The Future Of The Overground Arrives In November
This article on Rail Technology Magazine is entitled TfL Reveals Ultramodern London Overground Trains.
Unfortunately, we’ll have to wait until November to have a ride in the new Class 710 trains.
Hackney Wick Station Opens
Hackney Wick station is now almost fully rebuilt and the new facilities are open to passengers
It is a design, that draws heavily on brutalist architecture, but the general feeling is that people seem to like the station.
The station is simple in layout, with a double subway through the embankment, which was built alongside and inserted at Easter 2017, as I wrote about in A Tough Way To Spend Easter.
- One side of the subway is reserved for ticketed passengers and the other when it opens will be a new route under the railway.
- Access to the platforms on top of the embankment is by well-designed high capacity staircases and two lifts.
- The staircases have similar hand-rails with built-in LED lighting, as I saw yesterday at Abbey Wood station.
- The station does not have ticket gates and relies on passengers to just touch in, as at several stations on the London Overground.
- But then the station will be used for large sporting events at the Olympic Stadium.
- It also has wider platforms than it used, to accommodate large numbers of passengers.
There is still some work to do, like adding the signage and opening the subway for those not using the railway.
I only met one person, who didn’t like the station. He struck me as an artistic type and said the money should have been spent on other things.
But Hackney Wick needed a new high-capacity station and a high-capacity walking route under the railway.
- It is the nearest station to the Olympic stadium.
- There is a large amount of housing development in the area.
Currently, the station handles two million passengers a year and this will surely rise.
A Comparison With The New White Hart Lane Station
Various sources say that the rebuilding of Hackney Wick station will cost £25million.
White Hart Lane station is also being rebuilt in conjunction with Tottenham Hotspur’s new ground and redevelopment of the area.
This also needs to give access to a high railway line, which is on a brick viaduct, that can be incorporated into the structure, rather than replaced, as at Hackney Wick.
According to this article in Construction Enquirer, the budget is £18million.
Modern step-free stations to handle two million passengers per year, don’t come cheap!
On the other hand, once built most stations last for at least a hundred years.
White Hart Lane opened in 1872, whereas Hackney Wick opened in 1980.
So it looks like the Victorians did a longer lasting job, than British Rail!
A Pit Stop At Hampstead Heath Station – 12th May 2018
I went for breakfast to a convenient Le Pain Quotidien near Hampstead Heath station.
In addition to the Heath, the station is within walking distance, to a large number of eateries and shops, including a very large M & S Simply Food.
There is also the Royal Free Hospital.
When I go to Hampstead Heath, I tend to go to Hampstead station in the High Street, then walk down the hill and go home from the London Overground station.
A Good Timetable Change In May For De Beauvoir Town
I live in the North of an area in London called De Beauvoir Town.
On the map, I live close to the junction of Mildmay Park/Southgate Road and the Balls Pond Road of Round the Horne fame!
The junction is a major bus interchange, with buses going regularly in all directions.
- North to Manor House, Turnpike Lane and Wood Green.
- South to Old Street, the City and London Bridge
- West to Highbury and Islington station, the Angel and the West End.
- East to Hackney, Waltham Forest and the River Lea.
All these buses was one of the reasons I moved here.
But note the railway stations ringing the area.
- Canonbury station is to the North-West about fifteen minutes walk away
- Dalston Kingsland station with its new M & S Food is a similar distance in the North-East corner of the map.
- Dalston Junction station is also in the North East corner.
- Essex Road station is in the South-West corner of the map.
But that is not all!
- Haggerston station is within walking distance on a good day, off the map to the South-East.
- Highbury and Islington station is a short bus ride off the map to the West.
- Angel station is a short bus ride off the map to the South-West.
- Manor House station is a short bus ride off the map to the North.
- Hackney Downs station is a short bus ride off the map to the East.
I can also get direct buses from local stops to Euston, Kings Cross, London Bridge, St. Pancras, Victoria and Waterloo.
From December 2018, I’ll be able to get a bus from the junction to the new Crossrail station at Moorgate/Liverpool Street.
Is there a better place to live for public transport?
