Before Overground – Highams Park
A Station With A Garden – Rating 7/10
Highams Park station, is one of those that doesn’t need a great deal of work to make it one of the best stations on the Overground.
It is one of the few stations, where because there are three ways to cross the tracks, step free access isn’t the greatest of problems. Although, when the new trains come, it might not be a bad idea to make sure that the platform edge is matched to the train.
Is Step-Free Access Good For Tradesmen?
Occasionally, on the buses or the trains in London, you’ll come across a plasterer, decorator or carpenter going to his job of the day on public transport. The plasterer just had a yellow bucket with his tools in it and his mobile phone number on the side and the decorator had a fold-up pasting table with his details on the outside.
London now has a severe parking problem, so as we see more step-free stations will we be seeing more tradesmen, with innovative ways of transporting their tools?
But we’re certainly seeing larger and larger packages and cases being carried on public transport.
Does London Need A ‘Grand Paris Express’?
The Grand Paris Express is a plan to create an automated Metro, that goes all the way round Paris. Wikipedia says this.
Grand Paris Express is a project of new rapid transit lines to be created in the île-de-France region, in France. The work could begin in 2014, with the first line opening between Pont de Sèvres métro station and Gare de Noisy – Champs (fr) RER A station around 2020. This line was first proposed in the project Orbival, then integrated into the Arc Express project.
The French also seem to be moving on the project as is reported here in Global Rail News.
So does London need something similar?
If we look at Berlin, that has a circular railway around the city centre called the Ringbahn. It’s about the same size as the Circle Line, but differs in one big way; it has a parallel freight ring.
London also has the Overground,which is a great way to get round the city without going through the centre. Like the Berlin Ringbahn it also carries freight.
The Overground is not a Metro, as in Berlin or as Paris is proposing, but a full-size railway, with not as high a frequency, as you’d get on a tube or metro line. However, the Overground does share a lot of objectives with the Grand Paris Express.
But those creative minds at Transport for London have proposed something similar to the Grand Paris Express in their Transport Infrastructure Plan for 2050. It’s a plan to extend the Gospel Oak to Barking Line under the Thames from Barking to Abbey Wood and then by means of existing lines take the trains around London via Sutton, Wimbledon, Hounslow, Old Oak Common to Gospel Oak. I documemted the route in full in these posts.
London’s plan differs from that of Paris in one big way, as it only requires one expensive piece of new infrastructure, which is the tunnel from Barking to Thamesmead. The main factor that will make London’s plan possible is that in a few years, all trains will have in-cab signalling, so slotting in the new Overground services on existing lines, will be a lot easier.
The title of the French proposal sums it up. It contains the word Grand and that is what it is.
London may take a much more mundane and affordable step-by-step approach, but it means that you don’t have to wait years to get the benefits you need now.
Before Overground – Clapton
Another Station For Those Not In The First Flush Of Youth – Rating 2/10
Clapton station is another with access problems for the disabled, buggy-pushers and the elderly.
Unfortunately, the station also seems to have a touch of the Japanese Knotweed, although this could be one of the few stations in the Lea Valley Lines, where simple gardens could make the station much more pleasant.
I’ve been trying to imagine this station in a few months after a deep clean and a good painting, London Overground double orange handrails, some better standard seating and some tidy foliage at the far end of the platforms.
It will be much better than it is now.
Before Overground – Hackney Downs
Could Be A Great Station With Imagination – Rating 3/10
Hackney Downs station is rather a dump at present, as the pictures show.
But because it is four platform station with rooms all over the place, it could with imagination be turned into the Crystal Palace station of the North.
The pictures show how the bridge over Dalston Lane has been restored, so at least a good start has been made. As the station has a lot of ironwork, I wonder if a Leadenhall Market solution could be applied. Instead of using expensive painters for all the ironwork, the City of London laid down the scheme and paid art students to do it. Hackney Downs obviously isn’t as grand, but if some of the ironwork in the station and others on the Lea Valley Line were to be properly painted, it might liven up a series of otherwise drab stations.
I also think that the large island platform, may be a suitable place to put a nice bronze sculpture that is deemed to be too valuable to display, as it might get nicked.
The station is a bit like one of those large rambling Victorian houses with umpteen rooms, that are advertised with tremendous potential.
Could London’s Passenger Counting Technology Look For Non-Payers?
I took another trip on a crowded 141 bus today and it had the passenger counting technology on board.
Passengers were fascinated and obviously some were using it to determine whether to go upstairs.
It struck me that as those entering the bus have to touch-in, by correlating this with spaces, it might be possible to determine how many passengers hadn’t touched-in.
It wouldn’t actually identify them individually, but by simple arithmetic it could probably identify routes with the highest levels of non-payers.
So if a particular area on route XX showed a high-level of non-payers, that is obviously where you send your inspectors.
Have The New Car Tax Rules Killed The Congestion Charge/Parking Fiddle?
Some years ago, I was selling an old Ford Escort Estate that was definitely a runner with virtually a year’s car tax and MOT, on eBay.
I only wanted a few hundred and I thought I had a deal.
When the lady who’d bought it and I talked over the phone, she said that she’d give me cash and deal with all the handover paperwork to save me the hassle. I said no to the latter and she then said, that I could forget the sale.
So I then looked at her purchase history on eBay and found that she’d bought about twenty or so clean cars like the Escort. All seemed to have a reasonably long tax and MOT and cost just a few hundred pounds.
I e-mailed the DVLA, as I thought the whole thing stank. They informed me, that the car would be sold to someone, who needed to get around London without paying the congestion charge. All of the fines and charges would obviously go to the previous owner.
They asked if I could forward all of the details to them.
I never heard any more from the lady, but the DVLA informed me a couple of years later, that they had mounted a successful prosecution.
Having looked at the new car tax rules, I think that the days of this type of scam are dead.
Before Overground – London Fields
A Station With an Excellent Bakery/Cafe – Rating 3/10
London Fields station is another station on the Lea Valley Lines with no decent access.
As I arrived a Japanese lady was struggling down the stairs with her three-year-old, a buggy and a scooter.
The reason she was coming was to visit the E5 bakehouse and cafe. It was so full, that I couldn’t get my intended cup of tea.
As you can see from the pictures, Network Rail have done a superb job in creating a series of small workshops in the railway arches.
It’s just a pity, that the access at the station wasn’t fixed at the same time.
As the station has only had a frequent service since 2005. was this one of those stations that British Rail hoped would quietly die?
Before Overground – Stoke Newington
A Dreadful Station To Avoid – Rating 2/10
Stoke Newington station was built when people weren’t disabled, pushed buggies or grew elderly and it shows.
In my view it’s one of those stations, that with a creative surface makeover, lifts and perhaps a light-controlled crossing to access buses going north, could be turned into one of the better stations on the line. The station forecourt has what looks to be a decent cafe, so selective development around the station could probably improve matters.
There’s Work To Do On The Gospel Oak To Barking Line
I went to Harringay Green Lanes station and then took a train on the Gospel Oak To Barking Line to South Tottenham.
There is work to do to get round the years of neglect.
The step-free access at Harringay Green Lanes is derisory and the station buildings aren’t the best, but it does look like something is happening at South Tottenham. This document from the the line’s User Group shows a discussion about what might be happening.
Work has already started on the bridge at South Tottenham to strengthen it for the future, but it looks like the one at Harringay Green Lanes is in no better condition.
The Anonymous Widower 