old Oak Common is meant to have a number of main & relief line platform faces and I believe the intention is for every Crossrail & GWR (and HS2 for what its worth) service to stop at Old Oak Common. This should provide a much easier interchange for passengers from beyond Reading as well as HS2 and passengers from Heathrow. At this point the reason from going all the way to Paddington diminishes - the interchange to C. London is much easier for basically everyone, people want to go to other parts of London also have better connections (except perhaps the Southeastern / Southwestern part for which the Bakerloo may still be the best) and the station isn't that close to the major London landmarks, and the Relief Line service can't be increased with all the Crossrail paths.

You'll then have a 13 platform station, which might essentially become a glorified turnback. Is this fine? Will there be a more critical evaluation of the 4tph Heathrow Express paths to increase high-speed services? Will some platforms become redundant and used for other purposes? Whilst the same argument could be used for Liverpool St, it's proximity to The City I think means it is less relevant.

This opinion crops up from time to time…

There are some very debatable points made here. For example it assumes that the end destinations of many passengers travelling inbound on the Great Western Main Line lies on a east-west axis through Paddington and that Paddington is further from ‘the centre’ of London than other terminii.

London is so huge that the concept of ‘a centre’ does not match with reality. London is not like Bath, Peterborough or Reading with a clearly defined and single centre that can be walked across in twenty or thirty minutes. Even Birmingham and Manchester have centres which are at the most a couple of miles across but it is 15 miles from Kew Gardens to Barking. Both are clearly in ‘London’. London is made up of a number of ‘centres’ flying in formation: Lambeth, Covent Garden, Fulham, The City of London, Islington, Westminster and Chelsea each generate as much traffic as many provincial towns. Not everyone wants to go to Moorgate, Finsbury Circus or Canary Wharf.

The stations in Crossrail’s core tunnels directly serve a corridor a few hundred metres from the station entrance - a long thin corridor corresponding to that of the Central Line. There are no car parks, only some Tubes and buses for destinations a bit furthr away. It offers no advantages to people wanting to reach Richmond (as there will be no convenient connection at OOC for decades into the future), Wimbledon, Wembley, Victoria or anywhere along the Euston Road corridor. Many of the London landmarks are not very close to the Crossrail stations either - for all its whizzy technology Crossrail and Tube stations in Zone 1 generally serve destinations within walking distance only.

Changing to Crossrail at OOC for passengers on the longer distance trains whose destination is ‘London’ gives no advantage and some disadvantages; a stop will slow down journeys for all those that want other tube lines, taxis for destinations in Zone 1, parts of Zone 2 and buses or even walking to one of the many new offices along the Paddington Basin of the Grand Union Canal. It will be just as easy to change at Paddington for Crossrail, it is where the old cab road for setting down passengers for Departures used to be.

What Crossrail will do, as the RER did in Paris and the S-Bahn in Munich, is to bring areas on each side of the central zone closer to each other. Crossing the centres of these and other cities was always slow as the Underground, Métro or U-Bahn have frequent stops as do buses and these are also affected by other road traffic. It has its own equivalent of Paris’s Châtelet/Les Halles at Farringdon where RER-type lines meet. Essentially it is a metro operation and the benefits are mainly within the city.

I also struggle with the concept of ‘connectivity’ at OOC. There are two distinct traffic flows on the GW: long(er) distance from Swansea and Cardiff, Penzance and Plymouth, Cheltenham, Worcester, Oxford and Bristol on the one hand and the Thames Valley local services including Crossrail to Heathrow and Reading on the other. The local services will all go through the Crossrail core and passengers on the (Oxford)-Didcot-Paddington services will have a same platform interchange at the station of their choice.

The issues surrounding connections from HS2 to Crossrail and the GW services were debated here recently so there is nothing really to add. Suffice it to say that there is a lot of sense for HS2 to connect to the Heathrow services and the Thames Valley local services but I was unconvinced that there is a sufficiently large Plymouth, say, to Birmingham flow to justify stopping all the GW Main Line services at OOC. Some people obviously make this journey but I have not been convinced that even if 10 or so people change at OOC off each train it is justified by lengthening the journey time of the other 400 people by 4 or 5 minutes.

Any capacity released at Paddington by the removal of the local services from the train shed will enable the longer distance offering to be improved: examples are a more frequent and regular semi-fast service down the Berks & Hants to Westbury or Exeter, the introduction of a new service west throught the Vale of the White Horse as a semi-fast towards Bristol calling at the long-proposed stations at Grove (for Wantage), Uffington, Shrivenham, Wootton Basset, Box and Corsham for which paths and Terminal platform capacity is non-existent at the moment. Other suggestions exist. This is much more likely that spending millions to get some of the existing Chiltern services running into Paddington - as the Chiltern journeys are so much shorter any additional fare income is highly unlikely to service the debt.

