After Overground – Edmonton Green – 31st May 2015
When I visited Edmonton Green Station some time ago, it was in the process of being updated with lifts.
As the pictures show it is one of the first stations on the Lea Valley Lines other than the totally flat Enfield Town, to be updated to full step-free access.
This page on the Enfield Council web site, says how the station rebuilding was financed and the problems encountered in the design and building.
The Council are working in partnership with Network Rail to deliver two lifts at Edmonton Green Station to enable step free access to both Platforms 1 and 2.
The Council has been awarded £850k for the project following a successful bid for funding from the Department for Transport’s Access for All programme. However, the total cost of the project is estimated to be £2m and the balance of funding is being provided by the Council, utilising a mixture of contributions from nearby development schemes and grant funding from Transport for London .
The construction of the lifts provides many challenges because of the constrained nature of the site, the need to cater for passengers throughout the works and the fixed budget.
In addition, the station is at the heart of Edmonton Green and within a Conservation area, so it needs to be of good design. The focus at present is therefore trying to find the optimum design solution for the lift shafts, given all of the above constraints.
It looks like it was challenging.
I think it illustrates that the cost of putting two lifts into a conservation area and making sure that the station is acceptable to all parties is a couple of million. Good building isn’t cheap.
But at least Edmonton Green is now a station with platforms that look like they’ll take eight car trains and possibly twelve-car ones if needed.
Obviously details like handrails and information displays need to be updated and the station needs a good clean and a paint, but it shouldn’t need much expensive work for the next decade or two.
It can certainly be used as a standard to which all stations on the Lea Valley Lines can aspire.
Wandering On Day One Of The New Overground And TfL Rail
Today was the first official day of the addition of the Lea Valley Lines to the Overground and the first day that the Shenfield Metro was being run by TfL Rail. I went for a couple of wanders and these are some of the pictures I took.
There were a couple of problems in that the there weren’t enough drivers at TfL Rail for whatever reason and the Romford to Upminster branch of the Overground wasn’t working.
The Chat On The Overground
This morning, I went for a wander on some of the new Overground lines that have been incorporated today, just to see how much there is to do, to bring them up to an acceptable standard.
But the chat between staff and passengers wasn’t about refurbished trains or stations, but about the fact that those with Freedom Passes now have no restrictions on any of the lines taken over by the Overground.
So older commuters can now use their Freedom Pass to travel to and from work, even if it’s the rush hour.
The M25 South Of Waltham Cross
If you travel along the M25 between junctions 25 (A10) and 26 (A121), you pass south of an area which I know well from my teens. Obviously the motorway wasn’t there in those days and a lot of the area was closed off as it was the Royal Gunpowder Mills. Some of the area has been developed, but a lot is still pretty much undeveloped or farmland, as this Google Earth image of the area shows.
M25 South Of Waltham Abbey
Note how two of the Lea Valley Lines pass North-South through the area.
The line between Turkey Street and Theobalds Grove, known as the Southbury Loop, crosses the motorway on its way to its terminus at Cheshunt, just to the East of the large factory, which is News International’s Print Works at the top left of the image.
Further to the East is the West Anglia Main Line between Enfield Lock and Waltham Cross, which is just to the west of the collection of large distribution depots.
So you have a large area of relatively undeveloped land with four stations at the corners. Turkey Street and Theobalds Grove are now part of the London Overground and Enfield Lock and Waltham Cross are proposed to be on Crossrail 2.
So although the connections to London aren’t bad they are going to get a lot better.
Surely, with these rail connections this area could be developed sensibly.
I’ve always felt that London needs more Park-and-Ride sites. In fact there isn’t one rail station, where you can come off the M25 drive a kilometre or so, perhaps pick-up or drop-off a passenger, and return easily to the motorway.
As to being able to park all day or just an evening, whilst you do business or visit a friend relative, then you can just about forget it. Especially, as those stations with parking never have enough of it.
A couple of times, since I’ve stopped driving, I’ve needed to be picked up near the M25, either to guide someone to my house or perhaps go to a football match with a fellow sufferer. There are few suitable places, so we generally end up using eithe Cockfosters or Newbury Park Tube Stations.
What is needed is a series of rail/car/bus interfaces all along the motorways and not just on the M25.
I took these pictures from a train going between Turkey Street and Theobalds Grove stations.
The M25 dominates and there is a few large developments, like the News International Print Works and lots of undeveloped green space.
,So could such an interchange be developed somewhere on this section of the M25 near Waltham Cross, perhaps with a Service Area and a Park-and-Ride. It would certainly ease transport difficulties for many.
The Anonymous Widower 