Should Finchley Road, Haverstock Hill and Camden Road stations be rebuilt on Midland Main Line?

[miklcct]

It is very inconvenient to get from the City to Hampstead Heath due to the lack of a radial railway station there. There is no convenient interchange from any radial railways to the North London Line between West Hampstead, which is already so far out in NW London, and Highbury & Islington which is in the north east direction, while Northern Line doesn't go to Farringdon at all.

* Camden Road - gives direct access from Camden Town to the area of Central London between the two Northern Line branches, avoiding the lengthy change at King's Cross St. Pancras from the Northern line to Thameslink.
* Haverstock Hill - give direct access from Gospel Oak to Central London as it's currently a long walk from Kentish Town.
* Finchley Road - probably the least useful among the 3 as the only main gain is a direct change to Metropolitan, which I don't think anything to be gained compared to changing at Farringdon.

Is it possible to rebuilt any of these stations to have 12-car platforms? Also, as Kentish Town only has a 8-car platform, can it also be rebuilt / relocated to become 12-car as well, which enables more Thameslink train (e.g. Brighton - Bedford) to call there for an easy change to the Northern line?

 

[Dr Hoo]

You start by stating the supposed ‘problem to be solved’ as getting from the City to Hampstead Heath but then focus on Thameslink.

I know that City Thameslink is just about in the City but it’s hardly Bank.

Wouldn’t most City types just use the Northern Line from Bank or Moorgate to Belsize Park?

(Yes, I know that Hampstead Heath is a distinct station on the Overground but it’s not far away.)

 

[stuu]

I would suggest walking to Belsize Park solves this problem, for no public expenditure

 

[SynthD]

For Kentish Town, would it be cheaper to dig up the road junction at the south end (Islip and Peckwater Streets) and build longer platforms with skinner road support?

That isn’t necessary as the south side of thameslink also has some 8 carriage limits.

 

[Dr Hoo]

I am struggling to see what Kentish Town has to do with all this.

Assuming that you are trying to get to Belsize Park (or Hampstead) to access the Hampstead Heath area you want the Edgware Branch and Kentish Town is on the High Barnet Branch.

(Or is the OP somehow planning to travel on Thameslink to Kentish Town, Northern Line back to Camden Town and then a second Northern Line train to Belsize Park? It's bizarre.)

 

[zwk500]

This must be one of the most bizarre proposals I've seen. Reopen Finchley road MML platforms when West Hampstead Thameslink is half a mile further up the Line. Reopen Haverstock Hill platforms when you barely have 160m between the platforms (8-car) only. Reopen Camden road platforms on the MML when the track layout is all over the site, and trains could not drop down to Thameslink with those gradients?
Even for this member, that is a remarkable idea.

Is it possible to rebuilt any of these stations to have 12-car platforms?

In short, No.

Also, as Kentish Town only has a 8-car platform, can it also be rebuilt / relocated to become 12-car as well, which enables more Thameslink train (e.g. Brighton - Bedford) to call there for an easy change to the Northern line?

Kentish town was looked at as part of the Thameslink programme, so not unless somebody finds a very large pot of money it will not be getting longer platforms. There looks to be just about enough space on the north side of the road to build a 3- or 4-platform 12-car station, but it isn't going to happen without a very large change in financial situation and policy.

 

[Sad Sprinter]

If you want to go from the City to Hampstead Heath and can't be bothered to walk from Hampstead tube, just get the Great Northern Electrics service to Highbury and get the Overground

 

[Bald Rick]

It is very inconvenient to get from the City to Hampstead Heath due to the lack of a radial railway station there.

This premise is wrong. It is *very* convenient to get from the City to Hampstead Heath. It’s called the Northern line, Hampstead branch, and a short walk from Belsize Park or Hampstead tubes.

If that’s really too difficult, then get off the train at Kentish Town and use one of the 15 or so buses an hour that go up Highgate Rd For 4/5 stops. And if you don’t like to change, get the 214 bus from Finsbury Square in the city.

 

[Taunton]

There was a worked-up proposal, way back (1970s?) to do this one station along, at West Hampstead, which I think we have discussed before. It was to add platforms and integrate the Marylebone line, Metropolitan and Jubilee, North London Line, and the Midland (slow lines only I think). Finchley Road for the Met would be closed. In those times there was no such thing as "out of station interchange" on tickets, so they were all to be joined internally, along the west side of West End Lane.

There was actually space with old goods yards etc to do this then; these are now lost to land being sold off for redevelopment.

 

[Magdalia]

It is very inconvenient to get from the City to Hampstead Heath due to the lack of a radial railway station there. There is no convenient interchange from any radial railways to the North London Line between West Hampstead, which is already so far out in NW London, and Highbury & Islington which is in the north east direction, while Northern Line doesn't go to Farringdon at all.

