The Shape Of Things To Come
I visited the newly-reopened Tottenham Court Road station and took these pictures.
The pictures were taken in sequence. I arrived on a Northern Line train from Embankment, took the steps and long escalators to the enormous ticket hall, where I got sanother escalator to the station entrance, where you are delivered at pavement level. I then left on a 10 bus, from where I took the last pictures.
Obviously, there is still work to do, but you have to remember that this is perhaps a third of the station that will have been created by when Crossrail opens. The Central Line will be connected again, an entrance will be positioned by Centre Point and a new large entrance to the west in Dean Street is being built.
This Google Earth image shows the area around Soho Square.
The Soho Square Area
Tottenham Court Road station and the iconic Centre Point at the top right corner and Dean Street to the left or west.
Note the distance between the two entrances, which emphasises how long the platforms are to accommodate two hundred metre long trains, that call at two hundred and sixty metre long platforms. Crossrail describes their new station with these points.
- 24 trains per hour service at peak times in each direction
- 260m – length of platform tunnels
- 25m – platform depth
- 102,000 passengers are estimated to use Crossrail station each day
- 40 utilities diverted in and around Charing Cross Road and Oxford Street
- 500,000 square feet of premium retail, office and residential accommodation created at eastern end of Oxford Street and Tottenham Court Road
- £1bn – total investment to build Crossrail station and upgrade capacity of existing Tube station
It is a massive project in its own right and will totally reform the area.
This new tube station is just the first manifestation. The first benefit other than better exit and exit to the Underground, will probably be lots of walking short cuts on the area, when it is busy or raining hard.
The Overground And Its Class 378 Trains Turn Up In A Computer Game
My Google Alert picked up this article onPCGames, entitled Train Simulator 2015: hands on with the London Overground train.
It’a well-written article and worth reading.
But I won’t be investing in the game, as I’ve never played a computer game and probably never will.
I certainly wouldn’t play this game, as it seems to be South London-based and doesn’t simulate the iconic East London Line, with the historic Thames Tunnel.
If I want to experience a Class 378 train and the East London Line, all I need to do is walk to Dalston Junction station and take any southbound train.
And with my Freedom Pass, it’s all free! Although the excellent cafes in Dalston aren’t!
My Second Paris Transport Day Ticket
This is the second ticket that I used to get a day’s travel in Paris.
My Second Paris Transport Day Ticket
The first one fell apart when it rained, so I had to exchange it for another.
Paris has a system called Navigo, which is very much the same as London’s Oyster. But Paris doesn’t seem to offer contactless payment with a bank debit or credit card and I can’t find any plans for them to do so.
Surely, every public transport system in the world should be moving towards contactless bank card ticketing.
Paper ticketing for transport is so nineteenth century.
I know I like the UK’s orange credit-sized rail tickets, but then they fit everybody’s wallet and are understandable by everyone and the newest ones are computer readable, by your standard scanner.
I suspect that Londoners planning a weekend away, will look at the ticketing in their possible destinations and might choose one where contactless bank cards can be use as tickets.
If I was a world dictator, one of the things I’d do is make all buses, trams and trains accept contactless bank cards as tickets. It must surely create lots of jobs in tourism, as people would travel more, if they knew that when they ended up in say Tokyo, Helsinki or Belgrade, all they needed was work out the map of the trains and not bother with the ticketing.
A Design Crime – How Not To Design Platform Edge Doors
I took these pictures on Metro Line 1, which has some stations with platform edge doors.
Unlike all others I’ve seen, they are only half height and the thick pillars partially obscure the view of the station from inside the train. As there is no station display inside the train, which can be seen from most seats, these doors meant that I missed my stop.
Metro To Stalingrad
After Sacre Coeur I took Line 2 of the Metro to Stalingrad.
A lot of the line is an elevated railway on massive steel viaducts, something that isn’t very common in London, except for parts of the Docklands Light Railway and the Overground.
In a modern version, we tend to use massive bowspring or tied-arch bridges as at Haggerston and Shoreditch High Street rather than the heavy Victorian girders.
Both forms done correctly and with taste, add interest to the street-scape.
Sunrise On A Eurostar to Paris
I took these pictures as the Eurostar sped to Paris through the countryside.
So try to book a ticket in a window seat on the left hand side of the train.
In fact always book on that side if you want the sun as coming home you’ll get the sunset.
An Awayday In Paris
I decided at the weekend, that after the terrible events in Paris and a day in London with a bus strike, that it would be an ideal day to take Eurostar to the French capital.
I caught the first train out at 05:40 and it was a mistake in one way. I couldn’t buy a paper to take with me on the journey. At least the taxi got me there in time and on the train, I got a double seat in Standard Class, which meant that I had plenty of space to spread out and it didn’t matter, if I made any mess with my sandwiches.
In the morning, I immediately went up the funicular to Sacre Coeur as I always do to and then I rode the Metro in the sun before exploring around Stalingrad.
I then went to the Place de la Republic to see the Charlie Hebdo tributes.
I then attempted to find an hour long river cruise, but no boat appeared to be running because of flooding of the Seine in the last few days.
So I walked to the Musee d’Orsay, which is one of the few attractions to open on a Tuesday.
Then it all stared to go pear-shaped with lots of heavy rain.
I also had trouble finding any of my favourite restaurants that was open, so ate a good steak and chips in a cafe by the Gare du Nord before catching the 21:13 back to London.
What Might Have Been At Walthamstow And Woodford
The World Class Engineering And Penny-Pinching Architecture Of The Victoria Line
The Victoria Line is to reverse one of my favourite phrases, an all knickers and no fur coat Underground line.
Underground and remember, it is a totally below the surface except for the depot at Tottenham Hale, it is superb, with some world class engineering.
1. The original 1967 Stock lasted until 2011 and was a real tribute to its designers and builders.
2. The trains run automatically and the line was the world’s first to do this. I remember reading a document about how it worked in 1969 or so and because of the date the automation was largely controlled by thermionic valves and relays.
3. There was quite a bit of innovative design in the layout of the lines, which included the hump-backed stations, summed up here from Wikipedia.
The line has hump-backed stations to allow trains to store gravitational potential energy as they slow down and release it when they leave a station, providing an energy saving of 5% and making the trains run 9% faster
4. The overall concept has proved to be sound, as the line has a very good safety record.
But they certainly didn’t spend a large amount of time, effort and money on the stations. Again from Wikipedia.
When the Victoria line was built, budget restrictions meant that station infrastructure standards were lower than on older lines and on later extension projects. Examples include narrower than usual platforms and undecorated ceilings at Walthamstow Central, Blackhorse Road and Tottenham Hale, adversely affecting lighting levels. At most stations there is still a concrete staircase between the up and down escalators, where an additional escalator could be installed.
Walthamstow Central, Seven Sisters and Highbury and Islington are still truly dreadful stations.
The Bad Stations Can Only Get Better
Hopefully :-
1. The takeover of the Chingford Line by London Overground and the developments in Walthamstow town centre, will result in substantial improvements to Walthamstow Central.
2. Crossrail 2 and the Overground takeover coupled with development could also improve Seven Sisters.
3. Much needed better disabled access, enhancements to the Northern City line and increased passenger numbers will drive a need for the rebuilding of Highbury and Islington.
4. Other stations like Brixton, Euston and Blackhorse Road will have improvements driven by other new and upgraded lines.
Finally fifty years on, the sins of the 1960s are being eradicated.
The Victoria Line Extension To South Woodford or Woodford
But there are no plans to extend the line to Woodford or South Woodford stations on the Central Line which was part of the original proposals. Again from History on Wikipedia.
It had been intended to build the line beyond Walthamstow Central to Wood Street (Walthamstow), where it would have surfaced to terminate next to the British Rail station. Proposals were also made to extend the line as far north as South Woodford or Woodford, to provide interchange with the Central line. However, in a late decision in 1961 the line was cut back to Walthamstow (Hoe Street) station, renamed Walthamstow Central in 1968.
Let’s take a look at the Underground lines in the area. This map from Walthamstow Central to Woodford station is from Google Earth.
