"You could increase the catchment area for every existing line by adding intermediate stations and spur lines ....... but that doesn't make it a better service." - REALLY??? - surely making it a better (and much more useful) service is EXACTLY what that would do."I can't see what practical interchanges could have been introduced, with North Acton quite a distance from the line (and requiring a brand new station) and you do have Shepherd's Bush..." - North Acton tube station is no further from the Overground line than the 207 bus service is from Acton central station - but better to relocate North Acton station next to the Overground line as part of a proper interchange station (which would also provide the increasing number of local residents and workers in North Acton with direct access to the Overground service for the first timne ever - if ANYWHERE along the Overground needs and can justify an additional intermediate station it's surely there with all those new yuppy flats blocks, hotels and new offices, and the inordinately long gap between existing stations?? That, plus providing the once-proposed (as I mentioned) Greenford-Ealing-Willesden etc train service over the EXISTING spur line (currently only used by occasional freight trains which mostly have no business in London)."the overground is taking an ever increasing number of people where they want to go as is borne out by the huge increase in passenger numbers."- but it could take so many more people where they want to go, whIch in turn would justify much further service enhancement to the benefit of all, if it was made more accessible through proper interchange facilities."Living west of Acton, and therefore further out of the centre of London, surely brings with it a more rarified transport network focused on radial, rather than orbital, travel."- Regrettably and deplorably that is the current situation - all the more reason to provide proper interchanges and interworking connectiing services such as those I mention, to improve matters by giving those of us 'out in the sticks' (as you seem to see it), beyond the hallowed city gates of metropolitan Acton, proper access to such orbital routes, such as Overground, as exist.I aren't sure which is the more breathtaking - your utter lack of imagination (which I regret to have to say was shared by Ealing Council's and some other senior transport professional staff in the days when I had to contend with them on behalf of a neighbouring borough) or your utter parochialism/ insularity. Perhaps they're linked.
Chris Veasey ● 4852d