Southern franchise takeover

A little while ago The Times published an article last year claiming the Mayor was planning to "take over most of Southern", and little has been heard since. The reality outlined in this month's board papers seems far less ambitious:

The Mayor and the Secretary of State have discussed the opportunity presented by the expiry of the Southern TOC franchise in 18-months time for TfL to take a greater role in its future. TfL and the DfT will now work on the extent to which the inner suburban services, trains and stations can be enhanced to the standard of Overground and how TfL can be given a greater role in the running of the future franchise. From the start of the new Overground services from West Croydon and Crystal Palace in June 2010, stations between these stations and New Cross Gate will be staffed and managed by London Overground. The South London Line (SLL) stations could also transfer when Overground services commence upon completion of East London Line Phase 2b to Clapham Junction, subject to agreement on funding.

So either they're keeping quiet about what their ambitions are, or there's not much serious change planned.

Board Papers time again

The notes from this month's TfL board meeting have been published. A few things of note:

• TfL have started ordering Oyster equipment for the roll out to the whole National Rail network in 2009
• London Bridge may not have capacity for South London Line trains when it's rebuilt for Thameslink (there'll be fewer terminus platforms). TfL suggest the East London Line phase 2 should go ahead ASAP to solve this problem.
• Major DLR works will happen at Stratford during the Christmas closure on Liverpool St (this probably actually means the new North London Line platforms).
• An "Oyster Control Centre" has been setup, whose main job seems to be reprogramming the gatelines to fix unresolved journeys after station evacuations and other events.
• The first new Piccadilly Line train is due in 2011, with the upgrade progamme finsihed by 2014
• TfL are having doubts about how feasible it is to extend Circle Line stations for 7 car trains, and are investigating other options.
• TfL are still deciding whether to go with the "Harmony" or SLC2k service patterns for the North London Line upgrade. No idea what either of these are.
• The future of the Cross River Tram and Crystal Palace Tramlink extension looks very murky
• "The review of a number of projects in the Planning directorate continued this quarter, including tram and bus transit schemes. The outputs of these reviews are expected to be made available at the end of the year."
• The East London Transit project (Ilford-Barking-Dagenham) appears to be progressing, but isn't due to start in October 2009.
• Greenwich Waterfront Transit is still in public consultation, and will take even longer.
• A TWA application for the DLR Dagenham Dock extension will be made early next year, but the project has no funding after that.

The last few bits are from the appendices.

Update: The document has been updated with a load of extra bits tacked on, including enormous tables of Travelcard and London Overground prices.