On Thu, 8 Feb 2018 06:46:06 +0000, Roland Perry
wrote:

In message , at 23:55:32 on
Wed, 7 Feb 2018, Charles Ellson remarked:

The railway press seems to have missed this completely.

https://www.barnet.gov.uk/citizen-ho...et/brent-cross
-cricklewood/brent-cross-thameslink.html

Four platforms - when was the last time a new station opened with four
platforms?

I wonder how often trains will stop at the fast up/down platforms?

As often as they stop at West Hampstead on the fast lines ?

Why West Hampstead and not Cricklewood?

West Hampstead is an interchange with LU and the NLL. Cricklewood like
Hendon only interchanges with a couple of bus routes and neither seem
as busy; the planned station, while not exactly next door to it, has a
bus station served by multiple local buses at Brent Cross shopping
centre and some long distance buses nearby.

Up to 6 per hour outside the peaks and maybe more when things go wrong.
Putting only two platforms in at a new station in this area could leave
it in danger of effective isolation when the slow lines are
unavailable.

I'm not suggesting they put in only two platforms, rather that two of
them will see very little usage, and it's therefore much more of a "two
platform" station.

That isn't much different from other stations on the same line (and
Harrow, Wembley and Watford on the WCML) but it enables the station to
function more or less normally if one set of lines is closed at the
weekend or evenings and greatly reduces the disruption if one line is
blocked. Various 4-track stations near London on other lines lose out
greatly on flexibility when they only have platforms on 2 lines, there
being a lot less practical difference between slow and fast services
(and no slow speed freight) compared with a century ago.

Even if it had as many Thameslink trains stopping on the fast platforms
as Luton Airport Parkway, that's only six a day up and ten down.