On 9 July, 21:28, "Recliner" wrote:
"Jamie Thompson" wrote in message



Shame they're missing the opportunity to add the sorely-missing
flyover/under to link the DC lines with the St. Albans Abbey branch.
Handing that line over to LO would do wonders for the service, which
would then get more people actually using it.

But it's well outside London.

Yup, but one of the main reasons the passing loop got deferred is
because one of the franchise commitments that came in when LM took
over was to harmonise their fleet or some such, meaning that the line
can only be worked by a hugely excessive new 377, when a much smaller/
cheaper non-standard unit would suffice ( I believe a Silverlink Metro
unit used to operate the line before the franchise change).
Additionally, I'd imagine timings could be improved by using one or
two of the new metro-class stock built for LO (rapid acceleration and
lower top-speeds than the 377s - built to be able to handle the fast
lines without stealing too much capacity from Lord Beardie's trains as
well as run stopping services all the way from from Birmingham) -
hence the reason I suggest LO as a suitable operator, as they have a
suitable set of units already, so you wouldn't need specialist stock
or additional stabling.

Having a flyover/under would let the service act as an extension of
the current Watford terminating one, giving the future option of not
only LO services (switching to AC at WJ to utilise the existing
infrastructure), but Chiltern services (or even Met/Bakerloo, if they
decided to install DC rails). Not having to endure a decidedly dodgy
connection at WJ might also attract more local usage from north
Watford for places south. Anyone heading to central London would be
using Thameslink or changing at WJ anyway.

Going off piste a bit - The ideal situation for the line is to be able
to run into St Albans station rather than the Abbey Station - that
would build up contraflow usage, making the line more sustainable.
Moving the Thameslink station south to London Road and building a
proper interchange would make this easier and leave open the option of
extending to Hatfield whilst maintaining a really good interchange. I
suspect the golf club might object though If you could pull off
Hatfield and get FCC to stop their semi-fast there, you'd eventually
build up a significant chunk of interchanging commuter use as people
would be able to get between the WCML, MML, and ECML a) without going
near central London or b) out to Birmingham/Leicester or c) going out
as far as the proposed EWR route, and especially d) very quickly as
the distances aren't that great between them. I know a *large* number
of people who have to drive because the train isn't viable as they'd
need travel orbitally.

Now I know I should probably ignore king troll, but could you please
come up with something more original than 'trainspotter'? - It's
really quite tiresome after all this time. I'm not btw, I couldn't
care less about the trains themselves - I'm only interested in
building up public transport infrastructure, and the train is far
quicker over the distances in question than any bus would be. Decent
local bus interchange at each end would also be very much on my
agenda, but you need a worthwhile service for them to connect to
first. Who in their right mind would get out of their car, suffering
the inconvenience penalty of public transport on a bus caught in the
same traffic that their car was?