Although most of the OP's ideas are bonkers, I do have a smidge of sympathy for this one.

The Corporation of London own and administer Hampstead Heath, and there is a superb view of the City from Parliament Hill.

It would be nice if there was an easy route from the City to the Heath.

But the Hampstead Heath area is very hilly, so it is unsurprising that the surface railway lines avoid it.

I am struggling to see what Kentish Town has to do with all this.

I'm not. In my younger fitter days, when I could walk up a long fight of stairs, I was a frequent visitor to the Heath. Getting the train to Kentish Town and walking up Highgate Road was my preferred way of getting to the Heath.

I'd love to see Kentish Town brought into the 21st century. In particular it needs decent access with lifts.

If you want to go from the City to Hampstead Heath and can't be bothered to walk from Hampstead tube, just get the Great Northern Electrics service to Highbury and get the Overground

In ye olden dayes Broad Street-Richmond trains did this direct to Gospel Oak, which is the most convenient station for the Heath, but changing at Highbury and Islington is a pain and I don't regard it as a serious option.

Assuming that you are trying to get to Belsize Park (or Hampstead) to access the Hampstead Heath area you want the Edgware Branch

Viewers of Secrets of the London Underground will know of North End station that never happened.

Kentish town was looked at as part of the Thameslink programme, so not unless somebody finds a very large pot of money it will not be getting longer platforms. There looks to be just about enough space on the north side of the road to build a 3- or 4-platform 12-car station, but it isn't going to happen without a very large change in financial situation and policy.

This would be my preferred option.

The Corporation of London is very rich, maybe they could be asked to pay!

 

[Bald Rick]

There was a worked-up proposal, way back (1970s?) to do this one station along, at West Hampstead, which I think we have discussed before. It was to add platforms and integrate the Marylebone line, Metropolitan and Jubilee, North London Line, and the Midland (slow lines only I think). Finchley Road for the Met would be closed. In those times there was no such thing as "out of station interchange" on tickets, so they were all to be joined internally, along the west side of West End Lane.

There was actually space with old goods yards etc to do this then; these are now lost to land being sold off for redevelopment.

1980s I think. When the M1 extension + North Cross route (and major interchange between them) was abandoned in the 70s, the land reserved for that was used for the development.

 

[Dr Hoo]

There was a worked-up proposal, way back (1970s?) to do this one station along, at West Hampstead, which I think we have discussed before. It was to add platforms and integrate the Marylebone line, Metropolitan and Jubilee, North London Line, and the Midland (slow lines only I think). Finchley Road for the Met would be closed. In those times there was no such thing as "out of station interchange" on tickets, so they were all to be joined internally, along the west side of West End Lane.

There was, indeed. It might also have been the terminus for the 'Snow Hill Link' (proto-Thameslink). That is the reason for the strange 'building on stilts' just south of West Hampstead, on the 'north' side. It would have been part of a reversing arrangement. BR even had some leaflets done for an MPs' briefing. I've got one somewhere. Obviously Margaret Thatcher was one of those invited but she sent her apologies.

I'm not. In my younger fitter days, when I could walk up a long fight of stairs, I was a frequent visitor to the Heath. Getting the train to Kentish Town and walking up Highgate Road was my preferred way of getting to the Heath.

Well, fair enough, but it's a materially longer walk than either Belsize Park or Hampstead to Parliament Hill Fields.

 

[NSE]

Ahhh I do enjoy Miklcct’s proposals. It’s very easy to get from the City to Hampstead Heath. If I’m in the City near Thameslink, I’d take Thameslink from Farringdon or City Thameslink to West Hampstead and change for overground. If I was more towards Moorgate/Liverpool Street side I’d take Great Northern to Highbury and Islington and change. I’d also consider walking to Shoreditch High Street to change at Highbury and Islington. There’s also Moorgate direct to Northern Line stations at Belsize Park and Hampstead. This is before I’ve even looked at buses. I do appreciate I’m not disabled or needing to use step free access but as he talks about his frequent sporting endeavours, neither is the OP to my knowledge.

Essentially this comes down to the OP’s usual attempts to shave 1p and 1 second for every journey they do whilst ignoring the high cost and impracticality of the schemes he proposes.

 

[W-on-Sea]

Depending both on which part of the City you're in and which side of the Heath you want, the 46 or 214 buses do this job pretty well. I made precisely that journey on the 46 more times than I'd care to count, and didn't even think about going by train (or even tube). I suppose the reopening of the station at Maiden Lane on the North London Line might make a partly train-based route more plausible, but the suggestions for reopening stations mentioned above seem mostly purposeless and with no likely return on expenditure.

