Will LO ever be an orbital railway?

The oppotunity to create a London Orbital Ring appears to have been lost by some very lack lustre planning. The average passenger likes a through journey between A and B though not with a change at C and with a trudge over the footbridge. When you finally get to the other platform you find the forward service suspended for some totally obscure reason.

Though if the service from Highbury via New Cross to Clapham did reverse and run to Barking or Stratford via Willesden, we could have an even bigger T-Cup than SSL, but that will have to wait for anther thread.

why does the overground need to make a full ring? You only really should travel on an orbital line for 2 radians, as going in and coming back out is quicker then. There are some journeys that won't be covered by the planned timetable without changing (eg Shepherd's Bush-Denmark Hill, Hoxton-Camden Road), but all the proposed circles I've seen won't cover the former, as they will use Clapham Junction to reverse and as a terminus (even if they carry on in the same direction, there'd be a long wait).

TfL (and it's predecessors) have been trying to get rid of the circle line for years as fully circular rail lines are awful for reliability.

In short - little need, makes it far worse service.

Thanks for the replies, everyone.

Keith, I had a NR bod with me the other day. Although the Latchmere reversible is to be redoubled, Clapham Junction platform 1 will not be reopened due to the cost of renovating the arches underneath. Therefore everything will be turning back in platform 2. This must make a certain maximum of trains per hour (6 to 8??) that can turn round in the same platform.

Depending on how close to the platform the double line starts, and the speed of the signalling, in theory I think it should be able to reverse as many services as the new Tower Gateway can. I can't remember how many that is but I'm sure it's been mentioned on here previously. The only thing Google will tell me is that it used to handle 6tph.

Although they do not physically have to walk the length of the train, do DLR train staff (whatever their title is these days) not get turnaround time?

I've not found (after 2 minutes googling) anywhere that gives the lengths of either three-car DLR stock (old or new) or class 358s, but I remember reading somewhere that the DLR trains were actually not as short as you might think? However I'd have thought that the speed of the signalling system and distance between platfrom and double track would be more significant than the length of the train.

You would need to build a new connection between Lea Bridge and South Tottenham for that, though, as I am sure the Lea Valley line would not have the capacity for it.

you'd have to use a short section of the main line between the connection from Lea Bridge and the connection to South Tottenham. This bit does not have capacity for more trains, especially during peak hours.