On Jan 21, 9:49*pm, MIG wrote:
On 21 Jan, 21:28, Martin Petrov
wrote:





On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:25:41 -0800, Mizter T wrote:
On Jan 21, 7:32*pm, eastender wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

And thanks for an alternative take on it from the Dalston
perspective! The Jubilee can be pretty heaving in the morning, so an
alternative route would be to change at Shadwell onto the DLR, though
its certainly not quite such a smooth interchange - as it's
out-of-station via the street! - and the DLR journey to Canary Wharf
would take longer. Despite the awkward interchange, the extended ELL
at Shadwell will offer a number of new journey opportunities.

I use City Airport quite a bit - eg going to Rotterdam next week - so
the change at Shadwell makes sense for me, although I sometimes drive
there (the car park though is now a staggering £72 for 29-48 hours -
far higher than business parking at Heathrow) I sometime park down
there at the weekends to take my kids for a ride on the DLR.

Though given the ultra-easy interchange at Canning Town from Jubbly to
DLR, one could well argue that ELL - Jubilee - DLR might still be
easiest for those with cumbersome luggage. They'd all have to be
working, of course - particularly problematic for the Jubilee at
weekends as we all know. But going via the Shadwell might mean one less
change if the DLR service was going all the way.

(Plus the DLR being overground gives one more of an opportunity for any
last minute pre-flight mobile communications.)

The bus though does have advantages - the 277 stops right outside my
wife's office. But if the traffic's snarled round the tunnel in the
evening rush hour, it can be a nightmare journey back home.

It's generally ok on the way in then?

Bus in, then rail home would of course work as a cheaper way of taking
advantage of both modes.

As a veteran of the Hackney to Canary Wharf journey, I actually found the
NLL from Hackney Central (or Dalston) to Stratford followed by Jub-Jub to
Canary Wharf to be arguably the best/quickest option. You can usually get
a seat at Hackney Central, or at worst, when all the staff for the
hospital get off at Homerton, and then you're pretty certain of a seat at
Stratford on the Jubilee. If was hanging around late at work, the 277 was
usually my preference for getting home as the roads might be quieter at
7-7:30pm....-

With all of this, the journey opportunities that seem least useful and
by far the most disruptive are offered by the extension south beyond
NXG, filling hugely overcrowded paths with short trains going the
wrong way. *I can see the benefit to students from the north, heading
for Goldsmiths etc, but a lot of that was provided by the ELL as it
was, with some useful new links now offered. *People in south London
could reach NX/NXG anyway.

But putting these passengers on through ELL trains will relieve any
crowding on the London Bridge services.


Nearly all of the benefits listed in Mizter T's post were offered
either by the existing ELL or by the extension to the north.

The planned reduction in service to London Bridge isn't going down
well locally, and is being conflated with the loss of Charing Cross
services on the line as a general battering of local transport.

Is there really a reduction in capacity to London Bridge? I thought
the withdrawal of the handful of Southern services was going to go
hand in hand with the lengthening any short formed (4 or 6 car) peak
services to 8 cars. So frequencies may have been slightly reduced, but
capacity has increased.

On Jan 21, 9:49*pm, MIG wrote:
[snip]
With all of this, the journey opportunities that seem least useful and
by far the most disruptive are offered by the extension south beyond
NXG, filling hugely overcrowded paths with short trains going the
wrong way. *I can see the benefit to students from the north, heading
for Goldsmiths etc, but a lot of that was provided by the ELL as it
was, with some useful new links now offered. *People in south London
could reach NX/NXG anyway.

Nearly all of the benefits listed in Mizter T's post were offered
either by the existing ELL or by the extension to the north.

My post/ramble was about those people who might use the line in those
first few weeks *before* through-running south of NXG begins - sorry
if I didn't flag this up sufficiently (it was prompted by Paul C's
ponderings on how quickly demand will pick up).

