Overground Customer Service At Work
You may ask, what this London Overground Customer Service Agent is doing on his knees at Hackney Downs station.
Overground Customer Service At Work
He’d spotted a raised man-hole cover and was taking a photograph to report it. He’d put a one pence coin by the hole.
A Raised Man-Hole Cover
Apparently, that is the standard for a hole being too big.
That is a very good practical way of measuring it.
Where Next For The Overground?
After the launch of the Overground on the Lea Valley Lines, which has probably gone ahead with just a few minor glitches and quite a lot of enthusiasm from staff and passengers, where next will the orange spider stretch its tentacles?
Passengers will have a big effect, as going Overground has some large benefits for passengers.
1. Transport for London’s fare structure is lower than that of National Rail.
2. Freedom Passes now have no annoying restrictions and this will generate traffic for the Overground, as I reported in The Chat On The Overground.
3. Overground likes to run at least four trains an hour all day every day.
4. Overground has station staff from when the first train arrives until the last one leaves.
So passengers in places, where perhaps one line is Overground and the other is Great Northern or Abellio Greater Anglia, may well go on the more affordable line with better service. This will be an argument that the better fare and service model will win.
These lines in North London must be prime candidates for Overgrounding.
Liverpool Street to Hertford East
One line that must be at the top of the list, is the remaining Lea Valley Line to Hertford East station, that is not currently under Overground control.
As this branch, is down as becoming part of Crossrail 2, surely to make it part of the Overground first would get all the stations up to a decent standard before they are incorporated into the new line.
Operationally too, having all of the shorter distance services from Liverpool Street must make sense.
The Northern City Line
The Northern City Line from Moorgate desperately needs development and new trains.
When Govia were awarded the Great Northern franchise, there were a lot of commitments, as detailed in Wikipedia. These included new trains for the Northern City Line to replace the elderly Class 313 trains and reading the details, it sounds very much like the Great Northern services will be run on Overground lines with at least four trains an hour at all times to very much improved stations.
Personally, I would also like this line to become a full seven day a week service, as it would ease travelling to places like Alexandra Palace on a weekend. A quality service on the line would also give me better access to Thameslink.
The big question with this line, if it is taken over by the Overground or TfL Rail, is how far you take the TfL-managed service; Hadley Wood, Welwyn Garden City or Stevenage.
Thameslink
It is well-known that TfL have their eyes on taking over at least the central part of Thameslink, especially as after it starts to operate in 2018, it will work almost like an Underground Line from between numerous places in North and South London with a high-frequency service and Londoners, commuters and frequent visitors will see it as part of the Underground/Overground/Crossrail network.
The Reaction Of The Other Train Operating Companies
The TOCs may or may not like running the short distance commuter services out of London. I have read comments like they make more money on long-distance services and if they need to cancel a train because of problems, it will be a commuter service.
But whatever they think, where there is an Overground or in the future, a Crossrail, alternative, they will lose revenue, if they don’t run to the Overground rules.
The Overground is taking a big stick to the TOCs and they will have to repond positively.
It Looks Like 315817 Is The Prototype Overground Class 315 Train
Since Sunday, I’ve ridden on quite a few Class 315 trains, both of the Overground and TfL Rail. Although, I saw 315817 on Monday at Enfield Town station, I hadn’t got a chance to ride in one that as one the Overground’s managers had told me, had spent ten days in the maintenance shop being cleaned, painted and dressed. Today, there had been overhead line problems, so what should turn up at Hackney Downs station after a longer than usual wait, but 315817.
In my view, the design of the new livery is good and the ten days in the shop were well spent.
Good points include.
1. Getting rid of the awful pink!
2. Cleverly adapting the Class 378 colours and fabric, so that costs of the refurbishment are minimised.
3. The new Tube-style route map and the cut down central Tube map. Harry Beck, Frank Pick et. al., set down a good set of rules.
4. Affordable seat refurbishment on the original frames.
When the train arrived at Liverpool Street, I noted it was an eight-car train, with an unrefurbished unit in tandem with 315817. But then eight-car trains are used quite regularly on Lea Valley Lines services in the peak periods.
