On Oct 25, 7:08*am, "Chris Read" wrote:
After a spell on the NLL sampling a 378 yesterday, I headed towards home via
Willesden Junction and the West London Line.

(Incidentally, I was very impressed with the Gospel Oak - *where I boarded -
'Overground effect'. Bright, well staffed, clean, felt safe etc. A far cry
from the Gospel Oak I remember of yore - closed booking office, dirty,
broken down Bubble Cars on the GOBLIN etc).

Willesden - Clapham was a 313, being the 'new trains' we are expecting
shortly in Brighton. 3-NOL? Having started pretty well loaded, we were
overwhelmed by the Westfield crowd at Shepherds Bush. Predominantly
well-heeled looking young couples, returning with lots of boutique-style
bags to Battersea, Wandsworth and the nicer bits of Surrey, I imagine. Not
sure what to make of this, really. On the one hand, it's clear Westfield
must have a significant public transport penetration. Much better than the
public transport disaster which is Lakeside. On the other hand, you can't
shop in two places at the same time, so somewhere else must be hurting
badly. Oxford Street, perhaps - and *yet again* much of central London
surface transport was seriously disrupted by a march. But the tourists
should keep zone 1 shopping in good health, so it must be the high streets
feeling the pain.

Real crush loading on leaving Olympia. The real surprise, for me, was
Imperial Wharf. I expected very little patronage, the parallel being some of
the stations on the DLR extensions in the early days. In fact, in my
carriage alone, I reckon about 30 alighted. As we pulled into Clapham, a
sizeable throng were waiting to board, albeit swelled by the Chelsea
football crowd. Not the quiet backwater I remember from a decade or more
ago.

I imagine, as Christmas shopping ramps up, there will be people unable to
board at Shepherds Bush. Does this happen already? God forbid that IKEA open
a place at/near Westfield, and pax try to struggle on with self-assembly
wardrobes etc........

This is good to hear. It is a pity IMHO that the West London lines
has to carry such a mix of local, transit, intercity, and freight
traffic. From what I have read, there is little room for more
traffic.

"E27002" wrote

This is good to hear. It is a pity IMHO that the West London lines
has to carry such a mix of local, transit, intercity, and freight
traffic. From what I have read, there is little room for more
traffic.

No intercity traffic any more. But LO will get a big increase in capacity
when it goes to 4tph of 4 coach trains.

Peter
(old enough to have travelled on the train to Clapham Junction when the
service was 2 trains per day, steam-hauled, on the Motorail to Fishguard,
and more recently Deltic-hauled from Bromley South).

On Oct 25, 7:40*pm, E27002 wrote:

*It is a pity IMHO that the West London lines
has to carry such a mix of local, transit, intercity, and freight
traffic. *From what I have read, there is little room for more
traffic.

In its present form, yes, although increasing linespeed, replacing the
three-aspect signals with 4-aspect, reinstating the southbound loop at
Olympia (as has already been mentioned), relaying the points at
Olympia to allow higher-speed entry and exit to the loop (and ensuring
any new loop is also so fitted) and extending the AC electrification
to Shepherd's Bush (so that time need not be wasted stopped at North
Pole to do the changeover) could all help to increase capacity.

BTW, there are now no InterCity (or similar) trains on the line
following the December 2008 timetable change when the Cross Country
services to Brighton were withdrawn.

"The Gardener" wrote in message

On Oct 25, 7:40 pm, E27002 wrote:

It is a pity IMHO that the West London lines
has to carry such a mix of local, transit, intercity, and freight
traffic. From what I have read, there is little room for more
traffic.

In its present form, yes, although increasing linespeed, replacing the
three-aspect signals with 4-aspect, reinstating the southbound loop at
Olympia (as has already been mentioned), relaying the points at
Olympia to allow higher-speed entry and exit to the loop (and ensuring
any new loop is also so fitted) and extending the AC electrification
to Shepherd's Bush (so that time need not be wasted stopped at North
Pole to do the changeover) could all help to increase capacity.

BTW, there are now no InterCity (or similar) trains on the line
following the December 2008 timetable change when the Cross Country
services to Brighton were withdrawn.

And Eurostars no longer use the line to access their former (North Pole)
depot.