The idea of extending the Bakerloo Line southwards is almost as old as the Bakerloo Line itself. One that seems to capture the imagination of rail enthusiasts, politicians and Londoners alike. It certainly ranks alongside suggestions such as re-opening disused stations, extending the Waterloo & City Line and of somehow finding a use for the former Aldwych branch of the Piccadilly Line in a considerable number of amateur and professional imaginations.
Reasons for wanting to extend the Bakerloo Line southwards vary from rational argument to gut feeling. Certainly, as discussed many times before, the Bakerloo Line is really the only tube line with any significant potential spare capacity. A tube map shows it terminating on the Zones 1 and 2 boundary which instinct says to many is far too close to central London. Furthermore, to many, the Bakerloo Line appears to be a rump of its former self – a line that at its height not only went out as far as Watford Junction but also had a branch from Baker Street all the way to Stanmore. To these people it seems that whilst other tube lines have expanded, the Bakerloo has contracted and this really ought to be rectified.
Whatever the reason for the continued popularity of a potential Bakerloo extension, on September 30th things finally took their first genuine step forward for some time when TfL launched its consultation on extending the Bakerloo Line southwards from Elephant & Castle. That a consultation was imminent was relatively well-known as was the proposed route, even if some of the exact details remained firmly under wraps. Despite this, the consultation still managed to contain one or two minor surprises.
Why now?
As with all such consultations it is important to begin by asking one key question – why now? One can certainly query why the mayor felt it was necessary to consult about this now. Uncharitably, one could argue it represents a belated desire to be seen to be doing something about this longstanding issue before leaving his full time post as mayor. More kindly, there is a certain amount of logic that, having included it in the 2050 plan, its proposed route really ought to be finalised as soon as possible in order to enable the agreed route to be included in long term plans.
Whatever the reasons, it is time to move on and look at the proposed options.
The proposals for consultation
To Bromley and beyond?
Even to the non-transport-planner, the basic options should be fairly obvious from the map above, even if some of the details aren’t. A proposal to continue to Bromley from Beckenham Junction is present, though the lack of details does make one wonder how anyone can meaningfully comment on it. Indeed the lack of detail suggests this is perhaps a late addition. The background to consultation document certainly suggests that it has yet to be established that such an extension is feasible let alone representing value for money.
The curious publication of a map in the 2050 Transport Supporting Paper suggesting a taking over the Bromley North branch and continuing to Grove Park appears to be missing in the consultation. This suggests that possibly someone in TfL or the Mayor’s Office got confused and inadvertently combined a tube option with a much more plausible – and occasionally mentioned – proposal to extend Tramlink from Beckenham Junction to Bromley and from there take over the Bromley North branch.
Last stop Lewisham
There are a couple of genuine surprises in the consultation proposals. The first is the suggestion that one option is to terminate the Bakerloo at Lewisham and go no further. Until now the only plans that have considered extending the Bakerloo Line to Lewisham have always extended it beyond there to somewhere else. Almost as if Lewisham was only ever previously considered as a stepping stone to the real objective – to link up with an existing line in South East London.
It is hard to tell how serious TfL are about this Lewisham-only option. One would have thought that Lewisham – Hayes would be in a different colour and not described as “core extension proposal” on the map key if this really was intended to be taken seriously.
The inevitability of New Cross Gate
The second big surprise is that a station at New Cross Gate features as something that will happen regardless of what option is chosen (at least if we ignore the option of rejecting the proposals in their entirety).
Effectively, if this consultation is to be trusted, then two stations we can be sure will be on an extended Bakerloo Line are New Cross Gate and Lewisham. Local residents rejoice.
Underground stations – just like buses…
Possibly a more minor surprise is the number of intermediate stations proposed between Elephant & Castle and Lewisham. Given the phenomenal cost of underground stations it is surprising that there are three of them. Possibly even more surprising is that on the Old Kent Road route they have only been given working names – “Old Kent Road 1” and “Old Kent Road 2.” It is difficult to recall any previous rail consultation where the proposed station(s) did not have a name. The aforementioned Background to Consultation document makes it clear that these are not definite and it may be that there will be only one station along the Old Kent Road. The lack of detail is almost certainly due to there being plans to comprehensively redevelop the area, but being at an early stage, the exact desired locations of stations is unknown.
Getting the right combination
One thing that seems to be clear from the start is that whilst a number of options are suggested, combinations of these options are not taken into account. For example, the route serving Camberwell and Peckham Rye makes a lot of sense if the priority is to provide these communities with an Underground service. In the case of Camberwell it has been recognised for the best part of a century that it is particularly poorly served and Peckham has poor links to the West End. There will doubtless be people who support this option but it is hard to see that they would also be in favour of extending beyond Lewisham as that would make the trains more crowded and so lose much of the attraction for them of an extended Bakerloo Line.
Conversely it is hard to imagine many people that supports the line’s extension down to Hayes and Beckenham Junction would be keen on the additional time that would be added by the longer and more curved route via Peckham Rye (although the Background to Consultation document gives the impression this will be absolutely marginal).
In a similar manner, if the proposal to extend to Bromley is found to be viable, it would inevitably need a decent service which could only be provided by extending any trains that terminate at Catford Bridge (or possibly Lewisham) or by diverting trains away from Hayes.The subtlety would probably be lost on those using Clock House and stations south thereof who probably won’t respond and say that they support the proposal but only if it doesn’t go to Bromley as well as Hayes.
Despite the fact that the different consultation options are not independent of each other one could well imagine a scenario, much like Crossrail 2, where the planners pick and chose between the options in an attempt to solve multiple transport problems and end up with a route that was the first preference of very few people indeed.
The Elephant in the plan
Always more interesting than what is included in a consultation is what isn’t. Often this can be quite hard to spot, but here there is at least one absolutely glaring omission – any kind of detailed timescale. There is a short reference in the consultation but it is vague. It states:
If funding is identified, construction could start as early as 2023 (subject to the necessary powers) and the extension could open as early as 2030.
This appears to be slighty more optimistic than the answer provided in the faqs where it states:
Completion is estimated by the early to mid 2030s if funding is secured
In some ways this is surprising – because it is something that is pretty much spelt out elsewhere in the Mayor’s 2050 Transport Supporting Paper which talks of completion by 2040 – for stage 1 (there is also an upgrade with increased frequency proposed for 5 years later). Nothing can happen until the Bakerloo Line is modernised which, based on timescales quoted up to a few days ago, means we are talking around 2035. On the assumption that TfL couldn’t afford both the tube upgrade and building the extension simultaneously, that would mean “spades in the ground” on any extension around the late 2030s – something that fits in with details in the appendix of the 2050 Transport Supporting Paper where the dates given are presumed to be opening dates.
Unfortunately it does seem that the first of the deep level tubes to be upgraded with the New Tube for London, the Piccadilly Line, is currently suffering from a continually receding planned completion date. It has just come to light that the Piccadilly Line upgrade, is not now expected to be fully complete until 2027. This naturally also has an impact on any Bakerloo line timescales and thus suggests that a realistic earliest opening date for the Bakerloo Line extension would be around 2042.
Getting realistic
Given that one of the many reasons that the Bakerloo never got expanded to the south was that there was always something more important to do, it is worth asking just how seriously the current proposals can be taken given the extended timescales involved. Indeed a presentation given to the London Underground Railway Society a few years ago Jonathan Roberts summarised some of the proposed southward extensions that never happened.
A slide from a Beyond the Elephant – a presentation by Jonathan Roberts to the LURS.
Ianvisits has also been quick to point out that there have been past proposals and the wording of his headlines certainly suggests a suspicion that this current proposal may well go the way of all the others.
To those that have he giveth…
This is not the time to go into these 20th century proposals in detail but a common feature would appear to be the desire to use the extension to improve public transport in an area not particularly well served by rail and for that reason Lewisham did not feature as a major objective. In a way this was the downfall of all these schemes as they all had to be funded by the public purse and yet there was no obvious payback – the aim was not to stimulate new housing or job opportunities or avoid road building. It was to make the disadvantaged in society have a better life (Diamond Geezer touched on this nicely here and here). Sadly whilst it is certainly a laudable objective, we suspect it is also one for which there is no tickbox on the Treasury’s request-for-funds form.
Haykerloo
Probably the best known of recent proposals was one put forward by our own Jonathan Roberts acting in his professional capacity as a transport consultant. We referred to it at the time as Haykerloo and the article of that name, with plenty of pictures and a map or two, might give those unfamiliar with the Hayes branch a bit of an idea of the nature of the line in question.
Bakerlewisham
In the early years of the 21st century when Ken Livingstone was the mayor there was also renewed talk of extending the Bakerloo Line southwards. The ideas were rather vague and then – as now – maybe that suited the mayor.
Against this background Lewisham Council decided to seize their chance and engage a consultant to look at the relative merits of various plausible schemes that involved extending the Bakerloo Line whilst making sure that Lewisham was included in the options – and indeed preferenced over Camberwell which had historically been a strong alternate favourite, but had the massive disadvantage (from Lewisham council’s perspective) of being in Southwark. Whilst the outcome could not be known in advance, there must have been strong inkling that a direct route to Lewisham to minimise tunnelling and journey time would probably score well when measure by the DfT and TfL standard criteria.
One can take the attitude that Lewisham’s initiative was motivated by self-interest and was not in the best interest of London as a whole. Ultimately, however, the Borough was looking after its own interests and it was at least a commendable leap of faith to do something positive whilst all others were vacillating – one that may well pay off in a very long run.
Whilst it is possible to look on their consultation as a failure, it wouldn’t perhaps be wholly fair. For what then happened was that both TfL and Network Rail took an interest in the scheme. In the case of Network Rail they did not seem at all concerned as to whether or not as a whole the scheme was a good one. What excited them was that it would divest them of the Hayes branch which meant that six extra desperately needed peak slots per hour would become available. Indeed, Network Rail even suggested extending the DLR from Lewisham to Hayes as an alternative.
TfL’s interest in Haykerloo was probably more because it would at last get the Bakerloo Line extended. They probably took the attitude that a frequent tube service was better than Network Rail and the DfT providing for 6tph in the peak, 4tph off-peak and 2tph evening and Sundays.
Jonathan Roberts subsequently wrote an article for Modern Railways (MR) about extending the Bakerloo (at both ends) and gave a talk to the London Underground Railway Society (LURS) already mentioned.
The final slide in Jonathan Roberts LURS presentation a few years ago
In his MR report and his talk to the LURS Jonathan was no longer constrained by his terms of reference and his final slide is telling in that he suggests that maybe the best thing to do is not extend the Bakerloo Line to Hayes but take three SouthEastern routes to Lewisham and combine them in a tunnel to form a separate route to London – and presumably leave the Bakerloo line still terminating at Elephant & Castle. What you combine that with is a short extension of the Bakerloo to the Old Kent Road and provide good cross platform interchange, Mile End style, to provide the best of all worlds to everyone. As he points out, the beauty of that is that you could extend the Bakerloo first to a future-proofed four platform terminus and subsequently use two of the platforms for your new Crossrail line. It would also allow the Bakerloo to be subsequently extended to Lewisham via Peckham Rye, or anywhere else deemed appropriate, at a later date.
What’s Changed?
So the question that has to be asked, is what has changed between the original report to Lewisham Council and the current consultation?. The answer can be summarised in three words: timescales and frequencies.
For the first time this century we have a plausible timescale for the Bakerloo extension to Hayes. As already mentioned, the 2050 Transport Supporting Paper talks about a completion date of 2040 with a further upgrade around 2045. This alone make the whole thing more believable. It also throws most of the previous objections out of the window because we have to look at them afresh and consider not how London will be in the period 2020-2025 but instead 2040-2045 and transport-wise we expect that to be very different
According to the 2050 Transport Supporting paper the frequency in 2040 will be the Bakerloo Line Upgrade 1 (BLU1) which would give
a peak service frequency of 27tph as far as Catford Bridge, with 15tph to Hayes and 6tph to Beckenham Junction.
So this means that Hayes, under these proposals, gets a train every four minutes. This is double what was previously proposed and something that would be comparable with a 12-car Networker train every 10 minutes.
The real improvement in this scenario is the 27tph to Catford Bridge – a genuine game changer that would help revitalise Catford. Catford is marked out as an ‘opportunity area’ and a frequent fast tube service direct to the West End could absolutely transform the neighbourhood. It is also an area that would probably welcome blocks of high quality flats or other forms of dense housing development built to a high standard to replace much of the current housing stock.
So by 2040 or so the Hayes branch could be part of the Bakerloo Line with a just-about-adequate peak service at the outer end. But, as the salesman would say, that’s not all. From 2045 you get:
2nd phase upgrade to support demand growth generated by Bakerloo Southern Extension: full automation to reduce operating costs and optimise service operation; increase in peak service frequency from 27tph (post BLU1 service) to 33-36tph; overall increase in peak capacity of c22-33 per cent.
This would suggest a peak hour service from Hayes every three minutes if the increase was uniformly applied. So one can see the question for residents of Clock House and stations to the south thereof:
Would you prefer a peak service every ten minutes alternating between Charing Cross and Cannon Street or would you like a peak service every three minutes to Charing Cross and beyond to the West End? – and, by the way, with the three minute service your house will probably rise considerably in value.
One can almost feel the steadfast resolve of Colonel Blimp of Hayes to rally the troops to oppose the Underground line melting away with every prediction of rising house prices.
What could possibly be wrong with that? Arguments against are (almost) killed.
So, it looks like the objection to the Bakerloo extension on the grounds of inadequate frequency has been totally and utterly overcome. A train every 3 minutes in the peak period to the end of the line would probably give every commuter a seat in the morning if their commute on this line exceeded half an hour. At least it would be better than their situation today with main line metro stock.
The need to keep spare capacity on the line for commuters boarding at Waterloo is also no longer a powerful counter-argument to any extension, as it really makes no sense once Crossrail 2 is built. In fact Crossrail 2 would almost certainly reduce numbers with many changing at Clapham Junction.
Another supposed benefit of Crossrail 2 is to reduce pressure on the Northern Line. This may then give an alternative reasonable route to the City for Haykerloo commuters which would involve a change at Elephant & Castle. After all, not all city commuters want to end up at Cannon St (where current Hayes services go) and it could be that some would rather change at Elephant & Castle and get a Northern Line train direct to Bank or Moorgate.
And Yet?
The case for extending the Bakerloo Line to Hayes in around 2040 may appear overwhelming. There is though this nagging doubt that this is just the wrong approach. It simply does not intuitively appear to make long term sense to replace long, big trains with short, little ones and to modify the stations and signalling at great expense. It is also a solution that has absolutely no potential for future growth. Basically, by 2045, the line will already be “maxed out”.
One could argue that if the line can sustain a 20tph tube service at the extremities then surely it would equally deserve 10tph full size train service? That is a train every six minutes and, whilst not a train every three minutes, an extra 90 seconds wait on average if one turns up at the station at random is not that significant and allows for future expansion of the service.
Taking a similar approach, if Catford Bridge could justify 36tph tube trains it could probably equally justify 18tph full size trains. And that is probably the greater portion of a Crossrail Line. Terminate another 6tph at Lewisham and you have the southern end of a 24tph Crossrail service that will provide capacity for considerable relief and interchange opportunities at Lewisham. In fact, decent Crossrail capacity at ever rising Lewisham town centre would probably go a long way to provide that elusive significant relief for Lewisham railway station and its awkward curves and junctions. So surely there is an arguable case for limiting the southern Bakerloo extension to Lewisham and planning something bigger and better for the Hayes Line through Lewisham to central London and beyond? Maybe that is what lies behind the consultation option of not continuing beyond Lewisham.
Another way
This all neatly goes back to the final slide of Jonathan Roberts’ LURS presentation and the suggestion of another way.
Of course the issue is that extending the Bakerloo from Lewisham to Hayes is relatively cheap as it really uses existing assets and combines them to their maximum effect whereas starting almost afresh with a new Crossrail option is very expensive but very future-proofed. And if your were to have a Crossrail option one day then the Old Kent Road would appear to be an attractive alignment and you could even “double end” a station on the Old Kent Road itself. This, however, would not really make much sense if the Old Kent Road was already adequately served by a tube line. And given that it looks like the current (and probably any future Mayor) will be anxious to develop the area around the Old Kent Road it is hard to imagine that the Old Kent Road will end up with nothing.
Some people have suggested that Camberwell station could be re-opened as compensation for the Bakerloo going via Old Kent Road, although it is recognised that there are various difficulties with this idea. What seems to be lacking is any corresponding proposal of an alternative scheme for the Old Kent Road in the event that the Camberwell route is chosen.
Perennial Questions
Ultimately all of this comes back to the perennial London debate – do you build what is affordable and doable in the timescale available or do you hold back and hope the future will allow you to do something better? In this case, do you convert a main line in to a tube line whilst recognising that a future generation may have to reverse the process when it builds a further Crossrail tunnel late in the 21st century.
Whatever the options on the table this is ultimately the real crux of the issue. For the simple truth is that the forecast population growth for London up to 2050 has rather shaken the planners and politicians at City Hall and TfL. They now appear to realise that just doing one major project at a time is not sufficient and for that reason, and those detailed above, the result of this consultation is actually likely to move things forward in a way that the previous proposals didn’t.
Yet thanks to the timescales involved this consultation is not just a transport debate. It is a debate about how much – and how far – we plan for a distant future that very few of those with the time on their hands to respond to such a consultation are ever likely to see, being too infirm or… well… too dead by the time such an extension would be completed.
How that should be answered, and indeed how relevant (or not) it ultimately renders this consultation remains to be seen.
If nothing else, however, at least this consultation confirms that Benjamin Franklin was wrong. Going forward there are three, not two, things in this world of which one can be certain – death, taxes and proposals for Bakerloo Line trains to Lewisham.
Bromley council’s response here
@ Southern Heights – well no surprise there from Bromley Council. It will be interesting to see what TfL do next in terms of responding to those concerns.
At Mayor’s Questions this week Boris apparently said that he felt that the Treasury would present the Mayor / TfL with a choice of funding the Bakerloo extension *or* South Eastern franchise devolution but not both. There’s a nice poisoned chalice for everyone in SE London who wants to see public transport improvements.
@WW: As a Southeastern commuter who would see little benefit from the extension, I would go for the latter. But that’s just selfish….
@ Southern Heights – and don’t the Treasury know that forcing such an invidious decision is guaranteed to upset large numbers of people but hey it will be presented as the Mayor and TfL’s decision / problem and HMT’ll adopt invisibility mode.
Re Southern heights & WW
Interesting to SE Bromley waking up and campaigning against any service improvements for deeper Kent.
It looks like the “plan” for capacity etc. improvements on SE is via Crossrail and Haykerloo (i.e not via SE) and not much more on SE then (i.e. similar to previous capacity added via HS1 rather than directly via SE services).
If Bromley don’t want the Bakerloo the extension, it could easily be arranged to finish at Lower Sydenham. 😉
With Haykerloo most of the direct capacity benefit win is in LB Southwark and Lewisham and the indirectly released capacity for more SE services in LB Lewisham, Greenwich, Bexley.
As the DLR is effectively full extending it is a non starter what ever Boris may have said in his 2012 manifesto ( I also suspect their DLR costing to be dubious).
But interesting to see LB Bromley finally pro tram (as long as it doesn’t go near Bromley itself!)
One remarkably enlightened piece was the question as to where the depot would be situated. Queens Park is too far, London Road is too hemmed in (and could potentially be closed if the depot is out in the ‘burbs…
There’s quite a bit of land ripe for redevelopment along the sides of the Hayes branch (but before it gets to Bromley, of course). 😉 My vote remains unchanged: Bakerloo to Bromley North via Grove Park….
Yes, the DLR is already full so it really is a non-starter, but I suspect most Bromley councillors don’t travel in the peak to Canary Wharf.
I’d benefit from the Bakerloo extension but given the choice I’d opt for SE devolution. With Tfl taking over many of the capital’s rail services, SWT, C2C and TSGN taking most of the rest, and HS1 services being the prestige route, the SE metro starts to look more and more like an unloved island, with no interest or incentive to increasing quality, the interests of longer distance Kent travellers being of apparently higher worth.
Re southern Heights
Or is the LB Bromley DLR solution that Bromley residents get on the DLR first so there is no room for LB Lewisham /Greenwich residents or interchanges etc.? i.e move the capacity issue elsewhere?
Re Southern heights,
PS
But Bromley North via Grove Park doesn’t necessarily solve the capacity issues between Charing Cross /Waterloo East and St Johns (or even Courthill Jn) as effectively as what they have proposed. What they have proposed could be very effective for maximising released extra capacity for other SE routes.
Southern Heights
But – did I see in that Bromley report that they would prefer DLR & Tramlink – the latter of which they have been setting their face against for years?
Recently, I saw a partly-completed study, still in preparation ( So I’m obviously not going to say who / where / when etc ) which was looking at catchment areas around existing stations. The gaping hole around where Bricklayers’ Arms used to be really stood out.
So, Bakerloo via Old Kent Rd has got to be the best option, but where itgoes, once it’s past Lewisham is a n other matter entirely.
@Greg Tingey: Read it carefully! Yes to Chrystal Palace for the Tramlink. Not a word about Beckenham Bromley… One can assume their position on that hasn’t changed…
@ngh: I don’t think we want to re-open that discussion again, I’m sure it’s been covered before on this thread (and the “Two of our carriages are missing” thread)….
I hope tfl ignore Bromley Council and just go ahead with the extension, they are clearly very confused.
The problem I have with the Old Kent Road route is that there is no interchange with the Inner South London line, which just adds another missed opportunity for an interchange to the overground.
With regards to the reference about the Hayes line being swept aside for an increase in capacity for deeper Kent, this already sort of happens. If there are delays or other problems, the Hayes line is always one of the first to be cancelled. By segregating the line from the mainline services it means it will have a more reliable service and will be treated more seriously than it currently is.
It appears that LB Bromley are opposed to the conversion of the line all the way to Hayes, but are open to the Bakerloo operating on part of the Hayes line to New Beckenham then onto Bromley Town Centre? Presumably “mainline” services still to run to/from Hayes as before?
Is joint running on a decent chunk of the Hayes line feasible?
IJM, I wondered about this myself! And sadly I wonder, is this just ill-informed politicians interfering again?
Re IJM and GTR Driver,
If the Hayes mainline services aren’t removed then it doesn’t provide the release of paths for services on other lines (or a decent “tube” frequency) so the overall benefit is reduced and the BCR rapidly shrinks… and it never goes anywhere near Bromley (or possibly just never goes anywhere at all.)
In the words of a Lewisham Counsellor in the article quoted above on Bromley:
the council’s hostility to the idea “bonkers”.
Alternatively divert the Hayes mainline services via a new short tunnel to Herne Hill and Victoria.
Bromley want the best of everything for themselves but are in danger of getting far less than they could unless they become more realistic (see Southwark and the Camberwell Station reopening study above for pragmatism).
Ngh, agreed, my bewilderment at Bromley’s attitude is how they reconcile keeping heavy rail to Hayes plus a tube extension to Bromley that has to share the same track, hence, ill informed politicians.
Is removing the Hayes trains the key to a tube like frequency though? Surely the max we could hope for on any metro routes anyway is 4-6tph, unless we can find somewhere else to turn them round? Or find somewhere else to put the longer distance trains. Which, if it’s all day every day, is fine I would have thought.
Bromley’s suggestion of sharing track between Bakerloo and Hayes NR trains is probably a non-starter. The places where tube- and full-size passenger-carrying stocks share tracks are few and far between, and have “grandfather rights” going back eighty or even a hundred years (the Bakerloo was extended over LNWR tracks in 1915)
@GTR driver – you are not alone: to paraphrase your lament about SE metro:
“With Tfl and TSGN taking over many of the capital’s rail services, the SW metro starts to look more and more like an unloved island, with no interest or incentive to increasing quality, the interests of longer-distance Surrey and Hampshire travellers being of apparently higher worth.”
Although I’m not convinced its metro services are a particularly high priority for TSGN either.
Re timbeau,
TfL could grab a fair amount of SW metro with CR2 so may end up with all the SWML branches if there are shared Waterloo/CR2 services on a branch.
SWT probably wouldn’t like the loss of flexibility that controlling both metro and longer distance brings (or competition!)
TSGN Metro services are very easy to segregate and wouldn’t require too much to get to the equivalent overground standard (longer station staffing hours etc). Southern and LO seem to cooperate very well. Possibly a route swap so Wimbledon loop TL end up in the bays at Blackfriars rather than through the core? Moorgate service groups very easy to segregate!
SE metro just looks like it need too much investment so it is easier for TFL to bite chunks of it off with new infrastructure (CR especially if it goes east beyond Abbey Wood & a Haykerloo extension). TfL might also wnat ot take over SE metro in chunks if too big to digest at once so Victoria (/ Blackfriars) via Herne Hill SE Metro services segregated from via London Bridge ones and devolved to TfL in phases???
If TfL can reduce effective subsidy in the medium to long term on LO routes then HMT might be more interested, but it is still to early given the level of “initial” investment still going on…
I think those who say Bromley Councillors are deluded (or similar) rather miss the point. They know the views of much of their constituents and I would expect that having a train at the same time every weekday going to a convenient terminal is all they expect. The thought of nasty tube trains rattling past every few minutes is not for them. The focus on DLR and Tramlink are all about access to jobs or redevelopments. It’s not about off peak travel or people going up to London to shop or other leisure purposes. Why would Bromley Councillors act openly against the interests of their constituents or do something that would encourage people out of the Borough (other than for high paid employment)? Strikes me as exactly the attitude you see in the Outer Boroughs who have to protect their local centres from competition from Inner and Central London plus whatever delights lie across the Gtr London boundary.
There was a tweet earlier from Bob Neill (the local MP) saying how awful South Eastern were but how marvellous it was that he could talk to the rail minister directly about the problems. That pretty much sums it up for me – no desire to have the Mayor or TfL involved. He wants to be able to go to the top person in Government and then be able to say he’s done it. All about perception. The fact nothing will happen from talking to Claire Perry is neither here nor there – I’m still waiting for a response to my tweet about ticketing on the Direct Award to South Eastern. I imagine I’ll be dead in a box before she deigns to meet her own public promise to respond to people’s questions about the award and new franchise terms.
Southern Heights 17:00: According to the penultimate paragraph of the newshopper article, it does say “if it were possible to extend the Bakerloo line down as far as New Beckenham, to then spur off towards Bromley South, this could be something we could get behind and support, providing the existing direct links were maintained in some form of a track sharing arrangement.”
Southern Hieghts 14.01
Please can you be more specific as to the whereabouts of the land referred to you in your statement ” There’s quite a bit of land ripe for redevelopment along the sides of the Hayes branch (but before it gets to Bromley, of course). ”
If the transfer of the Hayes line to a bakerloo line depends upon potential building development along side the line and the provision for sidings to house the bakerloo trains, how could both of these objectives be achieved?
RE WW,
I appreciate Bromley are trying to do the best for their residents interests but they also have to “play” with the 5 other London councils whose residents could benefit (Southwark, Lewisham directly who are the biggest winners; Greenwich, Bexley, Croydon indirectly). Their “form” can be seen see with Crystal Palace Park redevelopment saga (also involving 3 of the above councils!)
[The Bromley Croydon Boundary is very close to the Hayes line from Elmers End and further out]
Re stationless
but what would that mean for the existing SE Orpington – Victoria Services unless extra tracks are added?
Higher cost if new tracks added east of Beckenham Junction but lower benefit overall as the Hayes line paths aren’t released inwards of Lewisham to add capacity.
I suspect the release paths benefit is maximised by rejigging SE service patterns (not just metro!) on other routes to further remove conflicting moves in the Lewisham /St Johns area (
Ladywell[ already removed by complete transfer to Haykerloo], Courthill, Tannerhill, Lewisham, Hither Green Junctions). For example the Blackheath line would just get Cannon Street and Victoria services, Charing Cross Waterloo (East) being reached by interchange at London Bridge or Haykerloo. Reduced use of the Tannershill Flydown could mean more Victoria- Lewisham services etc. (add Lambeth residents then benefiting…)It is unfair to cast Bromley Council as bonkers. The Haykerloo is not the right scheme for outer London. Far better to increase the frequency of existing services on the Hayes line.
They are also right to push for a DLR extension and for the Crystal Palace Tramlink extension. They are two schemes the Borough needs.
May we come back to the point that prompted any consideration of extending the Bakerloo in the first place: namely,that there was some spare capacity in the with-peak direction? The case for extending the Bakerloo runs out at the point at which any extension is full. That point is likely to be somewhere in the Lewisham/Catford area.Going any further will probably overfill the line at its pinchpoint. Maybe, maybe XR2 will relieve it there, but the position is far from clear. Until it is clear that the bakerloo can cope with the extra traffic, talk of going to Hayes is a joke. (I think that makes LBB right for the wrong reasons, as usual).
@Graham H,
How pleased I was to read that. Over the past few months I have have heard numerous TfL officials unquestionally enthuse over the scheme and have started to wonder if there is a collective failure for anyone to really point out such basic flaws, such as the one you mention, that need to be addressed – and if they can’t be addressed then they should have the guts to abandon the thing or trim it back to a point where it is viable.
It all reminds me of the West Coast fiasco where Micheal Holden points out that it probably would have only taken one person in authority to raise their head above the parapet (and seriously query whether what was being planned was viable) for the future disaster to be prevented. I wish I could hear just one senior TfL person speak more hesitatingly about the Bakerloo scheme and recognise potential problems rather than speak with gushing enthusiasm.
But that’s where TfL and the Mayor have fouled up the politics of the proposal for a Bakerloo extension. How that spare capacity would be used is missing from the proposal. Indeed, if there’s no budget it might not get used at all. Instead the Bakerloo extension has been promoted as a project in its own right and, at that level, any extension beyond New Cross or Lewisham doesn’t look attractive and, as you say, probably doesn’t have sufficient capacity.
It may be academic anyway. I am sceptical that national politics over the term of the next Parliament are going to be supportive of any transport projects for London.
@PoP
Do you think the Bakerloo extension is a serious proposal? Isn’t it possible that it’s a negotiation strategy with TFL and the Mayor knowing that the Treasury is going to knock back at least one scheme? So admitting the flaws in the Bakerloo extension and abandoning it could put CR2 at risk instead.
@Theban – I agree absolutely with your last paragraph. 7th May’s visit to Borgenland is going to mean London is sidelined (ie taken for granted as a source of seats) in the deals with regional and special interest parties, however good the investment case might be. Watch out for a second Humber crossing?
Introducing another junction and more services to the Chatham line would only give us another bottleneck on an already full line. Is there even space for more stoppers? Also, Bromley’s contention is that its residents are being denied the chance to reach London termini. In fact the Bakerloo delivers them to Waterloo and Charing Cross so what they seem to mean is preventing the City workers access to London Bridge and Cannon Street. Peak only though these flows are – off peak the Cannon Street trains usually empty at London Bridge with passengers changing for Charing Cross – they are sizeable and cannot just be ignored. To some extent we are back to the “spoiled” Southern Region notion of having a choice of terminals but can the traffic be accomodated on Cannon Street trains by changing at Lewisham? Also are Bromley overestimating the number of passengers who want Cannon Street and only take those trains to change at Lewisham to head for the DLR, the majority of the Charing Cross trains running fast from Ladywell. Which the Bakerloo would allow far more easily. Anyway the point is that Victoria is not a suitable alternative for Cannon Street.
Timbeau, I didn’t know that the residents of SW London felt like that. At least TfL want to integrate them into CR2 and are seriously pursuing it. I really thought given the limited capacity of Charing Cross the next CR scheme would have been looking at taking SE trains through the centre of London to free up room for long distance trains at the terminal – maybe through to a Chiltern suburban route to bring electrification to that last diesel island? Slightly off topic but the power issue isn’t much discussed – presume plan is for dual voltage trains on CR2?
WW I think Bromley are slightly deluded. We have a problem here in that the inner parts of the borough are essentially the fringe of the inner city (in tone, population, distance etc) and the outer parts really belong in Tunbridge Wells! It generally feels that the council wants the prestige of being part of a world city but doesn’t like some of the trappings associated with it. Given the choice there are plenty of residents who would love a tube into the heart of town every few minutes like their counterparts in Wanstead, Finchley or Harrow, but Bromley don’t mention this. There might be people who only want one train to a specific destination in the morning and evening but I suspect they are being over represented. There are parts of Bromley that would have been better off being taken in by Lewisham, Southwark or god help us, Croydon.
I just don’t see any purpose in an extension along the Chatham line to Bromley town itself though – it’s too long a distance to be viable in terms of drawing Bromley towards the centre of things. I agree a DLR/Overground extension via the Bromley North branch would be preferable – especially if it reached Bromley South for interchange too. Could be a really excellent transport interchange potential there. This does require just the odd challenge to be overcome though!
As for increasing frequencies on the Hayes branch, I believe we are at the limit now. There’s no scope to get more trains through Lewisham or on to the main lines beyond Ladywell Junction. Extra paths between Ladywell/Hayes are available but what point would they serve? If we could turn back at Lewisham or run through to Victoria they would be useful but there’s no chance of that. And look at the Purley-Tattenham shuttles – barely used – a classic example of what happens when you cut back a through service – and that does connect with somewhere useful – but clearly not useful enough!
Overall this is why I would favour a Tfl takeover/simplification if it comes to a choice. The Vic-Orpington services were a revelation when they went 4tph – pretty much turn up and go. If it was 2tph Blackfriars/2tph Victoria it would be much less useful. If (for example) all Hayes trains were all stops to Cannon Street all day; and all Dartford via Hither Green trains were all stops to Charing Cross all day; then one could safely turn up on either route and know there is no more than 15m to wait at Lewisham to change for the other terminal. Which is a considerable improvement on wanting Lewisham for DLR and just missing the half hourly stopper at Clock House; or coming back from Shoreditch and missing the half hourly train to Hayes that stops at New Cross. Simplicity and frequency has to be London Overground’s greatest strength – no trying to work out if it gets diverted to South Croydon after the peak and on Sundays or does it go half hourly after the 19.55 etc etc.
Re Theban,
“They are also right to push for a DLR extension and for the Crystal Palace Tramlink extension. They are two schemes the Borough needs.”
but if the DLR is already full??? Want -vs- need
They need to align holistically with the rest of London.
I don’t think there would be many Crystal Palace Tramlink objectors.
@Theban,
Sadly I do think the Bakerloo extension all the way to Hayes is serious. It has long been on lurking around in some form or another – a previous incarnation was the Fleet Line. My concern is that there was enthusiasm for the Fleet Line which has got transferred to the Bakerloo as an alternative – ignoring that the Bakerloo doesn’t service both the City and Charing Cross which is what the Fleet Line idea would have done. Also ignored is the fact that inner suburbs like Lewisham and Catford are growing rapidly and, as Graham says, will be enough to fill up the much vaunted spare capacity.
And, as Graham H might well have said, you can have all the extensions you like but you can only use up spare capacity once.
I do wonder if the Bakerloo/CR2 saga will work the other way. A future government says it can’t help fund both but will fund one – whereas if CR2 was the only game in town they might try and prune that.
Personally, I am still of the opinion that by the time they get around to this there will be a case for Crossrail x with one of two main branches being to Hayes with a spur off to Beckenham Junction. This is the only way you solve both capacity issues and the desire to free off six train paths per hour in the morning peak (and slightly less than 5.5 in the evening peak)
@PoP – Yes, I wish I had said that (and yes, I know the Oscar Wilde exchange…). The more I hear about the Bakerloo and the problems of SE London, and the more I see the looming missed opportunity that is CR2, the more I suspect that CR”3″ – ie something NW/SE * – ought to be a higher priority than either.
* No crayons were used in this remark.
Re Graham H
Don’t worry – “CR3” already moved from crayon to sharp pencil GRIP status on LR a few years ago. A more sensible option for Zone 3+ than Haykerloo but a lot more expensive.
If TfL/NR are in the habit of proposing cheaper than CR tube add on schemes type schemes a maroon crayon from the SE lines to the Minories? The tunnel would be shorter than any Bakerloo option to Lewisham and gives a City option that covers the East and North of the City that is that easily accessible from south of the river.
Agree with these recent exchanges this morning. Hence the references in London 2050 Parts 3 and 4 to the NR demand forecasts for 2043, which point to a wider solution being required for SE London not ‘just’ a tube extension beyond Lewisham (though I would regard a Catford option as also worthwhile), and the possibility of a CR3/Bakerloo cross-platform interchange somewhere to achieve easy access for both West End and City.
However I regret that arguing politically for a CR3 may be premature (however much it’s needed) until CR2 has progressed through a few more hoops, and for the ‘not-London this time around’ reasons adduced by others.
GTR driver
Yes, well, that was a repeated “crossrail” scheme of the 1940’s … approximately Finchley Rd – Lewisham, with variations …
I assume that is CR3 now (?) . as PoP hints, actually.
err ngh – 1946-8 like I said!
It seems an expensive way to free up spare capacity for 6tph which would probably need further investment to utilise.
@ GTR Driver – if there are Bromley residents who want a frequent tube service then they need to start bending the ears of their elected representatives. Looking in from the outside I see nothing to suggest a change of view on transport matters from Bromley Council. As someone else said about Bromley “playing nicely” with the neighbouring councils I think their “Tunbridge Wells” tendency means that they spend more time being enraged about their neighbours than wanting to work with them (and vice versa given the comment from a Lewisham councillor!). I said long ago that any Bakerloo Line extension should stop at Catford. It just makes far more sense in terms of creating an excellent interchange node in that location and actually creating a tube service that is likely to work in transport terms and politically. I know it doesn’t fix the issues on the suburban rail network and therefore some of the business case is lost. However you’d probably get a greater share of the reduced cost of construction covered by external funding for a Catford Bakerloo Line rather than a Hayes one.
If we are now saying Crossrail 3 is needed then someone needs to start getting clever about developing an investment and upgrade path that improves the railway in SE London but which also allows for a further phase to a CR3. That would avoid waste and demonstrate some clear intent to have a steady, progressive and ultimately transformative improvement to services. It wouldn’t be easy but it might well build up patronage greatly off peak to raise the overall revenue take and improve the case for later phases of investment.
One of the problems we have politically in Bromley is that out of 60 councillors, 51 are Conservative, 2 are UKIP and 7 are Labour. It is very hard to mount any sort of opposition to a ‘council view’. It’s my belief that we only got such a good recycling scheme because it happened during a period of no overall control about 15 years ago!
To complicate matters, the parliamentary representation for several wards is Lewisham West (a Labour stronghold, except during the 80s council house sales euphoria) and needless to say this is where all the Labour councillors are too!
It’s also my personal view that once you get to the outer parts of the borough there is actually very little in the way of rail, it being largely rural, so it just isn’t something that occupies the minds of residents or councillors that much, 4 x4 s probably being more prevalent!
So proper opposition here is effectively from the NW of the borough (ie the bit that a Bakerloo extension would be of most benefit to) which is in the minority on Bromley Council and dependent on a Lewisham MP for Westminister lobbying. An MP whose ear I bent over the poor deal for his subjects living on the Catford loop when the Thameslink service pattern was announced, to which I am still awaiting a reply! I would cheerfully see about half the borough rejoin Kent and leave the rest of us to join in with the proper Londoners.
GTR driver
Ah a replay of the fiasco around Epsom & Ewell, who are now (Still) regretting their predecessor’s last-ditch & “successful” battle to stay out of the GLC / GLA.
Really, really un-clever as it turned out.
I’m not sure the analysis of Bromley Council’s performance is entirely accurate. Bromley town centre remains vibrant – actually a superior shopping centre to Croydon in many ways – with stores like M&S, Primark, TK Maxx as well as a cinema and bars. When so many town centres have been decimated, it suggests that Bromley Council have got something right in terms of transport planning.
