An Overground Station For Camberwell?
In Transport for London’s Transport Plan for 2050, there is this paragraph.
Some examples of the type of scheme to help address these issues are an upgrade to the London Overground network to provide 6 car trains and new stations on existing lines, e.g. at Camberwell, that can plug connectivity gaps and act as development nodes.
By Camberwell, I suspect they mean at Loughborough Junction, where the London Overground passes over Thameslink. A couple of years ago, I visited the site and created a post with some pictures.
I said this about creating a Camberwell Beauty out of Loughborough Junction.
It is one of these problems that needs imagination. A good architect might be able to produce an elegant connection between the two lines and then link it to the ground on the other side of Coldharbour Lane to the current station entrance. Looking at the local bus map, shows that the area is well served by bus routes, so perhaps we could make Loughborough Junction a true interchange in the east of Brixton.
I shall go again to see if a development node can be used to bridge a significant connectivity gap in London’s train system.
On a personal note, it would really improve the ease of my getting onto Thameslink routes to the South.
How Will Crossrail Affect My Rail Journeys?
It may be wishful thinking as I’ll be 72, when Crossrail fully opens in December 2019.
But how will the new line affect the journeys I take regularly?
Access To Crossrail
I will get to and from Crossrail in one of two ways.
I am within walking distance of Dalston Junction station, where I could use the Overground to get to and from Whitechapel station, which is a major station on Crossrail.
This route is a good one for coming home, as I just walk up the stairs or take the lift at Dalston Junction, before waiting no more than a couple of minutes for a bus to perhaps fifty metres from my house.
The other way to go to Crossrail is to get a bus directly to the line. At present, I have three routes within a hundred metres that go direct to stations, that will be on Crossrail. The 56 goes to Barbican and the 21 and 141 go to Moorgate. I suspect that the buses will be reorganised for Crossrail, so the 38 might be routed to stop by an entrance to the Crossrail station at Tottenham Court Road.
Coming back, if the stop for the 21 and 141 is sited as well as it is now for Moorgate station, this would probably be my preferred route in the rain, as the stop for those routes, is just across a zebra crossing from my house.
If anything my biggest problem about access to Crossrail, is choosing from a selection of convenient routes. Especially, as the buses could well be a few minutes quicker than they are now.
Ipswich
This is probably the most common destination out of London, where I go to the football.
I doubt that I’ll change my route much, but it should be easier to get to and from Liverpool Street and I doubt, I’ll ever use a taxi again.
The only possible change I could see is that if the Great Eastern Main Line links up better with a cross-platform interchange at Shenfield, I might use this route. Hopefully, Ipswich services could also be faster under the Norwich in Ninety program, so sitting in a comfortable train will be less important, than say a journey in under an hour from Liverpool Street.
Liverpool And Manchester
I’ve bracketed these two cities together, probably much to the annoyance of a lot of residents of the two cities, but by the time Crossrail opens, there will be a thirty minute service every ten minutes between the two cities. Much of this happens late this year, so we’re not talking about possible projects.
So for many who live between and around the two cities, your route to and from the South will become one of personal preference and convenience.
Coupled with all the other Northern Hub developments, I suspect that both cities will have a more frequent service to and from London and the South than they do now. It might also be quicker, if 225 kph running is enabled by new signalling.
If Milton Keynes is a Crossrail terminal, I could see up to three trains an hour to both cities stopping there to pick up and set down passengers.
If say Liverpool and Manchester did get three trains an hour from Milton Keynes, you would have a maximum wait of twenty minutes for a train to your desired destination.
I would probably book a seat from Euston, but as that dreadful station starts to be rebuilt, I’d probably hop on Crossrail for Milton Keynes.
If though it was four trains an hour to Liverpool and Manchester from Milton Keynes, and perhaps I wanted to see an exhibition at the Tate Liverpool, I’d probably book a Standard Off Peak Ticket the night before and take my chances on getting a decent seat at Milton Keynes.
