Shepherd's Bush Overground: Finished!

Well almost. These men are putting the last bits of trim onto the aluminium panels that cover the rebuilt part of the station building:
You can see in that picture there are still some bits of back fence to do, and there's some tidying up of the work of the other platform, but I can't see them spinning it out for more than a couple more weeks.

In that spirit, here's an attempt to recreate the very first picture I posted of the station, last October, so you can see the difference:

And here's the widened bit and the non-widened bits of the platform together:


Update: According to the latest TfL board papers, opening is pencilled in for October 1. [Thanks to D-Notice in the comments]

Finally, a bonus picture of the enormous new Shepherd's Bush Central Line station:

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.

Shepherd's Bush Overground: Idiots!

The Good News: They've finished filling in the gap in the platform left by moving the wall back.

The Bad News: They've put those fscking street lights back in!


On the other platform they've finishing paving over the gap where the new entrance is (see the last update), but they still need to put the panes of glass over where the old one was:

There's now very little left to do other than fixing a handful of cosmetic gaps and putting up Overground signs. I've noticed the protective plywood is off the ticket barriers, so the place is on its way back from being a building site and to a railway station.

As an aside, the last issue of Modern Railways contains a brief note blaiming the narrow platform on the need to accommodate the West London Tram terminus alongside. Here's a diagram from the planning application, with the Overground platforms in orange and the tram tracks highlighted in red:
Not terribly convincing.

Shepherd's Bush Central Line station closure documents

Andy Slaughter MP has been doing some digging on why Shepherd's Bush Central Line station closed so suddenly earlier this year. Using the Freedom of Information Act he's got hold of a whole stack of internal documents. While they fill in few new details, the story laid out is pretty much what we knew already. The original plan was:

• Westfield, developers of the new shopping centre, were due to replace the station building before the shopping centre opens, keeping the station open as far as was possible.
• At some point, a new high-capacity staircase would have been installed down to the platforms, in conjunction with step-free access and other below ground works (BGW).
• Metronet were due to replace the escalators in the period 2010-12. There was a possibility that if one escalator could be kept in service ("there have been engineering differences of opinion on the feasibility of this"), combined with the new staircase the station could remain open.

Fast forward to late November last year with the centre's opening less than a year away, work on the station not started, the BGW programme looking increasingly unfeasible, and Metronet in administration. Westfield made London Underground an offer: let us close the station so we can get the building replaced on time, and we'll replace the escalators for you while we're at. After some deliberation, TfL accepted.

That's a picture of the new ticket hall I've posted before. Thanks to reader Tim for the tip.

Shepherd's Bush Overground: Wall moving complete

Each time I visit Shepherd's Bush Overground, they've made some significant step towards fixing the dodgy platform.

This time, they've filled in the gap between the station building and the moved wall:
Thus the station once again has a continuous retaining wall, and they're now in the cosmetic tidying up phase of the work.

Just out of shot, they've started reinstating the horizontal beams between the metal fence posts at the top of the wall. If they're sensible this will be followed by moving the platform equipment on to the fence and ditching the lamp posts, but it could go either way at this point.

Meanwhile, they've been busy on the other platform too:
They're making it so that the entrance is towards us onto the wide section of platform, rather than to the right onto the narrow section. As on the other platform, this has required adding a great big ugly steel beam to hold the structure together (ignore the yellow scaffold tower in the right picture).

I've also just been sent some pictures by someone who's been on site. This one is taken from the unwidened section at the far north end of the station, and shows exactly how narrow it was as built:
That glass box in the distance is what my second pictures above are of.

More progress at Shepherd's Bush Overground

Things are certainly moving quickly at Shepherd's Bush Overground station. Since two weeks ago...

They've built a neat connection between the moved and unmoved sections of wall:

They've moved all but these last 4 blocks, and cut away that inconvenient pillar and installed a chunky bit of steelwork to take the weight (before):

Instead of putting in new wall-mounted streetlights (like they were meant to), it looks worryingly like they're just moving the old ones:

They're just toying with us, right?

Shepherd's Bush progress update

They've now moved 26 of the 45 blocks at Shepherd's Bush Overground:
The rate seems to be about 1 a day, so this task should be done by the end of June. They've already filled in behind the blocks in the middle. The hole at the north end (nearest the camera) has got much deeper, but there's no sign of work to connect the two parts of the wall, or to fill in the gap between the wall and the platform or move the street lights.

At the south end, under the footbridge, they're putting in rebar to form the joint between the relocated platform wall and the station building:
There's also a strange bracket covered in pink gunk where the footbridge is held up by the old wall. I presume this will be cut.

(In the first photo I've annotated how interchange between the Overground and tube stations will work. The two face each other across a new open air bus station. There'll be no indoor interchange)

Speaking of the tube station, they've nearly got the front wall fully glazed:
I say "front wall", but this would have been the side wall of the old building, which had its main entrance round to the left. The focus has been rotated 90 degrees away from Shepherd's Bush Green and onto the bus and rail stations and shopping centre.

Just around the corner, here's London's last new tube station for the foreseeable future, Wood Lane:
All this cladding is new, as are the window frames above the entrance. From a passing train you can see the platform surfacing and edging is almost complete.

