East London Line progress photos: April 2008
It's as good as April, so time for another set of pictures of East London Line extension progress. Last month's are here.
A bit more steel work has gone in at Dalston Junction. This is looking south and the gap for the safeguarded east curve (towards Stratford) is clearly visible:
No visible changes at Hoxton or Haggerston, so I'll skip those.
Last month I speculated they were about to start on the deck of the viaduct where the line comes off the Broad Street viaduct (route map through Shoreditch). Look like I was right:
At Shoreditch High Street station, the concrete deck is complete, albeit with mountings for the station walls sticking out:
The gate on Brick Lane was wide open, so here's a shot of the GE19 bridge (and its temporary extension) and the abutment it needs to be moved onto. Between them is the Great Eastern Main Line, though only the beams holding up its overhead wires are visible:
This is from Valance Road looking west towards where Shoreditch station was. This is where the ramp to get the line out of the old ELL cutting begins. The GE19 bridge is visible above it:
A bit further towards Whitechapel there's track down, though it looks only temporary:
TRIVIA ALERT: The wide bit on the left is the old entrance to a goods depot, and later was where they started digging a tunnel to Cambridge Heath station in a previous failed extension scheme.
The north end of Whitechapel station:
Jumping south of the river, a bridge that used to carry the ELL over Surrey Canal Road and into what will be the new depot has been demolished:
Don't know why.
Turning the camera to the right, the shed at the new New Cross Gate depot:
I said last month that the depot site can't be photographed because it's spread over a long area and only visible from a moving train. So let's try video:
The shed pops into view at 0:11, and you see the ramp down from the flyover around 0:24.
(sorry about the poor quality - leave a comment if you found it useful anyway)
The bridge structure for the flyover, which will carry northbound trains over the main line and onto the ELL north of New Cross Gate:
Looks wide enough for two tracks, but only needs to carry one.Meanwhile, the New Cross branch has new track:
The tracks in the foreground are part of the old ELL depot, which is apparently being left to rot.But god knows what's going on with the track at New Cross station:
Oh yeah, bridge.
They started early and I got there late, so you'll have to go elsewhere for pictures of it properly airborne.
Here it is when I got there at 8.30am:
The east end touched down only a few minutes later:
At 9am, with only an inch to go on west side, the show was nearly over:
By 10:30am it was in its final position and the crane had been unhooked:
11 comments:
Thank you for the video - it was very useful indeed!
I was led to believe that the safeguarded east curve (towards Stratford) is only safeguarded to assist construction work with Chelsea-Hackney line in the very distant future. There are no plans to my knowledge for passenger use.
is 'digging a tunnel' meant to link to a story? I would be interested to find some info on the aborted cambridge heath extension, as I have never heard of this.
Ps I found this blog about a month ago and I find it very informative, keep it up!! Would be interested to see any info on the Highbury and Islington redevelopment i.e preperation for ELL and step free access from GN&C line station
I've fixed the link, though there's not much more info there, and I can't add anything.
They haven't released any plans for Highbury yet. The HN&C building has recently been filled with new signalling equipment, so I doubt they're planning to use it for lifts.
The New Cross Gate bridge - wide enough for two tracks point. Is this because the same bridge will carry both up and down tracks for the phase two extension? (This is only a suggestion - I haven't seen a detailed layout - but presumably phase two would otherwise need another bridge?
Phase 2 will leave the ELL a lot further north.
I've found out the bridge is wider than one track because the line will be curved. Post coming soon.
Great site. Very interesting. Your excellent map of the Shoreditch High Street Station highlights the missed opportunity for the ELL to connect into the rest of the Underground system and restricts the development of the Old Street/North City area – even though major building works are planned. It's a long walk from Liverpool Street and the buses ain't that good. The empty Goods site would have given ample area for excavations before the recent developments.
Great site! I ride the London Bridge train through New Cross Gate everyday and for many weeks I wondered what on earth was going on outside New Cross Gate station. Then I found your blog and now I know! I'm a regular visitor now so I can keep uptodate with progress. Really looking forward to the NCG bridge going into place. Do you know when?
hi there i was just wondering if any of the stations between whitechapel and surrey quays are in open cuttings?
The answer is either none or all of them.
They all have sections open to the sky for steam engines to vent, but there you can peer in to, though at Rotherhithe you can get pretty close.
When the line is extended to Highbury & Islington, please use the existiong North London Line tracks and electrify the additional tracks with overhead wires at 25KV AC.
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