The more I look at it, Crossrail must terminate at Milton Keynes and that city should be a stop on a large number of Virgin services.
Reading
I’m going to Reading next week to see Ipswich. This one is a no-brainer and it’ll be Crossrail all the way.
Birmingham
I’m also going to Birmingham next week and this one could be difficult choice from a multiplicity of routes.
By 2019, Birmingham’s tram system and some extra trains will link a lot more parts of the city, so depending on where I’m going I might not even go through New Street station. If I’m still going to Bordesley for Birmingham City, will the worst station I’ve used recently be a better proposition and perhaps easier to get to?
But again Milton Keynes is an option.
At the southern end, Crossrail doesn’t really ease the Marylebone problem if I use Chiltern to get to Birmingham. Unless of course getting to the Bakerloo Line at Paddington is easy. The alternative might be to exit Bond Street Station on Crossrail, walk to Oxford Street station and get the Bakerloo Line to Marylebone.
Paddington
I’m always surprised that Brunel’s Great Western had such bad connections to his father’s Thames Tunnel.
Finally, with Crossrail, Paddington gets put on my list of stations that are easy to get to.
But will I actually go there or get a Reading train and change for Wales and the West there?
I think it depends on whether the new Class 800/801 trains are better than InterCity 125s!
Heathrow
Definitely a go direct and no more slogging along the Piccadilly Line.
Will Crossrail Go To Hertfordshire?
Yesterday, it was reported on the BBC that the government is seriously thinking of diverting some Crossrail trains to Hertfordshire possibly terminating them at Tring.
This is an old idea originally proposed by Network Rail and discussed here in Wikipedia. This is what is said.
Network Rail’s July 2011 London & South East Route Utilisation Strategy (RUS) recommended diverting West Coast Main Line (WCML) services from stations between London and Milton Keynes Central away from Euston, to Crossrail via Old Oak Common, to free up capacity at Euston for High Speed 2. This would provide a direct service from the WCML to the West End, Canary Wharf and other key destinations, release London Underground capacity at Euston, make better use of Crossrail’s capacity west of Paddington, and improve access to Heathrow Airport from the North.[113] Under this scheme, all Crossrail trains would continue west of Paddington, instead of some of them terminating there. They would serve Heathrow Airport (10 tph), stations to Maidenhead and Reading (6 tph), and stations to Milton Keynes Central (8 tph).
I think this could turn out to be an excellent change of plan. It certainly won’t add a billion or so to the costs of the project. Tring station would appear to have quite a large number of platforms and the only major infrastructure for the route would appear to be a tunnel at Old Oak Common.
Crossrail as originally designed went to Heathrow and Maidenhead in the West and Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the East. Sensibly in my view, Maidenhead has been changed for Reading in the West, to add a whole new level of connectivity to the West of England and Wales. Connecting to the West Coast Main Line could add similar connectivity to the North West of England, North Wales and Scotland.
So should Crossrail go to Tring or perhaps a more substantial interchange on the West Coast Main Line, which has cross platform interchange to Virgin’s streams of Class 390 Pendolinos to speed North? The excerpt from Wikipedia, I quoted earlier, says eight trains an could go to Milton Keynes.
I estimate that if Crossrail services terminated at Milton Keynes, the trains would get there within a few minutes of an hour from Canary Wharf. That is only twenty minutes more than it will take from Heathrow to Canary Wharf.
But Milton Keynes is more than a New City on the West Coast Main Line, it is an important staging post on the East-West Rail Link from Cambridge and East Anglia to Oxford and the West Country, so making Milton Keynes one of the Crossrail termini and linking it to the North with frequent services, could give whole new areas of the country like East Anglia and the West of England much better train services to the North.
If Milton Keynes was developed as this major hub, this would have other consequences.
- The East-West Rail Link should probably be built as a 200 kph capable railway, so that Oxford to Cambridge services could be well under two hours.
