East Coast Main Line RUS published
Network Rail have published their East Coast Main Line Route Utilisation Strategy. The recommended work affecting London includes:
- Six-car trains will be used on all shoulder-peak First Capital Connect inner-suburban services as soon as trains are available from London Overground (four are needed).
- Off-peak inner-suburban services will be increased from 3tph to 4tph on each branch, including weekday evenings and Saturdays.
- Extension of hours on the Moorgate branch is unlikely.
- The Up Goods line (the easternmost track) from Alexandra Palace to Finsbury Park will be converted into a third southbound passenger usage. The four stations it passes will get extra platforms on the line, and may also get them on the equivalent northbound line, the Down Slow 2 (the westernmost track). This will improve flexibility and capacity.
- Extra trains will run from the Hertford Loop to Moorgate in the morning peak.
- Outer suburban platforms will be extended to 12-car length progressively, in advance of when they're needed by the Thameslink Porgramme.
- Finsbury Park and Harringay are candidates for the National Station Improvement Programme, which seeks to improve station ambience.
- Finsbury Park and Highbury & Islington will be getting lifts to the National Rail platforms (and the tube platforms).
- A speculative section at the end mentions the [somewhat unlikely] possibility of inner-suburban trains going to Thameslink, with outer suburban trains being Intercity Express Programme trains to King's Cross
- Also speculatively, insufficient capacity at Moorgate could in the long term lead to some inner-suburban trains using the Canonbury tunnel to the North London Line.
As an aside, both this document and the West Hampstead Interchange info mention that, come 2015, the split of Thameslink services between the Midland Main Line and the East Coast Main Line will be 16 vs 8 each hour, rather than the 14 vs 10 that appeared in previous documents. There'll still be two trains per hour into King's Cross (possibly peak-only), rising to six per hour in the longer term.
4 comments:
Cannot parse first bullet point...?
I think he means that once FCC get some trains from LO they can convert more three-car inner-suburban services into six-car services. As for the outer-suburban services it is interesting to see that they could either be (mostly) diverted to the core Thameslink route or become part of the IEP (and therefore the inner-suburban services would be diverted to the core Thameslink route instead), although as far as I am aware the former scenario is currently the default option. I have also noted the proposed early implementation of certain KO2 Thameslink Programme works (e.g. platform lengthening).
And as for the outer-suburban peak hour paths the RUS states that there are currently 10 to/from London. Even after the TP (24tph TL (STP <-> BFR) = 16tph MML + 8tph ECML) that won't change immediately - the extra 4 peak hour paths may not be introduced until 2036.
abigail: sorry about that, fixed
edvid: Thanks for pointing all that out. I've tweaked the wording and added a couple of extra bits.
I wonder how the 8tph into Thameslink will be split?
Seems like the 10tph peak is currently:
4tph Peterborough
2tph Royston
2tph Cambridge
2tph fast Cambridge (1 onto Kings Lynn)
Perhaps the first 3 will feed into Thameslink (4tph from each branch) with the fast Cambridge staying at KX?
In the long term, if the extra 4tph is split evenly perhaps all Royston branch trains (8tph) would feed Thameslink, with the 6tph from Peterborough working out of KX (uniting all ECML 'proper' services at one terminal)?
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