 

[cle]

It's 9 now, I've corrected my post. Still three more than the MML's 6, and it doesn't take much disruption for those four platforms to be grossly inadequate for that. Arguably it was designed for when the MML was far less intensively served.



You might put more stops in them, but you aren't going to attach them to the Wycombe stoppers any more than you'd have all the Northamptons as extensions of Tring stoppers. So there won't be a reduced number of trains. It's only two to each destination - quite thin.

At most you could remove one (just have it hourly on the longer distance run, with Bicestrians pointed towards Village). Well, 8tph is still too many for 4 terminal platforms, because 6 already is on the MML!

It'd only really work if you dropped at least 3, so Brum to hourly, Aylesbury via Wycombe as an extension of a Wycombe stopper and Aylesbury via Amersham an extended Met Line service, but that wouldn't please many people.

I think you already covered this, but I do think 9-10tph can easily be run from 4 platforms. Easily. Look at Charing Cross (yes 6 but ratio) and Fenchurch St. And as I mentioned, the many Japanese suburban mini-networks, often the non-JR ones, which run out of small termini.

MML has long layovers, and had HSTs until recently. They have regulations. Let's assume an electrified Chiltern network here - since we're looking into the future and the current stock is seasoned - a standard or split fleet of EMUs running 3tph Oxford, 2tph inner (Wycombe/GC), 2tph Aylesbury sop and 3tph Banbury/Stratford/Birmingham. That's a good amount of capacity, especially with extra Oxford and Aylesbury semis - and let's assume at least 5 car trains as standard, or 2 x 4 sets. Much more capacity, and arguably better connections than today. No catering, no locos, no diesel engines - I think it could be turned fine.

 

[stuu]

It will be just as easy to change at Paddington for Crossrail, it is where the old cab road for setting down passengers for Departures used to be.

You make some very good points but I'm going to disagree with this. For someone in the middle of a train coming into Paddington, they will have something like 200m to walk through a crowded station. Changing at OOC they will likely be much nearer the stairs for the overbridge as they will be central and a few 10s of metres from the Crossrail platforms, easily 3-4 minutes less which regular users will see as useful. On the way out of London I imagine more people will choose to go via Paddington as there is more chance of a seat

 

[Class800]

Whatever happens will certainly be interesting. OOC seems to be between Acton Main Line and Paddington, so closer to Paddington that any existing NR station. This makes it difficult for me to believe that GWR inter city services will be calling at OOC, unless they are terminated there. It may be more used for the Thames valley network?

 

[cle]

Whatever happens will certainly be interesting. OOC seems to be between Acton Main Line and Paddington, so closer to Paddington that any existing NR station. This makes it difficult for me to believe that GWR inter city services will be calling at OOC, unless they are terminated there. It may be more used for the Thames valley network?

All GWR services are currently planned to call there. I believe HEx too, if it survives in the long term. So it will be a huge interchange.

Plenty of residential development already springing up there and towards North Acton/Gypsy Corner, but I can see a lot more commercial in time. All those M4/Thames Valley/Chiswick Business Park type firms who need access to Heathrow and/or the west, it'll be very appealing for.

And even though Westfield at Shepherds Bush will be one stop on the WLL (if they figure that all out and fund it) - there will no doubt be endless shopping opportunities, likely more travel retail in style than department stores.

 

[HSTEd]

Whatever happens will certainly be interesting. OOC seems to be between Acton Main Line and Paddington, so closer to Paddington that any existing NR station. This makes it difficult for me to believe that GWR inter city services will be calling at OOC, unless they are terminated there. It may be more used for the Thames valley network?

If they are going to stop all HS2 trains there, I don't see much reason not to stop GWML services there too!

It would also be a competitive means to reach Bristol from Manchester or points north.

 

[Bletchleyite]

If they are going to stop all HS2 trains there, I don't see much reason not to stop GWML services there too!

It would also be a competitive means to reach Bristol from Manchester or points north.

That is indeed precisely the point of it. Essentially a brand new Clapham Jn, which is not an awfully long way from those respective termini either.

 

[HSTEd]

That is indeed precisely the point of it. Essentially a brand new Clapham Jn, which is not an awfully long way from those respective termini either.

And this is why I think that the West London Line will become one of the most important mass transit lines in London, if not the country. (Sort of) Linking the Clapham Junction of the North and West with the Clapham Junction of the South and East.

 

[tomuk]

For the record I wouldn't mind this solution - at least until we could get NNML electrified out to Aylesbury and turn most of the suburban Chiltern line into a Crossrail branch

The NNML doesn't go to Aylesbury well apart from the 40 mph branch at Princes Risborough. If you want to add the Aylesbury services to Crossrail you will either need to use the Dudding Hill Line to Neasden or some other new connection.