First up, many thanks to Robin and Mark for their comprehensive answers.

Now, turning back to my grandiose plans / poorly camouflaged irritation
about living in northeast London ...

On Sat, 10 Jan 2004, Robin Payne wrote:

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
...

Does that mean we could turn the West Anglia into a Retropolitan (tm)
line which connected northeast London with the northern half of the
circle? Or take the the met out to Chingford?

If these sorts of things were made to happen, we would end up with a
service on the norther half of the circle a bit like the suburban
services in South london. They would go to a lot of places, but the
concept of a London Underground style "line", with very frequent trains
all going on a fixed route would be lost.

How so? I'm suggesting extending one end of the Met a bit (well, a lot)
further on, that's all. Even if the whole suburban part of the West Anglia
line was assimilated, the Met already splits into two major branches at
Harrow-on-the-Hill, so having a split at the other end, at Hackney Downs,
is only making it more symmetric. Still nowhere near as bad as the
District line. Alternatively, taking West Anglia trains beyond Liverpool
Street (say as far as Baker Street, for symmetry's sake) wouldn't make
that any less of a line.

As for the feel of the services at those stations, they already have three
lines to four or more termini, so one or two more won't hurt, surely?
Especially if it was an extended Metropolitan.

Anyway, train incompatibilties being as they are, we'll have to wait for
stock with on-board fusion reactors for all this anyway.

PS Sorry this has no relevance to oyster

/joke

it's to do with transport in London, therefore it's on topic here.



tom

--
eviscerated by obfuscation