London Banter - View Single Post - The beginnings of Thameslink (was: ECML demise)

Stephen Furley · July 3rd 09, 07:23 PM posted to uk.railway,uk.transport.london

On 3/7/09 18:58, in article ,
"Tony Polson" wrote:

I think you're putting the cart before the horse. The GLC under
Livingstone campaigned strongly for what later became Thameslink. It
was a key part of the GLC's transport strategy, including other
initiatives such as "Fares Fair" and "Just the Ticket", the bus/tube/
mainline Capitalcard, which later took on the name of the formerly
bus/tube only Travelcard and is still with us today.

Thameslink opened in 1988 as part of Network SouthEast. However,
Thameslink would have happened even if the Network SouthEast sector had
not been created, because the idea - and the GLC's support for it -
already existed before Network SouthEast came of age.

There is no doubt that Network SouthEast made the creation of Thameslink
much easier, because the GLC no longer had to negotiate with both the
London Midland and Southern Regions of BR. The formation of Network
SouthEast meant that the GLC only had one organisation to deal with.

Thankfully, Network SouthEast's senior managers, notably Chris Green,
gave the GLC's idea very strong support - probably because the
Thameslink project was symbolic as the only key link between the
otherwise almost completely separate halves of Network SouthEast, north
and south of the river.

I believe that the original plan for the re-opening of the Snow Hill
(London) tunnel was for Southern Region trains to be extended to a new
interchange Station at West Hampstead; the idea of through running from the
Southern to Bedford came later, but I'm not sure when. The tunnel
re-opening idea had been around for a long time without much happening, but
once the final scheme was approved things happened quickly, and within a few
years trains were running. Why this couldn't have been decades before, I
don't know. It involved building a new fleet of trains, but otherwise the
work involved was relatively minor, certainly when compared to building a
new cross-London tube line, and the disposal of the Holborn Viaduct site
must have been worthwhile. It's a pity that an all-lines, including
Chiltern, interchange at West Hampstead never happened.