On the twentieth of May, the date of the rail timetable change, things will get better.
An article on the timetable change in the May 2018 Edition of Modern Railways says this.
London Overground’s East London Line services are being recast in conjunction with the new Thameslink timetable. On the North and West London Lines, the off-peak timetable is being enhanced to match broadly the peak service, providing 8 tph between Stratford and Willesden Junction for most of the day seven days a week, with four continuing to Clapham Junction and the other four to Richmond.
London’s ugly duckling of the last century, is turning into a whole bevy of swans.
The service on the North London Line has improved several-fold since I moved here and will now be eight tph or a train every seven and a half minutes.
The East London Line will be recast, with another two tph this year to Crystal Palace station and two more next year to Clapham Junction station.
And then there’s the Northern City Line to Moorgate, that calls at Essex Road and Highbury and Islington stations!
In First ‘717’ In UK In June, I wrote about what will be happening in the May 2018 timetable change.
I said this.
From the May 2018 timetable change, the service levels will become.
- Four tph to Welwyn Garden City
- Five tph to Hertford North, with two tph extended to Stevenage or Watton-at-Stone.
- No direct services will run to Letchworth Garden City. Change seems to be a cross-platform interchange at Finsbury Park.
The service termination at Watton-at-Stone station is only temporary until Network Rail build a new bay platform at Stevenage station.
These changes mean that there will be nine tph between Alexandra Palace and Moorgate stations.
This represents a fifty percent increase in service frequency.
Marks And Spencer Returns To Dalston
Marks and Spencer used to have a shop in Dalston, but it is now long gone. In those days before and during the Second World War, the shop would have been close to where my mother worked at Reeves.
Yesterday, I went to the littleWaitrose at Highbury and Islington, only to find it was being rebuilt, so I decided to take the Overground to Dalston Kingsland station and get the tin of cannellini beans, needed from the big Sainsburys opposite.
On turning right out of the station, I saw a new store had been opened under a new residential block.
Imagine my surprise, when I saw it was a new M & S Foothall.
But Marks and Spencer don’t sell cannellini beans, do they? Oh! Yes they do!
- This new stop may only have a short frontage on the street, but it is deep.
- It is much more Kings Road, than Dalston Kingsland High Street.
- The gluten-free section is massive.
- I was even able to get the Southwold 0.5% low-alcohol beer.
These pictures show the store on Dalston Kingsland High Street.
I suspect this store will be a roaraway success.
- It is a high-quality store.
- The world-famous Ridley Road Market is opposite.
- The only major store in the area, is a medium-sized, but rather tired Sainsburys.
- Passengers changing between the two alston stations will have to pass the front door.
- It is up there with new stores I’ve seem in Camden Town, Muswell Hill and West Hampstead.
If Crossrail 2 is built, it will sit right on top of the Dalston mega-station.
Could Improved Public Transport Cut Crime?
London is going through a murder epidemic at the moment, mainly with knives and a couple of guns.
I’m not worried about it, as why would anybody bother a seventy-year-old man, who doesn’t have the best dress sense?
But I wasn’t always old and I can remember the 1950s and 1960s, where things weren’t as idyllic, as those who voted Brexit like to think.
A friend of mine was a policeman in the East End in those days and he has some interesting tales.
Return To Dalston
I moved to Dalston in 2010, after the deaths of my wife and our thirty-seven year-old son from cancer, and a serious stroke, which left me with damaged eyesight and unable to drive.
You might ask, why I moved from deepest Suffolk to a slightly run-down area of London? Free public transport was a big draw!
A hundred and thirty years ago, all my grandparents and lots of relatives lived in this area.
My paternal grandmother would shop in the Marks and Spencer and the Woollies at the Angel, as I still do, although the Woollies is now a Waitrose.
This part-Jewish, part-Huguenot, part-Devonian, very stubborn London mongrel has come home!
An Observation
When I moved here, if I walked down Kingsland High Street, at times, the pavements were crowded with youths with nothing better to do. I wasn’t actually threatened, but I would avoid the area.
Now, the street is probably more crowded, but everybody is going about their business or pleasure in a calm manner.