An Underground extension to Hayes is a potential threat to Bromley town centre if it encouraged people to travel to Oxford St to shop rather than to Bromley. Simplistically, good transport links to the City and Docklands make the Borough an attractive place to live but good transport links to the West End reduce the money spent by residents in shops within the Borough.
Wether one agrees with Bromley Council or not is a personal decision but there position doesn’t to me seem to be irrational.
Bromley town centre is certainly much improved these days but I would be surprised if better transport links from Hayes would really affect it. i suspect those travelling to the West End and those travelling to Bromley choose different places for different reasons. If you want to see ‘Wicked’ it’ll be train to town but if you want Argos you aren’t suddenly likely to go to the Tottenham Court Road branch because there’s a tube to Oxford Circus every ten minutes. However there will always be plenty of people wanting the West End anyway, or Lewisham Hospital, or Greenwich, or Shoreditch, for whom a frequent service will be enormously welcome.
@Theban
It seems an expensive way to free up spare capacity for 6tph which would probably need further investment to utilise
Yes, well…
I think actually if you did free up 6tph you would need next to no investment as you would have the trains and simply have to divert them to one of the Dartford lines or Orpington and the investment required would be minimal in the grand scheme of things.
On the more major part about being an awfully expensive way to free up six train paths per hour I wholeheartedly agree. And this is only in the morning peak as on Southeastern the evening peak is slightly less intense. I think this comes back to the “it seemed a good idea once upon at time” notion. From the 1960s and the Fleet Line proposals until the first decade of this century freeing off 6tph probably nicely catered for any additional foreseeable requirements in the South East. Nowadays you could probably do with a lot more. 2 tph extra on three routes to Dartford and one to Oprington already puts you requiring 8tph and we haven’t even considered the long distance stuff. So whereas once upon a time it solved a problem, now it just makes a small dent into a problem. At the same time the estimated cost has rocketed. Roger Ford would probably talk about boiling frogs at this point but yes, no-one in authority has said “Is that all? Is it really worth it?”
Justine Greening may not have been the greatest transport minister of all time but she did have the little trick of saying to advisors etc. “And then what?” How long will it be before someone says “So you get an extra 6tph. And then what?”
Whilst the Fleet Line plans included Addiscombe/Hayes for a year or two, both before and after they aspired to taking one of the routes towards Dartford. Why did they choose that preference, and why not today?
@Taz
The simple answer is that neither the Addiscombe/Hayes nor Dartford routes were determined to be sufficiently good choices for the Fleet tube to take over. This is also seen nowadays with the uncertainty of where the Bakerloo extension should go. I will be exploring the Fleet Line planning (and replanning) decisions in more detail in an upcoming series of articles. Stay tuned to this station!
@PoP
A very good explanation, thank you.
LBM
If you have a copy of “Rails through the Clay” you will find some diagrams of proposals there – not indexed properly, more’s the pity.
I also have copies of some of the 1946-48 London Working plan proposals – but cannot (for now) deduce where I originally got them from …
LBM
Found the other diagrams – they are in the LT publication: “the Jubilee Line” by Mike Horne, pub: Capital Transport, 2000
One from me too LBM – worth looking at if you haven’t already. It’s “Starting from Scratch – the development of transport in London Docklands” (1997) on the London Docklands Development Corporation’s History Pages. Some useful diagrams too.
http://www.lddc-history.org.uk/transport/tranmon3.html
THC
@Greg T, THC
Thanks! I’ve got these links and references covered, and have been digging deeper… it’ll be a few months yet before the pieces are ready. You can email me any other suggestions directly at lbm at london reconnections dot com.
http://www.lddc-history.org.uk/transport/3tran1.jpg
If they’d only stuck to Plan A, the Hayes line could have had direct Tubes to both Cannon Street and Charing Cross!
Why build expensive underground stations at Walworth Road / Camberwell when cheap surface ones could be reopened on an existing 4 line track ?
The same goes for Chelsea.
The Bakerloo extension tunnel must be full-sized even if it initially only has tube trains. It will be wanted in future (Dr. Beeching would not understand ).
Also, make Elephant & Castle a proper interchange so the Wimbledon loop people can get onto the Northern line and stop their baby Thameslinks clogging up the core.
@anonyminibus
The Northern Line is full by Elephant – I doubt many loop passengers would be encouraged to change there even if the connection were cross-platform.
A Camberwell Thameslink station would be more useful if the trains did go through the core.
@anonyminibus:
Because the original, closed, stations were nowhere near long enough to cope with a modern 10-12 coach train, and were built to standards that have long since become obsolete. You can’t just reopen such stations in their original form. Health and safety regulations won’t allow it. At the very least, the station would need to be made accessible, and it also needs to be able to cope with large numbers of passengers.
Finally, stopping a train at a new station adds to the journey times of every other passenger using that train who doesn’t need or use that new station. There’s a good reason why these stations were closed in the first place: they faced competition from trams.
What London needs is more trams….
[Snip. After the massive digression at the weekend I am anxious to ensure that we don’t go off on a totally different topic. First response to this also deleted. PoP]
@Anomnibus
“There’s a good reason why these stations were closed in the first place: they faced competition from trams.”
It may have escaped your attention, but there haven’t been trams in Camberwell for over sixty years.
Reawakening the stations from a hundred years of slumber will indeed need more than a kiss from a handsome prince, but so would the alternative of building a completely new Bakerloo Line station. I doubt that the four track route through Camberwell will be the pinch point in capacity constraints. (not whilst six-into-two-won’t-go immediately south of Blackfriars station). A Blackfriars- Camberwell – Herne Hill shuttle might fit (there is space for a bay on the down side of HH to avoid conflicts), with longer distance services from the Catford and Wimbledon loops using the eastern pair of tracks and omitting the intermediate station(s) if dwell time at Camberwell is likely to be a problem for such services. As for capacity on Wimbledon services, my observation of the route suggests the main need for it is between Blackfriars and HH.
@timbeau:
“It may have escaped your attention, but there haven’t been trams in Camberwell for over sixty years.”
You did read my entire post, right? I made it pretty clear that I’m well aware of that lack.
The correct solution to a missing transport layer isn’t to try and force a different, unsuitable, transport layer into doing the job in addition to the one it was intended for.
The problem is the lack of trams. The solution is to build trams, not to add more stations to a line that serves destinations as far away as Luton and Bedford!
So why not remove the Wimbledon branch from Thameslink, Overgroundise it, and add a new station in Camberwell. We could then have a nice shuttle between Blackfriars and Wimbledon/Sutton. Hopefully with a service frequency better than 2tph.
This would mean the Thameslink core had more room for full length trains.
It ain’t gonna happen, but it is still more likely than new trams in south London!
@ChrisMitch – With or without ‘Overgroundisation’, remember that the present service to/from the Wimbledon Loop itself north of Streatham is already 4tph. Moreover, the peak period trains with 8-car services are already crammed on that route through Streatham, Tulse Hill & Herne Hill, or are you suggesting we have 8-car Overground trains, in which case what is the difference and why change?
In any case, out of the proposed 24tph through the core, that only means releasing 4tph – and for what? London Bridge will surely be at capacity with its 18tph via Blackfriars, so the only route that could benefit is the one via Denmark Hill without adding even further complication to the through core routes.
If it had not been for the fixed-formation of Class 700 8-car trains, an idea would be to split them (and join again) at Streatham into 4-car services around the Wimbledon loop itself, thus to provide the 4tph instead of 2tph – if only the running times, staffing and track occupation would permit that as well.
I have mentioned the Camberwell aspect before but worth repeating that the site of Camberwell station as of old is a way up a quiet, almost dead-end side road remote in human terms from the natural centre of Camberwell at Camberwell Green. Off the beaten track it certainly is (save for empty bus journeys to and from the bus garage facing the station site and the occasional postie from the sorting office next door) and I simply cannot see patronage being attracted/diverted there, no matter how ‘close’ some may consider it to be to Camberwell Green. If all the previous official plans to extend the Bakerloo to Camberwell actually indicated “Camberwell Green”, there must surely be a reason why that was so and not even to consider using the site of the redundant main line station closed nearly 100 years ago. One would need some jolly big, attractive signs on the overbridge across Camberwell New Road even to bring attention to the fact that the old Camberwell station is up the side road and open again for business!
As for “but it is still more likely than new trams in south London” – I would not be so confident.
BTW @timbeau – “there is space for a bay on the down side of HH to avoid conflicts” – I assume that you are thinking of the siding adjacent the down loop platform track. If so, any bay platform and sub-structure to serve it would have to built over Milkwood Road below. Not so sure that would be easy to achieve. If you meant the existing loop platform, then one needs to bear in mind that it also takes traffic from the Victoria direction – not much but it does.
@Graham F
There is room for a bay at Herne Hill, provided it is staggered from the other platforms. Or possibly a Clapham Junction-style solution if the crossover from the down Victoria to platform 4 can be sacrificed.
The unsuitability of the old Camberwell station site’s location, together with the need for almost complete rebuilding, suggests that it would be better to start from scratch on a new site, possibly where the line crosses the Camberwell New Road, or maybe nearer Albany Road, nearer the centre of the “desert” . This should be as well as, not instead of, a new station on the Bakerloo extension. But given that both Camberwell and the Old Kent Road need better transport links, it is surely undesirable to send the Bakerloo on a circuitous route via Camberwell, where there is already a railway line. As the Bakerloo extension hasn’t been built yet, you can use it to serve either OKR or Camberwell. But you can’t put an Old Kent Road station on the Thameslink route!
Re Timbeau /Graham F
Herne Hill – There is room for a 90m (i.e. 4 but not 5 car) platform next to the turnback siding, connecting it to the other platforms wouldn’t be cheap or easy (or just connect it to the street and don’t bother gating it traditional SE style!)
The north end of the former Camberwell station site was 150m from Camberwell Green the last time I went past and on a fair few bus routes, the south end is a little quieter (but still only 600m east of Brixton Road (A23) and there is lots of high density housing) – which other sites are suitable and in railway ownership?
Prospective passengers for a rebuilt Camberwell station would also be faced with waiting at a very busy road junction for permission to cross, before trudging about 200-ish metres to the station’s entrance. Once there, they’d be faced with stairs (or a single lift) up to a windswept platform where they’d have to wait anywhere up to 15 minutes for the train. For someone with small children and / or heavy shopping, this is not an attractive option.
A Tube station in the area would be built at Camberwell Green itself, with escalators and lifts and a much more frequent service to boot. And the platforms wouldn’t be exposed to the elements either. Such a station competes far more effectively against the buses, which are currently the primary form of public transport in this area.
Finally, the Bakerloo offers far more, and better, connections and interchanges than the Thameslink route. You can get to the City, Westminster, Canary Wharf, and even Stratford from this line, with just one change at Waterloo. Staying on the train gets you to the West End and Paddington. As there’s no capacity through the Thameslink core for any through services from a rebuilt Camberwell station, all reopening this station gets you is the connections at Elephant & Castle and Blackfriars.
Being an inner South Londonite, I’m struggling to see the benefit of extending the Bakerloo line out to Hayes or even Beckenham.
I would like the extension to take traffic off the roads in inner south London and perhaps be used to reduce the amount of bus lanes on unsuitable narrow roads.
[Freethinker, we don’t indulge in free form crayoning of fantasy lines on this website. Suggestions need to take into account the costing involved as well as be aware of the operational, infrastructure, and financing realities. Please have a read of the extensive discussion of this article to get an idea for the level of detail we encourage. LBM]
… err … free-of-thinking-about benefit/cost analysis too, I think?
@Freethinker
Yes, a proper interchange between the Hayes and Chatham lines would be very useful, but if the bakerloo line does open to Hayes there will be the Beckenham Junction spur, which will not be as useful but definitely a lot cheaper than moving Kent House and Clock House stations.
I think sorting out Lewisham station should be a priority before any extension goes ahead however, as this would allow more trains to call there making it a proper interchange and removing the 30 minute gaps between several individual services.
@Freethinker
“I’m struggling to see the benefit of extending the Bakerloo line out to Hayes ”
The line between Lewisham and New Cross, and to a lesser extent on to London Bridge, is overcrowded. There is a recognised need for more capacity on that route. Diverting one service away from those tracks over what is effectively an extra pair of tracks will make more room to expand the other services.
But why the Hayes line? Because unlike any other route through Lewisham it is entirely self contained beyond that point. Any other route would need major work at the far end (probably Dartford or Orpington) to segregate the tubes from the NR lines.
Ah, I see now -our posts crossed.
@Freethinker – the reduction in road traffic will have been something that the economic case for the Bakerloo will have taken into account, but there is unlikely to be any economic tradeoff between tube extensions and bus lanes – the bus lanes will have their own justification. As a general point, however, the case for building new lines tends to rest mainly on shorter journey times and accessibility; experience in London and Paris (and very likely elsewhere) suggests that the benefits in road traffic reduction are short lived – RATP believed in the’90s that the RER network had bought about six months’ worth of reduction .
@Graham H
The problem is most people (who don’t want to sit in traffic jams from hell or pay the congestion charge) would take public transport if going to central London. The real problem is that for short and orbital journies it is much more convenient to drive because of the perception that driving is the cheapest option (you only need to read the comments on tfl’s Facebook posts to see how annoyed people are about the recent fare increases), so many people would not even consider taking the train to go 2 or 3 stops up the line.
@kingstoncommuter – I very much agree – and matters are not helped by a general lackof knowledge amongst prospective public transport users about the alternative options available – I never cease to be surprised, for example, at people’s general lack of knowledge aboutlocal bus routes, even when they have been running for many decades.
@ Graham H I concur with your remark about ignorance of bus routes and confess I was one of that number. Having observed and talked with others I think many people always found the bus system slightly intimidating as unlike the rail and Tube services it was often not clear when you had reached your destination(I speak of initial trips obviously). The old geographic bus maps were also not easy to use. What changed for me was three things – the first was the naming of bus stops along with an indication of the routes served (e.g. “towards Sutton”) plus the route timetables incorporating a graphic showing the route as if it were a railway line with stations, the second was the advent of the “spider diagrams” which again like graphical railway maps were much easier to understand and the third was the intelligent bus programme whereby the next bus stop is displayed in the bus along with an announcement.
These three features made me reevaluate bus travel in London whereas before I had only used them reluctantly and then only those services which were familiar to me. The point here is that in the past most bus stops and the interior of the buses themselves had a paucity of information concerning the routes. It was only by TfL treating by them for information purposes as if they were rail or tram routes that I became confortable using them even in areas of London which were unfamiliar to me. However even now I come across people who won’t engage withe service as “it is too difficult” . In all fairness TfL have done an excellent job here and it must have contributed to the overall growth in patronage. I always prefer train travel for comfort but I am now very ready to use a bus where train is not practicable.
All we need now is for the mayor to insist that all bus stops be equipped with a shelter and more importantly that all bus stops should include a count down display as again like train travel these encourage confidence in the overall system. I realise this last would cost but I think it would highly desirable and could be managed by a rolling programme over several years to cover all the 19000 bus stops.
I fear, rightly or wrongly, that countdown won’t be expanded much more because of the spread of the smart phone with software that does the same job.
From anecdotal evidence also the bus network may not be as popular as rail in parts of the suburbs because of the atmosphere generated by some of the clients – especially since youths got free travel. One stop or eight, give me the train every time!
@ GTR Driver I fear you may be correct about further roll out of count down but I think it is a mistake. The smartphone app should be seen as an additional bonus as not everyone possesses one and in terms of immediacy of information count down displays win every time. Also not every bus stop is privileged to get a good phone signal although that is another matter.
I agree train as a mode is preferable but the use of rail time information displays and related information makes bus travel far more attractive to users. The brutal truth is that we need buses as we cannot afford the density of rail networks which might allow us to dispense with them and much as I might sing the praises of rail travel in London more people travel by bus (by a considerable margin) than do by Network Rail, London Overground and London Underground etc. Bu and rail complement one another? Finally I am privileged to possess a Freedom Pass but if you cannot get free travel and are poor bus travel is still the cheapest.
Surely a Thameslink station at Camberwell would still be well linked into many other services. Assuming that it is served by Wimbledon Loop trains, then within current plans those trains would continue through the core (although that’s unpopular in many quarters) with good connections at Farringdon, St Pancras and West Hampstead in addition to those at Elephant and Blackfriars. Elephant is a poor interchange now, but any extension of the Bakerloo has to deal with that station’s limitations to some extent! 4tph is not brilliant, but it is the basic Overground frequency and has attracted the hordes to the South London Line. A Thameslink Camberwell station is not perfect but must provide a better return than looping the Bakerloo tunnels through South London and building very expensive underground stations as well.
There’s more than 4tph through Camberwell – there’s also the services coming from the Catford loop, giving a total of 6tph.
I don’t understand the hostility of the Wimbledon loop users to the termination of their services at Blackfriars. By the completion of the Thameslink programme there will be 24tph thought the core and the terminus platforms at Blackfriars are right next to the through ones so they really aren’t inconvenienced that much. I really think that if they’d realised the wider benefits to other services by terminating the Wimbledon trains there would have been less opposition. I mean it’s great, in principal, that the general public were listened to and what they wanted was implemented but on this occasion (and most occasions in fact) I think the experts knew best
@Kingstoncommuter – ” I really think that if they’d realised the wider benefits to other services by terminating the Wimbledon trains there would have been less opposition.” Having spent much of the last few decades dealing with Joe Public and his requirements, you’d be surprised how selfish people are (a view shared by most politicians of all parties – I think it was Bill Rodgers who said that the most selfish bunch of voters he ever came across was OAPs,who simply didn’t want to hear about anything such as education or the environment, only about pensions and the NHS services for the elderly.)
@ Kingston Commuter & Graham H – to be honest the reported hostility of users of the Wimbledon link has never been fully explored. The first issue is how representative was the sample? The second issue is to what degree were they informed of the choice before them? I now know that Network Rail proposed to double the frequency on the loop but that all services would terminate at Blackfriars. I do not recall this ever being proposed as an option. I agree few passengers from the south appear to travel beyond Farringdon but a surprising number get off or board at Farringdon and City Thameslink neither of which would have been available without a change at Blackfriars. Also bear in mind that when travelling south you can incur a very lengthy transfer time navigating from the through platform to the bay platform as the refurbished station provides no means of changing mid platform except by walking to the end. Depending on where you board you can incur a long walk.
Frankly I think the whole issue was dreadfully mishandled by both Network Rail and First Capital Connect as I think if the proposed doubling of service had been properly marketed there might have been a different outcome. For Wimbkedon loop users it is very difficult to see how the Thameslink upgrade provides any benefits. The train length remains at 8 coaches albeit with more standing room which will rapidly get used up due to repressed demand and the frequency remains unchanged. It is a disgrace. Arguably the design of the rebuilt Blackfriars station should have used the remaining unused bridge piers to create two more through platforms on the western side and consideration should have been given to a dive under before the Snow Hill tunnel to avoid conflicts but alas that is in all the past. It also could have created mid platform links using the piers to create passageways which would have avoided compromising the look of listed station. The new Blackfriars is flawed consequently and it would now cost an arm and a leg to put it right.
At some point the Wimbledon loop service will have to be re-examined.
Just exploring the mid-platform links at Blackfriars (suggested above and also earlier). I do agree that a proposal to add these now, or at any reasonable time in the future, is unlikely to get very far, because of the perfectly valid argument that the money (substantial) would be better spent elsewhere. But I also suspect that if these had been part of the original design, nobody would have suggested they be removed from said design (so the money could be spent elsewhere).
Although it would obviously have been somewhat cheaper to build the links during construction of the new station, I can’t believe that the cheaperness would have been enormous. Which leaves us with the conclusion that quality improvements like these links can only be built if the original designers happen to think of them. Hmm…
Given the nature of Blackfriars’ construction, I’m not so sure that a mid-platform link would be that easy to provide: You’d have to sling it under the bridge deck, which would reduce the available clearance beneath for vessels. A ‘mid-platform’ link is therefore very difficult to add, as its location is also precisely where the most clearance above the river is likely to be.
Modern ‘walk-through’ trains reduce the need for such solutions: commuters will learn which end of the train they need to get off to save time, and they make their way there while the train is still moving. This is more common with regular commuters, but then again, a mid-platform subway would need lifts to be of interest to non-commuters with shopping, luggage, or small children. Adding lifts would make it orders of magnitude more expensive to build, but without them, the subway’s cost : benefit ratio is even worse.
Re. The Further Adventures of Thameslink & The Wimbledon Loop
I think NR are probably of the view that the important thing is to Get It Done. Once you’ve got your shiny new infrastructure in place, you can tinker about with timetabling and service tweaks to your heart’s content.
Watch them sell a curtailed Wimbledon Loop service as a “doubling of services into London”. That “London” is defined as “The bay platforms at Blackfriars” won’t matter. They’ll have commissioned a survey that will “show” that Wimbledon Loop passengers won’t mind changing at Blackfriars in exchange for increasing the number of trains.
(Who, me? Cynical?)
@ Anomnibus – I fear that ship has sailed. Network Rail attempted this belatedly and this is what led to intervention by local MPs etc. They got their fingers burned. Their proposal for a doubling of frequency terminating at Blackfriars had some merit although you have to wonder why they did not prepare the way. They totally mishandled it. Dare I say it was traditional railway management thinking whereby this idea was developed by and for an internal audience with a tacit assumption that any subsequent public criticism could be ignored. The trouble was Thameslink in its earlier incarnation was portrayed as the first through service linking north London with south London. People on the Wimbledon Loop therefore feel they are losing an amenity which was created by a London based initiative.
I do wonder if part of the problem was that Network Rail saw Thameslink as a purely regional service and the metro aspect personified by the Wimbledon loop was seen as irrelevant and as something in a perfect world they would dispense with.
@RichardB:
I agree that their most recent attempt was poorly handled, but as any politician will tell you, the public has a short memory.
I don’t expect Network Rail to do anything just yet, or possibly even immediately after London Bridge’s rebuild is done. I do, however, expect something to happen before Crossrail 1 gets its formal opening. At that point, running 8-coach trains through Farringdon is going to look a lot less viable, and this particular nettle will need grasping hard.
But … at the same time, there is no point in doing anything, unless the single-track section @ Wimbledon is re-doubled, enabling a decent 4 tph both ways around the loop ….
Which brings up the problem of “where do we put the trams, which … oh dear.
This is getting seriously off-topic… but I don’t see how you can’t run 4 tph in both directions through such a short single-track section.
The dwell times at Wimbledon can be several minutes in the peaks. With the time taken to from clearance of a train in the opposite direction to itself clearing the section, it could easily run to five minutes – that leaves only 2.5 minutes leeway, even if trains going each way round the loop can be exactly dovetailed.
So, Thameslink stations at Walworth Road and Camberwell Green and the Old Kent Road option for the Bakerloo line? I like it. It seems to satisfy most people’s criteria. Now all we need is an Overground link at nearby Loughborough Junction and the area will have all the connexions it needs.
@RichardB – “People on the Wimbledon Loop therefore feel they are losing an amenity which was created by a London based initiative.”
Anomnibus replies to that but the amenity that would be lost is the one where they could get a through train to Holborn Viaduct, for decades before Thameslink was conceived.
The replacement is City Thameslink (itself a poor replacement in access terms between platform and the thoroughfare of the original high level station called Holborn Viaduct and its environs), NOT Blackfriars. To spend some minutes or more changing trains at Blackfriars especially southbound, having boarded a service at City Thameslink just a minute before (but not possible in anywhere near that time by foot – and why should they have to walk?) is simply not on. However, to change trains at Blackfriars would likely mean getting an earlier train (remember only 2 tph on the branches) just to meet the desired destination times of journeys that are at present provided by the through trains. Do not blame the politicians for supporting the established passengers.
Indeed, City Thameslink was provided at its south end with a scissors crossover and sidings at its north end specifically to accommodate this traffic that was unlikely to travel farther northwards (except perhaps to Farringdon). It was only when the more recent Thameslink proposals suggested that services from the Wimbledon Loop should terminate at Blackfriars that any of this fuss emerged. It could have been the Denmark Hill and Catford Loop folk affected instead but the point is that both enjoyed and thankfully still enjoy some form of direct service to the ‘terminus’ at Holborn Viaduct from where one’s work could be easily reached.
As Anomnibus says “A ‘mid-platform’ link is therefore very difficult to add [at Blackfriars], as its location is also precisely where the most clearance above the river is likely to be” but Blackfriars in my commuting memory had both a mezzanine level and a footbridge with far less walking involved as is now the case for southbound passengers especially, the mezzanine not being located over the navigable channels in the river below. Today, the southbound trains stop over or near the South Bank of the river bridge, whilst departing trains are parked up at the north end. To me that is an appalling piece of design and that alone is sufficient for Wimbledon Loop passengers to/from the Holborn Viaduct and nearby City district to complain should all their services terminate at Blackfriars.
As pointed out earlier, extending the Bakerloo or reopening stations will help none of this as it goes nowhere near Holborn Viaduct in the first place.
Re: loss of amenity. The issue is that with the original plan to terminate the loop trains at Blackfriars, it would have had 4tph and so would the Catford Loop. Continuing to run them through to City Thameslink now leaves both routes with 2tph. And the passengers on the loop have far more changing opportunities open to them – for Waterloo at Wimbledon, Croydon at Sutton, Victoria at Mitcham Junction. To say nothing of the peak London Bridge trains provided by Southern – ANOTHER peak link to the City. It’s not even simple for Catford Loop passengers to reach Victoria by changing at Peckham Rye anymore. It’s a straightforward case of the well-heeled, better organised and better represented versus the worse informed, poorer, disorganised and badly represented – as usual! And that’s before we talk about introducing a NEW conflict at Blackfriars which the whole project was designed to eliminate.
I think I already said this somewhere at the top of this thread, but neither I nor (apparently) nobody else can be bothered to find it…
There will be (hopefully) 6tph running through the site of Camberwell station in the off-peak, rising to 8tph (plus whatever services Southeastern will choose to run to the Blackfriars bays) in the peak:
– 4tph to the Wimbledon loop
– 2tph to Sevenoaks
– 2tph (peak only) to Maidstone East
The problem with Camberwell is that it is unlikely that the Wimbledon loop trains will be able to stop at the station (if built) due to the fact, that they have to hit all the very busy flat junctions along the way (Herne Hill, Streatham, Sutton, Blackfriars) at exactly the right time. As the paths through Blackfriars are extremely limited, these trains must make a parallel movement through there. This means they need to run from Blackfriars to Blackfriars in 90 minutes exactly. If you add an extra stop at Camberwell you will probably exceed this. If you do not, you are left with an inner London station served by 2tph off-peak and 4tph peak. Is that even worth showing up for?
Let me also repeat why Wimbledon services through the Core are such a big mistake. Thameslink will operate 24tph across South London, the BML and its branches, into Kent, on the MML and ECML. Thameslink trains will have to share tracks with other operators (East Mids Trains, Virgin/Stagecoach, Southeastern, Freight Ops) and with their own services terminating at Victoria, King’s Cross and Moorgate. This means there will no longer be scope to shift trains ‘by a minute this way or that’. Shifting a train by a minute to resolve a conflict at Hitchin could create conflicts at East Croydon, Gatwick or Horsham. And given the number of flat junctions the Wimbledon loop services have to go through, they will be the most rigid in terms of constraints out of all the 24tph in the peak, with the service pattern through the core having to be aligned around just these four trains. Trains which, most likely, will be the least loaded out of all trains through the Core, and which will carry far fewer passengers from the south than a good few alternative uses of those four paths that I can think of. And, of importance to this discussion: running the Wimbledons through the Core means Camberwell station is a non-starter.
PS – before someone points out that there are margins in the run time of the Wimbledon services: Thameslink services taken as a whole currently have a PPM level of 82.2% (moving annual average as at last complete period, P11 2014/15). Some of this is of course down to the problems on the Brighton Main Line, but this is still way, way lower than what will be required to operaete 24tph through the core reliably in Dec 18. Eating into those margins will not help.
@GTR Driver: lest we forget the under-secretary of state for transport at the time the Wimbledon loop services were put back in was one Stephen Hammond, (Conservative) MP for none other than… Wimbledon.
Of course the decision to put those trains back into the core was unbiased and politically neu… No, wait, I winced there, let me attempt saying that with a straight face again…
@straphan,
Talking of Stephen Hammond (no longer in his post at DfT so doesn’t have to deal with the mess he created), can I remind everyone that he explains your concerns away as “a few marginal seconds in efficiency saving“. So there you are then. Nothing to worry about!
Of course it doesn’t take into account the efficiency lost by the extra weeks or months of work in timetable planning trying to overcome this completely unnecessary additional hurdle.
Skewing this back to the Bakerloo, if Bromley is so lukewarm about the extension, how about cutting it back to Catford, along with a short branch from Lewisham to Hither Green.
It’d provide two alternate termini close together that would reduce the need to turn high number of trains at one spot and provide links between key rail interchanges and Lewisham.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zuDmANN-25E8.kTktylXk4P3U
It stop the line going to far into the Suburbs and avoid the hassle of converting the above ground lines. If London ends up raising all the money for it it, from future greater tax powers, it might be easier than trying to bag extra central government funds from the capacity released from transferring the Hayes line to the tube.
@Rational Plan: Can you point me at where the instructions are to overlay stuff like that?
This would be very useful for me for something I’ve been working on for some time…
@PoP: This is not a question of ‘overcoming’ this hurdle. With the mix of destinations of Thameslink trains sepcified by the DfT the only way to ‘overcome’ this will be to add in pathing time* and extending dwell times to other trains forced away from their optimum path, as well as force more people (from constituencies which do not have an MP with his/her finger in the right pie) to change trains at least until the current Govia franchise expires. Let’s also not forget that the South Bermondsey diveunder was built with running Kent services through the Core in mind – since these are no longer there, we could be looking at several million quid wasted on a whim!
Anyway, just to wrap up the discussion on Camberwell station: I think it’s a bit of a non-starter either way. The only way to have a viable frequency of trains stopping there is if you had the Wimbledon Loop trains calling there. They, however, cannot call without being curtailed to Blackfriars. You therefore have a choice of Camberwell being served by a very infrequent train through the Core; or by a more frequent service but with most trains terminating two stops down the line at Blackfriars. Either way: not a great solution.
*Pathing time: time added to a train path (run) to ensure it does not cause conflicts with other trains along the line or at junctions. Is usually spent by train running slowly on restricted aspects or standing at a red signal.
@Southern Heights: you will need an account with Google and an up-to-date browser (preferably Chrome). The address is here: https://www.google.com/mymaps
@Rational Plan:
The Hayes line wouldn’t be difficult to convert. It is essentially self-contained and this is the main reason why it has so often been picked as a Bakerloo extension. You need to lay down an extra live rail, adjust platform heights, and tweak the signalling. This could be done almost entirely during overnight possessions and the occasional long weekend.
The expensive part of any Bakerloo extension will be the underground stations and tunnelling. The less of that you can get away with, the better.
Your option would require tunnelling to both Catford and Hither Green, with a junction at Lewisham. (There’s no room on the surface, and the Hayes services still have to go somewhere; you can’t just terminate them at Catford Bridge or Lower Sydenham.)
@straphan:
At present, every Thameslink train passing through London Bridge arrives there from Blackfriars on the ‘wrong’ side of the Charing Cross lines via New Cross. To get at the Brighton Main Line route, all Thameslink trains must therefore cross those tracks on the flat at present.
The diveunder at Bermondsey eliminates this issue by allowing Thameslink trains to get at the New Cross Gate (Brighton) lines without crossing the New Cross-Charing Cross tracks on the flat. So it does provide a tangible benefit even if no Thameslink trains end up going via New Cross, Deptford, or Lewisham.
@Rational plan/Anomnibus – Now, say after me,the case for extending the Bakerloo rests on the existence of spare “with peak” capacity. The further you extend it,the more you use that up. It does seem highly likely that that spare capacity will be exhausted by the extra traffic by the time you reach the Catford area. One indicator is the sheer volume of bus services along the OKR; Hayes may well be more than a step too far.
@Anomnibus.
Well this assumes everyone bitches too much about losing their direct train to the City and so it becomes politically unacceptable.
Also I doubt they could slap some extra fourth rail down for a few quid. I would not be surprised if a full conversion of the Hayes line, plus the extra trains required comes in at a Billion, once it stage of Grip ratchets up the cost.
So forget the Hayes branch and South Eastern Rail. Just have a tube line to just beyond Lewisham to important rail hubs, which will still abstract some passengers from the trains.
It would still fill up with passengers and cover all the regeneration sites they want to raise funds from to build it.
If they really want to save money, just have it run to Catford only, but the idea of an extra short spur to Hither green was to capture all possible passenger flows that miss Lewisham due to the avoiding lines and spread the load of a terminus having to cope with 36tph at some point.
The increased connectivity might be worth the increased cost, in comparison to a stub to Catford
@Anomnibus: Look closely at the final layout in the area. Given there are no more Thameslink services to Kent via London Bridge planned, what then is the point of extending the No. 4 Down and Southwark Reversible lines beyond Blue Anchor / Corbetts Lane Junctions? If there was no Southwark Reversible line would the viaduct at Bermondsey not have been a fair bit shorter and therefore cheaper? All the No. 4 Down and Southwark reversible lines will do is allow for a limited number of slow Charing Cross trains to call at New Cross. Is that really worth the extra track, S&C and a longer viaduct?
@Rational Plan
A station straddling New Cross/New Cross Gate (discussed before) could capture the Lewisham bypass traffic much more effectively than one at Hither Green, and link to the Overground too
@straphan:
Everything you say is perfectly valid, but it doesn’t change the fact that removing the need for every Thameslink train through London Bridge to cross in front of Charing Cross services on its way to New Cross Gate is still of great benefit.
The plans for the diveunder were presumably drawn up when there was still the intention to run some Thameslink services to Dartford. Why go out of your way to remove flexibility from a system when you don’t need to? It’s not as if it adds much to the cost of construction, and the diveunder is a tiny fraction of the total cost of the Thameslink Upgrade project. You’re talking about cutting maybe a few hundred thousand quid off a project that has a price tag with at least ten digits in it.
@Rational Plan:
The point of extending the Bakerloo is to remove the Hayes branch entirely from Lewisham Junction. That frees up capacity for the main line. That’s the whole point of this exercise. That it makes the Bakerloo longer is neither here nor there: it’s not as if it is being swamped by passengers joining it at Elephant & Castle, and anyone wanting to get from Hayes to the City in a hurry would need to change at Lewisham anyway as the Bakerloo itself doesn’t go there, and it doesn’t connect directly with Crossrail until it gets to Paddington, so that’s not going to be of much use.
Note, too, that extending the Bakerloo southwards also enables the sale of the old London Road depot, which is small and cramped. As you head out to Hayes, you’ll find an ample supply of land on which a new depot could be built. When considering an extension to a metro, you do need to explain where all the extra trains are going to be stabled and maintained. Neither Catford nor Hither Green offer any opportunities for this. Hither Green is already used to provide stabling for mainline services; there’s no more room at that inn.
Personally, I don’t think the line should be extended any further than Lewisham itself. If it is, Catford would be the absolute furthest it should go, and even there, it ought to be under the town centre, not the two stations. (The Catford Loop’s service frequencies are poor, and anywhere you can get at from Catford Bridge you can get at from Lewisham too.) But this means any depot and stabling provision needs to be provided at the northern end of the line.
Thinking about it, what’s to stop an Overground station being constructed at Loughborough Junction regardless of all this? The track flies right overhead.
@Straphan: they will be the most rigid in terms of constraints out of all the 24tph in the peak, with the service pattern through the core having to be aligned around just these four trains. Trains which, most likely, will be the least loaded out of all trains through the Core
It’s easy enough to predict which trains will be the first to be cancelled (or terminated short in the bay platforms at Blackfriars) as soon as disruption happens, then.
@ Anomnibus
“When considering an extension to a metro, you do need to explain where all the extra trains are going to be stabled and maintained.”
Could you be more specific than “As you head out to Hayes, you’ll find an ample supply of land on which a new depot could be built.”? Quite where are you proposing?
@Anominbus – “The point of extending the Bakerloo is to remove the Hayes branch entirely from Lewisham Junction. That frees up capacity for the main line. That’s the whole point of this exercise. ” No, it isn’t. Not at all. It becomes more than wearisome to repeat the point seemingly on a daily basis: it’s an opportunistic use of spare with peak capacity that has zilch to do with Hayes or the relief of the main line – Hayes is an entirely self-inflicted wound on the part of avid crayonistas…
Anonymous at 00:13 17/02
In a sense you have answered your own question in that the Overground tracks “fly over” Loughborough Jct….on a double-height,narrow four-track viaduct closely constrained on most sides by building.
Similar to the (much more potentially beneficial) Overground station proposed for Brixton,in fact.
Both jobs would be very expensive indeed (though possible,if the will were there,certainly)… there are far lower-hanging fruit than these….
The point of the Bakerloo line extension is politics primarily. It never has been a priority of TFL or London Underground of old. They have always prioritised schemes that relieve the crush in zone 1. The Bakerloo is relatively quiet, why on earth would they want to make it busier!
But the facts on the ground have changed. Inner London populations is booming and a good chunk of South London, does not have a proper rail service never mind tube. The buses are full and so are the bridges across the Thames.
The Bakerloo is quiet from the Southern end, so ergo it is an obvious extension candidate.
We have two obvious road corridors to follow the OKR or Walworth road and an obvious end point in Lewisham.
It seems we don’t have the money to build underground much beyond zone 2 these days Hayes gets chosen as an easy self contained line that can be turned into a tube line.
A, because it does release some capacity on the main line
B it provides a much higher frequency service deep into the suburbs. which pays all sorts of political dividends, mainly much higher house prices, and shows that the Mayor and TFL are spending money outside zones 1 and 2.
C. A knock on effect of a new high frequency service is that it might attract users from other nearby lines.
The downsides of getting a project to do more, is that it costs more.
A £2 billion project to Lewisham is much more fundable than a £3 to £4 billion project.
Also with the never ending growth in passenger numbers, you might not want your new line to be nearly full on opening day. Gone are the days when one project provides you with 30 years growth potential.
@Anomnibus: That’s right. Thameslink was originally meant to convey trains from the outer reaches of Kent (Ramsgate, Hastings, Ashford and the like) through London Bridge. The Wimbledons were forced back in only when it was too late to change the scheme design, which would have saved tens of millions, not a few hundred thousand as you suggest.
@James Bunting: In the event of disruption trains from the south will be able to terminate either in the Blackfriars bays or at London Bridge. However, bear in mind you will still need to provide some sort of service north of London: the Wimbledon loop services form the stopping service on the Midland Main Line to St Albans and Luton.
@ Straphan – given the years of planned and unplanned disruption to Thameslink services I’d say the operators are extremely adept at hacking services to turn them wherever they need to. Clearly the future Thameslink service will be another thing altogether in terms of its reach and how far disruption can ripple either to the Thameslink route or from it (depending precisely where the disruption might be). Similar concerns will apply to Crossrail when it’s all knitted together. Let’s hope Govia and MTR have some real “crack” operational managers on their teams together with adept timetable planners.
The public really will have little tolerance for failures on the scale that we currently see them on what, I am sure, will be branded as “new” railways when they are fully up and running.
Much as I would love to comment about Thameslink, Camberwell station and the Bakerloo Line in the light of recent comments I think it’s all been said before so I’ll keep my trap shut! 😉
@Rational Plan: London is, indeed, booming and the buses that are the most packed are those which lack a station. Stations in Old Kent Road, Brixton, Walworth Road and Camberwell along the existing lines would surely be more cost effective than spending billions on a line that will take years go build.
