Resolving Historically Poorly-Served Locations - How Would You Fix It?

[Jozhua]

Hi,
I want to start a conversation about resolving some routes that are poorly served by our quite historic railway network. Populations & distribution of said populations have changed considerably since most alignments were made - out of the locations that you feel are poorly served, what would you change to fix it?

For example, the Manchester - Birmingham route takes way too long (1hr30m) on 4/5 car Voyagers . First, the route needs longer trains and electrification, but beyond that, I think having a new high speed line that went down to London via Birmingham, with some trains dedicated to the Manchester - Birmingham route would resolve both WCML bottlenecks and the XC bottlenecks, especially if this extended east as well (then it could relieve capacity on the MML and ECML). Wait...this is HS2. You get my point tho lol.

Manchester - Sheffield is pretty poor at the moment too and I actually think some mild upgrades could work well, such as the Hope Valley Capacity Expansion. It wouldn't be a bad idea to perhaps take one of these trains straight down towards Chesterfield, without the stop at Sheffield. This would considerably reduce journey times for people coming from the East Midlands. Alternatively, in regards to serving the East Midlands, I wonder what potential lies in Crewe/Derby? Could the route be extended up to Manchester, and if so, would it provide much saving in regards to journey times?

 

[JKF]

Manchester-Sheffield, Sheffield-Leeds, Leeds-Manchester. Basically fix that triangle and a lot of other connectivity is greatly improved.

with some of these services it’s the last few miles that eat up the time, the long slow curve round into Leeds, the meander into Piccadilly. It’s tunnels out of the urban area that are needed (like the Javelin services out of London) rather than the long stretches between.

 

[Djgr]

Liverpool to anywhere, except London is a bit shabby.

Direct trains is a start but we need to lose the mentality that a long distance (let's be generous) semi-fast commuter service as per Lime Street to New Street is the answer.

 

[The Planner]

For example, the Manchester - Birmingham route takes way too long (1hr30m) on 4/5 car Voyagers . First, the route needs longer trains and electrification, but beyond that, I think having a new high speed line that went down to London via Birmingham, with some trains dedicated to the Manchester - Birmingham route would resolve both WCML bottlenecks and the XC bottlenecks, especially if this extended east as well (then it could relieve capacity on the MML and ECML). Wait...this is HS2. You get my point tho lol.

Errrr, electrification, Manchester to Birmingham?

 

[Dr Hoo]

Cities like Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds still seem to have quite a lot of trains in quite a few directions. Yes, some of them might be a bit handicapped by congestion, some curvaceous alignments or shortish formations but at least they are easy to use.
Isn't it more places like Cambridge and Milton Keynes that have grown out of all proportion since Victorian times that are rather more 'cut off' in terms of journey opportunities other than in respect to London? (Yes, I know that East-West Rail is coming but it still seems a bit timid.)

 

[Jozhua]

Liverpool to anywhere, except London is a bit shabby.

Just replace Liverpool with about anywhere else in the country and that statement will hold up!

Direct trains is a start but we need to lose the mentality that a long distance (let's be generous) semi-fast commuter service as per Lime Street to New Street is the answer.

Hopefully HS2 will help with Liverpool-Birmingham services. HS3 needs to extend outward to Liverpool as well, then that will free up some space on the current routes to run more local trains and hopefully allow for some more services from Manchester/Liverpool to run down to Wales.

Cities like Birmingham, Manchester, Sheffield and Leeds still seem to have quite a lot of trains in quite a few directions. Yes, some of them might be a bit handicapped by congestion, some curvaceous alignments or shortish formations but at least they are easy to use.
Isn't it more places like Cambridge and Milton Keynes that have grown out of all proportion since Victorian times that are rather more 'cut off' in terms of journey opportunities other than in respect to London? (Yes, I know that East-West Rail is coming but it still seems a bit timid.)

I mean, yeah they have been pretty handicapped and are quite unreliable, especially around Manchester Castlefield. In fact, all four of them need some pretty serious station remodelling just to deliver current service.

