Good grief, there are so many platforms at Watford, it should be possible to get the stopping "intercities" out of the way of those not stopping.
It isn't just about platforms, you need enough track before and after to allow for acceleration and deceleration. It is't dissimilar to wake turbulence - stopper can follow stopper and fast can follow fast but once you have to create a space for a train to slow down and stop you kill two paths.
This isn't just a British challenge. The newer TGV stations have the facility for through running, sometimes with a couple of km of four tracks either side. However, between Paris and Lyon, where capacity is most needed, you will find very few stops - yes, the towns are small, but in other locations they would have a stop.
Otherwise have all the "intercities" stop there, as they do at Stockport at the Manchester end. It isn't rocket science!
That is fine at Stockport, or at Birmingham International, which are both on branches from the central spine. All Virgin ex-Euston trains pass through Watford, and to make them all stop would be creating far too much capacity at Watford, and it would add critical time on to the whole journey elsewhere.
"That's all very well for the financial well-being of the monopoly franchise train operator, but does nothing for a national transport policy. It also puts two fingers up to any argument about railways being the "green" option."
Relative to air, rail traditionally has been, and still is, the
greener option, but it is not greenest (that is video conferencing), nor is it suitable for all people all of the time.
A lot of the debate
is about air v rail, and that is quite legitimate. However, rail works best on city
centre to city
centre, or where no more than one
easy change is needed.
As said before, this is where we SHOULD be learning from our German friends, as the concept of a Cologne Neue Strasse or a Munich Euston simply doesn't exist, as all their cities have just one main station. Berlin was the last to do things the "British" way! That doesn't mean that these cities don't have important secondary stations (Cologne Deutz, Hamburg Altoona etc), but they still have one
central station for interchanges.