"Dave Arquati" wrote in message
...


For years, I've advocated joining the Northern City Line from Moorgate up
with the W&C line at Bank to form the basis of a new key route through
the City and turning two rubbish lines into something useful.

Tunnel from Moorgate to Bank, astation at Blackfriars, and a tunnel to
the surface between Waterloo and Vauxhall. Can't be a lot of work
compared to most of the schemes that are proposed these days.

And yet the result would be massively useful - Herts/North London to SW
London/Surrey via Finsbury Park, Old Street, Bank, Blackfriars, Waterloo
and Vauxhall.

Routes such as Woking direct to Bank or Palmers Green direct to
Blackfriars or Wimbledon to Finsbury Park. I can't believe no-one has
ever seriously considered this idea before.

You'd have to enlarge the Waterloo & City line which would be extremely
expensive - it might even be easier to just build a new line (i.e.
Crossrail 2!).


Hmmm.... I thought the W&C tunnels were big enough to take regular stock...
Thought I had vague memories of NSE trains running on the line before the
management went over to LUL, but could well be wrong.


Don't forget that the Waterloo & City line is far from rubbish;


I've only had about two legitimate causes to use it in my life. But I can
see why it might be popular with some very very conformist passengers who
live in Surrey, wear the same suit every day, and work 9-5 in the City.


it's extremely busy in the peaks with commuters arriving at Waterloo, and
unless you send *all* SWT services through your route, everyone will still
end up piling onto the new through trains which will already be heavily
loaded. A high frequency would probably be difficult to achieve.


There's probably a good case for duplicating the track there anyway.

Then the line could potentially run a mixture of short-run services using
tube stock (terminating at Waterloo when coming from the north, and at Bank
when approaching from the South) and longer distances with mainline trains.

BTN