Have You Heard about…the New European Transport Strategy?
That is the title of an article in Georgia Today, which gives a solid overview of the strategy. This is the first two paragraphs of the article.
In 2013, the European Commission, in a EUR 250 billion European strategy which gives priority to the creation of an integrated transport network and seeks to level the imbalance between the Member States of the European Union, proposed the creation of international transport corridors, bringing together Western and Central Eastern Europe. In order to overcome traffic imbalance in the EU, nine multimodal corridors will be created, each of which has to combine at least three types of transport and connect three states.
The new infrastructure policy will unite 28 EU states under trans-European transport network (TEN-T). Nine transport corridors will be provided: Baltic – Adriatic Sea, North Sea – Baltic, the Mediterranean Corridor, Middle Eastern Corridor, Scandinavia – the Mediterranean Sea, the Rhine – Alps, the Atlantic Corridor, the North Sea – the Mediterranean Sea, and the Rhine – Danube. They will be grouped into three general areas of “East – West”, “North – South” and “Diagonal” corridors. The project is scheduled for completion in 2030. The transport corridors will receive priority funding to connect the east and west of the European Union. To finance the first phase of the project, EUR 26 billion was allocated.
I suppose that the Brexiters will say, that all it will do is bring more migrants to the UK.
But, think of the news a couple of days ago, when the Swiss opened the Gotthard Base Tunnel as is reported in this article on the BBC. This tunnel will have passenger trains, but one of it’s main purposes, is to get trucks from the roads through Switzerland, by moving a million tonnes of freight a year onto the trains. The tunnel removes a bottleneck on the Rotterdam-Basel-Genoa corridor, which has been named the Blue Banana by a group of French geographers.
This is the introduction to the Wikipedia entry.
The Blue Banana (French: banane bleue, also known as the European Megalopolis or the Manchester–Milan Axis) is a discontinuous corridor of urbanisation in Western Europe, with a population of around 111 million. The concept was developed in 1989 by RECLUS, a group of French geographers managed by Roger Brunet.
It stretches approximately from North West England across Greater London to the Benelux states and along the German Rhineland, Southern Germany and Switzerland to Northern Italy in the south.
Since when have Greater London and Manchester been in mainland Europe?
I also didn’t realise that I lived in a megalopis of 111 million people.
We are doing our bit to create the freight rail corridor from Manchester to Milan, by improving rail routes between the Channel Tunnel and up the spine of the country to Manchester and eventually to Scotland.
This must bring benefits to the UK in terms of freight and trade.
- At the Northern end of the route, Liverpool is creating one of the largest container ports in the world.
- Our car factories can export direct to Europe using massive trains, as I wrote about in What A Lot Of Minis!
- British Steel’s renowned long products from Scunthorpe can’t be exported easily other than by train.
- Mediterranean produce can be delivered fresher to the UK.
- Scottish food and drink will have fast access to the heart of Europe.
And these are just five small examples.
One fifty kilometre tunnel in Switzerland has just made trade for the UK, easier.
Some of the other transport corridors will greatly help Eastern Europe, of which some parts need all the help they can get. The article says this about Rail Baltica.
There is a priority project in the railroad Rail Baltica. The Trans-European railway Rail Baltica, linking Helsinki – Tallinn – Riga – Kaunas – Warsaw and continuing on to Berlin, is to be developed within the territories of the co-operating EU Member States. Rail Baltica will support the wider EU goals of parity of access to services and infrastructure of EU Member States and development of sustainable modes of transportation, improved balance and interoperability between different means of transportation, and the establishment of links with the rest of the EU rail network. Even as far back as the 1990s it was in the works to build an underwater railway tunnel between Tallinn and Helsinki, but the project was delayed due to financial constraints. This corridor also involves the development of river waterways and canals (Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands), as well as ferry traffic (between Finland and Estonia). The project cost is estimated at over EUR 3.6 billion, including 50% from the EU budget (program TEN-T), and 50% from the budget of the project participants. In the Baltic countries there is no such means, and there are discussions about the feasibility of building a high-speed road which will pass by numerous settlements.
I feel very strongly, that good rail and road links through an area, improve its prosperity. If we look at that small project of the Borders Railway, can anybody deny that it has been a success and that it has helped to enhance the place of the Scottish Borders on the UK Tourist Map.
As I write this Radio 5 Live is hosting a discussion on Brexit from Cardiff. Some of the issued raisded include steel and agriculture.