What I decidedly did not do was to extend my waxing lyrical to the
potential new clientele that the line will attract once through
running south of NXG does begin - but I can assure you that there will
be a lot of people attracted to it, and a good number will be
switching over from other routes e.g. via London Bridge. In other
words there will be a lot of people who'll want to go the "wrong way"
as you so put it (though evidently you won't be one of them) to take
advantage of these "most disruptive" "journey opportunities" (what is
a disruptive journey opportunity anyway? Or do you just expect all the
pax to be rowdy?!).


The planned reduction in service to London Bridge isn't going down
well locally, and is being conflated with the loss of Charing Cross
services on the line as a general battering of local transport.

OK, enough sarkiness on my part. Genuine question because I'm really
not as up to date on this - how much of a reduction will there be,
peak and off-peak? I was under the impression that wasn't going to be
huge, and also that the services that remain would be more likely to
be longer (e.g. 8 carriages vice 4). The reason why it'd be good to
have some specifics is that I'm afraid I remember you making similar
statements a long while back, but my recollection is that you'd
presumed that the ELL services would simply replace existing services,
when that was not the plan. (Damn long memories!)

FWIW I do know how important a route this is, and how busy these train
can be at peak times, so I understand the concern. And I understand
worries about new upstart services displacing old established ones, as
seems to be the plan on the South London Line. But in this case it
seems possible that people might be able to have the advantage of the
new whilst continuing to retain the benefits of the old too.

On Jan 21, 10:23*pm, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Thu, 21 Jan 2010 19:19:36 -0000, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

Mizter T wrote:

On Jan 21, 6:36 pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

However there was talk of special 'zone 2 only' fares for some ELL
journeys as long as you didn't actually use Shoreditch High St,
which is the only station in zone 1. This was mentioned a year or so
back, but the trail has gone a bit cold recently. Perhaps this will
prompt someone with insider access to find out...

Most interesting - I obviously missed that at the time. I suppose that
would go some way to pacifying the TOCs worried about revenue
abstraction (i.e. pax deserting London Bridge/Cannon Street and
Moorgate for SHS) whilst still promoting it as an orbital route.

I think it might be in one of those TfL board papers. The sort of thing Paul
Corfield seems to be able to find in an instant...

:-)

Err not this time. *The zoning decision was linked to the approval for
ELLX Phase 2 as you know. The only further fares development that anyone
has spotted is the fare zones on the new NR London Connections map that
showed SHS in Zone 1 but Hoxton as boundary Z1/2.

I hadn't spotted that! Given the impenetrability of finding said map
on the redesigned (aka broken) NR website, I put "London Connections"
into Google, and it took me to the old Sept '09 map on the PDA version
of their site (i.e. "http://pda.nationalrail etc etc), so I've only
just really taken the new one on board (seen it at a station but
didn't pore over it).

Putting Hoxton in z1/2 is good in the sense that it will at least make
it clearer that one is going to travel through zone 1, though it's
essentially presentational of course (ok, it does mean single journeys
between Hoxton and SHS will be charged differently as z1-only
journeys, but who's going to be doing that?!). I recall the fix on the
NLL that put Hampstead Heath (and only HH) in zone 3, surrounded by
zone 2 - this feels like something of a fix too, but at least it's
executed in a way that's a bit easier to see.

(Not that I think many people with zone 2 Travelcards ever actually
ended up paying for a ticket extension to go through HH, not least
because buying a ticket wasn't always exactly easy, let alone a
difficult ticket like this which required an open ticket office, and
not that anyone ever had their tickets checked on the NLL. Not that
that many people had tickets in the first place either of course!)

Shame there doesn't appear to be a 'go orbital' easement to encourage
people to head this way. The SHS rezoning has to turn a lot of the
predicted traffic analysis on its head.


http://www.tfl.gov.uk/corporate/medi...ive/11192.aspx

Interestingly the DfT press release is no longer on the usual NDS site.
Given the SLL controversy I suspect it has been pulled.

