Before Crossrail 2 – Capacity And Level Crossings From Tottenham Hale To Hertford East
It is being proposed that Crossrail 2 goes up the West Anglia Main Line just after it surfaces from the central tunnel and then it would take the Hertford East Branch to the terminus at Hertford East station.
There are some issues and problems on the West Anglia Main Line that have to be solved before Crossrail 2 can be fully developed.
1. Services At Lea Bridge Station
The service level at the new Lea Bridge Station must be settled before the full plans for Crossrail 2 can be drawn up.
Wikipedia says that it is intended to have three trains per hour stopping at the station in both directions. All Southbound trains would go to Stratford and two Northbound would go to Bishops Stortford and one to Angel Road.
I don’t think that this level of service will be provided, as Transport for London like to set a minimum of four trains per hour, which exists on many places on the Overground. Surely, if the large development at Meridian Water is to realise it’s full potential, Angel Road will need a frequent service to Stratford and Liverpool Street, in addition to the full Crossrail 2 service.
There is also the complication of possible services between the Chingford Branch and Stratford using the Hall Farm Curve.
Between the Hall Farm Curve and Stratford, there is probably enough capacity on the two track line to accommodate the extra services, but what about north of where Crossrail 2 emerges from its central tunnel probably in the area of Coppermill Junction?
2. The Service Level On Crossrail 2
The service level from Liverpool Street to Hertford East is currently two trains per hour, which would probably be doubled to four trains per hour, as this is Transport for London’s preferred minimum.
The question has to be asked if there will still be a service between Hertford East and Liverpool Street via Hackney Downs?
Train commuters tend to be a conservative bunch and they may not take kindly to being told that instead of going into Liverpool Street they’re going to Angel and Kings Cross.
So I suspect that just as when Thameslink is completed there will still be services on the Sutton Loop Line, I suspect they’ll still be two trains per hour between Hertford East and Liverpool Street.
3. Extra Termini
The South Western end of Crossrail 2 has quite a few branch lines that can be used to extend the system, but in the North East, there aren’t the obvious termini.
With a railway like Crossrail 2, it is important that the line is balanced as this makes it easier to operate. The East London Line has four terminal platforms at both ends and each platform operates a four trains per hour service to its paired platform, thus giving sixteen trains per hour through the core. I think Thaneslink and Crossrail will both use a similar operating principle.
To accomplish this, Crossrail has the ability to turnback trains short of the terminus of the line at stations like West Drayton and Chadwell Heath,
I suspect that to make it easier to balance the service through the core tunnel, there will be one or more stations on Crossrail 2 that can turn trains back. The three most important stations; Tottenham Hale, Cheshunt and Broxbourne might be provided with such a facility. These stations could also act as interchanges between Cambridge and Stansted services to Crossrail 2.
I do wonder if the planners of Crossrail 2 are looking at putting a facility at Angel Road, which will become an important station because of the Meridian Water development.
There is certainly more opportunities to create extra termini on the line, than would there would appear from a cursory look.
4. Capacity From Tottenham Hale To Broxbourne
There are a lot of possibilities for making more and better use of Crossrail 2 services up the Lea Valley, but all of them will add to the number of trains running between Tottenham Hale and Broxbourne.
In addition if the services through Lea Bridge are increased then we’ll see the following trains running up the line.
- Stansted Expresses – Liverpool Street-Stansted Airport – 4 tph
- Cambridge Expreses – Liverpool Street-Cambridge – 2 tph
- Liverpool Street-Bishops Stortford – 2 tph
- Stratford-Bishops Stortford – 4 tph
- Liverpool Street-Hertford East – 2 tph
- Crossrail 2-Hertford East – 4 tph
The frequencies are speculation, but when you add them up, they do illustrate how more capacity is needed on the line, especially when you take into account the fact that the Cambridge and Stansted services will want to travel much faster than the local stopping services.
The planners for the West Anglia Main Line are already planning an increase in the number of lines from two to four as this Future Developments section in Wikipedia says.
If Stansted Airport’s expansion is authorised it is planned that the line will see many further changes. Long term proposals include four-tracking between Coppermill Junction and Broxbourne junction; an additional tunnel and platform edge on the Stansted Airport branch; one additional train per hour serving Stansted and up to six further trains per hour at peak times, including four into Stratford as a terminus. More stations, such as Broxbourne, will also have platform extensions to accommodate 12-car trains.
