I wonder if Southeastern could potentially reroute most or all its Mainline (i.e. conventional as opposed to High Speed services to and from Kent Coast destinations) into Victoria, rather than having some serving Victoria and some serving Charing Cross, or if this could have been done in pre-HS1 days.
Doing this would free up capacity for additional suburban services at Charing Cross, and maybe enable some Southern services that terminate at London Bridge to be extended to Charing Cross as used to happen until a few years ago.
It would also mean that passengers travelling to the likes of Ashford, Folkestone, Dover, Margate, Ramsgate and Hastings would have the convenience of leaving from just one station, and eliminate any confusion as to which destinations were served from which terminal. Charing Cross services have occasionally been diverted to Victoria during engineering works, though.
I'm not sure that either Victoria station itself or the Southeastern lines from Victoria would have enough capacity to handle so many additional trains, though. It would also inconvenience passengers from Kent Coast towns whose final destination was nearer to London Bridge or Charing Cross or who were changing onto a train from Waterloo main line station via Waterloo East, for example if they were going from Canterbury to Salisbury. Some peak hour trains could continue to use Charing Cross or Cannon Street, though.
I also wonder if some Southeastern services from Victoria could be routed via Crystal Palace, enabling them to call at Clapham Junction. The single track section between Birkbeck and Beckenham Junction would probably make this a non-starter, though.
Another possibility might be to reroute some Southeastern services into Waterloo via the curve between Vauxhall and Wandsworth Road that Eurostar used to use. Again this has been done at least once during engineering works, but I'm not sure that there'd be much benefit in doing it on a permanent basis.
Doing this would free up capacity for additional suburban services at Charing Cross, and maybe enable some Southern services that terminate at London Bridge to be extended to Charing Cross as used to happen until a few years ago.
It would also mean that passengers travelling to the likes of Ashford, Folkestone, Dover, Margate, Ramsgate and Hastings would have the convenience of leaving from just one station, and eliminate any confusion as to which destinations were served from which terminal. Charing Cross services have occasionally been diverted to Victoria during engineering works, though.
I'm not sure that either Victoria station itself or the Southeastern lines from Victoria would have enough capacity to handle so many additional trains, though. It would also inconvenience passengers from Kent Coast towns whose final destination was nearer to London Bridge or Charing Cross or who were changing onto a train from Waterloo main line station via Waterloo East, for example if they were going from Canterbury to Salisbury. Some peak hour trains could continue to use Charing Cross or Cannon Street, though.
I also wonder if some Southeastern services from Victoria could be routed via Crystal Palace, enabling them to call at Clapham Junction. The single track section between Birkbeck and Beckenham Junction would probably make this a non-starter, though.
Another possibility might be to reroute some Southeastern services into Waterloo via the curve between Vauxhall and Wandsworth Road that Eurostar used to use. Again this has been done at least once during engineering works, but I'm not sure that there'd be much benefit in doing it on a permanent basis.
)
