Wires At Woodgrange Park
Woodgrange Park station is the first station, as you come along the Gospel Oak to Barking line from it’s eastern end.
Note .
The station is wired for electric trains to pick up current from overhead wires.
The c2c Class 357 electrical multiple unit passing through. It was probably going somewhere for something like maintenance or modification.
The wires petered out soon after we left the station and crossed the Great Eastern Main Line.
But why?
If it was fully wired like the North London line, then they could use the same type of train.
Is This London’s Ugliest Tube Station?
I went to West Ham station today and took a few pictures.
It really is truly awful, unless you like piles of bricks. It isn’t correctly named either, as it’s nowhere near the Boleyn Ground and I suspect on match days, staff are for ever rounding up lost away fans. Crystal Palace station is another badly named one, as that is nowhere near Selhurst Park.
Pudding Mill Lane Station – 18th September 2012
I went to Pudding Mill Lane DLR station to see how things were progressing with CrossRail and the construction of the new station.
A senior person in the DLR told me, that it will be two years before the new station is fully open. But then it will be a double-track line all the way past the station on the way to Bow Church station.
Why Are These Containers On the London Overground?
The North London Line of the London Overground is not only a passenger route, but a main freight artery.
Why Are These Containers On the London Overground?
As I waited at Homerton station today, this long train of boxes passed through.
Many of these trains are going to and from the Port of Felixstowe and the West Coast Main line. As the North London line, is the only electrified route between the Great Eastern Main line and the West Coast Main line, there is virtually nowhere else the trains can go.
The main new route will be a more direct line from Felixstowe to Nuneaton. But this route is not complete yet and there are no plans to electrify it, so it may need an engine change or two. It also requires reversing at Ipswich, due to the nature of the track layout, where the Felixstowe branch joins the main line.
There is also an alternative route via the Gospel Oak and Barking line of the London Overground. This takes four freight trains an hour and by-passes eight stations on the North London line. But unlike the North London line, it is not electrified.
This problem is going to get worse when London Gateway, a new port on the Thames east of London starts operating in late 2013. Trains to and from London Gateway will probably feed in directly to the Gospel Oak and Barking line, via the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway.
As to the size and number of trains, read this press release from DB Schenker, who will be handling the rail traffic. Here’s an extract.
The agreement will see DB Schenker Rail introduce at least four rail freight services a day (four in, four out), subject to volumes, and will serve a range of inland terminals including potential new UK locations. Additional rail freight services will be introduced in the future.
DB Schenker Rail will also pursue the development of rail freight services from London Gateway to mainland Europe using the Channel Tunnel.
Something most certainly needs to be done! In the meantime, I certainly wouldn’t buy a house that backed on to either the North London or Gospel Oak to Barking Lines.
Europe’s Largest Man-Made Nature Reserve
If you dig a big hole, you get a lot of earth and rubbish to dispose of. CrossRail is digging two of the biggest tunnels in the world and have not only done a proper archaeological job, but have come up with an innovative solution to the spoil disposal. It is being shipped to Wallasea Island to create a whole new nature reserve. There’s a BBC report on the operation here. You can also see CrossRail’s press release, which has a lot of pictures.
Crossrail And The Stepney City Farm
CrossRail is Europe’s largest construction project and the tunnels have a terrible job to squeeze through underneath the City. One problem is where the two eastern branches of the tunnel join under Stepney City Farm. I visited the area in March and described it in this post. It would appear now that the new buildings at the farm have been completed, according to this press release.
CrossRail are now building a large underground cavern to allow the tunnelling machines to pass through and eventually contain the railway junction.
Meeting At Waterloo
In a post a couple of weeks ago, I said that the clock at Waterloo was no longer the meeting place of choice it once was, due to the new balcony with all its shops and cafes. These pictures taken on Sunday, show even less people than the previous post.
The cafes weren’t that busy, but people did seem to be meeting on the balcony.
Network Rail Ruins My Autumn Football
Living in London, I need to use the trains to get to home matches at Ipswich. But this autumn, it would appear that we have replacement buses on most match days.
It’s not the going that the problem, as I can go via Cambridge or Bury St. Edmunds and have lunch in the Carluccio’s there before the match and then get the train over. It’s coming home, as I don’t want to spend a couple of hours, whilst an elderly bus shows me the delights of the environs of Billericay. It supposedly only takes about forty minutes longer, but then I like a comfortable Mk. 3 coach.
So how bad is it? These are the dates with disruptions.
Sept 22 – Charlton – A possible disaster, if it’s a bad tempered match. At least most Charlton fans are fairly human.
Sep 29 – Barnsley Away
Oct 6 – Cardiff – It’s on Sky, so like many I probably won’t be going.
Oct 13 – No match
Oct 20 – Hull Away
Oct 27 – Sheff Wed – I’ll avoid this, as there could be quite a few away fans on the train and buses.
Nov 3 – Birmingham Away
Nov 10 – Burnley – Should be OK
Nov 17 – Leicester Away
Nov 24 – Peterborough – Should be OK
Dec 8 – Millwall – They must be joking about this one. A few Ipswich fans on coaches full of Millwall ones.
Dec 15 – Leeds Away
At least though it doesn’t appear that Ipswich and Norwich fans will be travelling on the same day.
But given the problems that Tuesday night matches have for many people, it is all a big disappointment!
The Jubilee line Cancels My Plans
This morning, I had intended to take the Overground to Canada Water and from there take the Jubilee line to Waterloo for a wander round the South Bank.
But just before Whitechapel, the driver announced that the Jubilee line had broken down.
So I took the Metropolitan line to Liverpool Street before getting a bus home.
Why is it every time, I try to take the Jubilee line, it decides to go AWOL?
I’m surprised it held up during the Olympics. Or was it because, most people know it’s rather unreliable, they didn’t take a chance.
Bison to Bedlam or How To Make Friends
CrossRail is the biggest project in Europe and sometimes I get annoyed with it, as the works in the City around Liverpool Street do cause a lot of diversions to the 21 and141 buses I use to get to a lot of places. Sometimes, I call the project AngryRail as that’s how it makes me feel.
But they know the problems they are causing and they do their best to mitigate them, be it by green walls or other means.
I have just received an e-mail from the company about the staging of their pop-up exhibition; Bison to Bedlam for a month in October.
They are giving talks on the Wednesdays and offering prizes for visitors.
Prize 1:
A Young Friends pass from the British Museum – includes annual YF Membership (the child receives magazines, a birthday card etc), two tickets to sleepover in the museum, two tickets to attend an activity event organised at the museum.
Prize 2:
An annual family membership card that covers entry into the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, the Banqueting House Kensington Palace and Kew Palace.
They don’t seem to me to be bad prizes.
My only worry about the exhibition is that if the numbers who turned up at the pop-up version is anything to go by, is a month long enough?
When they have completed the railway, and collected a lot more valuable finds, they all need to be properly displayed, together with displays about the engineering. Perhaps there should be a CrossRail museum at Whitechapel?
The Anonymous Widower 