West Drayton Station – 3rd May 2019
I took these pictures at West Drayton station.
Look at the bridge. It is very little different to this picture, which was taken in 2015.
Stairs have been added, but there is no sign of the lifts.
It is surely obvious to the around two million passengers who use the station every year, that little progress is being made at West Drayton station.
Obviously, it was not obvious to Sadiq Khan and his advisers sitting in their bunker South of the River!
He should remember, that he’s a Mayor for all Londoners and not those, who voted him in as an MP.
If there’s a North London candidate in the next Mayoral Election, they will get my vote, even if they’re from the Moster Raving Looney Party!
Was The London Mayoral Election A Low Turnout?
When I voted for the Mayor in 2012, I seem to remember that the Polling Station was much more busy.
The BBC has said tonight, that that is their information.
But what do you expect with such a lacklustre collection of candidates?
At previous elections, thee has been party activists outside, but today the street was empty except for a rather nice tabby and white cat.
He didn’t tell me who he was representing. I would guess, it was himself!
Will Old Oak Common Station And The Wimbledon To Sutton Tramlink Extension Get The Go-Ahead?
This article in Rail Engineer is entitled TfL Budget Confirms Rail Projects. This is said.
The GLA budget, announced in February 2016, included a £250 million fund for two new overground stations at Old Oak Common, linking with Crossrail, national rail and HS2, and £100 million towards a potential extension to the tram network to Sutton.
So will we be seeing a start to the planning for these two projects?
Obviously, nothing will be decided until the new Mayor is elected.
I’m All For This!
This article on the BBC web site entitled Lib Dems pledge to halve London morning commuter fares, caught my eye. This is said.
London mayoral candidate Caroline Pidgeon has promised if she is elected in May she will cut Tube and rail fares for journeys before 07:30 by half.
As someone who has generally started work before eight, ever since I marked up newspapers at 05:30 in the morning as a sixteen-year-old, if I’d worked in London over the years, I would have saved money.
Now of course, I don’t pay, as I have a Freedom Pass. it would be interesting to see how many journeys, I do start before 07:30. It’s probably about four a week.
This is one of those ideas that could be tested using sound Control Engineering principles.
At the present time, any journey starting before 04:30 is in the Off Peak.
So for a period of six-months say, you would use 05:00 and see how the usage and revenue changes.
And then later, you move it to 05:30 for a period.
With some clever analysis of the data, I suspect that the time that is the best compromise between customer satisfaction, service costs and revenue can be found.
Giving a fixed time now, is totally wrong!
But in my view, if a politician said, they were aiming to increase the time in which Off Peak fares applied, it would be a sensible policy.
An Open Letter To London Mayor Candidates About East London River Crossings
This started as a post on my infrastructure blog, about the Silvertown Tunnel, but now that TfL has launched a consultation about the tunnel, I decided to update it and send it to you.
I am a sixty-eight year-old widower, living alone in Hackney, who has given up driving, so my personal feelings about the Silvertown Tunnel are that it is irrelevant to me, except that it might help some trucks bring goods that I buy on-line or at a local shop.
East London needs more cross-river routes and after recent trips to Birmingham, Nottingham and Germany and reading every word of London’s transport plans for 2050, I feel that whatever is done the Gospel Oak to Barking Line (GOBLin ) must be connected to Abbey Wood.
Over the last few weeks, I’ve made quite a few trips to South East London, including one where I walked along Bazalgette’s sewer between Plumstead and Abbey Wood.
It is a land that London has truly forgotten.
Some transport developments, like the DLR and the East London Line has made a difference, but connections are still not the best.
TfL has talked about a tunnel extending the GOBLin from Barking Riverside to Thamesmead and Abbey Wood.
After a visit to Karlsruhe specifically to see their tram-trains, I now believe that these could be the way to create a universe-class connection across the Thames. Tram-trains like those in Karlsruhe, which are soon to be trialled between Sheffield and Rotherham, could run on the GOBLin and then perhaps do a little loop at Barking Riverside before returning to Gospel Oak.
Note that we’re not talking untried technology here as you can see the tram-trains running on the streets and railway tracks of several German cities. Undoubtedly, if the Germans were extending the GOBlin, they would use tram-trains, as they could serve build several stops with the money needed to build Barking Riverside station. And all the stops, like those on the London Tramlink would be fully step-free.
The loop in Barking Riverside, could extend across the river.
I think that a tunnel under the Thames would be a case of hiding your biggest light under an enormous bushel.
So why not create a high bridge to allow the biggest ships underneath, with a tram track or two, a cycle path and a walking route?
It would have some of the best views in London. Forget the Garden Bridge! This would create a transport link, that those living on both sides of the river could use and enjoy every day to get to work or for leisure reasons. Tourists would come to view London, as they do on large entry bridges in cities like New York and Lisbon.
