A Heritage Station With Four Clocks
After writing my piece about the Northern Line Extension, I went to have a look at Kennington station.
It is a Grade II Listed building, but to me one of its best features is the four clocks.
The layout is unusual in that the two Southbound platforms are underneath the two Northbound ones. But both pairs of platforms have level access between the platforms. So if you came up from Morden and wanted to go to say Tottenham Court Road, you’d just walk across to the Charing Cross branch, if you were on a train going via Bank.
When the Northern Line Extension opens, this will probably mean that there is cross-platform access from the extension to the Bank branch.
It would certainly seem that when the station was substantially rebuilt in 1926, that whoever redesigned the station had the foresight (luck?) to design a station that could be easily linked to a branch to Battersea and Clapham Junction.
Will The Northern Line Extension Go All The Way?
There has been masses of reports about the Northern Line Extension in the special rail media and on the BBC and in other publications, like Time Out and the Standard.
Despite the long term aim of taking the extension to Clapham Junction, mentioned in the Wikipedia entry for the project.
Provision will be made for a possible future extension to Clapham Junction railway station by notifying the London Borough of Wandsworth of a reserved course underBattersea Park and subsequent streets
There has been no discussion about the extra station.
There has also been no statements from the consortium building the line about how they will actually construct the line.
As it is not the longest of tunnels, I suspect to save money, at the expense of possibly some extra time, they will use just one tunnel boring machine (TBM). It won’t be one of the ten-million-pounds-a-time beasts used for Crossrail, as Underground tunnels are generally much smaller in diameter. Although, I wouldn’t be surprised to see the tunnels made slightly larger than normal for reasons of safety and perhaps to re-use a refurbished TBM from another project.
One thing that London Underground doesn’t like is lines that end deep in the ends of tunnels. For reasons of cost in the 1960s, the Victoria line is like this at both ends and according to Wikipedia, there have been proposals for creating a large reversing loop at Brixton to both reach Herne Hill and increase capacity.
Reversing loops also eliminate any possibility of a Moorgate disaster, which has still not been satisfacorily explained. But operationally they remove the need for trains to crawl into the end station for safety reasons, and reduce the time it takes to turn trains, thus increasing the frequency on the line.
Reversing loops with stations are not unknown in the UK. Terminal 4 at Heathrow is served by the Piccadilly Line in this way and the Merseyrail Loop Line, is a larger example, that reverses and provides several stations for the Wirral Line. It could also be argued that Bank station on the Docklands Light Railway is two platforms on a reversing loop.
So could a similar solution be used at Battersea to turn the trains? Look at this map of the area.
Around Battersea
Battersea Power Station and Battersea Park are obvious, but notice the Underground roundel marking Kennington station in the top-right corner and the British Rail symbol marking Clapham Junction station in the bottom-left.
The extension joins the current Northern line at Kennington and the Battersea station is proposed to be somewhere near the power station.
At present, Charing Cross branch trains reversing at Kennington, can go round the Kennington Loop. Wikipedia says this about the loop.
A loop tunnel south of the station enables southbound Charing Cross branch trains to be terminated at Kennington, leave the station in a southward direction and, traversing the loop, enter the northbound Charing Cross branch platform.
So instead of building two tunnels from Kennington to Battersea, with all the cost of two TBMs or the hassle of turning a single one round, I do wonder, if a cheaper and easier way of building the tunnels, would be to start in the Kennington Loop with a single TBM, tunnel via Nine Elms to Battersea and then create a wide reversing loop before returning to Battersea to dig the second tunnel back to the other side of the Kennington Loop.
One of the consequences of good project management is often that what the engineers build in the end is quite different, but better, more affordable and earlier to what the politicians said they wanted. For this reason alone, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Northern Line Extension is just a single tunnel, dug by a single refurbished TBM.
The cost savings are probably small change in a one-billion pound project, but the time spent inserting and removing a second machine, probably comes off the overall project time.
It then doesn’t take a great leap of the imagination to see that this construction/reversing loop could be extended so that it passes under Clapham Junction station.
