Roland Perry wrote:

Blackfriars is the station closest to my old school (City of London) and
if
it had been closed when I went there I would have been almost permanently
late in the mornings and in the afternoons the combined effect of getting
to
the nearest station (Temple?)

Mansion House is much closer, to the East.

True but I'd be coming from the west. Not that there's much difference.

and the mainline timetable would have almost doubled my journey home.
Nice!

Nothing suitable available from Cannon St?

I can't remember Epsom ever being served from there. Even when there was an
Epsom to Blackfriars service it was far too slow (and awkwardly timetabled)
to be any use.

Walter Briscoe wrote:

Blackfriars is the station closest to my old school (City of London) and
if
it had been closed when I went there I would have been almost permanently
late in the mornings and in the afternoons the combined effect of getting
to
the nearest station (Temple?) and the mainline timetable would have almost
doubled my journey home. Nice!

The Journey Planner shows City of London [Boys] School is a 5 minute walk
from Blankfriars and 7 from Mansion House but 15 from Temple.
I fancy that the service withdrawal will not be an acceptable excuse.
I take it you dropped geography, early in your school career.

I only did it for half a year at CLS (and there's no need to add "[Boys]" to
the title, regardless of the existance of CLSG - it was always "CLS") but
most of the geography I remember from school was physical geography, geology
and human geography rather than distance and location.

And most people tend not to think in terms of doubling back when journey
planning, so someone coming from Victoria or Embankment would instinctively
look to Temple. In any case half the eight minute advantage is swallowed up
by the Temple to Mansion House journey time and my recollection is that
Temple less congested.

The afternoon problem would have been more substantial because of the way
the South West Trains timetable operated - most of the doubled journey would
come from having to wait ages at Waterloo for an all stoppng service if I'd
missed the semi-fast. Morningwise my main source of delays was actually
Connex (or whatever it was called then) trains delaying SWT ones who in turn
missed their Raynes Park clearing, but Blackfriars was close enough to
absorb this without me being late.

In message , at
15:17:42 on Thu, 7 Aug 2008, Mortimer remarked:
Er.. you've completely missed the point here - the news is about the long
term closure (two and a half years) of the LU platforms, not the
Thameslink ones.

Interesting: I'd thought that it was the Thameslink platforms as well.

What are they doing to the LU platforms and access that will take 2½ years?

Nothing that couldn't have been planned around at greater cost and
inconvenience to LUL. I expect they want to be able to go from the
current layout to the new one in one "big bang" rather than keep
fiddling around like they did at Kings Cross. And they are closing the
station "because they can".

Obviously it's not track related if trains can still run through non-stop.

Although there might be some changes of levels, I think rebuilding
Westminster subsurface station involved that.
--
Roland Perry

Paul Scott wrote:

cheers

:-)

You're welcome.

In message , Garry Smith
writes
I'll wager that Blackfriars became busier last year when
SPILL opened on the Thameslink route. I used to have a
quick hop from KXTL onto the Victoria line, to travel down
to Victoria. When SPILL opened, I was faced with the trek
along the full length of St Pancras and then into the Underground,
or changing at Blackfriars. A no-brainer really.

I'm sure you are right. I hardly ever used to use Blackfriars, but
recently have been using it on almost every visit to London, because the
interchange (although involving rather a lot of stairs up from the tube)
is still a whole lot faster than the awful trek the length of
St.Pancras.
If you are carrying luggage or even a heavy laptop computer, the shorter
connection becomes a lot more attractive.

I think it's really terrible that Blackfriars LU station is going to be
closed for so long, and just because of the elf-and-safety mafia, as far
as I can see. Still the M1 roadworks will be finished soon, so I guess
quite a few who have been taking the train from Thameslink stations will
start driving to London again.



--
Clive Page

On 10 Aug, 18:23, Clive Page wrote:
I'm sure you are right. I hardly ever used to use Blackfriars, but
recently have been using it on almost every visit to London, because the
interchange (although involving rather a lot of stairs up from the tube)
is still a whole lot faster than the awful trek the length of
St.Pancras.

Err, Farringdon?!

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

Clive Page wrote:
I'm sure you are right. I hardly ever used to use Blackfriars, but
recently have been using it on almost every visit to London, because the
interchange (although involving rather a lot of stairs up from the tube)
is still a whole lot faster than the awful trek the length of St.Pancras.
If you are carrying luggage or even a heavy laptop computer, the shorter
connection becomes a lot more attractive.

Just out of interest, how busy is Blackfriars tube station compared to,
say, Farringdon tube station?

I think it's really terrible that Blackfriars LU station is going to be
closed for so long, and just because of the elf-and-safety mafia, as far
as I can see.

Indeed. But I see it as a necessary evil for the following reasons:
1) It would take more than 2 additional years to rebuild the tube
station if it was kept open throughout.
2) Based on the above, the tube station would start to become somewhat
more crowded than it is today once the longer Thameslink services begin,
until of course the works are complete - about 2 years later. I'm
assuming that completion of the mainline station does not depend on the
completion of the tube station, and if it did then the intorduction of
Thameslink Key Output 1 services would be delayed.
3) Temple station is only 10 minutes away to the west, and Mansion House
is slightly closer to the east.

In message , at 18:23:17 on Sun, 10
Aug 2008, Clive Page remarked:
If you are carrying luggage or even a heavy laptop computer, the
shorter connection becomes a lot more attractive.

The true road warrior takes the precaution of having a light laptop
computer
--
Roland Perry