That's something that is good about the TfL and GLA websites - old
press releases stay up on them and don't get airbrushed from history.
The GLA website has press releases dating back to 2000 when it was set
up, and TfL back to 2004. Might not always be the case of course.


What I haven't tried is whether the Fares Finder has Hoxton or
Shoreditch High St listed. I'd be amazed if they were there but it can't
be long before an update will be needed. The real fun will be when the
services on to NR metals start and the fares implications from that -
pink validators at Canada Water anybody?

Hopefully not for people to jump out and touch on before leaping
heroically back in! (I recall someone saying they'd successfully done
as much when travelling in on Chiltern on a paper ticket and switching
to PAYG at Amersham, or maybe Chalfont & Latimer... cue MIG saying
facilities should be provided for doing this everywhere!)

I tried the Fare Finder for ELL stations a couple of days ago but
there were none. Also, "fare finder" is in the singular, though it
doesn't sound or scan at all right does it! See:
http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tickets/faresandtickets/2930.aspx

Mizter T wrote:
On Jan 21, 9:49 pm, MIG wrote:

The planned reduction in service to London Bridge isn't going down
well locally, and is being conflated with the loss of Charing Cross
services on the line as a general battering of local transport.

OK, enough sarkiness on my part. Genuine question because I'm really
not as up to date on this - how much of a reduction will there be,
peak and off-peak? I was under the impression that wasn't going to be
huge, and also that the services that remain would be more likely to
be longer (e.g. 8 carriages vice 4). The reason why it'd be good to
have some specifics is that I'm afraid I remember you making similar
statements a long while back, but my recollection is that you'd
presumed that the ELL services would simply replace existing services,
when that was not the plan. (Damn long memories!)

What the Southern franchise briefing said:

"In order to accommodate these additional trains, SLC2 will see considerable
changes to existing services to London Bridge. It will no longer be feasible
for South Central to operate limited-stop services on the slow lines in
between all-stations ELL services, so all slow-line South Central trains
will also call at all stations. The South Central slow line service will
consist of 6 tph in the high peak hour (4 off-peak), and will be purely
local in nature.

"Whilst this means a reduction in the number of London Bridge trains from
Sydenham and Forest Hill to London Bridge in the peak hour, the overall
service frequency north of Sydenham, including ELL trains, will increase to
14 trains per hour in the peak. When Network Rail has completed enhancement
work, the South Central peak services on this route are expected to be of 10
car length."

I'd have thought the eventual capacity increase from 8 to 10 car is the key.
6 x 10 car trains in the peak hour must be almost as much capacity into LB
as now?

The South London RUS also covers the subject in detail, needless to say.
AFAICS the idea that the ELL will cause a major reduction in services into
LB seems something of an exaggeration.

Paul S

"Paul Scott" wrote

The South London RUS also covers the subject in detail, needless to say.
AFAICS the idea that the ELL will cause a major reduction in services into
LB seems something of an exaggeration.

Some passengers who currently use London Bridge will find it advantageous to
use the ELL - particularly those who walk to work from London Bridge, but
who may have a shorter walk from Shoreditch High Street, and those who
change to the Jubilee Line at London Bridge who may choose to change at
Canada Water instead.

Peter

On 21 Jan, 23:17, "Paul Scott" wrote:
Mizter T wrote:
On Jan 21, 9:49 pm, MIG wrote:
The planned reduction in service to London Bridge isn't going down
well locally, and is being conflated with the loss of Charing Cross
services on the line as a general battering of local transport.

OK, enough sarkiness on my part. Genuine question because I'm really
not as up to date on this - how much of a reduction will there be,
peak and off-peak? I was under the impression that wasn't going to be
huge, and also that the services that remain would be more likely to
be longer (e.g. 8 carriages vice 4). The reason why it'd be good to
have some specifics is that I'm afraid I remember you making similar
statements a long while back, but my recollection is that you'd
presumed that the ELL services would simply replace existing services,
when that was not the plan. (Damn long memories!)

