South London RUS published

Network Rail have published their South London Route Utilisation Strategy, which propose forthcoming changes to services. There's a bewildering amount of information included (not to mention the diagrams), but here are some highlights related to high-profile schemes.

London Overground:

• The East London Line phase 2 extension via the South London Line is recommended.
• The South London Line service from Victoria to London Bridge is almost certain to be withdrawn, but they propose several replacement services that will use sections of the line (diagram on page 99), so most journeys should still be possible direct, and all will with a same platform change at Denmark Hill. This excludes Battersea Park, which will lose its SLL platforms when its others are extended.
• The Southern Watford Junction-Brighton services via the West London Line will be curtailed at South Croydon in 2009.
• An extra (possibly peak-only) service on the West London Line will run all stops Shepherd's Bush to South Croydon. Not going further north means 8-car third rail only trains could be used. Trains will reverse in the closed Eurostar depot north of Shepherd's Bush.

The Thameslink Programme:

• It's acknowledged that the Thameslink Programme Key Output 0 has slipped to March 2009 (page 5 and 140). The Moorgate branch lives on!
• The 2011 service (Key Output 1) will add Rochester, Maidstone East, Sevenoaks, Orpington and extra stopping services to Three Bridges.
• The final Thameslink service in 2015 (Key Output 2) will consist of:
  • 4 tph (trains per hour) fast-ish to Brighton, 4tph semi-fast to Gatwick and Horsham, 4tph slow to Sydenham and beyond, 2 tph to East Grinstead and 4 tph to Orpington and beyond via Lewisham (all 12-car via London Bridge).
  • Via Elephant and Castle there will be 4 tph on the Catford Loop and 2 tph into Kent, all 8-car trains.
  • Note the disappearance of stalwart proposed distinations such as Dartford, Eastbourne, Ashford, Littlehampton and Guildford and the curtailing of the Wimbledon Loop at Blackfriars.
  (illustrated above, taken from page 117)

For other suburban services, there are 10 and 12 car extensions planned and lots of other enhancements, but there's far too much to even summarise here.

The North London Line upgrade

Thanks to an anonymous commenter for pointing out that a whole load of info about the future of the North London Line has turned up on the Office of Rail Regulation website.


For one thing, they've chosen a service pattern, which I've illustrated above (the big numbers are frequency in tph, or trains per hour). The service on the North London Line are:

• 4 tph Stratford - Camden Road - Gospel Oak - Willesden Junction - Richmond (the current North London Line service)
• 2 tph Stratford - Camden Road - Gospel Oak - Willesden Junction - Clapham Junction
• 2 tph Stratford - Camden Road

That's a train every 7.5 minutes east of Camden Road. There are no trains via Primrose Hill to Queen's Park, as was once planned.

The 2 tph West London Line shuttle will continue, giving a train every 15 minutes between Clapham Junction and Willesden Junction. The Gospel Oak to Barking line stays self contained, with a 4 tph service, apparently due to the high cost of through platforms at Gospel Oak. The connections at Gospel Oak in the draft timetable don't look good. No upgrade to the Euston-Watford service is included yet.

There'll also be 8 trains per hour beyond Dalston Junction to Highbury & Islington. The diagram in the application form names them as the Crystal Palace and New Cross services, meaning the third service - from West Croydon - will only go as far as Dalston Junction.

There's a detailed diagram of the new track layout between Camden Road and Dalston, which confirms the plans for the East London Line to have a segregated route to Highbury & Islington, with little possibility of ELL trains continuing beyond there (forget about circular services). Highbury & Islington will end up with 3 eastbound platforms, each on a separate island.

Another document gives details of how stations will be refurbished, with improved CCTV, lighting, help points and PA systems. Stairs, flooring, walls, canopies and platform services will brought up to higher standards. LED next train indicators will be installed.

Construction work to rebuild the North London Line track begins this September, with the new timetable due in December 2010.

How Bank-Monument falls apart

Just as I was finishing my diagram of Bank-Monument a couple of weeks ago, TfL cryptically announced they'd be closing various bits today for escalator refurbishment. I went for a shufty on my way home today, and this is what I found:


[ Update: several closed routes are now open ]

So while the headline was that there's no interchange between Bank and Monument, in reality there's a perfectly cromulent interchange route between the two (which unsurprisingly seemed much quieter than usual).


Rather wonderfully, the new hoarding around the very work at Monument that's causing "Bank and Monument to effectively operate as two separate stations" has a big sticker on it pointing out there's a direct route to the Central Line and the DLR - which are where again?

Meanwhile, they have closed the three underground routes between the north and south bits of Bank, none of which contain escalators, forcing thousands of people through a tiny passageway upstairs in the ticket hall.

According to the leaflet, this phase lasts until this August August 2009, when we get all new lies.

Don't worry folks, they fit

Shoreditch High Street station

Not much has been said about the design of the new Shoreditch High Street station, least of all on this blog, so let's correct that.

Renderings like this have appeared on hoardings and in some promotional materials:

At first I thought this was just a conceptual picture of the line flying over Shoreditch, but no, they are actually building a five storey tall, quarter mile long windowless concrete box through the middle of the Bishopsgate Goods Yard site.

