"Adrian" wrote

It is my view that passenger and freight traffic do much better when
they are segregated. If I recall correctly, north of Bedford the
Midland main line was a passenger pair and a freight pair.
Furthermore I seem to remember British Rail reduced the freight pair
to a single track.

In the unlikely event that my freight arc is ever built I would
suggest that the Midland freight pair would be the natural route for
development as a freight mainline to the English East Midlands and
North. There would need to be some conflict free junctions in the
Bedford area.

How one would feed Tilbury and Channel Tunnel freight trains into this
network I don't know. I do believe that said trains have the
potential to keep limiting the availability of the North London Line
for passenger movement.

Tilbury, and any Channel Tunnel Freight allowed to use the CTRL to the
connections at Rainham, could use the Barking - Gospel Oak line (now thought
of as part of the NLL, but much less intensively used than the Stratford -
Camden Road section. It can then join the MML via the spur from Junction
Road Junction.

Peter