"Robin May" wrote on Saturday, April 17, 2004 3:42 PM:

Buses are one way of making an orbital journey at the moment but they
aren't really very good for the longish journeys that would be made
easily possible by an orbital rail link. An example of that sort of
thing, the North London line, seems fairly heavily used with the trains
often being uncomfortably packed at busy times. I know I go on about
this all the time, but I think it would be even more heavily used if a
more frequent and reliable service was provided and the stations were
done up a bit.

Yeah, you're right there. Whenever I've been on the NLL it's been pretty
full and I've had a long-ish wait before the train comes.

IIRC they say the big problems with increasing frequency on the NLL are that
single track stretch at the eastern end, and the shared working with the
District Line at the western end. Perhaps the extra trains could just run
from South Acton Willesden Jn. and terminate at Custom House, avoiding the
two trouble spots. (Maybe an extension of the Clapham to Willesden
shuttle?) Run these new services in addition to the existing services from
Richmond to North Woolwich, and they'd be a simple way of increasing the
frequency without spending a fortune remodelling the track, signalling, etc.