I can only speculate about why the atmosphere has changed, but there has been two major developments.
- The Overground has arrived to replace the travelling urinals of the North London Line and provide new services to the City and South London.
- Most of the bus routes now have new buses.
Local people even got excited, that Hackney and Dalston got the first of the New Routemasters on route 38.
Have those young people from Dalston, now found better things by using public transport, such as work or a pleasureable leisure activity?
Research needs to be done, but there’s nothing on the Internet.
The Rise Of Dalston
I truly believe that the rise of Dalston has been created by the better public transport.
Who would have wanted to live in the new flats or the old Victorian houses, if you couldn’t get to work?
We’re now in an upward spiral, as property is improved, businesses are created and restaurants and cafes open.
The Next Experiment
Several major rail projects are underway in North and North East London.
- The Gospel Oak to Barking Line is being electrified.
- White Hart Lane station is going to be rebuilt, to serve Tottenham Hotspur’s stadium development.
- Capacity is being increased on the West Anglia Main Line, by the STAR project.
- New or rebuilt stations are planned for Tottenham Hale, Northumberland Park and Meridian Water, in conjunction with STAR.
- London Overground and Greater Anglia have ordered new Class 710 and Class 720 trains to replace the current elderly rolling stock.
It will be very informative, to see whether crime is lower or higher in a couple of years.
Conclusion
Improving public transport is one of these measures, that benefits a wide range of people; the elderly, the disabled, the unemployed and families with children.
It may also encourage those, who might drift into gangs and crime, to do something more worthwhile.
Lots of other places in the UK are getting or need the same treatment as Dalston has received.
- The West London Orbital Railway could invigorate North West London.
- Kirkby to Skelmersdale, would connect the latter town to Liverpool.
- Newcastle is planning to reopen the railways to Ashington and Blyth.
- Birmingham is expanding passenger railways on reopened and freight lines.
The future could be fascinating.
Calls For London Overground Extension To Lewisham
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on IanVisits.
This is the first paragraph.
Lewisham council has issued a call for the Overground to be extended to Lewisham town centre as part of a wider series of improvements to the local rail and DLR networks.
To extend the Overground from New Cross station, Overground trains would need to be able to cross over to the tracks through the station.
This map from carto.metro.free.fr shows the tracks at the station.
There are four Overground trains from Dalston Junction station and they terminate in the bay Platform D.
Note how the Overground skirts round New Cross Depot to get to the platform.
This Google Map shows the curve of the Overground Line and what lies between the lines out of London Bridge station and the Overground.
It looks to be the old New Cross depot and a green space surrounded by rail tracks, that is all inaccessible to the public.
I took these pictures as I passed.
Note.
- The Lines out of London Bridge are much higher.
- It’s quite a big space.
- It might be possible to connect the Overground to the down slow line, that goes through Placform C at New Cross station.
- It would need a tunnel under the lines out of London Bridge to connect to the up slow line, which is goes through Platform A at New Cross station.
- I suspect this connection would be difficult and the lines would have to be slewed to the West, so that trains could dive under the down slow line.
- Do Network Rail want to cause all the grief at London Bridge, whilst they built the junction.
It could be a challenging and very expensive project.
It might even be impossible!
On the other hand, it might be possible using flat junctions, but this line is busy and building and operating them could be the stff of nightmares.
Trains Services At New Cross Station
Wikipedia says these are the service frequencies at New Cross station in trains per hour (tph)
- 10 northbound to Cannon Street
- 4 northbound to Dalston Junction or sometimes Highbury & Islington
- 2 southbound to Hayes
- 4 southbound to Cannon Street via Sidcup, or via Bexleyheath and then returning via Greenwich
- 2 southbound to Orpington, calling at all stations
- 2 southbound to Tunbridge Wells, non-stop to Orpington then all stations
Merging ten trains to and from Cannon Street with four trains to and from Dalston Junction could be extremely difficult.
It should be said that the interchange between Overground services arriving at New Cross and Southbound services on Southeastern is just a walk across between Platform D and C, which is shown in the picture below.
Note the Overground train in Platform D.
It appears that most Overground trains from Dalston Junction, connect to a Lewisham train after between five and ten minutes.