- The East-West Rail Link connects to the Midland Main Line at Bedford and Chiltern Services at Bicester, so should it complete the set by going to Cambridge via Peterborough, where it can interchange with the East Coast Main Line. It is the cheapest possible route of the rail link, but what people who live in places like Oakham will think about it, I do not know.
- HS2 might be being built in the wrong place, as if Milton Keynes becomes this important rail hub, surely it should visit the city.
All I can say, is that extending Crossrail to Hertfordshire and Milton Keynes, will make planners think very hard about connections from the terminus to points to the North, East and West.
Improving The Overground
Transport for London’s Transport Plan for 2050 says this about improving the Overground, with particular reference to creating a circular railway by extending the Goblin.
An option for doing this, could be an extension of the Overground in stages, creating new links initially where most feasible.
It does also say that new stations might be added to existing lines, giving a particular mention for Camberwell.
As I found on my trips Tracing the Goblin Extension, most of the infrastructure is already there and in many places, all it needs is innovative timetabling of the extra trains.
Buried in the report are possible plans on improving my local Overground service on the East London Line.
- Better late night and overnight services on the Overground.
- Automatic Train Operation on the core of the line from Dalston Junction to Surrey Quays to increase service frequency from 16 tph to possibly as high as 24 tph.
- Six car trains on the Overground.
At the moment the East London Line has 16 four-car trains an hour in the core route, so 24 six-car trains will mean an increase of capacity of 2.25.
It will be needed, as who knows how many passengers will use the line to get to Crossrail at Whitechapel?
Once Crossrail opens, so many regular journeys I do, like to Ipswich, Oxford Street, Paddington and Heathrow could involve going to Whitechapel and then using the new line.
It should also be said as regards the East London Line, that the report says nothing about extending the line to Willesden in the west or Stratford in the east, by reopening the Eastern Curve at Dalston. This was talked about when the East London Line was created, but I think that passenger numbers might have increased more than they thought they would, so five and possibly six car trains have had a priority.
I shall be adding a bit of speculation about what might happen to the Overground in the next few days. I’ll put links here for ease of reading a post with more jumps than a whole bunch of frogs.
An Overground Station For Camberwell?
Are There Any Sensible Places For New Stations On The Overground?
But whatever happens, it looks like it’s all go on the Overground. In some ways, this disparate collection of lines in and around London, shows how the new breed of railway managers and engineers in the UK are very sensible and cost conscious , and have the needs of the passengers very much to the fore.
A Vision Of Old Oak Common In The Future
Transport for London’s Transport Plan for 2050 is particularly forceful about what will happen at Old Oak Common.
A key aim beyond this is to integrate Old Oak Common as a Canary Wharf of the future, with around 90,000 jobs and 19,000 homes
They also have a detailed map, showing lines reaching out in all directions, from the junction of Crossrail, HS2 and the Overground. In addition to the links through the Goblin Extension, I’ve traced earlier, there are a possible extension of the West London Line to Balham and a service northwards on the Midland Main Line to somewhere like St. Albans.
So London is getting another hub to complement Stratford and Canary Wharf in the East and Clapham Junction in the South.
Centralised Stroke Care Is Good For You
I had what some doctors have described as a serious stroke, although I think it might not have been that severe, although it did leave me with damaged eyesight.
I had the stroke in Hong Kong and within about an hour, I was in hospital receiving the special clot busting drug.
But if I’d had that stroke in London, I would have probably had that drug in the ambulance and I would have been in hospital within thirty minutes.
In common with Manchester, London has centralised stroke care in what are called hyperacute stroke units or HASUs. And according to research published in the BMJ, they work well and save lives and money for the NHS. Read all about the system in the Guardian. The article finishes like this.
