Could the London Overground Call at Brixton?
The London Overground extension of the East London Line to Clapham Junction station goes on a viaduct across a lot of South London and before flying right over the top of Brixton tube station to reach its destination by way of Clapham High Street and Wandsworth Road stations. This picture show the two bridges that cross Brixton Road to the north of the tube station.
The high bridge in the foreground will carry the London Overground, whereas the one just visible behind takes the main line trains to and from Victoria. The picture was actually taken from the entrance tro the tube station and you can see how difficult it would be to get passengers between the two levels.
Turn the corner into Atlantic Road and you see how difficult the problem is.
The track that will take the Overground extension, now flies over Brixton railway station. It is almost as if, the designer of the rail lines in the area, went out of his way to make connecting them difficult, To further complicate matters, there used to be an East Brixton railway station on the line that the Overground will use. This was closed in 1976 and demolished soon afterwards.
If the East Brixton station was to be rebuilt, it does give some interesting connection options, albeit with a bit of a walk.
I tend to think that the only solution would be to spend millions to create a proper interchange station, that connects all of the three lines; Victoria, East London and main line together. But in the present financial climate that is impossible.
One point is that today, after seeing Brixton, I took a 35 bus to Clapham Junction station. It is obvious, that one of the UK’s busiest stations needs a proper connection to the Underground network. It is possible the Northern Line extension will eventually deliver this. At present the best you can do is to take a train to either Waterloo or Vauxhall stations and get the Underground from there.


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