On Sat, 15 Dec 2007, Mizter T wrote:

On 15 Dec, 13:28, Tom Anderson wrote:

The cross-country route doesn't do anything about traffic generated by
the ports nearer London, around Tilbury etc. One plan there is to use
the Gospel Oak - Barking line for a lot more freight, possibly even
closing it to passenger trains, i think, which would relieve the North
London line between Stratford and Gospel Oak. If you could send all
through-London freight that way, i think you could in theory run a
tube-frequency service between Stratford and Gospel Oak.

I don't think I've ever read about a serious proposal to close GOBLIN
for passenger services and make it freight only. Certainly no such
notion appears to be on TfL's radar.

I remember it being in some sort of freight study a while ago. That
doesn't mean that it actually was!

The London East-West Study:

http://www.crossrail.co.uk/80256B090053AF4C/Files/context16/$FILE/eastwest.pdf

Says upgrade it, use it for freight, but retain the current passenger
service.

The 2003 London Rail Freight Study:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/downloa...t_ReportPB.pdf

Says much the same (and refers to it, perhaps more accurately, as the
Tottenham and Hampstead Line).

So probably i imagined it. Hurrah!

Could any kind of serious case be made for this - i.e. a strong enough
argument to justify closing it for passenger services?

The only case i can imagine would be based on (a) closing it allowing huge
improvements to the NLL service and (b) providing a high-quality bus or
tram network in the area the GOBLin serves. Neither of those sound likely.

tom

--
The major advances in civilization are processes that all but wreck the
societies in which they occur. -- Alfred North Whitehead