It seems likely that two tracks will be built alongside the line to Cheshunt as part of Crossrail 2. Intermediate stations from Tottenham Hale will transfer to Crossrail 2 releasing capacity on the main line for additional trains
I think that the last paragraph could be saying that stations like Northumberland Park, Angel Road, Ponders End, Brimsdown, Enfield Lock and Waltham Cross will have two fast tracks without platforms and two slow Crossrail 2/local tracks with platforms.
Whatever it means, the four-tracking is one of those projects that is needed whether Crossrail 2 is built or not.
I would hope that Network Rail’s surveyors have shown that four-tracking is possible. It will certainly need a design of narrow station.
5. Level Crossings
Levels crossings are numerous on the West Anglia Main Line, with examples at Northumberland Park, Brimsdown and Enfield Lock, south of Waltham Cross. The post on Enfield Lock shows queues at the crossing. This Google Map shows queues at Northumberland Park.
Northumberland Park Station
Removing this level crossing would look to be particularly difficult, but surely with the development of Meridian Water just to the North East, the time is now right to sort it once and for all.
Incidentally, when I worked at Enfield Rolling Mills in the 1960s, driving across the railway was a slow and tedious business, because of jams at the Brimsdown and Enfield Lock crossings.
In the 1980s the A1055 Meridian Way was built, which must have taken some pressure from these two level crossings.
I have found this page from Hansard in 1958, which mentions the Brimsdown level crossing and another which must have now been closed at Ponders End.
It’s now nearly sixty years!
I think any plan to four-track the West Anglia Main Line must include removal of these crossings.
6. Conclusion
I think it is essential that the West Anglia Main Line is four-tracked and the level crossings south of Broxbourne are removed before any other work on Crossrail 2 starts. I would also rebuild the Hall Farm Curve at the same time.
Before Crossrail 2 – Enfield Lock
After visiting the house where my mother was born, I took a bus to Enfield Lock station.
The footbridge must be one of the steepest I’ve seen. At least you can cross the line at the level crossing by the station.
This Google Map shows the station.
Enfield Lock Station
Note that there appears to be a pedestrian subway on the North side of the level crossing, which also seems to be holding up lots of traffic.
As there is another level crossing at Brimsdown station, when I worked at Enfield Rolling Mills in the 1960s, driving across the railway was a slow and tedious business.
In the 1980s the A1055 Meridian Way was built, which must take some pressure from these two level crossings and a third at Northumberland Park station.
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Searching For My Mother’s Birthplace
My mother described herself to me as a Ponders Plonker, as she had been born in Ponders End. I think at some time she may have told me she had been born at home.
So as census records show that in 1911, her parents lived at 32 Clarence Road, I took a train to Ponders End station and went for a walk.
As there were several brothers and sisters and the family had moved out from Stoke Newington, I thought the house would have been bigger.
But according to an elderly lady I met, it appeared the houses had been built around that time, so they were probably the first owners. As my grandfather was working as an engraver with I think his premises somewhere in the Barbican area of the City, transport from Ponders End station to Liverpool Street would have been easy.
Judging by the age of much of the property in the area, my grandparents would probably recognise most of the houses and other buildings.
Before Crossrail 2 – Ponders End
Just as I have tag Before Crossrail that documents Crossrail before construction started, I have now started one for Crossrail 2.
This is the first post and it shows Ponders End station.
It is not the worst station I have seen, but although entry to the Northbound platform is step free, it is rather a climb to get across the tracks to the other platform and the bridge over the Meridian Way that runs alongside the railway. This Google Map shows the station.
Pomders End Station
It is definitely not a station with an abundance of facilities, although it is claimed to be step-free.
The station certainly needs at least a couple of lifts and perhaps another on the other side of Median Way.
Call For Crossrail 2
In The Times today, there is a letter from a wide cross section of business leaders calling for a start to be made on Crossrail 2. ITV have reported a major speech by Boris Johnson on the subject today.
I am very much in favour of the construction of this North-East to South-West line across London, which was first proposed in the 1970s.
Cynics amongst you, will probably say that I am in favour of Crossrail 2, as I live just a few hundred metres away from the proposed double-ended Dalston station, that will transform the area and make my house rise substantially in value.
In my view there are several reasons why Crossrail 2 should be built.
1. HS2
HS2 is currently planned to terminate at Euston station, although I think that could be changed by a more innovative solution. But whatever happens to the London end of HS2, it needs to be simply connected into the knitting of the Underground, so terminating somewhere in the area between Kings Cross and Euston, is probably a certainty.
Every recent design for Crossrail 2 shows it serving the three important London stations of Kings Cross, St. Pancras and Euston. It also links these stations to Victoria and Clapham Junction.
Have you ever tried to use the Victoria Line between Euston and Victoria with a heavy case or a baby in a buggy? It’s bad enough at normal times and impossible in the rush hour.