Here it is to scale with the enormous new Shoreditch High Street bridge (which you can fit a double decker bus under) and the even more enormous GE19 bridge:

The structure will have solid concrete walls and a concrete roof, making it feel like an underground station inside, despite the platforms being 9 metres above ground level. The brown bits aren't windows, they're "horizontal recesses that create a dynamic articulation in the façade when viewed as a whole", and will be filled with reflective material.

This letter explains why:

The enclosure will facilitate the redevelopment of the former Bishopsgate Goods Yard site by protecting the railway and station from future construction work. Unless the viaduct is enclosed, the future development of Bishopsgate Goods Yard would be severely constrained, or would require line possessions resulting in major disruption to ELL services. Construction of an enclosure to the viaduct is therefore essential if regeneration objectives of the boroughs of Hackney and Tower Hamlets and the London Plan are to be realised.

It's expected the whole thing will be "virtually totally enclosed" with buildings in the "medium to long term". There's already a planning application in for the southwest corner of the site.

So yes, big concrete wall coming soon. The station planning application is here or you can skip ahead to this set of renderings and drawings.

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.

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:

Thameslink 2000 visibly happening

Lurking at the side of Herne Hill station there's actual new track being laid as part of the Thameslink 2000 project, possibly the first since it got the go ahead last year:
It's nothing permanent, just a turnback siding so trains from the north can come here to reverse during engineering work. Trains using it won't be able to call at Herne Hill, since there's no platform. There's a tiny blurb about it at the back of the Network Rail business plan.

[via Modern Railways]

Prefab action at Mitcham Eastfields

View all posts about Mitcham Eastfields

A week ago I tried to call Network Rail's bluff about their prefab station concept. Looks like I've lost.

In just a week they've erected a couple of lift shafts for the footbridge:

And the best part of a giant station building:
The building should end up looking a lot like the one at Greenhithe for Bluewater, which was built to the same design (turns out Mitcham Eastfields is Network Rail's second modular station).

Croxley Rail Link rejected again

The Watford Observer reports that the latest business case for the Croxley Rail Link has been declared "non compliant" by the DfT, due to Transport for London not committing to an amount to contribute. But the DfT are still willing to talk to the council about what went wrong.

The picture is the closed Croxley Green station with a Metropolitan Line train going past if you squint hard enough. Took me ages to take that.

Shoreditch High Street bridge move: 8-10am tomorrow

TfL have put out a press release with everything you could possibly want to know about the bridge over Shoreditch High Street going up tomorrow, and the crane that's doing it.

The crane is hooked up and ready to go, the road closure starts at 4am tomorrow and the actual move will happen between 8 and 10 am. The road stays closed until 5am on Monday morning. The diversionary route for cars appears to be going to Old Street roundabout and back.

If you don't fancy venturing out, they're providing live webcam coverage.

Crane arrives at Shoreditch High Street

I've just received a set of pictures from Antonio, who works in the building overlooking Shoreditch High Street. This is what TfL call "the largest crane in the UK" (it appears to be this one), and will be used for this weekend's bridge move. I've made them into a panorama:
They weren't joking, were they?

Update: Photos of the bridge going in and in place and a map of what's what

Sunrise at Heathrow Terminal 5

Good morning. You join me on the platform at Hounslow West at stupid o'clock, waiting for this, the first service train to Heathrow Terminal 5:
The first surprise was the wind noise once the train entered the new section of tunnel - it's much louder than anything I've heard anywhere else on the network, including the worst of the Victoria Line. I travelled back from T5 on Heathrow Express, and didn't experience anything similar.

The new station is vast. Each part of the station has a wide concourse with the platforms either side, separated from it by glass walls. Here's the Piccadilly Line concourse, with the Heathrow Express concourse visible to the right behind another glass partition:

The Piccadilly Line has the northernmost island, Heathrow Express is in the middle, with space for AirTrack to the south, though there's a solid wall of plasterboard hiding it from view.

The lifts and escalators come up in the space between the main building and the multi-story car park. The escalators only get you as far as ground level (Arrivals), though this isn't clearly signposted. To reach Departures you need to get the lifts:

The Piccadilly Line and Heathrow Express stations have separate lifts up to the various floors. Here's where the AirTrack station's lifts aren't:

The ticket office for both services is on the ground floor in the main building, with the two entrances and sets of ticket machines either side:

The terminal building itself is also vast, as I'm sure you'll be hearing on TV news all day today:

Access to the building allows a closer view of the ULTra PRT system. Here's the track from ground level, weaving beneath the road access:

Here's where it enters the car park at the terminal end, and you can just see the section that be used as the station. There's no construction visible, just various piles of equipment:

You also get a view of the far end of the track. It looks to now be complete all the way to where it enters the new long stay car park that it's been built to serve:

Finally, London Underground have found the wordiest and most obtuse way of instructing passengers that they really ought to get a direct train to T1,2,3:

(if you're thinking about visiting the terminal, I did several laps around it while openly taking pictures in sight of various staff and police, and got zero hassle or even interest from any of them)

Tramlink Crystal Palace extension

Last week's announcement of TfL taking over Croydon Tramlink included the suggestion it might acceslerate progress on the Crystal Palace extension, so I've been reading up on exactly what's planned.

