Monday 31 December 2007

Shepherd's Bush Overground: End of the year


Last month, we were told that Shepherd's Bush station on the West London Line would be "ready for service by the end of the year". And on the latest tube map going up in stations now, it's shown as open. So if you visited today you'd expect to see - if not an open station - at least some serious progress, right?

Not a sausage. But then it is a spectacular cock up with no obvious solution. There was a suggestion of opening only the southbound platform (on the left in the photo), which is very wide for most of its length. But the opening to it from the footbridge is onto the narrow part, and there are structural tension rods preventing the window facing us being turned into a doorway. On the northbound platform, even if it were decided to move the retaining wall, they'd also need to demolish a corner of the station building, which in turn may well be holding up the footbridge.

I've also dug up an incriminating diagram from the planning application. Most glaringly, it shows the lights were always meant to mounted on the fence rather than blocking the platform, something that's since been proposed as a solution. And it makes it obvious why no one's keen on moving the wall.

Disclaimer: Site last visited on Friday. Optimists may assume it was sorted over the weekend and opened today.

[Latest: The wall will be moved, taking at least four months]

7 comments:

Dazz285 said...

planning application link not working..
Dazz285

Mr Thant said...

Fixed!

Dazz285 said...

Thanks... It's a shame that this has dragged on for so long. I remember before the wall was built H&S told them that the platform was to narrow. But they still went ahead and built it...
Dazz285

Dazz285 said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Dazz285 said...

Also have you noticed in the top picture that the yellow line is dissappering.... Went through there today and a bloke on each platform had angle grinders in hand and was gring the yellow line away, very odd....

Dazz285 said...

Went through again today and where the yellow line was it is now being painted white.. even odder....

Anonymous said...

Whose idea was it to put signage up at the new station with Silverlink branding? Do you think it will be taken down, or will TFL and Westfield argue over whose responsible for it?