John B wrote:

In this context, Aldwych was completely useless: even if you worked on
the Strand itself, the walk from Holborn was quicker and easier than
messing about with the shuttle. The same would've been true if Aldwych
had had a once-every-15-mins through service like Mill Hill East: 1/4
of morning commuters would have been on the platform in time for the
through train; most of the others would have gone to Holborn rather
than waiting.

Does anyone know why the Aldwych branch was built in such a way as to be
useless? From recollection the southbound branch tunnel is linked to the
northbound mainline tunnel whilst the other two aren't linked at all, ruling
out both through services to Aldwych and using the branch for reversing when
there are problem south of Holborn.

I can just about understand why the station was built in the first place,
but why wasn't any attempt made to make the branch in anyway useful? Not
that a through service would have been handy in the long run, but it could
have been more viable for extensions/creating a street interchange with
Temple and so forth.