Having a look at service patterns around both Cambridge and Milton Keynes, I completely see what you mean by lack of east-west connection. Hopefully East-West rail will be a good start to resolving that. Considering the TWA has already been completed for electrification, the idea that the line is now being built without it is madness. Hopefully 3-car DMUs will be enough, but I have a feeling that just a few years after opening these will need to be lengthened. On the upside, I'm sure the line will be built with requisite clearances for electrification, so putting the wires in and getting some four car EMUs shouldn't be too difficult.

 

[tbtc]

Good to see a thread like this - whilst people on here obsess about how to use heavy rail to serve fairly tiny places (Blaneu Ffestiniog, Okehampton, Bakewell, Ripon, Barnoldswick etc) there are thousands of houses being built on the edge of some places without any plans for trains.

Such is the mentality of only trying to re-open old lines, I guess, rather than trying to tackle new problems with new solutions, but East West rail seems to be a step in the right direction but an hourly DMU to Peterborough/ Norwich/ Ipswich seems a bit underwhelming.

I agree with Milton Keynes too - it's the kind of place that seems to be growing by the combined population of Blaneu Ffestiniog, Okehampton, Bakewell, Ripon and Barnoldswick every few months - hopefully HS2 will allow a lot more services on the WCML to stop there, giving a turn-up-and-go frequency both north and south - with the Oxford service coming via EW.

And, being biased, I agree with the problems around the Sheffield - Leeds - Manchester area - the three city centres are a triangle with sides of thirty to thirty five miles - yet the train services take around an hour (partly due to the need to serve some local stations, partly due to the twisting routes we inherited from the Victorians, partly due to conflicts with local services meaning you'd have to allow best part of ten minutes to do the final couple of miles like Dore - Sheffield or Meadowhall - Sheffield.

I fear that the scaling back of HS2's eastern section will mean little improvement from Sheffield to Leeds, and it's going to be hard to get planning permission for the improvements needed in the Hope Valley between Sheffield and Manchester, which means that the only real improvements will be some kind of NPR upgrade between Manchester and Leeds, which is great for those cities but will leave Sheffield further behind in terms of regional connectivity.

However the focus on this Forum seems to be much more about some unquantified Derby - Manchester demand, rather than the simpler shorter everyday travel patterns.

Liverpool to anywhere, except London is a bit shabby

The service from Liverpool to Leeds/ York was doubled fairly recently, the hourly Newcastle service is new, there were going to be regular services to the Lake District/ Glasgow (before Covid disrupted everything), regular services to Llandudno and Cardiff in the pipeline... Liverpool seems to have had more planned service improvements than most cities.

Whilst places on the coast will often do worse than places in the middle of main lines, I think Liverpool seems to have been a priority for improvements over the last few years. What lets the place down is the comparisons with Manchester, but I guess that's unavoidable.

 

[Jozhua]

Good to see a thread like this - whilst people on here obsess about how to use heavy rail to serve fairly tiny places (Blaneu Ffestiniog, Okehampton, Bakewell, Ripon, Barnoldswick etc) there are thousands of houses being built on the edge of some places without any plans for trains.

Such is the mentality of only trying to re-open old lines, I guess, rather than trying to tackle new problems with new solutions, but East West rail seems to be a step in the right direction but an hourly DMU to Peterborough/ Norwich/ Ipswich seems a bit underwhelming.

I agree with Milton Keynes too - it's the kind of place that seems to be growing by the combined population of Blaneu Ffestiniog, Okehampton, Bakewell, Ripon and Barnoldswick every few months - hopefully HS2 will allow a lot more services on the WCML to stop there, giving a turn-up-and-go frequency both north and south - with the Oxford service coming via EW.

And, being biased, I agree with the problems around the Sheffield - Leeds - Manchester area - the three city centres are a triangle with sides of thirty to thirty five miles - yet the train services take around an hour (partly due to the need to serve some local stations, partly due to the twisting routes we inherited from the Victorians, partly due to conflicts with local services meaning you'd have to allow best part of ten minutes to do the final couple of miles like Dore - Sheffield or Meadowhall - Sheffield.