Here's a diagram of the existing tracks in the area (not to scale). The green dotted line shows the general route of the extension.

The description and TfL's diagram are a bit vague about where exactly the tramlines will run:

the tram would run on the embankment, either converting part of the existing train tracks or running alongside them.

The beginning of the route through Penge Road follows same lightly used branch line as the route to Beckenham Junction, and is a likely candidate for where one of the tracks could be converted. The route then crosses a junction with the Brighton Main Line (more on that later), and from here the railway is much busier and needs to remain double track, so trams will have to run alongside it to Anerley Road, mainly through people's back gardens.

It was once proposed to take over the entire railway branch to Beckenham Junction (shown in blue on my diagram), with direct tram service from Crystal Palace to Beckanham Junction. This is absent from any current plans.

At Anerley Road the line rises to street level from which there are several options for reaching Crystal Palace station. Finally, it runs along the bottom of the park to terminate at Crystal Palace Parade, for interchange with buses.

The part of the plan that's haziest is the crossing of the Brighton Main Line, and the two junction spurs alongside it. Trams need to be fully segregated, so sharing track or having any tracks cross on the level isn't an option, making it all but impossible to use the existing bridge. And the spurs are already on embankment, so unless they have something clever planned, the bridge needed to go over the whole lot will need to be enormous.


I've included two other major projects on the diagram: The purple tracks are used by Thameslink services to Brighton and eventually other places. The orange tracks will be used by the East London Line extension to Crystal Palace (where there will be new platforms) and West Croydon.

As for other Tramlink extensions, the best TfL can say is they "haven't been forgotten about". Reassuring.

DLR Stratford International extension progress

Since the Stratford to North Woolwich closed in December 2006, work has been slowly happening to convert the section between Canning Town and Stratford into the DLR, extending it onwards to serve Stratford International, and due for opening in 2010.

How far have they got? Not very, since it's still in the "enabling works" stage. For a short distance west of Royal Victoria the track has been removed and stacked in the mouth of Connaught Tunnel:

This line here is part of the non-existent Royal Docks Heritage Railway and eventually will be part of Crossrail.

The track has been removed to allow the construction of complex grade-separated junction between the four branches south of Canning Town, which is well under way but I've completely failed to photograph it. There's lots of digging and drilling and concrete and rebar and so on. You'll have to use your imagination.

At Canning Town the old North London Line platform has been covered in Martian graffiti:


All trains towards Stratford International will leave from these platforms, and all trains towards Canary Wharf and Central London will leave from the existing platforms upstairs. Trains the other way, towards Beckton and City Airport/Woolwich Arsenal can leave from either location, depending on where they're coming from. There will be no direct trains from Stratford International to Canary Wharf.

The line is untouched all the way from here to Stratford, with no sign yet of the three new stations.

At Stratford, the North London Line is still using the through platforms downstairs, and no work can happen until new platforms have been built for it upstairs on the far north side of the station:

The North London Line service will be diverted here this December, os so I'm told.

North of Stratford, the NLL/future DLR is being walled in with enormous concrete slabs:


The DLR will run along the same track until almost to the first junction, where it turns right and runs alongside the Temple Mills freight line to reach Stratford International. I've made a Google Map showing what's what.

From a passing board an NLL trains you can see a level trackbed has been left alongside the freight line as part of the recent large scale landscaping of the area:
That bridge carries the Stratford International access road. Almost visible beyond is the Channel Tunnel Rail Link cutting.

And that's the nearest the public can get. See this post for pictures of Stratford International DLR station under construction.

Mitcham Eastfields station update

View all posts about Mitcham Eastfields

At the end of last year I posted everything there is to know about Eastfields station. Since then they've renamed it Mitcham Eastfield, decided it will be in Zone 3 and possibly First Capital Connect are going to stop there (all according to the latest London Connections map). But with it due to open a few months from now, let's see how construction is going.

[Update: Buildings are up]

On the London-bound platform they've finished the standalone part of the platform and the foundations for the building and are putting up the short station canopy:
When completed, the platform will extend across in front to much nearer the level crossing (see plan).

On the other side of the level crossing, construction of the southbound platform is also nearly complete, as are the foundations for the footbridge:
The brick hut visible in this image is gone.

And here's a bunch of bits (possibly the footbridge) arriving on the back of a lorry:


The immediate location of the station is quite unusual. On one side there's little but school playing fields, and on the other it's surrounded by ramshackle allotments (the station is by the crossing gates in the distance):

There doesn't seem to be much sign of the fast, cheap modular station concept they once bragged about, though maybe that will change now the ground preparation is nearing completion.

DLR Limehouse footbridge project

Limehouse has adjacent elevated DLR and c2c stations, built to act as an interchange, but the only route between them is via the street. Since the westbound c2c platform is right next to the eastbound DLR platform (towards Canary Wharf), every morning commuters from Essex have a long walk to end up only a few feet away.

After twenty years of this, they're doing the obvious thing and building a footbridge between the two. Here's a plan - it has its own gateline, since the c2c station is gated and the DLR is not. There's an artist's impression on the TfL project page and the image above is pilfered from this presentation, which also has details of all current DLR projects. Finally, the planning application.

It's due to be completed by the end of this year.

