Pretty sure it's mainly 717 drivers that sign this at the minute (there's a booked daily ECS or two reversing at Highbury Vale Jn to retain route knowledge), though I guess this could work as a short-term solution. I am guessing 717 drivers sign it to be able to reverse in the event of NCL disruption though I can't remember this having ever happened.
An extra platform at Kings Cross is the only proper way to solve the issue for good, and I believe it is entirely possible to add one - while there's no chance of the old P10 coming back, the new platform can go on the other side of the station as I detailed in my previous post:
While it won't solve it for 'good', it's certainly the most robust solution, I will agree - it was my fault for not taking my own look at KGX and deciding whether there is space.
I will agree that the station is a bit confusing with its two 'corridors'. I was very confused once in the lower corridor due to the poor signage.
Have a look at how many trains leave Kings Cross every hour, then add in the four Thameslink trains an hour that go fast line north of Finsbury Park and there's not any more space left.
Occasionally northbound TL trains are terminated at Finsbury Park, though not as part of disruption, rather due to planned engineering works. I have travelled on these before, and I presume they reverse at Bowes Park. As I mentioned, 717 drivers sign Canonbury presumably to handle NCL disruption by terminating at Finsbury, though I don't think this has ever been done (at least not in a good while).
Someone has already suggested this, but this does not really add a new terminus, rather a secondary route for TL when the core is disrupted (or generally for more TL services). I guess you could terminate at New Cross but I do not know if this is possible without extra platforms given both terminating platforms are already used (and you'd need an intermediate station for central London).
Make Thameslink essentially Midland Mainline - Victoria services
Agreed Cambridge to Maidstone East is a non-starter. I think it was suggested at a time when the aim was to get as much through the core as possible. Getting through the core is easy from the slows: changing at Hitchin, Stevenage, or Finsbury Park so I don’t see through trains beteeen Cambridge and Maidstone as important.
I’m always slightly surprised how good a service Welwyn North gets given it’s on the most constrained section.
North of Huntingdon and up to Holme, it’s a 3 track railway with the up slow having been removed around the time the line was electrified. Holme to Fletton Junction is just 2 tracks and frequently cited as a principal reason why a new station at Hampton isn’t straightforward.
It could and I bet it would be as well.
I mean if you want to leave Zone 4 & 5 stations with no higher than a 2tph all-day service, go ahead, but this is literally not enough capacity at peak and will not go down well with commuters.
Maybe for inner-suburban services, but with the really long-distance services isn’t the sheer scale of the service, and the delays imported thereby, the main issue? Peterborough is one hundred miles north of London, in the Midlands- trains terminating there should run into King’s Cross and terminate there.
It is clear that not everything needs to or can be 'sent through'. Peterborough to Horsham is an excellent example, and there are other TL routes out of the ECML's scope with similar concerns.
That’ll teach me to put it into Google Maps! Still, 75 miles is a pretty long commuter service!
This is the thing. If we consider a terminating service and a 'through' service via the core, a properly timetabled cross-platform interchange does not pose any real downgrade in service versus actually running the terminating service through.
It is, thameslink really shouldn’t be thought of as a commuter service, but an inter regional service like trans Pennine express. The Thameslink core is essentially the castlefield corridor of London
I personally see PBO as mainly served by LNER, with the TL service being mostly for Hitchin-Peterborough. PBO is just a convenient place to terminate.
Here is what York Way actually looks like:
www.flickr.com
Huntingdon and Cambridge are a very similar distance from London, and both are only a bit further than Bedford or Brighton. The Thameslink Peterborough service performs 2 functions, as a commuter railway out to Huntingdon, and as an important local service between Hitchin and Peterborough. However the carriage sidings and traincrew depot are both at Peterborough, and there is a big Huntingdon-Peterborough flow that is too big to transfer to longer distance trains.
The Hertford Loop running on a very reduced timetable is what happened after the Hatfield derailment.
How long was that, I can't remember exactly?
King’s Lynn is even further and while it doesn’t go through the core, is not really intercity anymore but more a medium distance regional service.
I have been to York Way many times. Where did I say anything about demolishing the side of the building? My plan would leave the building completely untouched, with the entirety of the new platform built on the outside - I've quickly made a drawing which better explains what I envision:Here is what York Way actually looks like:
Kings Cross again
Another view on York Way in July 1985, with RM1017 now joined by Eastern National Bristol VR 3073 working the Southend service. Pentax K1000/50mm Ilford FP4
So basically you plan to demolish all of the eastern side of a grade 1 listed building, then dig a very big hole to put another track in it?
Note that the portal into the old arrivals taxi road, which is now platform 0, is at a much lower level than York Way and the top of it only just visible behind the wall.
I think we can put this one in the proposals that do not work pile.
About a month all day then another month at evenings and weekends.
It is still in the pile of solutions that don't work. It still requires a very long and deep hole in York Way, which is almost certainly full of electricity and communications cables, gas, water and sewage pipes. Somewhere down there, not far below the surface, is the old tunnel that linked the Great Northern lines with the Widened Lines. The remainder of the road would be very narrow and you have no proposals for what to do about the buses, or access to the side roads on the east side of York Way. And I'm not convinced that it can be done without risking the structural integrity of the listed building.
So what can be done then, in your opinion?
I know it would be bold but I do think they should consider closing Welwyn north.
compared to other London terminals are there really capacity restrictions at King’s Cross?