Wednesday 4 June 2008

London Overground notes

I've been forwarded a set of slides from a recent presentation given by Transport for London about London Overground. A few interesting things:

  • The date for the Gospel Oak to Barking Line getting trains every 15 minutes is given as December 2008, rather than 2009 when the new larger fleet (pictured) arrives. Maybe they'll be getting the spare trains back* that they've leant to First Great Western. Or it might be a mistake.
  • Work to construct Imperial Wharf station allegedly started on June 1st. Anyone seen anything yet?
  • Work to fix Shepherd's Bush station is due to be completed by late summer, but they're looking strategically about when exactly to open it. Definitely by October though.
  • During this autumn's closure, replacement bus services will run serving all stations Gospel Oak-Barking and Gospel Oak-Camden Road plus an oddball route running South Hampstead-West Hampstead-Brondesbury-Kilburn High Rd-South Hampstead-Hampstead Heath-Gospel Oak-Upper Holloway-Crouch Hill
  • During the closure slab track will be laid in Hampstead Tunnel and road bridges carrying Sussex Way (near Upper Holloway) and Albert and Shrubland Roads (near Walthamstow Queen's Road) over the Goblin will be completely replaced.
  • The rebuilding of the Camden-Dalston section of the North London Line begins in the second half of 2009, with "all week" closures happening in early 2010.
There are some similar presentation documents on the LOROL site. One of them is a lot like the one I've got except with a fraction of the detail. The other is stuffed full of dates:
  • All London Overground stations are to be fully refurbished between July 2008 and November 2009, with new train displays, signage, help points, CCTV and so on.
  • Former Southern stations on the East London Line extension will be refurbished between June 2009 and March 2010.
  • Test running on the East London Line is due to start in Late 2009, with the core opening in April 2010 and running south of New Cross Gate from June.
* London Overground got custody of the whole of Silverlink's diesel fleet, but with no Bletchley-Bedford Line to run had more than they needed

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

By 'central section' do you mean the Camden Town to Dalston Kingsland four-tracking?

Mizter T said...

The oddball replacement bus service undoubtedly sounds somewhat bizarre, what with it starting from South Hampstead and then looping round to visit the station again before heading on to Hampstead Heath and beyond.

However the inclusion of visits to South Hampstead and Kilburn High Rd station does make more sense when one considers it in the context of how London Overground services will run during the autumn blockade of the Hampstead Heath tunnel as detailed in this previous London Connections blog entry.

Most 'DC line' trains from Watford Jn will call at South Hampstead but then - rather than going on to Euston - they'll instead use the short Primrose Hill link (normally only used by freight trains) to get to Camden Road before continuing on to Stratford like a normal NLL train.

Mass confusion is of course guaranteed, but TfL do appear to be doing their best to mitigate for the closure.

Mr Thant said...

Anonymous: Yes I do. Fixed.

Anonymous said...

Excellent news. Unless you were hoping for an improved service on the Euston to Watford DC line, that is.

Still no sign of an improved frequency there.

John B said...

Presumably the lack of progress on the DC line is to do with ongoing negotiations between LO, LU and DfT on its future - there wouldn't be much point in getting new 378s to jack up the frequency if the whole thing is still going to be handed over to the Bakerloo line in the early 2010s.

Unknown said...

I went through where Imperial Wharf should be on the train earlier today. Didn't see anything, but that might just be me...

Unknown said...

Work starting could be offsite, on drawings or something.

Mr Thant said...

It's a thought, but the document specifically says "construction work".