DLR Woolwich Arsenal extension

A year from now the second phase of the DLR City Airport branch is due to open, consisting of a new tunnel under the Thames connecting King George V (the current terminus) to Woolwich Arsenal railway station. Here are some photos of how they're getting on.

Here's the tunnel portal on the north side, taken from the footbridge at King George V:Tunneling finished last July. The track is joined up to the rest of the network already.

Here's the entrance building at Woolwich Arsenal, next door to the railway station:
The completed building will look like this, with an office development on top.

Here's the same building from within the railway station. A new interchange bridge links the DLR station to the westbound platform:
TfL have an aerial photo that shows the overall layout.

The DLR stays below ground level all the way into the station and none of the track is visible from the street south of the river, and Greenwich Council's online planning register is too horsedrawn to have diagrams available online, so we'll have to wait to see exactly how things work inside. They do have this planning brief which provides some detail, and there's always TfL's project page.

The DLR three-car project

Last week's event showing off the new DLR railcars was also the launch for the three-car DLR project, so it's probably time I wrote about what's happening.

First, a note about terminology. This is what what a "three-car" DLR train looks like. Each articulated unit counts as one "car", so the three-car project amounts to running three units coupled together rather than two, not adding a third segment to each unit as many people misunderstand. And although the new cars have been bought as part of the three-car project, they're likely to run in two-car configuration to begin with. In time, old and new cars will all be coupled in threes.

As is visible in that picture, most stations on the DLR are only long enough for two cars, so the main part of the project is rebuilding the platforms, and most . At most stations they can easily extend them in one direction or the other, as is already happening at the east end of Shadwell:

The track here also needs to be straightened.

One station that can't be extended easily is South Quay, which is between two sharp curves. A fancy new station is being constructed slightly further east where the track is straight:

They haven't got much further than ground preparation. The image on the right shows the new site from the end of the existing station.

Tower Gateway will also be rebuilt. It currently has a narrow island platform with tracks either side. During a nine month closure starting this June, the entire platform area will be demolished and replaced with a single track with platforms on both sides. Passengers will board from the south platform and leave via the north platform.

The project is being done in stages. Stations from Bank-Lewisham are being done now , though the pictures above show the only visible construction so far. Tower Gateway and the Delta Junction upgrade are being done as part of this phase. Completion is due in October 2009.

Phase 2 begins with the Poplar-Stratford, due for completion in March 2010. The City Airport/Woolwich Arsenal branch was built as three car, but Blackwall and East India Quay will also be extended in December to provide a three car route all the way to Bank. That leaves only the Beckton branch which, although officially part of phase 2, I can find no timetable for it being upgraded, and I don't believe it has funding. Beckton depot is however being expanded to house the extra cars.

TfL have station plans for the Phase 2 upgrades here and there are some dates and other details on page 72 of the most recent board papers. An overview of closures required for the work is here.

[Thanks to diamondgeezer for the last link]

How Bank-Monument works

Since I made my maps of Green Park and King's Cross St. Pancras I knew it was only a matter of time before I had a crack at Bank-Monument. And here's what I've come up with:

[ Update: Diagram of the current closures ]

There are several other maps available, but I wanted to do something a bit more detailed and geographically accurate that could be reconciled with the actual experience of traipsing through the tunnels.

Notes, disclaimers and things learnt during this exercise:

• This was made entirely by visual observation on a handful of short visits, with no accurate charts used save an aerial photo to get the general shape right. It's entirely possible it's hilariously wrong.
• The DLR really is slightly offset from the Northern Line and not quite parallel to it as shown. It's not me making my drawing easier.
• From shallowest to deepest the levels are: Ticket halls, District/Circle Line, Waterloo & City Line, upper interchange level, Central Line, lower interchange level, Northern Line and DLR.
• The route from end to end via the DLR rather than the Northern Line isn't actually much longer, it just involves a stupidly high number of bends and transitions.
• The Waterloo & City Line platforms have a tiny newsagent hidden in a cross passage. Is it the only deep[-ish] level station so blessed?
• The complex is so vast it has a whole other tube station within its thrall (Cannon Street).
• The lift access from street to the DLR requires using three separate lifts, two of which are in the peak hours only ticket hall.
• I have no idea what shape the Bank ticket hall really is.
• For extra anorak points I've included the platform numbers and escalator numbers - I've heard the guy on the tannoy (it appears the same one works there 24/7) use the latter to refer to the escalators under repair.

This long easter weekend, why not use the diagram to try to work out what on earth today's rambling TfL press release about escalator closures is trying to say.

TfL nationalise Croydon Tramlink

TfL have announced they're buying Tramtrack Croydon Ltd, the private consortium that built, owned, ran and in part paid for the Tramlink network. TfL are planning various service improvements, which are outlined in the press release.

This page has a nice overview of who Tramtrack Croydon are. The consortium's owners contributed £75m towards the project, and TfL are buying them out for £98m. Blithely ignoring any money that's gone in or out in the intervening years, I make that 5.8% APR. Not bad.

