Great Northern - Northern City Line to TFL?

[wanderingriver]

Maybe the 717s will be refitted with longitudinal seating?

Knowing TfL they will get rid of the toilets too. I mean Elizabeth Line services to Reading don’t even have them

 

[norbitonflyer]

No-one doing construction work is going to consult a tube map to determine where tunnels might be.

Read the accident report. A factor was that the absence of the line from the tube map meant no-one involved in the project, from the architect to the council planning department to the people actually driving the auger, even thought to look for any tunnels

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Oct 2025 ==

You're not going to see fares reduce

I think you would - all TfL services are charged at TfL rates, not TOC rates (Moorgate to Finsbury Park has always been charged at TfL rates). When TfL took over what is now the Weasver Line, the rates were reduced.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Oct 2025 ==

Also not too sure there's a way to implement your idea without it being really misleading - how will you show the "Cannon Street - London Bridge - New Cross - Lewisham" as ending at Lewisham when it simply isn't true?

An arrow pointing beyond Lewisham (and Wimbledon, Richmond, Woolwich) showing the line continues further?

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Oct 2025 ==

. Crossrail 2 will take over quite a few SWR commuter lines if it happens as an example.

A takeover really, really needs to happen sooner than that. And so nearly happened 10 years ago

Transport for London to take over suburban rail routes

Transport for London announces it will be taking over the running of the capital's suburban rail network.

www.bbc.co.uk

Chris Grayling urged to resign over leaked rail letter

The Transport Secretary is urged to resign after a leaked letter shows he opposed rail devolution to keep it "out of the clutches" of Labour.

www.bbc.co.uk

 

[jon0844]

Knowing TfL they will get rid of the toilets too. I mean Elizabeth Line services to Reading don’t even have them

717s don't have toilets. They could have one added, but almost certainly never will (for a six car train, fitting one accessible toilet would be a nightmare as it would be used far more than a train with multiple toilets, plus the need to empty/refill them).

 

[wanderingriver]

717s don't have toilets. They could have one added, but almost certainly never will (for a six car train, fitting one accessible toilet would be a nightmare as it would be used far more than a train with multiple toilets, plus the need to empty/refill them).

Oh. My bad. I thought 717s were like other GTR services

 

[vuzzeho]

Again, I don't see why TfL needs to get involved to solve any of these issues.

Because Great Northern isn't, and TfL wants to. Saying 'Great Northern could do this, they don't need TfL to!' is great and all, except they haven't done it and don't seem to currently be doing it. TfL, with a track record of improving services and stations, and increasing a line's status among the public by branding it under one of their brand names (probably Overground) and including it on the map. Great Northern could improve stations and bump up the frequency and ask TfL to put it on the tube map. But to my knowledge, they have not. And it seems like they may not. So, if TfL wants to, why shouldn't they?

 

[ScotGG]

A good idea as if nothing else TfL realise you have to invest short term to reap the rewards long term as amply seen with London Overground while the DfT's attitude is penny wise and pound foolish. A short term cut here or there? No issue. Until it reduces custom.

See how DfT rail services serving inner and outer London still retain many cuts post covid while TfL restored services and ridership shot back up far quicker. Many National Rail stations within London or immediately outside in Metro/suburban networks now have long gaps in service with no turn up and go provision now thanks to the odd cut here or there reducing the appeal of the networks.

Many things TfL do or proposed could be done by TOCs and DfT but *never* are, and so, it needs a change. Increase off peak frequencies, provide extra station staffing to provide a safer and more appealing network and better branding/advertising. Even things like roundels and signage at stations are crap on GN. TOCs and NR are so bad at the basics and rarely seem to improve. LO have done it plenty times and its shown to work. Who has any faith in the DfT to do it? The've failed time and again.

 

[swt_passenger]

No-one doing construction work is going to consult a tube map to determine where tunnels might be.

Well that’s basically what the RAIB report concluded had happened. It states that during initial site ground investigations they had hit the tunnel at 14m depth, and thought it was a manmade feature, but they then discounted it being a tube tunnel because there was nothing on the tube map.

