Freight movements through London

Gosh what a boring thread title.

There's an interesting post on London Reconnections, for those of you who don't follow it, on whole freight movements affect suburban rail in London.

http://www.londonreconnections.com/2012/london-freight-part-1-reshaping-the-network/

This should be of interest to all of us, especially those of us who live on the Peckham-Nunhead-Lewisham line, where you can't have failed to notice that there are plenty of freight trains rumbling through on a fairly regular basis. TfL predict that this can only increase (the line through Nunhead is one of the, if not *the* main freight route from the Channel Tunnel through London to points north).

The post raises the intriguing possibility of developing infrastructure so as to take pressure off London's orbital railways and strategic interchanges (of which Peckham Rye is one) by diverting freight around London rather than having it run straight through. Naturally this may mean that passenger services have more room to play with - raising the possibility that the argument could be made for metro-frequency provision on the Victoria-Bellingham route, if such a route is specified in the 2014 southeastern franchise renewal.

I know that a number of you are in the industry - you might be able to gently advise if I am extrapolating too far and running away with myself.

I thought that victoria - bellingham additional trains was possible regardless of the freight trains - so four trains per hour, which is basically metro standard, should be possible anyway?

issue I suppose is cash ...!

That's interesting @pembrokepete, I thought that the number of freight paths currently made 4tph a bit of a squeeze, in addition to the Thameslink trains.

Mind you when I say "metro-frequency" what I perhaps mean is LO-frequency - so 4tph offpeak and more onpeak. Entirely take the point about cash but if LO has shown anything it's that revitalisation of forgotten, underused and underinvested inner London rail infrastructure is possible and financially sustainable. For one thing, a fast and frequent rail service from Peckham to Lewisham seems a no-brainer in business case terms.

ah well no doubt I will be proved to be wrong now. I had a bit of a look back at the south london line option study, and it said that the issue with victoria - bellingham was that you needed to tweak the southeastern timetable - didn't *say* anything about freight, but that may not mean that it is not an issue!