Overground Customer Service At Work
You may ask, what this London Overground Customer Service Agent is doing on his knees at Hackney Downs station.
Overground Customer Service At Work
He’d spotted a raised man-hole cover and was taking a photograph to report it. He’d put a one pence coin by the hole.
A Raised Man-Hole Cover
Apparently, that is the standard for a hole being too big.
That is a very good practical way of measuring it.
Where Next For The Overground?
After the launch of the Overground on the Lea Valley Lines, which has probably gone ahead with just a few minor glitches and quite a lot of enthusiasm from staff and passengers, where next will the orange spider stretch its tentacles?
Passengers will have a big effect, as going Overground has some large benefits for passengers.
1. Transport for London’s fare structure is lower than that of National Rail.
2. Freedom Passes now have no annoying restrictions and this will generate traffic for the Overground, as I reported in The Chat On The Overground.
3. Overground likes to run at least four trains an hour all day every day.
4. Overground has station staff from when the first train arrives until the last one leaves.
So passengers in places, where perhaps one line is Overground and the other is Great Northern or Abellio Greater Anglia, may well go on the more affordable line with better service. This will be an argument that the better fare and service model will win.
These lines in North London must be prime candidates for Overgrounding.
Liverpool Street to Hertford East
One line that must be at the top of the list, is the remaining Lea Valley Line to Hertford East station, that is not currently under Overground control.
As this branch, is down as becoming part of Crossrail 2, surely to make it part of the Overground first would get all the stations up to a decent standard before they are incorporated into the new line.
Operationally too, having all of the shorter distance services from Liverpool Street must make sense.
The Northern City Line
The Northern City Line from Moorgate desperately needs development and new trains.
When Govia were awarded the Great Northern franchise, there were a lot of commitments, as detailed in Wikipedia. These included new trains for the Northern City Line to replace the elderly Class 313 trains and reading the details, it sounds very much like the Great Northern services will be run on Overground lines with at least four trains an hour at all times to very much improved stations.
Personally, I would also like this line to become a full seven day a week service, as it would ease travelling to places like Alexandra Palace on a weekend. A quality service on the line would also give me better access to Thameslink.
The big question with this line, if it is taken over by the Overground or TfL Rail, is how far you take the TfL-managed service; Hadley Wood, Welwyn Garden City or Stevenage.
Thameslink
It is well-known that TfL have their eyes on taking over at least the central part of Thameslink, especially as after it starts to operate in 2018, it will work almost like an Underground Line from between numerous places in North and South London with a high-frequency service and Londoners, commuters and frequent visitors will see it as part of the Underground/Overground/Crossrail network.
The Reaction Of The Other Train Operating Companies
The TOCs may or may not like running the short distance commuter services out of London. I have read comments like they make more money on long-distance services and if they need to cancel a train because of problems, it will be a commuter service.
But whatever they think, where there is an Overground or in the future, a Crossrail, alternative, they will lose revenue, if they don’t run to the Overground rules.
The Overground is taking a big stick to the TOCs and they will have to repond positively.
The New Tube Map
This report on CityLab says that the new tube map is getting some serious hate.
I think that TfL aren’t that pleased with the new Tube Map, as on the newly-added Overground stations, the new Tube and Rail map is more common. As all London’s railways get more and more connected by better stations, it’s probably going to be the more important map in the end.
One thing I’d like to see is a much larger Tube and Rail map on the wall in strategic places, like perhaps in the entrance hall to a station or on the often blank wall you face, when you come down the escalator.
A Virgin customer service guy at I think Coventry, told me that he’d like to see all London connected stations have the Tube and Rail Map, as he was always being asked difficult questions, that customers could answer from such a map.
It Looks Like 315817 Is The Prototype Overground Class 315 Train
Since Sunday, I’ve ridden on quite a few Class 315 trains, both of the Overground and TfL Rail. Although, I saw 315817 on Monday at Enfield Town station, I hadn’t got a chance to ride in one that as one the Overground’s managers had told me, had spent ten days in the maintenance shop being cleaned, painted and dressed. Today, there had been overhead line problems, so what should turn up at Hackney Downs station after a longer than usual wait, but 315817.
In my view, the design of the new livery is good and the ten days in the shop were well spent.
Good points include.
1. Getting rid of the awful pink!
2. Cleverly adapting the Class 378 colours and fabric, so that costs of the refurbishment are minimised.
3. The new Tube-style route map and the cut down central Tube map. Harry Beck, Frank Pick et. al., set down a good set of rules.