 

[bramling]

Because Great Northern isn't, and TfL wants to. Saying 'Great Northern could do this, they don't need TfL to!' is great and all, except they haven't done it and don't seem to currently be doing it. TfL, with a track record of improving services and stations, and increasing a line's status among the public by branding it under one of their brand names (probably Overground) and including it on the map. Great Northern could improve stations and bump up the frequency and ask TfL to put it on the tube map. But to my knowledge, they have not. And it seems like they may not. So, if TfL wants to, why shouldn't they?

TFL don’t exactly have a great record of delivery over recent years. GTR may have their issues with crewing, but so do LU.

I’d prefer TFL to focus their energy on getting the Underground running well, rather than building an ever-larger empire. It isn’t like TFL’s other networks don’t have their issues either, Tramlink, DLR and Overground haven’t been smooth over the years, and Elizabeth Line reliability is poor (albeit to be fair this seems to be more down to the NR sections).

I really don’t see what people think TFL are going to offer the Moorgate route. 4tph will likely return at some point. Beyond that it will be a different colour on the map and a different seating moquette.

 

[norbitonflyer]

I see plenty of downsides and no real upsides here.

Under TfL it would be totally physically disconnected from the rest of the TfL network, while it would be operationally disconnected from GTR, with which it would continue to share tracks.

Seems to work for the Weaver Line, which has no physical connection with any other TfL route (apart from the occasional Elizabeth Line train into the high level station at Liverpool Street) but shares tracks with Greater Anglia

 

[Tetchytyke]

If TfL are having these conversations then it immediately makes me think that TfL are being asked to put extra funding in to get the frequency back to what it was pre-Covid. TfL are increasingly reluctant to put funding in without having control of the service delivery.

It all sounds to me that DfT won’t fund the resource to get the service back to where it was. So whilst it is true that GN could do it, in my opinion it seems likely that they won’t.

As for whether it would benefit London, I’m not sure why people are saying otherwise. The busier branch is the Enfield and Hertford branch and that is London as far out as Crews Hill. Of course the most of the benefit of an improved inner-suburban service will be felt at Enfield, Barnet, Winchmore Hill, etc.

 

[Dima]

What about the Weaver line? That shares track with Greater Anglia/Stansted Express services. Fine, I suppose it shares track with the Elizabeth line (literally just Liverpool Street, and I don't think they're ever on the same side of the station) but other than that, doesn't share with any other TfL lines. Unless you mean interchanges, which the Northern City has plenty of. If you can accept sharing track as a necessary evil for the Windrush, Mildmay, Metropolitan, District, and Weaver lines, why not on the Northern City? What makes it so special?

The Weaver line shares only a couple of short sections of track with GA near Liverpool Street and Clapton - the rest of it is separate. It also mostly stays within Greater London with only Cheshunt and Waltham Cross being outside it.

The shared running on other lines makes more sense to me. The Windrush line is fully within London, the Mildmay line with only a short bit being shared with the Southern, the Metropolitan line also shares only a relatively short section with Chiltern, and the only way to avoid it would be to unite them, District line only shares a bit of track at the Richmond end with the LO and a part of the Wimbledon branch with the SWR service that runs once a day or so.

None of it would apply to the N l transferred to TfL. An idea that TfL should take over this line sounds absolutely arbitrary.

I don't think TfL should take over Thameslink services, maybe brand them but other than that, best to keep it with GBR when that takes over.

I am interested in your logic here. Why should TfL take over NCL but not the Thameslink services, or any other train services coming from relatively far away and terminating in London?

TfL running services out of Greater London shouldn't be an issue. Isn't the big issue that people take with regional operating units as a potential organisation method of the railway that they'd immediately slack off doing anything outside their region? If TfL is willing to provide regions with better services to the capital city, why is that an issue? Even as a London resident, I'm perfectly happy for Hertfordshire to benefit from TfL.

I think it is an issue. TfL reports to the mayor of London, so they are naturally set up to prioritise Londoners, as it should be (its transport for London after all). In case of any conflict between the interest of Londoners and people from other areas the line serves, the Londoners will win every time, as the mayor’s office depends on them, not on the residents of Stevenage. It’s fine that the bits of the TfL network stick out of London - that’s to a degree inevitable if we want to have connectivity between the communities, but even that has shown to create issues when the TfL isn’t willing to invest in areas outside London (Croxley link).

