The Anonymous Widower

3,000 Homes To Be Built Next To Dagenham Dock Railway Station

The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on Ian Visits.

These are the first two paragraphs.

A sleepy railway station in East London is due to get a lot busier as a large housing development is to be built next to it.

The former Dagenham Stamping Plant car works site has been cleared, and has now been bought by Peabody housing association for development. The initial phase will see 1,550 affordable homes built, supported by an £80 million grant from the Mayor’s Affordable Housing Programme.

There is a lot of housing under construction the area and the c2c lines and the London Overground are being expanded to cope.

• The Gospel Oak and Barking Line is being extended to Barking Riverside station.
• Renwick Road station may be added to this route, where it joins the c2c lines.
• Dagenham Dock station is now fully step-free.
• A new station is to be built at Beam Park to provide a link to housing development.

But there is still only two trains per hour (tph) through Dagenham Dock and Beam Park, as opposed to the four tph, that will run to Barking Riverside.

The simple solution would be to improve the Fenchurch Street and Grays service.

• Currently it is two tph.
• The service calls at Limehouse, West Ham, Barking, Dagenham Dock, Rainham and Purfleet.
• Renwick Road and Beam Park will be added to this service, when and if, they are built.

It needs to have the same frequency as Gospel Oak to Barking which is four tph.

So how could this frequency increase be provided?

For a start, the bay platform at Grays could probably handle four tph with improvement and the route possibly with some signalling improvements could probably cope.

The bay platform at Grays station would probably need lengthening.

It’s just where do you terminate the trains at the Western end?

Fenchurch Street is probably at capacity, as it handles 8 tph in the Off Peak.

• 4 tph – Shoeburyness
• 2 tph – Southend Central
• 2 tph – Grays

But the station handles up to 20 tph in the Peak.

Could it be that with the installation of full digital ERTMS signalling on this route, that four tph between Fenchurch Street and Grays could run all day?

A Possible Crossrail Branch

Crossrail is a herd of testosterone-loaded elephants in the room, that have been locked up by some very poor decision making from the Mayor and Transport for London.

• If ERTMS signalling is one of the keys to unlocking capacity on the tunnels for Crossrail and Thameslink, could its application to c2c services open up possibilities for serious new services in East London.
• As I said, ERTMS signaling could open up the capacity into Fenchurch Street, but would it also allow Grays to be a terminal for Crossrail?

This map from cartometro.com shows Forest Gate Junction, where the Gospel Oak to Barking Line connects to the lines into Stratford and Liverpool Street.

Note.

1. The orange tracks are the Gospel Oak to Barking Line (GOBLin).
2. Gospel Oak is to the North West and Barking is to the South East.
3. The mauve-blue tracks are Crossrail, through Manor Park and Forest Gate stations.
4. The black track are the fast lines into Liverpool Street station.
5. Forest Gate Junction in the middle is regularly used by c2c trains accessing Liverpool Street, when there are engineering works.

I believe that with ERTMS signalling four or possibly six Crossrail tph could travel between Stratford and Barking stations via Maryland, Forest Gate and Woodgrange Park stations.

This second map from cartometro.com shows the lines through Barking station.

Note.

1. Barking station is in the North-West corner of the map.
2. The orange platform on the North side of Barking station is Platform 1, which is the current terminal of the GOBLin.
3. After the Goblin is extended to Barking Riverside, the GOBLin services will share Platforms 7 and 8 with the Fenchurch Street to Grays services.
4. Platforms 7 and 8 are on the South side of the station and they are connect to the GOBLin lines by a flyover.
5. To the East of the station, the GOBLin route is shown in orange.
6. The GOBLin turns South to Barking Riverside station, which is by the Thames.

I suspect that there is capacity for more trains.

• There will only be six tph through Platforms 7 and 8 at Barking station.
• There will be four tph over the flyover and through Woodgrange Park station.

I believe that terminating four Crossrail tph at Grays could be an interesting possibility.

 

March 18, 2021 - Posted by AnonW | Transport/Travel | Barking Riverside Station, Beam Park Station, c2c, Crossrail, ERTMS, Gospel Oak And Barking Line, Grays Station, Housing, Renwick Road Station