Building a Chiltern-Met-Jubilee-NLL-Thameslink interchange at West Hampstead in principle would be a great idea, but I think it will realistically have to await a more substantial redevelopment of the surrounding area than those that have already occurred in the last 25 years, and I can't see how there would be room in that cutting for more platforms without a realignment of the railways and demolitions at street level. In practice, the existing interchange is more than tolerable.

 

[Taunton]

There was, indeed. It might also have been the terminus for the 'Snow Hill Link' (proto-Thameslink). That is the reason for the strange 'building on stilts' just south of West Hampstead, on the 'north' side.

Yes, John Betjeman (for whom this was his local area) in the 1960s wrote about how usage of the three adjacent West Hampstead stations was inversely proportional to the service; the Bakerloo (in his days) every few minutes was busy, the North London, every 20 minutes, had quite a few, and the Midland diesel service, hourly, often picked up nobody at all.

Is the "building on stilts" the one which was, though quite recent, knocked down last year, doubtless for new high-rise flats?

From The City to Hampstead Heath I wouldn't consider anything other than the Northern Line direct every few minutes from various city points to Hampstead, walk up Flask Walk past the trendy cafes and you're there. What could be better than that?

 

[mr_jrt]

This was my old crayoning for West Hampstead from well over a decade ago...

Regarding the original proposal for the Midland stations, unless you're going to 6-track the line, you don't want to be trying to make the current half-arsed mixed northern metro operation any worse than it already is, if anything you probably want to be trying to eliminate the metro services entirely to focus on suburban services, but that's a different problem entirely. As other have pointed out, the metro service is kind of covered by the Northern line, and ideally in time, the WLO.

Loosely related....for those better in the know, could the Northern line cope if Kentish Town NR was closed? I obviously don't know much about it, but in my experience it only seems to be useful for interchanging with the Northern line, which you can do at Kings Cross. There's possibly a tiny amount of contraflow traffic coming south down one of them (NL/TL) and back out northwards on the other, but I can't see it being that much, surely? Certainly doesn't feel like a major traffic source/destination in itself.

Longer-term I'm curious if Thameslink could be streamlined by extending the WLO up to Mill Hill on new tracks and having the all-stations service provided by that on a high-frequency shuttle down to West Hampstead (with a few additional new metro stations opened on the Hendon lines), with Thameslink only serving Mill Hill, West Hampstead, and St Pancras. Probably wouldn't go down well with the Brent Cross developers, though...

 

[Basil Jet]

Loosely related....for those better in the know, could the Northern line cope if Kentish Town NR was closed? I obviously don't know much about it, but in my experience it only seems to be useful for interchanging with the Northern line, which you can do at Kings Cross. There's possibly a tiny amount of contraflow traffic coming south down one of them (NL/TL) and back out northwards on the other, but I can't see it being that much, surely? Certainly doesn't feel like a major traffic source/destination in itself.

A sizeable chunk of North London uses Kentish Town to get to Luton Airport.

 

[Magdalia]

Loosely related....for those better in the know, could the Northern line cope if Kentish Town NR was closed? I obviously don't know much about it, but in my experience it only seems to be useful for interchanging with the Northern line, which you can do at Kings Cross. There's possibly a tiny amount of contraflow traffic coming south down one of them (NL/TL) and back out northwards on the other, but I can't see it being that much, surely? Certainly doesn't feel like a major traffic source/destination in itself.

I visit Kentish Town occasionally, though not often for Hampstead Heath these days. It has a few decent pubs and shops, and is not far from Camden Market. There are also quite a lot of houses in Kentish Town.

I try to arrive at Kentish Town West and depart from Kentish Town so that I only have to walk down stairs. Though by no means a crush, there's usually a decent number of passengers going to and from Kentish Town by train.

 

[John Webb]

This was my old crayoning for West Hampstead from well over a decade ago...

.....Longer-term I'm curious if Thameslink could be streamlined by extending the WLO up to Mill Hill on new tracks and having the all-stations service provided by that on a high-frequency shuttle down to West Hampstead (with a few additional new metro stations opened on the Hendon lines), with Thameslink only serving Mill Hill, West Hampstead, and St Pancras. Probably wouldn't go down well with the Brent Cross developers, though...

There isn't the land available for such an extension, particularly north of Hendon. You'd be trespassing on the RAF Museum on the west side and the road layout at Mill Hill would inhibit any extension on the west side. And you can't move the present railway eastwards to make room due to the M1. All in all very little useful gain for an enormous amount of money, I would have thought!

 

[class68fan]

The three West Hamstead station are near each other for changing.
Finchley Road Underground close Finchley Road and Frogall overground.