Ken: No new bendy bus routes

Ken Livingstone has declared there are no plans to convert further routes to bendy buses. As Boris Johnson supports scrapping them completely, regardless of who wins, London's traditional long boarding times and slow journeys have been saved for future generations / London has been spared further soulless road-hogging fire-breathing death traps. (delete as applicable)

New GE19 bridge gains temporary extension

I was on a train out of Liverpool Street earlier today and was surprised to see the new GE19 bridge had gained an appendage on its west end.

I went back this evening with a camera:
In a couple of month's time the bridge is going to be slid to the left over the main line, and this extension ought to guide the bridge itself onto the western abutment. They've made it curve upwards slightly suggesting they the structure to sag on its way across. The extension looks long enough that by the time the bridge is in its final position, the tip could be hovering somewhere over Brick Lane. (see map)

(by the way, the line of concrete blocks in the foreground correspond roughly with where the back wall of the platform at Shoreditch was before the cutting was filled in)

Meanwhile just down the road, the Shoreditch High Street bridge has gained its uprights and looks close to ready to go:
The hoarding advertises the bridge move and road closure in two weeks' time and says the "largest crane in the UK" will be used. Bus users are advised to allow "up to 40 minutes extra" for their journeys.

New DLR railcars on display today

The new DLR railcars were on display at West India Quay all day today, parked in the platform that as part of the same capacity upgrade programme, is not long for this world. Here are some photos:



On the whole, remarkably similar to the existing cars.

Stratford DLR footbridge: FITE!

TfL are quietly fuming after Network Rail closed their shiny new DLR footbridge less than two months after it opened. From the board papers:

The station upgrade project gives cause for some concern given Network Rail's unilateral decision to close the footbridge linking DLR's new £20m station to the suburban lines at Stratford. Following high-level intervention, Network Rail are giving consideration as to how the footbridge might be reopened sooner than the 2009 scheduled date.

That's some serious understated snark.

The bridge was closed because a new staircase to the subway is being constructed nearby as apart of the Olympic upgrade (in red, lower left on this plan), and the construction hoarding makes restricts access along the platform to the bridge.

Shepherd's Bush Overground opening date: October 2008

This month's board papers have another update on the Shepherd's Bush Overground saga:

Network Rail and Westfield are making good progress towards a technical solution to the 'narrow' north-bound platform to be increased to a minimum width of 4m along a 4-car length, including the former pinch point at the bridge pier. The parties are seeking to open the station at least 4 weeks in advance of the opening of the shopping centre.

Now when's the shopping centre open? The latest line seems to be "by Christmas". The shopping centre's tube stations don't open until mid-October, so November-ish appears to be a safe bet for the shopping centre, and October for the Overground, coinciding with the other stations opening. This is pure speculation, mind.

Board Papers: March 2008

TfL held an "open session" board meeting today. While I couldn't stay long enough to hear anything interesting, I did manage to snag an early copy of the board papers.

[ Update: The PDF is now online ]

Notes:

Tube

• Installation of Automatic Train Operation equipment to the Jubilee Line fleet is expected to be complete in October. The associated new signalling system (and possibly ATO) is down as coming into use in March 2009, starting from the east end.
• Severe delays on the Jubilee Line on February 5 and 6 were caused by a loose earth strap on one particular train causing shorts. It was installed as part of the ATO modifications.
• The last refurbished District Line train is due back in July 2008.
• The Shepherd's Bush Central Line project is now directly managed by TfL directly rather than Metronet, which may explain the sudden change of plan last December.
• A "Euston Interchange" project is mentioned, probably meaning linking up Euston Square. Initial design and "optioneering" (which shockingly is a real word) will happen in July.
• Acton Town and Hendon Central will shortly become step-free.
• Planning to provide step-free access is underway for: Green Park, Waterloo (Northern and Bakerloo), Baker Street, North Acton, Tower Hill, Paddington, Southfields, Finsbury Park and Vauxhall.
• The new signalling system on the Victoria Line will come be used in service from January 2009 (and as I understand it, has to occur at exactly the same time as the first new train).
• Kensington Olympia will be gated in October.
• The "London Underground extensions" section in the budget is conspicuously blank.

DLR

• A pilot test of a DLR ticket machine with (gasp!) Oyster starts in June.
• The board voted last month to apply for powers for the Dagenham Dock DLR extensions.

London Overground

• Crime on London Overground is down 40% and revenues are up 17% over the same period last year.
• LOROL's new integrated control room is yet to open, but should improve information provision.
• Five of London Overground's electric train fleet have "received the fleet refreshment package" and other improvement schemes are in the works.
• "Manufacture" of the first new train for London Overground began on 11 February 2008, 35 days late ("production" began last September). Testing of it is pencilled in for 23 June 2008.
• The apparent upping of the London Overground train order to 54 Electrostars (216 carriages) is mentioned again.

• "Discussions continued" regarding Thameslink and East London Line phase 2.
• One part of the East London Line construction schedule has been extended by 13 days to allow Crossrail-protection works to be done at Whitechapel so that the line can stay open during Crossrail construction.
• The ELL Operational Building Complex will be "available for use by employee" from December.

• Unlike the last two months, the possible takeover of Southern isn't mentioned anywhere.

