Saturday 26 July 2008

Top secret London Overground news

Well, not very secret. But I've been sent a non-public London Overground presentation that contains a few interesting bits.

Firstly, there's an updated rendering of the new London Overground trains:
Compared to the old rendering, it's gained eyeliner and a thicker orange stripe that continues around the front, and lost its Overground logo, Bombardier logo and number (though there should be a real one of these to ogle by now).

Moving on, it's stated the East London Line will reopen in "January 2010". Although completion much earlier than the "Summer 2010" public date have long appeared in TfL's board papers, this is the first time I've seen them telling anyone it'll open so much earlier.

Finally, they have a construction schedule for the North London Line upgrade, and the extensive line closures required:

  • April 2009 to April 2010: Camden Road to Dalston
    Freight trains will be diverted onto the passenger tracks. Currently freight trains use the single track on the north side of the passenger tracks, which needs to be rebuilt as double track during the upgrade. It's unclear what the effect on passenger services will be.
  • April 2009 to June 2010 (Sundays): Hackney Wick to Stratford
  • Dec 2008 to April 2009 (Sunday and some Saturdays) Gospel Oak to Woodgrange Park 
  • April 2010 to June 2010 (weekends): Kensington Olympia to Clapham Junction
    They need to convert Latchmere Curve, just outside Clapham Junction, from single to double track.
  • April 2010 to May 2010 (weekends): Willesden Junction to Kensington Olympia 
  • Jan 2010 to Feb 2010 (weekends): South Action to Acton Central 
  • April 2009 to Jan 2011 (Sundays): Acton Central to Gospel Oak
They don't actually give specific reasons for these closures, so the two above are mine, and otherwise it's for general track, signalling and power upgrades for the new high frequency service.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know that the new Overground 378s will have longitudial seating (ie along the side of the gangway similar to Underground stock) but will this be low or high backed? I thought all new trains had to have high-backed seats for health and safety reasons but surely this would obscure half the windows?

Anonymous said...

Does anyone know if the new stock will have more seats than the current trains?

Anonymous said...

It will have fewer seats, but more capacity (i.e. standing room).

Anonymous said...

Do they have Air con, I notice from the pics that they have opening windows like South Eastern's class 376s.

Dazz285 said...

yes they will have air con, thank heavens ;-)