On Sat, 4 Apr 2015 11:11:06 +0100, "Tim Roll-Pickering"
wrote:

Recliner wrote:

Regarding the seemingly hard to financially justify (and increasingly
expensive) Croxley Link, one is again minded to think of the more
adventurous possibilities of (Chiltern) services from Aylesbury to
Watford Jn via the new route.

Yes, that's certainly been suggested. A more likely possibility, but very
hard for TfL to justify financially, would be a 2tph Amersham to Watford
Junction shuttle. That would replace the services diverted to Chesham, and
let Amersham pax transfer to Chesham services to London, as well as going
to Watford.

It's probably a few years too late now but one possibility might have been
to convert the old Chesham shuttle into a Chesham to Watford route and keep
Amersham's 4tph. This could have solved the problems of the S stock being to
long for the Chalfont & Latimer bay, the lack of interchange between the
Watford branch and Chiltern north of Harrow, the journey length without
semi-fasts and the difficulties of serving both Amersham and Chesham.

Of course this would probably fail on stock availability and it may have
been hard to find the pax from Rickmansworth wanting to go to Croxley and
Cassiobridge, but it might have solved some other problems. Now it would
doubtessly bring howls from Chesham at the loss of through services to
London.

Yes, I think that would have been a very good plan, and might be a
better idea even now than an Amersham (or Aylesbury) to Watford
Junction shuttle. I don't think the Chesham commuters would lose much,
and some may even value a direct link to Watford, as would some
Amersham residents.


But as both Amersham and Watford are well outside London, it's hard to see
why TfL and the London mayor would want to subsidise such services. Would
Bucks and Herts councils want to jointly subsidise such a service?
Somehow,
I can't see it.

By that reasoning one could just stop the tube at border stations - so the
Met terminating at Moor Park or even Northwood and the Central at
Loughton/Buckhurst Hill. Howls of pain from pax beyond but they would have
no say in the Mayor's ballot box.

It's one reason why the Ongar line died, when Essex refused to stump
up more subsidy. I don't know if Herts and Bucks councils make any
contribution to TfL, or if the services into those counties are
financially self-supporting. Or does central government chip in on
behalf of the home counties?