Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Are you tired of being shoved in a peak hour carriage?
Tags for Forum Posts: Harringay, Hornsey, Peak, hour, trains
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Gordon T on
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The 2018 replacements for the current Moorgate trains can only be be six carriages long since that's the max platform length at Moorgate through to Highbury & Islington, below-ground platform lengthening is impossibly expensive.
A link to Govia's plans here. The new trains in 2018 will be fixed 6-carriage units - no more short trains. The internal layout with wide corridor connections (like the Overground trains from Highbury & Islington) will allow more comfortable standing in peak hours. Train frequencies will also be increased.
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Permalink Reply by matthew cuthbert on
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Thanks Gordon, some knowledge helps users understand some of the limitations, any incite on accessible transport for Harringay and Hornsey, Volker Fitzpatrick looked at it for Network Rail, and estimated it would cost at Hornsey a Station, between 2 & 3 million pounds, Network Rail deemed it too expensive, involving 4 lifts. Having said that there are a string of lifts at regional stations from London to Southampton, so the funds could be put in place. Both stations service around 30,000 residents, over 4 wards. Harringay station had desperately inadequate width access through the gates, with from the bridge to stairs to the platform, a simple intervention would see this right. I observed two passengers slip from the Stroud Green access to the footbridge at Harringay. I have heard from residents that there is confusion between the council and Network rail as to who's responsibility this is. Muswell Hill has ridge tiles to prevent pedestrians slipping on steeper gradients, this would be a better solution than grit or textured surface which is a best s stop gap. Harringay also doesn't have any bubble/ tactile tiles on the platform for the visually impaired, and I do see commuters who especially rely on this.
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I'm voting for Matthew Cuthbert, as Govia's New Governor for Good Ideas, to introduce 12-carriage trains at rush hours, with instant effect. At intermediate stations such as Harringay or Hornsey the driver will align his front six carriages with the platform for a two-minute halt while doors to rear six carriages remain locked and armed guards keep the excess and baying Ladder mob at bay. After two minutes driver proceeds to align his rear with the platform to allow the Harringay/Hornsey hordes remnant to board. At terminal stations - Moorgate, Welwyn GC etc - the new 2018 improved carriages should allow the rear carriage "customers" to proceed patiently forward from carriage to carriage till they reach the platform. Who needs costly longer platforms for longer trains?
On second thoughts, these may just be cost-effective solutions to non-existent problems and IfAQs. Please advise. OAE has been avoiding rush-hour commute(r)s for the past dozen years.
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Permalink Reply by John Leeming on
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How would you deal with the six rear carriages overlapping the junction to the platforms at Moorgate, thus blocking access to the opposite platform?
Seriously, since the Moorgate suburban lines towards Hertford and Welwyn are fairly self-contained, improved signalling could surely allow a much more frequent service. If Trains can be dispatched from Walthamstow on the Victoria Line every two minutes, it should surely be feasible at Moorgate, too.
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This is not a self contained line though. It's part of the East Coast main line and the Hertford Loop, north of FPK/AAP. There is the need to factor in trains on the main line to KGX too, and while there may be separate lines here and there, running 2 trains per minute to MOG seems somewhat overly ambitious!
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I think the 'slow' lines between Moorgate and Hertford/WGC are pretty much self-contained, using platforms that main line trains do not visit. The main line trains take the 'fast' lines, and the outer suburban trains usually stop for the first time at Potters Bar (using the 'fast' lines). The might be the occasional need for a freight train or two on the slow lines, but I am sure they could be signalled for a much more frequent service than the current one if required. The northbound Hertford Loop uses a flyover to cross the main lines, so there is no conflict there.
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There are no decent turnings or sidings though. On the Hertford Loop, the first place you can stack even just one train is in Gordon Hill, and south of there there is no crossing from north to southbound until Ally Pally.
The line could take a bit more, but nowhere near the frequency of the Victoria Line, which is purpose built for high frequency trains and could even run driverless.
MOG to FPK only has one turning either end. And MOG is the terminus for southbound trains but has just two platforms and no sidings. In order to go back up the line, trains have to back out of the platform in order to cross over. That's why you can be waiting for 5 minutes for your train to enter MOG in rush hour as it is. It will never run many more trains with the track and tunnels in place.
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Now, if you wanted to do it properly you'd have to extend south, and you might well join up with the fabulous Waterloo and City line, which would really be something.
Basically, the line is a fantastic working relic which could easily have been abandoned years ago, but which still survives, creaking on, running just about at capacity.
But just look at what the Northern Line could have been: https://londonparticulars.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/the-case-of-the-...
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The Northern City branch itself was once a working relic, but is no longer if you look at the huge numbers of passengers who interchange there with the other lines at Highbury and Islington. But yes, a link with the W&C Line or even a new tunnel through Cannon Street (to eliminate the need for that main line terminus, as was done with Holborn Viaduct and [a bit late in the day] Broad Street) would be very useful.
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But if you just run it as an end to end service, with every train stopping at every station, it is straightforward as long as you have the signalling infrastructure in place. At present the Finsbury Park to Moorgate section has a train about every five minutes during the rush hour, which probably means that each of the two platforms is occupied by a train for about seven minutes at a time (allowing two minutes to access the platform from the platforms junction on arrival and one minute on departure - giving ten minutes in total for each of two trains). That's probably about as much as can be achieved with the current signalling and driving system (though possibly up to three minutes could be shaved off the turnround by having another driver at Moorgate to ready to leap into the rear cab and take the train northwards again. That's presumably how they sometimes manage to turn a Victoria Line train round in one minute at Walthamstow Central). But with a modern signalling system it shouldn't be impossible to double the present frequency, giving a five-minute service to/from both Hertford North and WGC. Whether that can be justified economically is another matter, since the current service, due to be enhanced anyway in a couple of years, is more or less adequate outside peak hours.
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The signalling would probably always include the slow-down protection which was fitted after the Moorgate crash, which means trains can't be too close and that does place an upper limit on the frequency that trains can run. Nobody would want to start rushing trains into the platforms there unless the tunnels were extended for a better turn-around than offered by the clunky crossing that's just north of the platforms. We saw what happened there when a train failed to stop with the tunnels ending as they do, after all.
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