In message , at 17:00:20 on Mon, 14 Dec
2015, Basil Jet remarked:
But I think the 12 southern branches on Thameslink is a mistake, and
will cause so many people to wait around on the Zone 1 southbound
platforms for up to half an hour for their train home that the
stations will be regularly closed for crowding. This will be resolved
about 6 months after the project opens by ditching about half of the
southern branches and running the other ones quarter-hourly.

When you say "ditching", do you mean no trains at all to somewhere like
Tattenham Corner?

I would not be surprised if TfL makes a land grab for the Thameslink
core and it becomes Crossrail 0, with very little penetration outside
the M25 apart from airports,

Where would you turn the trains instead? Bedford ones would be
particularly challenging, closely followed by GN.

so Tattenham would be in but Brighton would be out. My sister lives in
Brighton and works near Kings Cross and changes at Victoria every
morning because she says the Thameslink route is slower, so I'm not
sure how much Brighton would care about losing Thameslink services.

I tend to agree that commuters probably want to head for places more on
their side of London than the other. But what of the commuters south of
Croydon working in the City. Is there enough extra capacity to turn all
those trains at Blackfriars, and won't many passengers be heading for
Farringdon area? I used to travel quite frequently between Cambridge and
City Thameslink in the peaks.

Actually crowding will only be a problem in the peak, so maybe all
twelve branches would still have off-peak service. But the desire to
keep the branches down on the Crossrails, even turning half the trains
at Paddington or Wimbledon just so that they won't have too many
branches, is in marked contrast to the Thameslink Programme where every
train heads in a different direction until it hits buffers or the sea.

That's a slight exaggeration; Horsham and Peterborough are neither, nor
is the Sutton Loop. A few others too.

Does no-one else think that's odd?

--
Roland Perry