"Jonn Elledge" wrote in message
...
I think a lot of the complaints about Crossrail not being used to run
intercity services are missing the point - it's essentially going to be a
new express tubeline, not an addition to the national railway networks.
Considered like that I think it's a great idea - the Shenfield line is one
of the busiest NR lines in London, the Isle of Dogs and City Airport need
(another) fast link to the West End, as does Heathrow. I'm sure that'll be
far more useful to more people than express trains from Norwich to
Bristol.

Okay, non-Londoners may like the idea of being able to get train services
direct to the West End without changing, but so do those who live in the
suburbs; and in terms of the number of journeys made, and the proportion
of
journey time wasted on changing, I suspect that you can save far more time
by building new suburban lines than intercity ones.

Numerically you may be right, but the recent cross-London trains in that
direction showed there was a demand, even though the actual service was slow
and infrequent.

I actually think Thameslink 2000 should be focused on suburban services as
well - perhaps taking high frequency services to Orpington, Dartford and
Hayes and increasing that on the Wimbledon loop. A few regional services
could still be run, but I would have thought that a larger population of
regular commuters could be better served by keeping the service pattern
simple and local.

Once again Thameslink has been quite successful with fast(ish) trains from
Luton to Brighton. If that could be expanded to give one or two trains an
hour from Peterborough to suitable destinations in Kent, Surrey or Sussex I
should have thought that would be useful.

As a Northerner I don't know exactly what proportion of the congestion in
Central London is caused by people having to change stations to complete
their journeys, but I should have thought there would be enough demand to
justify (say) one or two trains an hour on each route, allowing passengers
to avoid the London Termini and relieving congestion on the Tube. That
still allows plenty of capacity for short-distance commuter trains as well.

Roger