I fear that the scaling back of HS2's eastern section will mean little improvement from Sheffield to Leeds, and it's going to be hard to get planning permission for the improvements needed in the Hope Valley between Sheffield and Manchester, which means that the only real improvements will be some kind of NPR upgrade between Manchester and Leeds, which is great for those cities but will leave Sheffield further behind in terms of regional connectivity.

However the focus on this Forum seems to be much more about some unquantified Derby - Manchester demand, rather than the simpler shorter everyday travel patterns.



The service from Liverpool to Leeds/ York was doubled fairly recently, the hourly Newcastle service is new, there were going to be regular services to the Lake District/ Glasgow (before Covid disrupted everything), regular services to Llandudno and Cardiff in the pipeline... Liverpool seems to have had more planned service improvements than most cities.

Whilst places on the coast will often do worse than places in the middle of main lines, I think Liverpool seems to have been a priority for improvements over the last few years. What lets the place down is the comparisons with Manchester, but I guess that's unavoidable.

I'll come out as saying I'm a frequent user of Derby-Manchester, I know a fair few around East Midlands who also do this, or similar journeys. The fact getting from Derby to Manchester currently takes two hours + is absolute madness, as well as Nottingham-Manchester, which is similar in journey time, although this is a direct service.
Improvements to Hope Valley capacity may make this journey better for us East Midlands/North West travellers, but we could really do with reductions in journey times.

Adding the missing Bakewell link, which considering a couple of the tunnels have been restored may not be too hard, could help to provide a much more convenient journey and avoid putting too much pressure on the MML. Perhaps double tracking between Ambergate and Matlock and adding in an extra hourly service to Matlock could allow for the Derby/Manchester train to run express. I'll stand behind my maths from Yesterday and go to estimate if you ran semi-express on both Stockport-Buxton and Derby-Matlock, you could probably get journey times down to 1hr30m. That would be a considerable reduction from present. The Bakewell line has the benefit of serving both reasonably sized rural towns, and connecting some pretty major urban areas. It doesn't even have to skip too many stops, or run so fast to beat the current windy, indecisive route.

Or, with existing infrastructure, move the Derby/Crewe to Derby/Manchester. This would probably be dependent on HS2 freeing up space on the WCML.

Speaking of which, getting a frequent service up to Chesterfield/Sheffield from Bakewell could be a fantastic addition once HS2 comes in and the route is less crowded by Sheffield-London services.

Sheffield should probably be four tracked beginning at Dore, 3tph each way turn off there. Pretty insane that little single track handles 6tph, with two stopping at the station as well! Going 8tph if Hope Valley is upgraded, you could probably justify segregating onto it's own two tracks straight into Sheffield. Hope Valley upgrade wise, I don't believe it's planning permission issues, seems to be the treasury keeps back-tracking.
The station throat to the North of Sheffield is incredibly tight, which almost certainly hampers throughput there.

 

[nimbus21]

Bradford is very much neglected by current services. For example it sees Trans Pennine Express trains bypassing the city via nearby Huddersfield yet there are very limited services to Huddersfield and currently no services to Liverpool and Newcastle. Whilst I believe there are plans for a Liverpool service via the ponderous Calder Valley route, there are no plans as far as I know for any services to the North East.

So what about a Newcastle - Leeds - Bradford - Huddersfield - Manchester - Liverpool with possibly very limited or no other stops? This could even miss out Leeds and so avoud the commuter traffic clogging up trains between Leeds and Huddersfield.

 

[30907]

Bradford is very much neglected by current services. For example it sees Trans Pennine Express trains bypassing the city via nearby Huddersfield yet there are very limited services to Huddersfield and currently no services to Liverpool and Newcastle. Whilst I believe there are plans for a Liverpool service via the ponderous Calder Valley route, there are no plans as far as I know for any services to the North East.

So what about a Newcastle - Leeds - Bradford - Huddersfield - Manchester - Liverpool with possibly very limited or no other stops? This could even miss out Leeds and so avoud the commuter traffic clogging up trains between Leeds and Huddersfield.

