Transfer of National Rail services to TFL

Interesting. New routings are always worth considering. 25 years ago we were told re-opening the WLL for passenger service couldn't be justified. Not many years before that, we were told the Farringdon route could not be re-opened and even if it were to be, there would be insufficient demand to justify it.

There are just TWO M-F outward trains to Shepperton from Waterloo via RICHMOND. They leave Waterloo at 17:43 and 18;13, just after the one going via the usual (slower and longer way around) Kingston routing has gone. So these are the only two outward trains all day scheduled to use "the Fulwell Chord", and because of that, the Strawberry Hill - Fulwell line is often missing from London rail maps. I took the 17:43 on Tuesday, and as they say in Mumbai, it was "super jam-packed crush load" at the front of the train. I think about 100 "customers" must have disembarked at Hampton alone. There must be other situations in the London area, INCLUDING L.U. surface lines, where more imaginative use could be made of existing infrastructure. Any ideas?

OK, but the principle that I am trying to establish is that of "looking outside the box" for possibly better use of existing resources

Talking of Waterloo, what's the current prognosis for the old Eurostar platforms, coming up for a decade of disuse?

Stagecoach's management unprincipled? You heard it here first!

They have sat on their hands for twenty years and are only now showing any interest in new services - and then only in Somerset - and improvements in capacity now they realise that they might be about to lose the goose that lays the golden eggs.

But on recent showings, they are incapable of running the existing service, let alone running any more. This week alone we have had a day when two out of the three trains scheduled to run between 8 and 8:30 were cancelled, and their favourite pointless game of running a Loop service from Waterloo to Waterloo, omitting all stations on the Loop itself.
Not to mention information screens which display the same train on two different platforms whilst it is standing at a third, and/or herald a train as on time, 40 minutes after it was due.

Maybe so, but the staff on the ground never seen interested in doing anything about getting their little quirks fixed.

Because they don't have the opportunity to intervene.

You should direct your observations to Network Rail who are also responsible for many of the track issues.

as you asked

www.networkrail.co.uk/contact/station-complaint/

In truth, I didn't understand your original comment at all.



Don't hold your breath! By all accounts one Scottish-owned bus operator is much like another!

Among the paperwork from the TfL Board meeting on Tuesday in "Section 3 Emergency Budget assumptions, Capital programme: Surface" one item included among many others is "Rail Devolution (DfT request)"

Go to Page 53 of 70

content.tfl.gov.uk/board-20200602-agenda-and-papers-supplentary.pdf


This suggests that the planned transfer of National Rail "Metro" services to TfL first suggested around 2012 (or thereabouts) then scrapped in 2016 is not only back on but that the DfT are actually pushing it. £0.5bn of the bailout is a loan that has to be repaid, obviously TfL are going to struggle financially in the immediate future but if they took control of "Metro" services this would give them a lot of extra revenue.

Interesting...

As this is a "DfT request" I suspect the government are willing to finance any upgrades in order to offload responsibility for suburban services onto TfL

Recent TfL mentions of metro services have concentrated on Moorgate services as a starter.

In a way that is a unique situation, as part of the route (albeit only a small part) was run by London Underground in the past.

So, are we likely to see Class 717 trains wearing London Overground livery? Or will it be run as a different outfit, in the same way that TfL Rail is not part of the Overground?

What might delight passengers would be the seats changing, erm, providing that means to a more comfortable design - a conversion to transverse seats will not be so welcome.

There might be some scope for separating this off to a dedicated thread, if it’s looking like becoming a new thing going forward.

I cannot are any value in converting the Moorgate service to Overground. It’s already had major investment in the form of new trains, which are of an almost identical model to the class 700s operating on the outer suburban services. Likewise they are maintained alongside other GN units at Hornsey (I can’t recall if they are maintained in the new Siemens facility, or in the more established GTR part of the depot - from memory I think it’s the latter). There’s interworking of crews, and separating this off for a 4tph service on each arm would be rather inefficient, especially with stabling being spread over four separate locations.

With new trains already running at the maximum length the infrastructure will allow, and the infrastructure running at full stretch (the timetable is already pretty good considering how busy the route is), we’re left with station enhancements. Many of the stations are already staffed and gated, some from first train to last train, and none are in a poor state of repair.

Unless one has a preference for orange paint and Johnston typeface, I can see no tangible passenger benefits arising from this route going over.

This was planned pre-Covid 19, the Mayor had discussions about rail devolution with the new Secretary of State for Transport in August 2019 but given TfL's current financial situation the question was whether they would be able to continue with the plans.