Walthamstow Lines
The red line at the right is the Central Line with South Woodford and Snaresbrook stations shown, in addition to Woodford station to the north of the A406.
The orange and light blue at the left being the Gospel Oak to Barking and Victoria Lines, with the two Walthamstow stations; Central and Queens Road.
The Victoria Line was originally planned to surface at Wood Street station, which can be seen to the north of Whipps Cross Hospital and then presumably cut across the southern part of Epping Forest to the Central Line.
I can’t find an article specifically stating why the extension to Woodford was dropped, but I did find this general article on London Reconnections, entitled Why We Do (And Don’t) Extend Tube Lines. This is two paragraphs.
One lesson quickly learnt by the early entrepreneurs who built early tube lines (and by this, as for the duration of the article, we mean the deep level lines) was that the longer the line and the bigger the network, the more profitable it was. To some extent this may seem obvious – a tube line between only two stations is of limited use (although exceptionally the Waterloo and City line manages to perform this role).
As usage tends to tail off at the extremities, it made sense to have the ends only being a small portion of the line. It also made sense to maximise use of resources. Trains sitting in terminal platforms were not in revenue earning service and a lot of the infrastructure – such as power supply – had large initial costs but the add-on cost for these items when extending the line was not that great.
So it’s generally all about economics and probably in the case of the Victoria Line; government money.
Walthamstow is a large catchment are and it has two routes into Central London and one to the west, two of which will be upgraded in the next few years, so I doubt the Victoria Line will be extended in the near future. This Google Earth image from Wood Street to South Woodford stations, shows the mass of development in between the two lines.
Wood Street To South Woodford
Wood Street station is just visible at the bottom left and South Woodford is at the far right towards the top.
There is also the small matter of putting the line through the green lung that is Epping Forest.
So any extension from Walthamstow Central to the Central Line would probably be in an expensive tunnel.
But there are some other reasons why any extension will not be built as planned in the 1950s.
1. There now appears from this Google Earth image to be little space around Wood Street station.
Around Wood Street Station
Although it does look like that some of the buildings around the station were built in recent decades.
This would appear to further rule out a surface route.
2. Walthamstow now has an impressive new bus station, that was built 2005 and is the third busiest in London with twenty-four hour operation.
Buses go all over north east London from the bus station, to places like Wood Green, East Ham, Barnet and Ilford, but there is also a comprehensive local network that covers the area to Chingford and Woodford. This spider map shows all the routes from Walthamstow Central.
3. Crossrail will also have an effect when it opens. How will passengers between Walthamstow and Woodford, get on Crossrail? They have several choices.
What Should Be Done
In my view it would be better to spend money on the following.
1. Adding new routes and extra capacity to the buses in the area, so the in-between passengers will have a choice to go east or west.
2. After May 2015, improving the stations on the Chingford Branch from Hackney Downs to Chingford, with step-free access and better information systems and interchange with the buses in the area.
3. Increasing the frequency of Overground trains to Chingford and possibly running some through to Stratford via the reinstated Hall Farm Curve and the new Lea Bridge station.
4. New trains have been promised and I suspect they’ll arrive in the next few years. However, giving the Class 317 trains a good scrub, some new seat covers and a bit of TLC and they will hold the line in the meantime. On the Chingford branch more services are more important than flash new trains.
5. In the Future Developments section of the Wikipedia entry for the Chingford Branch, it is said that there may be a station at both Forest Road and Chingford Hatch, either side of Highams Park station. This map shows the area.
Around Highams Park
The red arrow indicates Chingford Hatch, with the two stations shown being Highams Park in the middle and Wood Street at the bottom.
The Effect Of An Expanded Stansted Airport
However, there is one factor that has been ignored, which would change everything.
And that is if Stansted Airport is expanded.
Plans for this sometimes show another rail link direct to London, which is an extension of the Chingford Branch line from Chingford.
Can Any Conclusions Be Drawn?
I can’t see any reason why the Victoria Line would be extended to join the Central Line, unless a second line is built to Stansted Airport or a similar large project was developed in the area, that required a major sort out of lines.