Letting the TfL take over a service which is longer outside London then inside it, which probably mostly serves non-Londoners, which is not connected to any other TfL lines but shares tracks with other services of its current operator and well as other national rail services makes no sense to me.

 

[etr221]

Well that’s basically what the RAIB report concluded had happened. It states that during initial site ground investigations they had hit the tunnel at 14m depth, and thought it was a manmade feature, but they then discounted it being a tube tunnel because there was nothing on the tube map.

My understanding is that the construction project team had enquired of TfL whether there was a tube line there, TfL had replied no (because they didn't have one), and that answer was accepted without further investigation. Although there was - amongst the property deeds - a wayleave granted to the Great Northern and City Railway for their tunnel under the site they didn't actually resolve the issue of whether GN&CR's tunnel was there or not...

(There was a similar issue a few years before on the Central Line near Bethnal Green, but that's getting OT)

 

[778]

Will this mean no new Bakerloo line trains as funding will have to be diverted to the NCL which could have been used to improve the Underground?

I think that the Bakerloo line extention should be a higher priority for TFL instead of taking over national rail services.

 

[norbitonflyer]

If TfL are having these conversations then it immediately makes me think that TfL are being asked to put extra funding in to get the frequency back to what it was pre-Covid. TfL are increasingly reluctant to put funding in without having control of the service delivery.

It all sounds to me that DfT won’t fund the resource to get the service back to where it was. So whilst it is true that GN could do it, in my opinion it seems likely that they won’t.

As for whether it would benefit London, I’m not sure why people are saying otherwise.

Station usage stats - year to March 2024.

I am disregarding Potters Bar, Hatfield, Welwyn, Stevenage and all stations with Tube or Overground interchange as the stats will be skewed by other services which are more significant for most users of those stations.

Of the other 22 stations, fifteen are in Greater London. Eight of those (Harringay, Hornsey, Alexandra Palace, Palmers Green, Winchmore Hill, Enfield Chase, Gordon Hill, and New Barnet) have usuage stats of over 1,000,000. The busiest outside the GLA area served by the GN&C is Hertford North (968,862).

Total stats:
Essex Road to Ally Pally (five stations*) 8.3 million (excluding Highbury & Islington and Finsbury Park)
Hertford branch within GLA (to Crews Hill - seven stations) 6.6 million
Welwyn route within GLA (to New barnet - three stations) 2.8 million
Hertford loop outwith GLA (four stations) 1.8 million
Welwyn line outwith GLA (three stations*) 0.8 million (excluding Potters Bar, Hatfield, and WGC

Total within London 16.7 million
outwith London 2.6 million.
Even if you include a generous half share of Potters Bar and Hatfield this only brings the non-GLA figure to 6 million

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Oct 2025 ==

Will this mean no new Bakerloo line trains as funding will have to be diverted to the NCL which could have been used to improve the Underground?

I think that the Bakerloo line extention should be a higher priority for TFL instead of taking over national rail services.

Probably not. Bakerloo is capital expenditure, which can be funded by borrowing. Any NCL improvements would be running costs, which should be funded by income (either subsidy or fares)

 

[vuzzeho]

The Weaver line shares only a couple of short sections of track with GA near Liverpool Street and Clapton - the rest of it is separate. It also mostly stays within Greater London with only Cheshunt and Waltham Cross being outside it.

The Weaver line shares track with GA from Liverpool Street all the way to Bury Street Junction/Cheshunt.

The shared running on other lines makes more sense to me. The Windrush line is fully within London, the Mildmay line with only a short bit being shared with the Southern, the Metropolitan line also shares only a relatively short section with Chiltern, and the only way to avoid it would be to unite them, District line only shares a bit of track at the Richmond end with the LO and a part of the Wimbledon branch with the SWR service that runs once a day or so.

The Mildmay shares a lot of track with freight, and GA ECS moves. As for the Met, Harrow on the Hill to Amersham isn't exactly 'a short section'.