So when HS2 starts squeezing more passengers through the congested Euston Underground station, it will be a disaster.
I believe that the only way to connect HS2 into London is to build Crossrail 2 first.
2. Sorting The Northern Line
If there is one line of the Underground that needs some substantial sorting it is the Northern Line. Probably because it the oldest deep line of the Underground, it never seems to be where you want it to go! For instance, I can get to Angel fairly easily, but often want to a station on the other branch of the line through London.
The line is being improved in the following ways.
1, An extension to Battersea is being created, that may eventually go to Clapham Junction.
2. Future developments at Bank station should see an improved station with new or larger platforms and tunnels.
3. Rebuilding plans exist for the bottleneck of Camden Town station, but every plan seems to offend one pressure group or another.
4. Long term objectives include splitting the line into two, with all City branch trains going to Morden and all Charing Cross trains going to Battersea.
Crossrail 2 will have interchanges with the Northern Line at Angel, Kings Cross St. Pancras, Euston, Tottenham Court Road, Tooting Broadway and possibly Clapham Junction. So it looks like that Crossrail 2 will certainly make journeys easier for users of the Northern Line.
But Crossrail 2 will have its biggest effect at Euston station, which is a station that needs serious improvement.
1. The station is a maze of cramped tunnels and is not by any means step-free.
2. Euston Square station needs to be properly connected to the Euston main line and Underground stations.
3. Changing between the two branches of the Northern Line at Euston, is not easy, as you have to walk a fair distance in crowded tunnels.
Adding a Crossrail 2 station at Euston won’t be a trivial matter, but it gives everybody a chance to dig their way out of the problems left to us by history.
In Crossrail 2 Tunnels Under London, I speculated that Crossrail 2 will be dug very deep and that the uphill excavation technique used at Whitechapel will be used to connect to existing stations.
Could techniques such as this be used to excavate a new Euston Crossrail 2 and Underground station beneath Euston Road, that linked upwards into Euston main line station and Euston Square Underground station?
At the very least techniques should be investigated so that Euston is extended without all the hassle of demolition. After all, architects and engineers worked out how to extend Kings Cross and St. Pancras, whilst keeping the stations running during the construction.
3. Easing Congestion On The Victoria Line
This summer, the Northern end of the Victoria Line is being closed for most of August whilst a crossover is changed at Walthamstow Central. According to this press release on the Transport for London web site, this will mean thirty-six trains an hour from Walthamstow Central to Brixton from April 2016.
But this is only correcting one of the faults of a line that was built to an inadequate specification in the 1960s, which resulted in some crap inaccessible stations and a foreshortened line compared to what it should have been.
Crossrail 2 will effectively by-pass the central part of the Victoria Line as the two lines connect at Tottenham Hale, Seven Sisters, Kings Cross, Euston and Victoria.
4. Development Of North East London
I have lived in the North East sector of London for well over thirty of my nearly sixty-eight years.
Some of the problems I observed around White Hart Lane stadium in the 1960s, are still there and only now fifty years later, is that area being redeveloped, with a new football ground, a big supermarket, lots of houses and a virtually new White Hart Lane station. The long awaited development has been totally necessary for at least forty years.
But that area of Haringey is just one small part of North East London, that needs help to create more quality housing, successful business and jobs and leisure opportunities for all.
At least developers are busy all up the Lower Lea Valley and in Waltham Forest.
1. As I said earlier, Tottenham are at last starting to build a new football stadium.
2. Haringey is developing the Tottenham High Road
3. There is a massive development starting at Meridian Water, which I wrote about here.
4. Thames Water are even doing their bit, by developing the reservoirs into the Walthamstow Wetlands, which will become the largest urban wetland nature reserve in London.
Transport for London are doing their best to improve transport links in North East London, with the expansion of the London Overground and the upgrading of the Victoria Line.
Crossrail 2 with its stations in the Lea Valley and at Tottenham Hale, Seven Sisters and Dalston will be the high capacity link to Central London, that could create real wealth in some of these poorer areas of London.
5. Avoiding Waterloo
From North East London to Waterloo is not the easiest of journeys, unless you can get on the Victoria Line easily and just walk across at Oxford Circus. This is a route I sometimes use, but generally in the week I use a bus to Bank and then the Waterloo and City Line. We’ve had all the fuss about the Night Tube, but I think to get seven-day working on the Waterloo and City and the Northern City Lines is more important.
Network Rail have announced they are going to upgrade Waterloo, but will this solve the problem of getting to the station?
