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.

That's the basic plan for Thameslink 2000.

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.

It depends on whether your referring to regional journeys (e.g. those
from, say, Peterborough/Cambridge/etc.) or 'InterCity' type journeys.

Cross-London regional journeys are difficult to make at present, so
Crossrail, TL2K and more effective use of the Willesden Junc-Clapham
route will help that - although the latter route probably suffers
because it avoids central London.

For InterCity-type journeys, then people may have the alternative of
using Virgin's Cross Country network of trains, instead of needing to
travel via London.



--
Dave