What the Southern franchise briefing said:

"In order to accommodate these additional trains, SLC2 will see considerable
changes to existing services to London Bridge. It will no longer be feasible
for South Central to operate limited-stop services on the slow lines in
between all-stations ELL services, so all slow-line South Central trains
will also call at all stations. The South Central slow line service will
consist of 6 tph in the high peak hour (4 off-peak), and will be purely
local in nature.

That's a different way of describing it from what I'd understood. It
seems to imply extra stopping services, rather than withdrawal (or
redirection) of limited-stop, but is the latter what it means?

I thought that the current off-peak stopping service from London
Bridge was 6 tph? That is a reduction if it's going to go down to 4
tph. The current peak is a bit irregularly-spaced, so I am not sure
of the average tph.

So that's a reduced service to London, and journeys to places like
Sutton and Caterham will probably always need a change (with who knows
what kind of connection) from the "purely local" service.

I am wondering now if the local campaigners have seen further through
the spin than I have and worked it all out.


"Whilst this means a reduction in the number of London Bridge trains from
Sydenham and Forest Hill to London Bridge in the peak hour, the overall
service frequency north of Sydenham, including ELL trains, will increase to
14 trains per hour in the peak. When Network Rail has completed enhancement
work, the South Central peak services on this route are expected to be of 10
car length."

That will need platform extensions nearly everywhere. I wonder if it
will really happen?


I'd have thought the eventual capacity increase from 8 to 10 car is the key.
6 x 10 car trains in the peak hour must be almost as much capacity into LB
as now?

It would certainly help if it's possible, but they only have to run
out of money and leave some short platforms somewhere (remember "Kent
Link"?) and there may be no choice but to run shorter trains.


The South London RUS also covers the subject in detail, needless to say.
AFAICS the idea that the ELL will cause a major reduction in services into
LB seems something of an exaggeration.

It's meant to seem that way. With all the partial and oddly-worded
information I think I have to wait and see.

On Jan 21, 11:40*pm, "Peter Masson" wrote:

"Paul Scott" wrote

The South London RUS also covers the subject in detail, needless to say..
AFAICS the idea that the ELL will cause a major reduction in services into
LB seems something of an exaggeration.

Some passengers who currently use London Bridge will find it advantageous to
use the ELL - particularly those who walk to work from London Bridge, but
who may have a shorter walk from Shoreditch High Street, and those who
change to the Jubilee Line at London Bridge who may choose to change at
Canada Water instead.

Indeed - re the second point, those heading east to Canary Wharf and
beyond will of course find Canada Water more convenient for changing
to the Jubilee - yes when the old ELL was open this was an option
then, but the benefit of one less change inevitably makes this more
attractive - but it'll also be very interesting to see how many people
do it for journeys to points west (e.g. the West End), thus avoiding
the somewhat laborious and busy interchange at London Bridge.

w.r.t. the first point about Shoreditch High Street, as I suggested
elsewhere on this thread if SHS had been in zone 2 as was originally
planned then price wise it may well have been advantageous for people
to choose it over London Bridge (i.e. Travelcard would not need z2
validity), however now that it's going to be in zone 1 then it may
well remain advantageous for them to stick with a rail-only season to
London Terminals (i.e. London Bridge).

An example - Crystal Palace to somewhere in the City - all prices are
monthlies...

z2&3 Travelcard - £73.00
z1-3 Travelcard - £116
Crystal Palace to London Terminals - £74.90

If SHS had been in z2, then if it was a more convenient location then
the clear choice for the commuter would have been the z2&3 Travelcard
(which would also have afforded them bus travel anywhere in London
too).

Now that SHS is in zone 1, they'd need to decide whether it was
worthwhile or not to splash out on a z1 Travelcard - or indeed a z1
PAYG fare - read on...