@WW: I hope PoP will permit me this last aside.
Having been involved in creating elements of both the Crossrail and Thameslink timetables, I need to point out a few issues with Cross-London schemes in general:
– There is no such thing as a ‘national rail network’ in timetabling terms. Each route/region has different standards, different signalling, different planning headways… On top of this the trains running through these schemes are expected to share tracks with other operators – often long-distance ones. This will require serious compromises between Thameslink, the long-distance and freight operators, and will inevitably lead to longer journey times in places. With so many constraints there just is no perfect solution, no one ‘genius’ timetable. If anything, Thameslink will flush out the need to sort out capacity bottlenecks that have been swept under the carpet for years. Indeed, increasing service levels in some places could finally tip the scales in favour of investment there.
– Unlike the Parisian RER schemes, London did not invest in separate tracks for its suburban operations. Hence if the wires go down at Doncaster or Sheffield (due to be electrified in about 5 years if all goes well), the ripple effects of this may potentially be felt down in Brighton, about 60 miles from the nearest bit of overhead wire. I am personally under no illusion that Thameslink or Crossrail will achieve levels of punctuality that are significantly better than what their constituent parts used to achieve before they were dug up in order to be connected – even if the (prospective) operators signed up to deliver these.
– You are of course right that good network control will help keep delays in check even with a more intensive service. Particularly south of the Thames I think NR signalling and control staff have had a steep learning curve since Christmas and have finally started to understand that the Brighton Main Line is so full trains need to start getting cancelled or turned short very quickly once a train or a signal chooses to break down. The thing is they have historically not been incentivised to do so: targets for CaSL (Cancellations and Significant Lateness) are more stringent than for delays.
@GTR Driver – “The issue is that with the original plan to terminate the loop trains at Blackfriars, it would have had 4tph and so would the Catford Loop. Continuing to run them through to City Thameslink now leaves both routes with 2tph…. It’s not even simple for Catford Loop passengers to reach Victoria by changing at Peckham Rye anymore.”
Just a small point but no, the Wimbledon loop generally has 4tph through the core, whilst the Catford Loop retains its 2tph. There are also 2tph Victoria via Lewisham at Peckham Rye at the same platforms as the Catford trains. I admit the connection timing is not brilliant but are we not to expect a TfL-encouraged Victoria service on the Catford Loop to/from Bromley South?
In any case, it is no fault of the passengers that Blackfriars station has been badly designed.
2tph in each direction via Haydons Road and 2tph via Hackbridge actually. Only by virtue of it being a loop are 4tph achieved to stations North of Streatham South Junctions. 2tph for the whole of the Catford Loop when 4tph were promised from Blackfriars through to Bellingham.
Trains from Sevenoaks arrive five minutes after the train to Victoria has left at Peckham Rye – leaving a twenty five minute wait. Not exactly a connection. National Rail suggests going to Blackfriars and catching a tube.
The fact of the new conflict remains unchanged.
I do not consider having to cross the platform from a 4tph service to catch a train to the core every few minutes at Blackfriars in any sense difficult or much loss of amenity. Or even the major effort of having to use the subway on the return.
@Graham Feakins,
In any case, it is no fault of the passengers that Blackfriars station has been badly designed.
In what way? It might be badly designed for the service that you would like to see but it is not badly designed for the service they aspire to run. On the same basis I could argue that London Bridge is badly designed because it doesn’t facilitate direct trains from Purley to Charing Cross.
@ PoP I think the decision not to use the remaining bridge piers which could have permitted two more platforms was a design fault although I accept in the absence of any statements from Network Rail et al that this would have added significantly to the cost and may have justified their exclusion. Leaving aside whether such additional platforms were bay or through platforms it just seems shortsighted and to change this now would almost certainly be prohibitive.
The other issue is that the overall length of the platforms can necessitate long walks when undertaking platform transfers. Again given the anticipated need for some passengers to switch platforms it may be that the engineering challenge was too great or the costs too high but the absence of such links is a design fault. I accept there is much that is admirable about the new station and I am glad the project was undertaken but it could have been even better
@RichardB,
I fully concur that it appeared to be short sighted not to utilise additional pillars. I suspect the desire for 12-car platforms was higher than desire for more platforms despite the fact that Elephant & Castle (and elsewhere) will produce problems in running 12-car trains. I don’t think that this is a design fault of the existing station.
Personally I cannot understand why they don’t safeguard a corner of the Express building to make future 12-car platforms possible. There would be plenty of opportunities to use it and the building is due to be demolished anyway. One extra platform could be done by the inclusion of an extra track and making the existing platform 4 a double sided platform.
I take your point about the long walk but you can’t build an overbridge as that would foul one of the protected sight lines to St Paul’s. An overbridge would have to be higher than you might think due to the need to clear the (non-existent) overhead line. So you can only go under but, as others have pointed out, there may well be river navigation issues.
Well anything can be better, but we live in a world of constraints – physical, economic, etc. If a more streamlined interchange prices the project out of viability then we gain nothing. Anyway, it’s academic, they won’t have to, it’s SE Londoners having to walk from the southbound platform to their low frequency terminating train. While a Streatham MP complains that the Bakerloo line should go SW as well.
@PoP – Agreeing with RichardB, with sadly the thought that it is too late now, it is also worth recalling that Blackfriars Bridge carried four through tracks (two of which avoided the station at the time) plus three terminating platforms. Today’s arrangement has only two through platform tracks and two terminating platforms. Opportunity should have been taken to retain another terminating platform (on the downstream side) or provide another through (down) platform to serve the Elephant & Castle route, or perhaps best, two through platforms to serve the latter on the upstream side.
Any footbridge would be no higher than the crowns of the former roof line of the old station canopies and in any case would be tucked closer to the hill approach to St. Pauls, thus avoiding sightline problems.
@PoP: I fully concur that it appeared to be short sighted not to utilise additional pillars
As I recall the original plan was not to use any of the pillars at all as it was thought that they wouldn’t be structurally sound enough, and the modification of the design to use them was a fairly late change once it was realised they were in better shape than expected. But I don’t know if that applies to all the pillars or only some.
@Graham Feakins: Any footbridge would be no higher than the crowns of the former roof line of the old station canopies
The old station canopies didn’t project as far over the river. The original Will Alsop design for Blackfriars station, which had a higher roof, was rejected by the planning inspector (delaying the whole scheme) because of its impact on views along the river and of St Paul’s. Anything higher than what we have would be a non-starter.
In hundreds of comments no clear case has emerged for extending the Bakerloo to Hayes on its own merits. Everybody seems to think the benefits are that it facilitates some presently unspecified gains by freeing paths in the Lewisham area. Doesn’t it make more sense then to put Hayes to one side and consider more carefully what precisely needs to be done in the Lewisham area?
@Theban
There are two sets of benefits from removal of the Hayes branch.
Firstly it frees up paths into Cannon Street and Charing Cross, so that other SE trains can be invented to use those.
Secondly it removes some junction conflict in the Lewisham area, thereby enabling, for example, more North Kent to Victoria services, or other options like that.
These are not-inconsiderable benefits, but they come at a price, and don’t gain much main line breathing space within the longer term expectations of traffic growth (see London 2050 Parts 3 and 4 about that).
Also correspondents such as Graham H have made the basic point that there is a practical limit to Bakerloo capacity. So while Lewisham or Catford could be viable destinations, Hayes might be a tube too far in terms of tube overloading.
If one turned round the debate, and there was already a tube-like service to Hayes, but that tube was suffering from overloading, what would you try to do? Incorporate it into a new Crossrail or equivalent, to allow the inner part of the tube to do a better job for the burgeoning inner suburbs…
Try the Central Line eastern extensions onto LNER suburban tracks, as an example of that school of thought, with the former Chelsea-Hackney safeguarding!
Consequently, a fair number of thoughts point towards a ‘Crossrail X’ instead, to benefit more SE service groups. However that comes with a greater starting price tag.
So far Crossrail 2, a Bakerloo extension and Crossrail to Ebbsfleet are the main games in town currently allowed to be within funding visibility for the normative reasons of commuter crowding and population growth. WRAtH, Airtrack Mk2 (now SRAtH), and Crossrail-WCML are being considered for different reasons.
Meanwhile, are there indeed ways of getting more capacity across the Lewisham area (eg for the Victoria-SE trains), perhaps with upper level grade separation? Neither easy nor pretty, maybe, but worth some detailed thoughts.
That doesn’t address the continuing lack of extra train paths into Central London, but presumably a full 12-car programme for South Eastern plus extra slots on HS1 may assist overall.
The HS1 option might be more successful if HS1 fares could be reduced to ‘normal’ SE levels and so attract more passengers to divert towards Stratford and St Pancras. Crossrail to Ebbsfleet might also assist with North Kent capacity issues, and allow further SE service changes.
@Theban (and others):
To respond to some earlier criticisms…
My view is that extending the Bakerloo to Lewisham only makes sense today if the goal is for it to take over the Hayes line in its entirety. It makes no sense to extend a Tube line there otherwise: Lewisham is a very poor interchange station and would not be improved by adding a third (rather deep) platform level to the existing mess. Terminating there makes little sense because of this. (And no, neither Hither Green, nor the two stations at Catford, are any better as termini.)
This is a token political sop, partly aimed at keeping those demanding ‘some’ Tube infrastructure in South East London quiet. Also, removing the Hayes branch means improved services from the traditionally Tory hinterlands of Kent.
This is politics, not proper transit planning. From a public transit perspective, it offers few, if any, real benefits. Spending £billions on extending a tiny Tube line with cramped trains and very limited scope for future expansion beyond that already planned makes little sense today. The future is the Crossrail approach, not extensions of tiny Tube trains all the way out to the Green Belt.
*
I write this as someone who spent many years living in Beckenham and Lewisham. I know they’re crying out for better infrastructure, but this? Sorry, no. The Bakerloo may have been part of the answer many years ago, but not any more. Send it to Thamesmead.
@Graham Feakins,
it is also worth recalling that Blackfriars Bridge carried four through tracks (two of which avoided the station at the time) plus three terminating platforms.
This sounds like the classic “let’s take a time in history most advantageous to my argument” sort of approach. It is literally true to say that wars over territory have been started as a result of taking this line of thought.
PoP
It is literally true to say that wars over territory have been started as a result of taking this line of thought.
As in J S Forbes vs E Watkin or LCDR vs SER if you prefer?
Quite so
@Greg,
That wasn’t what I was thinking of but is very apt.
@Anomnibus
Maybe Southeastern could lower all their fares to ‘normal’ fares, more comparable to Southern’s. It’s cheaper to get some intercity trains (if yuou book far enough in advance) than to get to most places in Kent. Maybe when the new franchise comes round… we can only dream.
Does anyone know when the results of the bakerloo line consultation will be published?
Re Theban,
The Benefits are an aggregation of many small changes not all of them directly obvious or deliverable with the Hayerloo concept and JR has done a very good summary to which I would add a few further points:
With the London Bridge rebuild all Charing Cross trains will call there from early 2018 thus allowing potential further service simplification of which the main benefit would be reliability and slightly journey time improvements (increases flux of passengers) on some services and more flexibility in pathing and diagramming which might lead to a slightly better utilisation of rolling stock overall.
[Initial simplification so far has seen Greenwich services only going to Cannon Street]
Haykerloo might allow a further simplification if it hasn’t already happened For example Blackheath line services might just go to Cannon Street or Victoria with Charing Cross being reached by changing at London Bridge to take the Bakerloo from Lewisham (if you want to travel beyond Charing Cross). This would also need the infrequent Charing Cross – Gravesend via Woolwich and Blackheath issue resolving may be via Crossrail 1 extension to Dartford or Gravesend?
The spare Terminus capacity for “south” of the river is at Victoria SouthEastern and JR’s idea helps nicely here as does the local geography. JR – I’m assuming you mean double decking Blackheath to Nunhead (i.e. Victoria) across the valley along the existing alignment?
One reason the Hayes line services are popular is that the service on the Catford Loop (5 stations <1mile from the Hayes line in 3 cases < 1km) so improving the frequency from 2tph might alleviate pressure on the Haykeloo getting to full. Currently – peak 3tph Thameslink off peak 2tph but improvement would be additional Victoria post 2018 when the 4th tph in the peak is added.
Most of this would presumably need TfL in control of SE metro services which given HS1's additional operating costs might make a standalone SE Kent look like a complete basket case till 31/12/2040…
@ngh re Blackheath towards Nunhead.
Well something like that, providing a grade-separation proves feasible. The main purpose would be to relieve the scissors flat junction just west of Lewisham station, which is a major operating and timetabling constraint. Someone who likes untangling spaghetti might enjoy trying to maximise the benefits and minimise the complexities. A sub-question is whether it might be possible also to ally a grade-separated link with the Tanners Hill chord, but that might get dangerously complex and crayonistic. The costs should be associated with real service and capacity benefits, not notional opportunities seeking to join every route to everywhere else!
Re JR,
Hmm that is a complicated one to analyse as there are plenty of options and permutations. Unusually the geography is actually fairly helpful to make Grade seperation easy – tracks in cuttings so they drop down into Lewisham at a shallower angle than the Hills.
The thinking being very similar to NR’s proposal for the Windmill Bridge rebuild including rare 3 layers of tracks (above ground).
Options
1a) complete operational segregation and leave scissor for emergency use
1b) completely remove scissors
Leaves stopping at Lewisham:
VIC-Blackheath (new route)
Cannon Street (CST) -Blackheath (existing route)
and possibly depending on what you do Tanner Hill – Nunhead, VIC – Hither Green (existing Route)
And Charing Cross (CHX) – Hither Green (existing Route)
Not Stopping at Lewisham
CST – Hither Green (runs avoiding line slows)
2) Rebuild junction so Blackheath – Tanners Hill option (new Higher level route instead) no longer available which would allow the possibility of CST – Hither Green to stop at Lewisham (not that there is the platform capacity???)
(and open some Brockley SE platforms??)
@Graham Feakins: but what precisely would you like to terminate at those extra Blackfriars bays?
– Running anything from East Croydon and via London Bridge: no space through East Croydon;
– Running anything from Kent side: with 16tph on the curves from Blackfriars to London Bridge post-Thameslink upgrade you will find it hard to make the Kent and Thameslink timetables align such, that there will be an adequate gap for trains to cross over to terminate at Blackfriars;
– It is already difficult to squeeze the 4tph existing Thameslink service through Herne Hill;
– With 4tph Thameslink via the Catford Loop in the peaks that route will be full in 2018;
– And finally – as we’ve just discussed above – the junction at Lewisham is the main barrier to increasing capacity on metro services in South East London.
@Straphan,
Easy. You terminate the Wimbledon Loop trains once they have gone around the loop!
If you can build a terminating platform at Herne Hill (I know it won’t be easy to have a long enough one) then you can split an existing service into two overlapping services: North of London – Herne Hill, South of London = Blackfriars. Who knows, maybe you could even build a new station at Camberwell in suitable surroundings so it doesn’t feel hidden and stop some services there. And, maybe, by having some services not calling at stations between Blackfriars and Herne Hill, you could have longer trains without having to worry about Elephant & Castle.
PoP / straphan
It goes back to an earlier thread, actually.
You need to, in increasing order of expenditure.
1: Have double-track through Wimbledon, with the trams elsewhere (outside/up top)
2: Flying junctions @ Herne Hill ( we have discussed this & decided, IIRC that it is a very tight fit, but do-able)
3: Northbound extra platform on the west side @ Blackfriars.
4: Tell the developers / Lewisham council that they have got it wrong & rebuild that appalling station properly.
Somewhere in cost approximating to more than “3” but probably less than “4” – extend Bakerloo to Lewisham & on to, probably, Thamesmead – certainly no further out than Catford if heading in Hayes direction. [ Unless, of course, by then we don’t already have DLR &/or Barking extension coming over the River, anyway.
I think the word “complicated” might have been specifically invented for the inter-tangled desires / results / prognoses for this programme!
It can certainly make your brain hurt.
@PoP: But the existing bays at Blackfriars were built specifically with the terminating Wimbledons in mind! What I don’t understand is why Graham F wants EVEN MORE bay platforms there?
As I have said before, the chance to remodel Lewisham station has been lost.
The new buildings are going up very rapidly and the road layout to remove the roundabout (area to be built over) is evolving very quickly.
Two rivers have been diverted.
A bit of common sense from Network Rail, TfL & Lewisham Council should have been applied earlier.
Chris Patrick
Sorry, but the (how many times? Three by my count IIRC ) multiple rebuildings / demolishings / total reconstructions of the junctions between Westferry, Popl;ar & Canary Wharf show that IF the political will is there, then the mere money doesn’t matter. really, provided that a truly better solution is arrived at.
The Lewisham station problem is exactly dead-centre in this class ….
@straphan,
As I understand it, the bay platforms were built partly for the purpose of terminating the Wimbledon loop services. But, as discussed many times, putting those through the centre merely forces some other service to terminate there. For the purposes of this discussion it is irrelevant what the mix is of which services terminate and which continue.
Post 2018 you will still have trains terminating at Blackfriars. I have never been able to work out exactly which but I presume these will include some combination of Orpington via Catford, Orpington via Herne Hill and Kent House/Beckenham Junction via Herne Hill. Given that there will be only 8tph on the through lines, one would hope we are talking about at least another 8tph terminating there. If not then expect a diatribe (with a fair amount of justification) from Graham Feakins of what the service used to be to Holborn Viaduct and Blackfriars terminating platforms and why the service in future will be a gross deterioration compared to what was run in the past – within recent living memory prior to the Thameslink Programme.
The inner south London area has already lost out with the abandoning of the South London Line Victoria – London Bridge service. It was a minnow in the scheme of things but some people found it very useful and for some of those the alternatives are not very palatable. No doubt it is the sort of service that with a London Overground ethos would be more popular if it were still around today.
Against all this, no doubt you will make the entirely valid point that if the timetable can’t handle it there is no point in dreaming of enhanced services so we are stuck with what we’ve got and there is no point in having more platforms. I would question whether this is entirely true and, even if true today, will it be true in the future?
Consider the grossly underserved Catford loop. Yes, I know it is a two track railway without passing loops and has a mixture of fast, slow and (outside peak periods) freight traffic. Is it really too hard to provide 2tph to Blackfriars – Bellingham on top of the current service? If not, what is stopping it, infrastructure-wise, apart from lack of platforms at Blackfriars? Of course Bellingham-Blackfriars would be a rather short service and it would make far more sense to terminate some of the through trains from north London at Bellingham and terminate the matching existing service from south of the river at Blackfriars. I know which south of the river service I would choose.
Alternatively, still considering the Catford loop, what would happen when ERTMS, or at least ECTS, gets rolled out? This would probably improve possible frequencies -especially with the planned skip stopping pattern on the Catford loop. So in the early 2020s we could have a scenario where the capacity is there on the lines but there is nowhere to terminate the trains once they reach London and the only through route is full.
@Greg,
I think you need to have made a very recent visit to see just what they are putting up in the a heart of Lewisham to see the implausibility of demolishing a suitable swathe of land for additional tracks. You might be able to identify the odd building. Westferry, Poplar etc was entirely different as there was a large enough parcel of land that was still relatively undeveloped and the characteristics of the DLR means that much tighter curves and steeper gradients can be utilised.
Indeed I do wonder where the worksite for any future Bakerloo Line station would be. I just hope they keep the triangle in front of the station undeveloped but that is going to be a pretty cramped site.
Crayon idea alert! Given the various documented issues with capacity basically everywhere in SE London, has there ever been any serious consideration to building a tunnelled route something like Victoria-West End-City-Canary Wharf-Lewisham? I’m sure there are plenty of reasons why this isn’t a good idea…
@Herned
Yes there has. The Fleet tube was originally planned to serve the central West-End-City section, with a number of alternatives studied over an almost 20 year period to continue the line to the east, east-northeast, south-southeast, or southeast. These corridors and destinations included, but were not limited to, Stratford (which the Jubilee eventually did in a more round-about trajectory), Thamesmead, Docklands (pre-Canary Wharf), Lewisham, and taking over the Hayes line.
I am in the midst of writing a series on this, but as you can see there were many studies and changes of route to describe. During the 1970s this line’s plans and even the name of the line changed almost yearly.
I took a trip from Cannon St down to Orpington (and back via Bromley South & Bromley North) today, as this whole area isn’t one I know too well on the ground. So far as *anything* being an option at Lewisham, I think that train has left the platform. Although there is some land near the Courthill Loop on the other side of the A21 to the backside of the shopping centre, it would have to be an entirely separate station from the existing one. So no go, in reality.
I’d also note in passing that the trip out was probably the slowest I’ve ever travelled on heavy rail metals, and that was after we’d passed all the London Bridge / flyunder works.
@Long Branch Mike
I was thinking more along the lines of a crossrail-type project sending the inner suburbans through a tunnel… but I will also be very interested to read your articles
@Ian J -“The old station canopies didn’t project as far over the river.” – As far as what? I know they didn’t extend too far and that’s why I said “(the footbridge) would be tucked closer to the hill approach to St. Pauls, thus avoiding sightline problems”, thus within the footprint of the old canopies.
@PoP – Sensing that you have cooled down from your “wars over territory” comment by yours of 19 Feb at 19:41, I’ll grasp the moment (not a diatribe) to say for others here that, during my first years of work, Holborn Viaduct handled 20-22 trains in the peak hours (60 minutes each), whilst Blackfriars added 4-6 to that, making a total of 26tph (!), all running via Elephant & Castle. All 8-car trains.
Out of the various services that might terminate in the future at Blackfriars, I note that you include the peak services from e.g. Kent House and so on, which already or will soon once again terminate at Blackfriars, so what is the difference for those passengers? In the period I discussed, many of those also omitted Loughborough Junction and Elephant & Castle stops anyway.
Of course, I could turn this all on its head and question why anyone needs 16tph through Blackfriars via London Bridge. Those Tattenham Corner to Cambridge services would be the first to be struck out in my book to start with…
@straphan – “It is already difficult to squeeze the 4tph existing Thameslink service through Herne Hill” – Well how come they also manage to cope at Herne Hill with all the extra diverted (12-car) main line Thameslink trains through there today, as well freight and empty Southern stock movements to and from Stewarts Lane?
This morning’s news of the promise by the mayor that the Overground, DLR and four more tube lines are to get an all night service might spur on south-east Londoners to campaign for the Bakerloo, DLR or Overground to take over lines. Imagine: North and east london gets a frequent 24 hour service at weekends, meanwhile from 8pm on Southeastern’s Orpington line you have half hourly trains until close at 12:30am-ish.
@BBCLondon949: All-night trains at weekends promised for London Overground, DLR and 4 more underground lines by @MayorofLondon and the Chancellor
@Graham Feakins,
I was never other than cool. I was merely pointing out the dangers of arguing by taking a time in the past that most advantageously backs your case.
I note that you include the peak services from e.g. Kent House and so on, which already or will soon once again terminate at Blackfriars, so what is the difference for those passengers?
Precisely. And one could make the same argument about the Wimbledon loop services.
Of course, I could turn this all on its head and question why anyone needs 16tph through Blackfriars via London Bridge
I suspect you don’t. The 16tph (originally to be 18tph) dates from a plan when large increases in usage was not expected and some of the trains would have continued to Southeastern territory. One of the problems you now have is that you have to continue to run at least 16tph (even to the extent of providing a Tattenham Corner – Cambridge service) because there are insufficient platforms at London Bridge for many more terminating trains and those terminating platforms will be fully used in years to come.
All in all, the Thameslink Programme is turning out to be woefully inadequate to cater for all the services it is highly desirable to run and something more is needed. My hunch is an extra platform at Blackfriars might be good place to start (other solutions are available from other crayonistae).
Greg Tingey
It does help to read the posts sometimes.
Spare land around the station is disappearing under retail and housing development. There will be no space left.
The crazy curved platforms on the Hayes/Orpington side of the station could have been straightened before the projects started and still used the recently installed lift on the up platform by putting new platforms either side of it.
Improvements should have been a condition of getting consent for the very profitable developments.
A plea to the moderators and to anon5 – can all these night tube comments be removed from this thread and consolidated on the night tube thread? (This Bakerloo thread already takes forever to load,without the added bonus of the nighttime stuff…)
Re Graham H,
I’ve put my Night Tube comments in the that article’s comments but unfortunately the same Treasury press releases also covered agreeing £10bn of infrastructure spending for TfL post Crossrail with frequent mentions of Bakerloo Extension…
@PoP & Graham Feakins:
The Dec 18 timetable in the peak foresees 4 ‘stopping’ services per hour on the Catford Loop (2 x Sevenoaks, all stations; 2 x Maidstone East, skip-stop). Assuming Southeastern does not change its timetable then on top of that we have 4tph fast services from further afield via Catford into Victoria. Off-peak, there are only the 2tph Sevenoaks and 1tph fast into Victoria, as well as our favourite, the Channel Tunnel Freight Path, whose removal (even if not used) will lead to war with France. This suggests to me that off-peak there might be some scope for 1 or 2tph stopping into Blackfriars bays – but no more. I doubt you will find a path for these via Bromley South, so they would likely have to terminate at Bellingham. You would also end up with the curious situation whereby the smaller stations on the Catford loop would have a better service off-peak than in the peak.
Looking at the trains via Herne Hill, we only have the 4tph Wimbledons. You might just about be able to squeeze 4tph through there, but the earliest you could terminate them is Epsom: Crystal Palace (no platforms), Beckenham Jn (no capacity) or West Croydon (too much traffic at Gloucester Road) are not really sensible options. Running to Epsom would improve the service at stations between Loughborough Jn and Streatham (even though the frequency there is an Overground-worthy 4tph), but further down the line? Is there demand for more than the 2tph Thameslinks and 2tph Victorias?
As for Graham’s perennial question as to why there used to be more trains ‘long ago’, the straight answer is I don’t know exactly, but I have a few hypotheses. These include:
– Longer trains need longer to clear junctions
– Planning rules require longer gaps between trains to ensure they all run on greens (which is a little absurd in South London, I’ll give you that…)
– Drivers no longer run into platforms/termini at 40mph and hit the brakes just before they reach the buffers/platform ends
– You cannot jump out of trains as soon as they start arriving at a platform
– Each 20m carriage has 2 doors, not 20
You can argue that the ‘old days’ used to be much better, which I won’t argue with. The railways are definitely safer now, though, but at a cost to capacity.
To be honest, I would actually genuinely like to sit down with an old train planning rule book to get to the bottom of this, and see how much has changed since the times when slam-door stock was ubiquitous and there were no defenisve driving policies. If anyone has access to a 1980s train planning rules, I’d love to have a look.
@AlisonW
My dislike of Lewisham as an interchange is due to the interminable slows via it to Orpington. I begrudge turning off the 4-track to go there, thank goodness for the fasts ORP-LBG that avoid it, and mean I can get to Victoria by changing on the tube faster than catching a train directly there. I hardly use the Victoria line for that reason.
If I were at Petts Wood, one closer in, I’d have a very different view, with all trains stopping, and stopping and stopping again, from Victoria and LBG.
If at some point in the dim and distant future, fast lines are tunnelled for the Chatham mainline in the London area, then this could provide more paths for Catford loop services to continue through Bromley South. If the tunnel portal for the fast lines was somewhere between Chislehurst junction and St Mary Cray then the Orpington to Victoria and the Catford loop to Seven oaks services could effectively be split to have their own pair of tracks each between Shortlands junction and Chislehurst junction enabling both services to have proper metro frequencies. Unfortunately this would mean Bromley South would need 2 underground platforms for the fast lines but this would be the only place where an underground station would be required.
@straphan – Fenchurch St would be an interesting case study of your theses: before the ’80s resignalling, the terminus received something like 27tph max, afterwards 24-25 max. Quite what made the difference wasn’t made clear to me at the time – possibly changes to either signalling overlaps or pathing allowances , or a lower tolerance by HMRI of parallel moves.
I have often wondered about the Lewisham station area. The DLR was extended there with no passive provision for an extension further southwards and now the area around the station is being redeveloped thus impeeding any changes to the station layout. Tfl have realised that the way the DLR has been extended was a mistake and merely adds to the complexity of the station, so you’d think that Lewisham council and tfl/ network rail could learn from the mistakes of the DLR extension and think about the impacts of this redevelopment beforehand. Maybe network rail could have brought forward their Kent route study in the knowledge that the redevelopment was taking place to see if it was necessary to change Lewisham befores the building works started.
@Graham H: I imagine signalling has become more restrictive with time as well: whereas previously the release mechanism for a signal consisted of the signalman’s MkI eyeball, today you have to wait for a train to pass through a track circuit block, which may actually take more time – but is safer.
Also, I am not sure what dwells were like during the slam-door era, but they were probably shorter: fewer passengers had more doors to board/alight through.
@Graham H
“A plea to the moderators and to anon5 – can all these night tube comments be removed from this thread and consolidated on the night tube thread? (This Bakerloo thread already takes forever to load, without the added bonus of the nighttime stuff…)”
Moving comments is very labour intensive for us Mods. Could the following commentators copy their comments from this thread to the “Big Changes Gonna Come (Part 1): The Night Tube” thread please:
– Anon5
– tog
@Graham Feakins 20th February 02:03
I think you have highlighted that many so-called facts often quoted here may not have that status. If Herne Holl is coping with Thameslink diversions it really does suggest there’s more unused capacity on that route than is commonly stated.
I also agree with you about the Tattenham Corner to Cambridge nonsense. They would be better run via Herne Hill into the Blackfriars terminating platforms and I suspect with efforts to improve turnaround times such as stepping back that there would be capacity. That would then allow some long-distance Kent services to run to Cambridge in turn freeing capacity at Charing Cross for more Kent metro services via Lewisham and we are back to the need to sort out Lewisham … Possibly. Again I think there’s a degree of obfuscation at all levels of where the true bottlenecks lie on many lines.
Concerning Night Tube
I have deleted comments that should abslolutely never have been put here. It is bad enough with Thameslink though I can see how we got there when discussing South London in general.
@Straphan, Graham H:
I have been told that when designing signalling schemes you have to work harder to stand still. Basically you can guarantee that if you attempt to replace like with like you will inevitably reduce capacity due to more restrictive conditions being imposed. You have to add something extra to get back what you lose. I can imagine that terminus platforms with TPWS throttling capacity are worst of all. Hopefully with ERTMS for probably the first time since the dawn of railway signalling capacity will increase.
@Graham Feakins,
thus within the footprint of the old canopies.
Pray, what is the relevance of that? We are talking about protected sightlines. In all the documentation on protected sightlines I have not seen a single mention of grandfather rights. If you rebuild, you have to adhere to the protected sightlines. The fact that the old Blackfriars station, built before the concept came into existence, fouls them is, I suspect, neither here nor there.
@Kingston Commuter
The relevance to this discussion of your comment for me is that the best BCR would probably a short tunnel from Hayes to Orpington but the Bakerloo extension will remove the possibilities of relieving the Kent lines like that as well as adding capacity to Croydon via Elmers End. For me Lewisham to Elmers End – Hayes is an underused radial heavy rail route and they are precious. It might not be in the most desirable location but it has potential to be strategically valuable and it shouldn’t be sacrificed just to extend the diddy Bakerloo.
I don’t undestand the sight lines problem. The new station capacity has a high roof above the [invisible!] overhead lines. Any underslung passenger walkway would need much lower roofs and therefore be fully eclipsed by the higher roof of the main station building.
@Theban,
short tunnel from Hayes to Orpington
So that is 5.5km in a straight line. If it has to align with the track at Orpington then 6km absolute minimum distance – about the same as Paddington to Moorgate. Crossrail has 42km of new single track rail tunnels so 28% of Crossrail tunnels to join a line that is only two tracks so you can’t have fast (non-stopping) trains. Journey time from Charing Cross, Waterloo East then fast to Ladywell then to Hayes is typically around 40 minutes. Charing Cross to Orpington can currently be done in 24 minutes.
What is this supposed to achieve? For the same length tunnel you could go from north of New Cross to south of Hither Green That wouldn’t achieve much either but it would be far more useful than a tunnel from Hayes to Orpington.
@Theban
Image of interior of Blackfriars station. You are not going to get a foot overbridge in that space below the roof.
Theban re: Tattenham-Cambridge trains. Running these into the Blackfriars bays hits the same problem as the current diverted Thameslinks; just too many conflicts at junctions and too many bottlenecks of low speed. And running Kent services from London Bridge to Blackfriars recreates one of the very conflicts that the rebuild there is designed to eliminate! The idea is that trains are sorted by destination on approach and do not cross each other again. That’s why the Wimbledon loop trains were supposed to terminate on the west side of Blackfriars and more trains from Denmark Hill and beyond were supposed to continue through the east side.
Graham F re: why we need more trains from London Bridge to Blackfriars. Because terminating trains are a big bottleneck and being able to run more of them through enables us to up the service frequency, in accord with rising demand for rail travel in London. It’s effectively a new metro route through town without building a new tube line. Why Tattenham? It’s an easy turnaround for trains on the south side where the capacity and time exists to do it with some recovery possible.
I think my reason for posting the night tube comment was valid. If an increasing amount of London is getting a 24 hour service then surely that will impact upon the argument for extending the Bakerloo southwards? You can’t have hundreds of posts debating the positives and negatives of possible extension and not take into account that a part of London which currently has half hourly evening services won’t be looking with envy at the North of the river with high frequencies 24 hours a day. In fact the Bakerloo extension campaign even tweeted today that today’s announcement made it even more important for the Bakerloo to be extended to provide huge swathes of the London population with a 24 hour service. I don’t expect this thread to discuss the newly announced services but I do expect people to be able to discuss how today’s announcement might effect the campaign to extend the Bakerloo southwards. I guess the discussion of Thameslink services and Blackfriars takes priority.
[Sorry Anon5 but I disagree. None of this was mentioned in you original comment which was definitely in the wrong place. Just because it is not visible doesn’t mean I can’t go back and check what it said. If you want to raise a fresh point which is, arguably, related to the current post then that’s fine. PoP]
@PoP – How high between foot and head does a covered footbridge need to be? (Anyone – What is the vertical distance between the base of each lower strut over the tracks and the top of its ridge at Blackfriars? See photo to which PoP provided a link.)
” “thus within the footprint of the old canopies.” – “Pray, what is the relevance of that? We are talking about protected sightlines. In all the documentation on protected sightlines I have not seen a single mention of grandfather rights” – So? The City’s protected sightlines was ‘codified’ by 1938 but that is not to say that similar rights were not protected by gentleman’s agreement (after argument perhaps) before then with the Corporation of London. The LCC had long before met opposition to its intentions, including the introduction of trams across Blackfriars road bridge. Maybe someone has access to the actual measurements but I suggest that today’s roof line is no or only a little lower than that of the original canopies, in which case, your argument falls away. In any case, the latest version has far greater impact because the whole bridge is covered (but still not protected in any real sense from side winds off the river for awaiting passengers). I shall delve into my records of the LCDR to see how the building of the railway bridge and station obtained approval but at first blush the photos of the era show that the LCDR respected the City sight lines long before they needed to be told to so.
Stepping back a couple of comments: “because there are insufficient platforms at London Bridge for many more terminating trains and those terminating platforms will be fully used in years to come. – All in all, the Thameslink Programme is turning out to be woefully inadequate to cater for all the services it is highly desirable to run and something more is needed.”
Well, if ‘they’ had listened to the passengers, TOCs and user groups in the first place, they might have found the reasons why the project was ill-designed. To reduce the number of terminating platforms at London Bridge from nine to six was bound to ask for trouble to start with and, most unfortunately, we are limited now by that for generations to come, thus not permitting any expansion of any terminating services.
That will increase the popular demand for extensions of the tube south of the river. They might even get used to a Bakerloo Line extension with trains that have to creep through the sharp curves that abound between Elephant & Castle and Waterloo onwards.
Finally, Me: “I note that you include the peak services from e.g. Kent House and so on, which already or will soon once again terminate at Blackfriars, so what is the difference for those passengers?”
You: “Precisely. And one could make the same argument about the Wimbledon loop services.”
No, one couldn’t. The Wimbledon Loop services invariably ran through to Holborn Viaduct (with less than five minutes’ walk to the Farringdon and central Holborn areas), whereas the Kent House/Beckenham services normally only ran to and from Blackfriars in recent years – EXCEPT during the era (of which PoP suggests I must ignore because perhaps it does not fit the pattern of thought) when the last regular trains out of Holborn Viaduct were 0019 to Wimbledon and 0022 to Orpington, with a bonus of the 0100 via Blackfriars and London Bridge to Bromley North (note!). All train times taken from my Working Timetable of July 1967 – May 1968. Passenger services restarted in the down direction with the 0453 ex-Holborn to Orpington via Herne Hill and the 0457 to Sevenoaks stopping at all stations via the Catford Loop.
Where was I with what our splendid Thameslink scheme is meant to provide? Dream on.
@Anonymous -20 Feb at 22:55 – My thoughts above were sent before seeing your comment.
I fully realise that terminating platforms can be a hindrance but the point is at London Bridge the needs especially of the South London Line cannot be met by running through trains and I suggest also for the London Bridge slows via New Cross Gate and the number of terminating platforms and its approach tracks I believe is inadequate to permit much increase in suburban intensity. The last time I spoke to them, Southern reckoned that they would be hard pressed to increase the SLL route by even just 2tph.
I threw in the Tattenham example also because it has relevance to “P of Purley”… but seriously, what dead or at least nearly empty mileage for all that stock running as far as Tattenham and back again! Couple that with the thought that it will be rare for anyone on the Cambridge route to have any idea whatsoever where any station beyond say East Croydon is, let alone wish for a direct train anywhere near there.
Then, of course, the Thameslink through route project can bring the mountains crashing around it when it all goes belly up on just one of its river tributaries. The core route may well be able to cope with out of turn trains but it will need far greater flexibility when one or more service is more seriously delayed, resulting in the need to turn short.
It may well now, at last, be considered a new metro route but should somebody have troubled to include the original Thameslink routes and its connecting Southern Region (BR(SR))routes on the tube map in the first place, that might have saved an awful lot of money to try and increase patronage anyway.
I am trying to distil from your comment whether the primary objective is operational benefit or railway passenger service improvement. If the latter, please remember that the new rolling stock promised (Class 700) has seating ‘comfort’ assessment to be far below that expected by those longer distance commuters from the Sussex coast. An important and seemingly long-standing degrading from today there, then. That is the sort of thing to persuade passengers back to their cars.
@Graham Feakins -Just stepping back (in an nonoperational sense!) from the thread for a moment, what it does illustrate is the weak case for (and possibly futility of) linking the fate of the Bakerloo extension with relief to TLK/Lewisham and so on. The extension project is expensive,and going further to Hayes or whatever, even more so and the best that can be done in terms of the linkage to TLK etc is to buy an extra 6 paths an hour. This is a pricey way to buy an alternative to revamping the flat crossings between New Cross and Lewisham. (For example, Theban’s suggestion of tunnelling to Hayes would add around £1.5-2bn – including a couple of stations -to the cost). The logical conclusion ought to be that the bakerloo extension stands or falls on its own merits; anything more is at best a bonus,at worst a bit of cheesecake.
@Graham Feakins,
[Comment removed at the request of LBM as going way off topic. PoP]
@Theban
Does all new infrastructure need to allow room for future overhead wires or is it because the overhead wires could be easily extended into Blackfriars?
@Graham Feakins: “Couple that with the thought that it will be rare for anyone on the Cambridge route to have any idea whatsoever where any station beyond say East Croydon is, let alone wish for a direct train anywhere near there.”
