Ten London Overground Stations For Upgrade
This article on Rail Magazine is entitled Murphy wins LO station contract. This is said.
J Murphy & Sons has won a £6.5 million contract from Transport for London to upgrade ten London Overground stations with new shelters and seating, upgraded lighting, better paving and new handrails.
It sounds like the work is not of too much of a major nature, but is more about some small important features.
On a personal note, the only station named, that I use regularly is Hackney Downs.
A First Glimpse Of The Planned Hackney Central Station
London Overground are planning an upgrade of Hackney Central station, as I reported in The Redevelopment Of Hackney Central Station.
I went to Hackney Central Library to get a first glimpse of the design.
It’s certainly a big improvement on what’s there now. Some points.
- The station is to a modular design, so we’ll be seeing other similar stations.
- There is more space in the station, with the gate line turned through ninety degrees.
- The guys I met from Transport for London (TfL) were referring to the combined station as Hackney Interchange.
- TfL and Hackney Council are working together to get things right in the area.
- There is no entrance on the far side onto Graham Road, which is something I’d like to see.
- There may even be toilets.
- TfL are welcoming comments.
But TfL haven’t created the web site yet. I’ll point to it, when they do.
Improving Bus Connectivity
Like many in London, I don’t live on top of a Underground or mainline rail station. The nearest is Dalston Junction station on the Overground, which gives me good connections to mist the capital with one or more changes.
So I rely heavily on buses to get to and from stations like Angel, Highbury and Islington, Manor House and Moorgate for onward connections.
It is the same with Hackney Central and Hackney Downs stations, which could be united as Hackney Interchange.
The buses are rather chaotic around the two stations and if Hackney Council achieve their laudable aim of creating a proper public space between Hackney Central station, St. Augustine’s Tower and the Narrow Way, using the buses in the area will get more difficult.
Transport for London needs to take a good hard look at buses passing through the area of Mare Street and the proposed Hackney Interchange.
The Dalston Eastern Curve
The lack of an Eastern Curve at Dalston means that westbound passengers on the North London Line needing to go South from Dalston, must change at Canonbury.
I sometimes do this to get to Dalston Junction station, but I also take the 38 bus from Amhurst Road, after crossing the North London Line on the Hackney Central station footbridge.
In The Dalston Eastern Curve, I talked about the curve, but I don’t think it will be rebuilt in the next few years.
A Southern Entrance To Hackney Central Station
Because of its connections to the attractions at Stratford and Crossrail, I suspect that we’ll be seeing more passengers taking the North London Line to and from its Eastern terminus at Stratford station. Especially, when West Ham moves into the Olympic Stadium.
The proposed increase in size and facilities at Hackney Central will be very much needed, for all these passengers.
Many passengers though will need to go South from Hackney Central or along Graham Road, but will be frustrated in having to climb the footbridge to get out of the station on the wrong side of the line.
It is my view that a southern entrance to Hackney Central station would make travel easier for a great many travellers.
In an ideal world, a southern entrance would lead to a light-controlled crossing over Graham Road, to give easier access to the buses.
Squeezing Blood Out Of A Stone On The Northern Line
The Northern Line is not the most popular or glamorous line of the London Underground.
It is a line I try to avoid for various reasons.
- It’s often too crowded.
- I have buses, Victoria Line and the London Overground as alternatives. For example, I use Camden Road station instead of Camden Town station and walk.
- In recent months, stations I want to use have been renewing escalators.
- I also want to get to stations, that are on the Charing Cross branch of the line.
I also wonder, if I’m prejudiced against the Northern Line, as I spent so much of my formative years on the Piccadilly Line.
I have just read this article on London Reconnections, which is entitled Twin Peaks: Timetable Changes On The Northern Line.
I have extracted these points from the article.
- Until mid-2014, both central sections and both northern branches of the Northern Line in the peak hours were only able to handle twenty trains per hour (tph). This compares with 30 tph on the Jubilee Line, 33 tph for the Victoria Line and 34 tph for the Central Line.
- In June 2014, with the full introduction of automatic train operation (ATO), this was raised to 22 tph.
- Engineers were working hard to improve the track to allow better speeds and from December 2014, the train frequency in the peak was raised to 24 tph.
- The line is now running at 30 tph between Kennington and Morden.
- The Off Peak service at the start of 2014 was 15-16 tph and it is now 20 tph.
All of this frequency improvement has been attained because they have got ATO working well and they’ve done a good job to allow trains to run faster on much better track.
You could say it’s all down to quality engineering. With probably the input from someone, who understands scheduling.
The article has a section entitled As Good As It Can Get For The Moment?, where this is said.
No doubt the ATO system will continue to be refined but the dramatic time reductions already achieved are unlikely to be improved on much more. Unless more available trains or speed can be coaxed of the existing fleet it is hard to see how the peak timetable can be improved until new trains arrive.
So have we got to the limit of the current lines and the 1995 Stock trains?
If you read the article, you’ll see that Transport for London are talking about peak hour services of 30 tph with new trains after the reworking of track in Summer 2020.
But given the skilful way, the frequency of this line has been ramped up over the last couple of years, I suspect, there’s more blood to come from this particular stone!
The Anonymous Widower 