I am interested in your logic here. Why should TfL take over NCL but not the Thameslink services, or any other train services coming from relatively far away and terminating in London?

Thameslink runs significantly further out than the NCL, on both sides. It also runs services less akin to TfL's type of services. Stevenage would not be the furthest station TfL serves. The GN Electrics service runs far out, but not as far as Thameslink does, and it runs a service more similar to TfL's others (tunnelled within central London, many interchanges, then runs along as an all stops commuter service until a terminus a bit out of London). Even so, this shouldn't be about trying to fit services into arbitrary 'feels like TfL' boxes, but what TfL can take and improve. There's no use in trying to say 'this service doesn't feel like something TfL should do so they shouldn't have it' when TfL have come and said they want to improve the service, and it's something they are known to be able to handle. This isn't an intercity service.

I think it is an issue. TfL reports to the mayor of London, so they are naturally set up to prioritise Londoners, as it should be (its transport for London after all). In case of any conflict between the interest of Londoners and people from other areas the line serves, the Londoners will win every time, as the mayor’s office depends on them, not on the residents of Stevenage. It’s fine that the bits of the TfL network stick out of London - that’s to a degree inevitable if we want to have connectivity between the communities, but even that has shown to create issues when the TfL isn’t willing to invest in areas outside London (Croxley link).

TfL may not have been willing to invest in building that bridge and extras for the Croxley link (the local authority wasn't either, mind you - that's why it got cancelled) but to say it like this is a regular thing is unusual. TfL have invested in many projects outside of London.

Will this mean no new Bakerloo line trains as funding will have to be diverted to the NCL which could have been used to improve the Underground?

I think that the Bakerloo line extention should be a higher priority for TFL instead of taking over national rail services.

I think the funding for the Bakerloo line extension wouldn't be the same as the funding for this, and either way, that funding is on a much larger scale than this. Even if it was the same big money pot, this would be a drop in the bucket compared to the BLE.

 

[bramling]

If TfL are having these conversations then it immediately makes me think that TfL are being asked to put extra funding in to get the frequency back to what it was pre-Covid. TfL are increasingly reluctant to put funding in without having control of the service delivery.

It all sounds to me that DfT won’t fund the resource to get the service back to where it was. So whilst it is true that GN could do it, in my opinion it seems likely that they won’t.

I thought it was the case that GN are planning to do it from December 26? If TFL took over tomorrow they wouldn’t be able to do it due to lack of drivers, or at least not reliably.

 

[Dave W]

It'd be worth it just to see TfL improve Essex Road and the NR bit of Old Street, which is like the land that time forgot. Overground will probably struggle to have the noticeable impact of other line takeovers because the one thing it did almost universally in all of them was introduce new trains. No need for that with the 717s, of course.

My experience of what is now the Weaver pre and post Overground would make me pro this, still. The stations were utter holes all along the line back then. Now they've all slowly been brought up to a standard. It might actually mean something happening with Harringay too.

I doubt the service patterns would change, and the thread in the Speculative forum has had all sorts of back and forth about the line's interaction with Thameslink services and how quickly it could fall apart. But Overgroundisation(??) has been a very good thing for the lines I use.

 

[bramling]

The Weaver line shares only a couple of short sections of track with GA near Liverpool Street and Clapton - the rest of it is separate. It also mostly stays within Greater London with only Cheshunt and Waltham Cross being outside it.

The shared running on other lines makes more sense to me. The Windrush line is fully within London, the Mildmay line with only a short bit being shared with the Southern, the Metropolitan line also shares only a relatively short section with Chiltern, and the only way to avoid it would be to unite them, District line only shares a bit of track at the Richmond end with the LO and a part of the Wimbledon branch with the SWR service that runs once a day or so.

None of it would apply to the N l transferred to TfL. An idea that TfL should take over this line sounds absolutely arbitrary.



I am interested in your logic here. Why should TfL take over NCL but not the Thameslink services, or any other train services coming from relatively far away and terminating in London?



