In 1966 British Rail launched Motorail, a long-distance accompanied car train which transported passengers and their cars to the West of England and Scotland. The London Motorail terminal was at Kensington (Olympia), using the West London line for its wide connections to the UK mainline rail network. Motorail ceased operations in 1981. Intercity prior to 1997, and then from 1997 to 2007 Virgin CrossCountry operated a long-distance service between and and , in addition Intercity operated Summer Saturday services Liverpool to Dover Western Docks and Manchester to Eastbourne which use the West London line route to cross from , stopping at Olympia and passing through Clapham Junction. The CrossCountry franchise was taken over by Arriva CrossCountry and in 2008 the Brighton route was terminated. In 2009, Southern introduced its cross-London service from Milton Keynes to East Croydon. For a brief period, Southern and Connex also operated a direct service from to via , but this was withdrawn in 2001. Train services London Overground The core operation of the West London line is the metro/commuter rail operated by London Overground. Four trains per hour run between Clapham Junction and Willesden Junction, with most trains continuing on the North London line to and from Stratford. It forms the western section of the Overground's orbital rail route which was completed in December 2012 when the East London line was extended to Clapham Junction via the South London line, linking it to the West London line . Cross-London services Along with the Thameslink and the East London line routes, the West London line presently forms part of the West London Route which is one of three National Rail routes which run across London instead of terminating in the central area. This regional rail service operated by Southern connects the West Coast Main Line in the north to the Brighton Main Line in the south. Hourly trains run between and , with additional peak services between and . Southern services pass through Willesden Junction without stopping as the mainline platforms were removed in 1962. However there are plans for these services to stop at Willesden Junction in the future which will mean building new main line platforms at Willesden Junction. This regional service previously ran from to Watford Junction. It was originally conceived as a Brighton-Birmingham service, and until December 2008 a twice-daily CrossCountry service ran from Brighton via Kensington (Olympia) and to . The