There are other advantages too.
Operations, Safety and Reliability
I’ve mentioned the operational advantages of the reversing loop in quicker turn back of the trains and possible safety advantages, but as the extension is going to be a continuation of the Charing Cross branch of the Northern line and an extension of the Kennington Loop, there could be no complicated track work at Kennington. This will mean that the branch used through Central London, will determine the ultimate destination of the train. But this would allow London Underground to split the two lines and probably arrange dedicated platforms for the two northern branches at the operational nightmare that is Camden Town.
The reliability of two continuous lines would probably be a lot higher, than one that was constantly splitting and joining back again.
But whatever happens to the rest of the line, if the extension was a continuous reversing loop with no points or sidings, it could be built faster and would probably cost less, have a higher capacity and probably be more reliable.
The only problem would be if a train were to break down in the loop. But what happens on the Heathrow loop on the Piccadilly line?
Battersea and Nine Elms Stations
Digging the extension as a loop, also means that the two stations at Battersea and Nine Elms, become classic below ground stations of the Underground, like say Southgate and Manor House of the 1930s, and the modern Canary Wharf, where escalators and lifts descend to a wide lobby between the two lines.
Costs could even mean that they were identical below the surface, although architects would probably exercise some flare on the surface.
I also wonder if stations could be built with no escalators, but large efficient lifts, that were scheduled, so they went up and down in time with the trains.
Lift-only stations would be best as double-ended, with the lifts even coming up into car parks of the over-site development.
There is tremendous scope here for a good architect to build passenger-friendly and lower cost stations.
I’ve always believed that urban stations should have development on top, just like my local one at Dalston Junction. But how many stations anywhere make efficient use of expensive land?
Ventilation
A big problem with London Underground’s deep level lines, like the Northern, is keeping everything cool. All over London, you see structures like I photographed here. A continuous reversing loop must have advantages as all three stations would double as ventilation shafts, so there would be no need for any extra holes in the ground. If modern regulations mean that the tunnels have to be built with a walkway for evacuation, like those on the Docklands Light Railway, these larger diameter tunnels would probably help ventilation.
A secondary advantage of a well-ventilated reversing loop, is that it would be cool, so any trains on the loop could cool themselves down, just like many deep-level trains, do by basking on the surface in the suburbs.
Clapham Junction Station
In the future when the station at Clapham Junction is added, little or no tunnelling will be needed, as construction will probably involve sinking a shaft to link it to the current Clapham Junction rail station and creating a new platform or platforms alongside the reversing loop.
I would go for the single platform. In some ways then, this station would be like the Piccadilly Line station at Heathrow Terminal 4, which has a single platform on a one-way loop from Hatton Cross to Heathrow Central.
No surface buildings would be required and space would only be needed to sink the shaft during the construction phase.
Opening Clapham Junction station could give a problem in that some passengers will transfer off the trains from Basingstoke, Portsmouth, Southampton and other places to complete their journeys. Will the Northern Line cope?
On the other hand the new Clapham Junction station will link to Crossrail at Tottenham Court Road, so Clapham Junction would get a hopefully step-free link to Crossrail and on to Heathrow.
Platform Edge Doors
Regulations will probably mean that all the stations would have to be constructed with platform edge doors. A loop extension would probably have the minimum number of platform faces, thus subtracting another saving from the cost.
If I was designing the stations, all platform faces would be identical to save costs.
But if you went for lift-only stations, this could mean that a better design evolved, where the safety functions of the platform edge doors were achieved in better ways.
Train Stabling
A loop extension, if built in its simplest form, would not have any sidings for storing trains overnight or perhaps holding them when there was a problem on the Northern line.
But as the loop would of necessity be rather long between Battersea and Clapham Junction, the trains could be stabled or held in the loop. If staff needed to leave or join the trains and if the tunnel had a walkway, they’d just walk along to the nearest station.
Ease Of Construction
There has been a report in Global Rail News that the Northern Line Extension might be completed before Crossrail.