I think it is an issue. TfL reports to the mayor of London, so they are naturally set up to prioritise Londoners, as it should be (its transport for London after all). In case of any conflict between the interest of Londoners and people from other areas the line serves, the Londoners will win every time, as the mayor’s office depends on them, not on the residents of Stevenage. It’s fine that the bits of the TfL network stick out of London - that’s to a degree inevitable if we want to have connectivity between the communities, but even that has shown to create issues when the TfL isn’t willing to invest in areas outside London (Croxley link).

Letting the TfL take over a service which is longer outside London then inside it, which probably mostly serves non-Londoners, which is not connected to any other TfL lines but shares tracks with other services of its current operator and well as other national rail services makes no sense to me.

This whole prioritising Londoners thing really gets my nose out of joint. London forms a wider partnership with the south-east. I’m sick of this whole parochial nonsense which the political creation the Mayor of London has fostered. Why should someone in Enfield be prioritised over someone in Hertford or Hatfield just because they have the ability to vote for a mayor? It’s yet another mess left by New Labour.

Rather than transfer any more to TFL, I’d transfer everything that’s not LU and DLR *away* from them. We could even call it Network SouthEast. Instead we’ll have this nonsense until a politician is brave enough to abolish the mayoralty.

As for delivery, I’d be more inclined to have trusted TfL during the Livingstone years than under the two subsequent mayors. At least in those days TfL seemed to run smoothly. LU feels very ramshackle nowadays.

 

[Russel]

It'd be worth it just to see TfL improve Essex Road and the NR bit of Old Street, which is like the land that time forgot.

Essex Road is the one I hope they don't touch, it's like a NSE time warp!

There isn't much of the 80s/90s BR era railway left as it is!

 

[waverley47]

So, as an actual update, and to stop this becoming another speculative decision, I'm copying over a message from the original threat.

As a real life update to this threat, which may indeed warrant a new threat entirely, I can confirm that the business case to transfer operation of the Northern City Line (including ownership of the tunnel section south from Drayton Park) into TfL was submitted at the end of September this year.

The first reading of the proposal was yesterday, and the DfT have offered words of support. However, no decision will be made until after the decision on the Crews Hill New Town, expected in January next year.

It is expected that if it goes ahead, this proposal will be formally accepted before the end of 2026, with TfL running the Northern City Line from the December 2027 timetable change. Conveniently, this would be the last timetable change before the next London Assembly elections in May 2028, and although you may shout politics, I couldn't possibly comment...

 

[bramling]

Essex Road is the one I hope they don't touch, it's like a NSE time warp!

There isn't much of the 80s/90s BR era railway left as it is!

Again, what is there actually to tart up? Apart from the spiral staircase which has for many years felt like it is falling apart, the station in functional. Given its relatively low usage, I’d argue it’s hardly a priority for investment, when there’s LU lines suffering strings of cancellations due to driver shortages, station closures due to staff shortages, trains falling to bits on more than one LU line, and a whole load of dodgy station works from the PPP days that are now starting to crumble.

TFL isn’t a magic bullet, unless perhaps orange is one’s favourite colour!

 

[aron2smith]

I never really understand the objection that TfL shouldn't run services outside Greater London. It's not like Hertfordshire residents have any direct influence on their rail services anyway at present.

Exactly and not just that, transport needs in both London and Herts overlap a lot too. It may as well be from the city everyone is going to anyway.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Oct 2025 ==

Knowing TfL they will get rid of the toilets too. I mean Elizabeth Line services to Reading don’t even have them

At least the trains that go to Cuffley, don't have toilets anyway.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Oct 2025 ==

A takeover really, really needs to happen sooner than that. And so nearly happened 10 years ago

I agree, SWR stations in London are among the most neglected in London. South Eastern too.

== Doublepost prevention - post automatically merged: 16 Oct 2025 ==

You're not going to see fares reduce and even if a miracle was to happen, it would only be as a result of political involvement. Public transport requires public money (for infrastructure and usually for operational subsidy as well). That isn't going to happen without political involvement.

So why are there essentially two fare systems on London's trains then?

