Dave Arquati wrote:
MIG wrote:
Dave Arquati wrote:
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.


I think we are both saying that the inevitable poor service made the
station unattractive. The poor service at Alwych follows from it being
on a stub with necessarily either a shuttle or infrequent through
service. A station on an imaginary through line at that location might
well have been popular.

I think we're getting the concepts of through *services* and through
*lines* muddled up here. I was saying that a through *service* to
Aldwych would have never have been able to attract high levels of
demand. A through *line* is an entirely different kettle of fish.


I don't really see why the distinction matters in this regard. If you
can get on at a station near where you are and there is a frequent
service that goes a long way without changing after one stop, the
service is more attractive than if you always have to change after one
stop or if the service is infrequent.

You have explained why the service from Aldwych is inevitably
unattractive, relating to the nature of the branch. The
unattractiveness of the service makes the station unpopular, whatever
the reason.

The proposed changes will go a long way towards making Mill Hill East
unpopular as well, always having to change trains after one stop and
cross over a bridge (unless there is going to be a reversing manoeuvre,
which certainly won't help reliability).

Once people stop using it in the off-peak, there will be an excuse to
cut it to peak only. Once it's peak only, people will drive to
Finchley Central so that they can get home if they happen to stay late
after work, and then MHE will close. It's a familiar pattern.