A loop extension leading off the Kennington Loop has implications for building the extension in a quick and affordable manner, so this might explain the optimism.
Consider the following.
1. No terminal station, platforms, junctions or sidings would need to be built.
2. As the main construction at Kennington only takes place on the Kennington Loop, trains on the Bank branch running to Morden will be unaffected. Trains on the Charing Cross branch would probably be suspended, unless some other way of turning them back could be found.
3. One TBM digs the whole tunnel in a continuous operation.
4. The project length is determined by the time to dig the tunnel, fit it out with track and signalling, connect it to the existing network and then give it an extensive testing, as once the TBM has passed, the construction of the platforms can be started in parallel with the rest of the project.
5. It would probably be easier to adjust the route of a loop tunnel to avoid other infrastructure and the proposed route of Crossrail 2. Victorian engineers didn’t have machines of the accuracy of today’s modern TBMs.
6. Crossrail needed a lot of shafts to insert and extract the TBMs and other equipment and materials. I’m no expert, but surely material could be brought in by service trains on the Morden branch of the Northern line, to avoid digging too many shafts.
Conclusion
I strongly believe the first phase of the Northern Line Extension will be built as a loop off the Kennington Loop and include all the tunnelling for the extension to Clapham Junction.
Clapham Junction station would not look like a terminus, as it would only be a single platform on a reversing loop.
So the second phase would solely be the fitting out of the station and connecting it to the rail station.
Expanding The Manchester Metrolink
In my view the Manchester Metrolink has not grown as fast as it should have done. A good proportion of the system opened in the early 1990s and nothing really seemed to open until the last few years.
For a lot of that twenty year gap, the government was one that you’d think would be sympathetic to expanding public transport in areas, where they could count on the vote. Perhaps, though Blair and Brown were more interested in war abroad than looking after the North!
There have been various plans to extend the Metrolink to places like Middleton, Salford, Stalybridge, Stockport and Trafford Park, but strangely not Bolton. Only the extension to Trafford Park has been funded.
Now I don’t know Manchester politics, but I do feel that if there had been a Manchester mayor for say the last ten years, I suspect with someone batting for Manchester, some of these extensions would have been progressed. Now that one should be there in 2017, hopefully progress will be quicker.
On this post there are comments about the non-extension of the tram from East Didsbury to Stockport.
So can this line be easily built, as it seems to me, as someone who only knows the area from the 1960s and a good map, that it would be of benefit to a lot of people?
Also if the Metrolink went to Stockport rail station, it would surely give an alternative Manchester station for those living on the tram network, just as Watford, Stratford, Ealing Broadway, Wimbledon and others do for the London Underground/Overground. Travellers should be given the choice of as many different routes as possible.
So I looked up how this line would get from East Didsbury to Stockport and found this article, which describes a route as proposed in 2004.
Reading the article, the route seems to be rather complicated and expensive, as it crosses the River Mersey several times and it doesn’t go to the rail station.
So perhaps if Stockport, is ever linked to the Metrolink, it will use a different route.
It all illustrates that extending the Metrolink isn’t as easy as it might first appear. I hope Manchester has got some good transport planners, who know the city well.
As an aside here, it is worth thinking about how the Northern Hub and in particular, the Ordsall Curve linking Manchester Piccadilly and Victoria, will indirectly affect the Metrolink. There could be at least four trains per hour both ways between the two stations and six going towards Bolton and Preston according to Wikipedia. So as some of these services will go south towards Stockport and the Airport, Manchester will probably see a high-frequency service between Piccadilly, Victoria, Bolton, Stockport, Salford and other places in the Greater Manchester area. The trains will all be electric and probably something like the ex-Thameslink Class 319. These trains will extend journeys all round the area to Blackpool, Huddersfield, Leeds, Liverpool, Preston, Warrington and Wigan. With not a lot more electrification, places like Blackburn, Burnley, Sheffield and Southport could be brought into an electrified network, where high-capacity trains run at least four times an hour on all routes.
