[smallspy]

Nine to start, 10 later this year and next, platforms built for 12.

That's the nine car ones to start.

http://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/articles/platforms-completed-at-new-liverpool-street-station

Unless something has changed in the past week or two, there are no plans for lengthening the class 345 trains beyond 9 cars.

And they are starting out as 7-car trains, with the additional cars starting to be added later this year.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

 

[steveintoronto]

Unless something has changed in the past week or two, there are no plans for lengthening the class 345 trains beyond 9 cars.

And they are starting out as 7-car trains, with the additional cars starting to be added later this year.

Dan
Toronto, Ont.

Indeed, my mistake as Liverpool's surface platform (not yet the Elizabeth line one, as trains are still being run as TfL existing Liverpool services) is not long enough. The point remains that Crossrail tunnel stations were built with a box long enough to lengthen the platforms to 12 car trains later (The end wall can be knocked out, and platform extension already roughed in), and long enough to connect with two major extant stations on the surface.

You wouldn't see many if any stations on any of London's deep bore lines.

Crossrail is "deep bore" in most tunnel sections, up to 40 metres deep. And it connects with many deep tube stations.

Edit to Add: Thameslink is already starting to run 12 car trains through tunnel to Farringdon, and here's what's possible for massive interchange stations that encompass many lines:

Farringdon Interchange Upgrade Prepares for 12 Car Trains and for 140 Trains Every Hour!
[...]
Construction Works to Continue for Crossrail
Despite the considerable progress made at Farringdon, the building will continue as the Crossrail Scheme progresses. There will be a huge interchange at Farringdon with the Crossrail entrance adjacent to the existing one and could make it London’s busiest station when the project is completed in 2018.

140 Trains EVERY Hour From 2018
When the Crossrail and Thameslink projects are completed a staggering 140 trains per hour are being proposed as calling at Farringdon. These will be made up from existing Tube connections plus up to 24 trains an hour running in each direction on Thameslink and Crossrail adding up to over 140 trains an hour.
[...]

http://www.rail.co.uk/rail-news/2011/farringdon-interchange-upgrade-prepares-for-12-car-trains/

Tying this back to the Relief Line, it would be absolute folly to not plan big if Toronto isn't to find herself hobbled yet again by inadequate transit infrastructure. Tying together stations to allow greater flexibility of access makes perfect sense.

 

[nfitz]

Nine to start, 10 later this year and next, platforms built for 12.

10 is news to me. Is there a reference for this?

You say they've protected for 240 metres. How would you get 12 cars? They are using cars similar in length to Toronto. That would need a platform of over 270 metres.

Even 11 cars would be over 250 metres.

This line, however, is going to massively change how passengers move around the underground. I suspect the bigger issues might be where people are getting off the Elizabeth line and filling already busy tube stations to change trains, especially at Paddington. And at Tottenham Court Road to connect to Bank on the Central line - which are already two of London's busiest stations.

Here's the proposed map for the December 2018 Elizabeth line opening.

 

[steveintoronto]

You say they've protected for 240 metres.

I quoted the *built length* and I've triple checked it. What I claimed, and Crossrail has an engineering paper on this which I'll find later, is that they "built the box for 12 car length" since (gist) "It's exceedingly difficult to go back later to extend a box 30-40 metres underground". In other words, they built with later expansion in mind. The extra platform behind a walled end that can be knocked out is already roughed in.

What a concept.

I suspect the bigger issues might be where people are getting off the Elizabeth line and filling already busy tube stations to change trains, especially at Paddington.

Almost all have had massive renos to accommodate this, including, wait for it, the 'Circus' stations where the ticket halls have been massively renoed. Some stations have 'lift' (elevator) only access from the ticket hall to Crossrail, the tunnels are so deep.

Again, there are possible lessons to be learned for the Relief Line. It seems counter-intuitive to go back to elevators from escalators, but due to many factors, it can be the best choice. Needless to say, these elevators are a hell of a lot faster than the ones TTC and GO now use. I can make it down the stairs fully loaded with a bike and dog faster than waiting for the elevator in many cases on the TTC and GO. Perhaps there are some better performing options on each system. I've yet to find one.