***BIG qualifier to the above!***
Importantly to all these calculations we don't yet know two things...

(1) What Oyster PAYG fare will be charged for said journey - though
it's likely that for a straightforward commute, PAYG will still be
cheaper than a season Travelcard (though poss. not an annual), but one
has to factor in any leisure travel too.

(2) Whether there might be some kind of rail-only season available for
travel to SHS. My suspicion is no there won't be.

On Jan 21, 11:17*pm, "Paul Scott"
wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
On Jan 21, 9:49 pm, MIG wrote:
The planned reduction in service to London Bridge isn't going down
well locally, and is being conflated with the loss of Charing Cross
services on the line as a general battering of local transport.

OK, enough sarkiness on my part. Genuine question because I'm really
not as up to date on this - how much of a reduction will there be,
peak and off-peak? I was under the impression that wasn't going to be
huge, and also that the services that remain would be more likely to
be longer (e.g. 8 carriages vice 4). The reason why it'd be good to
have some specifics is that I'm afraid I remember you making similar
statements a long while back, but my recollection is that you'd
presumed that the ELL services would simply replace existing services,
when that was not the plan. (Damn long memories!)

What the Southern franchise briefing said:

"In order to accommodate these additional trains, SLC2 will see considerable
changes to existing services to London Bridge. It will no longer be feasible
for South Central to operate limited-stop services on the slow lines in
between all-stations ELL services, so all slow-line South Central trains
will also call at all stations. The South Central slow line service will
consist of 6 tph in the high peak hour (4 off-peak), and will be purely
local in nature.

"Whilst this means a reduction in the number of London Bridge trains from
Sydenham and Forest Hill to London Bridge in the peak hour, the overall
service frequency north of Sydenham, including ELL trains, will increase to
14 trains per hour in the peak. When Network Rail has completed enhancement
work, the South Central peak services on this route are expected to be of 10
car length."

I'd have thought the eventual capacity increase from 8 to 10 car is the key.
6 x 10 car trains in the peak hour must be almost as much capacity into LB
as now?

Thanks for that - can't provide answer the capacity question I'm
afraid though, but it doesn't seem like a reduction in capacity.
Whether the "enhancement work" for 10-cars has been done yet is a
valid question, but I'm not sure how extensive the required work was
though.

If I've got this right there'll be an improvement at Anerley and Penge
West of 2-Southern-tph to 4-Southern-tph in addition to the ELL
services - and those extra 2-Southern-tph (to coin a phrase) will not
only provide a more frequent service to London Bridge but also provide
a direct service to East Croydon which isn't currently available.
Though if the timetable gets more of a shakeup then maybe, er, other
stuff will happen. Regardless, it seems it'll be an improvement for
local journeys pretty much any way you look at it.

Southern's current local timetable leaflet for this line - 11a - can
be seen he
http://www.southernrailway.com/your-journey/timetables/

Or the PDF can be obtained directly via:
http://tinyurl.com/yjoufhk


The South London RUS also covers the subject in detail, needless to say.
AFAICS the idea that the ELL will cause a major reduction in services into
LB seems something of an exaggeration.

Yes, I recall trawling through the RUS! Of course that's where the
proposed SLL replacement service is detailed, the self-same service
that TfL and the DfT have conspired to do away with. But that's
another issue - it seems that on the Croydon to London Bridge local
service front, things aren't about to take a similar turn for the
worse.

(Famous last words... we await the May 2010 timetable to see for
certain what will be...)

On Jan 22, 1:21*am, MIG wrote:

On 21 Jan, 23:17, "Paul Scott" wrote:

Mizter T wrote:
On Jan 21, 9:49 pm, MIG wrote:
The planned reduction in service to London Bridge isn't going down
well locally, and is being conflated with the loss of Charing Cross
services on the line as a general battering of local transport.