 

[Basil Jet]

To my astonishment, I just realised that West Hampstead Underground Station is noticeably busier than Finchley Road Underground Station. Since Finchley Road has the Metropolitan Line, National Express coaches and a shopping centre attached, I always assumed that it was busier.

 

[mr_jrt]

There isn't the land available for such an extension, particularly north of Hendon. You'd be trespassing on the RAF Museum on the west side and the road layout at Mill Hill would inhibit any extension on the west side. And you can't move the present railway eastwards to make room due to the M1. All in all very little useful gain for an enormous amount of money, I would have thought!

Purely on the points you've raised, it looks like there's plenty of room past the RAF museum to me? Only major issue is at Mill Hill itself, and I'm sure something could be worked out, if desired. The three small buildings at the bottom would have to go, but other than that's it's just road and car park. I suspect you'd probably want to also redevelop the newer buildings adjacent to the station though, given their resulting proximity.

 

[John Webb]

The railway as it passes the RAF Museum, is on a significant embankment - this isn't very clear in the aerial photo. I'm not a civil engineer but I think that to widen the embankment with minimum risk of slippages either the 'shoulder' of the embankment will need moving outwards (westwards) - and there isn't the space - or a very costly heavy-duty retaining wall is needed. It's almost certainly not going to be a very good cost-benefit ratio.

And at Mill Hill you'll lose a large chunk of car park - the businesses will need moving and so on - again enormous expense for what I think would be little gain for the railway or a relatively small number of potential passengers.

It would seem simpler to see if you could squeeze in an extra two or three trains an hour on the slow lines, and use the existing link at Silkstream Junction to switch trains to and from the Goods lines and spend a lesser sum of money electrifying the goods lines and the West London line in its entirety would also allow electrically-hauled freight.

 

[zwk500]

The railway as it passes the RAF Museum, is on a significant embankment - this isn't very clear in the aerial photo. I'm not a civil engineer but I think that to widen the embankment with minimum risk of slippages either the 'shoulder' of the embankment will need moving outwards (westwards)

To build an extra two tracks there you are almost certainly looking at a sheet piled retaining wall. Likely on both sides, not just on the accessible side. It's theoretically possible but it will be a budgetary near impossibility.

 

[John Webb]

To build an extra two tracks there you are almost certainly looking at a sheet piled retaining wall. Likely on both sides, not just on the accessible side. It's theoretically possible but it will be a budgetary near impossibility.

Thanks for the comment - I accidently hit the save button before I had finished writing and have made the same comment separately from you!

 

[zwk500]

Thanks for the comment - I accidently hit the save button before I had finished writing and have made the same comment separately from you!

No worries, always the problem of cross-posting!

It would seem simpler to see if you could squeeze in an extra two or three trains an hour on the slow lines, and use the existing link at Silkstream Junction to switch trains to and from the Goods lines and spend a lesser sum of money electrifying the goods lines and the West London line in its entirety would also allow electrically-hauled freight.

The MML has the problem for electrically hauled freight that the wires don't get to anywhere useful yet. And we still haven't got a solution for top-loading with OLE. It's a real shame that electrifying Wigston-Birmingham seems to be very far away from the government's thinking despite having committed to wiring the MML. I guess without Leicester itself the numbers don't add up. And similarly, without wires to Mountsorrel or the Peak quarries, wiring Cricklewood-Acton is of limited value for a lot of operational pain.

 

[Bald Rick]

The railway as it passes the RAF Museum, is on a significant embankment - this isn't very clear in the aerial photo. I'm not a civil engineer but I think that to widen the embankment with minimum risk of slippages either the 'shoulder' of the embankment will need moving outwards (westwards)

And it’s a dodgy embankment at the best of times…

 

[greatkingrat]

A sizeable chunk of North London uses Kentish Town to get to Luton Airport.

Do they really? Most trains from Kentish Town only go as far as St Albans, so anyone coming from the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line would be better off staying on to Kings Cross and getting a fast train to Luton Airport.

 

[miklcct]

Do they really? Most trains from Kentish Town only go as far as St Albans, so anyone coming from the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line would be better off staying on to Kings Cross and getting a fast train to Luton Airport.

I would make an additional change rather than travelling further to King's Cross for that long interchange to take the train back through somewhere I came from.

 

[Bald Rick]

Do they really? Most trains from Kentish Town only go as far as St Albans, so anyone coming from the High Barnet branch of the Northern Line would be better off staying on to Kings Cross and getting a fast train to Luton Airport.

Whether it is a sizeable chunk or not, it would be easier and almost certainly quicker to go from Kentish Town to West Hampstead and change there for a Luton train.