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Re: West London Line & West Coast Main Line (Was: Cockfosters)

Posted by Rail Blue on Thu Jan 11 14:29:29 2007, in response to West London Line & West Coast Main Line (Was: Cockfosters), posted by David Fairthorne on Thu Jan 11 13:00:10 2007.

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Even on the existing West London Line service, few passengers stay on board at Clapham Junction. The Route Utilisation Strategy recommended discontinuing the through service, to allow more paths for Victoria services with higher ridership.

But the existing service:
1) runs a stupid stopping pattern on the Brighton Line
2) doesn't continue north of Watford Junction
3) fails to connect into anything useful at Watford Junction
4) is so infrequent that it's not worth risking getting stranded at Watford Junction for
5) runs horrible Class 377 trains

I suspect that it would do much better if:
1) all stops on the Brighton Line other then Clapham Junction, East Croydon, Gatwick Airport, Hayward's Heath, and Brighton were served exclusively by Victoria or London Bridge trains
2) at the very least the existing 1tph should continue to Birmingham
3) equally, at the very least consistent and well-timed connections into West Coast services should be maintained and advertised
4) the frequency to Birmingham should become 2tph ASAP, then direct Trent Valley trains should be added as demand grows
5) Class 221 Super-Voyagers are an absolute must

I agree, but I don't think there would be a "business case" for any of these through routes. Most people will always use the well-known and established routes, even though they require crossing London by tube or by taxi. The number of people wanting to make these journeys is probably quite low, and most would not even be aware of the (necessarily infrequent) through services.

I suspect there would actually be a very good business case. The WLL as a through route suffers because the service is rubbish and poorly advertised. Equally, I suspect the number of people wanting cross-country journeys from Brighton to be very high - look at other conurbations of similar size; most of them have a decent Cross-Country or Citylink rail service:

The haves
# West Midlands Urban Area - 2,284,093
# Greater Manchester Urban Area - 2,240,230
# Greater Glasgow - 1,749,154
# West Yorkshire Urban Area - 1,499,465
# Tyneside - 879,996
# Liverpool Urban Area - 816,216 *
# Nottingham Urban Area - 666,358
# Sheffield Urban Area - 640,720
# Bristol Urban Area - 551,066
# Edinburgh - 452,194
# Leicester Urban Area - 441,213
# Bournemouth Urban Area - 383,713
# Reading/Wokingham Urban Area - 369,804
# The Potteries - 362,403
# Coventry/Bedworth Urban Area - 336,452
# Cardiff Urban Area - 327,706
# Southampton Urban Area - 304,400
# Preston Urban Area - 264,601
# Plymouth - 243,795
# Derby Urban Area - 236,738

The have-nots
# Greater London Urban Area - 8,278,251
# Greater Belfast - 579,276
# Brighton/Worthing/Littlehampton - 461,181
# Portsmouth Urban Area - 442,252
# Teesside - 365,323
# Birkenhead Urban Area - 319,675 *
# Kingston upon Hull - 301,416
# Swansea Urban Area - 270,506
# Blackpool Urban Area - 261,088
# Southend Urban Area - 269,415
# Aldershot Urban Area - 243,344
# Luton/Dunstable Urban Area - 236,318
# Medway Towns Urban Area - 231,659
# Dearne Valley Urban Area - 207,726
# Northampton Urban Area - 197,199
# Norwich Urban Area - 194,839
# Milton Keynes Urban Area - 184,506

Roman entries' source: ONS. Italic entries' source: Wikipedia.

* I personally find this division silly - the total is 1,135,891, which would put Merseyside above Tyneside. God's Wonderful Railway would doubtless disagree with me, so RIP Birkenhead Woodside.

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