Thameslink: Linking Up London Commuter And Southeastern High Speed

Discussion in 'Suggestions' started by chris1988, Sep 3, 2022.

  1. chris1988

    chris1988 New Member

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    Part of me hopes that this is already a secret plan in place, but with the latest release of TSW3 extending Southeastern High Speed to Dartford, I see an ever improving opportunity to finally get TSW to where it should be one day - True Networks.

    Basic Information:
    My suggestion is to extend both London Commuter and Southeastern High Speed to London Bridge.
    London Commuter: Extension from East Croydon
    SouthEastern: Extension from Dartford
    Rolling Stock Introduction: ThamesLink Class 700

    This would allow layers to be added to both routes and potentially allow a full joined up 'Network' in the future by having a common start and finish for both.

    The Extension
    London Commuter would need:
    - Norwood Junction
    - Anerley
    - Penge West
    - Sydenham
    - Forrest Hill
    - Honor Oak Park
    - Brockley
    - New Cross Gate
    - London Bridge

    SouthEastern High Speed would need:
    - Slade Green
    - Abbey Wood
    - Plumstead
    - Woolwich Arsenal
    - Charlton
    - Westcombe Park
    - Maze Hill
    - Deptford
    - London Bridge

    In total that is 17 new stations over a relatively short distance, which from previous releases looks more than plausible. it would also open up the possibility for further minor extensions like to Cannon Street, Charing Cross and even a ThamesLink extension further North / South

    Thoughts
    I love TSW - Its a fantastic idea that is growing with more and more pace. My frustration is that there are too many 'new routes' that take a snippet of a journey rather than the complete routes themselves, often for good reasons like the inability to create 100s of miles of new routes in one go due to the time / effort / complexity involved.

    My favourite routes are the ones where you run a real end to end route that starts and finishes at a terminus (London Commuter a great example) For me - getting off the train halfway through the journey or picking it back up as it comes out of the portal is something that takes away from the immersion.

    This addition would move a step close to being able to incorporate these routes into a Network that would allow a true 'day in the life' play style that allows a seamless journey across different routes that incorporate multiple end-to-end journeys.

    Comments / Criticism welcome!
     
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  2. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    I don't think I could ever agree to "only one of the North Kent Lines", given it is in itself a network of three routes including two London termini, three lines through Kent all of which meet up at the Crayford loops near Dartford, either going round and back to London or onto Dartford itself

    Separating out the Abbey Wood line and the Greenwich loop just seems like you're cheating yourself of the main bulk of a network route, multiple operations over the same lines.
     
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  3. seandouglas

    seandouglas Active Member

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    While I like the idea it would be far better to have two separate routes, a North Kent lines metro route with all 3 lines and a a South London Network style route, maybe even with the Thameslink core between London Bridge and St Pancras Thameslink. This would work better gameplay wise and a merge would be possible at both London Bridge and St Pancras
     
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  4. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    The Thameslink lines don't merge with the SEHS lines at St Pancras.
    At STP the Thameslink lines are underground and the SEHS lines are at first floor level (so two or three floors elevation between them)
    The Thameslink lines continue NorthWest from STP to meet with the Midland Mainline about half a mile north. The MML platforms are on the opposite side of STP from the SEHS lines.

    Doesn't mean you couldn't walk between the two in game, but there is a while shopping arcade between those two points, so that would be a lot of work for little gain
     
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  5. seandouglas

    seandouglas Active Member

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    True, was thinking a walk through like they did with the international platforms. Not ideal but it's something?
     
  6. CrazyDash

    CrazyDash Well-Known Member

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    Just because you can link these two routes together to London bridge, doesn’t mean that services will be running between each other. On SEHS, Thameslink only runs services to Bedford/Luton from Rainham and not to Brighton. Same can be said about BML. Most services head North up to Bedford, Peterborough, Cambridge, etc. Route merges like this are completely pointless to if the services that run on them don’t even go between the two routes. Merging routes like Rhein Ruhr Osten and Ruhr Sieg Nord together would be pointless because no services run between both routes, even though both have an endpoint at Hagen. I agree with what other people are saying about DTG making a North Kent Line that includes all 3 loop lines to London
     
  7. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    To me, this depends
    If we had both South London route and NKL then have them merge and run together from Millwall on would be great, especially if they worked out merged timetables
    Similarly if they ever did an MML route north of STP they could merge it with either the South London or NKL lines from Blackfriars if they wanted to

    I guess it depends on the intention of the player. What many seem to want to do is drive one train to a station, hop off and then get on another train and drive somewhere else (so in this case run a train from Rainham to LBG, then go across the platform and pick up a Brighton train). I'm not sure that happens IRL, but it's what people have asked for in Brighton with the BML and ECW for example
     
  8. CrazyDash

    CrazyDash Well-Known Member

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    I’m just not into that kind of stuff. Now I would be all in for route merges to allow for longer services such as extending Koln-Aachen to Duisburg and Wuppertal since trains do in fact run services between all 3 routes. Now obviously that’s literally me just saying extend haupstrecke Rhein Ruhr and Rhein Ruhr Osten to merge with Koln-Aachen, but you get my point
     
  9. ARuscoe

    ARuscoe Well-Known Member

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    Yup, hence mentioning the possible link up via Blackfriars to STP for the Thameslink routes

    ALL TL routes go through the core and continue up to St Albans, Cambridge, Peterborough or Bedford, so adding in any link and then extending to the MML would mean "full routes" rather than "allowing for network transfers" (which to me is a case of saving a few clicks)
     

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