The Welsh may not like it, but an electrified Great Western for freight and passengers, will make South Wales fully part of the Blue Banana, which can only be positive for the Principality.
The Longest Underwater Electrification In The UK Since The Channel Tunnel
It may only be a tunnel seven kilometres long and a lot shorter than the Channel Tunnel, but the Severn Tunnel has two tracks, which both have to be electrified, so that the Great Western Railway can run electric trains to and from South Wales.
But the Severn Tunnel was built between 1873 and 1886 and it posed various problems during its construction with water ingress and since with operation because of its length, profile and the pumping of constant water. There is a section in Wikipedia, which is called General, which gives more details.
The Severn Tunnel is probably one of those places, sane engineers wouldn’t want to electrify a railway.
So I was interested to read this article in Rail Engineer, which is entitled Preparing For Severn Tunnel Electrification. The article gives this overview of the project.
The electrification project now moves on to probably one of its biggest challenges: the electrification of the 7.012km long Severn Tunnel. The tunnel will be closed to trains between 12 September and 21 October for the work. It is referred to as the “Severn Tunnel Autumn Disruption” or STAD for short and, just to make it a bit more interesting, included in the STAD are the Patchway Tunnels –1.139km Old (Down); 0.057Km Short (Down); 1.609Km New (Up).
Some facts about the tunnel and the work already done.
- More than 76.4 million bricks were used in the construction.
- Between 10 and 20 million gallons of water have had to be extracted every day to prevent flooding.
- There is also a ventilation shaft through which 80,000 cubic feet of fresh air can be forced into the tunnel each minute by means of an eight- metre diameter fan at the top.
- The contractors first had to scarify 2,500 square metres of tunnel lining to remove more than 35 tonnes of soot.
It is not a small job. But at least the tunnel was in better condition than expected.
The article gives a deep insight into how the Severn Tunnel electrification is a collaboration between several major contractors, who are installing a Swiss system from Furrer + Frey called Rigid Overhead Conductor Rail System in the roof of the tunnel. The ROCS system uses a rigid aluminium rail supported on appropriately designed fittings fixed to the roof of the tunnel. There is more on the ROCS system in this article in Rail Technology Magazine.
To makes things more difficult, the engineers have only got thirty-nine days to do the work.
And if it all goes wrong, there are two sets of politicians who will get very angry!
Is The New Bay Platform At West Ealing Opening On August 1st?
I heard a rumour that the new bay platform at West Ealing station was going to open on the first of August, but I have just found a change in the timetable, that could mean that it is true.
If you look at the on-line timetables, you will find the following.
At present the first two trains after 07:00 from Greenford to West Ealing, are the 07:16 and the 07:46, which go on to Paddington in twenty-six minutes.
From the first of August, they are the 07:13 and 07:43 which are shown as only going as far as West Ealing, where you change for Paddington and do the journey in twenty-eight minutes.
The strange thing is that these two trains are the only ones before nine, that require a change for Paddington.
The times of trains from Hayes and Harlington to Paddington appear to change on the first too!
There is also an additional electric service leaving for Hayes and Harlington at 07:18.
Could it be that electric services are starting on the first of August too?
The Bay Platform And The Reversing Siding At West Croydon
I went to West Croydon and took these pictures at the station.
They certainly answer some of the questions I asked in How Trains Reverse At West Croydon.
What is the maximum length of train, that can be handled by the bay platform 1?
On a brief look, it looks to be able to take a ten-car train.
How long does it take to reverse a train?
Look at the sequence I observed.
- 16:30 – Train leaves the siding for Platform 3 to go North.
- 16:33 – Train timed to leave Platform 3 to go North
- 15:34 – Train timed to arrive Platform 4 from the North
- 15:41 – Train arrives in the siding from Platform 4
From entering the siding from Platform 4 to entering Platform 3 seemed took around eleven minutes.
But they were working to a precise timetable with the aim of getting into West Croydon station on time.
How many trains an hour can the station reverse?
So if it takes eleven minutes for the sequence, it looks like this layout with one reversing siding can handle four trains per hour (tph), which it does at present.
In Increased Frequencies On The East London Line, I noted that two extra trains would be going South to Crystal Palace and Clapham Junction. But there appear to be no plans to increase services to West Croydon. Perhaps 4 tph is the maximum possible.
