This is old news, but doesn't seem to have been widely circulated - on October 31st Hammersmith and Fulham Council announced that they've extracted another £1.25m from developers St George for the construction of Imperial Wharf station. This came only a couple of weeks after they said they needed roughly that amount in extra funding over what was already in place.
What they conspicuously don't mention is whether this means the station is going to be built.
The Crossrail Bill has now cleared the House of Commons and now has to be approved by the House of Lords. As previously discussed, there'll be another round of public petitioning. The petitioning period in the Commons resulted in this document, which details the various complaints and the committee's responses and recommendations.
Update: The Crossrail newsletter points to the Lords' Crossrail page. The petitioning period is 8th-30th January.
TfL have announced that the Central Line station at Shepherd's Bush is closing from 2 February 2008 until October:
This will result in the ticket hall being demolished and rebuilt, as well as the installation of new escalators and modernisation of the station.I note that the press release mentions the new Wood Lane station, the renaming of Shepherd's Bush H&C. the new Central Line depot, even the new H&C viaduct over the entrance to that depot, but not a peep about a certain other station.
I was looking at the plans for the Victoria Transport Interchange* development, when I found this diagram showing where the platforms for the Chelsea-Hackney Line will be (the grey bits on the left), with interchange passageways shown and everything!
The southbound platform will be directly under Buckingham Palace Road, the northbound platform a bit off to the west, and there'll be a new entrance on the north side of Bressenden Place (a long way from Victoria station, but handy for Buckingham Palace), and an interchange passageway across to the District Line ticket hall, and another to the Victoria Line platforms.
Sadly, it's all fictional:
No detailed plans yet exist for this scheme but the Victoria Transport Interchange proposals incorporate a safeguarding zone anticipating the station being located below Buckingham Palace Road.And the redevelopment scheme itself is looking shaky.
The notes from this month's TfL board meeting have been published. A few things of note:
I took a detour to Stratford on the way home today to check on the DLR bridge, and by the power of Ken it is open. Bemused commuters were being herded that way even if they were going east (it connects only to the westbound platforms).
It's actually less a footbridge and more a walkway - it only has stairs at one end (the short flight shown in the picture), while at the DLR end it comes out level with the platforms. It didn't need to be built any taller because the only thing it goes over is the westbound Central Line descending into its tunnel.
Meanwhile, in second platform news, they still weren't using both platforms at once.
Update: Building has an excellent aerial photo of it.
The latest Smoke has a write-up of London's only subaquatic bus route, the 108 (Stratford-North Greenwich-Lewisham), and by my reckoning one of very few that pass the same point 3 times during their run. Anyway, the article briefly mentions the Millennium Busway, built to speed passengers from Charlton station to the Dome. Having no recollection of what this engineering marvel amounts to and finding little online, I decided to take a look while I was in East London yesterday.
The answer: not much. Here it is on a map. Very nearly three quarters of a mile of, well, bus lane, stretching all the way from North Greenwich station to North Greenwich Odeon.
The northern half runs adjacent to one of the Dome's gridlocked access roads and has no stops - the only building it passes is this isolated pub with a terrace of houses behind it.
The southern half runs around the back of Greenwich Millennium Village (where there are two lonely stops), then terminates at a junction with Bugsby's Way (pictured). Buses cross from here into the retail park with that Millennium eco-Sainsbury's. Then it's out onto normal streets.
Under the "Millennium Transit" plans it was intended that buses on the route would be guided electronically, following a buried cable, but the technology was abandoned before public service commenced, partly because of safety concerns. The busway is now used by ordinary buses to get passengers to North Greenwich station slightly quicker, but one day will be part of Greenwich Waterfront Transit, and far in the future that could be converted to trams, finally fulfilling the busway's destiny.
Another new thing in the fares leaflet is the availability of Railcard discounted fares caps on Oyster PAYG. You'll be able to have your Young Persons, Disabled Persons, HM Forces or Senior Railcard loaded onto your Oyster card (no details how) and from then on the off-peak fares cap for you will be around a third lower than normal (e.g. £3.10 vs £4.80 for Zones 1-2). There doesn't appear to be a discount on peak caps or single journeys.
The new fares leaflet is on tube station leaflet racks everywhere, though not yet online. It confirms the new National Rail route sections where Oyster PAYG will be valid from January, though they're not quite as expected:
There's another new tube map coming out this January to go with the changes to the Travelcard zones, among other things, and copies of it are leaking out in various places. The London Connections version has appeared on TfL's website. The tube map version can be found in the centrefold of the London Overground timetable book now available at stations (that's a photo of my copy to the right - click to enlarge). Reader Marcel has emailed me photos of the poster tube map that's already up at Langdon Park, which is very similar to the version here, but shows the zones.
Quite a few notable changes:
This weekend saw the opening of two new London stations, and the closure of another after 134 years.
The last ever train left King's Cross Thameslink last night around 1.15am (several minutes late), and the first ever train to call at St Pancras International arrived on time at 9.13am (earlier trains today called at neither, though did appear on the St Pancras departures board). The interior is a lot like City Thameslink, but with everything twice as big. Meanwhile, King's Cross Thameslink is now plastered with massive red "Do not alight here" signs. I was there for both events, but my photos were eaten by a shonky cheap memory card (don't do it kids), so you'll have to make do with this picture of a random train at St Pancras this afternoon.
