Type Heavy rail Locale East of England Stations 19 | System National Rail Termini Norwich
Basingstoke | |
 | ||
Status Line and stations open, service discontinued. | ||
London Crosslink was a train service operated by Anglia Railways between Norwich and Basingstoke, using the North London Line to bypass central London. Class 170 Turbostar diesel multiple units were used. The service ran from 22 May 2000 to 28 September 2002 supported by funding from the Strategic Rail Authority through its Rail Passenger Partnership fund.
Service pattern
Due to capacity constraints on the North London Line the service only ran infrequently with uneven headways. The majority of services did not run the full length of the route, although all served Basingstoke; Stratford, Chelmsford, Witham, Colchester and Ipswich were all starting or terminating points on the Great Eastern Main Line. Another drawback with the service was the varied stopping patterns employed; for example trains only stopped at Camden Road on weekends, Brentford calls were only made from May 2001 and then only during the morning and evening on weekdays and all-day Sundays, and Romford only received one service per day in the early morning.
There were six daily departures Monday to Saturday and five on Sundays. Below is an extract of the timetable, showing the service offered on weekdays heading eastbound: