Victoria Gets A Posh Umbrella
Manchester Victoria was a terrible station, with a difficult connection to Manchester Piccadilly. The connection improved with the Metrolink, but as they are now rebuilding Victoria, it’s got worse again. As I’m now familiar with the walking route, I was able to put a couple right about the way to go.
There must be something in the Manchester civic psyche, that likes to confuse people.
But Victoria seems to be getting on with its rebuilding, which includes a posh roof over everything and a new footbridge.
Unfortunately, the electrification to Liverpool Lime Street seems to be having problems and it will be some months before Class 319 electric trains are working the route, hopefully before next spring.
It does look to me, that when complete, anywhere on the tram routes in Manchester will have easy access to the electrified Trans-Pennine links at Manchester Victoria, which could become an architectural icon of the North. You’ll get the tram to Victoria and then totally under the new roof, you’ll go through the ticket gates and across the fully-accessible footbridges to the appropriate platform to await your train.
In addition, those who arrive from London and the South at Piccadilly and are perhaps going on to places like Burnley, Blackburn and Hebden Bridge from Victoria, will have a completely dry route, which is of course important in Manchester, using the trams. The trams must use contactless bank card tickerting though to be compatible with what other cities, like London, are doing.
This is Network Rail’s page on the £44million work.
I think everyone will agree that it’s all a bit different to the concrete crap that British Rail built forty to fifty years ago, like Euston and Manchester Piccadilly, when those with special access needs or advanced age didn’t exist, as everybody was adult and fit as a butcher’s dog.
I can remember meeting a friend in the newly-opened extension to Kings Cross station and looking with amazement at the structure that had been created.
Why shouldn’t other rail stations be given an added wow factor?
Especially now, when we have the architects, computers, techniques and materials to build them in an affordable manner. How many stations could be rebuilt using the same methods as New Cross Gate?
Good stations, like good clean electric trains, have one common problem. They are passenger magnets and very often attract so many extra paying passengers, that we have to expand the system.
I have a feeling that after they see the completed scheme, they’ll be wanting some of their other architectural disasters like Salford Crescent and Oxford Road stations, at least given the treatment that Network Rail have applied at Huyton.
The Welsh Count Up From Zero
Like Kings Cross station, Cardiff Central now has a Platform Zero.
The Welsh Count Up From Zero
In the same manner as Kings Cross they needed another platform, so as it was next to Platform 1, from where I took the picture, it was obvious numbering.
This aerial view from Google Earth shows the platform well.
Cardiff Station
Platform Zero is the topmost of the platforms in this view on the left. It would appear that a train is in the platform and it will probably be on its way to Ebbw Vale Parkway.
In the next platform, there would appear to be a London-bound InterCity 125.
The bottom two platforms are 6 and 7 and are used by the other Valley Lines. So unless you are going to Ebbw Vale, and you are needing to use the Valley Lines, you just go up to these two back-to-back platforms to catch your train.
Cardiff Central is in the process of a major upgrade by Network Rail, which looks to be exciting. I remember coming to Cardiff a few years ago to a football match at the Millenium Stadium and geting away was a total nightmare. Hopefully, soon that chaos will be a thing of the past.
Tottenham Hale’s New Bus Station
The bus station attached to Tottenham Hale station doesn’t appear to be far off opening.
It seems the architect has managed to keep the design simple, whilst still looking spectacular.
From what I can remember of the old bus stands in the area, this design appears to make more efficient use of space. Which hopefully, will mean changing buses will be less far to walk.
Click for a map of the new bus station.
The new bus station will probably not make much difference to me, as I only use the bus from here to get to and from IKEA only occasionally.
When they finally open the station at Lea Bridge, I will probably use that a lot more.
Before Overground – The Terrible Fifteen
I have now visited all of the stations that will be added to the London Overground on the 31st May 2015.
There is a large group of fifteen stations, that are characterised by steep staircases, no lifts or escalators, few facilities and often poor shelter from the weather on the platforms.