Buses, Trams, Oyster

• A new lower level extension opened at Hammersmith bus station on February 16
• Oyster PAYG will be rolled out on a "TOC by TOC" basis if possible this year, "in advance of a wider rollout in 2009". That appears to be a backing off of the January 2009 date for all train operating companies.
• Visitor Oyster Cards are selling well on National Express coaches, particularly airport services.
• All buses will have iBus (i.e. talk) by February 2009.
• Bus priority schemes for "flagship routes" 53, 207 and 253 are planned, and bus 38 on Shaftesbury Avenue.
• Preferred routes for the Cross River Tram and Crystal Palace extension won't be chosen until next January.

Mayoral transport manifestos

Ken Livingstone launched his transport manifesto today, and you can download the full PDF here or read the summary. Boris Johnson has as an equivalent full PDF and summary. I've not read them yet, so I'll leave the interpretation to you.

On a related note, starting next Tuesday electoral rules bar the Mayor from making any even slightly politically advantageous announcements, and they already mean he has to watch his step, so expect quiet on this front (and potentially this blog) for the next two months.

ELL bridge move diary dates

We now have provisional dates confirmed for when each of the three major bridges being built for the East London Line extension are to be moved into place:

• Local signs state the Shoreditch High Street bridge (pictured) will be moved on the weekend of 29-30 March, with the road closed throughout.
• The GE19 bridge will be moved starting Sunday May 4th. Liverpool Street station will be closed from 1.30am until 3.30am on Tuesday morning. The date was mentioned in these lecture notes and is confirmed by page 87 of Network Rail's Anglia possessions register, assuming "Structures work 0m 48ch" refers to it.
• The New Cross Gate bridge will go in on on the weekend of May 10-11, a date given explicitly on page 177 of the Network Rail Southern Region possessions register.

According to the lecture notes, the Shoreditch bridge will be lifted and the other two will be slid. Thanks to reader abigailb for emailing the Shoreditch High Street info and the photo above.

Tube map watch: March 2008

A new copy of the pocket tube map is available at some tube stations (click to enlarge):

Changes from the February pocket map are:

• Shepherd's Bush Overground is shown as opening late 2008, rather than just 2008.
• Heathrow Terminal 5 is shown as solid rather than an outline, with red text stating "Opens 27 March 2008", rather than "Opens Spring 2008".
• The Mayor of London, Transport for London and London Underground logos have been added at the bottom.
• The blue boxes show details of the Victoria Line closures rather than just "See key for details"
• Tower Gateway is shown as "Closed June 2008 to spring 2009" rather than "summer 2008".
• The East London Line extension outlines have been removed.
• Bus ELP has become bus 381.
• The National Rail symbol and "Thameslink 200m" text have disappeared from West Hampstead.
• Borough has gained an "Exit only during peak hours" warning.
Liverpool Street has lost its aeroplane symbol.
• Pinner has lost its apparently unnecessary dagger symbol.
• The Piccadilly Line notes now state "Trains via Terminal 4 may stop there for up to 8 minutes".
• The Rorschach test style art on the front has become an RAF roundel, and the advert on the back is for Ikea rather than Oyster.

I got mine at King's Cross St. Pancras tube ticket hall - other stations I've been through recently still had the old one. The current version online is dated January and corresponds to neither.

"Number 10" supports TfL Southern takeover

The Guardian today provides some more speculation regarding the possible integration of bits of Southern into London Overground.

(try to ignore the gaffs re: London Overground being entirely within London, and the author's somewhat abstract description of Southern's routes)

Heathrow ULTra PRT

Heathrow Terminal 5 will add two extra modes of transport to London's repertoire, both variations on rubber-tyred people movers. The first is fairly conventional and is a lot like the one shown here (though T5 has double-ended cars), running in an underground tunnel to shuttle passengers from the main building to the satellite building where the majority of the terminal's gates are.

The other, ULTra PRT, is much more unusual. It uses four-seater battery-powered pods that operate like automated taxis, allowing passengers to choose their destination before they board, and it will take them straight there. The initial system only has three stations, one in Terminal 5 and the other two in a long stay car park on the northern perimeter, but it's hoped the system will one day cover the whole airport.

It's developed by a Welsh company and is amongst the first of its kind in the world - the only comparable systems are one on a university campus in West Virginia built in 1971 and a tiny one in Las Colinas, Texas.

One of the pods is currently parked on display on the guideway near the terminal building:

As the last picture shows, the guideway is basically complete at the terminal end, but at the northern it's still very much under construction:

You can see the route in this shoddy aerial photo and in the planning application, which I've transcribed it onto Google Maps. The planning permission also includes the layout of the track within the car park, the location of the station at Terminal 5, which is part of the multi-storey car park adjacent to the terminal, and includes a large area for parking out-of-service pods. There's also this long explanation of the system. You can see many more construction photos here.

Although Terminal 5 opens later this month, the ULTra PRT system will not be ready for another year.

How Farringdon Crossrail will work

New London Architecture have an exhibition on at the moment about Underground London, and included in the brochure is this diagram of Farringdon Crossrail station (the labels are my doing).

It shows how the station will connect into both Farringdon and Barbican tube stations, and how at the Farringdon end it incorporates the southern platform extensions and ticket hall that are being added as part of Thameslink Programme (shown in light green).

