On Mon, 24 Sep 2007, Mr Thant wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:

Evidently. Enough to put something like 8 tph through in the peaks, though,
from what Paul Terry says (depending on how long the morning peak is!).

Those are via the Canonbury Curve to Broad St, not the GN&CR, although
I've no idea how good the Canonbury Curve's connection to the GN was at
the time.

The Canonbury Curve is between the GN&CR and the NLL. To get from Finsbury
Park to Broad Street via it, you have to first get onto the GN&CR, then
take the Curve to the NLL, and then turn south at Dalston Junction.

You're only on the GN&CR for about two hundred metres, and you're never on
the tube section, but you do still have to make the GN mainline - GN&CR
movement.

All of which does make it a bit surprising that there were 300 people on
board at the time of the Moorgate disaster. I wonder where they'd come
from. Were other lines out that day? Did lots of people come in off buses?
Are we just completely wrong about this being a bad route?

With the interchange at Highbury, it would have been be the best route
from the north end of the Victoria into the City,

Better than a direct train? Walthamstow Central, Tottenham Hale and Seven
Sisters are all on branches of what we now call the West Anglia line,
along which trains run directly to Liverpool Street.

and changing to the Victoria at Finsbury Park a decent route from the
Piccadilly and KX-bound suburbans.

I hadn't thought of the Piccadilly. Picc to Vic to GN&CR is two changes,
but they're both cross-platform, and the Vic is frequent, so this would
indeed be a good route. Even though there were direct trains to Broad
Street from Finsbury Park high level, it might have been more convenient
to take the indirect Vic - GN&CR route. Given that that route's a roughly
straight line, whereas the Broad Street trains go via Dalston, it might
even have been quicker

For people coming in on mainline trains, though, i doubt it. Firstly, as
MIG pointed out, at that point, some GN trains still took the Hotel Curve
at KX and ran into the City along the Widened Lines, so for anyone on
those, no changes were necessary. For those not on those trains, going all
the way to KX and taking the Northern or Metropolitan lines into the City
would have been easier and maybe even quicker than the Vic - GN&CR route.
If they were insistent on changing at FP, then even a Broad Street train
would be a quicker and easier change, being at the same level (possibly
even same-platform, depending on how the platforms were wired).

Changing onto a City-bound tube line at KX would also have been an option
for people coming in on the Picc. It's not as direct, but it's one less
change. I imagine it would have been a competitive route.

tom

--
You may laugh. But me, I feel the chill wind of futurity down my
spine... -- Mr Snips