I suppose Walthamstow Central could be added to this list, but the problems there are more fundamental and are more down to the way the station was rebuilt for the Victoria Line.
Looking at the main list, it would appear that nothing short of lifts like those that will soon be operational at Edmonton Green will help to solve the problem.
And a sensible pair of lifts cost upwards of a million pounds. Enfield Borough Council have a page, describing the funding of the upgrades at Edmonton Green. This is an extract.
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 £1.45m 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 .
So are we prepared to fund improvements like this which for the terrible fifteen which will probably cost over twenty million pounds?
Although it would be a laudable aim to have every station totally step-free, because of passenger behaviour some stations might never need to be upgraded.
I am not disabled, but at times, I take a roundabout route to my destination, as perhaps it only has a short walk on the level. Rain also affects my chosen route, as I rarely carry an umbrella. But I do know the bus/tube/Overground combinations with the least exposed walking. For instance, I must use about half a dozen routes to get to and from Liverpool Street station depending on various factors and which bus arrives first.
So when a station like Edmonton Green gets a significant upgrade, does this alter all of the travelling patterns in the area?As an example, will passengers for the Silver Street area and the North Middlesex Hospital go to Edmonton Green and get a bus?
So perhaps instead of upgrading all of the stations, we should do a few more major schemes first and then do others as necessary, and as the budget allows.
Where would I start?
White Hart Lane
White Hart Lane is down to be redeveloped, as part of the new Spurs stadium. All options of Haringey’s development plans for the High Road West area, show the station moved a short distance to the south and connected by a wide pedestrian way to the High Road and the new stadium. Click here for the main council site for the development.
I will be very surprised if something much better doesn’t happen at White Hart Lane. which makes travel in the greater Tottenham area better. But then I remember the area well from the 1950s and 1960s and if ever an area has shown an ability to get no worthwhile development it is this one. The council, the politicians and the football club, should all hold their heads in shame.
Walthamstow Central
The Walthamstow area is on the up and something must be done to complete the Victoria Line station and make interchange to the Chingford branch easier and hopefully substantially step-free.
This probably means adding the third escalator to the Victoria Line and putting either a lift or escalator connection between the Victoria Line entrance and the Chingford branch platforms.
If only the job had been done properly in the 1960s.
Hackney Downs
Until the pedestrian link is installed between Hackney Downs and Hackney Central stations is completed, I won’t comment on it.
But it does strike me, that as the two Hackney stations taken together will be very important to the Overground, that some selective and intelligent design could improve the complex substantially.
Let’s face it, You wouldn’t design a station like Hackney Downs, with four platforms connected by a subway, these days. The picture shows an aerial view from Google Earth.
Hackney Downs Station
Note how the lines split to the north of the station, with the right branch going to Chingford and Tottenham Hale and the left branch to Enfield Town and Cheshunt. Platform 1 is to the right in the picture, 2 and 3 make up the island in the middle and platform 4 is to the left.
So could the use of the station be changed so that all northbound and southbound services use just one platform each? When I use the station to go to Walthamstow or Enfield Town, I often have a lonely long wait on an empty platform. So as the off peak service through the station is just ten trains per hour in both directions, surely this could it be arranged, so that southbound services generally call at Platform 1 and all northbound services call at Platform 4. Incidentally, in the evening rush hour, there are around twenty trains an hour from Liverpool Street, that stop at Hackney Downs. You’d still have the two middle lines for fast trains going through the station without stopping, but they’d be running past the current Platforms 2 and 3, which for most of the time would be unused.
Surely, with the modern in-cab signalling, that should be universal in the next few years, Hackney Downs can be reduced to working most of the time, as a two-platform station.
As Thameslink and Crossrail are talking twenty-four trains an hour through tunnels under London, surely ten though Hackney Downs for much of the day and twenty during the rush hour must be possible. I suppose that platform allocation at Liverpool Street could be a problem, but then Crossrail will release platform space in 2018, when it starts using the tunnels.
