Shepherd's Bush/White City/Wood Lane interchanges

When the new stations at Shepherd's Bush and Wood Lane open there'll be two new out-of-station interchanges, requiring a short walk outdoors to change between lines. But how short?

Interchange #1: Shepherd's Bush (Overground) to Shepherd's Bush (Central Line)
Just across the bus station.

Approximate gateline-to-gateline walking distance: 100 metres.

Interchange #2: Wood Lane (Hammersmith & City Line) to White City (Central Line)
A stroll along Wood Lane right past BBC Television Centre.

Approximate gateline-to-gateline walking distance: 230m.

Wood Lane aerial photo

Following on from the photos I posted earlier this week, here's a great aerial photo of Wood Lane station taken by reader Former Optimist, presumably from the roof of BBC Television Centre:
There can't be many tube stations with another line they don't serve passing underneath the ticket hall.

Wood Lane station progress

London's last new tube station is in the final stages of construction, ready for opening in October.

They've finished most of the external panelling:
If you click to enlarge you can see they've installed the external roundel, currently badly hidden by a black bin liner.

Down in the cutting is the Central Line, and the south end of the platforms at White City are a just the other side of the bridge on the left. Still probably not going to be marked as an official interchange.

The station building:
The pavement level has been raised far above road level here, for reasons unknown.

The platform signs are now visible from passing trains. Here's the roundel:

And the destination sign:
This shows the renaming of Shepherd's Bush (H&C) to Shepherd's Bush Market that will occur when Shepherd's Bush on the Central Line reopens, or when this station opens, or possibly it'll all happen at the same time.

Death of the Circle Line confirmed

In the latest issue of Modern Railways there's an interview with David Millard, manager of the Circle and Hammersmith & City Lines, discussing the ins and outs of the plans to turn the Circle Line into a Hammersmith-Edgware Road spiral (see diagram). That's right, a senior member of staff has confirmed it on record in a public forum. No more rumours, no more leaked internal documents. It's happening.

One consequence of the plan is an increase in the number of trains using Praed Street Junction and Edgware Road. The article mentions a proposed solution - run half of the District Line's services to Edgware Road only as far as High Street Kensington. However this will only be possible off-peak when demand is lower.

The timescale - like everything else in London - is to have it ready by 2012.

Update: I've just had another read of the article, and they say they could introduce it as early as December 2009.

London Underground S stock plan [possibly] modified

The subsurface lines (District, Circle, Metropolitan, Hammersmith & City) are all due to have their trains replaced by S Stock from 2009-2015, which will feature air-conditioning and walk-through connections between carriages. The first two trains are already under construction.

The plan was to replace the elderly trains on the Metropolitan Line first like-for-like with 8 car trains, followed by 7 car trains on all the other lines. Since the Hammersmith & City and Circle lines currently use 6 car trains, some platforms would need extending and many sidings could no longer be used. The TfL board papers have consistently mentioned "affordability issues" with resolving this issue.

That brings us to an article in the latest issue of Modern Railways which claims the plan has been scrapped. Instead the Hammersmith & City and Circle Lines will be first to get the new stock because - according to MR - the H&C is due to become a "major Olympic artery". They'll be delivered as 6 car trains with the 7 car upgrade looked at again after the Olympics. The Metropolitan Line will be next to get new trains (possibly only 7 cars to begin with due to the needed "infrastructure improvements") and finally the District Line will get its 7 car trains.

No source is given, though it's implied the changes are part of the re-negotiated contract with Bombardier (who are building the S Stock) that follows the collapse of Metronet. On the other hand, Bombardier themselves announced agreement had been reached without these changes back on April 1st, a claim that's even repeated on page 46 of the same magazine.

And if it means anything, District Dave's prjb (one of the people at LU designing the trains with Bombardier) says the prototype train is 8 cars long, No word yet from him about the article.

The new Circle Line: a diagram

I've made a diagram of the new Circle Line, so it's clearer what the proposal is and what issues it causes (click to enlarge).
I've included the other lines and their frequencies. As I understand it, each service on the network runs at roughly 7 trains per hour (tph), so that trains align when they meet at junctions. Hence one line on my map represents one 7 tph service, and the overall line thickness where they run alongside each other represents the total frequency on that section of track. I'm assuming that apart from the changes to the Circle, there'll be no significant changes to other lines.

You can see how there'll be double the number of trains on the branch to Hammersmith, but it also illustrates the big downside, which is the separation of the north and west sides of the [present] Circle Line. All trains from High Street Kensington terminate at Edgware Road, and all trains on the north side go to Hammersmith or up the Metropolitan Line, with none going towards High Street Kensington.

The major operation concern: the number of trains running over the flat junction at Praed Street, which will increase by a third because Circle Line services go over it twice on each journey.

"Hammersmith & Circle Line" looking likely

Plans to rework the subsurface network* have been being discussed for years now, but with no real indication of exactly what is planned and when it might happen.

This posting quotes TfL's current thinking and it looks fairly definite to me. The plan is to have Circle Line trains start at Hammersmith, run along the Hammersmith & City Line to Edgware Road then do a clockwise lap of the Circle, arriving back at Edgware Road. They'd then reverse and go anticlockwise round the circle back to Hammersmith. Despite my headline, the service would continue to be called the "Circle Line".

The big advantage for passengers is the doubling in service to Hammersmith as the Hammersmith & City Line will continue to run - currently the branch only gets 7 trains per hour. The big drawback is no through service between the west and north sides of the Circle - you will always have to change at Edgware Road.

Reader John Hawkins emailed an analysis of the numbers in this press release about the new S Stock trains that seems to confirm the plan:

There will be 133 7-car trains. If this is all about the Hammersmith-Barking service, and D-stock replacements remains 78 S7 instead of 75 D6, then leaves 55 S7 to replace 46 C6, which must be the T-cup service enhancement to Hammersmith.

The other rumoured change, to have the Metropolitan run to Barking and the Hammersmith & City to Aldgate appears to be dead.

* The Circle, District, Hammersmith & City and Metropolitan Lines, which all share track

Wood Lane station progress

Continuing my run of posts about Shepherd's Bush, here's a picture of construction progress on the new Wood Lane station, on the Hammersmith & City Line at the opposite corner of the shopping centre from the other stations.

Due to open November this year, looks like it will. No snarking about platform width.

Shepherd's Bush is closed