The Anonymous Widower

Do We Make The Assets Sweat At Crystal Palace Station?

Crystal Palace station is of a high standard, but given the amount of money spent, do we make the assets sweat?

These pictures show the station.

This is a Google Map of the station.

Crystal Palace Station

And this map from carto.metro.free.fr shows the platform and line layout.

Crystal Palace Platforms And Lines

Note.Platform 3, which is one of the terminating platforms for East London Line services is next to Platform 2, which is the platform for Beckenham Junction, West Croydon and Sutton.

• Unfortunately, the space between seems to have been used for new and expensive housing.
• At present most, if not all East London Line services seem to terminate in Platform 5 not Platform 3.
• Platform 3 would appear to have better walking connections to the two North-bound platforms 1 and 4.

So is this making the best use of the station?

In Increased Frequencies On The East London Line, I stated that from 2018, there will be two additional trains from Dalston Junction to Crystal Palace.

This will make 6 tph in total.

Let’s hope that these extra trains will connect to onward trains.

It would be so nice to go to Platform 3 at Crystal Palace every ten minutes, just walk across to Platform 2 and get a train a few minutes later to Beckenham Junction or even Bromley South and/or Orpington. In an ideal world, that would be followed a couple of minutes later by a train to West Croydon, Waddon, the new Bebbington station, Wallington and Sutton.

At the present time, only two tph from Dalston Junction give a reasonable connection, but you wait around fifteen minutes.

One point that the maps clear up, is that there would appear to be little space for a tram platform.

Was this why the proposal was dropped?

But if the frequency of trains between Crystal Palace and Beckenham Junction could be six tph, would a tram link be needed?

At present they are just 2 tph. But surely, once Thameslink is complete and there are more paths available to London Bridge, I’m certain that the frequency could be increased.

It needs to be at least 4 tph.

June 7, 2016 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Crystal Palace Station, Trains