However, Crossrail 2 will give many a new route to places like Southampton and Portsmouth, that avoids Waterloo, by changing at Clapham Junction instead. Other routes will also be available via Victoria, Tottenham Court Road and Wimbledon.
From South West London, as many stations will be connected to Crossrail 2, anybody going to Central London will be able to go direct.
I believe that Crossrail 2 will take a lot of pressure, from one of London’s busiest stations.
6. Better Connectivity
Some of the very important places I need to get to are quite difficult from Dalston. I suspect others say that about their parts of London.
For me, the difficult ones are the stations at Charing Cross, Waterloo and Paddington, although Crossrail will ease going to the last, as I’ll just change at Whitechapel. Crossrail 2 will ease getting to Charing Cross and Waterloo, as I’ll just change at Euston or Tottenham Court Road onto the Northern.
In some ways Crossrail 2 is just adding two more arms to a spider centred on Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road and Farringdon stations.
When Crossrail, Crossrail 2 and Thameslink are completed, so many journeys across the capital from the suburbs will just be either direct or a single change in the centre.
Thinking Outside The Box About Building Crossrail 2
I suspect that due to the cost of building a rail line like Crossrail 2, that there are some very radical plans for building the line.
So let’s look at the various parts of the project.
1. The tunnelled section between Tottenham Hale and Alexandra Palace to Wimbledon together with the below-ground stations will be the major cost of Crossrail 2. All of the central stations, with the exception of Chelsea are interchanges.
2. The trains hopefully will be a follow-on order to the Class 345 trains that have been ordered for Crossrail.
3. It would also to be hoped that other designs could be lifted across or modified to keep costs at a minimum.
4. The three surface sections of the line up the Lea Valley Lines, up the East Coast Main Line and spreading out from Wimbledon, have stations in various states of repair and only a few have full step-free access.
Crossrail is being built, by boring the tunnel and then creating the stations and upgrading the surface sections, but I would almost build Crossrail 2 in the reverse order.
Although the surface sections are not in the best of health, whereas Crossrail linked two four-track railways together, a lot of the lines in the outer reaches of Crossrail 2 only have two tracks, which will mean that upgrading them to the required standard will be a lot easier.
So after finalising the design for the whole line, I’d build Crossrail 2 like this.
1. Rebuild all surface racks and stations to the required modern standard with the removal of level crossings and the addition of appropriate step-free features. Obviously, higher levels of passenger comforts would be added like better information and integration with surface transport, wi-fi, perhaps a decent coffee shop, warm waiting room and clean toilets.
But then we should be doing this with all stations in the UK and not just those touched by Crossrail 2. How much would it encourage people to travel by rail, if they knew that all stations, they would encounter on a journey would be of a high standard?
2. All of the surface lines for Crossrail 2 are electrified, even if some use third-rail electrification. One of the costs of overhead electrification is raising bridges and structures to give clearance, so I would use dual-voltage trains in the same way as Thameslink.
3. The new trains, which hopefully would be the same Class 345 trains, as those on Crossrail would then be introduced on the surface lines. Depots would need to be built.
4. The Central London interchange stations of Seven Sisters, Dalston, Angel, Kings Cross/St.Pancras/Euston, Tottenham Court Road, Victoria, Clapham Junction, Tooting Broadway and Wimbledon would all be upgraded, so that they are ready to accept the access tunnels from the new Crosrail 2 platforms.
As I believe that Crossrail 2 will be dug at a depth of around or more than fifty metres and it will be connected to existing stations, as Whitechapel has been by uphill excavation, these modifications will not be as great as those at the Crossrail stations like Liverpool Street, Tottenham Court Road, Bond Street and Paddington.
Looking at the list of stations, I can add these notes.
Dalston Junction, Angel, Kings Cross St. Pancras, Tottenham Court Road, Victoria and Clapham Junction have been recently or are being rebuilt and I would hope they have been future-proofed for connection to Crossrail 2.
Seven Sisters, Dalston Kingsland, Euston and Wimbledon need substantial improvement or rebuilding, so this would include provision for Crossrail 2.
5. Only when all the surface sections and the Central London stations were upgraded and ready, would the two tunnel boring machines be threaded between Tottenham Hale and Wimbledon.
This phase would be completed as follows.
- Connecting or uphill excavating from the tunnels into the existing stations.
- Fitting out the tracks and the new platforms.
- Testing of systems and trial running of the trains.
It does sound simplistic, but then engineers will have learned a lot from building Crossrail.
6. Finally, the Chelsea station would be built. As this is a completely new station leaving it until after the line has been built in much the same way as Pimlico was built for the Victoria Line would probably ease construction of the line.
The Anonymous Widower 