Can more than one train enter the reversing siding?
I wouldn’t have thought so during this type of operation. But it did look like the siding could accept a ten-car train or even two five-car trains.
Summing Up
It does look that there has been a lot of flexibility built into the track and its operation.
I also think that there could be enough space to squeeze some more track into the layout, if something like The Streatham Virtual Tube needed to turn more trains at West Croydon.
One thing that has to be said, is that the station is not an architectural gem worth cherishing. If the number of trains terminating at West Croydon, needed to be substantially increased, then no one would mourn if the station was rebuilt to increase the capacity.
Will The High Speed Trains Ever Die?
I am writing this post as I’ve just read this article on Rail News, which is entitled Strategic Railfreight Interchange Debate Ignites.
The plan is to build a rail freight interchange called Rail Central at Blisworth between the West Coast Main Line and the Northampton Loop Line and then run high speed freight trains based on modified HSTs to destinations all over the country.
To say there is opposition to the plan would be a gross understatement and explodes would probably be a better word in the headline rather than ignites.
The plan reminds me of one that used to be used by Royal Mail called Spokes from Speke, that was used to get First Class letters delivered on time. Basically, small aircraft flew the letters, which had been sorted by destination, from all over the country to Speke airport in Liverpool, where they were sorted and then flown to the destination. So a letter from say the Orkneys to Plymouth, would be flown from Kirkwall to Speke, unloaded and then put on the plane to Plymouth.
If I remember, it worked very well.
On this page of the British Library web site, there is an Oral History of the origins of Spokes from Speke.
As it would appear the system has Network Rail’s backing could it be that someone is creating a Spokes from Blisworh for important parcels?
A Tram-Train Between Skipton And Colne
Skipton station is a station at the western end of the electrified lines to and through Leeds. There are several plans for the future, involving direct trains to London and more frequent services to and from Leeds. There is also an aspiration of the Embsay and Bolton Abbey Railway to extend into Skipton.
Colne station is at the eastern end of the partly single-track East Lancashire Line, with services all the way to Blackpool South station via Burnley, Blackburn and Preston.
The two stations used to be connected until 1970, when it was closed, despite not being recommended for such by Beeching.
An organisation called Skipton-East Lancashire Rail Action Partnership is pressing for the line to be reopened. This map shows the rail lines in the area.
Skipton To Colne
Reopening this just under twelve miles length of track could bring a lot of benefits.
Most of the trackbed hasn’t been built on, but look at this Google Map of Colne station.
Colne Station
Note how the dual-carriageway, A6068 and a football pitch have been built, where any link from Colne would probably go.
So there would be a need for an expensive bridge. But as the line to Colne is only single-track, I suspect that the bridge could get away with one track, providing there was a passing loop at Colne station.
Having seen tram-trains in Germany, I know what the Germans would do and that is run tram-trains from the Blackpool tramway across Lancashire as trains and then over a tramway to Skipton. The advantage would be simpler infrastructure and lower costs.
The Tram-Train At Karlsruhe Station
The picture shows one of Karlsruhe tram-trains at the Hauptbahnhof. The tram-train is essentially the same as those that will be trialled between Sheffield and Rotherham in the near future.
The advantages of tram-trains would be simpler infrastructure and lower costs. Once the Calder Valley Line is electrified between Preston and Burnley Manchester Road station, a tram-train could start at either Leeds or Bradford Forster Square stations, go via Keighley, Skipton and Colne and then reach Blackburn and Preston, after joining an electrified Calder Valley Line at Rose Grove. From Skipton to Rose Grove, the line could be single track with passing loops and the electrification would be 750 VDC, like all trams in the UK. But of course, Skipton to Leeds and the Calder Valley would be to the main line standard of 25 kVAC.
An Outwardly Normal Class 379 Train
But we have our own British solution in the shape of the IPEMU. The picture shows the prototype, which I rode as a paying passenger in early 2015.
These trains have batteries or some other form of energy storage, which is charged whilst running on electrified lines.
An IPEMU could charge its batteries at Skipton and Preston and use batteries on any line without electrification in between.
The advantage would be no wires and possibly only a single track across the Pennines.
But if it is decided to create a link between Skipton and Colne, the railway technology developments of the last few years, could make the link more affordable and much less of an intrusion into some of our most beautiful countryside.
The Worst Value Project You Can Find?
