I've written before about the plans to close the Circle line and replace it with Hammersmith and City (HC) services. Modern Railways (July 08) has an article on it (page 66) and although the main reasons they give for the change make no more sense to me than before, there are some real reasons behind what the changes are - and they make more sense, I think.
Most travellers, I believe, are uncomprehending at the idea of trains recovering from delays on the Circle line, as the trains jut go round and round in circles. Furthemore, practically all the route is doubled by either the District (southern part, western part), HC (Northern part) and Metropolitan (Northern part east of Baker Street). One just gets the next train along and changes where necessary.
The new pattern relies more on trains terminating at Edgware Road at Edgware Road, where there are concerns about congestion caused by more people changing! What's going on? I don't see why it's more covenient overall tochange at Edgware Road than anywhere else.
The article also says that if a Circle train has to be taken out of service, the replacement has to run empty from Hammersmith depot until it gets to the Circle. This is nonsense -I have been on a "Circle Line" train that started at Hammersmith.
Part of the propoposal is to up the frequency of trains on the Hammersmith branch from 7 or 7.5 trains per hour (tph) to 12. Aha! This means, as the article says, that trains will be near the depot more often, so if there's a problem with a train it can be tken out of service there and swapped with another one from the depot. Now
that makes sense.
The second
real change is that Whitechapel will lose 2 of its 4 platform faces to make room for escalators for Crossrail in the "middle of the layout". Therefore turning (terminating) slots at Whitechapel will disappear and will, I suppose, have to be taken up somewhere else - hence Edgware Road's increased use. Because of this displacement, about half the District line trains on the Wimbledon - Edgware Road branch will turn at High Street Kensington.
I think this makes much more sense as an explanation. But I have more comments on the frequency diagram. TheBarking branch's frequency gets reduced from 7 or 7.5 tph to 6. Assuming there's no corresponding increase in c2c or District trains, one has to wonder why te capacity is not left at 7 to relieve pressure on Edgware Road by running more trains
through.
Similarly, the southern half of the Circle gets reduced from 7 or 7.5 tph to 6, Wimbledon to High St Ken is reduced from 7 to 6, Wimbledon to Edgware Rd from 7 or 6 to 3. The top half of the circle reduces from 14-15 tph (Circle and HC combined) to 12 (east of Edgware Road). The article calls this a comparable level of service to now, but I don't see that.
Admittedly the new trains proposed for these lines, the District and the Met (ie all the "sub surface lines" except the East London which is another story) would be longer and therefore hold more people-so the throughput in passenger capacity per hour is not necessarily to decrease (the article doesn't say but it seems unlikely that it will).
1) Alfreds Way, westbound from River Rd.
