In connection with Dudding Hill being used for LO, a physically almost impossible chord from the freight lines at West Hampstead Thameslink to the NLL between West Hampstead and Finchley Road & Frognal. If some land take was possible, it could involve 3-4% gradients to get over the four MML tracks, but with some improvements at Gospel Oak and through the Hampstead Heath area, it would allow GOBlin and some freight services to continue through to OOC without clogging TL & EM paths in Belsize tunnels. That route to OOC/Acton Wells Junction might be better than running freights straight through the busy West Hampstead to Willesden Junction section.
As I posted in another thread recently, you can achieve the same result by constructing a flyover between West Hampstead and Cricklewood taking the Hendon Lines over the MML onto the slow lines. Carlton Road Junction does the rest of the trick.
But that not only increases the level of passenger traffic on the already pretty loaded MML slows, - it also means that freight also occupies that section for longer. Also, by running extra trains down to Carlton Road junction to reach the GOBlin there, those trains will be taking up paths from the TL slows and fasts and down slows through the Belsize tunnels and even blocking down fasts from using the ladder at CR junc., from crossing over to the MML fasts before the tunnel. The freight lines from Silkstream to West Hampstead South junction keep that freight away from all MML passenger trains, so if it was possible to squeeze chords up onto the NLL bridge before the Hampstead tunnel*, there would be virtually no impact on EM or TL traffic once built.
Apart from a handful of freight trains, all the trains on the slow lines at West Hampstead proceed forward along the Moorgate Lines to St. Pancras where they are joined by several Thameslink trains each hour from Peterborough and Cambridge. If there is enough spare capacity for that, there must be some at West Hampstead too. Incidentally if you're worrying about lack of capacity, you should think about overloading the NLL between Finchley Road and Gospel Oak.
., . . and how much is that going to cost and who would pay for it?
put it through the housing estate where the cattle market was!
That wouldn't be a "new chord" - that would be reinstating an old one
Oops! In that case, how about a Dewsbury to Wakefield curve, using a short section of the closed Spen Valley line to link the two routes that split at Ravensthorpe. The amount of buses linking Dewsbury to Wakefield would suggest a fair amount of demand... fitting such a service in amongst the TPE fasts would be another matter though!