Plenty of people in Cambridge know where Gatwick Airport is.
@Kingstoncommuter
Both.
@Graham F
“The Wimbledon Loop services invariably ran through to Holborn Viaduct ”
By that argument there should still be through services from the Great Northern Main line to both Barbican and Broad Street, and from the dc lines also to Broad Street.
“should somebody have troubled to include the original Thameslink routes and its connecting Southern Region (BR(SR))routes on the tube map in the first place”
They did appear, at least between Kentish Town and Elephant, for many years. Vanished, along with the NCL, when TfL decided that marking their territory was more important than helping people find their way around.
Graham F, the rough ratio of off peak terminating trains to terminal platforms will remain about the same at London Bridge after 2018, once the Tattenhams and Horshams are removed. And this excludes the extra peak trains that ARE run via both main and south London lines – who is to say these paths can’t be used off peak. And offering more throughput to the station boosts capacity in itself.
It’s not about providing Cambridge passengers with the chance to go to Tattenham Corner, any more than the Northern line exists to get people from Morden to Mill Hill. It’s about boosting capacity from various London termini through to destinations on the Brighton Main Line – especially places like East Croydon – and although the scheme boosts the number of paths available it does nothing for the limited terminating capacity at East Croydon. Therefore the trains have to go somewhere to turn round. So two semi fast services at either end of the core route are joined together. Tattenham and Cambridge passengers can still do the journey they do now. But their train will take them beyond the terminal if it’s useful to them – and it could be – it’s not inconceivable that someone would travel from Tattenham to Kings Cross/St Pancras. But the core activity is connectivity – it raises the Thameslink core service to a turn up and go frequency for anyone arriving at the terminal stations. There might not be many going from Royston to Reedham; but probably a few from Bexleyheath, Bellingham or Baldock who won’t have to wait long for a direct train to the Eurostar terminal, Luton Airport or a day out in Brighton. Don’t forget the coming Crossrail interchange at Farringdon also – which magnifies the available destinations massively.
I seem to remember Thameslink was included on some tube maps but it has been so infrequent in the past (and not even running via London Bridge in the peaks) that I often spurned it despite knowing of it.
As for disruption, well hopefully all the work that is going on now will make it more robust. Many of the reasons it has been unreliable now is due to the constrained nature of the cross London connection. Turning back early sometimes during disruption, it’s not exactly an unknown phenomenon is it?
Railway operational convenience versus passenger service? Well quite often one is designed to help the other. Not always, but generally. It’s not good customer service to lose time endlessly waiting at flat junctions or crawling through Crystal Palace and Tulse Hill which is what happens now. As for seats. It seems to me that passengers want the impossible from trains today. More seats – but they musn’t be smaller. And we need luggage space too. And somewhere for bikes. Each person must not suffer any loss of amenity even though more capacity is demanded. Well, it can’t be done, and I wish someone in the industry would just say it. Unless someone is willing to fund a multi billion pound rebuild of much of the network, with a continental loading gauge allowing double deckers and clearing room for 16 car platforms, we are stuck with what we have. It’s more people standing and fewer and smaller seats or it’s more people sitting and fewer people on the train full stop. We’re at the limit with 12 car trains and the paths we currently have.
Which brings us neatly back to the Bakerloo extension funnily enough. We can’t get more trains through Lewisham now but a frequent service to town from there provided by a Hayes extension is a way of doing so. It not only brings a better frequency to the outer suburbs – even the poor Catford Loop users could change to it at Catford Bridge – but relieves pressure on SE Metro at Lewisham whilst giving them six more paths into London Bridge for use on other lines.
@Chris Patrick (and others):
Lewisham’s Hayes platforms weren’t used by services via Hither Green until around the 1920s. (I’m basing this on the excellent National Library of Scotland maps, a link to which was provided in a nearby thread.) Prior to that, they only served the Mid-Kent Railway services (today’s Hayes branch). Services via Hither Green could not call at the station. I’m assuming, judging by when the relevant chord appears, that the connection with that route was made during the quadrupling phase, when the link to Nunhead was also added.
In other words, when the “Tonbridge” line was built through the area, it literally bypassed Lewisham entirely and none of the trains using it called there. It wasn’t physically possible. This is why those two platforms are so skewed in favour of the Hayes line.
Those platforms cannot be easily realigned. Not only is there no space to do so, but basic geometry gets in the way: the Nunhead ramp can’t be easily relocated, and neither can the junction with the Blackheath line. In order for the station to actually pay anything other than lip-service to its ‘junction’ status, it must be located where it is now. And that means those Hayes platforms must retain that sharp curve. Straightening them to a useful degree would require pushing them back along the viaduct towards Ladywell, effectively separating them from the rest of the station.
Basically, the problem isn’t the station, but all the tracks and junctions that surround it.
Fixing Lewisham Junction is likely to make even the work planned for East Croydon look like a walk in the park. There are no easy or simple solutions here. They all involve spending massive sums of money, and that’s always going to be a tough sell to politicians.
@Anomnibus …
Spot on (topic also).
The Courthill loop was opened in 1929 according to Joe Brown’s railway atlas. It was as a result of Southern Railway existing as single company and its desire to reduce congestion at London Bridge (a familiar story?). It was built in conjunction with the new line from Lewisham Junction to join the then abandoned line to Nunhead (the Greenwich Park branch) in order for freight to be able to get through London via Snow Hill (the current Thameslink route) whilst avoiding London Bridge. As such it wasn’t electrified initially and I think passenger trains calling at Lewisham did not use it until 1932 or thereabouts.
I sort of covered this here though glossed over some of the details which weren’t relevant to the history of St Johns.
When the Mid-Kent Line (the current Hayes Line) was built all trains went via Lewisham. The avoiding line via Parks Bridge Junction (the Ladywell Loop) was built nine years later.
I have always believed that one of the reasons for the initial grandeur of St Johns was that it was an interchange station for those who had come via Hither Green or Ladywell (on trains not calling at Lewisham) and wished to go to Lewisham or stations to the east thereof. Certainly for many years tickets were specifically routed via St Johns and that wasn’t just tickets to London. I have always believe that too is a legacy from often not being able to change at Lewisham – especially so before around 1932.
Of course that was in the days when many services called at St Johns and the fact that they did was, I suspect, partly due to the fact that they couldn’t call at Lewisham.
@PoP
I was talking about an “underslung” pedestrian footbridge at Blackfriars. That would need stairs outside the current platforms and the roof for the stairs would be much lower than the main canopy which is why I cannot see a problem with sight lines. Their might be problems with navigation but I cannot see a sight lines problem which is why I was querying that objection which had been raised.
@Graham H, 20 February 2015 at 16:55
“. . . before the ’80s resignalling, the terminus (Fenchurch Street) received something like 27tph max, afterwards 24-25 max. Quite what made the difference wasn’t made clear to me at the time – possibly changes to either signalling overlaps or pathing allowances , or a lower tolerance by HMRI of parallel moves.”
The throat was lengthened significantly for the remodelling work in the 1990s so the home signals are now some 500m from the platform ends, over 200 metres further out than the old home signals. Also the tail of an outgoing movement typically must pass a minimum of 200m from the end of the platform before that platform is once again clear for signalling a reoccupation, and for some movements combinations that distance is considerably more. The throat junctions were relocated well away from the immediate platform end area (on a short curve), to the straight track beyond. This was to allow all the new work to be installed in advance clear of the old junctions, and clipped up ready for a quick changeover when the new signalling was commissioned, but also allowed some small increase in design speed through the throat and at the platform ends.
There were two block sections, albeit very short ones in the old signalling through the short section of four tracks remaining on approach to the terminus after the DLR took the south pair beyond to Limehouse. Even with the one section remaining now in the modern signalling, moving the home signals out has the effect of shortening the available standage. Whilst it is clearly possible to hold an incoming 12 car train at the home and have another following train diverge behind it, or have an outgoing train cross behind it, the standage is only around 300m, so on a cautious approach to a home at red the tail of the train is passing through the double to quad junction at a crawl, delaying clearance for the next movement.
Now there is no point work in the immediate platform end area, the next major junction track renewal project for the area should perhaps consider relocating the throat to the traditional area and moving the homes closer in, which would also lengthen standage on their approach, helping to increase speed of passage through the junction to rear.
@straphan, 20 February 2015 at 17:42
“I imagine signalling has become more restrictive with time as well: whereas previously the release mechanism for a signal consisted of the signalman’s MkI eyeball, today you have to wait for a train to pass through a track circuit block, which may actually take more time – but is safer.”
At Fenchurch Street the old layout and signalling was fully electric and fully track circuit locked just like today, albeit using a different generation of equipment, and core signalling principles have not changed significantly. For instance to clear a track locked junction assuming the route has already been replaced, the tail merely has to clear the dead locking track circuit covering that junction. In an ARS equipped control centre like Upminster the automation can immediately step in and set a another route almost immediately after this, perhaps not ALWAYS more quickly than a signaller operating manual controls and eagerly poised for that one operation, but definitely more responsive on average, especially as ARS can set a number of routes across a particular operator’s screen in very quick succession, each in response to its own route locking release trigger.
So at Fenchurch Street I think the major limitation is with the layout rather than the signalling, and whilst future ETCS and ATO might improve things marginally, the layout needs to be changed to obtain any significant benefit.
My point about Hayes – Orpington (and I agree about £1.2bn) is this. Eeking more capacity from existing infrastructure can only get us so far and any new capacity will have to be tunnelled. Crossrail essentially has Zone 1/2 tunnels. Crossrail 2 needs tunnels well into Zone 3. By the time we get to relieving BML and the Kent Mainline a tunnel pretty much out to Zone 6 will be needed – on top of either a new crossrail arrangement linking North and South or East and West since new terminal platforms in the CAZ are practically impossible.
That is, progressively adding capacity will get more and more expensive because the tunnels will need to be longer and longer. To get long-term expansion costs to potentially acceptable levels the number of CAZ to Zone 6 tunnels will need to be minimised. That means all existing heavy rail radial routes will need to carry 24tph+ of 12 car trains. That’s the clear future need for London over a 50 year horizon. So, whatever the short-term justification for a Haykerloo extension (and personally I am not sold on the short term gains), strategically sacrificing an existing heavy rail radial route to run small Tube trains is nonsensical. How the Hayes radial route will get used in the far future (assuming it isn’t Tubified) is unimportant although relief for BML or the Kent Mainline are the obvious options.
The journey time point made by PoP isn’t aposite because by the time we need the Hayes line as a high-capacity radial route (and we should be safeguarding land along the route for passing loops) it will form part of some crossrail-type arrangement with radically different journey times.
@Mark Townend – thank you for a comprehensive explanation – so, nothing to do with the signalling but the track layout!
@Theban – I suspect we are arguing for the same thing but for different reasons. Extending the Bakerloo is not about going to Hayes and not about buying 6 extra very expensive paths and it’s a pity that the arguments about serving one and achieving the other have got mixed up. And I do agree about the need to keep in mind the need for new medium distance routes into London – what we have will be full one way or another soon. Whether Hayes is a good platform for launching such a thing is probably a crayonista exercise; in practice the shortage of new commuter routes seems to lie to the north and east of the CAZ.
@Graham H
The Hayes line certainly isn’t ideally placed and is unlikely to be anybody’s first choice. If in the next Parliament Gatwick gets an extra runway, suddenly providing additional trains to Gatwick becomes a very pressing problem. The only two solutions will be a tunnel from CAZ to Croydon or reinstating Elmers End to Selsdon and diverting some commuter services up the Hayes line – although to where would remain an intractable problem. If Gatwick doesn’t get an extra runway, then I agree other radial routes might become critical sooner.
@Theban
Re Gatwick, even with another runway it surely wouldn’t need more than say another 4 fast paths, which I would have thought would cause a much bigger issue south of Windmill Hill. I just cannot envisage any solution which would involve the Hayes line.
If (!) a new tunnel were built anywhere I would have thought a tunnel between Beckenham Hill and somewhere near Stewarts Lane for fast services and freight would solve a number of issues for a comparatively cheap price, it’s around 6.5 miles in a straight line, so maybe £1bn ish. Then a frequent service could be offered via the Catford loop and via Herne Hill
I wonder if the budget in March will have any surprise announcements. It’s just before an election and Crossrail 2 is too big, maybe something concrete on the Bakerloo line?
The bakerloo is not such a big project, and George does seem to like a bit of Pork Barrel and the Tories want to remain competitive in London.
Maybe announce construction to possibly start in 2019, just as the Northern \battersea extension is winding down.
Probably not, but you never know.
timbeau
when TfL decided that marking their territory was more important than helping people find their way around. Yes, well, many genarations of tom-kittens at this address know all about that!
[And on that note, discussions about what goes on the tube map have cropped up many times so further comments on the subject will be deleted. PoP]
@Rational Plan – you are right to be cynical. There is, of course, no more money, and so anything announced will be something already announced (Cf John Welsby’s obiter dicta about West Coast upgrade), and whatever it is, there won’t be any specific financial commitment to it.
Whatever it is,it will be directed at marginal seats/voters. This,in itself, is tricky this time round because of the UKIP threat, so whilst “good news” used to be aimed at marginal seats in the Midlands, I would now expect it to be aimed at those coastal seats where UKIP might otherwise do well (eg Hastings via HS1 perhaps -“Good news for people of Kent”). The London marginals are pretty scattered – Central Croydon, for example, but not Croydon N or S (maybe something for Tramlink, but they don’t have anything shovel-ready just now), The Bakerloo extension is a good noise to make as it would be off the end of any likely timescale for public expenditure planning and can be safely buried in the future beneath GLA cheeseparing. CR2 has its critics and would be a poor election cry although whether this is understood by the politicians is unclear.
On the other hand, HS2 can be larged as a poisoned chalice to be handed to an incoming Labour coalition.
On the Labour side, in London, the Bakerloo extension is an increasing demand. It’s South London’s turn etc, with only potential fighting over routes. But in the past those areas of solid support have been ignored as they have no one else they’ll vote for.
On the surface the Tories have no hope in South London, but several motivations could come into play. Gentrification could change the voting base of various seats.
The Northern line extension is delivering 16,000 new homes nearly all of which are super luxury. This not only solidifies Wandsworth as a true blue base, the Battersea seat further from a marginal towards a core Tory area, the ripples of gentrification are spreading out from core Tory support in West Central and South West London zones.
On a local level it is interesting to note a crust of Conservative councillors along the Thames in Tower Hamlets and on the Isle of Dogs.
Plus the political impact will spread long from the route and a route all the way to Hayes could be a nice bit of promotion throughout the South Eastern Suburbs.
Plus it seems George likes transport infrastructure as a political tool and a symbol of investing in the economy.
Labour like investing in other infrastructure such as schools and hospitals, which is easier to do as it involves lots of smaller projects that can be spread around the country with lots of opportunities for local press coverage. It also plays well with their own activist base.
While it’s true there is no money now, and the next five years are tough. But after that?
You could give go ahead tomorrow and consultation and the Grip levels could take two or more years with construction only beginning in five years time, and that would be quick!
Look at the Northern line extension. Wandworth council got it’s act together over battersea and the surrounding area and launched a comprehensive redevelopment process, no doubts launched when the US embassy put out feelers for relocation. before we no it they were pushing for a tube extension and the government said ‘all-right then’ . But even that super fast development will not open till 2020 8 to 10 years after first proposal.
An opening date of 2024 for Lewisham tube could be possible.
@Rational Plan – “a crust of Conservative councillors” – some sort of collective noun, perhaps?
@Theban
The fast lines south of Hither Green take 8tph and the slows 4tph (8tph beyond Chiselhurst), so there is plenty of capacity there. Its inbound of Hither Green that the crowding occurs. So any relief tunnel portal would be around there, not Orpington. Indeed putting it at Hither Green would allow the Chatham fasts to come that way too, to give more capacity for other traffic through Bromley South. There is plenty of room for a second line underpass if you didn’t want to cross the slow lines. A Zone 3 tunnel seems much more practical than a Zone 6 one
@Herned
Based on present figures and excluding the wee hours about 4,000 passengers per hour use trains at Gatwick which would suggest aboit another 4tph fast paths if doubled although I think any expansion would disprortiinately increase train usage by pulling in more passengers from London who would be disinclined to drive but maybe another 4tph London – East Croydon – Gatwick – Brighton as a bare minimum. Personally I don’t think that’s achievable without a significant upgrade to BML which itself will need further capacity anyway over the next 30 years.
Without getting too crayonistic, put it this way, the Hayes line is one option which has come up as a way of relieving BML in proposals like BML2. Whether that is the best I don’t know but I don’t think that any decision ought to be taken about the future of the Hayes line without some plan for public transport at Gatwick if it gets a second runway. The TfL plan only considered the Thames Estuary Airport. That plan needs to be updated to address the options for both Heathrow and Gatwick until the decision on their future is taken.
@Mark Townend
ARS Automatic Route Setting technology used to predict and recover from delays, with the goal of handling system-wide delays more quickly with more sophisticated, real-time prioritisation of conflicting needs on the entire network.
@ Theban
That plan won’t be updated until either airport is chosen. They’ll need to get plans in motion faster with Heathrow than with Gatwick, because more airlines will transfer from Heathrow and I suspect BA would want to consolidate it’s long haul leisure operations from Gatwick to Heathrow.
But on the other hand Heathrow already has a brace of options already trundling through planning or being discussed. We have Wrath, and plenty of options with Crossrail once the Heathrow Express contract runs out. Then connecting nearby is HS2 at Old oak, with more local connections provided via new Overground stations and potentially new routes as well. Plus their is talk about wat sort of southern access to Heathrow to build.
Gatwick on the other hand is getting a flash new station and???
If Gatwick gets the nod, then I expect a slower growth at the airport as I doubt any airline alliance will transfer their London hub their. So it could easily be another decade after a new runway and Terminal opened before anyone really noticed the difference.
If the Brighton Mainline was not so full I doubt there would be that much extra investment.
PoP – then I apologise. As far as I recall I posted the original tweet from BBC London in both threads: this one first and immediately followed by a comment on how that could affect the campaign to extend the Bakerloo and/or Overground/DLR; then in the Night Tube thread followed by a link to a story published on BBC Online. However I posted from a mobile so if you say that the post didn’t appear then I certainly can’t argue with that.
As I said I think the 24 hour tube could have serious sway with the decision to extend the Bakerloo but it also gives Bromley council weight to their argument to extend the DLR to Bromley North seeing as that too will receive a 24 hour service soon. (Bromley North is also where much of Bromley town centre’s night time economy is concentrated.) I think the implications could have been far wider had the proposed 24 hour Overground gone further than New Cross as it would have reached the outer zones. But obviously it’s being kept to TfL owned track. The question now has to be how much will south east Londoners demand a night servive (be it Bakerloo or DLR) and is that voice stron enough to replace the Hayes line or in the case of the Bakerloo ‘merely’ end at Lewisham? I certainly can’t see the leafy suburbs of Hayes, West Wickham, Eden Park or New Beckenham accepting a depot on the green playing fields close to those stations, even if some of those have recently succumbed to limited residential redevelopment. Ironically until 30 years or so ago the influential Copers Cope residents association bordered a coal depot on land next to Beckenham Junction platform 4 (at the start of the New Beckenham spur) which is now a far more appealing middle class Waitrose.
An announcement re Bakerloo extension is contained with link below –
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2014/new-sub-surface-timetable-good-gets/#comment-241724
@anon5 – it’s difficult to follow LB Bromley’s logic: if the idea is to revitalise Bromley’s night life, then the last thing you want to do is to connect it with a rival (and much more attractive) centre in the West End. You would do better developing the local night bus network. In practical terms, a night tube service would add little, if anything, to the business case, given the high costs of running during the “silent hours”. Might even be negative.
You are right to draw attention to the depot issue – usually treated as a secondary issue of at all. Going to Lewisham will require stabling for another 10-12 sets; going to Hayes, for another 10-12 on top of that. Stabling for 10 sets requires something with a footprint of at least 100 metres x 200 metres (more like 300 metres for a modern double-ended depot), and finding that space between E&C and Lewisham may well be tricky. It may be easier to find some of that space at the northern end, and stable the balance in the platforms overnight – but that would be a revolutionary step for LU and brings its own complications in terms of ensuring that sets pass through maintenance facilities correctly.
@Graham H, @anon5
I still believe the depot issue makes heading for Slade Green via the Bexleyheath line the most viable proposal, short of a massive redevelopment between E&C and Lewisham that can stick a depot underneath a-la Wood Lane. I suspect it would be a similar length of tunnelling to Hither Green depot as it would be to Blackheath Junction, but I don’t really see much opportunity to expand HG depot short of evicting NR or taking over the adjacent Grove park, neither of which are likely to be popular. Slade Green, on the other hand, has plenty of adjacent open land for expansion, and light industrial units nearby for a brownfield option.
Before anyone declares this crayoning, this is the option I’ve mentioned before that, IIRC, performed as well as the Hayes option in the study presented to Lewisham council (and covered on here back in 2010). Rather giving you a long list of similar links, Google “bakerloo extension slade green” and you’ll find all sorts of documents illustrating the point. The opportunity for a follow-on extension to Bluewater via Dartford (also in the reports, so don’t get snippy with me) to create a contra-flow traffic objective just further improves the case over anything Hayes can offer (at best an extension to Orpington, maybe?).
@mr-jrt – I think you are right to imply that depot location may well drive the SE end of any extension. (Not so sure whether the good people who live near Bluewater will like the idea of riding the Bakerloo all the way to the West End any more than the Hayesites, but Slade green may be tolerable…)
As a strategic comment, there is a looming shortage of depot capacity in the SE generally and although more can be done by splitting maintenance programmes and distributing them, as with the new TLK stock, there is still a stabling issue to be addressed. The number of old “depotlets” such as Stewarts Lane that can be revived is pretty limited.
@Anon5,
This I fear is where I feel the benefits of replacing a National Rail service by a tube service gets a bit silly. It is similar to the argument that we would be better off having the tube to Hayes because we would have a better Sunday service.
If an issue is no service or Friday or Saturday nights then there are a lot of cheaper ways of resolving this. I am sure the TOC would run them if paid enough and Network Rail would also agree if it didn’t cost them money. Alternatively, mandate it as as part of the next franchise.
If Sunday service and all night service are issues then the framework to incentive this to happen needs to be changed. I expect it would also require a slightly different mentality in Network Rail. Doing this means that all lines would benefit – not just those that are tube lines – or one day will be.
@Theban:
The Thames has an irritating lack of discipline and doesn’t flow in a straight line from west to east, so London’s CAZ is decidedly wonky. Although the Hayes route from Elmers End to Lewisham is roughly north-south and therefore looks like a radial line, it really isn’t. By the time it reaches Ladywell, it’s actually pointing at North Greenwich, not the City or the West End. This is why I have a hard time understanding the logic of extending the Bakerloo over this route: it would be a very circuitous route into London’s West End.
From Hayes, the line actually makes an almost 90-degree turn to get into Elmers End itself, and then runs north-north-east, before it makes another 90-degree turn towards the north-west as it passes through Lewisham junction. (Hence the curved platforms there.) While it was relatively quick by the standards of its time, those standards have long since been superseded and it’s by no means a fast route. The line speed tops out at just 60 mph.
I feel the future of this line is in a conversion to Tramlink, bringing the tram into Catford and Lewisham. With some caveats: Suffice to say my box of crayons is screaming “Express Crossrail, from Sevenoaks (or Orpington; the geography gets tricky here) to London via Hayes!” at me. I should probably seek professional help for that.
@Long Branch Mike, 22 February 2015 at 05:35
“ARS Automatic Route Setting technology used to predict and recover from delays, with the goal of handling system-wide delays more quickly with more sophisticated, real-time prioritisation of conflicting needs on the entire network.”
And I understand it still does this very well where provided, but it can only be as good as the location specific rules and timetable data it is configured with! Delta Rail today markets the modern incarnation of that original BR Research product which was always claimed to be the most advanced such system available worldwide. I would argue it probably remains so today, and it was designed for the UK so plays nicely with all the other UK specific data systems such as the timetable database, IECC display screen equipment, train describer, interlocking interface, etc. Unfortunately the impression many have today is that ARS is too much of a ‘black box’ of concealed magic which has to be entirely configured and maintained by Delta Rail boffins hired in or retained at high professional rates to carry out even the tiniest of changes, rather than being able to be ‘customer tweaked’. The latest versions do have a little more user variability built in to overcome this, but perhaps the biggest mistake was to have vested this most critical of operational tools, as well as the geniuses who created it, into the hands of one monopoly supplier in the first place. At the time of privatisation it was no doubt thought of as ‘just software’ and ‘the market will provide’ etc, etc.
Please note there ARE other automated route setting systems available from a range of suppliers!
Concerning Gatwick, the current NCE (New Civil Engineer) has a bit of a splash on development plans there. Current capacity is 45M passengers annually which is expected to be be reached in 2025. So if a new runway is built the target date for that (plus a partly completed new terminal) is 2025, raising capacity to 63M. After that various phases would raise capacity to 95M by 2040. It is difficult to judge whether achieving the required transfer of passengers for that last 32M could be done merely by adding more tph to the current services. To actually attract the airlines and their customers, some form of new higher speed rail link would probably be needed.
@Mr JRT
““bakerloo extension slade green” ……………. The opportunity for a follow-on extension to Bluewater via Dartford”
If you go to Slade Green via Bexleyheath you end up facing away from Dartford. Omitting Slade Green and going straight to Dartford would require a new pair of tracks to segregate the Tube from NR, but as the existing station at Dartford can hardly cope with the existing traffic on offer (one reason Metro services go round the houses and back again, missing Dartford out) that is not necessarily a bad thing.
People may not want to take the Bakerloo all the way to Bluewater from Central London (BakerBlue?) but they wouldn’t have to – they would just change from SE services at Dratford
@timbeau – without prejudice to the answer as to where might be a good place for an extra Bakerloo depot, that depot doesn’t have to be on the line of route as at Northumberland Park. BTW “Dratford”? :-}
How peculiar, was typing away and the page refreshed itself, losing my reply?
Anyway, @Graham H & @timbeau, indeed. You would just change at Dartford or Lewisham for faster services. Given the current surface congestion at both I always suspected new Bakerloo platforms would have to be underground – any projection from Dartford to Bluewater would certainly have to be, so it’s no great loss to handle all the issues with one solution. Given how much they would benefit, you’d hope TPTB could get some contributions from Bluewater’s owners to help fund that last section as well.
Agreed that you certainly wouldn’t serve Slade Green station, (you would merely have links to/through/under the depot for access to whatever depot arrangements you ended up with) – the passenger interchange with NR would be at Dartford. I suspect it would ultimately be a good idea to have an interchange with the residual NR loop services that bypass Dartford though, so perhaps a case could be made for a new station between Crayford Creek Junction and Crayford Spur ‘A’ Junction, but the only obvious location on Thames Road is a bit desolate; probably passive provision would suffice until that area gets a bit more built up.
@ PoP 21 Feb at 12.45
To give the precise date when the Courthill loop was electrified and local trains ran direct between Lewisham and Hither Green this was 16 July 1933. I believe these only ran via Sidcup, so a change at Hither Green was now needed to travel between Lewisham and the stations on the main line.
Is there a particular reason why people keep suggesting alternative names for the Bakerloo? At no time since it opened (in 1906) did it ever actually terminate at Waterloo, and it was extended from Baker Street just seven years later, in 1913. Yet nobody’s suggesting we rename it the Harrophant Line.
Giving inaccurate names to our railway lines is a grand tradition. The Mid-Kent Line, which is under discussion in this very thread, isn’t even in Kent, for example. Similarly, the Metropolitan Railway, on opening, mostly served open countryside, while you’d have to be staggeringly drunk while in charge of a compass to draw a circle as wonky as the Circle Line.
And don’t get me started on the “Northern” Line, which is, ironically, the only Tube line that isn’t so petrified of south London that it clings to the Thames like a frightened child before running back north again to Stratford. (Yes, Jubilee Line, I’m looking at you.)
Er, anyway, time for my pills. Nurse!
@mr_jrt
What is TPTB?
Mind you,Slade Green is a VERY long way from Lewisham.
LBM
TPTB =The Powers That Be?
Sorry, yes. “The Powers That Be”. 🙂
@Graham H
Not really, only 10-11ish miles, which is ~25 minutes at metro speeds (a shocking 25mph average!). By way of comparison, Lewisham and Willesden Junction are rough equivalents (zonally), and 10-11 miles north west of Willesden Junction was Croxley Green depot. Admittedly, you also have Stonebridge and Queens Park depots in between, but it was still practical back in the day.
Incidentally, checking the timetabled durations for those calculations highlights how slow NR metro services can be. I can appreciate the current Bakerloo stock is quite old, but are the modern Overground 378 units (or indeed, the old Bakerloo units) north of Willesden limited by the low-capacity signalling, the interoperation, both or neither? i.e. would a solely Bakerloo operation (possibly with with modern stock) permit faster journey times, and likewise are the slow journey times on the Bexleyheath line down to the NR stock operating on it, and could this improve with tube stock with better acceleration?
The only reason that Slade Green has suddenly been revived in these comments is that it would be easier (than Hayes) to build a depot there.
That may well be so (and Bexleyheathites may make less fuss about being deprived of Cannon Street trains, though I wouldn’t count on it), but it still suffers from the fundamental weakness, common to all beyond-Lewisham notions, that the spare capacity (the using up of which was the original “problem”) will be all soaked up by the cis-Lewisham part, so going any further is a waste of money.
Fair point, Malcom. I still feel that interchange at Lewisham will offset that though, with many changing onto NR “upstairs”, making extension beyond statistically a zero-sum game. In the reports I recall, both Hayes and Dartford options cost roughly the same (£1.3bn in 2010 money). If you can’t find stabling for the additional units between E&C and Lewisham, then you have little choice but to go further. It’s the 1930s Northern line search for a depot all over again.
@mr-jrt – “making extension beyond statistically a zero-sum game.” Possibly,statistically, although I’d like to see the evidence for your assertion. Financially, however, hardly the case…
BTW, those Dartford and Hayes from Lewisham extensions look very cheap at 1.3 big ones apiece.
My suggestion of looking at the northern endfor depot capacity was not an idle thought…
@ Anomnibus
22 February 2015 at 18:10
A few corrections needed, please.
The Metropolitan Railway when it opened in 1863 between Paddington and Farringdon was only within the built up area. The Hammersmith Extension (joint with the GW) in 1864 started to take it just beyond the built up area – which then followed it! The St Johns Wood Railway from Baker Street was in tunnel for a very good reason – the area was full of Victorian villas, expensive even then. Only when it started under Sir Edward Watkins’ control to head towards the Midlands did it become a mini main line in the countryside.
The Mid Kent Line was in Kent, until Kent retreated with the creation of the LCC. Then it was only partially in Kent, until the GLC. Not much ‘Mid’ about it, though, I grant you.
The Circle Line’s ‘circle’ was a victim of railway politics and funding and expansion priorities. Really it was the ‘Inner Circle’, and it did indeed pretty well circle the City of London, which was the commercial heart of London. Have a look at the Middle and Outer Circle routes, to see what circles could mean then! Arguable the Overground is the first true ‘circle’ embracing the whole of Central London – and, guess what, Canary, Stratford and Old Oak Common start to extend again the notion of what Central London is.
Northern Line? Ah yes you mean the Morden-Edgware Line as it was from the 1920s to 1937, when the massive expansion and takeover of the GNR routes to Ally Pally, High Barnet, Edgware and the Bushey Heath extension made a pretty decent case for renaming.
Back to topic, aka the ‘Bakerloo’ various people tried abbreviate the Morden-Edgware line during its lifetime – neither ‘Mordenware’ (presumably made near Stoke-on-Trent) or the ‘Edgmorden’ – both somewhat ugly as a word conflation – didn’t catch on.
Presumably there will in due course be a Mayoral naming competition for the separated Northern Lines? No entries are required here… and any entries might be policed by the mods.
[Quite. As much fun as creating port-manteaux names for a new or extended line can be, we strive for factual discussion on LR. So until such time as the Northern Line split plan is actually announced, we shall hold the line on not entertaining such word-play. LBM]
@Anomnibus
“Similarly, the Metropolitan Railway, on opening, mostly served open countryside,”
Paddington to Farringdon was certainly not open countryside in 1863.
“The Mid-Kent Line isn’t even in Kent”
It was when it was built
@Mr JRT
” I suspect it would ultimately be a good idea to have an interchange with the residual NR loop services that bypass Dartford though,”
If you remove the Bexleyheath line trains there would be room for the Sidcup and Woolwich line trains to go in and out of Dartford instead of missing it out as they have to at present.
@Graham H: It may be easier to find some of that space at the northern end, and stable the balance in the platforms overnight – but that would be a revolutionary step for LU
I believe that trains are intended to be stabled overnight in the platforms at Battersea, so the precedent will have been set.
I do like the Bull & Bear line for the Morden – Bank – High Barnet line. More realistically, it’ll be the London Bridge & City line. It rolls off the tongue in the same pattern that the Hammersmith & City and Waterloo & City lines do.
As for the Battersea (or Clapham Junction, I wish) – Charing Cross – Edgeware line, answers on a postcard.
[But, please, no answers here. As suggested by Milton Clevedon we do not really want to encourage suggestions of names on this site. PoP]
@Ian J -Interesting, thank you. (Now I come to think of it, the same will be needed on the W&C if the service levels are increased as planned – but the position there is much easier insofar as there is no need for access for engineering trains and arranging for sets to pass the depot for planned maintenance cycles is not going to be difficult!)
“Ian Visits” has recovered information regarding a post-crayonista ( = GRIP2 ? ) 1970’s proposal for extension of the Northern to either Streatham or Peckham Rye:
http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2015/02/22/extending-the-northern-line-to-peckham-and-streatham/
“Many a slip ‘twixt cup & lip” comes to mind
Before everyone gets carried away, the 24 hour service is only on Friday and Saturday night.
Hardly a justification for trying to squeeze lots of people from spacious trains into tiny Tube stock and sending them on a slow journey round the houses of south London.
@Anon 0015
There are arguably too many lines with “& City” in their names already, and it can lead to confusion. I have more than once heard radio presenters refer to the “Circle, Hammersmith, and City Lines” as if there were three and not two lines involved. (see also cancellations of “Southend to Victoria” services – rather than services to Southend Victoria).
If people commenting here use convenient shorthand names like Haykerloo, BakerBluewater, BakerLewisham, Wimbleware, Chelney, XR2, HS2, BML2, NLE, when discussing their various merits, what’s the problem, as long as the meaning is clear?
@PoP: Regarding the Catford Loop:
The journey time of an all-stations train between Crofton Road Jn (just west of Peckham Rye) and Shortlands Jn (at the southern end of the Catford Loop) is 16.5 minutes. A fast passenger or a freight train can do this section in 9 minutes. Minimum planning headway is 2.5 minutes for fast trains (i.e. for trains following a fast train) and 3 minutes for slow (stopping) trains. Assuming we operate a sequence of fast-slow-fast-slow (to even out the frequency between the stopping trains), the theoretical maximum we can accommodate on the Catford loop is 9 trains per hour (5 stoppers and 4 fasts):
Crofton Rd Jn: 0 – 10.5 – 13 – 23.5 – 26 – 36.5 – 39 – 49.5 – 52
Shortlands Jn: 16.5 – 19.5 – 29.5 – 32.5 – 42.5 – 45.5 – 55.5 – 58.5 – 08.5
Given most trains are run at frequencies of 15 minutes or multiples thereof (30/60 minutes), this gives us a realistic maximum of 4 slows and 4 fasts per hour. Which is exactly what is planned to run via Catford in December 2018 in peak hours: 4tph Thameslink (to Sevenoaks and Maidstone East); and 4tph Southeastern (to/from Victoria). If you want more trains to operate, you will need to flight these, which misses the point really – having 8 trains 3 minutes apart and then nothing for half an hour is hardly a turn-up-and-go service…
Off-peak you could then operate an additional 2tph stopping service in the path of the peak Maidstone service. However, since the peak Maidstone service does not stop at all stations on the Catford Loop, you would then end up with a curious situation of some stations getting a better service in the off-peak than in the peak. In theory you could even run those off-peak trains through the Thameslink core if you wanted (the capacity should be there), but that would require the DfT to change the franchise agreement and order some more Class 700s (even though we are talking off-peak these trains need to be maintained somehow!).
Hope that clears things up a bit!
straphan,
Very helpful thanks.
But, is there a stock shortage, or could 4 tph slows be run along the Catford Loop right now?
I think that’s what people are ( quite justifiably ) moaning about – why should they have to wait another 3+ years, when a Catford-loop-terminating_@-Blackfriars service could be operating … (?)
@straphan – I checked with Realtime Trains for the hour this morning between 07.46 and 08.44 for up trains coming off the Catford Loop itself (viz. not via Lewisham) and there were 12 trains, seven fast, two semi-fast not stopping after e.g. Catford, and three slow.
They had come from Ashford (2), Bromley South, Dover Priory, Gillingham (2), Orpington, Rochester, Sevenoaks (3) and Sheerness-on-Sea.
Out of those, four were for Victoria and the rest via Blackfriars, with three terminating there.
@Graham – The Catford loop currently runs around 12 depending how the ‘peak hour’ is counted.
Hope you don’t mind a minor clarification, (using arrival at Blackfriars between 8-9) there is one all stops, with four skip-stop (which miss 2-3 stops on the Catford loop but none elsewhere). This combined with two fast and one skip-stop pair rather than fast/slow sequence allow a higher throughput to be achieved through the loop than the outline above.
In 2018 this changes to 2 all stop core trains, then 3 (or maybe 2) skip-stop will run into the Blackfriars bays as Southeastern services. The new Maidstone East trains replace the Ashford-Blackfriars ones so won’t stop on the Catford loop (likely to still be routed that way). The Dover Priory service will revert back to London Bridge area along with the Blackfriars via Lewisham trains.
This keeps the peak service to 3-5tph depending which station and off peak to 2tph as now. Extra trains off peak are possible, but seem unlikely with reasoning much the same as for the South London line replacement to Bellingham/Bromley South. Any further out will require 4 trains to run the extra services instead of 3 reducing the business case even further.
@Greg T: Thanks, it’s interesting they were targeting 30tph for an extension even then – and considered that you would need a three track terminus or loops to get that. This would have been around the time the Northern Line had a rapid surge in usage, leading to the reintroduction of the 1938 stock, wouldn’t it?
Note also the comments on the challenging geology of South London (but only north of Brixton) – although tunnelling technology will have changed since the 70s.
…and from the source link on that blog post, Antony Ellis’ FOI request has a couple of interesting documents: the original 1988 report on Northern Line extensions (unfortunately drawing 4, showing a proposal for extra passageways at Camden Town to allow for the extra passengers changing trains seems to be missing), and, more relevant for the current topic, TfL’s 2007 South London Corridor Report assessing options for tube extensions in South London.
John Bull discussed the unreleased report on this blog in 2009 and reading the original report shows he was very well informed. The report assesses 14 options for extending the Bakerloo, Northern, and Victoria lines, and concludes:
the most promising routes are Bakerloo extensions towards Beckenham and Hayes via Lewisham and Peckham Rye or New Cross. These options are deliverable in stages but the best value comes from connecting onto the National Rail line to Hayes. This is in part because it releases paths to boost capacity on other lines into London Bridge.
Note that only the Hayes options in the report manage a cost-benefit ratio above 1 (with the caveat that wider economic and regeneration benefits weren’t taken into account) – going to Lewisham only got a 1:1 cost-benefit ratio.
@Anonymous 23 Feb at 23:20 – Thank you for the amplification. I was trying to keep things simple for my message but not an easy task with the multitude of originating and destination stations.