So what’s stopping this system from being rolled out in other metropolitan areas? It’s a question that Morris’s collaborators are seeking to answer, by studying the potential barriers and facilitators of country-wide stroke unit reconfiguration. Morris himself wants to look at the cost-effectiveness of the exercise: does the improvement in care and reduction in hospital (and hospice) stays make the reconfiguration worthwhile?
There are a few hundred people alive today who would undoubtedly answer “yes”.
My life may not have been saved by a HASU, but I did have similar care.
Admittedly, not every hospital could have a HASU, but most metropolitan areas could and should.
If you take where I used to live near Cambridge, and you draw a thirty-minute ambulance ride area around Addenbrookes hospital, you would enclose about 300,000 people. So it is not just the large metropolitan areas that would benefit.
Everyone possible, should be within range of a HASU.
I Lost My Freedom Pass
Two weeks ago my small ticket wallet with my Senior Railcard, John Lewis credit card and Freedom Pass.
I went down Liverpool Street station immediately and for a tenner, I got a replacement railcard and I just phoned my credit card company to replace that.
But for the Freedom Pass was much slower to get a replacement. I phoned 0300 330 1433 and they gave me a reference and an address to which I should send the tenner.
My cheque has now cleared, but I haven’t received the new pass.
I have been travelling around London recently tracing the Goblin Extension, so every day I have had to buy a Zone 1-6 Travelcard at £8.90 or because I have a Senior Railcard at £5.90. I do have an Oyster for emergencies and I’ve used that at times.
The money isn’t the problem for me, although it could be for some.
But to get a discounted Travelcard, I can’t just go to the ticket machine at Dalston Junction, I have to go to the Ticket Office. It’s not a real pain, but yesterday, I had been to my doctor’s to pick up a prescription and so used Haggerston station to buy my ticket, which was very slow, as they were having all sorts of problems with the gates and lifts, so the staff were otherwise engaged.
One problem I have with cashless buses, where you must use a card, is that I have no contactless credit card, as my providers don’t issue them. So I have to travel with a spare loaded Oyster card to get me home on the bus.
These last few days have been quite an inconvenience.
It would be a lot worse, if I lived some distance away from a station with a Ticket Office.
There should be somewhere, where you can go to get a replacement Freedom Pass and the replacement system should be able to respond faster.
Would We Benefit From More Female Builders?
Over the years I’ve employed about half a dozen or so builders and rarely has progress been at the speed they said they would manage.
Usually, this seems to be because, the exclusively male person in charge, tends to muck up on the project management and some minor mistake causes a major delay in the work.
As the documentary on Crossrail showed some high level project managers in large construction projects are now female.
Could it be that the supposedly superior multi-tasking ability of the female of the species makes them good project managers, when they get the chance, as project management is often effectively juggling several balls with one hand?
Hence the title of this post!
But having been around project management for forty years, my gut instinct says that if more small builders were female-led, we would see an improvement in the performance of the building industry.
The odd fact about builders in my experience, is that whereas builders generally muck something up, decoratprs are usually much better with performance.
Is it because you’re dealing with a craftsman, who likes everything to be as good as possible?
Service From Hackney
A week or so ago, I ran out of Visitor Parking Vouchers. Normally, I go over to the Council Offices in Hackney, as I’ve tried to buy them on-line a couple of times and I’ve not been successful.
So this time, last Friday, I filled in the form in the book of vouchers and posted it off with a cheque.
I was just about getting worried this morning about what had happened, especially as the cheque hadn’t been cleared.
Then the vouchers were hand delivered to my house at about nine o’clock in a hand-written envelope.
So all’s well that ends well!
A Design Crime – How Not To Design A Connector
This is the connector to get power and my computer connected to my Samsung Galaxy S5.
How Not To Design A Connector
Note the flimsy cover that clips over the orifice.
I doubt that it’ll last the life of the phone.
There is no excuse for crap design! Except perhaps in a piece of sit-upon sanitary ware!
Isn’t it about time, that all mobile devices had the same power connections?
The Anonymous Widower 