Opportunity unnoticed for direct Waterloo-West London Line Services?

[Hetlana]

As you will all know, the West London Line is currently used by London Overground trains from Clapham Junction to Willesden Junction, and Southern services from Miltern Keynes to East Croydon. But is there an opportunity being missed involving the line's connection to Waterloo via the South Western Main Line?

As you can see, a spur runs from the WLL to the SWML east of Clapham Junction. And I was just wondering, could this provide an opportunity, for direct services to Waterloo, which is currently being missed?

One thing that a good portion of the WLL stations, such as Imperial Wharf and Kensington Olympia, lack is a direct service into Central London, and of course the WLL has seen a massive surge in usage ever since opening. Direct Waterloo-Willesden Junction services could solve the first problem, and provide for extra capacity to solve the second issue, whilst reducing the number of passengers going via Clapham Junction.

 

[anti-pacer]

As you will all know, the West London Line is currently used by London Overground trains from Clapham Junction to Willesden Junction, and Southern services from Miltern Keynes to East Croydon. But is there an opportunity being missed involving the line's connection to Waterloo via the South Western Main Line?
View attachment 40616
As you can see, a spur runs from the WLL to the SWML east of Clapham Junction. And I was just wondering, could this provide an opportunity, for direct services to Waterloo, which is currently being missed?

One thing that a good portion of the WLL stations, such as Imperial Wharf and Kensington Olympia, lack is a direct service into Central London, and of course the WLL has seen a massive surge in usage ever since opening. Direct Waterloo-Willesden Junction services could solve the first problem, and provide for extra capacity to solve the second issue, whilst reducing the number of passengers going via Clapham Junction.

Isn't Waterloo already busy enough?

 

[bb21]

Waterloo does not have the capacity to be wasted on services like that. Many stations on the West London Line offer alternative connection opportunities to the Underground and Clapham Junction is a far more useful place for connections to the National Rail network,

Waterloo is also hardly the centre of all the actions, so a change is still needed in any case for most purposes.

 

[MidnightFlyer]

I suspect you would have quite a few headaches getting a decent path both between Waterloo and Clapham Junction, and then through Willesden Junction and wherever you wanted after that: the North London line is notorious for just how full it is even with current service levels. Further, apart from the environs around Imperial Wharf, wouldn't anyone for Central London just use the myriad of Tube stations around Hammersmith, Fulham and Putney that already exist? Indeed, West Brompton already has the District line adjacent to its West London line platforms.

 

[Matt Taylor]

Sounds too much like a solution looking for a problem, SWR has its hands full trying to find enough capacity to match demand into Waterloo from the Windsor and the main lines so I cannot see any advantage in reducing capacity in order to provide a strictly local service. And anyone going from Lambeth/Southwark to Willesden is surely better off using existing underground and National Rail services.

 

[hotel_mode]

Which trains out of Waterloo are you going to get rid of to achieve it? Especially at any kind of decent frequency.

 

[anti-pacer]

Indeed, West Brompton already has the District line adjacent to its West London line platforms.

As well as a reasonably easy connection at Shepherd's Bush onto the Central Line for Oxford Street, Holborn and The City.

 

[Finghall]

An interesting discussion.

It doesn't solve the Clapham Junction Problem but there is a potentially useful extension of WLL services to Beckenham Junction via Streatham Hill filling in the missing link from the Kent Main lines to the rest of the network relieving central London. The current Beckenham Junction Southern service is fairly pointless trundling very slowly to London Bridge via Tulse Hill and is little used (no doubt partly due to Southern's hopeless unreliability). These trains could swap destination with the existing West Croydon via Crystal Palace service so there need not be any extra trains through Clapham Junction.

 

[Olaf]

With Waterloo as the intended destination there is probably not the demand, but if it was to be delivered as part of a new corridor linking Ebbsfleet to Heathrow via London Bridge, a new link between the Charing Cross lines and Waterloo, and the future infrastructure at Old Oak Common, then perhaps a consultancy would be interested in the idea in the post-CR2 time-frame.

