On 31 May, 10:39, Jamie Thompson wrote:
On 31 May, 09:03, "Richardr" wrote:



"D DB 90001" wrote

However, I still think that local suburban services that *do*
terminate inside of Z1-6 or at stations such as Sevenoaks or Dartford
just outside Z6 should be managed by TfL, just like all bus routes,
even those which run outside of London but are mainly inside Z1-6, are
managed and run by TfL. Frankly because TfL are more likely to get
better results than other local authorities or DfT.

But the capacity on the roads isn't constrained in the same way as that on
the railways.

I believe that a lot of London commuter routes run at pretty much capacity
at peak times. Allowing one part of the route to determine what happens
there fixes what happens elsewhere.

Take Thameslink, for example, which stops and potentially stops at a lot of
London stations. If the Mayor of London had sole rights to determine
stopping patterns in London, then he would, quite rightly for him and his
electors, choose patterns wanted by his constituents, which I would imagine
would mean stopping all trains at all stops in Greater London. Thus those
passengers from outside London, e.g. Brighton and Bedford, would get a
massive deterioration in service.

I can't see why letting London alone decide the Thameslink timetable in its
own interests is such the bonus you think to Brighton or Bedford people?

Isn't it the same for most south-east routes - nearly all of which are
designed mainly for non-Londoners to get to and from London, or share tracks
with such a route?

...which is why all the different service patterns should probably
largely have their own tracks. Strange as it is to hold the WCML up as
a paragon of "doing it right", but aside from the missing stop at
Willesden Junction and having the lines grouped by use not direction,
it works so extremely well that all you could do to improve it,
probably, is to add the aforementioned two things above. Perhaps
reduce headways to squeeze in a few more peak trains...but that's
about it. All because the London stopping pattern in the Urban / Inner
Suburban "New" lines doesn't affect the Inner / Outer Suburban "Slow"
lines, which in turn doesn't affect the Intercity "Fast" lines.

Pairing by direction would let you potentially run a service that
dealt with the inner suburbans properly. Currently the New lines are
too long, forcing you to change to the Slow line services at Harrow
for a reasonable journey time, which being on opposite sides of the
footbridge and with a poor service frequency, means dangerous crowds
scrambling across it to get between them. Ideally, the trains would be
the things doing the moves between lines, not the passengers, or at
the very least, it would offer a cross-platform interchange. Put in a
shared platform loop between the New and Slow lines where possible and
the New lines' services could then be multiplied and sped up with non-
stopping services (or more WJ-EUS shuttles), making stops at Harrow
for outer surburbans less important. That would give a better service
for Londoners without impacting on those living beyond Watford. The
new shuttle services being run between Watford Junction and Euston in
the peaks show this sort of solution can work, but they will forever
be constrained by the fact that the slow lines are primarily outer
suburban services who want to run fast between Watford and Euston.

The WCML differentiates relatively well between the fasts and the
slows, because Virgin trains do not run any services which call at any
other station inside Z1-6 apart from London Euston, so they would be
exempt from all of the Oyster PAYG issues. There is the minor issue of
journeys from Harrow-on-the-Hill, which raises more complications
because if you touch in there and out at London Euston the journey
could potentially be done on London Overground too, so the revenue has
to be divided between the 2 TOCs.