But well over half of peak trains do call at Clapham Jn, and half of those are from stations that will be served by Crossrail 2 services. So it is reasonable to assume that anyone on these services who wants the West End, the Euston Road, and arguably the City and Canary Wharf will use Crossrail 2 either directly or by changing at Clapham, thereby freeing up plenty of space at Waterloo LU for those on the longer distance services.
And the extra fast line paths will mean more trains from places beyond Woking. If you asked everyone who commutes in from Woking and beyond if they would rather have a better chance of a seat, or to stop at Clapham Jn, I'd bet my house that it would be at least 3:1 in favour of more trains.
Very true. I hadn't thought of all the locals using trains into Waterloo who won't have to any more.
That will make the existing metro trains into Waterloo less crowded I guess.
Do you think Southern passengers would want more services into Victoria if it meant they had to miss out Clapham Junction?
My experiences come from trying to get to Harrow for two years. At the time there was a four car Southern train that ran every hour. If I got up early enough I could catch one. If I didn't, I'd have to rush across central London to catch one of the half hourly fast London Midland services from Euston. If I did get up early enough I'd still have to go across central London in the evening, otherwise I'd be working to many hours each day. If I left to avoid high peek, I'd not do enough hours.
I'd usually run across centre London and the tubes in the process. On an average day the journey one way was 1 hour 30 minutes. On a bad day 2 hours.
If I went via Clapham Junction, it would be 10 minutes less. That may seem like nothing but across week it's 100 minutes, if you include both journeys a day.
Being a contractor I didn't wish to move to Harrow as didn't know how long my contract would last.
I only moved to Guildford as my job was here. It's only in the last 5 years that I've commuted to London.
That is the reason why I was keen for more services to stop at Clapham Junction.
I know fixing Clapham Junction isn't cheap but it opens up all the service opportunities to other parts of London, not to mention heading south on the Brighton main line.
Yes it is possible now but only with multiple changes or doubling back and the latter on solely South West Trains services at least, seems to involve paying more. If by paying more it would mean that one day they would be blessed to alight or board at Clapham Junction it would make it worth while.
I admit I may be in a minority in wanting services to stop at Clapham Junction though and they can't make changes just for my benefit. It has to be what the majority of passengers would like, within reason.
So as much as I'd like it, it may never happen and I'll just moan about it from time to time and get on with life the way things are.
For a while I felt as if nothing was being done to improve the South West Mainline, despite it being one of the busiest and running oversubscribed. I saw works being done elsewhere and thought why not here, given the numbers traveling. It makes sense to do something.
However they then started a platform and train lengthening process and are getting new trains on top of this to help increase carriage numbers, so something good is happening. Passenger money is being invested to bring back benefits to passengers.
If passengers can see their fare go up but also see an improve, then I'm not sure how they can moan about season tickets being overpriced. How were tickets to keep rising but nothing done to improve crowding or other conditions when travelling, people may wonder what is their money actually being used for.