 

[Busaholic]

An interesting discussion.

It doesn't solve the Clapham Junction Problem but there is a potentially useful extension of WLL services to Beckenham Junction via Streatham Hill filling in the missing link from the Kent Main lines to the rest of the network relieving central London. The current Beckenham Junction Southern service is fairly pointless trundling very slowly to London Bridge via Tulse Hill and is little used (no doubt partly due to Southern's hopeless unreliability). These trains could swap destination with the existing West Croydon via Crystal Palace service so there need not be any extra trains through Clapham Junction.

When I lived 5 minutes walk from Beckenham Junction and was travelling to Victoria every day, the Southern service offered an alternative to the SE one, but I rarely took it and, when I did, saw very few people changing at Clapham Junction. Even fewer people from further down the SE e.g. Bromley ever seemed to transfer at Beck Junc either, although I suppose these days there might be some with an insatiable desire to visit Westfield West, a desire easily quenched after one visit.

 

[Chris M]

the WLL has seen a massive surge in usage ever since opening.

Presumably this is because there are now trains taking people where they want to go. If you want to go from Imperial Wharf to central London you just need to change at Clapham Junction or West Brompton or Shepherd's Bush. Or get a bus.
If there was a significant unmet demand for people to travel from Kensington Olympia to central London direct then surely TfL would have increased the District line services to it, rather than reducing it to just weekends and public holidays only. TfL are keen to match services to demand where they can, and are happy to experiment with services when they can. Oyster gives them massive amounts of data about journey origins and destinations, far more than almost any NR planner has at their disposal.

 

[3141]

When I lived 5 minutes walk from Beckenham Junction and was travelling to Victoria every day, the Southern service offered an alternative to the SE one, but I rarely took it and, when I did, saw very few people changing at Clapham Junction. Even fewer people from further down the SE e.g. Bromley ever seemed to transfer at Beck Junc either, although I suppose these days there might be some with an insatiable desire to visit Westfield West, a desire easily quenched after one visit.

Perhaps that reflects the tendency for people to live somewhere from which they can easily get to their work, or to take a job within convenient reach of their home. Although many will move jobs and perhaps accept a longer or less convenient journey, it's probably still true that the majority try to match their home and their work, and so the demand for new journeys such as have been proposed here is not large.

 

[jopsuk]

It's rather up there with the idea of using the eurostar flyover for anything other than engineering diversions- an idea to use a bit of track because it is there, not because it adds a useful service

 

[DanNCL]

Wasn't there an idea once to route the Caledonian Sleepers into Waterloo International via that route, before they decided to use the International platforms for SWR?

 

[najaB]

Wasn't there an idea once to route the Caledonian Sleepers into Waterloo International via that route, before they decided to use the International platforms for SWR?

There was. I seem to remember there was a half-baked plan to route the West Country Sleepers there too.

 

[30907]

When I lived 5 minutes walk from Beckenham Junction and was travelling to Victoria every day, the Southern service offered an alternative to the SE one, but I rarely took it and, when I did, saw very few people changing at Clapham Junction. Even fewer people from further down the SE e.g. Bromley ever seemed to transfer at Beck Junc either, although I suppose these days there might be some with an insatiable desire to visit Westfield West, a desire easily quenched after one visit.

The Palace line was always quiet but it didn't help that, until the introduction of the 15min frequency on the Orpingtons, the connection only ever worked in one direction off peak.
The diversion to London Bridge didn't help, either, though it made operational sense to link two lightly loaded services.
But I can't see a market to and from the WLL.

 

[randyrippley]

Its an old idea....there was a short lived Waterloo-Euston service running that way in 1866.
In fact for a while they routed through the (then) Waterloo through platforms to London Bridge / Cannon St
With a bit of thought, and reopening of the link between the two Waterloo stations you could look at a new "Outer Circle" route.

