wrote in message
...
On Nov 20, 11:40 am, "Paul Scott"
wrote:
"Neil Williams" wrote in message

...

On Tue, 20 Nov 2007 04:09:05 +0000, Ernst S Blofeld
wrote:

"Ken Livingstone, the Mayor of London, is preparing to submit a bid
next
year to take over most of Southern, one of the biggest train
franchises,
from 2009. He is also drawing up plans to take control of all commuter
trains that terminate in the capital, including those that start their
journeys well beyond Greater London."

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle2903879.ece

There is a precedent on a far smaller scale of Merseyrail, which
operates outside the boundaries of the PTE...

"He is also drawing up plans to take control of all commuter trains that
terminate in the capital, including those that start their journeys well
beyond Greater London."

How far is well beyond Greater London? Looking at the SWML, might it be
Portsmouth, Southampton or Bournemouth? On the WCML might it be Coventry
or
Birmingham? Or are these not actually 'commuter trains' after all,
despite
being full of pax going to London every day...


I suspect that's iffy journalism. In the past he's expressed an
interest in taking over the inner suburban services that terminate a
few stops outside the boundary (Sevenoaks, Cheshunt, Shenfield, Slough
etc). This, I suspect, is what the zone 7-9 thing is all about.

But I can't see him going for regional or intercity trains. I think
basically he just wants to turn the inner suburban services into an S-
Bahn network, which strikes me as a rather good idea.


That was my understanding of the DfT announcement on the subject somw while
ago.

Other iffy journalism:

"For the first time on the national rail network, passengers are able to use
Oyster electronic payment cards." - only if you ignore the previous list of
NR/TfL 'parallel routes' completely, eg Chiltern/Met etc

"Some fares have been halved." - makes a good quote, but really only valid
if you assume that pax usually buy standard NR singles in both directions,
rather than standard day returns, cheap day returns, railcard discounts etc
etc... Using the fares to and from Watford Junction discussed the other
day, typical Oyster savings might be about 10p on a CDR, 70p on a day
return.

There is a certain naiivity too - assumptions that TfL will be able to
increase the frequency of services on current commuter routes simply by a
change of ownership?

Paul