It's ok. It will all be better in the end. The evening and weekend closures on the line are, ultimately, worthwhile – for we will have a brand new world class metro style Thameslink running through Streatham. Fantastic.
Except it won't be worthwhile. In an incredible stroke of luck, Streatham gets shafted again. The bit of Thameslink that serves us is broadly comparable to a rotting limb and it seems that Network Rail and the ever popular First Capital Connect can't wait to sever it and throw it away into the ashtray of broken transport promises. Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce the Wimbledon Loop.
Not much is certain about the Wimbledon Loop. There has to be a public consultation before they cut it off Thameslink. But you must wonder what the point in consultation is when Network Rail have announced that it would be operationally impossible to run Wimbledon Loop trains past Blackfriars after 2015. That is because our little old Wimbledon Loop trains might get in the way of the shiny new 12 carriage trains that will be running 24 times an hour from sunny old Kent through London. I should mention, although I'm sure you've already guessed, that we won't be getting 12 carraige trains either.
Sounds like a like it or lump it kind of consultation really. To summarise – we get no trains in the weekend or evenings for 6 years, after which time they just cut the service off anyway. Um, cheers. The brighter side of the coin is that we could have another connection to London Bridge instead. Brilliant. I have many sleepless nights wondering how I would get to London Bridge if the current three Streatham rail services and the bus that also serves London Bridge were to be simultaniously suspended. (This has happened actually. It was the weathers fault. The wrong kind of snow. And when First Capital Connect washed the train doors before they froze shut and wouldn't open again for three weeks. That was a laugh).
I would say it is now a wholly appropriate time to get really bloody angry about this. The people over at Herne Hill forum are. Have a read of this thread.
I'm not even sure why I care so much. I don't even use the train. I cycle, and to be honest there is a lot more to get wound up about when trundling along the potholes in the gutter through the evergreen roadworks of Streatham High Road and Streatham Hill. But that is for another time. I care about the trains because I honestly believe that transport connections, particularly in London, are directly proportional to the perception of an area's fortune. The holy grail of course, is inclusion in 'the tube map' (*gets goosebumps*). And as unbelievably remote a possibility as that seems (Chuka has gone awfully quiet about his tube campaign), there is a simple way. Tfl should take over the Thameslink and incorporate it into London Overground. Or just the Wimbledon Loop. Then we truly would be laughing all the way to the journey planner. For true transport and Streatham geeks, you can get excited over this map of 'what might have happened' had Ken stayed as major and we were all stinking rich and laughing into our derivatives. Streatham is on the map. Enjoy it. We could have got to Croydon SO easily. On a tram! Except we don't want to go to Croydon do we people. We just want to get past Blackfriars. On a weekend. Goodnight.
Errm, Ken, himself, nixed the Streatham Tube plan to connect existing South London track into the East London line up to Aldgate East. That was years before Boris!
ReplyDeleteAs far as Chuka and the Tube go, Someone might have mentioned to him that various and sundry have raised campaigns to bring the Tube to Streatham since 1926 so far without luck.
But hope springs eternal....
So, in short, they are all bastards. Who wants to be part of the North London imperialist transport system anyway
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