This would reduce the step-free requirement to just two platforms and would also mean that anybody travelling south and wanting to change to a train from Hackney Central, would have a fairly easy interchange, through the new pedestrian link.
Remember though that at Canonbury and Clapham Junction, London Overground have shown they can think out of the box, where platform usage is concerned.
So don’t be surprised at what might happen at Hackney Downs!
Before Crossrail – Abbey Wood
I was at Abbey Wood station today and took these pictures.
Note the terrible stairs down from the bus stop. Certainly this is a station that shows all the worst design features of the corporate British Rail non-architecture.
If you look at the design for the new Crossrail station, you can see the new footbridge in the images.
So could this footbridge be one of the first pieces of Crossrail infrastructure that passengers will use?
Liverpool To Manchester Is Getting A Twenty-First Century Railway
One of the scandals of the UK rail network, is the train services between Liverpool and Manchester. The lines from these two cities to London were fully electrified by the mid-sixties and even Glasgow was reached in 1974. The details are on Wikipedia.
But the train services are still run mainly using some of Northern Rail’s scrapyard specials or Class 142 and Class 150 diesels as they prefer to call them. Are there two as important cities anywhere in the world, which has to put up with such terrible elderly rolling stock on a rail route between them.
It has always puzzled me, why this train service wasn’t electrified, as after all both cities are served by electrified main lines.
I have read that both Harold Wilson and Margaret Thatcher didn’t like trains, but surely electrifying the route between Liverpool and Manchester would give a boost to both cities.
On the other hand the other obvious pair of cities ripe for joining by an modern electrified railway are Edinburgh and Glasgow. And of course the original line via Falkirk is still run by diesel trains! You’d think that Blair or Brown would have found the funding for that to buy a few votes in Scotland!
But at last nearly fifty years after it should have been carried out as a follow-on to the West Coast Main Line, construction crews are working on the line. I took these pictures as they are upgrading Huyton station.
It’s all rather ironic to see this, giving Harold Wilson’s attitude to rail, considering that he was the MP for the area.
I took a train from Huyton to Leyland, so I didn’t see how far the electrification has got from the Manchester end, but work was obvious all the way from Huyton to Wigan North Western station.
There is no reason to believe that Class 319 electric trains will not be running between Liverpool and Manchester, on the planned December 2014 timetable change.
Whatever happens, Huyton will be getting a four-platform station with lifts between the platforms and the existing subway.
If all goes to plan, they’ll be getting an updated service between Liverpool and Manchester.
It’ll be interesting how this all works out by say the end of 2015. And then when all the electrification is completed in 2017.
1. Will the generally two trains per hour service frequency between Liverpool and Manchester Victoria be increased?
Even if they are not, they’ll be longer trains and they’ll be a lot faster. They’re will also be an improvement to the services that stop at all stations on the route, as the Class 319 trains are faster with much better acceleration.
2. As the line between Huyton and Wigan will be electrified, will there be electric services between Liverpool and stations on the West Coast Main Line?
Liverpool has a disadvantage here when compared to Manchester, in that there is significant traffic from Scotland to Manchester Airport. This was the reason that TransPennine introduced Class 350 trains on the Glasgow to Manchester Airport route. So Liverpool will never have as many direct trains from Scotland as Manchester.
At present generally about two trains per hour from Liverpool connect with perhaps a fifteen to twenty minute wait at either Wigan North Western or Preston for Scotland. The problem with introducing direct Liverpool to Scotland services is the lack of paths for trains. So perhaps we might see trains time-tabled to mean the change at say Preston was a simple walk across the platform.
An alternative would be to have two four-car trains from each of Manchester and Liverpool, join together at Preston for going onward to Carlisle and Scotland. Some train companies seem loathe to do this, whereas when done properly as I observed at Cambridge, it makes for an efficient railway.