I appreciate that there are extra services at the moment serving Blackfriars because of the London Bridge work but what are likely to stay are those ‘fast’ services which now stop at Denmark Hill and/or Peckham Rye (I omitted to say that I used Peckham Rye as my locus on Realtime Trains). However, it does show that the Catford Loop can cope with 12tph at a push.
Regarding the once-proposed South London line replacement to Bellingham/Bromley South services, I also appreciate the limitations you mention. One point not generally appreciated by many at the time was that the present Thameslink stock uses the Bellingham sidings for berthing purposes off peak, thus effectively preventing an all-day turnback there. Do you know whether they will still be used for such post-2018?
Your mention of the ‘new’ Maidstone East trains replacing the Ashford-Blackfriars ones made me smile because of course Maidstone East was a standard destination from Holborn Viaduct/Blackfriars when I was an office tea boy!
@Ian J I think the Fleet Line found similar bc problems attempting a south-east destination. The Victoria Line ended up being finished in stages as too big a project for the times, so it was decided that Fleet Line would be constructed in stages. Unfortunately, after Charing Cross the bc to Fenchurch St stage II was just too poor so then became New Cross, Lewisham, etc but still poor case. Of course demand was much lower at the time, and new line would mainly result in diverting existing travellers rather than accommodating new ones. Will be interesting to see how Bakerloo case works out.
@Taz- As I recall,the Fleet Line fell victim to the Treasury’s third variation of “No” and that was “affordability”. (Under this variant, no matter how good the economic or business case, the Treasury argument is simply that the country cannot afford it. This is a very difficult argument to refute as there is never, ever, any headroom for additional public expenditure)
@Graham Feakins – the draft TLK timetable shown to rolling stock bidders (admittedly a shoddy piece of fiction) didn’t envisage the use of Bellingham, but things change…
@Ian J – It’s very interesting to see the 2007 document. If I were appraising the extension case, there’s a number of points where clarification is very necessary. The first is that the bulk of the time savings (and therefore, benefits) appear to arise from the avoidance of interchange penalties, rather than actual journey time savings. Secondly, we are told (but not shown the supporting rough working) that the – very large – swing in BCR stems from the release of the Hayes paths. The swing seems large in relation to the likely Hayes branch useage, and although there are obvious benefits to other NR passengers in terms of the reduction of overcrowding, overcrowding relief doesn’t usually rate that highly in economic terms. There may be a linkage between point one and point two in that there are some further and undisclosed assumptions about the use of the Hayes paths to create new trips that reduce interchange penalties, but that isn’t stated.
As Ian notes, wider economic benefits aren’t considered in the 2007 paper and I wouldbe surprised if these weren’t enormous, at least for the Elephant- Lewisham/Catford section, given the level of deprivation, and dominated the journey time savings. It wouldbe difficult to see how the Bromley-Hayes section – with the greatest respect to Anon5’s night life round Bromley North – could add much to the social impacts.
At the moment there is relatively little usage of the Bakerloo line in South London, and there are lots of potential users between Elephant and Castle and Lewisham. Moreover, the design of the Elephant and Castle terminus limits the number of trains that can run of the Bakerloo line. Extending the Bakerloo line to Lewisham will result in these tube trains being heavily used. Will they be full? Well, the capacity of 24tph on the tube is much larger than even 60 double-decker buses each hour, so while possible it seems unlikely, at least at the beginning. In any case, full tube trains would be a success, wouldn’t it.
The benefits to the Hayes line users of extending the Bakerloo are not likely to be large: they benefit from the increased number of trains (it could double or treble) but some users are likely to have to change at Lewisham or Elephant-and-Castle should they wish to get to the City. Journey times to Charing Cross may be slightly longer (but with reduced waiting times for the train, and no interchange for West End destinations). The Hayes line users would always be able to get on the tube, since it will only likely become full much nearer the centre.
Lewisham Station and the railway junctions in this area can not be rebuilt at any sensible cost. And the design of the railway around Lewisham means there is no feasible means of increasing the number of trains through this junction: we can only increase the number of train paths on any route radiating from this juntion by removing trains on some other route. Nevertheless, there seems to be considerable suppressed demand on some of these radial routes. The Hayes Bakerloo extension offers a relatively easy and cheap way to provide extra capacity on these other routes.
It seems the case for a Hayes extension is rather compelling.
@Bekerboo
“It seems the case for a Hayes extension is rather compelling”
…….unless, like many Hayesites, you chose to live there because of its direct services to Cannon Street.
@Beckerboo – “It seems the case for a Hayes extension is rather compelling.” Spending a few big ones (maybe more) to buy 5000 places an hour on the NR system is not good vfm, nor, given the low volumes /small catchment area of Hayes itself, are there likely to be economic benefits on the scale generated by the stations between Elephant and Catford, nearly all of which have catchment areas 5 times bigger in terms of population. And while 60 bph would certainly not fill more than 8 or 9 tube trains every hour, there is such a thing as suppressed demand, suppressed in this case by the very slow journey times by bus to central London. It’s this speeding up which will be the basis of the extra traffic and the regeneration benefits. What is the case that makes Hayes “rather compelling”?
Hayes is simply a moderately convenient place to terminate the service (but hardly unavoidably so).
A few days old, and probably just pre election froth.
http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/8101
Chancellor George Osborne and Mayor of London Boris Johnson came to Tate Modern on Friday morning to launch the Government’s ‘Long-Term Economic Plan for London’.
As part of the plan, the Government is asking Transport for London to draw up proposals for the Bakerloo Line extension so that decisions on funding can be taken after the general election.
This week’s announcement follows the chancellor’s decision last year to allocate fund in the autumn statement for a feasibility study on a Bakerloo line extension
More than 14,000 people responded to Transport for London’s recent consultation on extending the Bakerloo line, with 96 per cent of respondents supporting or strongly supporting the scheme.
“We are now working to update elements of the costs, refresh the business case, and investigate alternative options for the scheme,” transport commissioner Sir Peter Hendy recently told the TfL board.
The property section in tomorrows (Wed 25 Feb) Evening Standard will apparently have an article on opportunities arising from the Bakerloo going to SE London…
Re rational Plan,
Any bets on how may of the 4% who oppose live on the Hayes line?
They want both branches! That’s … unlikely.
@NGH, probably includes committed Boris phobes who would never support anything out of the Mayors office.
Tfl haven’t (to my knowledge) made any indication of the results of the consultation on their website, where it says the results will be published in Spring…
For those interested in line naming suggestions (which are banned on LR), I bring this site to your attention http://tubedreams.london/goblin-eusful-wimbleware/ which explains some historical line names and nicknames, as well as asking for suggestions.
@ Rational Plan + @ NGH
My response to the consultation was to support the extension as a way developing rail transport for South East London. However, I stated that I do not support the extension to Hayes and gave my reasons why. So, am I one of the 96% or the 4%?
Although I live in the borough I don’t live on or use the line, but do not believe that the Bakerloo taking over the line will realistically solve any problems.
@Graham H: that the bulk of the time savings (and therefore, benefits) appear to arise from the avoidance of interchange penalties, rather than actual journey time savings
Yes, and that is partly an artefact of the (arbitrary but perhaps justifiable) weighting of interchange penalties at double the actual time.
The problem with the report is arguably that it is asking the wrong question. The question it seeks to answer is “what is the best tube extension for southeast London”, and the answer it comes up with is “Bakerloo to Hayes because of the journey (really interchange) time savings and congestion relief”. However, if you were to turn the question around and ask “what is the best way of getting journey time savings and congestion relief in Southeast London”, the answer would probably not be “a new tube line”: it would be some kind of Crossrail. That was also the conclusion Jonathan Roberts hinted at when the local councils asked him to carry out the same exercise.
Which leads to with the conclusion that no Bakerloo extension is likely to be justifiable in purely transport terms, only on the wider economic benefits. Which means going where there is the best development potential, and no further. Funding decisions “after the election” and consultation responses to be published “in the Spring” (bearing in mind Roger Ford’s Third Law, “Always mistrust schedules based on the seasons”) suggest this saga is going to continue for a while yet.
@Ian J – I couldn’t have put it better myself! Using “artificial” PDFH values for interchange penalties is useful only as a first pass over the “real” data, as here.
Ian J
So ..
It’s Bakerloo to Thamesmead
and
CR3 following the 1946 / 8 etc route from the ex GC/Met lines through to SE London & taking over the Hayes branch ( & other routes) with a specific portal near Ladywell, then?
I suspect we’ll have to wait for LBM’s forthcoming article(s) on the various iterations of the Fleet line & similar projects …..
How do they assess interchange times? Is it ambling time between platforms + service spacing/2 or someone more complicated?
The National Rail Journey planner seems to insist on 30 minutes to cross from Waterloo East to Waterloo, so I’m having to do split journey lookups to eliminate their large padding.
Do they factor in the “I’ve got a seat on this one, I’ll never be able to board that one” for peak hour changes?
@johnB
With SWT’s morning peak reliability as it is, 30 minutes to change at Waterloo seems risky – fifteen minutes because your train to Waterloo is cancelled, another fifteen because the next one is, in consequence, so full you can’t get on, another five because they closed one of the exits to the platforms in the strange belief that congestion in the station is best dealt with by making it harder to get out. That leaves minus five minutes to cross over to Waterloo East.
(yes, I have had a bad journey this morning!)
timbeau,
So to get that on topic, imagine how much worse your journey would be if you go through all that and then attempt to catch the Bakerloo from Waterloo only to find you can’t get on any of the trains as they are all full up of people travelling from Hayes, Catford Bridge, Lewisham etc. to Charing Cross and beyond.
@PoP
I though we were talking about changing between SWT and SET, but I agree cramming onto a busy Tube at Waterloo is no fun unless you manage to get a Kennington starter on the Northern.
However, it’s hard to envisage many journeys that involve travelling in to Waterloo by SWT and out by Bakerloo for which there don’t exist more logical and faster alternatives
– via Waterloo East to Charing Cross
– leaving SWT at Vauxhall and using the Victoria Line for the West End
– Jubilee Line to Baker Street
– leave SWT at Wimbledon for District Line to Paddington
– leave SWT at Clapham Junction (or Richmond if you go that way) for Overground to Willesden
@timbeau
Changing at Vauxhall looks good on paper but I am wondering how long before people give up on this and switch to the Bakerloo to relieve Victoria Line overcrowding. Remember there will be an awful lot of new flat dwellers who will start their journey at Vauxhall in the future. The Victoria Line is already almost maxed out in terms of train provision and will be so by next year. The other issue is that not all main line trains stop at Vauxhall or, indeed, Clapham Junction.
The great irony of all this was that one of the reasons for the Brixton extension of the Victoria Line was to relieve the Bakerloo Line by encouraging people going to the West End to change at Vauxhall instead.
The Jubilee Line to Baker Street is also packed at Waterloo. Westbound trains in the morning don’t start to empty out until Westminster. I suspect that already some people who really want the Jubilee already catch the Bakerloo instead in order to be able to get on. Its the same at London Bridge. People really want the Jubilee Line but I am sure there are those (apart from me) who used to catch a train from London Bridge to Charing Cross then catch the Bakerloo from there.
@ timbeau and PoP
Fast SWtrains of course don’t stop at Vauxhall and the Bakerloo platform at Waterloo is quite heavily used for West End destinations in the morning (particularly Oxford Circus) with quite a bit of queuing in the tunnels to get to the platform. Even though the trains arrive relatively empty from Elephant there isn’t always enough room to get on the first train as it is.
In the slam door days though, if the fast trains happened to stop at a red signal at Vauxhall, half the train would jump out especially if running late.
@PoP. A fair moan, but where does it point?
As yet, no one has the answer to what provides the additional distribution capacity for Central London and CAZ travel, beyond the main line interchanges, once the existing tubes are maxed out. In the Victoria Line’s case, that may not be long. 2-4 extra Crossrails may address corridor capacity, but NOT the local distribution requirement as by definition Crossrails won’t stop too frequently. Might be a new generation of tubes – not the same interchanges, please! (themselves getting overloaded) – or intermediate capacity surface transport – and/or a polycentric London even though that’s currently not the flavour of planning nor demand trends.
@Milton: They don’t stop very often but due to the length of the stations and being double ended they do cover quite a of surface area.
About the only gap I can see is between TCR and Farringdon. In my opinion both those stations really should be flipped, so that TCR extends into Bloomsbury and Farringdon towards Grays Inn Road… The current “other” exit to both these stations is now very close (relatively speaking) to another station (Hanover Square and Moorgate)….
@John B – the interchange penalties are based on passengers’ perception of the increase in journey time resulting from interchanging, rather than actual times.
@PoP/timbeau – and that’s why extending the Bakerloo ever further into the Kentish countryside becomes difficult. Maybe CR2 will help by removing some of the Waterloo traffic but I haven’t seen any figures yet.
@Greg T – of course, CR3 is the answer. Buying an expensive 6 extra paths through Lewisham by extending the Bakerloo to Hayes will yield spare capacity that will be used up in a very few years.
@Milton Clevedon – it’s not just the lines that are (nearly ) full of trains, but the key stations which are overflowing – not especially in terms of interchange (virtually all the most heavily used stations are interchanges anyway) but in terms of the ability of escalators and lifts to remove the punters from the platforms.
Milton Clevedon asks about additional distribution capacity within the CAZ. I think some of this will come – will have to come – from a combination of new crossrails (with, as you mention, wide-spaced stops) and more walking. Walking say 2 to 3 km between ultimate origin/dest and an appropriate station is already fairly common (more so for south-of-the-Thames dwellers, for historical reasons), but it will just have to get more so, restricting the likes of Goodge Street, and also short connecting bus rides, mainly to the minority who physically cannot manage the walk.
We should not be building any more underground lines (whether tube or larger gauge) with close-spaced stations. These waste money (to build the stations), energy (to restart the trains) and time (of through passengers). They also cause further hidden waste, by cutting down the number of passenger-km which one (expensive) train can deliver in one day.
In fact there is probably a lot to be said in theory for closing some of the close-spaced stations we already have, but this probably will not happen (too much pain for a rather abstract gain).
@Southern Heights
Yes that may be true on any single corridor, but not in another direction of travel.
Thus Cambridge Circus could be a southern entrance to Tottenham Court Road on Crossrail 2, in one option (though of course you couldn’t then have a northern second entrance near Goodge Street!). That would get you walking access as far as the Strand and the top of Whitehall, on a practical 800m-1km basis.
London’s PTAL modelling (Public Transport Accessibility Level) uses 960m / 12 minutes maximum, at 80m per minute, for rail stations. (And do remember to model the walk along real streets and footpaths, not a notional straight line.)
But if you were at say Leicester Square, and wanted to go East-West, Crossrail 2 will have very little utility in the event of a fully loaded Piccadilly Line or an impassable Holborm interchange.
Long interchange times within deep Central London Crossrail stations may also prove to be a deterrent, if aiming to use Crossrails 1, 2, X as a substitute for the tube network.
The first lesson from this is that we are all going to have to get used to walking more – which makes the quality of surface walking to/from all Crossrail-scale stations even more important than from the average tube station.
The second lesson then comes back to – where is the extra tube capacity going to be found, beyond ‘peak tube’ ?
@ timbeau & PoP – I confess when travelling to Euston and Kings Cross from Waterloo I always get the Bakerloo to Oxford Circus and change onto the Victoria line. By positioning myself at the front of the train I normally get a seat (on both the Bakerloo and the Victoria line trains) in the morning rush hour and when returning travel in the rearmost coach obtain a seat in the evening rush hour. I was considered odd because I avoided the Vauxhall transfer and the Northern line at Waterloo like the plague even though they offer a direct route. I fear I will miss the Bakerloo line if the extension goes ahead as it is the only underground line which avoids the gross crush loadings of the other lines. Ah well that’s progress for you.
@ Milton Cleveland – I agree one of the problems posed by CrossRail type solutions (but rarely discussed) is that they are predicated on the assumption that most passengers will complete their journeys by transfers to the legacy tube lines. This concept works if the crossrail line genuinely relieves pressure on parallel underground and tube lines but we are already observing predictions that any relief will be gobbled up in a matter of months. If so the danger is that crossrail etc will place even greater loadings on to the historic network. I think we need to examine the need for additional metro lines to provide the capacity that will be needed but they won’t be cheap as such lines woukd need a plethora of stations which are very expensive. One of the economic arguments for crossrail is that as it is effectively a limited stop solution bypassing stations on other underground lines it only requires a much lower number of stations which as they are what really add to the cost makes crossrail 1 and 2 much less expensive than new metro lines.
I welcome crossrail1 and 2 and even 3 and 4 if they are built but they could add to the problem of capacity on the total network as opposed to being its solution if I am correct. We shall just have to wait and see but I am pleased it is being built.
@Malcolm they could reduce tube loadings from NR terminals now if they included Boris Bikes in the travelcards, rather than make them an independent system with extra bother and cost. I’d be happy to cycle from the terminals, but don’t see why I have to pay more to do so.
Its also a mystery to me why Boris Bikes won’t accept Oyster registered to an address
@John B.
I don’t know much about charging for B-bikes; your ideas sound attractive, but I suppose there could be all sorts of insurance or sponsorship complications.
On the wider point, when I and others said (above) that we’re going to have to walk more, what we probably meant was about continuing by surface transport.. That includes walking, of course, but also bikes, roller skates, buses, taxis, rickshaws, sedan chairs, scooters and wheelchairs (powered or not). And probably a few more I haven’t thought of.
Cycle Hire in its first iteration specifically avoided the rail termini because it could never hope to meet all the demand. We calculated at the time that several football fields’ worth of space would be needed at each station, if about 5-10% of passengers making suitable journeys transferred to hire cycles.
Major cities in the Netherlands are having similar problems in providing enough cycle parking at stations. Not for them the row of racks on a platform; they go for multi-storey 10,000 space cycle parks now, and even those get full.
The reason Cycle Hire doesn’t accept Oyster is that a pre-authorisation of up to £300 is required to stop people stealing the bikes. Oyster can only accept a deposit of up to £90.
Eventual Tube over-loading:
The answer may not be all lie in large schemes – part of the solution could be lots of small schemes to encourage modal shift for journey <=2stops which might include extra station entrances (double ending) especially if it reduces crossing busy main roads.
Might it also be a good idea to keep concepts like Cross River Tram dusted off.
@Chris All too often we here that Oyster can’t do something, like load Network railcards and give weekend discounts, or here not have a deposit mechanism. If my oyster has auto-topup from a credit card, why can’t it have take a deposit authorisation? These things can be fixed with software changes, which seem much cheaper than £1m buses or £100m stations.
I vaguely remember reading that Boris Bikes run at a loss, but how much does it cost to offer a bike to a commuter, compared with the tube cost?
Malcolm,
In fact there is probably a lot to be said in theory for closing some of the close-spaced stations we already have, but this probably will not happen
A few years ago John Bull and I discussed this in a pub. If the argument is that you shouldn’t build more closely spaced stations because, amongst other things, they delay existing passengers, then logically there are stations that do exist and stopping trains there actually delays a lot of passengers by a smaller amount and this is of greater value than the small number of passengers that benefit from stopping there.
So the question is: If you could ignore the politics of closing a station, which tube stations should logically be closed?
@PoP
The counter-argument to closing stations is that some stations take the overflow from the busiest ones, and may well increasingly do so as the network gets busier in central London.
@PoP
I think your argument about closely located stations has elements of a male perspective to it. Women in expensive heels are very much inclined towards stations which reduce the amount of walking. As one of my friends put it, “In shoes like these any extra fare is less than the cost of wear on the shoes.” That’s quite apart from painful feet in some shoes.
In general, rather than closing nearby stations we should be linking them like Bank and Monument are linked. There perhaps are exceptions though. Charing Cross and Embankment are crying out to be amalgamated as a single station That could remove one stop on the Bakerloo.
@malcom- when you reach the point where existing stations cannot copeand cannot be expanded at a reasonable cost, then you have little alternative but to add more stations to the network (Note: that’s not the same necessarily as adding more stations to existing lines – to placate PoP).
Bearing in mind MC’s point about not bringing more punters to existing interchanges and looking at those parts of the CAZ which are furthest from a station, then an interesting line emerges – Belgravia, Mayfair,Fitzrovia,Mount Pleasant. There,that’s enough use of Tuscan Red and Deep Ochre. The serious point remains, however.
@RichardB
Arguably in central London the need for more metro Tube lines, as you helpfully call them, has probably been postponed by increased bus usage. The central zone bus network is pretty much reaching its maximum possible capacity though so any extra will need mass transit Tube lines.
Rather than extending Tube lines out to the hinterlands we might instead need to start separating the central sections so that they form separate lines. The Bakerloo, to keep this on topic, will be useless as a metro line for Charing Cross station if it has been filled up by Lewisham and the crammed totally full at Waterloo.
@Graham H
“an interesting line emerges”
See Briantist’s new map at http://tubedreams.london/london-heatmap/#prettyPhoto which illustrates this point. Please leave comments on such a hypothetical line on his site.
On the matter of “peak tube”, there is another aspect to examine and that is flexible working. In a lot of jobs, it’s now possible to push your hours forward or back a few hours to miss the crush. Instead of 9 – 5, do 8 – 4 or 10 – 6. By encouraging this, rush hour travel could be spread out to acceptable levels. Moreover, it’s easier to work from home nowadays. I could do it.
@Theban – I would agreewith you about the bus network approaching saturation in central London. The problem with the bus system seems to be that it doesn’t really complement the tube by acting as a distributor in the CAZ. Ever tried catching a bus from Oxford Circus ? You’ll have walked halfway towards the next tube station! Its function seems to be an alternative to the tube for the “near-CAZ”. There are good reasons for that, of course,but it doesn’t make a solution any clearer – double-ended stations (apart from their utility in increasing platform to surface capacity) are simply ameans of extending the walk mode in the dry…
Graham H. Stations which “cannot be expanded at reasonable cost”. Does such a thing exist? OK, the cost of any building work whatever in the CAZ will be eye-watering for obvious reasons, but if a certain amount of extra pax-handling capacity has to be added to the CAZ as a whole, is there any evidence that this is more economically built in the form of new stations rather than enhancing existing ones? I would have expected the opposite, because both approaches need new foot tunnels and escalators, but the new stations also require new tracks and platforms.
Some existing stations may be unexpandable on safety grounds (evacuation times, management etc) (Pancras Cross I am looking at you), but that apart, multi-ending ought to be feasible just about anywhere. Never “cheap”, but possibly “less expensive”.
And double-ending is not just putting the walk in the dry. It also shortens the total distance walked, because fewer of the walks require turning back from escalators which point in the wrong direction.
Theban. I have plenty of sympathy for those who find walking difficult or painful, and there may be more of these than we properly cater for.
I also have sympathy for people disadvantaged by their gender being different from the gender of the majority of those with power.
I have less sympathy for self-imposed handicaps artificially linked to gender. Uncomfortable shoes are a choice which some women make, and good luck to them, but I don’t feel we should distort our transport planning very far to allow for them.
Hear hear Malcolm! My medium-heeled shoes are a choice and shouldn’t be compared to someone in a wheelchair.
And I am not disadvantaged by my gender being different from those in power. People of all stripes will find any excuse to whine.
@ Malcolm – I do however have a reservation about a policy which would aim to avoid creating new lines and station by adding additional exits to existing stations (so called double ended stations) as creating additional passage ways and exits, whilst having a beneficial effect on passenger movements within a congested station, do not address the issue that the historic underground network, if growth continues, will use up all its spare capacity. If that happens and some authorities suggest this is likely then the only way to address the need for new capacity is new metro lines and not just new limited stop lines or express lines (such as crossrail) whose stations only connect to the existing network.
@Anonymous at 22:44. Some women are not disadvantaged by being women, that is true, and a cause for celebration. However, some are, and that is a cause for outrage and action.
However, I wish I had not ventured down this path, because we will doubtless soon be told (rightly) that however important gender differences and any injustices are, they are not what this website is about, and there are other places where they can be, and are, discussed.
@Greg T: So ..
It’s Bakerloo to Thamesmead
Well, Thamesmead seems to be already getting a fillip with Crossrail (see the brownfields announcement from the Mayor and Chancellor Melvyn linked to on the other thread), and if you did feel it needed a rail connection, either Overground from Barking Reach or DLR from Gallions would be cheaper, could “piggyback” on a new road crossing, and would have regional benefits in adding another north-south route.
@Theban: The central zone bus network is pretty much reaching its maximum possible capacity though so any extra will need mass transit Tube lines.
There is still scope to increase surface transport capacity by increasing the capacity of the vehicles. If articulated buses are considered unacceptable then this probably means trams.
Re Richard B,
My thinking was to encourage passengers not to make (additional) changes involving an initial / final short journey on the tube but to walk instead, this is a solution in a limited number of cases especially as we probably won’t be able to build new capacity fast enough and or in all locations.
The station rebuilding programme may need to be 3-4 fold more ambitious to cope in the timescales than is currently planned. Increasing frequencies to levels seen in other cities would almost certainly require better people flow to reduce dwell times etc.
@Richard B. I do not quite follow your reasoning here. If we are running out of capacity for moving people on trains, then we must build new lines (or somehow use existing ones more intensively). If we are running out of capacity to shift people between train and street, then we must build new passageways (either in existing stations, or in new ones). If we are running out of both, then we must do both; but it is not clear to me how doing both somehow obliges the new lines to be close-stationed metro lines.
In other words, a policy of enhancing existing stations and building crossrails calling at them, is one perfectly valid way of proceeding. Not the only way, granted, but absolutely not ruled out.
Malcolm, I agree. Gender differences exist and are important and are a good thing – we are different and complementary. Here I’m referring to external differences made by choice, e.g. heels or skirts.
These comments will probably be removed by moderation anyway.
Re Ian J,
As Woolwich will also have crossrail why not close the DLR station and point the track (which points SE across the river then loops back West) towards Plumstead then along the Ridgeway / Dual carriageway route towards Crossness (lots former railway / tramway alignments). The junctions etc on the dual carriageway look like they have been designed with passive provision for a railway alignment to the south – was utilised in any of the ’70s etc. proposals for the fleet etc.?
For an idea of what used to be there:
http://www.railmaponline.com/UKIEMap.php?lat=52.81999&lng=-1.62314
Not entirely accurate but a useful site (and will make the Christmas quiz questions harder to set!)
[Caution a 256 colour set of crayons may have been used to make the map]
@ Malcolm – I fear we may be talking at cross purposes. I have no quarrel with improving stations as you suggest to ease passenger flows . Indeed I am at one with you in supporting such proposals but that outcome whilst desirable will not of itself address the issue which appears to be that we are approaching the maximum capacity of the historic network. One of drivers behind the current interest in crossrail type projects is that they will relieve pressure on existing lines. If true this is a very positive outcome. However various pundits have been saying the anticipated growth in usage will mean that Crossrail1 will reach something close to its maximum capacity in short order and the assumed drop in pressure of patronage on the existing lines will also not materialise. If that is the case we have a problem as improving station exits etc will not address the underlying issue which is that demand keeps increasing and is outstripping the ability of the existing network to support it. I also don’t think that flexible working patterns will do much to mitigate the demand at key points of the day.
This then leaves us with looking at a limited range of alternatives and additional metro type lines may be the best solution albeit at enormous cost
@Richard B
I agree with everything in your first paragraph.
I still do not see how any of it points specifically to “metro type lines”. Perhaps it will all be clearer in the morning?
I’ve just skimmed the revival of this commentary from the last couple of weeks and there is a lot of it!
Surely the point of there being unused capacity on the Bakerloo is as much about being able to run 50% more trains as it is about the current service not being full to bursting? Are 6tph of peak time Hayes line-ites really going to be too much to tack on to a future 36tph line, likely to have new walk-through trains even if they are 50% shorter? It’s not like there are huge numbers of housing developments likely for Hayes is it?
The other consideration is that, if you take the Bakerloo just to New Cross and Lewisham via OKR, one or both of those will become an attractive Vauxhall-like transfer for Hayes Commuters going to the West End – to the extent they’ll probably demand extra stops at them. And if you take the Bakerloo through to Hayes the transfer would likely be the other way. So I think there’s somewhat more of a quid pro quo on the capacity argument.
The most resonant thing I’ve picked up from this thread though is politics – the Bakerloo extension feels like a more politically-driven scheme than most. Does it really make sense to build new tube tunnels rather than a Crossrail-type scheme? Does it really make sense to go to Hayes? Does any of it really make sense versus funding CR2?
From many of the comments above I’m inclined towards feeling that the Bakerloo extension is –
– A “Boris is doing something significant with transport” proposal to distract us from a poorly used cable car and an expensive bus. No he’s not seeking re-election as mayor but he is seeking bigger things….
– A poorly conceived attempt to bolster votes along the route
– A means to raise awareness of capacity issues into LB (potentially softening up the political scene for future, better, solutions).
– Ultimately, as someone suggested, a political bargaining chip to ensure CR2 gets funding. London sacrifices something and there are enough howls of protest that the bigger political picture is served. Arguably Ken Livingstone pulled this off with the West London tram, which with hindsight was never really going to happen was it?
Too cynical?
@ngh: closing Woolwich DLR wouldn’t do much for Woolwich, regeneration of which was one of the main reasons for sending the DLR there in the first place, and building a step-plate junction and diverting the tunnel under the Thames would surely be more expensive than adding two tracks to the Thames Gateway bridge, if it is being built anyway. A cynic might see floating the idea of a new DLR branch as being a way of sweetening the pill of the bridge for the locals, who fear the traffic effects of a new road bridge.
@Malcolm of 2118 – don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that existing stations shouldn’t be come double-ended if need be, but the cost of adding new escalator shafts and additional circulating areas and,even more so, threading them through/around existing lines is formidable- the cost of Victoria upgrade is indicative.
My point, which perhaps I should have put more bluntly, is that when all that has been done, the existing system is still likely to become full and at that point new stations are unavoidable. If those new stations are spaced a la CrossRail, and – even more so – placed in the vicinity of existing stations,then they are unlikely to provide much relief to the said existing stations.
Graham H says ” the existing system is still likely to become full and at that point new stations are unavoidable”.
This is where we disagree. I do not see new stations as the “inevitable” solution to a full system. Expanding existing ones will always be an alternative.
As for which is cheaper, that is clearly not something which can be proved in the abstract. You apparently suspect that new stations will be cheaper, I am not convinced of this. For the (sort of analogous) choice between upgrading the WCML and building HS2, the “build new” option has been taken, I think rightly. But this analogy is not a very close one (to put it mildly), and I see the case for new CAZ stations as “not yet made”.
Ian J
Well, Thamesmead seems to be already getting a fillip with Crossrail,
Except … that Abbey Wood is miles from most of Thamesmead.
How about a railway service, you know, actually serving the place?
As DLR & GOBLIN-extension hypothetical-proposals actually seem to intend to do.
@ngh 2357
That map, fascinating though it is, seems to have little to do with Thamesmead. Mind you, the area depicted has no direct services to London at present, so maybe they would welcome an extension to the Bakerloo more than the Hayesites would? It is rather a long way to Staffordshire though.
@Malcolm – there is, I fear, a mathematical limit to station size and that is dictated by the ability of escalators to carry people away from the platform. An escalator can shift a maximum of about 1800 p/hr, with people standing two abreast on alternate treads. At a double-ended station with 4 escalators running in the peak direction, the limit is therefore 7200/hr. You can,of course, go to 4 or even 5 escalators per bank but at that point,costs “escalate” rapidly, even if there’s room. And, as with all bottlenecks, alas, you may simply then overwhelm the next one – in this case, the barrier line or the street exit – more major surgery and expense.
BTW, I never said, and was careful not to do so, that new stations are cheaper than expanding existing ones. There will be plenty of cases where, however, expansion is simply not feasible at any cost – Victoria is probably one such (my engineering colleagues who were working on the upgrade were very clear that there was literally no more room to insert any further passageways and exits once this upgrade round was finished), Bank another, KXStP also in all likelihood. In these cases, any new lines which bring more traffic beyond what can be handled now, are going to be in trouble; anything that can be done to spread the end-user distribution is a relief.
Re timbeau,
It was Greg who raised Thamesmead (a propsoed destination at avarious point sin the past) – I posted the link to show what had been there in the past (in Thamesmeads’ case for freight) and that 1 former railway alignment still has clear un-obstructed run to Thamesmead but that there were probably easier/cheaper options if you wanted to get a rail connection there than the Bakerloo.
Graham. There may well be a limit to station size, but I don’t think it’s anything to do with escalators. There is no limit to the number of escalators which physically can be built at the same station. If it’s an interchange station, the number of “ends” is not limited to two.
Even if Victoria and Bank are at the limit, for lack of anywhere to put further passages, that still leaves dozens of other CAZ stations which are not. If every other CAZ station were brought up to the already-planned capacity of Bank and Victoria, that would be a tremendous amount of expansion.
But maybe this discussion has run its course. In the event, which may anyway be outwith both our lifetimes, decisions will be made on specific schemes, rather than abstract theory.
@Malcolm – sorry, but you may be right in theory, but wrong in practice. There is ALWAYS a physical limit to what can be done. Wishing to terminate the discussion before you hear this is, well….
Graham, I have no dispute with that. And I wasn’t trying to have the last word. This is not a tennis match, there will not be a winner, and I am quite prepared to continue if you wish. With best regards…
@ngh
have you checked that link? The co-ordinates are those of Burton on Trent, not Thamesmead
@Malcolm – moving swiftly on, I think there are real difficulties for passengers in mega -stations,as at Chatelet Les Halles and KX StP,however good the signage. One problem is the time taken to access the platform from the surface, which can easily become so extended that a walk to a station with simpler, shorter access times becomes attractive. To take an example from personal experience, when we closed the Drain for modernisation, we ran a non-stop bus (the 800) from Waterloo to the Mansion House. It ran via Southwark bridge,which was a quiet easy crossing. Including the time to walk to the bus pickup point, total time from mainline train to destination was around 20 minutes. This also turned out to be the total journey time by W&C because of the time taken to enter and leave the stations. [We drew a number of conclusions from that which aren’t relevant to this thread…]
Yes, I agree that existing big stations are pretty daunting. But maybe future generations will take them in their stride. Or maybe we’ll learn to manage the signage better. I’m not sure why a choice of 12 platforms should be any more difficult than a choice of 4, but it feels as if it is…
@Malcolm-I agree that regular users get used to even the most complex layouts (and learn to ignore the signage as at KXStP!) but there’s not much one can do about the extended walks. (Small prize to some American tourists I found recently entering at Charing Cross solely for the purposes of travelling to Embankment…)
Re Timbeau,
The coordinates seem to default to Staffordshire (geographic center of the England & Wales?) even if you move around the map and refresh unfortunately.
So a manually tweaked link is here:
http://www.railmaponline.com/UKIEMap.php?lat=51.496&lng=0.125
Extended walks in tube stations. They are so much more annoying than the same distance would be on the outside. Many people are quite happy to walk from Euston to the Kings Cross complex, but then get disproportionately irritated by the lengths of the passages once they get there.
Perhaps it’s connected with the strong aversion we all feel to being forced off a straight line. In a tunnel I always feel as if I’m being taken a long way round, which I resent. Of course, sometimes I am, but even when it’s pretty direct, I still feel annoyed.
@ Malcolm/Graham H
Liverpool Street Central line has 3 banks of 3 escalators, which as far as I can remember as way more than any other station except on the JLE… just expanding key CAZ stations to have that level of provision would be a big help
@Graham H
“we ran a non-stop bus (the 800) from Waterloo to the Mansion House. It ran via Southwark Bridge, which was a quiet easy crossing”
Oh how I wish such a service existed! Any chance of bringing it back?
….and before someone points to the 4,26,76 and 172; note-
@ Malcolm “the strong aversion we all feel to being forced off a straight line.”
@timbeau – at the risk of attracting the ire of moderators, that was indeed the conclusion we came to in NSE: given a free hand the more competitvely minded amongst us saw an opportunity to buy a fleet of about 20 buses (cost, say £3m at early ’90s prices) equip them with coin baskets that took a flat fare of £1 (those were the days) and compete the socks off the Drain. Your chances of doing that now are probably even less than they were then. [Agree about the 4/76 etc, as someone who used to have to commute frequently from the City Road and found the change to the Drain at Bank “gruelling” to put it mildly;the troublewith the services down Fleet Street is that they invariably get stuck either on Ludgate Hill or outside the RCJ.]
Just to stop LBM getting distressed, RCJ is Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand just to the west of Fleet Street.
In a desperate attempt to be vaguely on topic… there is a really good potential quiz question concerning the Bakerloo Line and the Royal Courts of Justice.
And to get him stressed again, it involves a shooting. I won’t mention the name of either the perpetrator or the victim. Me? Warped mind?
@pop
If I have found the Wright answer, the shooting was an unused backup in case the first attempt failed.
[That’s the one. PoP]
As this article approaches 1000 comments, when will some fresh news come out to prompt a new article?
Like this:
http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/8101
Do you mean?
A week old now, but the reaction has bee surprisingly muted ….
To the rumour mills!
@se1: Sir Peter Hendy now says a Bakerloo line extension could be open by 2030, earlier than previously stated. Full report due by end of month.
Source : se1 via Twitter
Is that too late for the Conservative manifesto. Is Mr Osborne about to announce greater devolution for London? Where is the money coming from???
What does this mean for CR2, good or bad?
@ Rational Plan – I think this is just some clever politicking in the run up to the election. I am sure there is a great deal of support for an extension from the consultation process and TfL will be keen to maintain a sense of momentum. However we do need to accept, as highlighted on the regular politics programme this lunchtime, that the London Mayoralty and Assembly may well drift for a year because some many Tory members are off to be MPs and are very likely to be elected. TfL will be eager to maintain a profile for its future big schemes so that there is pressure on candidates prior to the election and then afterwards on whoever is in charge of the government piggy bank. TfL are not unique in doing this – every major lobbying / interest group is punting their particular cause at the moment. There are about 10 a day in the headlines at the moment.
I appreciate I’m being a tad cynical here but Mr Hendy is very politically attuned (as you would expect for someone in that role) and doesn’t miss a chance to exert some pressure when the right opportunity presents itself. General elections are definitely on the list of opportunities (and risks!).
2030 is still a very long way away though and CR2 will undoubtedly be the headline grabber for the next couple of years until the next Mayor sorts out their Transport Strategy and TfL is pointed in the direction they want. I see little change in policy direction until then. TfL also has to ensure it delivers on all of the schemes in build now and due for completion by 2018/19 so that it has a very strong track record to stand on.
Indeed WW and they’ve got until Friday and the start of purdah to extract any promises from incumbents and would-be MPs. Expect lots of sound and fury this week that will probably signify very little. (Apologies to William Shakespeare).
THC
@THC – and that other Shakespearean quote (one of my favourites)
_”I can summon spirits from the vasty deep”
– “Aye. But will they come when you do call them?”
“I can call spirits from the vasty deep.”
“Why, so can I, or so can any man;
But will they come when you do call for them?”
For esp. Graham H – I am reminded by some comments above, well, several actually, of this clip:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s7AXskSxxMk
Apologies for the diversion.
@Graham Feakins – how I laughed until, suddenly, I thought,”Hey! I’ve been to this meeting several times already”.
@ GF – 🙂 Not seen that one before but it’s almost cringeworthy when we consider what certain persons have revealed on here about dealing with the political machine. I’ve experienced the “consultants version” of that scenario.
@ GH – 🙂 🙂
@Walthamstow Writer:
[Snip. This is a transport related website – not one for discussing the idealised and actual political structure of the country. PoP]
I can understand your point (sort-of), but I think this is a mistake: You cannot divorce infrastructure from politics. The two are very closely coupled.
