On Apr 4, 9:57 am, D DB 90001 wrote:
On Wednesday, 4 April 2012 09:22:05 UTC+1, Bruce wrote:
Charles Ellson wrote:
Their service is the odd one out through West Hampstead. It is maybe a
candidate for limited/non-stopping in peaks but otherwise providing a
connection which ISTR has been done elsewhere to prevent overloading
when near-parallel services are available.

There's a flaw in your logic. Services are only overloaded in the
peaks and, as you appear to agree, it would not be a good idea to foul
up the Chiltern service with additional stops in the peaks, or at all.
We're back to trainspotters' "lines on a map syndrome" again. Just
because lines converge, or run parallel doesn't mean that you have to
build an interchange.

Chiltern Railways is NOT a London suburban train operating company.
Providing an opportunity for Marylebone - West Hampstead journeys on
Chiltern services is a very bad idea, one that deserves to be kicked
into touch without any thought of it coming back into play.

I think you're missing the point of the platforms. The primary purpose would be to enable passengers from all the other Chiltern line stations aside from Marylebone to change onto other routes at West Hampstead. This creates all sorts of opportunities as a result of the orbital Overground railway. There may be some interchange in the opposite direction, but not many people at West Hampstead are going to want to travel to Marylebone - it's a small London terminus with only 1 tube connection, and not very conveniently located for the centre of London.

You "get it". Polson does not. He lives in the age of the BMC Mini,
Renting a (big plastic, tethered to the wall) telephone from the Post
Office, and comrade Barbara, dismantling the railways.

Chiltern Run a very good secondary service to Birmingham. But
arguably Chiltern is also a suburban railway. Amersham, Aylesbury,
Gerards Cross, et al, are for the most part London dormitories.

Whilst I accept that Chiltern Railways is not primarily a London Suburban train operating company, it does operate commuter services which may benefit from an addition interchange opportunity at West Hampstead. Define "London Suburban TOC". No TOCs operate just within London, with the exception of LO, if that is still considered a TOC rather than part of TfL. Chiltern Railways have some quite long routes, but it's hardly particularly long distance.

Chiltern fail to integrate well with London's railways on several
counts. Just converting the Central Line at West Ruislip's to side
platforms would enable many northwest bound passengers a simple cross
platform change.

By all means encourage interchange between the routes that *do* have
platforms at West Hampstead, but don't ruin a good service on Chiltern
by inserting unnecessary stops.

But you're not going to reduce any journey times by building some fancy tunnel/bridge solution between the different stations - the walking time won't be any different. OK maybe you'll save a few seconds of barrier time, but that's about it. Does West Hampstead (Thameslink) even have barriers?

Chiltern's services have improved, but they're still not that high-speed relative to VT, I don't see any major problem with an additional stop. If Liverpool Street services can all stop at Stratford, then why shouldn't Chiltern services call at West Hampstead, providing useful connections to many other lines.

Assuming the tracks could be realigned, there are many potential benefits of new platforms at West Hampstead. If you want a fast journey to Birmingham, use VT, or wait for HS2 ;-)

But anyway, we're wasting time, Chiltern have decided not to pursue it, for whatever reason, so it's probably not going to happen.

You are so right. In truth squeezing Chiltern platforms into West
Hampstead would not be easy, or inexpensive. That aside, there are
still plenty of interchange opportunities at West Hampstead.