I wonder if LNER will use Liverpool Street at all in future?
The Lea Valley route has Stansted Expresses every 15 minutes and stopping trains in between, all on a 2 track railway. There is no capacity for diverted ECML trains.
Isn't the easiest route using the Canonbury Curve, North London Line and Temple Mills to access London Liverpool Street?
Only if the block is south of Finsbury Park, the January 2025 block goes all the way to Peterborough and Royston. This diversionary route uses the Carpenters Road curve near Stratford, not via Temple Mills, and was used by diverted Liverpool Street-Cambridge trains in the 1970s and 1980s.
When there are blocks between Hitchin and Peterborough, but not via Royston, there is enough capacity to path 1tph LNER via Royston. This has happened various times in recent years. The way for LNER to provide a service to/from London, without a bus, when the line is blocked south of Peterborough and Royston, is as follows:
- use the 1tph diversion path to run to Cambridge, then go empty to Royston to reverse. Passengers could change at Cambridge for Liverpool Street, with cross platform interchange on the platform 7/8 island, and Greater Anglia running all of their Cambridge North-Liverpool Street trains with 10 car class 720s.
- returning northbound the Cambridge station layout inhibits picking up there, so the northbound trains would start from Cambridge North, giving cross platform interchange with the Greater Anglia Liverpool Street trains terminating in the bay platform.
- The empty trains would reverse in platform 2 at Royston, with the Royston-Ely/Kings Lynn shuttle using platform 1.
- Once Cambridge South opens, it will be possible to do the interchanges there.