I was replying to the link to the “Big Train” sketch. I note that post is still in place, so I must assume that it is considered on-topic, yet the sketch is weak and just pokes fun at ministers for not understanding their assigned portfolio.
This is a grossly unfair portrayal: the problem isn’t the ignorance, no matter how funny it seems, because ignorance is unavoidable. The problem is the system that supports this musical chairs approach to assigning ministerial responsibilities.
This isn’t the 1830s, when one could realistically assume politicians understood the basics of their portfolio; our knowledge was much more limited back then. (Even esteemed engineers spouted some egregious tosh about Brunel’s Box Hill tunnel, for example.)
This ministerial assignment system is simply untenable today. Our collective knowledge base is much, much deeper than it was 200 years ago, but the system has not been changed to suit.
If you don’t fix the flaws in the underlying systems, you’re only addressing symptoms, not causes. This helps nobody, least of all Greater London.
Anomnibus,
In a subsequent comment which I didn’t make public (in an effort to try and quell this line of discussion) Greg wrote a comment starting:
Except, perhaps where that structure & the personalities involved, directly affect the transport options & systems that we are looking at.
which I think could be taken as the almost definitive guideline.
The trouble is that you go, way, way beyond what is covered by this and I have lost count of the number of times that you have commented on how this country could be run better and given your opinions on completely irrelevant stuff.
@Anomnibus
“This ministerial assignment system is simply untenable today. Our collective knowledge base is much, much deeper than it was 200 years ago, but the system has not been changed to suit.”
That is what the Civil Service is supposed to be for – to provide the knowledge base to advise the “here today, gone tomorrow” political masters.
To put it another way…
I realise this is not my website, and I don’t get to vote on its moderation policies, but there have been interesting discussions on the political aspects of transport infrastructure planning and development here, so I’m seeing mixed messages. Some clarity on exactly where the moderation lines are drawn would be useful.
Perhaps it’s time for a formal Posting Guidelines (or FAQ) page?
Anomnibus,
I am sorry it is not clear to you but to me the first question I ask is “is it relevant?”. I came to the conclusion that your views on how the country should be run and what should happen to the Houses of Parliament went way, way beyond any possible relevance.
Of course, you could argue that almost anything affects transport. Want to discuss the winter fuel allowance and pensioners dying of the cold? Fine, it affects the number of people using public transport. At some point one has to draw an arbitrary line and try and be consistent. We may fail to do that perfectly but to give up an not do this at all will just led to loads of off-topic subjects as people use this as a place to start whatever discussion they want.
The only other thing I would say is that, from my point of view, a short comment in passing is more likely to be left alone than a long dissection of some issue that wanders off-topic.
@Pedantic of Purley:
The British government engages in unusual levels of micromanagement compared to many other countries, and the funding mechanisms for infrastructure projects also tends to be tightly linked to Westminster. Given that context, I do feel some discussion of flaws in the British government systems and processes makes sense.
However, I will take your hint. Your gaff, and all that. Delete my recent replies if you prefer.
@timbeau:
I was unaware the civil service didn’t exist during BR’s privatisation in the 1990s, or they would, presumably, have pointed out the major flaws in the original privatisation plan at the time. Or maybe they did and were utterly ignored.
Either way, the system failed spectacularly.
@Anomnibus – at the risk of calling down the wrath of the moderators, it’s worth noting that Ministers took the view that Railways Directorate was so yesterday and so sidelined it in the runup to privatisation, creating a parallel, mainly consultancy-led organisation with a sprinkling of “right-minded” civil servants to manage them. These were not people who had any knowledge of the industry (which would have been regarded as a disqualification anyway). Writing as the former manager at one time of the department’s graduate intake, I do assure you that these were indeed the Third XI – of their Under Secretary, one senior officer had written about his promotion even to Principal several years before “better promote him now, before he goes to seed”. Taxpayers well-served? Weak Perm Sec? – certainly.
@Anomnibus
I did say “supposed to”. Graham H has explained better than I how it can go wrong. As a former specialist-grade civil servant myself, I also recall the “on-tap not on-top” attitude to anyone who knew too much about their subject.
What fun – I get to do the 1,000th comment under this article!
The TfL Consultation Report has been published.
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/tube/bakerloo-extension/user_uploads/bakerloo-line-extension-consultation-report-final.pdf
I’ve not read it yet but have seen the press release which says that the Camberwell route alignment was preferred to the Old Kent Road one. It also sets out the premise of construction potentially starting in 2025 (depending on funding) with completion in the early 2030s. Next steps are to review the various route proposals put forward in the consultation.
380 pages?! Well that’s my evening sorted.
http://www.cityam.com/212653/bakerloo-line-extension-proposed-south-london-has-huge-support-after-consultation
Apparently 49% favoured the OKR route: and 64% the Camberwell route – does not compute.
Yes, I noticed that in the Standard. It’s not either-or. It’s “do you support/oppose Option 1a?” and “do you support/oppose Option 1b?”. I guess many people put both.
Quick Summary of the 380 pages:
No real surprises
Summary:
Q5 support for Extension of bakerloo 96% Yes 1% Maybe
Geographically the opposition was along Elmers End – Hayes section and Streatham A23 Corridor (Streatham options dropped pre consultation)
Routes
Q7 Support route 1a (old Kent road) 49% Yes 29% Maybe
Geographically the opposition was along route 1b Camberwell and Streatham A23 Corridor (options dropped pre consultation)
Q9 Support route 1a (Camberwell + Peckham) 64% Yes 26 % Maybe
Geographically the opposition was along route 1a Old Kent Road and Streatham A23 Corridor (options dropped pre consultation)
End Destination
Q11 Lewisham 30% Yes 28% maybe
Geographically the opposition was along Beckenham Junction – Hayes section of line and A23 Corridor (options dropped pre consultation)
Q13 Hayes and Beckenham Jn 56% Yes 31% maybe
Geographically the opposition was along Beckenham Junction – Hayes section of line, Bromley Town Centre and Streatham (again…)
Q15 Bromley Town Centre in Tunnel from LCDR line 60% Yes 31% maybe
Geographically the SUPPORT was along the SE lines beyond Bromley South and Grove Park And Chislehurst etc.
Opposition along Beckenham Junction – Hayes section of line, and Streatham (again…)
Q7 Development to Pay for it…
Yes 82%
Maybe 10%
Geographically the opposition was in Camberwell (you can’t have your cake and eat it!!!), Elmers End – Hayes section of line, and Streatham (again…)
Off Piste suggestion that got lots of mentions
Extend the Victoria Line to Streatham (if no Bakerloo extn.)
Extend the Met line to SE London (as well)
Crossrail 3
Overground Extensions / improvements i.e Brixton LO station
(all LR favourites)
SWT are worried that their passenegers won’t be able to get on at Waterloo if it is extended.
One wonders what difference it would have made had the Cross River Tram project been built which would have replaced many of the buśes from Camberwell to Central London with trams ?
If Camberwell is chosen then surely a new Thameslink Station with full accessible interchange should also be built to allow passengers to change from Thameslink to Bakerloo Line and have easier access to the west end .
As for Victoria Line to Streatam I believe this was one of the options when the line was being planned but fell victim cuts in project budget . However, given recent problems at Brixton and growth in trains perhaps an extension to Streatham should be examined given how it could be built with 3 terminal tracks and extra platforms ?
The thought of replacing mainline trains with tube trains would have surely played a part in opposition in outer London .
I was pleased to note the demand for Overground stations at Brixton and Loughborough Junction, both obvious interchanges with National Rail. Fingers crossed that these happen in a separate project.
Re Melvyn,
SET’s comments were interesting in that they suggested via Camberwell would be needed to relieve a reopened Camberwell NR station!
One of the Camberwell politicans suggested the OKR route should get a revived Cross River Tram as a consolation prize…
I’ve scanned through most of the consultation – have to say a perhaps, that opposition to the loss of direct trains is less than is sometimes made out? Notwithstanding a general preference for both NR and LU to Hayes.
I found the non form responses most interesting. Would have thought there would be easier ways to relieve the Catford Loop, eg. run more trains down it?
@Hayes Cyclist
“Notwithstanding a general preference for both NR and LU to Hayes”
Which is probably the one thing we can be certain will not happen – tube and full size trains on the same tracks are tolerated where grandfather rights exist (notably the other end of the Bakerloo) , but those rights won’t be extended to any more lines.
“Would have thought there would be easier ways to relieve the Catford Loop, eg. run more trains down it?” Even if the capacity existed on the loop itself (it carries through traffic – both freight and passenger – as well as the stopping services), is there capacity west of Brixton and east of Shortlands?
“
timbeau
Yes
Victoria LCDR is seriously under-utilised
So, Boris would like the extension to take the OKR route to help with regeneration. Most of the consulted would prefer the Camberwell alignment. It’s wasn’t an option to choose from, but could an ugly third option be the answer? (Warning: minor crayon outbreak) How about tunnelling south to a new station at Camberwell Green before turning ENE under the alignment of Brunswick Park – Dalwood St – Commercial Way to a station in the “OKR2” station area and then back on course to New Cross? (Crayons now returned to box). This would seem to at least partially solve both issues.
@stationless – As one who has constantly supported the Cross River Tram project (and AM Transport Committee Members also still do and I’m sure some also within TfL), a handsome second would be for the Bakerloo extension to go one way and the CRT the other. After all, even with a Bakerloo extension, we will still have no railed transport directly serving that heavily-trafficked part of South London, Waterloo, Strand, Aldwych, Kingsway, Bloomsbury, Euston and King’s Cross, plus Camden Town if it wants it. And no reminders, please, anyone, about a possible extension of the Piccadilly anywhere… Even the cyclists might have more space as the trams with their fixed tracks will occupy far less wriggle room than the buses require today.
The CRT can be achieved much swifter and at far less cost, so I suggest reviving that scheme now (well, after Boris has gone), get on with the work, start running and then evaluate whether any extension of the Bakerloo is needed.
Here are some official figures for CRT from the time:
“2016 is the date by which Transport for London hope to deliver the project (sadly, ho! ho! now but not then)
7,000 is the number of passengers carried per hour in peak periods
66 million is the number of passenger journeys each year on CRT
92 is the percentage of respondents who were in favour of the scheme, from public consultation in 2002
£7 billion is the estimated investment into regeneration projects along the route of the tram
6,700 is the number of affordable housing units CRT can contribute towards as part of (re)development of sites along its route
78,000 is the number of jobs CRT can contribute towards as part of (re)development of sites along its route
12 is the approximate number of interchanges with Underground stations on nine different lines
6 is the number of interchanges with National Rail stations
300 is the number of people carried in a 40m long tram
30 is the number of trams per hour in each direction along the central section of the route.”
There are more figures where that comes from. Good idea, yes? Does the Bakerloo extension have all those advantages?
@Graham Feakins:
Although I support CRT in principle, I’m not sure how well the disruption its construction will cause will go down with those affected by it. It’s going to be running past a lot of small businesses (i.e. High Street shops), for example. Even Croydon’s Tramlink saw a few such businesses go to the wall, and that’s just a single-track loop for the most part.
It’s going to make the problems at London Bridge look like a walk in the park.
Like Graham Feakins I support CRT. Tram system installation has had a bad press over the years, mainly due to the (real or perceived) disruption which is largely down to utility repositioning. IMHO a properly organised approach to the installation of tramways can be devised which will minimise disruption. This might imply a piecemeal approach to street closures so that any stretch is out of use for only a very short time. Utility companies should also be compelled to take only a minimum time over their works, or even to accept an installation without moving their pipes etc. Much work has been done in devising better methods of building tramways but the powers that be seem rather blinkered in their approach.
Trams can be a great asset to London.
@JimJordan – without wishing to dissent from your general feeling in favour of trams, the utility companies have a point: the weight of the vehicle is concentrated on a few small areas (remember Captain Deltic’s 5p pieces!) which provides a very heavy point load on the supporting infrastructure, whereas rubber tired vehicles not only tend to weigh less, but spread the load over a wider area – hence the various novelty systems in France such as TVR. There are also considerations of access, drainage and electrolysis. This is not to say that utilities’owners shouldn’t bear a higher proportion of the cost of relocating their kit (especially where it is life -expired anyway), but there is a clear engineering-led cost which cannot be avoided.
One advantage the route of the Cross River Tram had was that Kingsway was built with a utility subway thus many of its utilities are not just under the road . It also has the old Kingsway Tram Subway although reuse by modern trams is unlikely it’s still space that can be used for utilities and not cars.
In fact a major opportunity at the Elephant and Castle is being missed with the current redevelopment which could have be planned with segregated tram routes in mind not just Cross River but other future routes including Old/New Kent Roads !
It’s easy to forget these roads were once dominated by trams as the film ” the elephant will never forget” shows its just a case trams turned into Theobalds Road when the exited the Subway instead of continuing straight ahead towards Euston and on to Camden Town .
@Melvyn:
The Kingsway Subway is already used for other duties now. Which is a good thing as it’s unsuitable for reuse by trams today. It’s in the wrong place and the old stations wouldn’t pass muster: They were accessed by stairs in the middle of the road.
I don’t know where the utilities are, but I suspect they might have been built to either side of the Kingsway Subway itself, which could be a problem as any new tram tracks would be passing above them. Much depends on how they were built and what condition the structures are in.
@ Hayes Cyclist – this stage of consultation was a bit “airy fairy” in terms of preferences and decisions. It was just to flush out “opinion”. As soon as TfL start to firm up route choices, station locations and service impacts then the opposition will become apparent. Note the existence of a co-ordinated campaign group at Camberwell that no doubt swayed the initial route preference percentages. They want to see a transport based decision, not a development one for the simple reason that there aren’t obvious redevelopment sites on the Camberwell alignment! Note also what Boris said which is “it’s going via Old Kent Road” except in much more coded language. TfL have got a very deft piece of work to do to try to keep a coalition of support in place. That coalition will collapse once a route is chosen.
As I’ve said before this should all be about the best transport solution and definitely not the best development friendly option. Any fool, who is even vaguely familiar with the transport usage in that part of London, can see that you need an increase in transport capacity on both route corridors and that the demand warrants a form of rail based transport to meet it and give a capacity overhead for growth.
So the best way to satisfy both would be the Old Kent Road option for the Bakerloo and a game of fill-in-the-gaps for Camberwell with extra Overground (Brixton and Loughborough Junction) and Thameslink stations (Walworth and Camberwell)? That would in theory cover 90% of what is desired.
If the line is dependent on redevelopment opportunities to fund part of it’s construction costs. Then the choice is between Old Kent Road and no line being built at all. So on that basis Camberwell road can go take a long jump off a short bridge.
The Camberwell option requires greater government contributions, so considering financial restraints and the Bakerloos already historically marginal business case, I don’t think it’s an option, unless of course politics takes a different course.
The political option would be to build both! But certain transport and financial realities impinge on that idea.
But suppose a different philosophy holds sway. Why spend all that money pushing the line that far out, serve the most congested inner areas instead? Having two lines means that you are halving potential frequency and capacity of both branches, but that just means they would have to be much shorter to cope with demand.
I’m sure there is enough demand from passengers transferring from the Bus network to fill the tube trains, so why even go to the expense of linking the line to railway stations, it would only encourage people to switch from the trains anyway. If inner Londons population continues to surge then the new lines would need extra spare capacity to cope anyway.
So a two line solution could have a total of four to six stations (max three to each branch) with either going down the OKR or Camberwell road. The Camberwell branch could end at the Green or Denmark Hill and the OKR line could end at New Cross Gate or swing south and direct to Peckham Town centre.
That way the OKR branch would still hit all that low density used redevelopment land and instead of using it support a line out to Lewisham and all those marginal seats down to Hayes, then the money could be used for the Camberwell Branch.
I doubt there would be much more tunnelling involved than the current plan and converting the surface route would not be as cheap as you would think. Having more than one construction site and one set of boring machines is pretty standard in all but the smallest tunnelling project, so I there would not be much penalty to pay for building two shorter branches.
Money wise it could be done.
Currently to help justify the cost of the line there is some notional value being attached to those six trains an hour to Hayes. But I suspect that is being given quite a high value.
The politics though would be ‘interesting’ While loads of London Labour Big wigs (Miss Jowell, Harmon and Umma) have been murmuring about sending the line towards Streatham instead and might move behind a two line solution, it does kind of leave Lewisham high and dry much to their no doubt fury, never mind the abandonment of inner suburbs to the South.
Also they might not care about doing over Tory voters in the suburbs, but there would be a long term price to pay, especially as there are a lot of marginals to piss off along the proposed route.
@Anomnibus: Kingsway was built with dedicated utilities tunnels either side of the tram tunnel – see the cross-section on this page. So long as the tunnels can support the weight of trams (and they have plenty of buses running over them as it is), then it shouldn’t be necessary to move any utilities as the tunnels are large enough for maintenance access without disturbing the surface (or else you just have the tram tracks over the tunnel roof where there are definitely no utilities). Other roads with pipe subways include Charing Cross Road, Shaftesbury Avenue, and Queen Victoria Street in the City.
However the trickier bits would be south of the river of course – the question being whether people were prepared to put up with the disruption of construction in return for the improved transport that would result. Certainly the Ken-era scheme seemed to have quite strong support from south of the river (and quite determined opposition north of Euston Road).
Back in 2001-3 I actually, breifly worked on a tiny part of the CRT proposal, looking at the track-on-street diagrams.
Fascinating stuff, including at least three drafts of getting around the East end of the Aldwych junctions.
The “opposition N of the Euston Rd” could have been overcome with careful redesign &/or partial re-routing & good publicity.
But it was killed by Boris & that was that.
A great shame.
@Ian J – it is worth remembering that the biggest voice behind the “north of Euston Rd” opposition was a certain Mr B Coleman, then AM for said area. That individual has thankfully been booted out of local politics. I’d expect a somewhat more rational response to serving Camden by tram these days bit there is the added complication of a growing network of cycle lanes to cope with as well as the potential impact of HS2 / CR2. If we had a sane planning regime then the railway lands development north of Kings Cross would have been designed to allow trams to serve it but it hasn’t been.
While it is thankful that Mr Coleman is gone, his anti tram stance did not come from nowhere. Camden has an ambivalent relationship about rail proposals.
Many would consider their opposition to the initial Kings Cross redevelopment as correct as it involved large scale demolition and created planning blight that helped increase the areas deprivation.
Then there is the long running saga of Camden tube and opposition to demolition of any local structures and in particular the markets.
Of course their is the current Euston ho ha over HS2 in which the council is totally opposed. Last time I checked the local Labour council was not the same party as Mr Coleman.
Boris may have killed off the Cross river scheme, but it was no longer universally popular.
It maintained popularity South of the River, but most of the roads there are fairly wide with lots of existing Bus Lanes (A3 and A2 and most of Walworth road etc). Building a street running tram down these streets and keeping them traffic free for the most part would have been fairly easy.
The situation once near the river and the crossing Central London on the other hand is not the same.
The problem was that the original West London Tram scheme was so badly handled. TFL wanted a street running scheme to run with as little traffic hold up as possible, so the design solutions in areas of narrow streets, was to propose demolition of local buildings to widen junctions ban people from parking their cars in front of their house and in some areas even from loading, while in others ban all vehicles and have them sent down former residential only streets where parking would be again be banned so thy could fit HGV’s and buses.
It did not go down well, opposition was intense, yet consultation after consultation seemed to suggest positive support and nothing was wrong, Then of course every single Labour councillor, but one, lost their seat in Ealing council to the Tories in the local election on an anti tram ticket and that changed everything. It was at this stage that people started to suddenly propose shorter schemes and maybe show that most consultations are empty shams.
West London Tram died due to that election result and the Cross river scheme was fatally holed at that point. Yes it did have some supporters South of the River but they all fled North of the river and it was no longer as strong South of the River either, hence proposals to only build at as far as Waterloo or Elephant & Castle instead.
Boris shot a lame duck. Politically it was dead.
The problem was West London tram was designed as an engineering exercise with no real thought to what the implications of the supposed improvements would mean to local residents.
Personally I think they just took on to much. It would have been better to have terminated the proposed route at Ealing Broadway where the majority would transfer to tube rather than go all the way to Shepherds bush which was already connected by tube.
That way the only controversial sections would have been Southall and West Ealing and with a bit more flexibility on the design could have ridden out the protesters.
These days with the coming of Crossrail I’d just have the line divert South through the industrial estate before getting to Southall town centre and then across the old Gasworks site straight to Southall Station avoiding all the congestion. As most passengers from the West will now be transferring to Crossrail instead of the Central line it would be much cheaper and easier to operate.
I think trams could play an important roll, but I think people will have to accept them get stuck in traffic at times, most of London streets are not wide enough for continuous traffic free lanes, especially at Junctions.
London does not have a wide grid of roads in which traffic can be diverted to. Trams will just have to run in traffic.
People will also have to accept forced change of mode and buses terminate where tram lines run, otherwise it will never work. No more direct buses to everywhere, you get out here and change like in the rest of Europe. It would also require a complete change to the Oyster system and to a time based charging system rather than mode.
@Graham F: I have no problems with trams, in fact I’m very fond of them. I also think that sometimes individuals have to take he hit for the wider social good of public transport provision. However, CRT isn’t on the table at present, but BLE is. This was just a compromise suggestion to placate both OKR and Camberwell factions.
@Ian J:
Those are some great pictures, thanks! I’d assumed there was work done to duct the utilities, but that page really does hammer home the sheer scale of the project.
That said, the problem with running the trams down the middle of the road is that it would mean no tram stops. It might be feasible to segregate the trams here, but tram stops could be tricky. Ideally, you’d want the trams to stop next to the pavements, not in the middle of a busy road.
@Rational Plan:
Terminating the Camberwell branch at Lewisham really does make sense: this is a very popular route, with buses along that axis rammed even during the off-peak hours. (There are quite a few schools and colleges along the 36/436 corridor too.)
One of the big problems for buses trying to get from Lewisham to Camberwell and Vauxhall is the narrow Peckham High Street, which is a nasty bottleneck with no obvious solutions that don’t involve expensive demolition. A Bakerloo extension via Camberwell would thus most likely terminate at Lewisham, regardless of whether it was later extended over the Hayes line. Denmark Hill already has the London Overground trundling through it, so it’s already on the LU map.
The only question is whether you bother linking the Bakerloo’s Lewisham station with the existing one. Building a brand new station box under a rebuilt Lewisham Shopping Centre would be more logical. (Despite all the redevelopment in the area, the shopping centre itself is only getting some minor cosmetic tweaks. Lewisham Council recently bought the freehold, so a full rebuild around 2030-ish remains perfectly feasible. It’s going to look quite dated once all the new buildings are finished.)
The Hayes line would be better served by being made part of a new Crossrail-style affair via Blackheath, North Greenwich, and Docklands. As the Hayes line alone cannot provide sufficient passengers to justify a very high frequency service, another branch would be needed, most likely taking over one of the Dartford lines.
For the Bakerloo branch via Old Kent Road, running via Surrey Quays and terminating at North Greenwich seems a good choice. The latter is the site of a major venue and an increasing quantity of housing, so having a terminus here makes sense. It also gives a second interchange with services into Docklands.
@Graham F
“The CRT can be achieved much swifter and at far less cost,”
Far more disruptive though – and given the rate at which tunnels can be bored and that, once dug, you do not have to operate a worksite along which people need to drive, cycle, reside, work and shop, tracklaying etc can go ahead much more quickly.
I think building a Bakerloo extension to serve two locations – Camberwell and Peckham – which already have stations which either are currently open or could be re-opened would be a wasted opportunity. And the extra interchange opportunities would be limited, since trains via Peckham Rye and Camberwell already serve Elephant & Castle, which has interchange with the Bakerloo. (Not a very good interchange, it must be admitted, but that could be fixed)
@timbeau:
Tunnelling isn’t without its disruptions. Look at all the shafts and access sites needed by Crossrail 1. There’s also the small matter of where you build the great big hole in the ground so you can get the TBMs into position. (Also: where do you put all spoil and build the factory that makes all the tunnel rings?) There’s also the small matter of building all the stations. These are very, very expensive, and also disruptive to build in their own right: most will involve years of disruption.
Furthermore, underground metros are not a substitute for light rail: the two technologies address different needs. London needs both layers. This should never be an either/or discussion.
The key problem, in my view, is that, while a new building or underground station will create localised disruption, a brand new tram network requires entire streets to be dug up. These will usually be main roads, High Streets, and so on, often along a very popular corridor. Even if you phase the project, in some parts of south London, this will mean sending traffic on long mystery tours of back-streets and residential areas, repeatedly, not to mention the usual contraflows. Forget the cars and cyclists—the latter can always dismount and walk along footpaths—consider what this will mean for bus users!
I think one solution is one that many might not have considered: London’s low-rise housing stock.
Unlike most cities, London has remained mostly very low-rise, and a tram line’s width is less than a typical Victorian house. Instead of running along most streets, the trams could cut across them instead. This would be a little more expensive, but would still be orders of magnitude cheaper than tunnelling: it’s a few £400K houses versus the £100 million (on average) needed for a kilometre of tunnelling.
Housing typically costs less the further out from London’s Zone 1 that you get, so the construction gets cheaper the further out the trams go. And there is precedent: the triangle junction at Sandilands on Croydon’s Tramlink was built by knocking down a pair of houses alongside the original railway.
@anomnibus -if only houses in London cost as little as £400k a pop, even in rundown areas (sorry, emerging areas) like Peckham. With houses sitting on, typically, plots that are 15m x 30m at best, a kilometre is going to take about 70 houses at probably £600-700k apiece.Let’s say £50m a km to buy and demolish a route – cheaper than tunnelling but not wildly so. Add in the aggro from demolishing houses and it looks less attractive…
One of the things that seems to get forgotten by some hyperenthusiastic Bakerloo Crayonista extendadors, is that the more connections you build in at the southern, still to be extended end, the more likelihood there is that the line will become so rammed at Waterloo, “customers” will be unable to board there and a new duplicate line will be needed!!
@anomnibus
“The key problem, in my view, is that, while a new building or underground station will create localised disruption, a brand new tram network requires entire streets to be dug up. ”
That was the point I was trying to make: you can choose which points (and even how many) to have the disruption with a tunnel.
@Rational Plan 12:49
Lots of sensible stuff that I agree with, but this I got to disagree with a lot:
“… but I think people will have to accept them get stuck in traffic at times, most of London streets are not wide enough for continuous traffic free lanes, especially at Junctions.
London does not have a wide grid of roads in which traffic can be diverted to. Trams will just have to run in traffic.”
The major argument for Trams in London, perhaps more so than anywhere else, is that they offer much better capacity for the road space used than any other form of on-surface transportation. Being ‘stuck in traffic’ will do major damage to capacity and journey time, while doing nothing for the cost.
I think the motto of Trams to central London should be ‘tube-like, but cheaper’, not ‘bus-like, but nicer’. If you build a Tram to central London you should, I think, build that for 70, 80 or even 90m Trams with 30-35 per hour. That gives a maximum capacity of about 25 000 per hour per direction. (700*35 rounded up), which is I think not to far of some of the London tube lines, while still being considerably cheaper. If one does Tram in London one wants the Istanbul T1 not the Seattle Streetcar (http://www.planetizen.com/node/74953).
There is obviously space in London for dedicated Trams. What there may not be is space for the lower capacity vehicles that are currently occupying the space needed for Trams. And it could be that it is politically impossible to eject that traffic. But the answer then is not to do Trams badly, it is to not do Trams.
O K “Trams it is then”
But that still leaves the “What do you do with the Bakerloo currently terminating at the Elephant” problem? Leave it there?
I’m reading lots of good ideas, but they seem to be solving different problems, some of which don’t exist yet.
@Castlebar:
If the Bakerloo is extended via both routes (Camberwell-Peckham-Lewisham / Old Kent Road 1, Old Kent Road 2, [coughmumblemumble], Greenwich]), and assuming a minimum of 30 tph through the core, that’s still 15 tph along each branch. This is much higher than existing services via the main lines above, and you don’t have to build lots of interchanges.
I suggest Lewisham simply because it’s a terrible interchange, and unlikely to be improved noticeably by the Bakerloo. Nobody’s going to get off a Charing Cross via Lewisham service and get onto the Bakerloo: it’ll usually be quicker to change at Charing Cross instead and skip the slow run via Peckham. For the City and Docklands, the Bakerloo is singularly useless too, so, again, it’s not likely to see that much use by commuters.
It will be more heavily used by people from Peckham Rye and Camberwell as it offers a quicker route into the West End, and has better connections than the South London Line, which has interchanges with almost nothing. It’ll also soak up a lot of passengers who currently use the buses running from Lewisham via Camberwell.
Similarly, the Old Kent Road branch would likely be mostly used for orbital, local, journeys, rather than commuting. Greenwich already has fast(-ish) services to Cannon Street and Docklands. Even if you have to change at London Bridge for Charing Cross, it’ll still be quicker to do that than stay on the Bakerloo as it goes all the way around the houses. (Remember, Crossrail will also be taking a lot of people off the North Kent line before the trains even get to Greenwich, so there will be some capacity on those trains too.)
There will be some commuters as well, but nowhere near as many as some people here appear to believe. 15 tph is a lot of capacity, and far more than either branch will need to cope for the foreseeable future. Assuming we get a new Crossrail project that actually serves the south east of London properly, rather than just stopping dead a few yards after crossing under the river, the Bakerloo should be enough to provide breathing space.
@Graham H:
If London hasn’t got a grip on its chronic housing shortage by the time a project like this comes within a light year of actually getting off the drawing board, trams will be the least of the city’s worries.
In any case, I’m not suggesting the entire network be built like that. It does, however, offer some possibilities for getting around some of the more intractable bottlenecks, such as the narrow main road linking Peckham and Camberwell.
With two branches there’s no need for termination. Just run E&C OK1 OK2 Peckham E&C in a loop like the Pic at Heathrow. A single platform in each new station keeping costs down. Anybody needing to travel for Peckham to OK could change at E&C or uses buses which would be the obvious choice for OK2 to OK1. It’s not a big grandiose scheme but it would fill in the two not spots.
@anomnibus: tram stops in the middle of the road are pretty normal practice elsewhere – see here and here (a very busy example), to take a couple at random. People will have to cross the full width of the road on every return journey to/from a stop wherever the stops are: putting the tram lines in the median means that they have to do it as two half-crossings rather than one full crossing.
@Walthamstow Writer: I take the point about Mr Coleman’s personal vendetta against trams, but the then-LibDem-led Camden council were also opposed and the residents of Somers Town were unhappy. It ended up with the tram going via Mornington Crescent to get from Euston to King’s Cross at which point you had to wonder why . Perhaps it is harder to get more affluent areas that already have good public transport to agree to any change. PIMBYs will tend to win out over NIMBYs, even if the NIMBYs are only a vocal minority. There are just too many worthwhile uses for finite investment funding to waste it on less popular schemes or less popular bits of schemes.
I’d just like to point out that now that the official options have been proposed, it is unlikely they will change their minds over routing.
My alternative with two SHORT lines was to relieve to congested bus corridors and also split the political difference and cover both corridors.
TFL’s objective is not really about extending the Bakerloo to cover local communities in inner South London, it’s about finally getting a tube station to Lewisham after decades of appearing in countless transport plans.
Lewisham is a major destination and a natural bus and rail hub and so is good objective it also allows them to take over a surface rail branch and allow it to extend a line deep into the suburbs and provide some traffic relief to the main line system.
For them this is the reason for building the line, they don’t actually care about the Walworth Road or the OKR, those are secondary concerns. The Old Kent Road option will be chosen because of the additional finance it will raise from Tax Increment Financing.
But, But.
If the politics go all wrong and those MP’s scupper the plans because they want the line to go into South London and not SE London, then my Short two line solution could be a realistic compromise.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zDluGDKgkFeA.kf9CCTLFgQWU
By Keeping the two branches short the total amount of tunnelling required is the same at 8km. The lines serve high density residential locations with large walk up populations and areas of excess Bus demand.
There are a couple of more underground stations in my option than the TFL plan, but there is also no surface line works to pay for so the cost would be the same or less.
I’ve ended the Walworth road line by the hospitals in Denmark Hill and the OKR line at New Cross Gate. If they were afraid that the line would be too full with transfers from rail, then an alternate terminus could be Peckham Town Centre.
Ian J
Indeed, we had this, & deliberately threw it away
See: Here
& Here too
Which brings us back to …
“Why do a very vocal minority hate ( & I really do mean hate) trams so much here, when they are known & show to work so well, in so many places?
Rational Plan,
As has been pointed out no end of times, TBM bored tunnels (even Crossrail tunnels) are relatively cheap compared to underground stations. So forget about the length and cost of the running tunnels for the moment. It is stations and, to a lesser extent, underground junctions that cost the big money.
If I understand your proposals correctly, you want six new stations (and you will need new two junctions and two new crossovers). That I would suspect means between £1.5 and £3 billion – the latter being the quoted cost of the line to Hayes.
I am not trying to comment on the merits otherwise of your proposal. Just don’t be deluded that this is the cheap option. In fact it would probably cost more than the proposal to extend the Bakerloo to Hayes.
Keeping the length of tunnelling the same as the original proposal is not a major consideration when looking at cost.
The TfL Travel News advert in the metro this morning had a bit on the consultation response including the following on dates:
“construction starting by 2025 and opening in early 2030s”
and indicative cost £3bn – which doesn’t suggest the Bromley Town centre option features.
Greg,
One could turn the question around and say: Why do a very vocal minority love ( & I really do mean love) trams so much here, when they are known & shown to work so well,
in so many placesin just a few selected places in Britain?I mean, they are one of many forms of transport. Whereas they combine the advantages of road and rail it is could be equally said that they combine the disadvantages of both. Possibly telling are the links to dated nostalgic pictures rather than modern ones. Surely we wouldn’t want to bring those back as a 21st transport option?
If it is OK to have a strong passion for introducing trams then why is it not OK to have a strong passion for not reintroducing them? Both seem to be based on equally emotive arguments rather than anything objective. Perhaps the people we should be listening to are the people who don’t have a predisposed like or dislike of trams but will rationally decide on to what extent they should form part of the mix of 21st century public transport options taking everything (including visual effect and future technology) into account.
@ Pedantic.
The desire for six stations was my maximalist position, depending how costs worked out four stations would do, certainly it looks like TFL were only looking at 2 stations for either branch.
In the end it depends how big and expensive the stations end up being, But as these are not Central London stations where mostly crappy council blocks or retail sheds can be cleared for station sites then we are looking to costings similar the Northern line extension and its £200 million a piece costings rather than Victoria station upgrade costs.
I think such an extension option could be brought in for similar money to the existing scheme.
But again it is merely a fall back option if the drive to Hayes fails for political reasons. It’s different coverage may pick up a new coalition of political support, or more likely it will fall completely apart as TFL marshalls all it forces on Crossrail 2 and that only.
@Rational Plan – it’s not the surface works/property that costs the money when building tube stations – it’s having to dig out the platform and circulating areas, and especially the escalator shafts, using small machines in a variety of different angles and situations, rather TBMs simply plugging on ahead.
The trouble with a Bakerloop is twofold – it precludes, operationally, any reasonable chance of further extension, and the furthest point of the loop is going to be lightly used – Fairlop anyone? – and therefore poor vfm.
Re Graham H
Exactly and Lewisham will be an expensive job for those reasons with the added complication of 2 rivers, 2 existing lines, the DLR as well as all the more usual issues with existing buildings and main roads.
The other side of the Lewisham coin it that the large costs are mirrored by the benefits of the existing NR paths released appear to be huge (probably allowing more stopping trains at Lewisham due to conflicting move removal and service simplification as well).
@ Graham H, I was not proposing a Loop line, that was someone else.
I was looking at just two short lines to cover both corridors. I know that such an option would preclude extending either of them any further out. But if consensus no says we should not be sending out tube lines to the suburbs, that’s the job of crossrails, then what’s wrong in keeping to the inner city.
Besides, unless we suddenly had a sustained multi decade program, full of incremental extensions and new lines, there is no need to think of future extensions of the Bakerloo it’s taken 60 years for it too look like the stars are aligning for a Bakerloo extension, it either happens now or not at all.
As to the Stations it depends on how the stations are constructed. If you have a fairly clear site then you are looking at a 120m -150m long site to cofferdam straight down for a station box, in which you would drive your tunnel boring machine through. It’s how they are going to do the Northern Line extension. No fiddling with hand dug tunnels, just a bloody big hole in the ground with lots of concrete.
Hand dug tunnels are for fitting around existing tube stations and ultra expensive zone 1 land.
The only question is if you can find fairly undeveloped sites to do it on;
In central London no way, but badly redeveloped South London, well there are possibilities.
The Old Kent Road is filled with warehouse and retail sheds, so no problem there and Camberwell green could be dug up an restored (controversial no doubt), plus there are plenty of low value council clocks lining Walworth road that could knocked down and replaced afterwards.
The only expensive option would be New Cross Gate, unless of course they just closed the Sainsbury’s for a few years and let them build again with a few high rise towers after. In fact they just doing that at the Nine Elms site right now.
@Rational Plan – sorry to foster the Bakerloop plan on you!
Digging a hole for a box doesn’t make it cheaper alas. The point is that you can’t use a TBM – that will simply deliver you a tunnel to tube loading gauge – any thing else isn’t hand dug (that went out years ago) but does require the use of small digging machines/ excavators and the like deployed at a variety of angles, and that’s what takes the money.
PoP
You tram postion is obviously contrarian, just to wind me up – not biting.
I will merely point out that [Term insulting to the French snipped. I am half Francais. Michel de l’embranchement long] abolished theirs, realised their mistake & reversed course. As well as all those cities in Germany, Benelux, ect that make them work.
Or trams were killed by fashion, mostly, not lack of utility.
I agree that in many parts of London, the narrow, twiddly streets don’t help, but Antwerp makes a go if it in tight corners, so why can’t we?
The long-dead hand of “the combine” is still being felt, as is the desire, 1952-70 to abolish trams, simply because London had – so it must be the right thing to do….
The argument for is “simply”: People-carrying numbers. for situations where buses can’t cope & tubes, X-rails are too expensive
Greg,
I am not trying to wind you up at all. Neither do I want to get embroiled into a detailed debate about the merits or otherwise of trams at the moment. People carrying numbers are one good reason for trams but the numbers 38 and 73 bus together carry more people than all three/four routes on Croydon Tramlink so it is not a killer argument.
What might seem “obvious” to someone as a good idea can be equally “obvious” to someone else as a bad idea. You can quote various European countries but other places such as Australia (Melbourne excepted), New Zealand, India, Singapore and China seem remarkably reluctant to revive them so you can’t rationally blame it on some curious aversion that is limited to the United Kingdom. There is a reason why these countries don’t revive them just as there is a reason why others do. Generalisations don’t necessarily help and every scheme needs to be considered on its merits.
@Greg Tingey (and PoP):
One issue with on-street running of trams in London is that embedded tracks aren’t popular with cyclists. Given TfL’s epiphany regarding the latter, building trams could be problematic if it means removing bicycles from bus & cycling lanes: they’ll need to find an alternative route for one of the two modes to retain both options.
(Note: the most vocal supporters of ripping out tram tracks were cyclists, not motorists. Motor cars barely noticed the rails and their drivers found the reflections from the rails useful when visibility was poor.)
[Monorail comment removed PoP]
In short, London needs something that provides a light rail surface transport layer. Conventional tram technology might not be the best solution from a purely engineering perspective, but with no appetite for using anything else, the debate has been reduced to “trams, or nothing”. I don’t think London can afford the “nothing” option, so I’ll support conventional trams if that’s the only card on the table.
