London Overground info from Modern Railways
The latest issue of Modern Railways has a few bits of info relating to London Overground:
- Hampstead Heath tunnel to close for three months starting this autumn. The track is being lowered to allow full size containers through. The North London Line will be split between a Richmond-Willesden Junction and Willesden Junction-Queen's Park-Camden Road-Stratford services, with apparently no service between Willesden Junction and Camden Road via Gospel Oak. The Gospel Oak to Barking Line will be closed for a month for similar enlargement, though no date is given.
- Electrostar train order delayed Earlier this month the DfT ordered 11 new trains for Southern, which are urgently needed to allow some of Southern's other trains to be sent to First Capital Connect to run the Key Output 0 Thameslink service that's necessitated by the closure of the Moorgate branch this December. Modern Railways claims these will be built ahead of the new trains for London Overground, so you'll be riding in purple and green things a while longer.
- DfT taking Southern takeover seriously The DfT would normally have issued a "prior information notice" in February to alert bidders to the September 2009 renewal of Southern franchise. They haven't, and a DfT spokesman is quoted saying they're "seeking new operational arrangements" for the franchise.
10 comments:
The latest I've heard is that Key Output 0 has been setback to March 2009 because the construction of vital facilities (including a turnback for the purpose of taking over from the Moorgate branch) has been delayed.
IIRC when Porterbrook ordered 12 377s in May 2007 the planned delivery date (for all 12) was January 2009, so I presume that the shift in order fulfilment priorities was done in order to deliver an additional 11 377s (ordered earlier this month) in just another 2 months. I would have thought that Porterbrook ordered the latest 11 377s but RAIL (i.e. the magazine, I take their journalism with a pinch of salt) claimed that Go-Ahead ordered them outright in order to get Bombardier to build them more quickly.
It may also be that TfL's order for rolling stock can be conveniently split into two phases, for the NLL, and for the ELL. The ELL construction timescales appear to allow for the most of the latter not being needed til late 2009, so a logical construction order could be NLL then Southern (loan to FCC) then ELL.
On the ORR website there is a track access application from TfL for London Overground, with a great deal of information (Working timetables etc)
Any chance of a link for this form ??
This is the link to the track access applications page on the ORR webasite.
http://www.rail-reg.gov.uk/server/show/nav.1257
The links on this page take you to various draft WTTs and analyses of capacity for London Overground.
Does the "DfT taking Southern takeover seriously" mean that the DfT are seriously considering allowing TfL to take over at least part of the current Southern franchise (presumably the Metro routes) ala London Overground, or at least some similar arrangement? Or have I got the wrong end of the stick?
That's the general idea. There are a few previous posts on the topic, if you've missed them.
would the tfl take over of part of southern provide a different service pattern than the ELL extension to Clapham Junction? Any chance of a map of how it might look?
@editor / Mr Thant - this is a somewhat belated response on my part!
Yes, I had read your earlier blog posts which discussed the possibility of TfL taking over the South London Metro routes when the present Southern franchise expires.
However I got the impression that there was perhaps a retrenchment away from the idea of a full takeover by TfL, with some sort of compromise position being reached with a role of some sorts for TfL.
So I was just a bit surprised to read that a full takeover might still be on the books - hence my earlier quizzical comments above.
We shall, as they say, see what transpires as time goes on.
I would like to know more about the Hampstead Heath tunnel. Where can I find the info???
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