On Nov 5, 9:56*am, Neil Williams wrote:
On Nov 5, 10:48*am, wrote:

Why not spend some money to allow the branch service to run through to
Euston.

Shame on you for coming up with a sensible suggestion. You'd never get a
job in a council!

Here's a thought - would an hourly service through to/from Euston be
more useful than a more frequent service on the branch? *Could the
money thus be spent on connecting it to the mainline instead?


The line has a mixture of uses. During the peak there is a high
percentage of commuters who travel onto Euston whilst off-peak there
is currently little demand for through journeys. An hourly service
would not be good for the peak commuters, as there is currently a
42-43 min frequency until 10am.

How much would it cost to bring the connection up to passenger
standards?


As the connection is currently via the headshunt from the line which
runs through the yard to platform 11, it would probably be quite
expensive as a stand alone project. Either the old connection to
platform 10 would need to be reinstated, cutting the car park in two,
or the junction with mainline upgraded. There would also probably have
to be facilities for coupling / uncoupling units as running a four car
train from Watford Junction - Euston in the peak would not be a good
idea.

If the line hadn't have been severed from the main station (the
current platform 10 and the adjacent unused platform) in the 1960s, I
imagine that we would already have a through service and the argument
would just be about the addition of Bricket Wood loop to increase
frequencies. For a time in the 1980s, the peak Euston - Watford
mainline service was timetabled as though it could run through to St.
Albans (arrival/departure of the mainline train and the branch train
were close together) and there was certain a plan for this to happen
on the last occasion that the track layout at Watford Junction was
remodelled.