That means we have to address the problem of how to manage segregation not only for cyclists, but also for trams as well.
@PoP – I’d buy your “rational analysis” argument if you (or TfL) could demonstrate to me that TfL have fully and appropriately assessed bus, tram, light metro, heavy metro and heavy rail scheme options for improving public transport accessibility in South East London and *then* concluded that extending the Bakerloo Line down the Old Kent Road is best. AIUI they haven’t done that. They’ve done work on the Bakerloo Line extension because it seems easyish, might pull in some developers’ money and because the Mayor got momentarily excited about it.
Just because TfL and Arriva between them can just about make the 38 and 73 function as bus routes in north London is no justification for continuing with them forever nor is it a reason not to have a tram or metro or tube line over all or part of their route corridors. Running bus routes with PVRs of over 50 buses is pretty much stupid in this day and age and especially with London’s air quality issues.
I know our individual “enthusiasms” can get the better of us when we comment on here and sometimes a load of nonsense pours forth but I would sincerely hope that the experts in TfL and elsewhere really are doing the full and proper analysis of transport options and not just responding to whimsies from City Hall. Oh look a porcine squadron fleeing past the window on the gales! 😉
@PoP – “You can quote various European countries but other places such as …… and China seem remarkably reluctant to revive them”
Really? See here, including “Related News”:
http://www.railwaygazette.com/news/urban/single-view/view/guangzhou-tram-line-opens.html
Add to that Kaohsiung in Taiwan and Addis Ababa in Ethiopia. Even Japan is actively renewing its several existing tramways.
“…if …. could demonstrate to me that TfL have fully and appropriately assessed … in South East London and *then* concluded that …”
Would it be a unfair to suggest that seems a “straw man”?
Walthamstow Writer,
Which is one of my points. The argument for or against trams should stand on its merits. But I also wanted to demonstrate that Greg has produced nothing of substance to argue his case – not that I want here to get into a long drawn out discussion on the benefits or otherwise of trams.
Yes having two bus routes in London that serve remarkably similar areas carrying so many people does seem wrong. Whether the “correct” replacement, or at least relief, should come from a tram route or from Crossrail 2 I am not really competent to say. Maybe the “correct” solution in the future will be electric articulated buses with lots of bus priority along the routes involved. Who knows?
Of course there is also the issue to which (unelected) TfL should decide policy or whether what the Mayor says is the correct democratic thing that takes precedence. TfL can be as rational as they like but at the end of the day it is all political. If TfL know that the current Mayor is going to say no to any tram option that looks like CRT in any shape or form then there is not much point in pursuing it – especially as there is no sign of any plausible mayoral candidate wanting a revival (as far as I am aware).
@Graham H
Surely digging a big hole (assuming what is on the surface is of low value) has to be the simplest and cheapest way to build an underground station? As Rational Plan points out, this is being used for the Battersea Northern line extension, where the civils work for 6.6km of tunnels and two stations is costing ~£500m – A bargain compared to most of what gets discussed here!
Graham Feakins,
I know that there are trams in China. That is why I chose my words carefully. For a population of over a billion that has thousands of miles of high speed rail and can open new metros at a remarkable rate and is quite capable of putting its own citizens into space I find it quite staggering how they have failed to embrace the modern tram to any great extent and I have to ask why. It is not as if they are unfamiliar with them as they had a few cities with them in the 20th century.
@herned – well,the last time a box was dug for a station, admittedly four times the length of a tube station, at Stratford, the box cost £1bn by the timeit was fitted out.
@Herned – BTW, the cost of the NLE is stated by TfL to be £999m (let’s call it £1bn).
I share Greg’s view that it was an enormous pity that Britain, led perhaps by London, abandoned trams and trolleybuses. (Although, as mentioned above, it was not just Britain).
I also think that there is plenty of scope for new and expanded trams in London, and the rest of Britain, as an important part of the transport mix.
But I suggest that any connection between these two viewpoints is entirely co-incidental. Trams should be used where they are appropriate in this century, and because they are appropriate, not as any sort of compensation for their unfortunate abolition about 57 years ago.
@Graham the Stratford Uninterntaional station box contains not only 4 platforms long enough to land a small aircraft on, but also a slightly amazing overhead incline to get trains and out of the tunnel.
@Malcolm -the box on its own, cost £1bn in the 90s,so something around £1.5bn at today’s prices perhaps. Pro rata for a box half as wide and a quarter of the length, gives you £200m. (Possibly a bit more because there are startup and mobilisation costs which don’t vary direcltc with the volume of earth to be shifted, so, say £220m?). That doesn’t look too far off the average cost of a TBM + conventional excavation station which is around £250m depending on subsoil. There doesn’t seem to be a cheap lunch here.
If the OKR option goes ahead and private money is used, do these marginal costs matter?
@Graham H
The civils contract for the tunnelling and the station boxes was let for ‘approximately £500 million’ according to the TfL press release. Given it is often quoted here that tunnelling is around £100m per mile, that would mean about £100m each for the stations. Also the box at Woolwich Arsenal for Crossrail (~twice the size) cost £140m (not sure what year prices), so that seems about right.
@Herned -fair enough; if it is true,however, then that reduced cost would apply equally to any and all of the Bakerloo extension’s possible stations and so wouldn’t be a factor in deciding on a route.
BTW, you will notice that because the civils element of the total cost is about half,with the rest being taken up by fitting out the station and tunnel, any impact on the business case from using a box is proportionately reduced – ie to take NLE as a case in point, the gross cost of the scheme as a whole would rise by about 20% on your figures, which is far from a showstopper given the Bakerloo extension BCR. What is really needed is a way of reducing fitting out costs – I suspect that may be in the too difficult basket for the moment.
@Herned – no, I was wrong to concede your point. the £250m”ready reckoner” figure for a typical “non-box” tube station includes fitting out. The civils element of that will be only a proportion of that = perhaps half. (You willhave noticed that fitting out the tunnels and stations on NLE accounts for half the cost). So, perhaps your 100m plays my 125m – useful but hardly significant.
An alternative to a ‘tram’ solution would be a return to a sans-rails ‘bendy bus’, but powered by overhead electric. Sort of a modern trolley bus …
@ PoP – I would suggest that the Chinese have not quite yet reached the point where killing their population through appalling air quality is forcing a policy change. They have tried to accommodate massive car ownership levels and aspiration towards such with the reality that wages are low for many so mass transport is also required. Therefore there are impressive but overloaded Metro systems and huge but congested road networks. At some point something will give and they will need to start losing road capacity and putting in something better than buses. They will also need to resume the mass usage of bicycles. I suspect that some of what they have built to date has been influenced by “western easy answers” courtesy of bands of consultants plying their trade. I’m clearly surmising here.
Re. China – I add to WW’s comment by saying that a factory has now been established to build low-floor, light rail vehicles – trams – (in China) but until now expertise has been drawn from European sources such as Siemens. The five new tramways recently opened are just the start and, what’s more, some connect with already-existing metro systems.
Now that the Chinese are building trams themselves, it stands to reason that they will be keen to demonstrate that facility on home ground, so watch out for more!
Walthamstow Writer, Graham Feakins
Rightly or wrongly, you both give me the impression that China has, up to now at any rate, treated the tram as the means of transport of last resort. Whether or not this is correct and whether or not it is right that countries do so, this does appear to be the approach in much of the world. Getting back the original point I was trying to make, we might be a bit out of step in Europe by not being so enthusiastic about trams but on a worldwide basis I would venture to suggest that as a country we were are more positive about them than the average nation.
Another thing that is surprising about the lack of trams in China is their use in Hong Kong. I don’t mean the famous ones in the centre. I mean the way they chose tram systems in the New Territories to cover areas that weren’t busy enough for urban metro but needed something more than buses – absolutely textbook use of trams. Yet this excellent example does not/did not seem to get copied by mainland China.
PoP – “but other places such as Australia (Melbourne excepted), New Zealand seem remarkably reluctant to revive them [trams]” – Sydney, Adelaide, and the Gold Coast are all building/have recently built new tram routes; Fremantle and Auckland are seriously looking at trams.
@Anomnibus – I worked in Melbourne for a couple of years and had no issue cycling on roads with tram tracks and it didn’t seem to be an issue with local cyclists either. I did deliberately use wide tyres rather than skinny racing tyres, however.
I think everyone was used to trams as they are an integral part of Melbourne so people just deal with it.
In London, of course, people will raise points like this as major problems as was seen with the West London team consultation.
In London at least, there were “TRAM PINCH” road signs a few yards ahead of junctions in the tram lines. Cyclists, even if unfamiliar with the road, could see they needed to be wary. What is it today that requires people to take some responsibility for their own actions?
The fact that some people ride bicycles should not be held up as a reason for blocking a new tram system.
@Graham H
Given that I use Stratford International twice a day, I am therefore very familiar with the station. So it worth noting that whilst the hole is very large (deep and long) the fittings are quite minimal.
In addition, the costs were lowered because the site was very much a green-field site with excellent access, and no neighbours and no near-by infrastructure when it was built.
http://cdn.pseph.co.uk/styles/images/2014/stratford.jpg
I really don’t think you could compare this directly with a location (such as the Old Kent Road) where the site would be a brown-field with poor road access and the high possibility of everything from sewers (rivers, even) to fibre optic links in the ground.
STI might have four platforms but only two are in general use: the fitting costs (stations, escalators etc) would be very similar to a tube station: there would be no proportional saving because the “surface station” bit of STI is actually quite small.
Mike,
That is good to hear. I know what I said can be interpreted in many ways but three Australian cities in a country where an incredible 99% of the population live in cities, is to me, a remarkable reluctance. What is more a lot of cities in Australia are in a far better situation to install trams as they contain some remarkably wide “drovers roads” which were the main highways for bringing the cattle to the ports.
If we look at Sydney, it has only installed trams after it experimented with a monorail system that has come and gone. To me that really is choosing trams as a last resort and a remarkable reluctance to embrace trams.
Briantist,
Given that, as I understand it, Graham H was arguing that holes in the ground were intrinsically very expensive unless built by TBM, I am sure he will be delighted with your description that implies that his argument is even more valid. Or am I misunderstanding?
@Briantist – the various exchanges about station costs led me to fret as to why fitting out costs are so high. I’m no QS but a quick deployment of the back of fag packet suggested that a typical deep tube station might require several thousands of square metres of tiling, for example, and on the basis of the cheques I have been writing recently for a new kitchen, I can see that heavy duty tiles might easily cost a few million to buy and install. Then there’s cabling – and as we know from rolling stock costs, wiring looms are (a) pricey, and (b) very much more extensive than one might suspect. And ducting, and services…
@PoP – plain tunnel dug by TBM is – err – dirt cheap. At £100m/mile per single bore, the cost of driving a tunnel for a station length is going to be about £10m or £20m for two . So, the civils for turning that into a station, whether boxy or otherwise, adds up to £100m, and fitting out as much again, it would seem. Roughly. Do all this in a constrained or geologically difficult site and the costs rise accordingly.
“Ideally, you’d want the trams to stop next to the pavements, not in the middle of a busy road.”
They do everywhere in Amsterdam and elsewhere in the Netherlands very satisfactorily. It also leaves room at the side of the road for cycleways. The buses also go down the tram tracks.
Have a look with Street View, following a Google Earth or Maps search, at (say) Westerkerk Rozengracht tram stop and see how the tramhalte is arranged next to the bushalte and how the pax cross to it from the pavements.
The taxis and council vehicles can also use the tramway and thus bypass any unsustainable private car traffic, left still using the single carriageway.
@Howard GWR – it would appear that the villain of the piece is kerbside activities (loading/parking) in the UK which sterilises a whole lane in each direction. The general impression (always a bad guide, of course) from visiting continental cities is (a ) there is much less white van trade – but why? – and (b) the activity is displaced to side streets.
@Graham H
The latest public cost for fitting out a station box that I am aware of is the £70m for Woolwich Arsenal. Assuming new tube stations are half the size, the fit out costs must be lower, although unlikely to be completely proportionate. Maybe £50m would be a reasonable assumption..
Also as platform tunnels aren’t built by TBM then the cost is likely significantly more per metre.
That said, I don’t really believe that a few hundred million either way will be that significant in the decision making process so it’s a bit of a trivial point to disagree on
@Herned -“That said, I don’t really believe that a few hundred million either way will be that significant in the decision making process so it’s a bit of a trivial point to disagree on” – actually, I think we both agree on that! My suggested numbers are, necessarily, generic, and individual sites’ costs will vary substantially as briantist points out, for local reasons. (I was really only trying to make the point that there just aren’t any “miracle” solutions to underground station costs -if only… The odd saving here and there is nice to have, but when you’re spending the odd big one or two, £10m isn’t going to swing it, as you say. Put’s down Churchill Corona and rings Warren Buffet…)
Trams suffer from an image problem in much of Asia and other less developed countries. People forget many countries while poorer than the West and had less Urban populations often still had major cities a century ago which had the same sort of transport infrastructure as we had. So all those cities that were big at the time had extensive tram systems and railway networks.
Some places did not thrive in the post colonial period as they adopted socialist/nationalist economics or retreated into autarky and the elite becme rent seekers and let the infrastructure rot.
Others did well, but in either case trams did not do well. They either still limp along today running 19th century vehicles on track that has not seen maintenance since 1950, or they have collapsed partially or completely due to lack of funds. Inmore prosperous places trams are seen as old fashioned, part of colonial history, the olden days. It is not modern, it does not show that you have the best, that you are not at the fore front of technology. It applies to their cities as well, who wants these ancient meandering lanes of houses and shops, lets sweep it all away for new malls and wide boulevards.
Basically these countries have the attitudes of western economies of the 1950’s and 1960’s. A time where most of the West tram systems were swept away.
China is obsessed of course with being modern and developed. Every city wants a high speed line, freeways and a metro system and the Chinese state like a lot of Asian countries are addicted to high infrastructure spending. This is rational in a developing economy where the deployment of the latest technology and high quality infrastructure creates a big boost to economic growth, without needing to do much on the productivity side.
China has also used big infrastructure spending as a way to keep the economy going at times of slowing growth. Hence the announcement of thousands of extra km of motorways and high speed lines, alongside dozens of new metro lines a few years ago.
But in China policy is changing. They have admitted that many cities that are building metro’s now are really too small and are going to struggle to afford the running costs. They should have built a modern tram system.
Currently some new tram have recently opened and I would expect the next wave of infrastructure spending to announce thousands of km of tram lines.
Trolley buses are also making a big comeback, with Beijing converting several bus lines a year to trolley use.
Many places still see a metro system as the only way forward for their city to be modern, cost may increasingly persuade others to try trams instead.
POP 09.57
Sydney had the largest tram network in the southern hemisphere but pulled it out by early sixties despite some being in separate right of way. There was a small tram/light railway existing and being extended as monorail was being removed, a larger tram system is now being constructed.
I was initially a bit reluctant to go down this road/these tracks concerning trams but it did have a slight relevance due to discussing it in relation to the Bakerloo Line extension and the alternatives. To that that end attitudes to trams could also be seen as a factor to be considered.
I think we have gone as far as we can with doing worldwide comparisons and what I really don’t want to do, here and now, is have a generalised discussion on why trams should or should not play a more prominent role in London. The opportunity for that will eventually come.
With respect guys, trams would not move the volume of people who would use the extension.
There is probably a compromise route that involves escalators and lifts from a pair of double ended platform under the roundabout.
This would serve the redeveloped shopping centre and the housing being built between the New Kent Road and Walworth Road.
Next stop near Tesco in the Old Kent Road, then Walworth Road, Camberwell Green, Denmark Hill, Brixton, Clapham, Dulwich & Peckham
Re Chris Patrick,
“trams would not move the volume of people who would use the extension.”
Exactly London’s growth rate was moved away from using trams in lot of potential instances.
And trams on topic:
2 potential interfaces with the Croydon trams
Elmers End – Shouldn’t cause any issues upon conversion but this will act as a large feeder
Beckenham Junction – Where to put a 2nd Bakerloo platform without taking over the access road to Waitrose (now that really is how to start opposition locally!) might suggest a big rebuild of the station could happen to fit all of the existing in as well or is it easiest to remove the Southern Beckenham Junction services (and divert to Norwood Jn combined with a Palace Tramlink extension?) to create the space to do it more easily?
Various other recent comments have been deleted as going far too far along the “general trams discussion” route. Future comments in similar vein will also end up at the equivalent of Charlton.
QS appears to mean Quantity Surveyor, a construction industry professional who deals with construction costs and contracts.
@anomnibus
“The Overground interchanges with almost nothing south of the river”
On the contrary, it is if anything better connected south of the river than north, connecting with all but one of the Tube lines that make it as far as Zone 2 in south London, and also with the SWT network in three places, all three main lines of the Southern network, the Chatham lines at Peckham Rye, and the SE network at New Cross. Compare this with the way the Goblin completely fails to connect north of the Thames with the GN and GE Main lines and its own Seven Sisters line, whilst the North/West London Lines fail to connect with the GWML and Chiltern Lines, and the H&C, Metropolitan, Northern (both branches)and Piccadilly lines.
[Anomnibus’ original comment was deleted for tram discussion and this point that timbeau noted. LBM]
per PoP “Future comments in similar vein will also end up at the equivalent of Charlton.”
That’s the Penhall Road tramatorium:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/kingswayjohn/4821556488/
Would it be OK to return back to the question in hand.
Let’s leave aside – please – routes that are not on offer?
I can’t work out what’s going to happen between E&C and New Cross Gate. The decision balance between Old Kent Road 1 and 2 and the route via Camberwell/Peckhan Rye seems so balanced. The former is more needed for regeneration and bus relief, the latter has a great interchange at Peckham Rye.
The only way (leaving aside the crazy loop ideas) might be to go via Old Kent Road but build one as the Overground interchange by reopening the “missing” Overground Old Kent Road station?
As for the Bromley Central option, IMHO that’s for definite! The only problem with the plan is the current single platform at Grove Park for the branch line.
The rest of it all makes sense unless you were 100% of the belief that Hayes was going to get better longer faster NR trains.
In all my years reading consultation response reports this is the most in favour I can think of.
@timbeau:
That the Overground also has issues north of the river doesn’t negate my point, although pointing at the GOBLIN doesn’t help your case: try missing out all three Dartford routes, as well as the entire Tonbridge Main Line. This is the line that runs via Lewisham. (So what follows is technically on-topic! Yay!)
There are only two trains per hour between Victoria and Lewisham, which is hardly turn-up-and-go, and that means people could be waiting 20-30 minutes just to travel a couple of stops.
The Chatham Main Line is actually the route via Brixton and Herne Hill, which the Overground line sails serenely across at Brixton, right above the existing station. The Catford Loop’s services all go to/via Blackfriars, not Victoria, so the Overground utterly fails to interchange with any Chatham services out of the latter.
The Catford Loop’s services all appear to be Thameslink services now, so technically, they’re not even South Eastern services, though doubtless there’s some bureaucratic shenanigans going on that make the trains magically turn into South Eastern ones as they emerge from Blackfriars station. (Roll on colour e-Ink coatings for trains, so they can literally change livery en route!)
Even at New Cross, you’d have to change onto a northbound service to Surrey Quays, before crossing to yet another platform to catch the next Clapham Junction train. That’s two changes of train, before you’re even heading in the right direction!
While building new platforms* above Brockley station on the Nunhead-Lewisham link would have added to the cost, it would have done wonders for Brockley’s connectivity, even if they didn’t link it directly to the existing Brockley station below. Brockley has no decent roads linking it with either Lewisham, Nunhead, or Peckham. Just doing the above would have made a huge difference to the local economies.
A key goal of the Overground project was to improve orbital connections, but it was such a compromised project that it fails dismally. It’s the railway equivalent of the South Circular.
–
* (There was a station called “Brockley Lane” here many years ago, but almost all traces have long gone, so this would effectively be a new-build station. I appreciate the very limited budget LOROL had to play with; my beef is with the politics, not the engineering.)
@ Anomnibus – I’d agree with your complaints if the Overground SLL service was running empty. It isn’t. I understand the trains are heaving full in the peaks and well patronised off peak. For all the moans about lack of connectivity north, south, east or west the simple truth is that people love the Overground service and use it in ever increasing numbers (barring blips related to engineering closures). One day we may get a Mayor who has station or platform reopenings as part of their manifesto and if they win then it would get into the Transport Strategy which TfL have to implement. I look forward to that day happening but I am well aware that it will be a costly policy given the complications there are at some locations.
@Anomnibus
@timbeau
It is worth noting, as the idea seems to be abroad of “North of the river, good, sound of the river, bad” that there are some bits of North London will awful train services.
Case in point: travel one stop from Bowes Park to Palmers Green (BOP-PAL) and it might take 2 whole minutes, but there are only three trains an hour, even in peak!
Bowes Park is not even 8 miles from Charing Cross (as the crow flies) but the service out to Crews Hill (still within the M25, in Enfield) is poor.
There’s ONE train an hour from Stratford to Tottenham on Sunday and TWO off-peak – but both ends have tube services with over 30tph…
Go, as they say, figure.
@anomnibus
“try missing out all three Dartford routes, as well as the entire Tonbridge Main Line.”
I was under the impression the Overground interchanges with these lines at New Cross. Coming from the Clapham Junction direction you can get to Lewisham direct from Denmark Hill and Peckham Rye, and Waterloo East direct from Clapham Junction, so why add a redundant connection with the Overground?
Similarly, whether the Catford loop is technically the Chatham Main Line or not, you can get to Bromley South, and thus anywhere on the Chatham network, from Peckham Rye and Denmark Hill.
As I have said before, the easiest way of putting most of south London on the Tube map involves nothing more than a few crayons. Mayoral control should not be necessary to achieve this. .
@ Anomnibus – Brockley Station was mentioned and I should have a view on that! I am not sure it is possible to build full 10 car platforms on the high level railway where it crosses the existing station – and I assume that would be NR’s requirement. if it could be done and then train paths found to boost the service from Lewisham to Victoria and Blackfriars, then I am sure there would be demand and it would ease pressure on the current services at Brockley.
However, if the train paths were available I think the same enhancement of service would be better directed to the Catford Loop line through Crofton Park, which would suit many Brockley users as well, without the infrastructure costs being incurred. more trains on that route might in turn guide decisions on where to terminate the Bakerloo extension.
” I am not sure it is possible to build full 10 car platforms on the high level railway where it crosses the existing station ”
I don’t see why not – and aren’t Victoria – Lewisham services eight cars anyway?
Chris Patrick at 13:57:
“With respect guys, trams would not move the volume of people who would use the extension.”
I don’t quite know how you mean this. If you mean that trams would not have the capacity, that is obviously mistaken. Even a paltry single unit 30m tram could probably match whatever free capacity is available on the Bakerloo.
If you mean that building a tram instead of the proposed extension (I don’t think anyone here is actually proposing that) and having people change to the bakerloo would be less popular, you are probably correct. But it would also save a billion or two, which is still a fair amount of money.
But the proper comparison is, I think, what the money used for the extension could build instead. And for that money you could build a cross-london tram the length of the bakerloo and the extension with similar or higher capacity than the bakerloo will ever have. And if that was built it would be used by many more people than the extension.
Since no one is suggesting spending the money on trams instead of a bakerloo extension – indeed it could be that ejecting the current road users to build such a (or any) tram may currently be politically impossible – I still think it makes sense to build an extension to the bakerloo.
@ Brockley Mike – A look at Google street / satellite view seems to show a decent amount of space line side and not too much encroachment by the bridges. Surely all you need to do is replace the bridges so they can take platform widths and then construct platforms on the embankment? Stairs / lifts down to the low level platforms should present too much of an issue providing the land is solid enough. Entry and exit could be via the existing Brockley Station – convoluted I accept but a way of saving some money until someone decides they want an additional entrance. It certainly doesn’t look any more involved property wise than Surrey Canal Road station will be. I accept there may be local factors I know nothing about but sticking in some platforms is not the hardest job in the world. You’re more likely to hit issues about whether you need to faff around with signalling / line speeds to preserve capacity if you add in an extra station stop.
@timbeau and WW – I think the engineering challenges arise whether going for 8 or 10 cars and any length beyond 8 is probably of marginal additional difficulty. there are two overbridges, one over Mantle Road to the west and one over Brockley Road to the east. in both cases the road dips in order to allow enough clearance (and even so, the Mantle Road bridge gets hit by vehicles on a fairly regular basis). Making the rail bridges wider to accommodate platforms would mean lowering the road for a greater distance as the bridges would probably be about double width compared with now. Even avoiding Mantle Road, which would still allow for access from both high level platforms to both low level ones, the Brockley Road constraint can’t be avoided with anything over maybe 3 or 4-car length platforms.
Additionally there is a building close by on either side of the high level railway in this key stretch between the two roads.
Hence saying not sure if possible (especially if ‘possible’ is a combination of being do-able from an engineering perspective and also being do-able for a sensible cost).
Another consideration is that interchange potential loses value if the trains are already rammed at rush hour, which is pretty much the case even with the new 5-car Overground trains.
Hence thinking why not avoid all the cost of creating an interchange station and just run additional trains if the paths can actually be created via Crofton Park which could certainly use an improved service (4 per hour peak compared with 14 at Brockley).
@WW
“Surely all you need to do is replace the bridges so they can take platform widths ”
You could probably cantilever platforms off the existing bridges – as was done at here for the platform extension work.
http://www.thisisourtownkingston.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/platform_ext-769×472.jpg
before https://goo.gl/maps/ek1Dn
After https://goo.gl/maps/WQdbn
As seen from the far side – showing that the original structure is still present on the side where the platform did not need extending, with the new fencing visible behind
https://goo.gl/maps/ftD5w
Well, it’s supposed to be a station, but the branding would suggest selling coffee is more important, train passengers having to use a small side entrance.
@Brockley Mike
Kingston also has a dip, and buildings close by
https://goo.gl/maps/z4lq9
The building on the SE corner of the Mantle Road bridge is the closest, but it looks as if a platform could actually be mounted on top of the existing guard girders there without widening the overall structure at all.
Re Brockley Mike, Anomnibus and WW,
As noted the bridge over Brockley Lane had platforms over them in the past
http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/b/brockley_lane/
The platforms appeared to have been on 2 separate (higher) light weight bridge decks so reinstating them should be easy. the brickwork on the abutment is still there and in reasonable condition:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.465235,-0.036486,3a,75y,297.27h,92.81t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sjgajjOeFX8dypT3SX5s4LQ!2e0
So 12 car shouldn’t be a practical problem…
[Far too politically charged – especially in the run up to a general election. Overt political comment must cease or all posts will either be screened before publication or simply rejected. PoP]
While typing my last post a program in Extreme Engineering series has just started about a trans Atlantic tunnel with trains travelling at thousands of MPH – would need a very big box of crayons for this project ….!
@timbeau – yes quite possibly. it reminded me there are some great pictures of the original station on ‘Disused Stations’ http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/b/brockley_lane/index.shtml
which also show platforms within the Brockley Road bridge width – so it may be more feasible than I initially thought.
Could more trains paths be found do you think – to get to something like a metro level of service – an effective interchange would need a rough balance of service levels across the two routes? Maybe terminate at Blackfriars and stop at a re-opened Camberwell on the way – sorting one of the Bakerloo route options in the process? Perhaps too fanciful….
[Dear Reader, before continuing, allow me clarify a key point: I know full well TfL had a very limited budget for the Overground project. I blame the politicians and the short-termist approach to infrastructure planning they implicitly impose. Nevertheless, this doesn’t mean the service isn’t seriously flawed in its present iteration.]
@WW and timbeau:
Five-car trains in south London are packed? Gosh! Who could have seen that coming! Oh right: a child of six. Shame TfL didn’t bother hiring one. I can’t wait to see the increased wailing and gnashing of teeth once Crossrail opens.
The Chatham Main Line’s route is important: the route to Victoria is by far the most popular and, more importantly, the quickest. That the Overground has no useful interchanges at all with either the Chatham Main Line or the Tonbridge Main Line means the Overground’s orbital route serves no practical purpose for almost an entire quarter of London. Most of Kent also fails to benefit from the line, except for the handful of people who desperately need to get from Chatham to Shoreditch in a blazing hurry.
Yes, Chatham passengers could change at Bromley South, but if you’re already on a semi-fast train to Victoria, why would you bother? It’s much quicker to just change at Victoria and double back to Clapham Junction than to faff about with two changes of train.
@ngh – apologies I missed your post which ‘anticipated’ my one!
@PoP: taking account of your comments about worldwide tram comparisons, but a point you raise about Australia has interesting parallels with the Bakerloo extension:
three Australian cities in a country where an incredible 99% of the population live in cities, is to me, a remarkable reluctance.
Actually four (Melbourne, Adelaide, Sydney, the Gold Coast), with another one (Canberra) due to start construction next year, and light rail also promised for Newcastle. This in a country with only 11 cities of more than 200,000 people.
If we look at Sydney, it has only installed trams after it experimented with a monorail system that has come and gone. To me that really is choosing trams as a last resort and a remarkable reluctance to embrace trams.
In Sydney in the mid 80s the government had a choice between a light rail system and a monorail to serve a new development area. They chose the monorail, against the advice of the then transport minister, because it was claimed to be able to be built by the private sector at no cost to the taxpayer.
This decision seems to be regretted now since they ended up with basically a fairground ride with a limited lifespan, instead of the nucleus of a useful transport system. So maybe the lesson from Sydney for the Bakerloo seems to be that if you let the private sector tail wag the transport policy dog then you can get poor long-term transport outcomes. Treat unsolicited proposals from developers and entrepreneurs to build isolated chunks of transport infrastructure that don’t fit into a bigger plan with scepticism.
Possible analogies: the proposed Waterloo to Canary Wharf railway, the proposed Battersea Power Station express, the proposed Brent Cross Thameslink station, maybe the Northern Line extension, and any Bakerloo extension (to Old Kent Road?) that was only designed to serve and be funded by new development. The claim “no cost to the taxpayer” never includes opportunity costs or on-going running costs.
[Others please note. The comment refers to trams but, as it makes it clear, it is raising the issue about the dangers of just chasing private cash to extend public transport which is highly relevant to the Bakerloo Line extension. PoP]
@Anomnibus
“That the Overground has no useful interchanges at all with either the Chatham Main Line or the Tonbridge Main Line means the Overground’s orbital route serves no practical purpose for almost an entire quarter of London.”
You could argue it doesn’t help south west London much either – there are faster ways of getting between, say, Wimbledon and East London. But the argument misses the point: the Overground is not a destination in itself: like all railways it merely provides connections between actual places people want to go to and from. It has added some new connections, but there is no point in duplicating existing ones just because they don’t show up on the Tube Map e.g those between south and SE London provided by the Victoria-Dartford services.
Yes, the Chatham Main line is poorly connected to the rest of the southern network, and an Overground station at Brixton would help (although main line trains would need to call at the LCD station, and it would still be a slower route to the East End than going via Bromley South and Peckham Rye). And if there were a huge demand for Chatham Line passengers wanting to change to the Forest Hill line, a new two-level interchange station at Penge station would be relatively easy to build if the demand existed. But it doesn’t – or the connection between Beckenham Junction and Crystal Palace would still be the main line.
@Anomibus – It is worth pointing out that the Overground does not connect with the GWML, Chiltern Lines or ECML either, so I am not clear what point you are trying make. There are a *lot* of journey’s that will require multiple changes, but so what ?
@ Anomnibus 0229 – You don’t need to respond with quite so much sarcasm dripping through your post. I am not a school child that needs to be scolded for not being as clever as “teacher”. You are never satisfied with any transport project in London – everything falls short of your self defined ideal. The fact that huge numbers of people use the services you deride appears only to be a failure as far as you are concerned. I’d rather we have some investment on our rail network even if it is not the absoluete pinnacle of perfection than wait for the day that we can afford perfection. That day never, ever comes.
@Anomnibus
I think you are retrospectively changing the intended purpose of the Overground then, having changed a key base assumption, saying the Overground was inadequately specced.
The Overground was conceived largely as a solution for passengers wanting to make point to point orbital journeys. A 4 car service wasn’t an unreasonable assumption for that (with one problem – see below).
You are saying, however, that the Overground should be a solution for the much higher number of passengers wanting to make a radial+orbital journey, or a orbital+radial one. That would swamp a 4 or 5 car service at some points. So, rightly, additional radial connections shouldn’t be added to the Overground unless it starts a service which matches radial lines in both frequency and car length. That seems a long way from happening so for now the Overground is better without additional connections to radial routes.
I suspect, however, that there was two key assumptions which were wrong in the initial demand projections for the Overground.
1. Over a period of months, people will make housing location decisions based on the availability of a new route option leading to new demand for that route. That seems to be a factor which is well understood for radial routes but less well understood for orbital routes.
2. A new fast, Metro frequency rail service can attract bus passengers with seemingly unrelated journeys. Rather than travel point to point between two locations not on the Overground, perhaps changing bus once, it could be quicker to use a short bus journey to an Overground station, do long distance on a fast train, then another short journey by bus at the other end. In short, the corridor served by the Overground is possibly upto 5 miles either side of the main route. That’s hard to model though.
I’m generally one to criticise poor transport planning – such as the continuing fiasco at London Bridge – but I think TfL planners should be exculpated for not predicting Overground demand.
@theban – I very much agree that as London expands and – we hope but don’t expect – that the counterpoles of attraction develop further, a move to a more gridlike network a la Suisse might be appropriate but, as you point out, Overground is not that and was never intended to be – it’s a rebranding and stepping up of what was mostly there already. British pragmatism rules OK?
@Theban, Graham H
Adding to those points, the Overground was largely based on what was pragmatic and affordable, not on trying to achieve perfection.
The South Western leg of the East London Line round to Clapham Junction almost never happened. It was only afforded on a minimalist basis (£75m) because of two main contributing factors:
(1) a variation in TfL funding support previously intended for a Victoria-Bellingham service; and
(2) internal Labour Party deals between the Transport Secretary of the time (another GH – Geoff Hoon – who needed voting support for a third Heathrow runway) and South London MPs under the flight path, who needed a local quid pro quo.
None of this was helped by DfT refusal to allow what it saw as the risk of a TfL-led ORCATS-raid on South Eastern zone 1 revenues via Victoria, so that other SLL replacement service options were scotched.
‘Milton Clevedon
“The South Western leg of the East London Line round to Clapham Junction …….was only afforded on a minimalist basis because of two main contributing factors:”
three: it got a precious 2 tph out of London Bridge – essential to the Thameslink project
@Jim Cobb “Overground does not connect with the …… ECML ”
ECML inner suburban services call at Highbury & Islington, which is most definitely on the Overground.
three: it got a precious 2 tph out of London Bridge – essential to the Thameslink project
Well not really seeing as they were originally intending to remove the South London Lines service and replace it with Bellingham-Victoria. If LO to Clapham Junction hadn’t happened the Thameslink Programme would still have gone ahead.
[Sorry, tram comments were closed by PoP yesterday. Australian tram/LRT comments are off-topic in any case. LBM]
I would like to draw the attention of some commenters to the disclaimer I included at the start of my last post. I know full well that TfL were doing this with both hands and feet tied behind their metaphorical back. I blame the politicians (and the people who insist on electing them) for the problems.
South London’s existing transport infrastructure is dire, so that there is latent demand—and lots of it—should have come as a surprise to nobody.
Furthermore, running a radial service from Croydon really is insane. And, yes, it really is a radial service: the East London Line already interchanged with the Jubilee, the DLR (OSI at Shadwell) and Whitechapel even before conversion to the Overground. It’s only an orbital route if you assume London’s CAZ stops dead a little to the west of Brick Lane, but the CAZ is a lot longer than that now, and has been since the 1990s.
As for the complete lack of connections with either of the two South Eastern trunk routes, no, I’m not suggesting that the demand is mostly people from Rochester wanting to change at Brixton to get at Clapham Junction (though some might).
I get the impression some have forgotten that these routes also perform double duty as the urban and suburban metro infrastructure for south-east London. The Underground never goes beyond the Thames Valley south of the river, so something has to take its place. Say “Hi!” to the Chatham and Tonbridge Main Lines, the Hayes line, etc. These aren’t just “fast” lines to darkest Kent, but also south London’s equivalent of the Central, District, Piccadilly, Metropolitan, etc.
Why shouldn’t passengers in Beckenham, Penge, Chislehurst, or Sidcup have access to the Overground too?
A South London estate agent friend tells me that many locals are very enthusiastic about any proposed Bakerloo and/or Overground extension because she has a list of people who are waiting for a local surge in house prices who will then sell, retire and move away. She says that there are a number who are waiting for this announcement to capitalise (on what will be a tax free gain if involving a designated ‘main residence’) and then retire further out of London.
At this rate, with other new rail proposals in the pipeline, one day, all of London might become unaffordable for those with ‘blue collar’ jobs
@Anomnibus
What’s wrong with passengers from Chislehurst and Sidcup changing at New Cross? I do as you know there are lots of problems with the South London network. What is really needed is some sort of long-term strategy which would simplify services and improve frequencies but needs those interchanges improved/built. Brockley high level platforms are a good example where relatively small capital expenditure and an improved service would create a useful link… I imagine there must be a reasonable amount of demand for say Peckham-East Croydon journeys or whatever
Dr Richards Beeching – This desire to cash in and attract investors is why some are calling for land value taxes to gain back some of the rises in value that investment brings in.
But good luck to them anyway as they won’t be seeing any additional rises any time soon. There was a very recent report (from savilles perhaps?) looking at values around Crossrail stations, and that’s only 3 years away. So far, many areas in west, east and SE London have seen no greater rises than the local authority they are located in. In some cases, areas within a mile of forthcoming stations have seen smaller rises than the wider area! Now that will probably change in the next 3 years BUT people hoping for a quick buck from any Bakerloo extension opening in 15+ years time may be in for a long wait.
Ah, but Ed, estate agents work differently.
They sell dreams and promises.
Once the (or any) new line gets the go ahead, the estate agents are already ‘on the case’. They are “ready to go” on any Bakerloo extension.
Some of the beneficiaries of these proposed new schemes will never use the finished product. They will have sold and moved on, some to the next area to get planned better rail connections. It’s a business. Their benefit will be immediate and financial
(My friend doesn’t work for Saville’s)
@anomnibus
” The Underground never goes beyond the Thames Valley south of the river, so something has to take its place. Say “Hi!” to the Chatham and Tonbridge Main Lines, the Hayes line, etc. These are……… south London’s equivalent of the Central, District, Piccadilly, Metropolitan”
Turning this around
The main line network north of the river is very sparse. Say hi to the Central, District, Picadilly, Metrolopitan etc. These are north London’s equivalent of the Dartford line, the Hayes line, the Caterham line, the Windsor line etc.
Indeed, several of the outer reaches of the tube north of the river were LSWR (District), LTSR (District), LNWR (Bakerloo), GWR (Central) , or LNER (ex-GNR or -GER: (Northern and Central) lines, handed over to LT as part of an electrification programme. That no lines were handed over in this way south of the river is a reflection on Sir Herbert Walker’s enterprise between the wars: by 1939 there were no passenger lines in the County of London south of the river that were still in need of electrification, and only the South Croydon – Oxted line in what would become the Greater London area.
