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Old October 9th 11, 11:15 AM
Robin9 Robin9 is offline
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First recorded activity at LondonBanter: Feb 2011
Location: Leyton, East London
Posts: 902
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Jamie Thompson View Post
On Oct 7, 7:41*pm, Robin9 wrote:
David Cantrell;123554 Wrote:



There will be no Overground services going *through* Clapham
Junction, and no services starting at Clapham Junction, going all the
way round the circle, and ending at Clapham Junction.


Does anyone know why not? I distinctly remember hearing Ken Livingstone
in his day saying that the London Overground would provide London for
the first time ever with a circular service through the suburbs. He
quite obviously saw the London Overground as a kind of Outer Circle
Line.

Currently we have services from New Cross etc terminating at Highbury
And Islington while other services from Stratford go through Highbury
And Islington to Clapham Junction. Why is this arrangement better than a
straightforward Outer Circle system?

--
Robin9


Because it provides terminating points where the service can recover
as well as provide isolation from disruptions on the other half.

Think about what happens on the inner Circle Line when a train breaks
down. Nothing can pass it, so services back up, and until you get to a
point where you can reverse trains, everything grinds to a halt.

In an ideal world, you'd perhaps have two semi-circular services
operating on the Circle instead: Something like Kings Cross to South
Kensington via Liverpool St., and Kings Cross to South Kensington via
Notting Hill Gate. Problem is that some will want to get from one half
to the other without changing. Notting Hill to Liverpool St is easy -
use the Central Line, but something like Paddington to Aldgate is a
bit more problematic. Have another pair of overlapping services
perhaps, maybe between Tower Hill & Paddington...but space for the
terminating platforms needed is hard to find, so the ideal locations
aren't always possible.
You may well be right but that's a very negative line of reasoning. First, how often do they have train break-downs? Second, why not have a contingency plan for that kind split system in the event of a train break-down but in normal circumstances operate a conventional circular service?

Incidentally if splitting the service to provide a safety margin is so advantageous, why not use the idea to incorporate some of the extensions to the London Overground that have been suggested in this forum over the past few months. For example, instead of the current Richmond to Stratford service, why not Richmond to Caledonian Road and Queens Park to Stratford?