just recieved a staff brief.
TAttenhams and caterhams will now not be included in the Thameslink proposals from 2018.
A Luton to Rainham via Dartford service will be introduced instead.
I guess this clears up some lesser stock requirements at Southeastern, and accounts for Southern needing the 377/5s.
That is a very big change the CAT and TAT were:
Cambridge to Tattenham Corner
Welwyn Garden City to Caterham
Which would reduce the ECML TL services from 8tph to 4tph and really reduce the benefit of having done the canal tunnels etc.
A real return to old plans but:
1. Are some other MML TL services getting swapped to ECML instead?
2. it reduces the chances of any improvement on Southern Metro routes into LBG as it eats terminal and junction capacity.
3. it undermines the business case for rebuilding East Croydon and Windmill Bridge as it will be harder to deal with the extra trains that were mostly going to be routed to LBG and it will be impossible "southern" users to be able to reclaim that extra capacity at/beyond LBG once it has gone to SE routes.