Crews Hill to Moorgate with my railcard is £3.45 off peak but Enfield Lock to Moorgate is £2.50. Both are zones 6 to 1, so they need to cost the same.
Such is the anomaly that it's cheaper to go from stations like Cheshunt in zone 8 and even Chesham in zone 9!

Same anomaly when comparing TFL fares and NR fares to somewhere like Croydon, West Croydon is much cheaper than East Croydon to get to despite being barely 10 minutes walk away from each other and both in zone 5!

And you say the fares won't change but they must've for Abbey Wood, as it's cheaper to tap out there than it is at Plumstead now, which is really weird.

 

[Pete_uk]

Assuming this were to go ahead, it'd be a bit awkward seeing TfL running trains all the way to Stevenage. Then again, the Lizzie goes as far as Reading.

Didn't Network Southeast go to Worcester
?

 

[Surreytraveller]

Didn't Network Southeast go to Worcester
?

Network SouthEast wasn't paid for by a local authority

 

[Dima]

The Weaver line shares track with GA from Liverpool Street all the way to Bury Street Junction/Cheshunt.

My bad, I relied on https://cartometro.com/cartes/metro-london/ to find the shared running, which paints this line as Overground only. The tube and rail map shows this line as Greater “limited service”. The next Greater Anglia train through Seven Sisters is show to be after midnight, so it looks like there’s very little, if any actual sharing of tracks at the same time. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Thameslink runs significantly further out than the NCL, on both sides. It also runs services less akin to TfL's type of services. Stevenage would not be the furthest station TfL serves. The GN Electrics service runs far out, but not as far as Thameslink does, and it runs a service more similar to TfL's others (tunnelled within central London, many interchanges, then runs along as an all stops commuter service until a terminus a bit out of London). Even so, this shouldn't be about trying to fit services into arbitrary 'feels like TfL' boxes, but what TfL can take and improve. There's no use in trying to say 'this service doesn't feel like something TfL should do so they shouldn't have it' when TfL have come and said they want to improve the service, and it's something they are known to be able to handle. This isn't an intercity service.

I don’t think they have an ambition to run all the Thameslink services - only the ones that mostly stay within London, like St Albans - Sutton. I would object to it because it would introduce unnecessary shared running, and make the network less flexible.

I use the stopping services on this line very often, and if there are any disruptions on this particular route Thameslink makes fast services stop on the intermediate stations - which is something that I see can easily go away if the stopping services and station management is handed to the TfL - together with the toilets on the trains…

If something needs to be improved, it doesn’t mean that it’s TfL that must do it. There are plenty of rail improvement projects done in London and elsewhere with no TfL involvement whatsoever.

And BTW, what are the stations that TfL serves that are further than Stevenage?

TfL may not have been willing to invest in building that bridge and extras for the Croxley link (the local authority wasn't either, mind you - that's why it got cancelled) but to say it like this is a regular thing is unusual. TfL have invested in many projects outside of London.

What are those projects?

I think the funding for the Bakerloo line extension wouldn't be the same as the funding for this, and either way, that funding is on a much larger scale than this. Even if it was the same big money pot, this would be a drop in the bucket compared to the BLE.

It’s not only about money - it’s about whether the TfL is best placed to run those services. I am not convinced about this.

 

[Hadders]

So why are there essentially two fare systems on London's trains then?

Crews Hill to Moorgate with my railcard is £3.45 off peak but Enfield Lock to Moorgate is £2.50. Both are zones 6 to 1, so they need to cost the same.
Such is the anomaly that it's cheaper to go from stations like Cheshunt in zone 8 and even Chesham in zone 9!

Same anomaly when comparing TFL fares and NR fares to somewhere like Croydon, West Croydon is much cheaper than East Croydon to get to despite being barely 10 minutes walk away from each other and both in zone 5!

And you say the fares won't change but they must've for Abbey Wood, as it's cheaper to tap out there than it is at Plumstead now, which is really weird.

The railway requires a massive amount of money from the Government (called subsidy) to cover its costs.

The Government has no money and has stated that it wants to reduce the amount it pays to operate the railway.

