"Recliner" wrote:
"Jamie Thompson" wrote in message

Shame they're missing the opportunity to add the sorely-missing
flyover/under to link the DC lines with the St. Albans Abbey branch.
Handing that line over to LO would do wonders for the service, which
would then get more people actually using it.

But it's well outside London.


It's typical uk.railway: if a service is sparsely used, costing the
taxpayer a lot of money per passenger-journey or passenger-km (take your
pick!) the trainspotters' answer is always the same:

"Let's throw good money after bad, build a hugely expensive
flyover/flyunder, lease some more very expensive rolling stock and pay
even more in track access charges and staff costs!"

All this for a very small number of passengers. The result? A marginal
increase in ridership (at best) and a further huge increase in the
already very high subsidy. As usual, a complete and utter waste of
taxpayers' money.

The reason the line is very little used is that the vast majority of
demand for rail services from St Albans is to/from London. That demand
is already being satisfied by Thameslink, and Thameslink capacity is
getting a huge boost for the future because that is where people
actually want to travel.

The St Albans Abbey to Watford Junction branch could more usefully be
replaced by a bus service which would better serve intermediate
communities between St Albans and Watford Town Centre and also serve
Watford town centre rather than Watford Junction, which is very poorly
situated relative to the centre of Watford. Yes, you can change trains
to the DC lines at Watford Junction and go to Watford High Street
instead, but that makes for a significant increase in average journey
time.