Not my words but part of a quote from Dr. Richard Wellings of the Institute of Economic Affairs from 2013 about the Borders Railway, from this article on Rail News entitled Borders Railway Passenger Figures Ahead Of Target.
To be fair to Dr. Wellings, this is the original report with the full quote on the BBC, which is entitled Borders railway decision ‘insane’, says Institute of Economic Affairs. This is said.
Dr Richard Wellings of the IEA told BBC Scotland: “Even looking at the official figures, this is just about the worst value project you can find.
“The whole project’s insane. The average strategic road scheme has a benefit cost ratio of around five, which is ten times higher than the Borders railway, so this is a gross misallocation of resources, particularly when there are still huge problems on the road network in Scotland.”
These are the latest figures of usage from Transport Scotland and Scotrail published in the Rail News article.
- Tweedbank: forecast 18,978 — actual 183,918
- Galashiels: forecast 20,567 — actual 104,593
- Stow: forecast 5,129 — actual 24,365
- Gorebridge: forecast 79,014 — actual 39,400
- Newtongrange: forecast 46,449 — actual 50,480
- Eskbank: forecast 114,568 — actual 65,672
- Shawfair: forecast 54,298 — actual 9,398
- Brunstane/Newcraighall: forecast 865 — actual 11,344
- Edinburgh: forecast 228,156 — actual 205,203
This adds up to totals of forecast: 568,023 — actual 694,373.
Actual has exceeded the forecast by 22%, which certainly seem to be a bad case of London Overground Syndrome, that benign disease, where more passengers use a new railway than forecast.
What A Way To Run A Company!
This article in Rail Magazine is entitled Driver Shortages And Train Issues Prompt GTR Remedial Plan.
Don’t I just know it!
Today, I arrived at Balham station by the reliable Northern Line to get a train to Streatham Hill station to take some pictures.
The first train was cancelleed and then there was a succession of trains going direct to Streatham Common station.
Eventually, after about half-an-hour a train did turn up and I took the train the one stop and took the pictures I wanted.
I then took a 159 bus to Streatham station, where i took more pictures.
The first train, that came went to Streatham Common station, where I took a couple of photos.
I was intending to get to Sutton, but that train appeared to be delayed. So when another train turned up that said it was going to West Croydon,I thought that would be a safe place, as I could get the Overground home.
But despite what it said on the front, it was an East Croydon train, so after a couple of stops, I got out at Selhurst station to see if it could be a terminal for The Streatham Virtual Tube.
It might be!
But then a Sutton train arrived and I thought that perhaps this might take me to West Croydon or Sutton, where I could get a train home.
We sat there like prats for perhaps ten minutes before the driver said he was waiting for a replacement. When the replacement didn’t come he took the train out of service.
An Epsom train then followed and I thought that this might get me home.
We sat there like prats for perhaps ten minutes before the driver said he was waiting for a replacement. When the replacement didn’t come he took the train out of service.
I did have a chat with a group of drivers, who were trying to get to work and they said, that it was all GTR’s fault as they were trying to cut costs.
The next train was for Caterham, so I got it to East Croydon, hoping to get a London Bruidge train.
One left as I arrived, but after fifteen minutes I was on a train to London Bridge.
Surprisingly, we got there without trouble.
I bought some food in M&S and then got a 141 bus home.
It’s not as if this sort of shambles is the only problem GTR has.
- There’s the non-working Class 700 trains!
- There’s the keeping of the Class 387 trains instead of passing them to GWR.
- There’s the dispute with the drivers.
- There’s the dispute with the conductors.
- There’s the dispute with the rest of the massed orchestras of the BBC, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Scotland. And not forgetting the Bethnal Green Big Band!
I blame the management!
How Trains Reverse At West Croydon
When you take an East London Line train to West Croydon station, have you ever wondered, where after arrival at Platform 4, the trains go before appearing on Platform 3 to start their journey back to Highbury and Islington station?
This map from carto.metro.free.fr shows the layout of the lines at West Croydon station.
Lines At West Croydon Station
This Google Map shows the reversing siding between the two lines.
The Reversing Siding At West Croydon Station
The train goes to the reversing siding between the lines and then appears a few minutes or so later.
Trains can also use the bay platform 1 on the West side of the station, as there are points to allow trains to cross from any line.
Obviously, the reversing siding can handle a five-car train, but I wonder what is the longest train it can reverse?
It certainly looks long from a Google Map.