Langdon Park DLR also opened this morning. When I passed yesterday afternoon the entrances were sealed off and it was swarming with men in orange jackets fiddling with the paving. But today the fences were gone and trains were stopping there, confusing at least a couple of passengers. As shown in the second picture, they've really gone to town with the footbridge roof. Disappointingly the station still has the standard DLR ticket machines that don't do Oyster.
At Stratford this afternoon, all DLR trains were using the north platform, rather than the south platform as they usually do. I'm not sure if this has been happening for a while or only started today, but at least both are now in use, though apparently not yet at the same time. The new footbridge from the old platform area is still sealed off, but appears complete (that's the rather unpromising Central Line/One end of it in the photo).
Just in time for the closure of King's Cross Thameslink and the opening of the Thameslink platforms at St Pancras this weekend, here is a complete diagram I've made of the whole complex, in the style of the tube map. It attempts to show every public passageway, escalator and entrance, and as far as possible it's geometrically as well as topologically accurate, so in a very approximate way the shape of the interchange blobs matches the shape of each interchange.
There are a few of the more obvious things I left out:
If the TfL Journey Planner can be trusted, the first DLR train to call at Langdon Park will be at 5:00 am exactly, travelling towards Stratford. Oddly, you can't yet enter Langdon Park as a destination (try the nearby postcode, E14 6PG). If you're feeling hardcore, the only place you can catch this train is All Saints a couple of minutes earlier, as it appears to originate at Poplar depot rather than coming from central London.
Mr diamondgeezer has been in touch again to say there'll be open days held at the station all week. The first is this Saturday 10am-1pm.
A new map has just appeared on the TfL website showing the various improvements they're making to walking around the city. Mostly new pedestrian crossings and so on, but worth a look.
TfL appear to be going ahead with the Walthamstow interchange idea, which will provide an easy walking route between Walthamstow Queens Road (on the Gospel Oak to Barking line) and Walthamstow Central. They're going for the easier option of providing new street entrances at the closest corner of each station, making the route as short as possible, rather than the more expensive idea mentioned on Always Touch Out of providing a subway from Queens Road station to Selbourne Road, which would give the station easy access to the main Walthamstow shopping area, though the walk to Walthamstow Central this way would be longer.
The pedestrianisation of Cowcross Street (outside Farringdon station) is also on the map.
Update: An anonymous commenter points out Waltham Forest's own plans which include the subway scheme: "New walkway under the railway line to link this area with the Town Centre, to be connected to a new high-level platform and station building over the Queens Road station." So both schemes are potentially going to be built, as well as a major upgrade to Queens Road station.
We already know the delivery of first next generation DLR train was pencilled in for 14 December, but the other two imminent developments now look to be happening the same week.
This Rail Panel report gives a date of 10 December for both the opening of Langdon Park station and the long delayed use of both new platforms at Stratford, a date also mentioned in this news article (thanks to Abigail and Bob for sending in those links).
Complicating things, diamondgeezer sends in the above photo, which says the timetable will be changing on 8 December, which would presumably be to accommodate both developments.
Hopefully we'll get an official announcement soon of the exact date.
I've been in touch with TfL again over the opening date of Shepherd's Bush station. Their reply:
The responsibility for delivery of the new West London Line station at Shepherd's Bush rests with Westfield, the developers of the adjacent White City shopping centre. We understand that Westfield is expecting to have the station delivered to the appropriate standards and ready for service by the end of the year. Transport for London (TfL) will then take responsibility for operating the station as part of the new London Overground network."End of the year"? That's very nearly a concrete date.
Today I received the least glamorous email the world has known, Crossrail Project Bulletin 11 ("This is the eleventh bulletin keeping you up-to-date on the progress of the Crossrail project"). It's not online yet that I can find, but there is one part worth quoting, about the hurdles the Crossrail Bill still has to face:
Remaining stages in the CommonsNot quite in the bag yet.
The Bill will now be considered by a Public Bill Committee, and then there will be a further debate (Report/Third Reading) in the Commons, before the Bill passes to the House of Lords.
House of Lords
When the Bill is introduced in the Lords a fresh petitioning period will be triggered, and those directly affected by the proposals will have the opportunity to petition against them just as they did in the Commons.
A couple of weeks ago I reported on a new "temporary" tunnel at King's Cross St Pancras tube station. I've just got an email back from London Underground, and it turns out it really is temporary:
It will be filled in once redevelopment work is completed in approximately two years time, when escalators will be in place to link the two services.Seems an awful lot of effort going to waste.
Design Week has confirmed some of the previously discussed details about how the London Overground brand will be rolled out. There are a few glaring errors, but a few interesting bits too:
The Overground identity - including an orange and blue version of the familiar roundel - will only be fully introduced as each of a total of 60 stations is refurbished or built, and new rolling stock introduced. At first, you will just notice the absence of Silverlink branding, and a single new roundel, plus - from 9 November - the orange tramlines on the map.
As for the principal brand colour - orange - this finds its way into everything. 'It is a happy colour for us to use, has high visibility and can be applied consistently across all applications,' says Ferguson.
To avoid confusion, the various branches of the Overground system will not have subsidiary colours and line names in the way of the Tube - the idea is to have a destination-based system, like the DLR.The 2025 map referenced at the end of the article is this one.
Tfl did several presentations at this year's ITS World Congress, and have posted some of the documents. Of interest:
