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.

If any of this sounds familiar, it's because most of it appeared in the draft document, published last June.

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.