Bradford-Huddersfield is dreadfully slow, and Huddersfield-Manchester congested, so I'd stick with Calder Valley to Liverpool. Missing out Leeds between York and Bradford means a huge detour via Castleford and Brighouse.
The real problem with West/South Yorkshire is that it is a multi-centred urban area, and it isn't obvious which flows to prioritise other than Leeds. I fear we will have to wait for NPR to improve things for Bradford.

 

[A0wen]

I'll come out as saying I'm a frequent user of Derby-Manchester, I know a fair few around East Midlands who also do this, or similar journeys. The fact getting from Derby to Manchester currently takes two hours + is absolute madness, as well as Nottingham-Manchester, which is similar in journey time, although this is a direct service.
Improvements to Hope Valley capacity may make this journey better for us East Midlands/North West travellers, but we could really do with reductions in journey times.

Adding the missing Bakewell link, which considering a couple of the tunnels have been restored may not be too hard, could help to provide a much more convenient journey and avoid putting too much pressure on the MML. Perhaps double tracking between Ambergate and Matlock and adding in an extra hourly service to Matlock could allow for the Derby/Manchester train to run express. I'll stand behind my maths from Yesterday and go to estimate if you ran semi-express on both Stockport-Buxton and Derby-Matlock, you could probably get journey times down to 1hr30m. That would be a considerable reduction from present. The Bakewell line has the benefit of serving both reasonably sized rural towns, and connecting some pretty major urban areas. It doesn't even have to skip too many stops, or run so fast to beat the current windy, indecisive route.

Or, with existing infrastructure, move the Derby/Crewe to Derby/Manchester. This would probably be dependent on HS2 freeing up space on the WCML.

Short of building a 125mph mainline between Derby and Manchester - which the old Midland formation absolutely isn't - you'll at best cover Derby - Manchester in about 90 mins. Its about 90 miles which is similar to Peterboro - Kings X and that has a sub 1 hour journey time on a 125mph mainline which is fairly straight south of Peterboro.

The fastest current Derby - Manchester is 1h 32m, the Matlock line would be no quicker.

Improving journey times on either Derby - Stoke or Sheffield - Manchester would also achieve journey time savings at much lower cost.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

Hi,
I want to start a conversation about resolving some routes that are poorly served by our quite historic railway network. Populations & distribution of said populations have changed considerably since most alignments were made - out of the locations that you feel are poorly served, what would you change to fix it?

For example, the Manchester - Birmingham route takes way too long (1hr30m) on 4/5 car Voyagers . First, the route needs longer trains and electrification, but beyond that, I think having a new high speed line that went down to London via Birmingham, with some trains dedicated to the Manchester - Birmingham route would resolve both WCML bottlenecks and the XC bottlenecks, especially if this extended east as well (then it could relieve capacity on the MML and ECML). Wait...this is HS2. You get my point tho lol.

Manchester - Sheffield is pretty poor at the moment too and I actually think some mild upgrades could work well, such as the Hope Valley Capacity Expansion. It wouldn't be a bad idea to perhaps take one of these trains straight down towards Chesterfield, without the stop at Sheffield. This would considerably reduce journey times for people coming from the East Midlands. Alternatively, in regards to serving the East Midlands, I wonder what potential lies in Crewe/Derby? Could the route be extended up to Manchester, and if so, would it provide much saving in regards to journey times?

I wonder if one option would be to create a spur from the XC route to the WCML at Tamworth, allowing Birmingham to Manchester trains to avoid the slow exit through the West Midlands via Wolverhamption etc.

I think for me, the Brixton-Camberwell-Peckham-Lewisham axis needs some attention. 2 South Eastern trains per hour from Peckham to Lewisham, avoiding Brixton hardly seems like a good use of resources for South Londoners.

 

[The Planner]

I wonder if one option would be to create a spur from the XC route to the WCML at Tamworth, allowing Birmingham to Manchester trains to avoid the slow exit through the West Midlands via Wolverhamption etc.

Interesting idea, but it wouldn't save you any time. New St to Stafford is about 30 minutes on a XC Manchester, its would generally be 16 minutes to Tamworth and then 15 minutes to Stafford. Plus the fact Wolves loses out on a Stoke/Manchester service.