As there is a coffee stall on the station, on a cold day, you can buy a hot drink.
The problem is coming North, as you have to use the step-free foot bridge from Platform A.
Too many times, I’ve negotiated the bridge only to arrive on Platform D, to watch the Overground train disappearing.
Increasing Frequency On The Overground
Currently, the frequency of trains on the East London Line is as follows.
- 4 tph – Dalston Junction to New Cross
- 4 tph – Highbury and Islington West Croydon via New Cross Gate
- 4 tph – Highbury and Islington to Crystal Palace via New Cross Gate
- 4 tph – Dalston Junction to Clapham Junction
In the next couple of years, Crystal Palace and Clapham Junction services will be raised to six tph. I wrote about this in Increased Frequencies On The East London Line.
This will mean that New Cross Gate will have ten tph on the East London Line, as against four at New Cross.
I don’t know whether it’s possible to increase the Dalston Junction to New Cross service to six tph, but this would reduce the wait, when changing at New Cross to go North.
The Bakerloo Line
The Bakerloo Line is being extended to New Cross Gate and Lewisham, so perhaps in the future, East London Line passengers will go via New Cross Gate.
New Cross Interchange
I have read, that Transport for London would like to make it easier to change between New Cross and New Cross Gate stations.
Conclusion
Extension of the Overground to Lewisham will be extremely difficult and other developments will improve rail transport in South-East
London
What Is The Operating Speed Of Class 710 Trains?
So far, five classes of Aventra trains have been allocated TOPS numbers and their own Wikipedia pages.
- Crossrail – Class 345 trains – 145 kph
- London Overground – Class 710 trains – Speed not disclosed
- Greater Anglia – Class 720 trains – 160 kph
- South Western Railway – Class 701 trains – 160 kph
- c2c – Class 711 trains – 160 kph
The other orders for West Midlands Trains are given as 145 kph for the Cross-City Line and 180 kph for longer distance trains, in Wikipedia.
Looking at these speeds, I think that the operating speed of the Class 710 trains, must either be the 145 kph of the Crossrail trains or the 160 kph of the suburban trains. Or they could be the 121 kph of London Overground’s Class 378 trains.
But it has not been disclosed.
As probably most Aventras use similar running gear and electrical and control systems, I wouldn’t be surprised that maximum operating speed, is just a setting in the train’s control computer.
London Overground’s Aventra Routes
Timings on London Overground’s routes, that will be run by Class 710 trains are as follows.
- Euston – Watford Junction – 47 minutes – 15 stops
- Liverpool Street – Cheshunt – 39 minutes – 15 stops
- Liverpool Street – Chingford – 27 minutes – 6 stops
- Liverpool Street – Enfield Town – 33 minutes – 13 stops
Comparing the new Class 710 trains to the current Class 315 and Class 317 and Class 378 trains, there are or may be performance differences.
- Class 315 and Class 378 are slower trains with a 121 kph operating speed.
- Class 317 trains have an operating speed of 161 kph.
- Dwell times mat be less on the new trains compared to some or all of the existing types.
So how will these differences effect the various routes?
Euston – Watford Junction
There seems to be long turnrounds on this service and I’m fairly certain faster trains could run this service more efficiently, which may mean that the same number of trains could run at a frequency of four trains per hour (tph).
Liverpool Street – Cheshunt
This service is based on a six minute turnround and I suspect could be run more efficiently, if a faster train could get each way in under thirty minutes.
Liverpool Street – Chingford
It looks like this four tph service is run pretty efficiently, but there is a ten minute turnround at Chingford.
Liverpool Street – Enfield Town
The Liverpool Street to Enfield Town service waits nineteen minutes before returning, so small savings in dwell times and a faster train, might allow a two tph service to be setup, where trains depart on the half-hour, using just two trains.
Four tph, which is planned to start on this route in 2019, would need just four trains.
Summery Of London Overground Routes
Faster trains with shorter dwell times will certainly improve the timings and frequency of London Overground’s services, that they intend to run with Class 710 trains.
I’m pretty certain, that they will enable the following.
