Tony Polson wrote:

"Tim Roll-Pickering" wrote:

Would Thameslink have ever come about if it hadn't been for Network South
East bringing the northern and southern sections under one roof?

I think you will find that the impetus for Thameslink came mainly from
the Greater London Council and its then-leader, Ken Livingstone.

Network SouthEast was a willing participant but not the originator of
the Thameslink scheme.

Are you sure you're not confusing Thameslink with the North London
Line, which the GLC championed at times including under Ken's
leadership?

The GLC was I think fairly pivotal in ramping up the service on the
NLL, especially when it shifted to being an 'all orbital' route when
Broad Street closed and it was diverted to run Richmond - Dalston -
Stratford - North Woolwich, and this included getting a number of
stations rebuilt - many more or less from scratch, i.e. Hacknet
Central.

When the NLL was diverted out of Broad Street it officially assumed
the "North London *Link*" name - and there was an interim "Cross-Town
Link Line" service from Camden Road at least as far as Stratford, if
not North Woolwich, which was a precursor to this - it operated with
DMUs and didn't stop at all the new stations from Dalston to Stratford
as they weren't open yet. But it seems that everyone just carried on
calling it the North London *Line*!

I'm quite certain the GLC would have been all in support of Thameslink
- but I never thought they were instrumental in providing the
"impetus" for it - it seems to me to have been a project of the new
and thrusting entity known as Network SouthEast.

Can anyone else help out with the history here?