 

[30907]

I think for me, the Brixton-Camberwell-Peckham-Lewisham axis needs some attention. 2 South Eastern trains per hour from Peckham to Lewisham, avoiding Brixton hardly seems like a good use of resources for South Londoners.

A 15-minute service would be more attractive, but finding paths for it is another matter (even the relatively empty Nunhead-Lewisham bit has to have room for freight).
There's been discussion on and off of a Brockley High Level station, which would be useful for Brockley but - I suspect - little used as an interchange.
By Camberwell I presume you mean Denmark Hill?
A Brixton High Level would be really useful but simply isn't feasible on sharply curved viaducts.

 

[Jozhua]

Short of building a 125mph mainline between Derby and Manchester - which the old Midland formation absolutely isn't - you'll at best cover Derby - Manchester in about 90 mins. Its about 90 miles which is similar to Peterboro - Kings X and that has a sub 1 hour journey time on a 125mph mainline which is fairly straight south of Peterboro.

The fastest current Derby - Manchester is 1h 32m, the Matlock line would be no quicker.

Improving journey times on either Derby - Stoke or Sheffield - Manchester would also achieve journey time savings at much lower cost.

I've never seen a 1hr 32m train. On National Rail Enquiries, the vast majority are 2hr +

Derby-Manchester is also nowhere near 90 miles. The existing rigamarole via Sheffield definitely makes things more like 80/90 miles, but going via Bakewell it would be much closer to 50/60 miles. And again, I'd say a consistent 90 minute journey time is pretty good. Very comparable with the current journey times, making stops in between, which would serve a pretty large amount of Derbyshire. Places like Buxton are much better connected to Manchester than they are Derby and the county is rather fragmented.

Derby - Stoke is a possibility to extend to Manchester, but it's not exactly the fastest route. It would be a good start though. Going via Sheffield still has the issue of turning around there and adding an extra 10 miles to the journey as you have to cover the congested leg north of Dore twice per trip. Turning straight onto the Hope Valley is possible, but even if it gets upgraded, Sheffield region may very well want the extra train, the only way I see the East Mids getting a train that turns directly onto Hope is if space for two expresses can be made and frankly getting four expresses, each way onto the Hope Valley, seems to be pushing it a bit.

I wonder if one option would be to create a spur from the XC route to the WCML at Tamworth, allowing Birmingham to Manchester trains to avoid the slow exit through the West Midlands via Wolverhamption etc.

I think for me, the Brixton-Camberwell-Peckham-Lewisham axis needs some attention. 2 South Eastern trains per hour from Peckham to Lewisham, avoiding Brixton hardly seems like a good use of resources for South Londoners.

I think this issue is to be solved by HS2. Manchester-Birmingham will be served with direct HS2 trains cutting the journey time from 1hr30 to 40 minutes. So pretty decent!

 

[tbtc]

The fact getting from Derby to Manchester currently takes two hours + is absolute madness

Two hours plus would be absolute madness, I agree - it can be done in 1h32.

If you want a faster journey then how about building an additional three platforms at Dore, so that there can be regular connections between the MML and Hope Valley route?

Considering the Peak District in between the two places, you're not going to get a particularly fast railway.

Worth noting that the two "express" bus/coach services from Derby to Manchester have dwindled away - there used to be the X1 via Ashbourne every couple of hours and the TP via Bakewell every hour - the former was scrapped and the latter pretty much abandoned north of Buxton. Maybe demand really isn't that significant?

The Bakewell line has the benefit of serving both reasonably sized rural towns

Which ones?

Bakewell has around five thousand residents, Matlock less than twice that - not particularly big.

Bradford is very much neglected by current services. For example it sees Trans Pennine Express trains bypassing the city via nearby Huddersfield yet there are very limited services to Huddersfield and currently no services to Liverpool and Newcastle. Whilst I believe there are plans for a Liverpool service via the ponderous Calder Valley route, there are no plans as far as I know for any services to the North East.