 

[Far north 37]

Im pretty sure that anyone wanting to get to waterloo from the north london line could easily change at clapham onto a waterloo train fairly quickly and the reason probably for most of them wanting to get to waterloo would be wanting to get a train that you could catch at clapham anyway.

 

[Jonny]

The WLL also has a connection onto the LU Central Line at Shepherd's Bush, as well as onto the District line at West Brompton.

 

[pompeyfan]

What does that bit of track actually usually get used for? I’d assume engineering trains/tamper/OTP and that’s about it?

 

[class387]

I have had ideas for direct services from the WLL to Woking etc. instead of to Croydon as it would provide a more reliable service. Is this viable?

 

[rmt4ever]

The OPs idea is fantastic. And even at Waterloo there should be a connection to the W&C line, so you can go Willesden Jct to Bank directly !

I’d use it 4 times a day as I’m sure would others.

Would be easy to do too.

 

[Ianno87]

I have had ideas for direct services from the WLL to Woking etc. instead of to Croydon as it would provide a more reliable service. Is this viable?

There's no physical connection between the WLL and SWML at Clapham to permit this.

You either have to
-Head onto the Windsor Lines via Barnes, Virginia Water, Chertsey then West Byfleet (similar to the old Crosslink service, albeit this went via Acton/Kew)
-Or BML Slows to Streatham North then via Streatham South, Tooting to Wimbledon

Both would be a pathing/reliability non-starter.

 

[AlterEgo]

I have had ideas for direct services from the WLL to Woking etc. instead of to Croydon as it would provide a more reliable service. Is this viable?

Is this another case of drawing a line on a map and then asking if people would use the service?

 

[Lrd]

What does that bit of track actually usually get used for? I’d assume engineering trains/tamper/OTP and that’s about it?

Don't think anything uses it now apart railtours perhaps. It used to be used by the Eurostars to get to North Pole depot.

 

[swt_passenger]

Wasn't there an idea once to route the Caledonian Sleepers into Waterloo International via that route, before they decided to use the International platforms for SWR?

I don't believe it has ever been any sort of realistic official plan. Fantasy proposal by rail enthusiasts more like.

 

[DanNCL]

I don't believe it has ever been any sort of realistic official plan. Fantasy proposal by rail enthusiasts more like.

I think it was in one of the railway magazines that I read it

 

[swt_passenger]

I think it was in one of the railway magazines that I read it

Doesn't make it any more realistic. Possibly written when any number of hare brained uses for Waterloo International were being touted around.

The time of the morning the sleepers are arriving at the London end of the route is exactly when capacity on the WLL is at a premium, with the peak extra short workings running.

 

[mallard]

the WLL has seen a massive surge in usage ever since opening

The WLL as we know it today opened in the 1860s and any line will obviously have a "surge" of passengers after opening; a line that's not open carries no passengers at all... I assume you mean "since London Overground started operating over the line"?

 

[infobleep]

As you will all know, the West London Line is currently used by London Overground trains from Clapham Junction to Willesden Junction, and Southern services from Miltern Keynes to East Croydon. But is there an opportunity being missed involving the line's connection to Waterloo via the South Western Main Line?
View attachment 40616
As you can see, a spur runs from the WLL to the SWML east of Clapham Junction. And I was just wondering, could this provide an opportunity, for direct services to Waterloo, which is currently being missed?

One thing that a good portion of the WLL stations, such as Imperial Wharf and Kensington Olympia, lack is a direct service into Central London, and of course the WLL has seen a massive surge in usage ever since opening. Direct Waterloo-Willesden Junction services could solve the first problem, and provide for extra capacity to solve the second issue, whilst reducing the number of passengers going via Clapham Junction.

The job of Waterloo is to get as many passengers as possible to south of Clapham Junction in the evening and as many as possible from south of Clapham Junction to Waterloo in the morning. That is it in my opinion.

It can't deviate to anything else as it doesn't have capacity and probably never will.