silverlink frequencies before LO

I have an all lines TT from 2005/6 so here goes

GOBLIN - x30 daily but hourly only after 2000 until around 2230 or so.

North London Line - x15 Stratford - Richmond but half start from N Woolwich giving x30 from there M-S peak and daytime, x20 NW - Richmond evening, x30 NW - Richmond Sundays

WLL - x30 CJ - Willesden Junc HL and x60 on the Brighton - Watford Southern service daily plus some M-F peak extras CJ - WJ.

Watford DC - x20 M-S daytimes, x30 M-S evenings and all day Sunday

Of course this was all theoretical given the appalling reliability and overcrowding.

As you can see today's service levels are a bit better.

NLL was 3 tph for years and only increased to 4 tph later.

I used to collect those timetables as a child but sadly threw away a lot of stuff when I needed the space in my rebel teenage years.



On a brighter note, I did find these:







Win some and lose some I guess :/

That report must be referring to a later timetable than I was looking at, possibly May or Dec 2006.

Looking again at the NLL timetable there are some peak short workings from Stratford to Camden Rd but the headways are all over the place - from 6 mins to 15 mins at the height of the peak. Not unlike the latest NLL timetable with its completely erratic peak headways. I remember being at Stratford one Sunday when a NLL train arrived (on the x30 headway) - I have never seen so many people get off a train on a Sunday. I began to wonder if people were going round in a loop and getting on and off again as in those comedy sketches. Completely mad overcrowding.

The GOBLIN had no extra peak workings in the Winter 2005 timetable.

According to Wikipedia, the slammers were replaced by 150s some time in 2000.

Which is?

For a while the North London Line (NLL) benefited from another service. This was the Anglia Cross Town Link Line (I think I recall the name correctly) which ran trains from the Great Eastern Main Line to south west 'somewhere' (South Western Main Line)? via the NLL.

On the NLL these trains called at Stratford, Highbury & Islington and West Hampstead. This would have been a fantastic cross - London service but the timetables and a slow line speed limit (45mph?) killed it.

I sometimes used it, the Class 170 trains had comfortable InterCity seats, buffet counter and toilets.

The reason I am talking about this service is that there was an eastbound train which passed the Highbury & Islington area just at the start of the evening rush hour and often when the Silverlink was disrupted I would travel on this train. I did not aim for this train as a Silverlink train was supposed to come sooner... but after a 15 or so minute wait for a train which had failed to arrive nobody cared about the train operator.

Simon

"Crosstown Linkline" was the name given to the initial service using the eastern NLL.It ran from Camden Road to North Woolwich and was sponsored by the GLC.At first it had few stations East of Canonbury,though more (Dalston Kingsland,Hackney,Homerton,West Ham) were being built when I first used the service about 1980.

There was also a limited Virgin cross county service from North - Reading - Brighton via Olympia. The southern route from North - Watford Junction - Brighton via Olympia only used to call at Wembley occasionally during the peaks. The old station entrance at Olympia used to contain ALL the printed booklet timetables. I remember being "told off" as a young boy taking each booklet by a member of staff who queried whether I needed them all .



As far as I am aware, there were never any direct Silverlink trains from Watford to Clapham Junction. The old entrance to Wembley Central station was very dark and the stairs to the "fast" and "semi-fast" routes were not in a great state, which is probably another reason why direct southern trains between Wembley and Clapham were infrequent.



PS: I have located the 2004(?) timetables from the archives and attach them (pdf files).

https://ufile.io/wwxis
The files will be deleted after seven days. 

There were two Covered Way projects in Kensington to strengthen the tunnel roof under Kelso Place, the affecting the District Line.
One "Covered Way 12" to refurbish the tunnel roof Triangle sidings to High Street Kensington (District) and the other "Covered Way 58" Gloucester Rd to High Street Ken (Circle).
These involved suspending train services through each tunnel for some months at a time.

The one mentioned was in 2001, involving Triangle sidings to High Street Kensington.
Train services were supposed to run from Wimbledon to Hammersmith via Victoria, Aldgate, Edgware Road - with crew reliefs at Gloucester Road and Edgware on each train.
Temporary timetables and duty schedules were worked out for the revised workings.

Unfortunately, within two days the services were in ruins because of drivers being in the wrong places, late running building up and a fix was quickly sort.
This involved a new emergency service from Wimbledon-Tower Hill with District drivers.


My knowledge of the events are now clouded with time and the relevant UndergrounD News is temporarily missing from my collection!

Thanks for the info. My search on DD amounted to nothing relevant so I thought it was better to ask you.

As I recall, that would be the Sussex Scot.

I used to use it between Reading and Gatwick when I lived in the West Country in the late 90s. At that time it was a class 47 hauling Mk2 coaches that had seen better days. I particularly liked the section from Acton Main line round to Mitre Bridge on routes otherwise reserved for freight.

The Richmond service ran to Broad Street until 1985, the year before Broad Street closed completely. AFAIK the North Woolwich service ran from Palace Gates, and latterly from Camden Road until the Richmond trains ran there from 1985. I think the trains that ran from Broad Street via the Dalston east curve ran to Poplar as opposed to North Woolwich.

If I recall it correctly the Camden Road - North Woolwich service was withdrawn when the route to North Woolwich was third rail electrified and Richmond - Broad Street trains were diverted to North Woolwich.

However Watford Junction - Broad Street trains still went to Broad Street - until the Graham Road linking track was opened. Then they went to Liverpool Street. But only when BR could be bothered to run this service.... since they wanted to close it so this was a low priority.

The eastern part of the NLL ended up being dual electrified - from where the tracks joined near to Dalston Kingsland to where the routes split just outside Stratford. Between Dalston Kingsland and Hackney Wick Class 313 trains could travel on either electrical system - on sunny days it was possible to tell which system the train was using by seeing (or not seeing) the shadow from the pantograph on the ground. Attentive passengers might also notice the changeover process (if it happened) and of course if you were in the middle carriage below the pantograph you could hear it raising / lowering - or not.

I have some silent super 8 cine film showing a few trains from this era. It must be something like 1985 as it includes classes 501, 416, 313 and DMU's. Stratford, Canonbury (in bright sunshine / sun in the way), Broad Street, more. (Alas nothing from the North Woolwich route south of Stratford) One of these days I'll get it copied to computer format. Its got to be done at a place where I can take it, as I dare not post the film.

Simon

Simon