DLR Delta Junction upgrade

Delta Junction is the triangular junction at the north end of the Isle of Dogs, between Westferry, West India Quay and Poplar. Two corners of it are grade-separated already, and work is underway to grade separate the third by building a new dive-under as part of the current capacity upgrades. Here's a plan of the new dive-under and a side elevation, and I've also made my own diagram on Google Maps, which shows it in context.

The problem at the moment is trains from Canary Wharf to Poplar have to cross in front of trains from Bank to Canary Wharf (the routes shown in turquoise on my map), which limits capacity. The plan is to construct a new ramp that will take trains coming from Bank under the Canary Wharf to Poplar track, before coming back up to rejoin the route to Canary Wharf (dark blue). The route bypasses West India Quay station, meaning Bank to Canary Wharf trains won't call there. The station's easternmost platform will also need to be demolished (red).

London Overground for south London

This month's Londoner has a short article on Transport for London's ambitions to add services in south London to the London Overground network:

Following the successful takeover of the three Silverlink overground rail services in north London – that has delivered safer trains and increased revenue – Transport for London have asked the government for responsibility for national rail services in south London, too.

At last month's board meeting TfL discussed "taking a greater role" in running Southern services in London when the franchise is renewed next year, but not necessarily taking them over. Plans for a takeover were reported by the Times last year, in an article featuring a suspiciously similar quote from Ken as the Londoner have used.

Crossrail refused full track access rights

The Crossrail project has been busy applying for thirty year access rights (what they call TAO) to make sure its services can run on existing lines. The Office of Rail Regulation has published its draft decision:

we should approve a TAO; [however] the parties’ proposed TAO should be modified to contain rights to two fewer paths per hour in each direction at weekends and in periods other than the peak, shoulder peak and service start and end periods on weekdays;

That upshot is that during the daytime and at weekends they only have rights to run six trains per hour west of Paddington - probably four to Heathrow and two to Maidenhead. On the Shenfield branch, they've only been awarded rights for six trains an hour rather than the eight requested. Peak services are unaffected.

The decision only determines what trains Crossrail has guaranteed long term rights to run. The regulator thinks it's unwise to award them the full set now, in case demand for freight or other passenger services becomes more pressing. If it doesn't, it's entirely possible they'll still be able to run all the trains they asked to, and they have at least 10 years to argue their case.

If you haven't seen the application documents before, they contain all sorts of juicy details like the proposed track layout (west, central and east) and the service frequencies and stopping patterns. West of Paddington it's expected all trains will skip at least one of Acton, Southall, Hanwell and West Ealing; and there'll be half-hourly non-Crossrail diesel trains that skip many more stations, mainly to provide a decent service to Maidenhead and Twyford. The latter are unaffected by the rights decision, so Maidenhead will have a total of four trains per hour to London off peak.

[via Transport Briefing]

Surrey Quays could go back to being Surrey Docks

TfL are considering demands to rename Surrey Quays station on the East London Line back to Surrey Docks:

A TfL spokesman said: "TfL London Rail has been asked by local residents to consider reverting the name of Surrey Quays station to the original name of Surrey Docks while the East London Line is being extended for conversion to London Overground.

"In response to this request, we will consult with the local community this summer to get a wider range of opinions and views on the name of the station," he added.

It's hard to tell if this is just empty placating, but the combination of it being a reversion to an old name, the extended closure and the offer of a consultation gives it more chance than the average renaming campaign.

Sent in by diamondgeezer

AirTrack consultation

BAA have opened their consultation on AirTrack, the plan to link Heathrow into the South West Trains network, with services to Reading, Guildford and London Waterloo. I'd always had it down as a "we'll build it one day" type project, but it's starting to look like they might be serious.

The elements of this scheme are:

• fitting out two platforms at the Terminal 5 station which has already been built tunnelling between Terminal 5 and Hithermoor
• constructing a new alignment across Stanwell moor and Staines moor
• forming a junction with the Windsor line
• building a new station at Staines High Street
• linking the Windsor line to the Virginia Water line in Staines Town Centre (the chord)
• remodelling the existing Staines station

Once this new rail infrastructure is in place, two trains per hour will operate in each direction to London Waterloo, Guildford and Reading. It is currently proposed that services will stop at: Clapham Junction, Richmond, Twickenham, Feltham, Woking, Chertsey, Wokingham, Bracknell, Staines Central and the new Staines High Street station.

There are all sorts of options and details in the brochure. The biggest surprise is BAA's "aspiration" to extend Heathrow Express services to Staines. The area is currently only served by stopping services to London, so this could be a big improvement if through journeys are allowed. They also say they're going to make the Airtrack tunnel overhead electrified, which will require dual voltage trains as the SWT network is all third rail.

Apart from the branch to Heathrow, the main bit of infrastructure needed is a new curve in Staines. Currently the line from Waterloo forks just west of Staines station into two branches, to Reading/Guildford and Windsow/Heathrow. The curve is needed for trains to get between those two branches. Here's a panorama of the area where it will be built, taken from the middle of the fork. The branches on the embankments either side.
Although this is right in the middle of Staines, the only thing that'll be overshadowed by the new line is the back of a shopping centre. This area is already cut off by the two existing embankments, so there are no pedestrians passing through. Although there are no buildings in the way, the line will cut through the car park ramp, and there are various options for how to replace it discussed in the consultation.