One thing that would need to be done is improve the interchange between the Metrolink and some of the central Manchester rail stations. Victoria is showing glimpses of being superb, Piccadilly needs to be a much shorter walk and perhaps Salford Crescent needs to be linked to the tram.
I don’t drive and suspect will never do so again, but one thing that always worries me about city transport systems is, are there enough Park-and-Ride spaces and especially close to the motorways? I know London lacks badly in this area and suffers because of it. So how does Manchester stack up?
By the end of this decade, Manchester could be getting the transport system it needs and deserves.
An Advantage Of Eurostar’s New Trains
I’ve stood on the unwelcoming platforms at Stratford International station waiting to catch a fast train to Kent, as Eurostar’s trains thunder by on their way to Europe.
The current Class 373 trains are not the quietest, to say the least.
This morning, Nicola Shaw, the boss of HS1, said on BBC Breakfast, that the new e320 or Class 374 trains are a lot quieter.
So at least twenty years of development has brought another advantage, to those living along the route.
Hopefully, the trains for HS2 will be even quieter.
Do You Like It, Sir John?
Eurostar showed off their new e320 train this morning and the celebration was in full swing, when I popped into the St. Pancras station for a cup of tea.
I wasn’t the only person with a camera, who took photos from behind Sir John Betjeman. So expect this image in the papers!
Battersea Gets Its Tube
The extension of the Northern Line to Battersea has been given the go ahead.
Construction will begin in spring 2015 and it is hoped the line, which will be extended from Kennington to Battersea, will open by 2020.
Two new stations will open – Nine Elms to the east and one at the heart of the Battersea Power Station development.
The full cost is expected to be up to £1bn, which will be funded by developments in the area.
I think one of the most significant parts of the report is the last line of that extract.
According to Wikipedia, the original proposal was put together in May 2010, and I certainly saw an exhibition about the extension in December 2012,
I know it’s only a short extension, but to go from proposal to construction start in two years is some sort of record for London.
Surely, all big infrastructure projects should be started like this. And of course financed if possible in a local manner or by developers.
The one question about what is proposed, is when is it going to be extended to Clapham Junction.
I suspect that if they did this, it would be so successful, it would swamp the Northern Line and throw Battersea back to the 1960s, with respect to transport links.
This is the schematic of the route.
The Route
And this is what the area looks like in Google.
The Google View
I couldn’t quite align the two maps, but you can just see the Kia Oval at the right in the Google view.
It’s All Go On The Manchester Metrolink
According to this article in Global Rail News, work has now started on the Second City Crossing or 2CC. But it is the last paragraph that shows how the Manchester Metrolink is developing.
November has seen several significant milestones ticked achieved for the Metrolink system, with funding confirmed for the Trafford Centre extension and the opening of the system’s new airport line.
More projects like this should be promoted if we are going to create a powerhouse across the North.
Incidentally, with my project management hat on, I don’t think the upgrading of Manchester Victoria station and the Metrolink has been planned as the partially joint project they so obviously are.
On my travels around Manchester in the last couple of years, I have sometimes found it extremely difficult to get between the two main stations; Victoria and Piccadilly. That would have been eased by making sure there was always one reliable easy-access properly-signposted link at all times.
Is This A New Economic Indicator?
I have just read this article in Global Rail News, which states that the rail freight section will recruit and train over 200 new drivers in the current year.
It would seem likely that the more freight moved by rail, the greater the economic activity.
I’ve chatted with a few drivers on trains and most seem happy with their jobs, even if some do moan about some of the cabs on certain freight locomotives.
How Many Diesel Multiple Units Might We Need?
in this post, I said that I wouldn’t be surprised if some new Class 172 diesel multiple units were ordered.
But how many might we need.
It is best to list all the smaller diesel multiple units that are running on the UK railways, with a few comments and thoughts.
Class 142
There are 96 two-car Class 142 trains. They were built in 1984 and Wikipedia says this about their use.
They were initially built for use on rural branch lines. However, as of September 2011 they are mainly used on busy commuter routes in the major cities in the north of England, with some also in use on local services around Cardiff and on Devon branch lines.