OK, enough sarkiness on my part. Genuine question because I'm really
not as up to date on this - how much of a reduction will there be,
peak and off-peak? I was under the impression that wasn't going to be
huge, and also that the services that remain would be more likely to
be longer (e.g. 8 carriages vice 4). The reason why it'd be good to
have some specifics is that I'm afraid I remember you making similar
statements a long while back, but my recollection is that you'd
presumed that the ELL services would simply replace existing services,
when that was not the plan. (Damn long memories!)

What the Southern franchise briefing said:

"In order to accommodate these additional trains, SLC2 will see considerable
changes to existing services to London Bridge. It will no longer be feasible
for South Central to operate limited-stop services on the slow lines in
between all-stations ELL services, so all slow-line South Central trains
will also call at all stations. The South Central slow line service will
consist of 6 tph in the high peak hour (4 off-peak), and will be purely
local in nature.

That's a different way of describing it from what I'd understood. *It
seems to imply extra stopping services, rather than withdrawal (or
redirection) of limited-stop, but is the latter what it means?

I thought that the current off-peak stopping service from London
Bridge was 6 tph? *That is a reduction if it's going to go down to 4
tph. *The current peak is a bit irregularly-spaced, so I am not sure
of the average tph.

Current off-peak service is indeed 6tph from Sydenham up to LB. Agreed
that the text does seem ambiguous as to the fate of the limited
stoppers. *If* those 2tph are getting cut, then yes the off-peak
service to LB would be down to 4tph, which would be a significant
reduction in frequency. I suppose the only thing that could be said
then is whether 6tph could be fully justified on off-peak traffic
terms, but that's not the sort of question I like to ask - turn-up-and-
go (...sooner-rather-than-later) frequencies are a big part of the
appeal.


So that's a reduced service to London, and journeys to places like
Sutton and Caterham will probably always need a change (with who knows
what kind of connection) from the "purely local" service.

If what you fear is indeed what's actually going to happen, then that
might be the result. *If* so then I suppose one could always make the
argument that the demand for ELL will likely outweigh the demand for
Sutton and Caterham, so it's justified to require people heading for
the latter to change. With regards to any prospective connection - the
ELL is 4tph, so it's hardly going to be the end of the world. (And
West Croydon will be - actually, already is - a London Overground
managed station, so there's perhaps a bit more likelihood that they'd
ensure it's a pleasant enough place to wait for, say, eight minutes.)

I do notice your line of attack re the local service is a bit of a
shift away from arguments about the service to London Bridge. Also,
whilst we're on the local tip, then the improved local service for
Anerley and Penge West is to be welcomed, no?


I am wondering now if the local campaigners have seen further through
the spin than I have and worked it all out.

Perhaps they're simply cynical about the whole thing - however perhaps
that's the best approach to take, as it offers the best defensive
stance. Looking at the unfolding SLL debacle, I think some of the
campaigners/ defenders of the SLL may well have been comforted by the
plans for the replacement SLL service (the Vic Bellingham one)
proposed in the RUS - which was then the subject of a mucky deal twixt
the DfT and Boris which resulted in it being dropped.

However, for all the good that being a cynic might do, when such
service changes happen it's quite likely that there'll be some losers,
as well as winners - in other words there will always be something to
complain about! I think it's helpful to question the extent of their
potential loss.


"Whilst this means a reduction in the number of London Bridge trains from
Sydenham and Forest Hill to London Bridge in the peak hour, the overall
service frequency north of Sydenham, including ELL trains, will increase to
14 trains per hour in the peak. When Network Rail has completed enhancement
work, the South Central peak services on this route are expected to be of 10
car length."

That will need platform extensions nearly everywhere. *I wonder if it
will really happen?

I was just under the perhaps pretty dumb assumption that they might be
long enough already... which is, as I said, a dumb assumption. My
mental image of all the platforms is of them being long - but maybe
not 10-car long.


I'd have thought the eventual capacity increase from 8 to 10 car is the key.
6 x 10 car trains in the peak hour must be almost as much capacity into LB
as now?

