Earl Purple wrote:
Dave Arquati wrote:
TfL have announced their branding plans for the North London Railway
concession:

http://www.tfl.gov.uk/tfl/press-cent...t.asp?prID=886
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/5316358.stm

Good news: More frequent service.
Good news: Will allow pre-pay Oyster.

Potentially good news: Improvement of station facilities?
Potentially good news: Metros?

Bad news: Replacing the trains with carriages where the seats face
longitudal (all sideways). (Some of us actually prefer the transverse
seating, i.e. front-backward facing).

The reason for longitudinal seating is to provide more space for
standing passengers.

Bad news: No plans for a Northern Line interchange around Hampstead.
(It badly needs one).

An interchange between the NLL and Northern line at Hampstead would be
so incredibly expensive it would be completely unfeasible - both the NLL
and Northern line are in deep tunnel at quite differing levels, and the
construction of an interchange station would therefore require extremely
difficult and complex tunnelling. The demand (which would chiefly be to
and from just six stations north of Hampstead) is very unlikely to
justify such costs.

The best hope for a Northern line interchange is Primrose Hill; if/when
Queen's Park to Stratford services start running, then they will pass
through disused platforms about 200m from Chalk Farm station. This would
still provide for flows to/from stations east of Camden, and would
cost a fraction of the price (especially if the old station structures,
which seem to be in situ, can be revived).

Other more-possible-than-Hampstead possibilities are Tufnell Park, and
even Camden Town to Camden Road (an additional exit from the northern
ends of the platforms at Camden Town to a second ticket office closer to
Camden Road was floated as a potential congestion-relief measure).

Potentially bad news: Cycles on the trains? Will we still be allowed to
take our bikes onto that line?

Next I'd like to see more frequent trains on Capital-Connect and to
allow pre-pay Oyster on that line, but no change in the trains
themselves please.

Prepay will come within a few years but TfL are unlikely to gain control
so frequency is probably all down to Network Rail (who would need to
provide infrastructure for it).

I'm pretty sure cycles will still be permitted outside the peak hours,
as is standard practice on all above-ground and subsurface sections of
the Underground.


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