An Opportunity At Catford
I’d never been to Catford before, but several things drew me to the area.
- Catford Bridge station is mentioned as a possible stop for the Bakerloo Line Extension.
- Maps show it is very close to Catford station and I wondered why they weren’t one station.
- Catford is mentioned in the Appendix of TfL’s Transport Plan for 2050, as a place for a new link and/or station.
This Google Map shows the two stations.
Catford Stations
The two stations are only about eighty metres apart and they are not that far from Catford Town Centre. The big drawback is that the road between the stations and the centre is the dsreaded South Circular Road, so it is busy with traffic.
To be fair to Lewisham Council, they have produced this document entitled Catford Town Centre Local Plan.
The plans are sensible and envisage improving the area of the two stations considerably.
This pictures show the area now.
Barratts are building a large number of dwelling on the former Catford Stadium site between the stations. They call it Catford Green and there are more details on the Lewisham Council web site. This is said on the council web site.
The development – located between Catford’s two stations and Ladywell Fields – will comprise 13 blocks up to a maximum of eight storeys in height, along with associated landscaping, including naturalisation of the River Ravensbourne and the creation of a public plaza between the stations, plus a footbridge to Doggett Road.
I’m no architect, but even I can see that the site has a lot of possibilities, especially as the lines through Catford are on a viaduct and are thus higher than the lines through Catford Bridge. So perhaps this natural slope could be used to advantage.
Remember too, these facts.
- Over a million people use both stations in a year.
- Interchange passengers are over fifty thousand a year.
- I think it is true to say that neither station is very customer-friendly and I suspect Catford is rather cold and draughty.
- Catford station will see new Class 700 trains in a few years, as it is on Thameslink.
The effects that the last fact will have on passenger numbers, won’t be negative.
I think it will be unlikely if the two stations are not linked to each other and the town centre by an imaginative development, within the next few years.
The Class 700 Trains Are Coming
I could add hopefully to the title of this post.
Thameslink needs the Class 700 trains currently being built and tested by Siemens.
When fully delivered these trains will not only fully replace the current Class 319 trains and the stop-gap Class 387 trains, but the Class 365 trains that work the Cambridge and Peterborough services into Kings Cross, which after Thameslink is completed will go through the tunnel to the Deep South.
So what do we know of the delivery schedule?
This set of blog posts from Sparky Scrum gives a good insight into the Class 700 trains and some tantalising clues. Take this for example.
Siemens are now busy constructing the units and doing its various testing to get the fleet delivered on time. That includes next year sending TOC staff on do the initial training on the fleet on a real track at full speed the Desiro City is capable off. This will speed their introduction when they arrive for passenger service early 2016. With 115 trains to deliver by the end of summer 2018, we’re will see a peak introduction of units of 1 per week by the end of 2016. The first service train on the GN into Kings Cross is expected in 2017. There is many interesting and exciting time ahead for Thameslink. This year sees the revealing of that vision with the trains now public and in a few months the winner bidder will be announced.
If nothing else, everybody seems to be being professional. One train delivery a week sounds impressive. If it happens!
So by the end of 2018, if their delivery schedule is met, there will be sixty eight-car and fifty-five twelve-car Class 700 trains churning through the tunnels under London at twenty trains an hour.
I’ll believe that when I see it, but there will be substantial numbers of Class 700 trains running between Bedford, Cambridge and Peterborough in the North to Brighton, Sutton and Sevenoaks in the South, by December 2018.
If deliveries go to plan, this will release the current fleet of forty Class 365 trains, twenty-nine Class 387 trains, thirteen Class 321 trains, possibly up to thirty five Class 319 trains and some other stock like some Class 377 trains.
Add to this that Porterbrook have now ordered another possibly twenty trains, it would seem that by the end of 2018, we should have more than enough electric trains to provide new electric services. Provided of course, that Network Rail can get the wires up.
The New Three Bridges Depot
The new Thameslink depot at Three Bridges for the Class 700 trains opened today according to this report on Rail News.
I passed the depot a few days ago and took these pictures.
I didn’t see any of the new trains as I passed.
The Anonymous Widower 