MIG wrote:
Dave Arquati wrote:
MIG wrote:
John B wrote:
Kev wrote:
This does sound like the thin end of the wedge. Ask people who used to
use the Watford Junc to Broad St (Liverpool St) and Watford to Croxley
service what they think of this.

OK, so in the first case a poor frequency service has been replaced
partly with the current NLL clockface 4tph timetable (set for further
improvements under TfL Rail) and will be replaced further with the ELLX
between Dalston and Shoreditch. In the second case, the link is set to
be rebuilt with more useful connections.

During London's decades of stagnation and decline, many useful rail
links were short-sightedly destroyed. The ideological antipathy of a
progression of governments and transport ministers towards public
transport didn't help matters.

However, it's now clear that the default mode for public transport in
London is one of expansion not contraction. Since Mill Hill East isn't
an Aldwych or an Ongar but somewhere with decent loadings, it would
therefore be hard to see why anyone would choose to close it...

But once it loses the through service it will have poor loadings.
Aldwych is right in the centre of London, but that didn't save it. I
don't suppose for a moment it would have closed if it had a through
service (or why not close Temple, St Pauls or Chancery Lane?).
Not sure of the logic here - St Paul's and Chancery Lane are extremely
busy during the week.


I was mentioning non-interchange stations that have a through service,
in the same general area as Aldwych, which didn't, and wasn't as busy.
I'm suggesting that the lack of through service reduced demand for
Aldwych rather than its location.

As other posters have suggested, Aldwych was probably doomed from its
birth. If Aldwych were reopened today with through services to
Cockfosters (which in itself is physically difficult), I think demand
would still be poor for two reasons:
1. The frequency with which Aldwych could be served would be limited by
capacity considerations on the rest of the line (it's not as though you
can just slot extra trains in the timetable between Holborn and Arnos
Grove, and the existing trains are busy with people heading to and from
places like Piccadilly Circus). In turn, sending trains to Aldwych would
pose reliability problems.
2. Even if served by a relatively high frequency, it's just too near
other Piccadilly stations to be particularly useful - even Holborn is
only a few minutes' walk away, and Covent Garden is much more useful for
the key theatre-going market.

The first of these applies equally to Mill Hill East, particularly from
a reliability point of view. The second does not.

Roding Valley, Chigwell and Grange Hill are still open, despite having
much poorer demand (only about enough to support a bus service, let
alone rail).


At least partly because they are a pain to get to by train, either a
long way round (and infrequently) via Hainault or changing at Woodford.
If some expensive repairs cropped up which no one was keen to fund, I
suspect that the line would be under threat.

Demand at those stations is surely limited by local geography rather
than frequency - there are so few people living in their catchment areas
(at least on foot). Even if a high-frequency through service were
provided, it would probably be carting around air. The only way
significant demand increases might occur would be through park-and-ride,
and even then there are other equally suitable stations either south of
Hainault or on the main Epping route.

This would also seem to be a major consideration at Mill Hill East - low
population density around the station severely limits demand, and even
park-and-ride (or bus feeder) demand would probably be limited to
passengers from quite nearby because of the poor road connectivity of
the area.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7
www.alwaystouchout.com - Transport projects in London