So what about a Newcastle - Leeds - Bradford - Huddersfield - Manchester - Liverpool with possibly very limited or no other stops? This could even miss out Leeds and so avoud the commuter traffic clogging up trains between Leeds and Huddersfield.

Would you take a route avoiding Leeds (e.g. over the throat at Whitehall and via Castleford to get to York) or just run through non-stop with the curtains down so you didn't have to see the Leodensians?

I've never seen a 1hr 32m train

Really?

I thought you did this journey regularly... I've never travelled from Derby to Manchester by train but even I can find that (regardless of any services removed for Covid reasons) the 11:30 from Derby gets into Sheffield at 12:01, connecting with the 12:11 to Manchester, which arrives into Piccadilly at 13:02.... i.e. 1h32.

Places like Buxton are much better connected to Manchester than they are Derby and the county is rather fragmented

Hardly surprising - Derby is over 50% further away from Buxton (than Manchester is) and Derby is a significantly smaller attraction (than Manchester is) - that's not to knock Derby - I'll happily admit that Sheffield is a smaller attraction than Manchester - just the reality that, of course demand in Buxton is going to be more towards Stockport/ Manchester than it will be towards Matlock/ Derby - the fact that Buxton is administratively in the same county as the latter two won't matter too much when it comes to people looking for work or shopping or a night out.

 

[4-SUB 4732]

Arguably the smartest thing to do, as people have highlighted, is to massively ramp-up capacity (physical track and number of seats) between the most significantly-sized places.

York, Leeds, Doncaster, Sheffield, Huddersfield, Manchester, Liverpool, Preston, Nottingham, Crewe, Derby. Once all this is done, and when you've got regular and positive services between them, people can rely on connecting rather than direct services. An example would be something like a half-hourly 'fast' frequency between Nottingham, Sheffield, Doncaster and York; with a half-hourly service between Derby, Sheffield, Wakefield, Leeds and York. Yes, some people are going to be inconvenienced but your ability to turn up and go from places like Kiveton, Alfreton, Dore etc. suddenly rise and you open up those journey opportunities.

I hate the mentality that we all need an hourly direct service from here to everywhere and that people won't travel otherwise. It's nonsense, and we need to be far more Swiss / German about it, feeding people onto/off of Intercity and InterRegional Express-type trains at major stations and focus on making said IC/IRE-type trains longer and more frequent. In the long run it makes the railway cheaper...

 

[Sad Sprinter]

A 15-minute service would be more attractive, but finding paths for it is another matter (even the relatively empty Nunhead-Lewisham bit has to have room for freight).
There's been discussion on and off of a Brockley High Level station, which would be useful for Brockley but - I suspect - little used as an interchange.
By Camberwell I presume you mean Denmark Hill?
A Brixton High Level would be really useful but simply isn't feasible on sharply curved viaducts.

Actually I was thinking more of a Loughborough Junction high-level, which would probably have the same problems as Brixton would anyway

 

[4-SUB 4732]

Actually I was thinking more of a Loughborough Junction high-level, which would probably have the same problems as Brixton would anyway

I dare say with links to Crystal Palace, West Croydon (etc), if you have a quarter-hourly frequency from Lewisham to Brockley and then good interchange you will move some South London traffic across from buses that currently have to run through congested streets.

 

[30907]

Actually I was thinking more of a Loughborough Junction high-level, which would probably have the same problems as Brixton would anyway

At least it would be on straight track, but little use as an interchange and only half a mile from Denmark Hill for local traffic. Brockley HL had decidedly more potential.

 

[Purple Orange]

Resolving Historically Poorly-Served Locations - How Would You Fix It?

It depends on what we would consider to be poorly served locations. I would claim that London, Newcastle and Liverpool suburban stations have an excellent service. Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds suburban stations have a very poor service level. We also can’t conclude that a station in an urban area with 2 tph is better than a station in rural area and very small population with 1 tp2h, as the needs of those areas, passenger demands are very different and the impact of pushing more people in to cars is also very different.

