Northern Line extension to Battersea Power Station proposed
The latest masterplan for the Battersea Power Station site has been unveiled by the poetically named new owners Real Estate Opportunities Ltd, and includes a surprising transport element:
Treasury Holdings UK is in discussions with Transport for London and other landowners in the Nine Elms about building an extension of the Northern Line from Kennington to bring the Tube into the heart of Battersea.Looking at the map it's not a completely terrible idea. Kennington is where the two central branches merge so would be a good place to start the extension, most likely from the Charing Cross branch due to the track layout. I'd suggest an interchange at Vauxhall and a possible extension to the massive Chelsea Barracks redevelopment.
With construction of the development not due to start until 2012, it's more likely the site will be sold on again and this plan scrapped. The last owner's masterplan centred around upgrading Battersea Park railway station, which is one stop south of Victoria and a bit useless really.
There's a half finished website about the proposal here, which mentions an exhibition will open at the site this Wednesday.
Update: Today's londonpaper tells of a stop at "Wandsworth Road", though they can't mean the railway station of that name, since it's a long way out of the way.
Update 2 : More details
[Thanks to reader Jonathan for the tip off]
11 comments:
Not completely terrible perhaps, but certainly taking the long way round from Charing Cross to Battersea Power station! If the development is big enough to justify a new tube line, then routing Chelney/Crossrail 2 that way would make sense. Not any time soon though!
I'm not sure why you think Battersea Park station is useless - it has services from lots of places in South London as well as being one stop from Victoria and Clapham Junction. I think an earlier plan to redevelop the site (as a theme park??) planned a shuttle service from Victoria to a new station just off the current line, which would have been even more limited.
Yes. I think the Chelney Line should go to Battersea and Clapham Junction, as both places are isolated by the tube, and the patronage expected from Britain's Busiest Railway Station and the development (if it is on that scale) as well as Battersea would justify the cost. Taking over the Wimbledon Line wouldn't get so much, as it is already well-served by the District Line.
Surely there could be more capital gained in linking this together to the ELL Phase 2 and the extension to Clapham Junction, a branch running via Clapham High Street/Wandsworth Road?
Adding more stations/junctions to the Northern Line just seems to me like adding even more confusion to an already complex line.
I don't know about complicating operations. If the Charing X service which currently terminates at Kennington was extended to somewhere else, it wouldn't really affect timetabling that much.
(This is Anon1 speaking)
It's good to see that people are at least thinking of extending the line from Kennington, which would be a very logical step to take once the line is split.
And with the existing loop I guess it's quite easy to make the rather sharp turn westwards to Battersea.
I do agree however, hat Crossrail 2 should serve this area instead, and think that the extension from Kennington should go towards South-East London.
The previous proposals for Battersea Power Station involved a shuttle train service from Victoria. There were not going to be any windows on the train: you would join the train and slide shows would play on the interior walls of the carriage during the journey, and then you would get out in the interior of the theme park that was going to be built in the structure of the Power Station.
I'm rather pleased that never happened.
JJBone
The Bakerloo Line has plenty of capacity to spare. If its extension South East does not go ahead, then an extension from Lambeth North or Elephant and Castle to Battersea and Chelsea would seem logical.
Working as a train driver on the Northern line these rumours are around !
Other rumours include new trains ( 09 stock which I guess are similir to the new Victoria Line stock) wehn the Northern Line goes Automatic ( around 2012 )
Guess we will have to wait and see .. I think its a great idea to extend the Charing Cross Branch from Kennington towards Battersea and maybe Clapham Junction !
melverc
Working as a train driver on the Northern line these rumours are around !
Other rumours include new trains ( 09 stock which I guess are similir to the new Victoria Line stock) wehn the Northern Line goes Automatic ( around 2012 )
Guess we will have to wait and see .. I think its a great idea to extend the Charing Cross Branch from Kennington towards Battersea and maybe Clapham Junction !
Hi. Anthony, living in Bushey Hertfordshire.
I think it would be more efficient to extend the DLR from Bank (take over the Waterloo & City line, Interchange at Vauxhall and then a Station for the Battersea Powerplant Redevelopment with a possible extention to Imperial Wharf (using the London Overground and Southern trains bridge over the Thames). Having a line at Kennington which splits 3 ways would be chaos and hard to get high frequency at peak hour times.
I appreciate that with TFL cash-strapped having private finance willing to pay for an extension can't be a bad thing - but running the line only to Battersea does seem a missed opportunity. There are so many national rail stations in the area that the new line could interchange with. Extending it onwards to Clapham Junction would make far more sense. And since the line evidently goes very near Vauxhall station, could it not interchange there?
In general a big problem with the tube/rail in London is what I call 'corridor design' There are so many places in London where lines cross but without a station and so no possiblity of interchange. The result being that those lines are useless unless you happen to need to travel along the corridor represented by each one. This proposed Northern Line extension strikes me as a perfect example of that problem.
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