I have other questions.
- What is the maximum length of train, that can be handled by the bay platform 1?
- How long does it take to reverse a train?
- How many trains an hour can the station reverse?
- Can more than one train enter the reversing siding?
There are four trains an hour (tph) to Highbury and Islington and two tph to London Bridge, so I think with some efficient work by the drivers and signalling system, that a few more trains could be reversed at West Croydon.
Trains could also use the bay platform.
ou’ll find reversing sidings like this all over the rail network.
The Streatham Virtual Tube
In the June 2016 Edition of Modern Railways, there was an article entitled Turning South London Orange.
One of the proposals in the article is to create a virtual tube through Streatham.
This Google Map shows the area.
Streatham Stations
The stations shown on the map are.
- Streatham Hill station is at the top of the map just to the left of the middle.
- Tulse Hill station is in the top right.
- West Norwood station is on the right in the middle.
- Streatham Common station is at the bottom left.
- Streatham station is almost on a line between Streatham Common and Streatham Hill stations.
The Modern Railways article also says.
TfL has proposed the creation of a Streatham Interchange south of the town centre at the convergence of the Thameslink, London Bridge and Victoria routes near Streatham Common. But it is suggested that with such a move Streatham town centre would still be poorly served for travel in the direction of Clapham Junction, Victoria and the West End.
To take a quick snapshot of the complexity of the Streatham Interchange problem, look at this Google Map of the lines in the area.
Streatham Common Station And The Tangle Of Lines
In an attempt to sort the problems, the Centre for London is proposing something radical in the form of a virtual tube giving a frequent service between all three Streatham stations; Streatham Common (Interchange), Streatham and Streatham Hill.
The connection would be achieved by.
- A tunnelled flying junction between Streatham and Streatham Hill stations.
- Streatham station would be four-tracked to give within-station interchange.
- A flying junction with the local lines would be provided at Streatham Common.
This would enable some stopping services to Victoria to stop at all three Streatham stations.
A Tunnelled Flying Junction Between Streatham And Streatham Hill Stations
This is a Google Map of the area between Streatham and Streatham Hill stations.
From Streatham To Streatham Hill
Streatham Hill station is at the top of this map and Streatham station is at the bottom.
This map from carto.metro.free.fr shows the rail lines in the area.
Lines From Streatham To Streatham Hill
The proposed tunnel would leave the line between Streatham and Tulse Hill stations just after the Streatham Tunnel and curve Northwards to join the line between Streatham Hill and West Norwood stations, probably at the Western end of the Leigham Court Tunnel.
As this is in a serious report produced by professional consultants, I would suspect that subject to full surveying and design, that this is a feasible idea. In the Modern Railways article it is stated to be a three kilometre tunnel.
Four-Tracking Through Streatham Station
The Centre for London proposal states that two pairs of tracks with within-station interchange, should go through Streatham station.
This Google Map shows Streatham station.
Streatham Station
It looks to be tight for four-tracking, but as the report says, two could be below ground.
Streatham Common
This map from carto.metro.free.fr shows the rail lines in the area.
Streatham Common Lines
Simple it isn’t!
I think that there would be a flyover, so that trains going from Streatham Common to Streatham didn’t interfere with other trains going through Streatham.
But there is plenty of space in the area to take the right actions!
Learning From The Tube And Crossrail
If the line through the three Streatham stations is to be a virtual tube, it should take some design clues from the Underground and its bigger and newer sister; Elizabeth.
I’ve probably ridden the Northern part of the Piccadilly Line, hundreds of times and the below-ground layout of stations like Southgate, Wood Green, Arsenal and others is two platforms separated by a wide central concourse, which is linked to the surface by escalators. It is a very workable format, that is used on the Victoria, Central, Northern and Jubilee Lines and from what I’ve seen Crossrail will use the layout at a lot of Central London stations.
It is a layout, that offers many advantages, especially, if the distance between the lines allows a wide and spacious area.
- Passengers have somewhere to wait.
- Some newer stations have kiosks, where drinks, snacks or something to read can be bought.
- Information can be bigger and better.
- Passengers can reverse direction.
- Passengers can change easily to a train going the same way, but to a different destination.
- Escalators and lifts in the centre serve both platforms.
- Three escalators are often provided, so if one needs refurbishment, the station stills has one up and one down escalator.
- Toilets can be provided that serve both platforms.
