Freight At Hackney Wick Station
When I took the pictures, for the article about the redesign of that Hackney Wick station, two freight trains came through.
Is it just my feeling or are there more and longer freight trains on the North London Line?
The one that went west was particularly long. But at least it was electric hauled.
In all my searching for rail improvements in North and East London, I couldn’t find any plans for new freight routes to reduce the amount of freight traffic through the area.
The only positive thing is that the Gospel Oak to Barking Line is being electrified, which will mean that the trains will hopefully not be powered by noisy and smelly diesel locomotives.
So will we be seeing more freight trains going through in the middle of the night, as trains have to get past London on their way between. Felixstowe, Harwich, London Gateway and all the ports in the East to the West Coast Main Line and the Great Western?
The only partial solution is to electrify Felixstowe to Nuneaton via Peterborough and complete the East-West Rail Link to minimise traffic to and from Felixstowe going through London.
The only thing we can say about freight through North and East London, is that the problem will be get more and more difficult.
Imagine what would happen if the new Ultra Large Container Vessels started serving say Liverpool or Glasgow and then large numbers of containers were sent by rail through the Channel Tunnel to Europe. There have been plans to do this in the past as it saves time in getting goods from North America to Germany.
The Plans For A New Hackney Wick Station
Hackney Wick station is one with two long ramps up to the platforms, which are on an embankment. This is a Google Earth image of the current station.
Hackney Wick Station
Note the Class 378 train in the Eastbound platform and the very long ramps.
These pictures show the current station.
But improvements are in the offing.
This document on the Hackney Council web site announced the plans for a new station. It says this.
An £8.5 million project to upgrade Hackney Wick Station has been announced.
Improvements are set to include new routes to reduce journey times to iCITY and the Olympic Park, moving the station entrance to street level, a new and enlarged concourse, lifts for step free access and the creation of a north-south walkway for passengers and pedestrians through the railway embankment.
It certainly is a comprehensive rebuild. I clipped these images from this document.
This is the station entrance.
Hackney Wick Station Entrance
This is the view from the south side of the line.
Hackney Wick Station South Elevstion
This image shows the Hackney Wick Artwall, which is shown in one of the pictures I took.
Hackney Wick Artwall
In my view the overall station design sets a powerful precedent, as it puts a subway into a station on an embankment with lift towers on either side of the tracks.
There must be a few stations like this that could be given a similar treatment.
Madness At Hackney Wick
This story is beyond belief. Here’s the first bit.
A young woman was in a serious condition in hospital today after leaping on to a freight train in London and being burnt by live overhead cables.
The 22-year-old sparked an explosion by touching the 25,000-volt wires and was thrown 20ft on to the platform where her friends had stood watching, the London Evening Standard reported.
The only good news is that she wasn’t killed. It probably shows that if say the 25,000 volt cables are dragged down in an accident, you might just about get away with being hit. But I certainly wouldn’t recommend any experiments.
The Anonymous Widower 