3. Will the increase in the number of trains available for the route, mean an increase in late night services?
Obviously, there will have to be a need for the trains, but my train back from Wigan, wasn’t just two sad Ipswich fans and a guide dog.
One thing I found, when talking to some fellow passengers at Huyton, was how little some of them knew about the developments going on. Have Northern Rail and Network Rail got their PR right?
There’s Work To Do On The Gospel Oak To Barking Line
I went to Harringay Green Lanes station and then took a train on the Gospel Oak To Barking Line to South Tottenham.
There is work to do to get round the years of neglect.
The step-free access at Harringay Green Lanes is derisory and the station buildings aren’t the best, but it does look like something is happening at South Tottenham. This document from the the line’s User Group shows a discussion about what might be happening.
Work has already started on the bridge at South Tottenham to strengthen it for the future, but it looks like the one at Harringay Green Lanes is in no better condition.
Is Essex Road Station Ripe For Redevelopment?
Essex Road station in London, is architecturally-challenged to say the least. if you venture underground to the trains, there are a couple of large clean lifts and dimly-lit passages to stations, that still have echoes of Network South East.
Essex Road Station
But things are looking up on the trains front, in that the new Govia Thameslink franchise has committed to running more trains through the station, including later on weekday nights and at weekends. It also looks like Crossrail 2 has decided on its route and it would appear that the chances are, the new line will by-pass Essex Road station.
The station sits on a prominent and quite large corner site as this aerial view from Google shows.
Essex Road Station
So it would appear that a whole lot of reasons exist for the site to be redeveloped as perhaps much-needed quality housing. Transport links, size and location are all good and the deep-level station is in crying need of a refurbishment. The only constraint is that provision might need to be left for a very unlikely new rail or Underground line.
Properly developed it would be an asset to the area.
Peterborough Station’s Litter Bins
I came across these bins, when I changed trains at Peterborough.
What a wonderful example of simple, good design.
If this doesn’t nudge people to put their rubbish in the right bag then nothing will.
Are There Any Sensible Places For New Stations On The Overground?
This is just a list of possible Overground stations that have been tslked about.
Maiden Lane on the North London Line
With so much money being spent in this area on property development to say Never about this station would not be a safe bet. I once researched and proposed a walking route that connected Kings Cross, St. Pancras and Euston. If this was operated by electric people movers and included a connection to Maiden Lane, it might just be made to work.
But it will be all those offices at Kings Cross Central between Kings Cross/St. Pancras and the North London Line, that will decide if Maiden Lane station is reopened.
North Acton on the North London Line
No one thinks this is that likely, but it does link the Central Line to the Overground, in an area where a lot of development is happening. If the Goblin Extension to Hounslow is scheduled, this station might become more likely.
Earls Court on the West London Line
Nothing is planned here yet, but read this post on London Reconnections. A large amount of residential and other development is to be built over the West London Line at Earls Court. The railway line will be enclosed in a concrete box. This sounds very similar to Crossrail at Woolwich, where a station is being built under a massive development.
There must be very good reasons for not doing the same thing at Earls Court!
Brixton on the South London Line
There has been a lot of pressure for a connection at Brixton to the Victoria Line. But if you look at this post, you’ll see why it will probably never happen.
East Brixton on the South London Line
East Brixton is probably a better option than Brixton and the proposal is discussed here.
Camberwell on the South London Line
I have assumed this to be at Loughborough Junction and I’ve discussed it here.But it could be at East Brixton. The developments around the station will probably decide what station gets built.
Surrey Canal Road on the South London Line
When the new South London Line was created and opened in 2012, provision was made for the building of this station. According to this article in Wikipedia, it now looks that a start could be made on the station in the near future with a possible opening date of 2015.
It would appear that Transport for London got their planning right with this station. When the money became available, the building of the station was able to proceed.
Gospel Oak to Barking
There are various plans listed here.
Summing Up
I think we might see some of these plans come to fruition.
Surrey Canal Road should be a model for the creation of new stations on the Overground.
The Anonymous Widower 