The Anonymous Widower

The Ugly Duckling Is Coming To The Aid Of HS2

I’ve called the Overground an ugly ducking that is turning in to a swan before and today, it would appear that it is getting the chance to help out the troubled and unloved HS2. A study has been announced on the Global Rail News website entitled Overground Station For Old Oak Common. Here’s the start of the report.

WSP has been appointed to begin the next stage of planning for a new London Overground station at Old Oak Common.

The consultant is to carry out a Grip 3 study of three options with the hope of establishing the best solution to connect Overground services with the proposed HS2 and Crossrail interchange.

An interchange station at Old Oak Common would certainly make it easier for the good burghers of Hackney and other forgotten areas to access HS2 and Heathrow Airport.

But surely compared to the billions being spent on Crossrail and HS2, a simple interchange station, with links to the Overground, would just be small change. Wikipedia says this.

Proposals being considered by Transport for London include a scheme to realign the routes of the West London and North London line around the Old Oak Common site to create a new London Overground interchange station. The proposal envisages diverting the NLL Richmond route to curve around the eastern side of Old Oak Common, and re-routing the WLL to branch west south of the Mitre Bridge before curving north along a short section of the Dudding Hill Line to join the West Coast Main Line. New platforms serving both the NLL and WLL would be built on the southern side of Old Oak Common, adjacent to Wormwood Scrubs. Alternative versions of this scheme also consider cheaper options such as terminating the WLL at Old Oak Common or two separate London Overground stations.

But perhaps the great and the good don’t want to allow the various plebs and hoi polloi better transport links. They may have also noted that a new station would give better access to Wormwood Scrubs Prison for visitors and escapees.

If Old Oak Common is created as a major interchange, then surely the Gospel Oak to Barking services of the Overground, should be extended at least to the new station. And what about the Dudding Hill line, that passes through the area. Could it finally have found a use except for the odd freight train?

All of this says to me that an Overground station at Old Oak Common is a no-brainer, but then politicians don’t do no-brainers.

May 8, 2014 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Crossrail, Dudding Hill Line, High Speed Two, London Overground, Old Oak Common Station, Trains