So it would appear that if business becomes too much for four-car trains, London Overground will just couple them together and make them 8-car trains, thus avoiding the problems of success on the North and East London Lines.
And there is probably no shortage of Class 315 trains, with London Overground having seventeen of them and TfL Rail forty-four.
I do suspect though, that 315817 is probably the only train that has so far been refurbished. I look forward to see the rest as they trickle through.
Enfield Town Is Almost Ready For Boris
I went through Enfield and Enfield Town station this morning before nine thirty. I used my Freedom Pass, which of course I couldn’t have done before the Overground takeover.
Apart from the 307 bus from Oakwood tube station, that I used to get to Enfield, which still thought National Rail was in charge, there didn’t seem to be too much to fault.
After Overground – Edmonton Green – 31st May 2015
When I visited Edmonton Green Station some time ago, it was in the process of being updated with lifts.
As the pictures show it is one of the first stations on the Lea Valley Lines other than the totally flat Enfield Town, to be updated to full step-free access.
This page on the Enfield Council web site, says how the station rebuilding was financed and the problems encountered in the design and building.
The Council are working in partnership with Network Rail to deliver two lifts at Edmonton Green Station to enable step free access to both Platforms 1 and 2.
The Council has been awarded £850k for the project following a successful bid for funding from the Department for Transport’s Access for All programme. However, the total cost of the project is estimated to be £2m and the balance of funding is being provided by the Council, utilising a mixture of contributions from nearby development schemes and grant funding from Transport for London .
The construction of the lifts provides many challenges because of the constrained nature of the site, the need to cater for passengers throughout the works and the fixed budget.
In addition, the station is at the heart of Edmonton Green and within a Conservation area, so it needs to be of good design. The focus at present is therefore trying to find the optimum design solution for the lift shafts, given all of the above constraints.
It looks like it was challenging.
I think it illustrates that the cost of putting two lifts into a conservation area and making sure that the station is acceptable to all parties is a couple of million. Good building isn’t cheap.
But at least Edmonton Green is now a station with platforms that look like they’ll take eight car trains and possibly twelve-car ones if needed.
Obviously details like handrails and information displays need to be updated and the station needs a good clean and a paint, but it shouldn’t need much expensive work for the next decade or two.
It can certainly be used as a standard to which all stations on the Lea Valley Lines can aspire.
Wandering On Day One Of The New Overground And TfL Rail
Today was the first official day of the addition of the Lea Valley Lines to the Overground and the first day that the Shenfield Metro was being run by TfL Rail. I went for a couple of wanders and these are some of the pictures I took.
There were a couple of problems in that the there weren’t enough drivers at TfL Rail for whatever reason and the Romford to Upminster branch of the Overground wasn’t working.
The Chat On The Overground
This morning, I went for a wander on some of the new Overground lines that have been incorporated today, just to see how much there is to do, to bring them up to an acceptable standard.
But the chat between staff and passengers wasn’t about refurbished trains or stations, but about the fact that those with Freedom Passes now have no restrictions on any of the lines taken over by the Overground.
So older commuters can now use their Freedom Pass to travel to and from work, even if it’s the rush hour.
The M25 South Of Waltham Cross
If you travel along the M25 between junctions 25 (A10) and 26 (A121), you pass south of an area which I know well from my teens. Obviously the motorway wasn’t there in those days and a lot of the area was closed off as it was the Royal Gunpowder Mills. Some of the area has been developed, but a lot is still pretty much undeveloped or farmland, as this Google Earth image of the area shows.
M25 South Of Waltham Abbey
Note how two of the Lea Valley Lines pass North-South through the area.
The line between Turkey Street and Theobalds Grove, known as the Southbury Loop, crosses the motorway on its way to its terminus at Cheshunt, just to the East of the large factory, which is News International’s Print Works at the top left of the image.
Further to the East is the West Anglia Main Line between Enfield Lock and Waltham Cross, which is just to the west of the collection of large distribution depots.
So you have a large area of relatively undeveloped land with four stations at the corners. Turkey Street and Theobalds Grove are now part of the London Overground and Enfield Lock and Waltham Cross are proposed to be on Crossrail 2.
So although the connections to London aren’t bad they are going to get a lot better.
Surely, with these rail connections this area could be developed sensibly.