It would certainly help if it's possible, but they only have to run
out of money and leave some short platforms somewhere (remember "Kent
Link"?) and there may be no choice but to run shorter trains.

Fair enough comment. For whatever reason I thought the 10-car trains
were coming sooner rather than later - now I notice Paul's "eventual"
qualifier. Maybe it all depends on actual usage, i.e. how busy the 8-
car trains will be.

The South London RUS also covers the subject in detail, needless to say..
AFAICS the idea that the ELL will cause a major reduction in services into
LB seems something of an exaggeration.

It's meant to seem that way. *With all the partial and oddly-worded
information I think I have to wait and see.

You've made a decent case for the defence me thinks. (...or are you
the prosecution...)

On Jan 22, 12:57*am, MIG wrote:

On 21 Jan, 23:31, Mizter T wrote:

On Jan 21, 10:42*pm, Andy wrote:
[snip]
To add to this (and my post), the following comes from
http://www.alwaystouchout.com/project/3

[snip table from alwaystouchout]

Yeah - many eons ago it was looking at that table that made me
question where MIG was getting his info from! However whilst still a
great primer for many things the website is no longer updated - the
author was a great denizen of utl back in the day though! However
whilst I dare say the basic thinking survives, I dunno what subsequent
changes there may have been to that.

("eons" being a purposeful misspelling to test you all - seems like
you've all failed!)

(And I'm sorry if this is coming across as an attack on MIG - that's
not intended, I've a great respect for him as a contributor here - but
I do think there needs to be a clear basis of what the changes are
going to be before people set about taking them apart.)

I have actually argued that claims made by local campaigners seem
rather wild (and to be confused over the Charing Cross issue) and
ought to be checked before supporting them, and I don't know where
they get their information *from. *However, since my only counter
arguments come from what I read in the MR timetable review, which is a
notoriously disingenuous feature, I don't feel on very safe ground
either when local people seem to have information about drastic cuts.

I understood that, because ELL services will need the outer tracks,
some London Bridge services will move to the inner tracks and not be
able to call at several stations, but I don't know if there's a total
reduction in departures from LB.

The table mentioned above seems to be even more generous than the spin-
ridden MR feature, so I am not sure what to make of it. *Maybe there
has been some recognition of operation reality since those frequencies
were claimed?

Long before this blew up locally, I was always perturbed at the idea of
using any paths to send short trains away from London Bridge. *If the
paths are there, why aren't they being used now? *The trains on that
corridor are among the most ludicrously overcrowded in the country,
and London Bridge terminus is underused compared with, say, Charing
Cross.

See my extensive reply to your points elsewhere in this thread, but...

You make several good points (here and elsewhere), including the case
for being mistrustful and sceptical.

Re the comment about paths not being used now - I dunno what the
various potential issues are/ were about running more and longer
trains up and down this corridor to and from London Bridge, but I'd be
interested to know them. Lack of rolling stock perhaps? I acknowledge
the peak overcrowding on this route is severe. (Are all the peak
services 8 car, or some 6 car, or even 4 car?)

One quick thing to say about overcrowding is that some of the crowds
will inevitably opt for the ELL instead, which should hopefully make
things a bit less rammed for everyone else w.r.t. the London Bridge
trains. How crowded the ELL might get is another question. I agree
that there is the potential for a bit of a 'clash of cultures' (for
want of a better phrase) when the 4 car LO model transported down from
the NLL gets to this busy corridor on 'the southern', but I don't
think it'll necessarily be as apocalyptic as you state. Nonetheless
I'll try and endeavour to go and experience the peak crush for myself
in the next few months before the ELL through service starts (because
I'm a sadist like that!).

One other thing - about the Charing X issue - I'm rather out of the
loop about this and everything else, so has it gone down that badly?
Being able to get on a train back in the evening direct from CX in the
West End was I fully acknowledge a neat thing to be able to do.