Therefore I would have two continuous programmes of work:

• A rolling electrification program, prioritising:
  • MML;
  • Trans Pennine;
  • The core XC network (Bristol to Derby and Reading to Coventry)
  • Unnelectrified lines in to Manchester, Birmingham & Leeds
• A rolling program of new lines to remove Intercity traffic from the urban lines in to the big cities.
  • HS2;
  • Liverpool HS2/NPR spur;
  • NPR bypasses out of the Manchester & Leeds conurbations. A new tunnel under the Pennines may not be the right solution.

 

[backontrack]

Hull could do with greater connectivity towards the northbound ECML; it's a longish stopping journey to York via Sherburn, then a change. This is an area where the York-Beverley line would really come in handy.

I'm also sometimes surprised at the extent of home counties towns where there's no real rail option. The Chobhams of the world.

 

[Dr Hoo]

Hull could do with greater connectivity towards the northbound ECML; it's a longish stopping journey to York via Sherburn, then a change. This is an area where the York-Beverley line would really come in handy.

Noting that both routes did/can take around an hour, subject to the details of stopping pattern and pathing, and that any re-instated route via Market Weighton would come into York station from the north I am failing to see the real benefit for northbound ECML passengers.

 

[NoMorePacers]

I'd argue that the Barton branch would fare far better if it extended north of the Humber - alas, such a link would almost certainly be massively expensive and thus would never get built.

Perhaps better integration with cross-Humber bus services would be in order, however once again it's very unlikely at the moment.

 

[Recessio]

A Brixton High Level would be really useful but simply isn't feasible on sharply curved viaducts.

Any possibility of reopening East Brixton?

Back on topic, I think the Uckfield line could unlock a lot of potential housing if it had a better service pattern (and electrification, but that's been talked about to death on these forums).

 

[30907]

Any possibility of reopening East Brixton?

Nothing to reopen! New platforms at Canterbury Road, where the curve is still gentle, might be possible though, with footpath access from Brixton NR, but they would be 400m away from it (and expensive!) and even further from the main road.

 

[61653 HTAFC]

I'd argue that the Barton branch would fare far better if it extended north of the Humber - alas, such a link would almost certainly be massively expensive and thus would never get built.

Perhaps better integration with cross-Humber bus services would be in order, however once again it's very unlikely at the moment.

Before the Humber Bridge Prescott's Folly opened, the Barton branch ran to New Holland pier for ferries across the estuary. Strange how opening an expensive piece of infrastructure made non-car connectivity worse rather than better.

 

[Recessio]

What happened to reconstructing Camberwell and Walworth stations? Especially with that big hospital nearby and the buses clogging the roads, my totally uneducated opinion is that it'd be a no-brainer.

Nothing to reopen! New platforms at Canterbury Road, where the curve is still gentle, might be possible though, with footpath access from Brixton NR, but they would be 400m away from it (and expensive!) and even further from the main road.

Is there a reason they can't reconstruct a new station at East Brixton directly? Not too far from Brixton NR/tube, right? And would serve both SE/Victoria and the Thameslink at Loughborough Junction...

 

[The Ham]

I think that there's probably a case for doing two things, but probably in different areas.

Firstly a move towards having more cross route journeys, this is especially true around London where it's easy to get to/from London but getting between lines is hard.

In other areas there's a need to remove the everywhere to everywhere services by increasing frequencies on minor lines (2 tph) but having semi frequent (4+ tph) but long trains (6+ coaches) going into and between major places. That would mean a maximum change time of 30 minutes going mainline to minor line (chances are on the way home in an email) and 15 minutes going the other way (chances are going to work in the morning).

 

[30907]

Is there a reason they can't reconstruct a new station at East Brixton directly? Not too far from Brixton NR/tube, right? And would serve both SE/Victoria and the Thameslink at Loughborough Junction...

Twice as far from Brixton than my suggestion of Canterbury Rd and Loughborough Jn is marginal as an interchange (Herne Hill to the Overground route is the only real flow to benefit, as the rest of Thameslink is accessible via Peckham Rye or Denmark Hill).

Anyway, any new station in the area would be incredibly expensive. Focussing on interchange with the Northern Line at Clapham High St would be much more cost effective (though whether LUL would appreciate it is a different matter!)