It is a design that has worked for nearly a hundred years and I believe that Crossrail will improve it sufficiently, so it lasts a thousand.
The S Stock trains of the Underground, the Class 378 trains of the Overground, the new Class 700 trains of the Thameslink route and the new Class 345 trains of Crossrail, are all walk-through trains, which bring several advantages.
Passengers can adjust themselves to the best place for their destination.
Passengers can move along the train to find a seat.
The capacity of the trains is greater.
The Modern Railways article says this about the difference between traditional and walk-through trains.
Analysis by TfL, has shown that station dwell times between Selhurst and Clapham Junction could be cut by up to 42%, if the current Class 377 EMUs were replaced with London Underground’s S Stock, which would be more suited to this type of operation.
So the trains actually go faster, as they spend less time in the stations.
The next generation of trains that replace the Class 377 trains on Metro routes in South London, may well be walk-through.
Trains Between The Stations
I will look at the number of direct trains in the Peak and Off Peak between stations in a typical hour. I have chosen 08-09 for the Peak and 10-11 for the Off Peak.
- Streatham to Streatham Common – Peak – 2 tph – Off Peak – 2 tph
- Streatham to Streatham Hill – None
- Streatham to Tulse Hill – Peak – 8 tph – Off Peak – 8 tph
- Streatham to West Norwood – None
- Streatham Common to Balham – Peak – 8 tph – Off Peak – 7 tph
- Streatham Common to Streatham – Peak – 2 tph – Off Peak – 2 tph
- Streatham Common to Steatham Hill – None
- Streatham Common to Tulse Hill – Peak – 2 tph – Off Peak – 2 tph
- Streatham Common to West Norwood – None
- Streatham Hill to Streatham – Peak – None
- Streatham Hill to Steatham Common – None
- Streatham Hill to Tulse Hill – Peak – None
- Streatham Hill to West Norwood – Peak – 5 tph – Off Peak – 4 tph
- Tulse Hill to Streatham – Peak – Peak – 8 tph – Off Peak – 7 tph
- Tulse Hill to Steatham Common – Peak – 2 tph – Off Peak – 2 tph
- Tulse Hill to Streatham Hill – Peak – None
- Tulse Hill to West Norwood – Peak – 2 tph – Off Peak – 2 tph
- West Norwood to Streatham – None
- West Norwood to Steatham Common – None
- West Norwood to Streatham Hill – Peak – Peak – 4 tph – Off Peak – 4 tph
- West Norwood to Tulse Hill – None
Note.
- Streatham Common to Balham is included, as the proposal assumes some of these will take the new route.
- 4 tph between Streatham and Tulse Hill are Thameslink
Frequencies are generally low compared to the 16 tph on the East London Line or the projected 24 tph on Thameslink and Crossrail.
What Would Be The Termini Of The Virtual Tube?
The Modern Railways article talks about Victoria and Clapham Junction being Northern termini, but what about the new station at Battersea?
But the article doesn’t mention the Southern termini.
So would the line go to the places shown on the map in the article; Mitcham, Selhurst, Sutton and Wimbledon?
We mustn’t forget West Croydon.
In How Trains Reverse At West Croydon, I investigated how trains reversed at West Croydon.
There are two methods; a bay platform and a reversing siding and I reckon with some good driving and signalling and some clever timetabling, that some more trains could be squeezed in. So if the virtual tube goes ahead, I suspect that West Croydon could reverse a few trains.
West Croydon station is also linked to the Tramlink.
Frequencies Through The Virtual Tube
The Modern Railways article says this about the frequency of trains through the virtual tube.
Using this link, some stopping services to Victoria could be rerouted via all three Streatham stations, while it is proposed that Streatham would see a peak service interval between trains of just two to three minutes. To maintain times to Sutton and Croydon, it is anticipated that 4 tph would continue to run directly from Streatham Common to Balham.
So are we really going to see trains every two or three minutes through Streatham station in the peak?
Where are twenty trains going to come from?
On the current provisional timetable for Thameslink, four eight-car Trains trains from the Sutton Loop Line going to London Bridge and on to St. Albans and Luton.
As Thameslink expands to cope with more passengers, surely these trains will go to twelve-cars, once all platforms are long enough. But Thameslink’s provisional timetable already uses all paths through the core, I can’t see any more trains on this route.