- Four tph – Euston to Watford Junction
- Four tph – Liverpool Street to Enfield Town
They will also improve timings on Liverpool Street to Cheshunt.
Conclusion
But what will be the operating speed of the Class 710 trains?
I said it will be somewhere between 145 kph (90 mph) and 160 kph (100 mph)
Or it could be the 12kph of the current Class 378 trains.
Consider.
- I think that 145 kph, will be able to handle the two planned increased frequencies of four tph.
- 145 kph is identical to the Crossrail trains.
- 160 kph is identical to the Greater Anglia trains.
- 121 kph is identical to the London Overground Class 378 trains.
- 160 kph seems to be the speed of suburban Aventras.
It’s a difficult one to call!
Kensington (Olympia) Station Full Tube Service Restoration Petition Signed By More Than 10,000
The title of this post is the same as the title of this article on getwestLondon.
The article states that advantages of restoring a full Tube service include.
- Better Tube service for local residents and business.
- Ease congestion.
- Improve air quality.
- Provide a step-free station for everybody.
But this paragraph is surely the most relevant.
Footfall at Olympia London has risen from 700,000 to 1.6m since 2011 (when the full Tube service was removed), and is likely to increase over the coming years. Only by having a full Tube service can local transport options meet this increasing demand.
The more the footfall increases, the greater the need for a full Tube service.
Service on the District Line
The Wikipedia entry for Kensington(Olympia) station, has a section detailing the District Line Service.
This is said.
The District line shuttle to Earl’s Court and High Street Kensington runs at weekends and a very limited service also operates during the early morning and evening each weekday. There is no service New Year’s Eve or New Year’s Day when these days fall on or partly on a weekend.
Prior to 2011, it was much more frequent.
Service On The West London Line
The Wikipedia entry for Kensington (Olympia) station, has a section detailing the West London Line Service.
This is said.
The London Overground services in trains per hour are:
- 4 northbound to Willesden Junction, of which 2 continue to Stratford during the off-peak and all 4 during the peak.
- 4 southbound to Clapham Junction.
Southern operate between Milton Keynes Central and East Croydon, typically once an hour.
London Overground have plans to increase their service by two trains per hour, starting in 2018.
Kensington ( Olympia ) Station Is Not Fully Step-Free
This Google Map shows the track and platform layout at Kensington (Olympia) station.
Platforms are as follows from West to East.
- 1 – Terminus for District Line
- 2 – Northbound West London Line
- 3 – Southbound West London Line
Note the footbridge linking the island platform 1 and 2, with the other platform 3.
It is not step-free, which means that platforms 1 and 2 have step-free access to Olympia, but platform 3 does not.
Surely, whatever happens to the train service, this bridge must be replaced with one that is step-free.
Getting To And From Kensington (Olympia) Station
It’s easy for me to get to Kensington (Olympia) station, as I just walk to Dalston Kingsland station and get a direct train.
But what fastest routes do you use from these major Underground stations?
- Bank – Change at Shepherd’s Bush
- Canary Wharf – Change at Bond Street and Shepherd’s Bush
- Euston – Change at Willesden Junction
- Finsbury Park – Change at Oxford Circus and Shepherd’s Bush
- Kings Cross St. Pancras – Change at Oxford Circus and Shepherd’s Bush
- Liverpool Street – Change at Shepherd’s Bush
- Paddington – Change at High Street Kensington to a bus.
- Waterloo – Change at Clapham Junction
These routes all used Transport for London’s journey planner.
For some less important stations, you can get some complicated routes.
Marylebone is a classic, which involves two walks, two buses and the Circle Line.
For those, who went to Olympia before 2011, when there was a shuttle from Earl’s Court, will find they will need to change at West Brompton to get from Earl’s Court to Kensington (Olympia).
Wikipedia describes the pre-2011 service like this.
For a period before December 2011 the District line had an irregular short shuttle service of two or three trains per hour to High Street Kensington via Earl’s Court. One late evening train ran daily to Upminster.
To be charitable, you would say it is not a passenger-friendly system for most going to Olympia.
Conclusion
The petitioners would appear to have a very valid point.
The Anonymous Widower 