I'd love fares to go down but if they do how is that money going to be made up? If the fares did reduce in price would there be a reduction to stations in Hertfordshire or would it only apply to stations in Greater London? If the fares to Stevenage were reduced then would the fare via the mainline be reduced. If not then there would be lots of overcrowding on the Hertford loop services, defeating the object of running more services. If the fares via the mainline were reduced then that introduces a whole load of fares anomalies. FOr example would the fare from Stevenage to London be cheaper than the fare from Knebworth or Welwyn Garden City?

 

[Watershed]

The railway requires a massive amount of money from the Government (called subsidy) to cover its costs.

The Government has no money and has stated that it wants to reduce the amount it pays to operate the railway.

I'd love fares to go down but if they do how is that money going to be made up?

I think the notion would be that increased demand (induced via the 'publicity' of being on the Tube map and being branded as an Overground line) would offset the fare reductions. But yes I agree it's not clear that fare cuts would materialise.

If the fares did reduce in price would there be a reduction to stations in Hertfordshire or would it only apply to stations in Greater London?

For the stations in Greater London I think you could expect to see the TfL-rate PAYG fares applied, but unfortunately also the loss of reasonably priced point-to-point season tickets.

The latter would be a particular loss for stations in Zones 2 and 3 where a London Terminals season ticket often costs only ~60% of the equivalent Travelcard - for example a weekly Hornsey to London Terminals season is £32.30 but a Zones 1-3 Travelcard is £52.50. those who have a typical 5 day peak commute would pay £38, and any additional trips into town would be on top of that.

In Hertfordshire it's less clear. On the GWML, GWR have kept fares setting responsibility for stations outside the Zones. PAYG fares remain cheaper to Paddington than Zone 1 destinations beyond there. Based on the examples of Watford Junction and Shenfield, I would expect the Stevenage fare to remain unchanged.

Fares from Welwyn GC and Watton onwards might get cheaper, or at least become TfL-scale for PAYG. You might see a couple of stations like Potters Bar and Cuffley get added to Zones 7-9.

If the fares to Stevenage were reduced then would the fare via the mainline be reduced. If not then there would be lots of overcrowding on the Hertford loop services, defeating the object of running more services. If the fares via the mainline were reduced then that introduces a whole load of fares anomalies. FOr example would the fare from Stevenage to London be cheaper than the fare from Knebworth or Welwyn Garden City?

I agree - and for that reason it won't realistically speaking be reduced.

 

[Mattplans]

abolish the mayoralty

And who should be responsible for the London Underground and DLR?

This whole prioritising Londoners thing really gets my nose out of joint. London forms a wider partnership with the south-east. I’m sick of this whole parochial nonsense which the political creation the Mayor of London has fostered. Why should someone in Enfield be prioritised over someone in Hertford or Hatfield just because they have the ability to vote for a mayor? It’s yet another mess left by New Labour.

The issue here is that Londoners pay higher taxes. Why should London's taxpayer revenue be spent on services outside of Greater London? This is very difficult to justify. That being said, I'm not entirely sure londoners have always been prioritised - for example Roding Valley is a station outside the GLA boundary in Zone 4. Meanwhile there are plenty of stations actually within the Greater London boundary that pay higher fares than this station in Essex.

 

[Brubulus]

And who should be responsible for the London Underground and DLR?

The issue here is that Londoners pay higher taxes. Why should London's taxpayer revenue be spent on services outside of Greater London? This is very difficult to justify. That being said, I'm not entirely sure londoners have always been prioritised - for example Roding Valley is a station outside the GLA boundary in Zone 4. Meanwhile there are plenty of stations actually within the Greater London boundary that pay higher fares than this station in Essex.

Doesn't Essex pay TfL to have it's stations in lower fare zones than they otherwise would be in?

 

[Roast Veg]

let's not forget that, and there's nothing significant about the NCL that should grant it any sort of special treatment, if not ran by tfl.

Actually there is - high capacity metro-style rolling stock, which departs from predictable platforms. With increased service frequency, it would barely be distinguishable from a metro. That's what makes it uniquely compatible with the TfL map compared to any other inner suburban service in London.

I am willing to wager that there is a huge flow from/via Highbury and Islington towards the City of London that is simply not using the line because of a lack of awareness.