At present between eight and nine in the morning peak, nine trains go between Streatham Common and Balham, so this might give us another five trains through Steatham, with four trains still taking the direct route. They will also be trains of at least ten-cars.
So we now have nine trains of 10-12 cars trains going through Streatham. That still means that to attain a twenty tph frequency, we need to add eleven trains.
Perhaps four tph could run between a Southern terminus like West Croydon and Clapham/Battersea/Victoria.
Streatham Common Station
This is the first of the Streatham stations coming into London.
If the virtual tube was built, then inbound services to London would split here, with according to the Centre for London proposals, four tph would go via Balham and the rest would take the Streatham route.
This Google Map shows the station.
Streatham Common Station
Note.
- All services use the Eastern pair of tracks at Streatham Common station.
- Lots of fast services on the Brighton Main Line pass through on the Western pair of lines.
- Services to and from Steatham station curve away to the East.
I think it could be a tight fit to squeeze a bay platform into Streatham Common station, to act as a terminus of the virtual tube.
Streatham Station
This is the second of the Streatham stations coming into London.
It strikes me that the plan for a peak service interval of just two to three minutes is over-ambitious, although the Centre for London report is planning for 2050. Note that the capacity of a twelve-car Thameslink Class 700 train is eighteen-hundred passengers and that the next generation of trains on the Victoria routes will probably be similar in terms of passengers per car.
In a couple of years time on the East London Line, the properly designed two-platform stations like Canada Water, Whitechapel and Shoreditch High Street, with the help of sophisticated modern signalling, will be handling twenty tph.
So surely a well-designed two-platform station at Streatham could handle a similar number of trains! Provided of course, provision was made in the design to four-track the station if that was required in the future.
I think that if it could be done, Streatham needs a single wide island platform, with London-bound services on one side and Sutton, Wimbledon, West Croydon and other services on the other. This would enable single-platform interchanges between all trains, just as is being implemented on Crossrail at Whitechapel.
Escalators and lifts would provide step-free access to both sides of Streatham High Road. Remember the Thameslink trains will be walk-through as will probably be the next generation trains into Victoria, so most of the savvy passengers will position themselves correctly, when they board the train at their initial station.
I think the problems will be more about passengers getting to the station, by foot, bicycle or bus, rather than in properly designed and rebuilt stations and on the trains.
I took these pictures of Streatham station on the first of June 2016.
Note.
- There is a large bus parking area between the Streatham station and the Tesco next door, which could be developed into a full interchange.
- The station has little architectural merit.
- Opposite the station, there is a large gap in the buildings.
- The Morrisons supermarket next door is derelict and could be part of any development.
- It is a drab, dark station with all the style of a 1960s pedestrian underpass.
It is one of those sites where any decent architect could create a practical and good station with the following characteristics.
- A wide island platform capable of taking twelve-car trains on both sides.
- Two sets of escalators and lifts, one on each side of Streatham High Road.
- Appropriate over-site development of flats or offices, that would enhance the area and help pay for the scheme.
- A proper bus station linked to the station.
- A design that would enable two extra lines and platforms to be added in the future.
I’m fairly certain, that whatever Network Rail decide they want at Streatham to meet the required level of service, they will get.
Streatham Hill Station
This is the third of the Streatham stations coming into London.
If the tunnel is built between Streatham and Streatham Hill station, then the traffic through Streatham Hill in the morning peak could be.
- From Streatham Common – 5 tph
- From West Norwood – 4 tph
- Extra Trains – 4 tph
Which makes a total of 13 tph.
These pictures show Streatham Hill station.
It is step-free to both platforms and could certainly handle the required number of twelve-car trains.
But I doubt there is no way that the layout of the station could be improved to allow passengers to go between West Norwood and Streatham stations, without going over the bridge.
Conclusion
I think that a higher service between the three Streatham stations is a possibility, where perhaps four tph between Streatham Common and Balham are diverted through the three Streatham stations.
This could be reinforced by extra trains from West Croydon and possibly Sutton.
A rebuilt Streatham station would give cross-platform interchange with Thameslink and give services to London Bridge.
At the northern end, the trains would terminate at one of these stations.
- Victoria – Is it too crowded though?
- Battersea – For the Northern Line Extension
- Clapham Junction – Perhaps possible, but not the right place!
Or it could take the West London Line at Clapham Junction and go all the way to Stratford or Watford!
TfL will pay their money and take their choice.
The Anonymous Widower 