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| Re: London's five-year plan (13850) | |||
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Re: London's five-year plan |
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Posted by David Fairthorne on Fri Oct 29 00:53:33 2004, in response to Re: London's five-year plan, posted by Rail Blue on Thu Oct 28 19:42:41 2004. [Thameslink 2000, ... too many interfaces with the rest of the rail network.]It's a really silly project, no doubt about it. With a proper interchange station at Southwark, a lot of pressure could be removed from London Bridge and the number of branches halved. If a new interchange station was built at Southwark (serving Thameslink and the Charing Cross line), it would no longer be important to run Thameslink trains via London Bridge, and you could forget Thameslink 2000. Charing Cross could be dedicated to its main job of serving the South Eastern. Then there would be no need to lengthen Farringdon or Blackfriars stations or rebuild London Bridge (high level) station or build the Bermondsey dive-under or the duplicate Borough Market viaduct, or demolish the London Bridge train shed. However I would like to demolish London Bridge platform 8 (outside the train shed) and use the space to build the missing platform 7. Then all Charing Cross trains could (and should) call at London Bridge. Use the one-track connection between Blackfriars and London Bridge only for ECS movements from Cannon Street to Blackfriars and Grove Park sidings. forget the 12-car trains, split the service and run Southern 3rd Rail trains to West Hampstead ... and Midland OHLE trains to Moorgate. Then the expensive buggy non-standard rolling stock could be well and truly buried. I too would like to split the service, but for different reasons (unrelated to the dual powered rolling stock). Forget 12-car trains on Thameslink (allowing Moorgate to remain open) but divert the crowded Brighton service from Thameslink to the London Bridge terminus, with 12-car trains in peak hours (all platforms are already long enough). For the benefit of people on the Brighton line and others who really want to reach Thameslink, provide an 8-car Thameslink service via Crystal Palace to somewhere on the Brighton line (East Croydon or possibly Gatwick). Let Thameslink continue to serve the Sutton & Wimbledon loop and perhaps add other routes in south London such as the Catford loop. Southward expansion of Thameslink is limited by the flat junction at Herne Hill, but some paths will be vacated by Eurostar in 2007. |
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