And further to that point, here's something yet to appear in Toronto transit:

CROSSRAIL AND TFL TO INSTALL FIRST INCLINE LIFTS IN UK PUBLIC TRANSPORT
Friday 27th July 2012
[...]
Crossrail will pioneer the use of incline lifts to deliver step-free access at two of the major central London stations. Four innovative incline lifts will run alongside escalators at Farringdon and Liverpool Street Crossrail stations where it is not possible to install vertical lifts. London Underground will also install an incline lift at Greenford station by 2014.
[...]
Crossrail lifts will be located at:

• Liverpool Street - eight lifts including two incline lifts
• Farringdon – seven lifts including two include lifts
• Bond Street station - six lifts
• Whitechapel – eight lifts
• Tottenham Court Road - six lifts
• Paddington – six lifts
• Custom House – two lifts
• Emergency and service shafts – six lifts.

http://www.crossrail.co.uk/news/art...ll-first-incline-lifts-in-uk-public-transport

In all fairness, there are teams from London here to advise Metrolinx on certain matters, I met one a month back but they were industry and commercial advisors for a massive UK/Int'l enterprise. Hopefully some new ideas and approaches are in the offing. Doug Ford is the antithesis of that. At least one team (the one I met) have semi-permanent offices here, and the personnel have work visas for a couple of years.

Late Edit: Here's reference to both escalator provision capacity (a pretty hot topic v 'lifts' in some UK quarters) and platform length. This article states "11" cars, but the Class 345 are longer than most UK mainline emu/coaches. I'll find the engineering report later that states "12", it's on another hard drive, and/or ostensibly still on-line.

[...]
In 2002, academics at the Indian Institute of Management and the LSE conducted a study on escalator capacity. Behaviours can change capacity (see Holborn’s foolish experiments with banning walking on the left), but basically, on the London Underground, you can move 110 people per minute (ppm) on one standard escalator: that’s 6600 per hour.

The shiny nine car class 345 trains ordered for Crossrail have a capacity of 1500 people. Crucially, the platforms have been built long enough to extend this to 11 cars, for a potential capacity per train of around 1,800. Crossrail is planning for 24 trains per hour (tph), but the line was designed for 30 tph to be possible. Once those changes are brought into use, and with trains in two directions, that gives us a maximum number of people passing through a central Crossrail station at peak time of 108,000.

It’s not likely that everyone is not going to get off every train at one station except in an emergency. But at peak times, the idea that half the passengers on a train might get off at key stations – Liverpool Street, say – does not seem unreasonable. After all, from the east this service replaces the Shenfield metro, so many people will have commutes planned around alighting at that station; and from the west, Crossrail will be far the fastest and most pleasant route into the City. [...]

https://www.citymetric.com/transport/i-m-very-worried-crossrail-doesn-t-have-enough-escalators-3359

 

[innsertnamehere]

To be fair Toronto also did this with Sheppard - 4 car trains but platforms are built for 6 cars. And the roughed in Spanish solution at Sheppard-Yonge..

Eglinton Crosstown will also have 90m platforms, but from my understanding they are planning on running 60m trains on opening day.

 

[steveintoronto]

To be fair Toronto also did this with Sheppard - 4 car trains but platforms are built for 6 cars. And the roughed in Spanish solution at Sheppard-Yonge..

Eglinton Crosstown will also have 90m platforms, but from my understanding they are planning on running 60m trains on opening day.

This is just plain common sense, but where it becomes critical is when it's 30-40 metres down, adding on a platform extension is nearly impossible. The cost of "future proofing" is a fraction of what revisiting it later requires.

The new railway is designed to be future-proof. The stations are large with platforms 250m long, and there is capacity for more space so that trains can be extended when it’s needed.

https://www.ice.org.uk/what-is-civil-engineering/what-do-civil-engineers-do/crossrail

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

This is just plain common sense, but where it becomes critical is when it's 30-40 metres down, adding on a platform extension is nearly impossible. The cost of "future proofing" is a fraction of what revisiting it later requires.
https://www.ice.org.uk/what-is-civil-engineering/what-do-civil-engineers-do/crossrail

"Future proofing" comes at a cost - the question is whether it make sense to treat the RL as a one off in a city with barely an underground network but put an in ordinate amount of resources to maximize it to the exclusion of other possibilities, vs. London, which has extensive network with capacity and reliability issues that cannot be resolved well on a piecemeal process. Different contexts.

AoD

 

[micheal_can]

"Future proofing" comes at a cost - the question is whether it make sense to treat the RL as a one off in a city with barely an underground network but put an in ordinate amount of resources to maximize it to the exclusion of other possibilities, vs. London, which has extensive network with capacity issues that cannot be resolved well on a piecemeal process. Different contexts.

AoD

If they had future proofed Yonge, it may not be at capacity.

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

If they had future proofed Yonge, it may not be at capacity.

And then what, the need for creating a distributed network disappears? Also if you have had an exotic, ultra future-proofed design that was presented to the public at the time in the 40s, I would not have been surprised it would have been voted down in the referendum and sent back to the drawing board. The design as it was left ample room for growth - you can't expect decisions made a 100 years ago to remain sufficient a century later after multiple extensions - we purposefully chose to not make much by the way of tough decisions and simply added extensions after extensions to this existing line. That is our problem.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

AoD

 

[micheal_can]

And then what, the need for creating a distributed network disappears? Also if you have had an exotic, future-proofed design that was presented to the public at the time in the 40s, I would not have been surprised it would have been voted down in the referendum and sent back to the drawing board.

Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

AoD

You mean just like every time it tries to happen since then?

 

[AlvinofDiaspar]

You mean just like every time it tries to happen since then?

More like - that line finally got built after false starts - it would have made no sense to expect it to resolve today's capacity problems.

AoD

 

[steveintoronto]

"Future proofing" comes at a cost - the question is whether it make sense to treat the RL as a one off in a city with barely an underground network but put an in ordinate amount of resources to maximize it to the exclusion of other possibilities, vs. London, which has extensive network with capacity and reliability issues that cannot be resolved well on a piecemeal process. Different contexts.

AoD

Agreed, different, save for when you build tunnels 30-40 metres down. THAT is the glaring change in fiscal and planning priorities. To answer your point on the surface: Longer platforms (or space to extend them) makes for a more complicated trackwork arrangement, let alone cost of acquiring property. When you're boring tunnels, the property claim disappears, albeit Queen's Park might have to pass an Act if it does become one.

The Relief Line as being planned is going to be its own worst enemy if it carries the load its touted to. And if it doesn't carry that load, then it's been a wasted investment when something much more valid and dynamic and *regional* could have been built for slightly higher budget.

If Crosstown LRT can plan for future expansion, why can't the Relief Line?

Addendum: Short on time right now, but just queried Google for

"future proofing" the downtown relief line

and there's quite a few hits, including studies. I'll detail later.

Here's some instances:

Auckland’s City Rail Link ‘Future-Proofed’

WRITTEN BY TRIS THOMAS ON 26/07/2018 IN NEWS


TAGGED: AUCKLAND,NEW ZEALAND
On 26 July Auckland Council and the government agreed to future proof the City Rail Link and expand station sizes to cater for rocketing growth in rail patronage across Auckland. The agreement to increase investment in the CRL means the tendering process can now consider work such as widening tunnel sizes, lengthening platforms at new rail stations to cater for nine carriage trains (rather than six), a second entrance for the Karangahape Road station and other associated station work.

The increased scope in the CRL has been agreed as a result of new estimates that predict that CRL stations need to cope with the capacity of 54,000 passengers an hour at peak rather than the original estimates of 36,000.

“Last year we achieved the milestone of 20 million passenger trips a year, four years ahead of schedule. [...]

https://tunnellingjournal.com/aucklands-city-rail-link-future-proofed/

ST3 Must be Built for the Future

February 7, 2018 at 7:00 am By STB Editorial Board


How to build ST3 with provision for future lines. Map by Oran.

Sound Transit 3 is the biggest investment in pedestrian mobility the Pacific Northwest has seen since the coming of the railroads in the 1890s. Like what that generation built, the capital projects we’ve committed to build will be around for decades. We can’t know with certainty what the future holds, but for reasons of both climate and mobility, it seems clear that our city’s future will need to involve more high-quality electric transit. It’s therefore essential that we build the core of ST3 so as to maximize its future utilization and value. [...]

https://seattletransitblog.com/2018/02/07/future-proofing-st3/

[...]
With 3 months to go, TTC tests hundreds of elements on Vaughan subway extension

Joshua Freeman, CP24.com
Published Monday, September 18, 2017 7:09PM EDT

[...]
Looking to the future
[...]The TTC has also built in spaces to “future-proof” the new extension so that some of the station work is already complete when new transit lines, such as the Finch Light Rail Line, are built.

“So at Finch West, buried in the new station, is the new light rail terminal. So when that’s built, you just literally break out a wall and there will be a light rail platform there,” Palmer says.
[...]

https://www.cp24.com/news/with-3-mo...lements-on-vaughan-subway-extension-1.3595340

 

[Transportfan]

I don't get why the line was planned to follow Queen rather than King. Now commuters to/from the financial district will have to transfer or walk (and most will be too lazy to do that) to get to/from the DRL, causing potential overcrowding at the interchange stations. Not to mention the condo boom happening along King.

 

[junctionist]

I don't get why the line was planned to follow Queen rather than King. Now commuters to/from the financial district will have to transfer or walk (and most will be too lazy to do that) to get to/from the DRL, causing potential overcrowding at the interchange stations. Not to mention the condo boom happening along King.

King and Bay would only be a 2 minute walk from the City Hall station at Queen and Bay.

 

[ehlow]

I don't get why the line was planned to follow Queen rather than King. Now commuters to/from the financial district will have to transfer or walk (and most will be too lazy to do that) to get to/from the DRL, causing potential overcrowding at the interchange stations. Not to mention the condo boom happening along King.

It's a really close walk, also a huge amount of people get off at Queen in the morning and work near Queen