Word Of The Day
The Times today has a picture on page 4 of what they describe as a coalition of cheetahs.
Now there’s a word!
How Did They Do That?
Normally, the new five-coach trains have their new car inserted next to the end car at the northern end. So how did this train have its extra car inserted at the southern end?
Note how the interior of the new cars are brighter. The dull seats are those reserved for the elderly, disabled and pregnant.
As I don’t think there is a turning loop on the East London Line, the train was either modified this way or it was sent on a jolly somewhere, perhaps to test out compatibility with a new route or back to Bombardier for some special maintenance.
Since most of the trains on the East London Line are now five-car, it does seem that the trains are less crowded.
On the whole, this train lengthening would appear to passengers to have been a pretty painless exercise, although I’ve heard rumours of a few teething troubles with the trains.
According to some Transport for London documents, the trains will go to six-cars some time before 2030, so if that is as painless as the two previous extensions, it is a validation of the quality of Bombardier’s cut-and-shut design for the trains.
When Crossrail opens and is joined to the East London Line at Whitechapel, I have a feeling, that many more passengers will use the East London Line to access the new line to places like Heathrow and Paddington, so the extra capacity will be fully used.
When I grew up in London just after the war, you’d see a short line on the tube map that was the East London Line. Mo-one thought, that this line would become the expanding East London Line we have today.
Where will it go by say 2030?
It will probably be joined to the Central Line at Shoreditch High Street and there will be extra branches in both North and South to handle the twenty-four trains in each hour for which the infrastructure of the line is capable.
It all goes to show how you can sometimes create new rail lines without spending billions of pounds.
Crossrail and Thameslink may get all the publicity, but London Overground’s policy of continuous improvement on the East London Line, is a philosophy that could be copied on many railway lines in the UK, Europe and the wider world.
The Anonymous Widower 