On 2007-07-05 10:48:53 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
said:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
On 2007-07-05 10:03:31 +0100, "Dave Plowman (News)"
said:

In article ,
Andy Hall wrote:
Converting railways into roads would make good sense, especially into
major towns and cities.

Most railways are far too narrow to 'convert' into roads - the cost
would be horrendous. Would make decent cycle tracks, but I doubt that
would appeal to you. ;-)

Well I don't know.

I read somewhere that somebody had done the sums for the Paddington
main line (4 tracks essentially) and worked out that with train
occupancy and spacing between trains because of signalling, it would be
possible to substantially increase throughput of people by tarmacing
the route and having car use.

And just where do the cars go after Paddington?

Therein is the challenge

I was just somewhat surprised to read that the trains didn't have a
better throughput of people, not that I'm looking for there to be more
overcrowding. The issue appears to be number of trains per amount of
time able to use the track.


At least trains tend to go
back from whence they've come pretty promptly.

The problem with cars and cities isn't getting the cars into the city -
but getting them to their destination and parking them.