Sir Benjamin Nunn wrote:
wrote in message
ups.com...
wrote:
Why does the north east corner suffer from a lack of customers yet the
NW,
SW and SE do fine for numbers? Any ideas? Could it mean the lack of
passenger numbers further closes in the North East corner?
Both central and district lines are still reasonably well used until at
least zone 4. And south east London is barely served at all. So I'm not
exactly clear on what you could mean.
I think the OP might be driving at the fact that North East London (and West
Essex) has other lines that go to Stratford and Liverpool Street, just like
the Central Line, but they do it in less time.
If I was living in that part of the country, I doubt that the Central would
be my standard commuting option, and even if my final destination was a
central station west of Liverpool Street, I'd probably only change onto it
there.
I'd probably need to live right next door to somewhere like Roding Valley
for it to be worth using - and maybe that's why it's the lightest-used
station, because only those in the immediate vicinity find it worthwhile.
As a route into London, it's not *that* useful. If the stations in the area
were better connected to a bigger variety of destinations (e.g.
Chelsea-Hackney line taking the southern part of the loop, and Victoria line
Whipps Cross-Woodford extenstion taking the northern part) then traffic
would likely increase.
You may have been fooled by the shape of the Underground map into
thinking that the Central Line goes very far east. It is basically a
bit east of north (about as east as the Edgware branch is west), but
the map has to fill in that top right corner. It goes in a different
direction from trains into Liverpool Street until it joins up at
Stratford. Are you suggesting driving from Woodford to Ilford or
something?
The line from Chingford to Liverpool Street is nearer, but it's not
very fast and by the time you'd driven or bussed to, say, Wood Street,
you'd probably have reached Liverpool Street on the Central Line.
If you get on at South Woodford in the morning rush, it is already
standing room only.