But the major conclusion is that because of developments that are already in place and others that could easily be implemented there are masses of ways to improve public transport in the Walthamstow area, which are proven and a lot more affordable.
I think that in perhaps ten years time, the following will have been done.
1. The Chingford Branch Line will have upgraded stations and a proper interchange to buses and the Victoria Line at Walthamstow Central.
2. The Chingford Branch Line will be running possibly as many as six trains an hour and a proportion will go to Stratford, rather than Liverpool Street.
3. There will be at least two new stations on the Chingford Branch Line.
4. The bus services based on Walthamstow Central bus station will be expanded.
5. New or refurbished trains will be running the service on the Chingford Branch.
I’m not speculating, just applying logic to see what is possible and history from the East and North London Lines after they were taken over by London Overground.
I shall be very surprised if the Victoria Line is extended to Woodford.
I will not be surprised to see house prices in the area rise astronomically, as they have done here in Dalston.
Good railway connections really seem to bring the best or worst out of house prices.
Wires In The Canal Tunnels
It would appear that the Canal Tunnels have now got overhead wires to connect it to the East Coast Main Line. If you want to know more about this important but forgotten part of London’s rail infastructure, read this page on Network Rail’s web site.
So it looks like the work that caused the chaos at Christmas is substantially complete. In a document on the Carillion web site, it says that the work will be complete by May 2015.
I took this series of pictures early today, which is looking to be a clear sunny one, from a rather dirty Class 313 train going from Finsbury Park to Kings Cross Stations.
Abellio Greater Anglia Make Football At Ipswich And Norwich Difficult
A couple of seasons ago, my getting to Portman Road for the football was made very difficult, as virtually every match was difficult because of works on the line and it meant getting on a bus for most of the day.
So now Network Rail is sorting out the ballast on the track and from the 31st of January until the 22nd of March there will be no direct trains between London, Ipswich and Norwich at weekends.
A typical journey will now take nearly two hours, as opposed to the just over one it normally does. As that is twice, I really must get a lift up and back from somewhere.
Luckily it would appear to only be three matches; Wigan (31st Jan), Reading (21st Feb) and Brentford (7th Mar), as most in the period seem to be on Tuesday evening or we’re away at easier places to get to like Rotherham or Middlesbrough.
Tuesday night matches seem to be OK at the moment. Although, if we have extra time and penalties in the FA Cup replay on Wednesday, getting home might be tricky. As I write this there is a lot of anger on the forums complaining about no late trains after the match to Cambridge, Lowestoft and Felixstowe.
For the Norwich match on the first of March, which thankfully has a 14:05 start, it looks more feasible to go via Kings Cross and change at Cambridge.
Obviously, the ballast cleaning has to be done, but Abellio Greater Anglia could have used this disruption to fans getting to and from matches as a vehicle to show how well they can deal with adversity, instead of getting the old tired solutions out of the box.
For example, Abellio Greater Anglia have several rakes of Mark 3 coaches that run the services up the East Anglian Main Line. Could they not use a diesel locomotive to on match days run a football special either via or from Cambridge? Properly done, it might retrieve their battered reputation and encourage more people to travel by train.
But they can’t even get their information right. This was a poster at Liverpool Street on Saturday the 10th.
Greater Anglia Gets The Dates Wrong
That is unless it’s me who’s got the wrong dates. At least they said the first of January was New Year’s Day. Although, it was a Thursday not a Wednesday.
It would be interesting to know how Norwich fans are coping during this period, as I think quite a few are dependent on using the long-distance trains to get to both home and away matches. Surely, during this interruption, they should seriously think about running direct diesel-hauled services from London to Norwich via Cambridge for all passengers. Does granny visiting Norwich really want to spend hours on a coach, when she booked a comfortable train? Especially, if it’s crammed full with angry football fans worried about missing the match or getting their onward connection in London.
Yet again, Abellio Greater Anglia have shown all the conservatism and arrogance of their Dutch masters, who managed the Fyra fiasco and introduced one of Europe’s worst ticketing systems to piss off foreign visitors.
The Anonymous Widower 