I’ve always felt that London needs more Park-and-Ride sites. In fact there isn’t one rail station, where you can come off the M25 drive a kilometre or so, perhaps pick-up or drop-off a passenger, and return easily to the motorway.
As to being able to park all day or just an evening, whilst you do business or visit a friend relative, then you can just about forget it. Especially, as those stations with parking never have enough of it.
A couple of times, since I’ve stopped driving, I’ve needed to be picked up near the M25, either to guide someone to my house or perhaps go to a football match with a fellow sufferer. There are few suitable places, so we generally end up using eithe Cockfosters or Newbury Park Tube Stations.
What is needed is a series of rail/car/bus interfaces all along the motorways and not just on the M25.
I took these pictures from a train going between Turkey Street and Theobalds Grove stations.
The M25 dominates and there is a few large developments, like the News International Print Works and lots of undeveloped green space.
,So could such an interchange be developed somewhere on this section of the M25 near Waltham Cross, perhaps with a Service Area and a Park-and-Ride. It would certainly ease transport difficulties for many.
7/10 For Day Zero For The New Overground Lines
You might ask how I can give the 7/10 for the new Overground lines, when the service hasn’t officially started.
But I didn’t see anything wrong and there was a lot of positivity from staff and passengers. Here’s a few things I noticed.
1. Freedom Passes
Transport for London obviously know their passenger model and the Freedom Pass holder I spoke to who said she would use the line from Enfield at all times of the day, must mean that TfL know they can accommodate the extra passengers, who will turn up early in the morning and in the rush hour to go home.
Perhaps, the small modal shift say from vehicular transport to trains, will actually free up the roads.
I’ll just let the data do the talking, when passenger numbers are published in a few months.
2. The Deep Clean At Enfield Town
It looks like they’ve deep cleaned Enfield Town station for the launch and if this is indicative of the standard we’ll see at the piles of bricks, that double as stations, they’ve inherited from Abellio Greater Anglia, then the good burghers of East London will be pleasantly surprised.
To be hard on London Overground, choosing Enfield Town station for the launch was a bit of a cheat, as the station is naturally step-free and it was built in 1957, as opposed to the 1840s for most of the stations.
It is certainly built and cleaned to a standard, that few if any, would complain about.
3. Staff
The staff seemed positive in a lot of ways, just as they do in a typical Overground or Underground station.
4. Trains
The trains, I travelled in today were clean and one lady thought that Abellio Greater Anglia could have done more to keep them clean.
If London Overground follow the cleaning procedures they use on the North and East London Lines, where litter is regularly collected throughout the day, the passengers will be pleased.
5.Future Overcrowding
From experiences with the current Overground, I can see a small problem. And that is overcrowding.
But whereas on the North and East London Lines providing more capacity is a problem, on the Lea Valley Lines, all platforms can take eight car trains, as they do in the rush hour and you can always couple two Class 315 trains or Class 317 trains together. And as Class 345 trains are delivered for Crossrail, more of these will come available.
6. Future Investment
London Overground have acquired these routes from Abellio Greater Anglia, with all the skill of an East End trader who sold car aerials in Ridley Road Market.
They have similar costs to Abellio Greater Anglia in terms of trains, track charges and stations, but they get more of the revenue, as they are a not-for-profit organisation and don’t have external owners.
So they get the benefit of all the investment they make, provided of course it is sound! But Transport for London have said they are going to put £25million into the Lea Valley Lines.
But it won’t be just Transport for London putting money into the Overground. The proposed new station at Hackney Wick has a variety of sources of funding and I think we’ll see other stations built by external developers, so that their houses, offices or industrial units are more desirable.
In this section in Wikipedia, it says that the current trains will be replaced by thirty-nine new trains in 2017. New trains always attract more passengers, but unlike the current Overground lines, adding more capacity will not involve any expensive platform lengthening.
7. Everybody Will Want Overground
The only serious long term problem, they have is that if the Lea Valley Line takeover is as successful as the current Overground, then there will be a clamour for other lines to be taken over, or at least run on the same lines.
I have a feeling that there are going to be some very unhappy train operating companies, who lose some quite lucrative routes in the next few years.
The Anonymous Widower 