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]