On Jan 23, 10:15*am, MIG wrote:

On 23 Jan, 01:05, Andy wrote:
[snip]
The Victoria - Dartford services actually run through Clapham High
Street platforms much of the time anyway; most switch to / from the
Chatham Reversible at Voltaire Road Junction, although in the past
many have gone via the low level lines. Since the loss of the Eurostar
services, the trains via Stewarts Lane have been reduced to a few Up
peak services.

I think that's pretty much all there ever was, even when Eurostar was
there. *The only time I ever saw the down Stewarts Lane being used was
during engineering works on the viaduct.

The Up Stewart's Lane low level route (to Vic) was in regular use by
the Vic-Dartford trains until recently - I think this is more or less
no longer the case, I'm not sure though.

The Down Stewart's Lane low level route (i.e. passing on the
easternmost track next to Battersea Power station) was seemingly
timetabled for use by a couple of later evening Dartford trains (19:16
and 19:46 ring a bell), but I recall reading somewhere (gensheet I
suppose) about folk who were trying to 'score' this track (or whatever
the phrase that's used!) who all seemed to think it never actually
happened, something to do with how a rare set of circumstances where
many planets had to align - an arriving train had to come at just the
right point when a Eurostar was leaving or something like that - and
only then would it happen. I was on a train that went that way once a
few years back - 'twas dark and I was reading a book so I almost
missed it, not that I'm really in the game of trying to 'score' such
track or anything like that though! (Though is interesting and mildly
satisfying to traverse a track that one sees and wonders whether it
ever actually gets used... damn, looks like my secret life of being a
not very committed rare track basher is out!)