4. Affordable seat refurbishment on the original frames.
When the train arrived at Liverpool Street, I noted it was an eight-car train, with an unrefurbished unit in tandem with 315817. But then eight-car trains are used quite regularly on Lea Valley Lines services in the peak periods.
So it would appear that if business becomes too much for four-car trains, London Overground will just couple them together and make them 8-car trains, thus avoiding the problems of success on the North and East London Lines.
And there is probably no shortage of Class 315 trains, with London Overground having seventeen of them and TfL Rail forty-four.
I do suspect though, that 315817 is probably the only train that has so far been refurbished. I look forward to see the rest as they trickle through.
Abbey Wood Explained
In my post on Crossrail at Abbey Wood Station, I expressed some puzzlement on how it will all be arranged. I said this.
It’s still not totally clear to me, where the tracks and platforms will go in Abbey Wood station. But so long as Crossrail and its contractors know, who cares?
So I’m pleased to read a full explanation in this article in Rail Engineer. They say this about the layout at Abbey Wood station.
Under Crossrail, the two existing platforms will both be rebuilt as island platforms by having a track each installed on the ‘back side’ of them. The northerly island, currently the Down platform to Kent, will be the Crossrail terminus while the current Up platform will become the one for the North Kent line.
In this picture that I took from a footbridge to the East of the station, North is to the left.
So Crossrail will be the two lines on the left and the North Kent Line will be on the right.
It isn’t perfect, as it means there is no cross-platform interchange between the two lines.
If you read the article in Rail Engineer, all will be explained.
A Lonely Stansted Express In East London
When I last visited Emerson Park station, I travelled in a rather clean Class 317 train, that had been refurbished for use on the Stansted Express. I was surprised to see that today it is still there.
As this is a train with a universal-access toilet, luggage racks, a First Class section and has been fully refurbished in only 2000, surely this train, which is one of fifteen, could be better employed somewhere else. These two airport routes are possibilities.
1. Routes to Manchester Airport from Liverpool and in the near future, Preston and Bolton.
2. Cardiff to Swansea via Cardiff Airport, after South Wales is fully electrified.
But then as Northern Rail are happy with their Class 319 Trains, perhaps we’re getting to the point that we’re going to have to put better class trains into storage.
On the other hand cities like Glasgow and Leeds are looking to create purpose-built rail links to their airports. So building these links will hopefully be more affordable as the trains might not need to be built.
It has also to be noted that according to the Future section in Wikipedia for the Class 317 trains, a demonstration is being built to see if it is worth fitting new traction equipment and an updated interior, to give the trains a life extension of twenty years.
Remember though that these trains are based on Mark 3 Coaches and thus are inbred to both chameleons and Lazarus, so it looks like if they refurbish the Class 317 trains, they’ll outlive some of the much younger trains.
TfL Rail’s Newly-Repainted Class 315 Trains
Until the delivery of Crossrail’s new Class 345 trains in a few years, TfL Rail will have to make do with the current Class 315 trains.
In the interim, they have given them a repaint.
As you can see, they are also removing the dreaded pink plastic, that I so dislike.
It’s Not Just An Elderly, White Male Prejudice
I find the pink, plastic interiors of British Rails Class 315, 317 and 319 trains not too my taste but I’ve always thought it was to do with being elderly, white and male.
The Pink Interior Of A Class 315 Train
But after a trip on a Class 315 train today, where I took this picture, I think there are others who think that the colour choice was that of a fifth-rate designer, who had some rather unusual preferences. An Asian lady in her twenties saw me take the picture and when I told her why, she wholeheartedly agreed with my opinion.
It is interesting to note, that all refurbishments of these trains in recent years have removed the pink plastic.
Enfield Town Is Almost Ready For Boris
I went through Enfield and Enfield Town station this morning before nine thirty. I used my Freedom Pass, which of course I couldn’t have done before the Overground takeover.
Apart from the 307 bus from Oakwood tube station, that I used to get to Enfield, which still thought National Rail was in charge, there didn’t seem to be too much to fault.
Wandering On Day One Of The New Overground And TfL Rail
Today was the first official day of the addition of the Lea Valley Lines to the Overground and the first day that the Shenfield Metro was being run by TfL Rail. I went for a couple of wanders and these are some of the pictures I took.
There were a couple of problems in that the there weren’t enough drivers at TfL Rail for whatever reason and the Romford to Upminster branch of the Overground wasn’t working.
The Anonymous Widower 