LNW-GW Joint
Veteran Member
The celebrated parliamentary service from Ealing Broadway to Wandsworth Road via Kensington Olympia is proposed for withdrawal from Dec 2012.
The DfT 32-page consultation is here: http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/dft-2012-17
Part of the rationale is the new LO service into Clapham Jn starting on that date.
So is it a case of manning the barricades against a possible new Beeching round, or more like a deep sigh that it takes so long and uses up so much management time to "close" a few hundred yards of route which nobody uses, and which are in any case continuing in regular use for freight and special workings?
I regularly used the old XC trains via the WLL, including to Folkestone as well as Brighton before privatisation.
Two engineering diversions were interesting:
a) East Croydon-Reading via Crystal Palace, Brixton, Clapham Jn and Staines
b) Reading-Chatham via Ken O, Nunhead, Lewisham, Chislehurst and Swanley
Pity such routes aren't possible by scheduled train today, but with new WLL, Thameslink and HS1 services from Kent and Sussex to well north of the Thames they are not needed.
The DfT 32-page consultation is here: http://www.dft.gov.uk/consultations/dft-2012-17
Part of the rationale is the new LO service into Clapham Jn starting on that date.
So is it a case of manning the barricades against a possible new Beeching round, or more like a deep sigh that it takes so long and uses up so much management time to "close" a few hundred yards of route which nobody uses, and which are in any case continuing in regular use for freight and special workings?
I regularly used the old XC trains via the WLL, including to Folkestone as well as Brighton before privatisation.
Two engineering diversions were interesting:
a) East Croydon-Reading via Crystal Palace, Brixton, Clapham Jn and Staines
b) Reading-Chatham via Ken O, Nunhead, Lewisham, Chislehurst and Swanley
Pity such routes aren't possible by scheduled train today, but with new WLL, Thameslink and HS1 services from Kent and Sussex to well north of the Thames they are not needed.