Regular readers of this blog, will know that I don’t have a very high opinion of these trains.
But their biggest problem is that they must be withdrawn by 2020 because of the disability regulations.
However because of the Liverpool-Blackpool-Manchester electrification and the possibility of electrification in the Welsh Valleys by the cut-off date, some of them might find other uses as scrap metal.
Currently Northern Rail has 79 and Arriva Trains Wales has 15, so some may need to be replaced by new diesel multiple units, as electrification won’t probably replace them all.
Class 143
There are 25 two-car Class 143 trains. They were built in 1985 and were refurbished in 2000. Like the Class 142, they will have to be withdrawn because of the disability regulations.
Arriva Trains Wales has 15 working the Welsh Valleys and therefore could be replaced, but the seven ran by First Great Western in the Exeter area, don’t have that happy conclusion.
As electrifying the Exeter local routes is probably a never-never, some new or cascaded stock must be found for these lines.
Class 144
There are 13 two-car and 10 three -car Class 144 trains. They were built in the late 1980s and also will have to be withdrawn.
All work for Northern Rail in the Leeds area on commuter routes. Some of the lines may be electrified by 2020, thus allowing some to proceed quietly to the scrapyard, but others might have to be replaced by new or cascaded trains.
Class 150
There are 135 two-car and 2 three-car Class 150 trains. They were built in the mid-1980s and can spruce up remarkably well, as this one has on the St. Ives branch. But I have been delayed by an unreliable Class 150.
A well-planned refurbishment of these trains could probably limp them on for a few years, provided they all receive the TLC that the unit on the St. Ives branch gets. Moving them to low-traffic routes would also help, as in some instances I’ve been on Class 150s, where two are needed.
Some in the Welsh Valleys and around Liverpool and Manchester, may also be released by electrification, so after updating, they might even be used to send the truly dreadful Class 142, 143 and 144 to the scrapyard.
Class 153
There are 70 of these 1-car Class 153 trains, which were created from Class 155 in the early-1990s.
Their main problem is capacity. When I lived in Suffolk, they used to work Ipswich to Cambridge and still work Ipswich to Felixstowe. But some like this unit on the Transwilts are reasonable transport if there aren’t many passengers.
I’m sure a lot of operators would like a nice refurbished Class 150 instead.
Class 156
There are 114 two-car Class 156 trains, which were built in the late 1980s.
In my view they are a better train than the Class 150 and 153 and there is only one serious problem with them. British Rail didn’t build enough!
Some are now being refurbished, with new disabled toilets.
Class 158 and Class 159
The classes 158 and 159 trains will soldier on for a couple of decades until they are replaced by electrification.
Some might even be replaced on long-distance services by that cavalry of the UK rail network, the InterCity 125.
Conclusion
If I come to a conclusion after all this, it is a complicated problem to decide how many trains are needed.
I think we can assume that the Class 15x will not be directly replaced, except possibly some Class 153. But many, perhaps displaced by electrification, will find themselves replacing 14x Pacers elsewhere.
I can’t do a detailed calculation, as I don’t have all the information. But it does seem that an order for say ten or twenty Class 172 trains from Bombardier could start the biggest game of musical trains ever seen.
Because of all the links, if say five sets were to be delivered before the May 2015 General Election, this could mean that many hard-pressed commuters and train passengers had greatly improved trains around the same time.
Heathrow and Gatwick Will Cost More
Surprise! Surprise! The BBC is reporting that the proposals for a new runway at either Heathrow or Gatwick will cost more!
The Airports Commission says a second runway at Gatwick would cost £2bn more than the bid suggests.
Two separate plans to expand Heathrow are predicted to cost £3-4bn more.
T’was, ever thus! The first real estimate of the cost of a large project is inevitably more than the back-of-a-fag-packet estimate.
Only when the designers and project engineers work out how the project is to be realised do we get a figure for the actual cost. Usually, in construction projects, this figure can generally be relied upon.
But as I’ve believed for some time, I don’t think we’ll ever build a new runway in the South East.
The Anonymous Widower 