Whether or not a link looks pointless to you tends to depend on whether you need it. No link will be pointless to everyone. And I can see this one being quite successful as there has been a distinct movement of jobs towards docklands which it connects to via Shadwell. There is also a fair amount of office space near the entrance to the Rotherhythe tunnel and I know people who commute from West Croyden to there (I also know someone who commutes from Daganham to Croydon!

The NLL, which was thought to be pointless and useless is now overcrowded for most of the day. The DLR, described by one writer as a toy train set when it opened, has been successful and is now expanding.

However I am disappointed that we cannot have some sort of orbital service that connect to all the inter-city services. so that someone from say Watford doesn't need to go through London to get to Bristol or South Wales.

Paula

Paula wrote:

However I am disappointed that we cannot have some sort of orbital
service that connect to all the inter-city services. so that someone
from say Watford doesn't need to go through London to get to Bristol
or South Wales.

The alterations to the Clapham Junction to Willesden Junction West London
Line service, integrating it via through running with the North London Line
to Stratford, plus extending ELL services across South London to Clapham
Junction, will effectively address this. Of course, how many people will
prefer a scenic tour of the suburbs over a similar length of time on the
Underground remains to be demonstrated.

On Fri, 25 May 2007 16:14:33 GMT, Jack Taylor wrote:

However I am disappointed that we cannot have some sort of orbital
service that connect to all the inter-city services. so that someone
from say Watford doesn't need to go through London to get to Bristol
or South Wales.

The alterations to the Clapham Junction to Willesden Junction West London
Line service, integrating it via through running with the North London Line
to Stratford, plus extending ELL services across South London to Clapham
Junction, will effectively address this.

Err, how? These orbital lines don't connect with inter-city services
at all, except at Stratford (and Clapham Junction if you count that).

asdf wrote:

Err, how? These orbital lines don't connect with inter-city services
at all, except at Stratford (and Clapham Junction if you count that).

The proposed orbital service provides single-change connections from it, in
most cases, into radial suburban services that provide onward connections
via InterCity services at the closest point to London at which InterCity
services stop (Reading, Watford Junction, Stevenage etc.). Anyone who thinks
that an orbital service using existing infrastructure will *directly*
connect with long-distance InterCity services must be certifiably insane, if
they think that IC services are going to be stopping at the peripheral zonal
stations for the handful of passengers that would use them. The whole issue
of pick up/set down restrictions would rear its ugly head, apart from
anything else - whilst these work reasonably well at Watford Junction, they
are a complete joke at Stratford, where they are effectively unenforceable
(or ineffectively enforceable).

Agreed, the one glaring exception is always going to be in trying to get
from Watford to the GWML, where the infrastructure is not helpful (Watford
Junction - Clapham Junction, Clapham Junction - Reading is about as good
as it will ever get, without using the underground - assuming that, by the
time that the orbital network is established the Kensington Olympia
cross-country services are a thing of the past, as is threatened). However,
what is proposed as part of the Overground network is going to significantly
simplify many, many cross London journeys.