The Anonymous Widower

Bromley Junction

In the June 2016 Edition of Modern Railways in an article is entitled Turning South London Orange.

One of the proposals is to create A New South London Orbital Rail Route.

The writer of the proposal suggests that there would be a three kilometre tunnel between Norwood Junction and Kent House to connect the East and West halves of the route.

I believe that if the tunnel were to be built that the Southern portal would be located in the region of Bromley Junction, which is North of Norwood Junction station.

This Google Map shows the area.

Bromley Junction

The lines are as follows.

The line going North West goes to Crystal Palace.

The line going North East is the Brighton Main Line to New Cross Gate and London Bridge.

The East London Line to Whitechapel and Dalston Junction shares the tracks of the Brighton Main Line.

The continuation of the Crystal Palace line turns east to Beckenham Junction and Bromley South and Orpington.

The Brighton Main Line continues South to Norwood Junction, East Croydon and Brighton.

This map from carto.metro.free.fr shows the lines around the junction.

Lines Around Bromley Junction

Note how to accommodate the tram from Harrington Road to Beckenham Junction via Birkbeck, the route from Crystal Palace to Beckenham Junction has been single-tracked.

It would also appear that this line was once connected to Norwood Junction station by the Norwood Spur.

These pictures show the Bromley Junction.

I wouldn’t believe it would be impossible to build a new connection between Birkbeck and Norwood Junction stations.

The traffic through Birkbeck station is as follows.

• 2 tph to Beckenham Junction (Southern)
• 2 tph to London Bridge via Crystal Palace and Peckham Rye (Southern)

As the line is single-tracked that works out as a total of 4 tph.

I believe that with modern signalling and better track layout, that this figure could be increased.

So would it be possible to run trains on a new South London Orbital Route through the area?

Four tph on both routes would mean that there would be up to sixteen trains through the single-track in every hour. Difficult and it would need to be well-signalled and well-driven and possibly under full automatic control, but as a Control Engineer, I don’t believe it would be impossible, given that the trains on the orbital route would not be stopping between Norwood Junction and Beckenham Junction stations.

June 7, 2016 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Centre for London June 2016 Proposals, Trains