All these stations open in October-ish.

London Overground notes

I've been forwarded a set of slides from a recent presentation given by Transport for London about London Overground. A few interesting things:

• The date for the Gospel Oak to Barking Line getting trains every 15 minutes is given as December 2008, rather than 2009 when the new larger fleet (pictured) arrives. Maybe they'll be getting the spare trains back* that they've leant to First Great Western. Or it might be a mistake.
• Work to construct Imperial Wharf station allegedly started on June 1st. Anyone seen anything yet?
• Work to fix Shepherd's Bush station is due to be completed by late summer, but they're looking strategically about when exactly to open it. Definitely by October though.
• During this autumn's closure, replacement bus services will run serving all stations Gospel Oak-Barking and Gospel Oak-Camden Road plus an oddball route running South Hampstead-West Hampstead-Brondesbury-Kilburn High Rd-South Hampstead-Hampstead Heath-Gospel Oak-Upper Holloway-Crouch Hill
• During the closure slab track will be laid in Hampstead Tunnel and road bridges carrying Sussex Way (near Upper Holloway) and Albert and Shrubland Roads (near Walthamstow Queen's Road) over the Goblin will be completely replaced.
• The rebuilding of the Camden-Dalston section of the North London Line begins in the second half of 2009, with "all week" closures happening in early 2010.

There are some similar presentation documents on the LOROL site. One of them is a lot like the one I've got except with a fraction of the detail. The other is stuffed full of dates:

• All London Overground stations are to be fully refurbished between July 2008 and November 2009, with new train displays, signage, help points, CCTV and so on.
• Former Southern stations on the East London Line extension will be refurbished between June 2009 and March 2010.
• Test running on the East London Line is due to start in Late 2009, with the core opening in April 2010 and running south of New Cross Gate from June.

* London Overground got custody of the whole of Silverlink's diesel fleet, but with no Bletchley-Bedford Line to run had more than they needed

Shepherd's Bush Overground: wall moving

3 weeks into the work at Shepherd's Bush to move that wall and they've started repositioning the wall segments in what looks like their final position:
They can't be much more than a few feet further back, but it looks like it doubles the available space behind the yellow line.

Meanwhile they've demolished the top half of the wall by the station building (see last week), and dug a big hole behind the bottom half:
Still that post supporting the footbridge to be dealt with.

Shepherd's Bush Overground update

Progress on widening the platform at Shepherd's Bush Overground station continues, with segments of the wall now removed:
They haven't started digging along the rest of the platform.

One of the big challenges is widening the platform where it meets the station building. They've removed the facing panels from the wall that needs demolishing:
As I suspected, there's a steel post holding up the footbridge in the most inconvenient place.

Shepherd's Bush Overground hole getting bigger

The work to widen the platform at Shepherd's Bush seems to be moving ahead quickly):

It was barely started last Tuesday. They only seem to be bothering with the southern half of the platform, nearest the station building, at least for now.

And it's nice to see the station finally being used for something, even if it's just as a site office:

Shepherd's Bush Overground platform widening begins

Ain't it a lovely day today? The sun is shining, Imperial Wharf is being built, and they've started digging a hole behind the legendary wall at Shepherd's Bush Overground:

Inside the ticket hall, they've put up fences and boxed up the gates:

This is the first time anything at all at the station has changed in six months.

(And yes the lift and the station signs are still pointlessly switched on)

[Thanks to Dazz285 for the tip off]

Shepherd's Bush Central Line update

They've started putting the western half of the frame (in the background), plus the internal walls for the staff accomodation:

Ever seen a brand new escalator on the back of a truck?

Thought not.

Shepherd's Bush / Wood Lane update

Before I start, potentially big news: An anonymous commenter reports that work has begun today to move the wall at Shepherd's Bush Overground after six months of inactivity. Can anyone confirm?

[Update 9/4: I'm thinking false alarm or hoax or they've buggered off already]

Anyway, some pictures I took last week. The entrance to Wood Lane tube station has gained solid walls since February:

And the platforms: (click to enlarge)

Moving just around the corner to Shepherd's Bush tube station.
This gap is where the original building stood, of which nothing remains. The framework must be to protect the escalator replacement works. On the right is one half of the new building, which will eventually cover the whole site.

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.

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.

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.

Shepherd's Bush Overground: Wall to be moved

This month's board papers contain the first ever direct discussion by TfL of what happened and Shepherd's Bush, and what they plan to do about it:

A new station at Shepherd’s Bush on the West London Line (WLL) has been constructed by Westfield together with Network Rail, prior to TfL taking over responsibility for Overground services. It was hoped that this would be opened in time for the start of London Overground services, launched by the Mayor on the 12 November. However, the north-bound platform has insufficient width, given projected passenger levels. Dialogue has taken place with Westfield and Network Rail with a view to rectifying this situation by moving the platform retaining wall and widening access to the platform. It is hoped to provide an opening date once the project plan has been completed. It is estimated that the work will take 4 months following agreement to provide.

That puts the earliest opening possible opening date as mid-Summer.

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.