Waterloo & City Line at Bank to get new entrance

TfL have announced plans to build a new entrance to the Waterloo & City Line platforms at Bank station:

The new street level entrance in Walbrook Square will provide step-free access with lifts, as well as escalators and stairs to the Waterloo & City Line platforms.

Legal & General is redeveloping Bucklersbury House [...] As part of the construction programme a new station box will be constructed in the basement of the building for London Underground.

The new entrance will open in 2013. Walbrook Square, which is a redevelopment of several buildings on the south side of Queen Victoria Street, a little to the west of Bank station.

East London Line progress photos: March 2008

Another month, another walk through the untamed pastures of E2. As an accompaniment to these pictures you should take a look at this set of notes from a recent lecture on construction progess. Last month's photos are here.


Dalston Junction, this time from the north end. This was all still bare earth at the beginning of the year.


Haggerston station. Moulds for the concrete have been put up, ready for pouring. The lecture notes mention that they were forced to demolish the viaduct here, as it was structurally unsound.


Hoxton station. I'm no idea what this is the foundation of, as the station is meant to be entirely under the arches, but they seem to be making good progress whatever. On the right, the arches have been cleaned out.


This is part of the curve from the end of the Broad Street viaduct to the crossing of Shoreditch High Street (see map). Since my last visit they've closed off Holywell Lane, creating one continuous building site for the length of the new viaduct. The pillars have been there a couple of months, so the closure and the scaffolding going up suggest they're about to do the deck.


The new Shoreditch High Street bridge is taking shape in Bishopsgate Goods Yard - it's gained arches but is missing its vertical tension bars. The concrete has been cast for the eastern abutment, and it's now wrapped in black plastic (above the red van). The western abutment (just out of shot to the right) is still bare rebar. Allegedly it'll be moved into place this month.

The bridge is bigger than it looks here - a diagram I have shows the arch as 11m high and 36m across (shorter than the similar 45m Regent's Canal bridge), and it will be positioned around 6m above road level.


At Shoreditch High Street station, they're busy pouring the slab for the viaduct deck.


The replacement GE19 bridge is now fully assembled - the bench in front of the hoarding gives a sense of its epic scale. The bridge will be pushed into place at the beginning of May.


Part of the huge depot construction site at New Cross Gate. This was taken from a moving train - there's a lot more going on than was captured in this picture.


Northbound trains heading for the ELL will cross the mainline on a flyover, descending this ramp within the depot site.

I didn't get a picture of the activity on the west side of the tracks, where a similar ramp is being built and the bridge itself is being assembled. The bridge is similar in design to the GE19 bridge above, though only the deck and a couple of uprights are in place. Also like the GE19 bridge, it will be moved into place in May.


The old ELL platform at New Cross Gate, which has lost its conductor rails and buffer stop. This track will become the through line for southbound ELL trains by connecting it to the main line south of the station.

Next installment (April 2008) »

Shepherd's Bush (Central Line) update

Blimey, that was quick. They've got they've got the frame for the enormous new station up already.


It's only the east half of the frame, as most of the original station is still standing (visible on the left). It looks like they're proceeding with the original plan to build half of the new station while keeping the original one open, which would have meant only closing it to build the rest. They've just replaced the keeping-it-open phase with an escalator-replacement phase.

East Coast Main Line RUS published

Network Rail have published their East Coast Main Line Route Utilisation Strategy. The recommended work affecting London includes:

• Six-car trains will be used on all shoulder-peak First Capital Connect inner-suburban services as soon as trains are available from London Overground (four are needed).
• Off-peak inner-suburban services will be increased from 3tph to 4tph on each branch, including weekday evenings and Saturdays.
• Extension of hours on the Moorgate branch is unlikely.
• The Up Goods line (the easternmost track) from Alexandra Palace to Finsbury Park will be converted into a third southbound passenger usage. The four stations it passes will get extra platforms on the line, and may also get them on the equivalent northbound line, the Down Slow 2 (the westernmost track). This will improve flexibility and capacity.
• Extra trains will run from the Hertford Loop to Moorgate in the morning peak.
• Outer suburban platforms will be extended to 12-car length progressively, in advance of when they're needed by the Thameslink Porgramme.
• Finsbury Park and Harringay are candidates for the National Station Improvement Programme, which seeks to improve station ambience.
• Finsbury Park and Highbury & Islington will be getting lifts to the National Rail platforms (and the tube platforms).
• A speculative section at the end mentions the [somewhat unlikely] possibility of inner-suburban trains going to Thameslink, with outer suburban trains being Intercity Express Programme trains to King's Cross
• Also speculatively, insufficient capacity at Moorgate could in the long term lead to some inner-suburban trains using the Canonbury tunnel to the North London Line.

If any of this sounds familiar, it's because most of it appeared in the draft document, published last June.

As an aside, both this document and the West Hampstead Interchange info mention that, come 2015, the split of Thameslink services between the Midland Main Line and the East Coast Main Line will be 16 vs 8 each hour, rather than the 14 vs 10 that appeared in previous documents. There'll still be two trains per hour into King's Cross (possibly peak-only), rising to six per hour in the longer term.