Effectively, you have a conventional tram connecting Barking, Barking Riverside, Thamesmead and Abbey Wood. At Barking and Abbey Wood, the tram-trains become trains and could go to Gospel Oak and perhaps Meriandian Water, Romford, Upminster or Tilbury in the North and perhaps Woolwich, Lewisham, Dartford or Bluewater in the South.
Everything you would need to create such a link is tried and tested technology or designs that have been implemented in either the UK or Germany over the last few years.
In TfL’s plans for 2050, I found the words Penge and Brockley High Level buried in an Appendix listing places where there could be new transport interchanges.
I believe that an interchange at Penge would link the East London Line to the South Eastern Main Line and trains between Victoria and Orpington. Another interchange at Brockley would link the East London Line to the trains going across South London between Lewisham and Abbey Wood.
Conventional thinking says that these interchanges will be difficult to build, but Birmingham has already created a station that solves the problem at Smethwick Galton Bridge.
As London Overground have the capacity to run twenty four trains every hour each way on the East London Line, these two interchanges would help solve the chronic connectivity to and from South East London. They would also bring more passengers to the East London Line to fill all those trains.
One of the things that the increased number of trains on the East London Line would need is another southern terminal and possibilities include Beckenham Junction or Orpington.
I think it is true to say that there are more possibilities to improve connectivity east of the East London Line, both North and South of the River, than both London’s Mayors have ever dreamed about.
To be fair to both of them, it’s only in recent years that tram-trains have been seriously thought about in the UK, although the Germans have had them for a decade or so.
Get it right and the Silvertown Tunnel would be a very different scheme.
It might even be just be an entry in that large directory of projects that were never started.
What Is The New Mayor Of London Going To Do For Car Drivers?
Most of the London Mayor candidates for 2016 seem to ignore car drivers.
As a non-driver, I wouldn’t mind if the new Mayor decreed that no-one in London could own a car, but if he or she did, they wouldn’t get elected.
I do occasionally need to be transported by car and as I don’t have the expense of actually owning one, I can afford to take a black cab, which I do perhaps a dozen times a year, at a total cost of perhaps three hundred pounds.
The most difficult journeys are ones where say, a friend is picking me up and taking me somewhere, so they have to drive into Hackney and out the other side again. Which just adds to the congestion unneccesarily.
The other tricky thing for car-drivers, is those coming into London often have no convenient Park-and-Ride. I was lucky, when I lived near Newmarket, as I could park at Whittlesford Parkway and get a train into Liverpool Street.
But when years ago, when I lived near Ipswich, parking was very limited and I had to get a taxi to the station. I once had a letter from British Rail suggesting that I ask my wife to drive me to the train.
I also see problems with the new Night Tube. This will generate an amazing night life all over the centre of London and I think we’ll see large numbers of people using the Tube late into the night and early morning. Those living in London will be able to use the Tube, but as there is little adequate parking at or around stations just inside the M25, visitors and those working late in the evening, may well lead to a lot of parking congestion around the stations.
To add to that, as London becomes an increasingly twenty four hour/seven day a week city, there will be an increasing need for some form of parking for night workers.
I have checked the map and the only Tube and rail stations close to a junction of the M25 will parking, can be counted on the fingers of one hand.
I believe that London needs a ring of well-designed car/bus/train interchanges around the M25. I did propose one at Waltham Cross, but that idea was not put together properly.
The interchanges would be designed for the following services.
1. Park-And-Ride, particularly aimed at those not wanting to stay all day. So perhaps the parking charges would be sensible for say the first four hours and then draconian afterwards. Obviously, at weekends and in the evenings, they would be reduced and aimed at those perhaps going to a sporting event or seeing a show or concert.
2. Pick-Up and Drop-Off of passengers, perhaps linked to something like thirty minutes free parking.
3. Car Hire for those living in London.
4. Long Distance Coach Services
5. Motorway Services
Obviously, there would be a frequent service into Central London. The service would have to be step-free and wi-fi enabled. I also think that like Cambridge’s superb Park-and-Ride, it would be linked into the cycle network.
Get it right and it would cut vehicular traffic into London.
Boris Gets A Statue
Boris Johnson’s father, Stanley unveiled a statue called Boris yesterday. But it is a large polar bear in front of Peter Jones in no way connected to the Mayor of London.
There’s more about the statue here.
I liked it and would vote for Boris to stay.
I doubt a lady who got on the bus towards Wandsworth would though, as she was wearing a fur coat.
London Moves To Licence Pedicabs
I have seen some horrific incidents with pedicabs and according to this report, it would appear that the Mayor and Transport for London are moving towards licencing them and driving the illegal ones off the road.
Having seen at first hand, how they contribute to jams in the West End, I think it’s about time too! Although, I’ve never ridden in one in this country.
Seb Coe For London Mayor
He was impressive today on BBC Breakfast.
I think he would make a wonderful successor to Boris. He’s also only 20/1 with Paddy Power.
The Anonymous Widower 