North AND south of the river the Overground’s main orbital route around Zone 2 is very hit-and-miss in its connections: going clockwise, starting at the Thames:
Jubilee line – yes (Surrey Quays)
Greenwich line – no
SE main line – no (but connects with SEML at New Cross)
Forest Hill line – no (but connects with the Crystal Pal/West Croydon spur)p
Tulse Hill line – yes (Peckham Rye)
Catford loop – yes (Peckham Rye)
Thameslink Elephant – Tules Hill route – no (but connection north available via Denmark Hill and south via East Dulwich)
Northern Line – yes (Clapham HS)
Chatham main line – no (but connection available via Catford Loop)
South West Main line – yes (Clapham Junction):
Brighton Main line – yes (Clapham Junction)
District Line (Wimbledon branch) – yes (West Brompton)
District Line (Richmond/Ealing branches) – no (only via West Brompton or the occasional Olympia service)
Piccadilly Line – no (only via Earls Ct/West Brom)
Central Line – yes (Shepherds Bush)
H&C Line – no
Great Western ML – no
WCML – yes (Willesden Junction)
Bakerloo Line – yes (Willesden Junction)
Chiltern Lines – no
Metropolitan Line – no (only by doubling back via Finchley Road)
Jubilee Line – yes (West Hampstead)
Thameslink (MML) – yes (West Hampstead)
Northern Line (Edgware branch) – no
Northern Line (Hampstead branch) – no
Piccadilly Line – no
ECML (Kings Cross) – no
ECML (Moorgate branch) – yes (High & I)
Victoria Line – yes (High & I)
GEML – no (although connection is available at several places on the Stratford spur and on the Goblin)
Central Line – no
District/H&C – yes (Whitechapel)
C2C – no (Goblin only)
DLR – yes (Shadwell)
Unless I’ve missed any, that’s nearly 50% (16/34)
South of the river 6/11 (55%)
North of the river 10/23 (43%)
Connections with NR 7/17 (41%)
Connections with LU/DLR 9/17 (53%)
Beyond Zone 2, South London is much better connected than north, where there really are very few non-radial journeys possible: the Goblin, the Willesden- Richmond line, and the South Harrow line being the principal exceptions (and try connecting between the latter two!) Conversely, south London is full of orbital connections:
Twickenham-New Malden
Wimbledon – Sutton
Wimbledon – Croydon – Elmers End/ Beckenham Junction
Wimbledon – Streatham
Sutton – Croydon
Crystal Palace – Beckenham Junction
The multitude of connections and spurs connecting the Southern (and ex-LCD) services radiating from Victoria, and those radiating from London Bridge.
Even Victoria – Lewisham is really an orbital (at least as much as the ELL)
Your example of Rochester to Clapham Junction? That can already be done with a single change: either at Waterloo East, or at Victoria (or via Birkbeck for that matter)
@ timbeau – I applaud your analysis but I would suggest two additions. You state there are no connections with the Richmond branch of the District line which is incorrect as Richmond itself provides an interchange with South West Trains’ Reading and Windsor lines as well as London Overground as for that matter do Kew Gardens (South of the Thames) and Gunnerbury (North of the Thames) which provide additional options to use the the West London Line operated by LOROL. This further strengthens your premise that South of the river offers more orbital options.
Also on the point of orbital options there is of course additionally the Hounslow loop.
@Richard B
I had to be rigorous and so excluded Richmond for the same reason I excluded New Cross, New Cross Gate, Crystal Palace, Hackney, Stratford, Euston and Barking (and indeed the forthcoming interchange with the Met at Watford High Street) : they are all on radial (or at least tangential) branches off the main H&I/Clapham Junction/H&I Zone 2 NLL/ELL/SLL/WLL orbit. That orbital route crosses the main District Line between Earls Court and West Kensington, without interchange.
Yes but what you are all forgetting is FREQUENCY! Sidcup, Hayes or Chislehurst to Shoreditch is possible with a change at New Cross but only once every half hour. No chance to miss that train. No chance to dawdle in the newspaper queue. As for the return journey, get it right or face a wait at New Cross for half an hour and pray it doesn’t rain or the SE train doesn’t get cancelled. And it’s pretty much the same doing a journey from the suburbs to the centre of town – even if there’s a 4tph service that’s not as attractive as a tube every couple of minutes. With current infrastructure a LOROL type takeover is the best we can hope for; and if we ever get tunnels to take long distance traffic away from the inner city routes we might get a proper light rail conversion. But I suspect that will be a non starter for a long time.
@GTR driver
All three of those lines have 4tph (the same frequency as on most branches of the Overground) to central London, with a choice of termini, and two of them running non-stop from Ladywell or Hither Green to London Bridge (or currently Waterloo East) . As we have learned from the Wimbledon Loop fiasco, and the opposition from the (mid-)Kentish Men to the Haykerloo proposals, in any proposed change, more noise is made by those who might lose something than by those who might gain.
Londoners have a choice. In general, if you want frequency, you live north of the river. If you want end-to-end speed, you live south of it.
I think the conclusions being drawn from a comparison between orbital routes north and south might be misleading. I’m not sure how one would measure it (to confirm objectively my subjective hypothesis) but north and south are different with stronger nuclei in the south than in the north.
Anomnibus questions why there are radial services from Croydon and the answer is that Croydon is unlike anywhere in north London – it’s more like Basignstoke or Reading than Harrow, but more than either. For example if you look at the list of existing and approved London skyscrapers compiled by Wikipedia http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_buildings_and_structures_in_London then you will see that Croydon will have 3 (ignoring TV masts, stadium arches etc) but nowhere in north London will even get one. The other skyscrapers are essentially a ribbon development along the river plus the City of London.
So maybe the service network in the south needs to cater for a different type of journey than in the north. Stronger centres would require services based on more point to point links even at the expense of frequency.
@Theban -in fact,the present pattern of services from Croydon hasn’t changed much since the war -that is to say, it was well established long before Croydon became its present Brutalist nightmare. Nor do I agree that Croydon was different in kind to other London suburbs – until Col Seifert got going there, Croydon was no different in feel,commercial activity and built environment to,say, Harrow, or Ealing or Kingston (if anything, the Kingston of the ’50s was a more vibrant and larger centre.
The change came with the dispersal of some government offices there in the late ’60s, the destruction of much of the then existing commercial life, and a wave of urban dual carriageways. So,whilst I agree that Croydon has that delightful ’60s retro feel now, the process of becoming like that has nothing to do with its radial train services.
If anything, Croydon has lost many of its radial services subsequent to its redevelopment. For example, the service to Guildford has declined away to nothing; all the main trunk bus services into the rural hinterland have gone. (Eg the 408 )
The same estate agent friend I referred to a few days ago, is in bed (literally and metaphorically) with the MD of one of Britain’s most aggressive property developers.
Great things are planned for Croydon. It could become “The docklands of the South” (Without any docks). Or a 21st Century Slough.
Perhaps for “Great”, above, read “Major” instead. They will be major but not necessarily great. You will certainly get stunning views from the penthouses. The Chilterns, perhaps?
@Dr Richards Beeching – maybe too much information?!
Why would anywhere on the face of the planet wish to become like Slough? “Come friendly bombs etc”. Croydon won’t revive until it becomes (a) a lot more pedestrian friendly and (b) there is a determined campaign of pulling down Seifert’s tat (this isn’t primarily an aesthetic point – although it could be* – but an accident of timing. Seifert was designing buildings just before the revolution in telecoms and aircon for offices, with the result that adapting his buildings to take the necessary trunking and ducting is very expensive -it’s usually cheaper to demolish and rebuild). Whilst I can see developers happily pulling down blocks that have been up for only a few decades. moving the road system strikes me as unlikely.
* on the basis that ugly is worse than bland.
@ Mr Graham H
“Too much information”?
Pillow talk invariably is.
Timbeau, your suggestion rests on the assumption people only choose to live North or South of the Thames because of their transport requirements! There are multiple reasons why people are where they are – familiarity with an area, family responsibilities, work, and so on. It also falls into the classic market economics trap – forgetting that true choice is only possible when everyone has the same knowledge and access to resources. There may be an obscure area on the tube map which a life long Londoner could know nothing about that might be their dream location – but they may never find it. A frequent train service is one of the factors that makes an area desireable and jacks up the property prices which immediately shapes the choice of where to live – regardless of what someone wants frequency or end to end speed. And people in socially rented housing don’t usually have much choice at all as to where they end up – what the local facilities are is luck of the draw.
It’s also hardly an answer to how to keep a 21st century city moving. It won’t come as a surprise to you that our current transport system developed sporadically as a result of private interests (eg the Metroland) and constraints imposed by lobbyists (no through lines through central London) and geology (tunnelling once difficult in SE London). If we were designing it from scratch it would have a proper city wide high frequency light rail system with heavy rail not terminating in the centre and making only limited stops within the conurbation for interchange and longer journeys. Thus avoiding fast and slow trains having to share tracks, countless flat junctions, low frequency routes and so on. There are limited possibilities for moving some way towards this now, but just giving up and saying choose north or south for frequency or speed is not a helpful one!
Croydon as it stands came about due to the development restrictions on large offices in London in the 50’s and 60’s when the prevalent view was to ‘decongest’ (depopulate in other words) London and spread London’s elsewhere in the country (zero sum economics seems ingrained in most peoples thinking even though it’s false),
Such restrictions in Central London are responsible for the rash of office blocks built until the early 70’s across Suburban London. These days there back office functions have shrunk or flung themselves to much cheaper locations such as Liverpool or Delhi not Croydon.
It is notable no office buildings of note had been built to very recently, Croydon’s office stock aged and the private sector occupiers grew tired of waiting for new buildings and have largely fled to either true suburban locations besides the M25 or back into Central London where they can at least access all of London’s labour pool.
If we had the money and could build as cheap as the French then we could talk about building a super metro orbital network which would transform the accessibility of London’s suburban centres boosting their attractiveness as business centres.
But for Croydon. I feel a new opportunity is opening up. The One Public estate initiative seems to building up a head of steam with consolidation of many public buildings into new office blocks in cheaper locations. Pointed references have been made between occupation costs between Whitehall and Croydon and other regions. Within 5 year expect major moves and if I was a smart department head I’s try and steer towards an accessible location in Suburban London before Birmingham or Manchester next to a HS2 station beckons.
Croydon has a good advantage of existing government offices. But they need to get their act together as International Quarter has already snagged the FCA and some TFL offices to Stratford. (The Olympic park will be a SUCCESS). Besides Croydon as now seen as a problem with the recent riots regeneration money will be now more forthcoming.
@ Timbeau – while I understand why you analysed the way that you did I would quibble with a couple of things. If you are happy to include the Northern Line (Clapham N – Clapham HS) and Thameslink (W Hampstead) which both involve several minutes walking and crossing of roads then why have you excluded Camden Road to Camden Town and Finchley Road – Finchley Road & Frognal? Very little in it in terms of distance and road crossing. Not sure why Edgware and Hampstead are distinguished as Northern Line branches – I assume the latter is supposed to be Barnet. While off your track the Archway – Upper Holloway walk is not unduly difficult and I’ve done it a few times, once as a way of getting home when the Victoria Line service had completely collapsed. I was surprised quite how convenient it was as an alternative even if the average person would never identify it as an alternative route.
I must say I chuckled to myself when you stated your “inverted argument” about how bits of the Tube are just like bits of the rail network. I do think we fret a bit too much about putting things into their own special categories. They’re all ways of getting around!
@Rational Plan – these days, the civil service in central London is hardly the stuff of big battalions. The quangos and backoffice staff (such as the PSA and large chunks of what is now HMRC) left years ago – perhaps the contents of a dozen or so large office blocks remain altogether – and unless you move parliament and its directly associated functions, there’s relatively little to be squeezed out,maybe MoD HQ.
@WW As I had to be consistent, I only included interchanges actually shown as such on the Tube/London Connections map – hence Clapham but not Camden.
On the Northern I meant to say Hampstead and Highgate branches (or Edgware and Barnet if you prefer). As the NLL crosses the former near Belsize Park and the latter near Camden Town I included them both, although of course both branches serve Camden Town
@anonymous: public transport is of course just one factor in choosing where to live – for those who have a choice. But you only need to look at the opposition from the Hayes area to having their fast service to London replaced by a slower but more frequent one to see that frequency isn’t everything. And note that even if you turn up randomly, a zero-to-fifteen minute wait followed by a fifteen minute journey is still, on average, faster than a zero-to-four minute wait followed by a twenty-five minute journey.
Yes, because it’s great turning up at Charing Cross to find your train has been cancelled or you missed it because something happened on the way and you have a half hour wait followed by what be rather longer than a fifteen minute journey. Knowing that one also leaves Cannon Street every half hour which you can’t connect to anyway now is no comfort. It’s only great for whoever sells beer or coffee at Charing Cross. Sorry that won’t wash. No comparison between a proper turn up and go metro and a scant heavy rail service. The Bakerloo Line to Hayes can’t come soon enough.
@ Anon – don’t worry. You just swap an old set of grief for a new one if you get a tube line. “Why am I waiting for 6 minutes?” “Why is a Northern Line minute really 110 seconds?” “Why do I have to queue for an escalator?” etc etc. 😉
Anonymous,
As seems often the case:
The problem is the lack of a decent frequent service
The service on the Underground lines is frequent
therefore
The solution is to convert the line to an Underground line
Maybe this is the right solution but it must not be forgotten
Other solutions are also available.
@anon
“Knowing that one also leaves Cannon Street every half hour which you can’t connect to anyway now is no comfort. ”
As you no doubt know, that is a temporary situation during the London Bridge works.
For historical reasons, the south London network is denser and more complex than in north London. For example if the Bexleyheath line were upgraded to metro frequencies, the Sidcup and Woolwich lines would have to lose out – there isn’t room west of North Kent Junction for any more.
Running metro frequency services on all the south London branches would require separate double track formations for at least five SER routes, two LCDR routes, probably seven LBSCR routes (possibly four if you replace some spurs with interchanges), both ways round the Wimbledon loop, five LSWR main line routes and three on the Windsor lines. 24 lines where currently there are just seven sets dedicated entirely to “slow” services.
Whilst seventeen new lines through the southern suburbs might be an answer, I can’t see it happening any time soon. Longer trains, rather than more frequent ones, is a quicker fix.
The dense network also means that there are often alternatives – if your train to Greenwich is cancelled, you can go to Lewisham or Blackheath. For Kingston, try Surbiton (or the long way round the Loop). For West Norwood, Streatham, etc.
@ Timbeau – the answer is easy. You just stop all the long distance services at the point where you have 4 tracks and then run mega frequent stopping services using fast and slow tracks from there to the terminal. It’ll be a pain that people have to change trains but at least we’ll get a Metro service in London. As for South East London they’ll just have to struggle on with their two track railway lines. 😉
timbeau (and Anon and Walthamstow Writer)
“Knowing that one also leaves Cannon Street every half hour which you can’t connect to anyway now is no comfort. ”
As you no doubt know, that is a temporary situation during the London Bridge works.
More to the point – it is a complete load of rubbish.
If you miss you Hayes train from Charing Cross you just take the first train to Lewisham and catch your next Hayes train (from Cannon Street) there.
@ graham H. But the One Public Estate Programme promises much more consolidation and cross department sharing. In the last few years there already has been a big shrinkage in the number of buildings occupied. But there are numerous articles floating about much bigger property moves afoot. Whitehall is due to shrink quite rapidly in the next five years as a single employment centre.
The programme is not based purely on London but is quite wide ranging across all public sector organisations across the country. There are massive reductions in occupancy costs being achieved.
Expect some departments to move wholescale (or a large part) to suburban locations.
http://www.croydonguardian.co.uk/news/11394363.Government_departments_could_move_to_Croydon_in_mini_Whitehall_plan/
http://www.civilserviceworld.com/articles/news/civil-service-jobs-leave-whitehall-suburbs
https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/one-public-estate-programme-launch-of-phase-2
@timbeau
“For historical reasons, the south London network is denser and more complex than in north London. ”
I’ve read and re-read this and I still don’t know what you mean because I’m not sure what you mean by “denser” in this context.
Having done an awful lot of studying the “historical” bit I’m really not sure what you are getting at.
It’s certainly interesting that many of the railways south of the river are constructed on viaducts – but so is the Liverpool Street to Enfield Town line.
What is interesting is that many of the lines had local services when they were constructed during Railway Mania and lost them because they didn’t make a profit like long-distance services did.
I suspect that @Walthamstow Writer is correct. The only way to get a high frequency, high capacity service for South London is to duplicate all the “fast pairs” with tunnels (Waterloo to Twickenham and Surbiton, London Bridge and Victoria to East Croydon, London Bridge to Dartford, London Bridge to Orpington) and use what’s left as a proper metro.
It’s not a bad idea because using viaduct railways for a metro service would be fast and effective.
@RationalPlan – you misunderstand – whatever the merits or demerits of the One Site programme ,the sheer volumes are not there any more. The big battalions have gone – to Swansea, Cumbernauld ,or whatever. Many have vanished altogether. Why would you want to bring them back? I repeat, central government is contained in a dozen or so large office blocks, and as you say,the numbers are due to shrink anyway – you can put these in one place,but it will make no difference to the recipient area,and since many of the contents of that central estate are tied toParliament, no one is going to go far – remember the fate of Alexander Fleming House. Local government has nothing to contribute as it is, err,local, and the quangos have settled quite happily in Atchingham Park or Exeter – they’re not going to move to Croydon. This is a piece of window dressing and puff – hey, there was even a Yes Minister episode devoted to this sort of initiative.
@ Mr G H
You are entirely correct. My understanding from the reliable sources I have mentioned above, are very commercially minded, but not commercial property minded. I think the ideas for Croydon new build are almost entirely residential, (except of course for panoramic restaurants etc). It is because the 1960s Stalinist officebuild is no longer required, some will be ‘removed’ and replaced by residential blocks.
That is as far as I understand it, what the developers/’improvers’ have in mind
@Dr RB – That surge in residential development could be just what Croydon needs -commercial property attracts death at night: once the bankers have stopped drinking at Smolensky’s Balloon,the Wharf is quiet… As for Rational Plan’s Regierungsviertel in the suburbs, I recommend a night time visit to the complex of government offices in Cardiff – dead,dead, dead – just like Bonn’s echte Regierungsviertel used to be.
@PoP
“If you miss your Hayes train from Charing Cross you just take the first train to Lewisham and catch your next Hayes train (from Cannon Street) there.”
Of course, but in fairness to Anon, that trick doesn’t work the other way round because if you miss a Cannon Street – Hayes train you can’t pick up the CX-Hayes service at Lewisham because it runs fast to Ladywell.
@ Mr G H
Exactly. And with regular trains through the night to/from C. London AND Gatwick, much money will be trousered by the early birds
And my estate agent friend and her developer boyfriend will re-locate to the development he is having built right now in Tortola, – unless his wife finds out.
Also to be fair to me, I’ve been using the Hayes line for the last 30 plus years. There aren’t alternatives from the West End to the areas served. Not that make sense. By the time you’ve taken a Tube to Blackfriars you’ve usually missed the next Catford loop so you’re back to square one; and the connections via London Bridge or Lewisham to the Cannon Street are far from watertight. Nothing to do with the current works at all. So you end up waiting for the next one rather than risking getting stuck somewhere else. Posters on here seem to delight in making as many changes as possible and making complicated journeys. In the real world people like simplicity and convenience. Not even needing to know the timetable a la London Overground. I am fully aware of the current constraints thank you.
@Anon
The Hayes line could have 4tph to Cannon Street – or Charing Cross. But not both. Not without massive infrastructure improvements. The only possible way of delivering tube frequencies on any suburban line in the foreseeable future is to do what was done to the High Barnet and Epping lines in the post war years, and a few other lines earlier in the last century. And there are really only three tube lines left that have not already been extended into the suburbs – the ones that terminate at Kennington, Brixton and the Elephant. (There are two others that get mentioned from time to time but they would require major re-engineering at their southern termini…………..)
The Kennington one is already spoken for. The Brixton one is already full. That leaves the Elephant in the room. And the Hayesites seem opposed to having that, even though it would continue to provide a direct service to both Waterloo and Charing Cross.
Crossrail 2/3/n? looking at the number of branches proposed for XR2, I can’t see any one of them getting more than about 6tph. And already a rearguard action is being fought to preserve the Waterloo services from those branches, which would have to be squeezed in on the common section west of Wimbledon.
Where underground users do benefit is that, although they only have one line into London, there are several stations on that line – e.g Liverpool Street, Bank, St Pauls, Chancery Lane, etc, etc.
Thameslink gets only four. So will Crossrail and, on current plans Crossrail 2.
SE passengers don’t do quite as well, with two or three central London stations served by each train (London Bridge, and either Cannon Street or Waterloo and Charing Cross ). Southern and South Western passengers get only one (LB, Victoria or Waterloo – and arguably Vauxhall).
@ Dr Richards B
I have heard something fairly similar from a national housebuilder about the prospects for Croydon, that I suspect is not the same one as your source. My contact is an F.D., not MD, but Croydon is certainly centred on his company’s radar too for the reasons you state, and his employer only deals with residential. The BML is THE major factor in their development plans, and don’t be surprised if, like Brighton & Hove, Croydon achieves “City” status around 2030ish.
@timbeau
6 April 2015 at 11:35
@Anon
“… there are really only three tube lines left that have not already been extended into the suburbs …
The Kennington one is already spoken for. The Brixton one is already full. That leaves the Elephant …”
Never had a truer word been said.
“And the Hayesites seem opposed to having that”….
If you look at the “Bakerloo line extension Consultation report March 2015” it is very instructive to compare figures 4-2: (Geographic distribution of support for the proposed extension of the Bakerloo line into southeast London) and 4-4 (Geographic distribution of opposition for the proposed extension of the Bakerloo line into southeast London) and THEN look at the numbers in section 4.2.7
Of the 726 respondent from Lambeth borough: 91% support/strongly support and 4% oppose/strongly oppose.
It is always interesting to note the “internet filter” effect of the “strongly opposed” who visit London Reconnections.
(The figures are similar with the Bromley Town Centre Station: 61% suppose, 8% oppose, 31% don’t care).
The property price effect of even a mooted extension to Lewisham was mentioned in a feature article on the Telegraph website I saw today:
Streatham and Brixton are both well-known hotspots with fantastic commuter links into the centre of London. But they should look to other areas if they want the best returns. The extension of the Bakerloo Line to Lewisham is creating an interesting new hotspot for the London commuter, and with average house price up 20% on the previous year, the returns are even better than for Brixton and Streatham – plus prices are currently lower.
@briantist
“For historical reasons, the south London network is denser and more complex than in north London. ”
I’ve read and re-read this and I still don’t know what you mean because I’m not sure what you mean by “denser” in this context.”
Outside Zone 1, there are more tracks and stations in most parts of south London than in the north. This is because the northern and western companies were more interested in coal and long distance (100 miles-plus) traffic. The southern companies had neither so could only make money by providing a dense suburban network. Many of the north London local services that did exist were readily handed over to the Underground (GWR to West Ruislip, LNWR to Watford, GNR to Barnet, GER to Epping/Hainault, LTSR to Upminster). The local services on e.g the Midland or the GWR lines have very little impact on London – just four stations on one, half a dozen on the other.
@WW
You just stop all the long distance services at the point where you have 4 tracks and then run mega frequent stopping services using fast and slow tracks from there to the terminal. It’ll be a pain that people have to change trains but at least we’ll get a Metro service in London.
Even this doesn,t address the hydra-like multi-headed networks south of the river. What you could do is run a metro-frequency service on one route – say, Cannon Street – Bexleyheath – Dartford, and run shuttles at the same high frequency on all the other branches to connect with it – Sidcup line and Hayes (both from Lewisham), Orpington – Hither Green, Charlton to Blackheath
Similarly
Overground – Forest Hill – Crystal Palace
London Bridge – Tulse Hill – Crystal Palace – East Croydon
Victoria – Streatham Hill – Tulse Hill – Norbury – West Croydon – Sutton – Epsom Downs
Thameslink Wimbledon loop
Waterloo – Kingston – Twickenham – Hounslow – Waterloo
Raynes Park – Dorking
Raynes Park – Chessington
Leatherhead – Effingham Junction
Surbiton – Hampton Court
Strawberry Hill – Shepperton
The Mill Hill East/ Bromley North solution. I doubt it would be popular
@ Timbeau 2106 – I wasn’t being entirely serious when I suggested chucking people off their long distance trains and dumping them on high frequency shuttles. That would be immensely unpopular with travellers and also the TOCs I suspect.
I note with interest your remark about a rearguard action from inner area commuters on SWT to retain services to Waterloo rather than have a CR2 link. No great shock there given the laboured questioning from Tony Arbour when TfL / NR attended the last Transport Committee session on CR2. Funny how everyone wants an improvement that preserves what they already have and just adds to it regardless of the cost consequences / lack of business case and those demands usually come from people who criticise the public sector for waste! Nothing like hypocrisy is there!?
@ WW I understand the point you are making about the request to maintain direct services to London Waterloo on the inner suburban lines if Crossrail 2 is implemented but I would also say that providing a new route bypassing Waterloo by going to Victoria and Tottenham Court Road as a substitute for a direct Waterloo service misses the point. For many people in South West London Waterloo is a logical and possibly a desired destination,
I would argue that Waterloo is a key transport hub. Apart from providing direct routes to the city and Canary Wharf as well as the West End, Marylebone Road and Paddington (via the Tube) it is also a key interchange for people moving between South West London and South East London (via Waterloo East). Add to that the plethora of bus routes plus the very large number of pedestrian commuters crossing Waterloo Bridge enroute to the Strand, Fleet Street and Kingsway and a lesser volume via Westminster Bridge it strikes me an awful lot of people will be inconvenienced if the existing direct routes to Waterloo are lost.
I do actually support Crossrail 2 but what irritates me about the proponents of the scheme is the assumption that the present patterns of travel have little or no value and any inconvenience is acceptable provided the new route is implemented. I would also say that the recent consultation exercise was somewhat deceitful as it was not readily apparent to the general public that endorsing Crossrail 2 would exclude the continuance of the existing services. I was aware because I follow the railway press and this site in particular.
Whatever the merits of Crossrail 2 I have not seen any persuasive evidence to show that the abolition of the direct Waterloo services is a price worth paying.
Re Graham R and Rational Plan,
The Public sector outsources lots and often these firms (and sub contractors) will have a split office locations between London and the rest of the country. The headcount of government employees including or excluding proxy government employee will be very different…
I wonder if Croydon Council will be asking any of the developers to (s106) contribute to anything on the wish list here:
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2014/study-sussex-part-7-east-croydon/
@timbeau
“Outside Zone 1, there are more tracks and stations in most parts of south London than in the north.”
OK. I’m going to have to go away and work out if that’s true. I’m not sure if you can get away with using “most parts”, that’s cheating.
Also, “denser” doesn’t mean “more of something”, it means “more of something per square km”.
I’ll see if I can Excel this and see what happens.
@RichardB -Iagree with you entirely – the question of CR2 legacy services has been ignored(or at best dismissed with a wavy hand); for Citybound traffic at least,the enforced change onto CR1, already packed at that point, will not be seen as any sort of improvement. Expect political ructions.
@ngh – as a former inhabitant of the Whitehall antheap, and of a couple of “dispersed” private sector employers, I think I knew a thing or two about outsourcing. Politicians, who are quite simple folk, only understand the headline employment numbers, and when they demand dispersal or a reduction in headcount, it’s only those numbers they care about. It’s one important reason why such exercises as Hardman have failed in the past. I was, at one time,in charge of DoE’s recruitment policy and the then SoS, heseltine, was concerned only with that headline number, for example. (This to the point of there being an absolute ban on recruitment for permanent staff, but none whatsoever on “consultants” or on outsourcing. Muggins had to plead with him each month to recruit to specific posts, with far too much effort being devoted to replacing the yeoman warders at the Tower, who seemed to have an enormous churn rate, and where vacancies always prompted a minute to me from the Chief Yeoman, full of capital letters and references to the security of the Nation. Numbers, not functions! )
Briantest 07:57
If you are going to be like that about it:
Descriptions of a type of measurement (e.g. longer, higher, density) have fundamentally to be independent of the measuring system (e.g. imperial, metric) or indeed any measuring system.
Also denser is not fundamentally a two dimensional thing. It could also be one dimensional (the distribution of prime numbers is denser for lower numbers) or three dimensional or more.
So something is denser that something else if it contains more of something per unit measurement of space.
(And I am sure someone will find fault with even that definition).
@Briantist
I was taking it as read that any such comparison would be between comparable parts of London.
@Pedantic of Purley
Yes, I could have come up with a more fundamental definition of “density”. The one in my head uses calculus … and that usually troubles people.
@timbeau
“I was taking it as read that any such comparison would be between comparable parts of London.”
Your original statements seemed to say “there are more stations (or tracks) per area south of the river than there are north of it”. What does “comparable parts of London” mean… in a technical sense.
I’ve done a little spread sheeting and, using your definitions I have come up with
North London outside Zone 1 is 361km² (59.5%)
South London outside Zone 1 is 235km² (38.7%)
Zone 1 is is 11km² (1.9%).
I’m taking “London” to mean the 33 “councils”.
It not going to be easy to count stations, and I’m going to have do some serious looking up to find out which lines are actually four-track, six-track and eight-track, as that will really move the figures,.
Have you got some figures already?
@ Richard B – I don’t agree with CR2’s route anyway and I expect many more rows about its impact as people wake up to the consequences. I’ve no argument one way or the other about services to Waterloo to be honest. I was more concerned about the unrealistic expectations of politicians who want unjustified service levels on the branches and who seem unwilling / unable to see the likely consequences of big infrastructure projects like CR2. It’s still early days for CR2 but the fundamentals seem to be fixed and that’s what’s going to cause the problems for an awful lot of people (including the millions using CR1).
@Richard B
“the very large number of pedestrian commuters crossing Waterloo Bridge enroute to the Strand, Fleet Street and Kingsway and a lesser volume via Westminster Bridge ”
The latter group will not be very inconvenienced, as Victoria Station, which will be on Crossrail 2, is just as close to Westminster as Waterloo is. However, the numbers are also significant walking from Waterloo across Blackfriars Bridge – a route spurned by buses, and on which the only Tube line is not only grossly overloaded but passes through the area without stopping.
Briantist,
I fear you are making too much of this and using your own definitions of things in order to disprove what timbeau is saying. For instance, it would be perfectly reasonable to consider sectors from a central point – each sector having an equal angle. The surface area wouldn’t correlate and you would get a different, but equally valid, answer. And, as you yourself have almost pointed out, you could define what you mean by density. For example, you could count each interchange as 1 or alternatively weight it and give it a value depending on the number of interchanges possible at that location.
Unless one shows in advance that measuring something is useful, one can devise all manner of measuring things and waste time doing so but what we conclude from it I don’t know.
Re timbeau
And I would add that Canary Wharf users will still have a journey involving 1 interchange which might be better than currently interchanging at Waterloo.
I suspect some of the analysis has been far more detailed than many on LR are giving credit for. Lots of passengers are forced to use Waterloo because there is no other option (non stopping at Clapham Jn for other reasons etc.)
With a significant increase in the number of non metro SWML services aligned with CR2 (i.e. 5/6tracking for more fast or semi fasts), capacity improvements on SWML metros (8–>10car) and Windsor line capacity improvements (8–>10car), lots of SWML metro passengers will have to be diverted away from the Jubilee / Northern etc to Crossrail 2 and then on to CR1 or other tube lines as there won’t be the space for everyone. The current lack of Waterloo East – London Bridge services show the existing tube services through Waterloo are very close to the limit today.
@ngh – the point is perhaps somewhat simpler. For City-bound passengers (indeed for passengers for any other significant traffic destination other than Victoria), CR2 merely substitutes a change onto the crowded CR1 for a change onto the crowded Jubilee/W&C. That doesn’t seem to be an improvement that can be easily sold to the existing punters.
“That doesn’t seem to be an improvement that can be easily sold to the existing punters.”
Indeed it is the simple alternative to them not being able to get on Jubilee/W&C…
Taking Timbeau’s Kingsway example (or any point along it) is actually closer to either of Tottenham Court Road CR2 station’s likely exits than walking from Waterloo (ditto Farringdon CR1’s western exit). And the roads are likely to be easier to cross as well than from Waterloo.
I am always intrigued by “improvements” designed for those who live in a certain area, or do a certain daily commute, by those who neither live in the area nor do the daily commute.
They often look good crayoned in on a map though.
It is like Army generals always fighting the last war. There are some now still fighting the Cold War rather than dealing with terrorism as a priority. And so it is with travel patterns. It would take a genius to foresee the requirements for 2030, but I wouldn’t put money on many people currently using Waterloo liking being told that they will want to go to Tottenham Court Road instead.
Similarly, Chelney. We have already had residents of Chelsea saying that they would rather be without a railway “than have train loads of people from Hackney descending on us” (as was printed in the Evening Standard last year).
I don’t see much “selling” these ideas rather than imposing them.
I would have thought that extending the Bakerloo to Lewisham and/or Camberwell as a “no brainer”, but everything else simply clouds the objective.
Re Castlebar,
Chelsea – But there were very few comments like that in the report and support in Chelsea was surprisingly high given all the apparent wave of negativity in advance.
“I wouldn’t put money on many people currently using Waterloo liking being told that they will want to go to Tottenham Court Road instead.”
With passenger growth at current levels many will be forced to take alternative routes because they won’t be able to get on the existing ones – they won’t need too much telling…
Besides all the Southern and Southeastern passengers who can’t get on the Jubilee at LBG / Canada will descenting on the Jubilee at Waterloo instead to join the scrum to get on the Jubilee as well by that point…
@ ngh
“forced”. Yes
But should people be “forced” to change their travel patterns?
Obviously in an ideal world, no-one should be forced to change their travel patterns.
But last time I looked, the real-world fell short of ideal in one or two respects. And out there, there are a few things going on which are a bit worse than ten-minute-longer commute!
@PoP
But it is useful (and BTW I think Briantist is correct) because people are making assertions that the south would benefit from services more like the north, is Tube services. It’s the basis on which the Bakerloo extension to Hayes is being sold.
That can be countered though if the south is served more densely as Briantist and I are both saying. If there are more stations in the south then that reduces journey time to the station from home. Frequency of the train service is only part of the picture for many people – there may be a relatively infrequent bus between the station and home. If there are more stations in the south then fewer people will need to wait for buses which offsets the frequency.
I’m not sure I understand your definition of density. It seems to be some sort of angular density which is a valid concept but is probably also wrong. People from the south can often head to either the city or the West End. That again suggests the angular density in South London is higher than in north London.
The point is that on average people have gravitated north or South because there are differences between them, one of which is transport. I think the consultation has shown that a fair number of those who live in the south think that the way things are in the south is the superior choice.
@Theban
What do you define or mean by angular density? Mr Google says it was to do with sub-atomic particles, and I do not wish to revisit my Physics… 🙂
@timbeau: I think you stated it wonderfully:
Londoners have a choice. In general, if you want frequency, you live north of the river. If you want end-to-end speed, you live south of it.
However a cancellation of a single train hurts much more south of the river…. 😉
I thought the main NS difference was penetration. A North Londoner could catch the tube through the centre without changing at a station at the edge of Z1. A South Londoner generally needed to catch a train then a tube, with the exception of Charing Cross which went deeper than any other station. Tube/tube interchanges are also easier than NR/tube ones too.
Rather than argue density, I suggest people look at travel time isopleth maps like this one http://www.mapnificent.net/london/#/?lat0=51.4945146&lng0=-0.146578&t0=48 to decide how the different networks work radially.
@ngh – I fear I am not being clear enough: is not being able to get on CR1 an improvement over not being able to get on the Jubilee? If so, why? And how confident are you that the punters will just love the wait at TCR when they so hate the wait at Waterloo?
@timbeau
I’ve done a map of all London rail lines, excluding Zone 1 with the line length.
I’ve split the lines at the river when needed.
Anyone fancy doing the adding up for me?
http://cdn.pseph.co.uk/styles/images/2015/work-out-km-of.svg
@Briantist
For what it’s worth, here is the Wiki page of Underground line lengths https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground#Lines.
Interesting debate about “density”. Of course TfL have got a database of PTAL (public transport accessibility level) scores for every address in London which deals with the issue about how convenient or otherwise public transport is. There’s a nice website where you can stick in a postcode and bring up a map to select an individual property and then get PTAL reports. You’re then just left with the nightmare of selecting “comparable” locations north and south of the Thames to compare the PTAL scores.
re WW,
PTAL plotted as a google maps overlay for those interested:
http://www.maptube.org/map.aspx?mapid=131
Re Graham H,
TCR should be a nicer interchange and wait than Waterloo and there is more space to wait and there is more ability to add capacity to CR1 than the Jubilee etc
(48×22.?m cars /hour /direction on CR1) assuming the initial operating frequencies are maintained.
Also some passengers will exiting CR2 at one of the TCR entrances rather than transferring to CR1.
CR2 route choices and how many tph / branch (and how many existing services swap from SWML metro to CR2) is akin to a partial equilibrium model for many locations just in some cases the decision will effectively be directed from above as to what the solution is due to operation necessity (as it is in the Haykerloo case). The key is improved interchange and frequency overall…
@LBM
I was just trying to make sense of what PoP was saying about angles. I was initially going to dismiss what PoP had said about angles but then it occurred to me that if stations were always spaced a similar distance then radial lines placed every 10° would be twice (or possibly a factor of root 2) as dense as if radial lines were placed every 20° elsewhere so, while I didn’t followvprecisely what he was saying, the gist seemed to work and to be relevant. The only meaningful term would be angular density.
PoPs comment actually also points the way to a secondary question, albeit obliquely [no pun intended] and one relevant to crunching the numbers. Is density in this sense a 2 dimensional quantity or a single dimensional quantity? We are dealing with a flat map so the obvious initial answer is 2D, which is where the root 2 above comes from as halving the angle only doubles the number of stations. However, density in this context only has meaning in terms of how close any punter (or rather any point on the map) is from a station. That seems to be a linear quantity so doubling the number of stations probably increases density by more than root 2. Quite how much more escapes me without doing the integration.
Thanks WW and NGH. That’s very interesting, particularly the map.
For the debate about tube vs rail for the Hayes line, and the spin off debate about density, I think we are only dealing with railed public transport with buses being like cycles or walking as a way of getting to a rail hub. It’s a different measure to PTAL which, out in zones 4 and 5 is probably totally dominated by the density of the bus network since, for most locations, a bus stop is the nearest public transport node.
@ngh – Thanks for that PTAL link. Homing in on Camberwell Green, one notices that the PTAL observations are next to useless since, despite showing the place as being one of those with the highest level of access (Level 6b) to public transport, it in no way differentiates between modes of transport and thus in reality there in the Camberwell Green environs only can count the bus routes which just happen to be particularly dense there and along the corridors towards Elephant & Castle and Peckham.
So, sceptics, sorry, planners, might grab that feature to warrant an extension of the Bakerloo on the Old Kent Road axis simply because it is far below in the PTAL stakes – Level 4 down to 1b, rather than extending the Bakerloo to relieve the bus routes via Camberwell towards Peckham and Lewisham and increasing the bus service along the Old Kent Road axis?
@Castlebar:
I am always intrigued by “improvements” designed for those who live in a certain area, or do a certain daily commute, by those who neither live in the area nor do the daily commute.
How is this different to health services planned by those who are not sick, education planned by those who are not schoolchildren, interest rates set by people who do not have mortgages, weather forecasts produced by people who don’t live in the area being forecast, etc etc?
I would have thought that extending the Bakerloo to Lewisham and/or Camberwell as a “no brainer”
My experience is that whenever anyone describes a particular course of action as a “no brainer”, it means they don’t want you to think too carefully about it.
@Graham H:
is not being able to get on CR1 an improvement over not being able to get on the Jubilee?
Crossrail is not predicted to be full from TCR to the City in the morning peak, not least because every person from the west who gets off at TCR (or Bond St) frees a space for a potential Crossrail 2 transferee. The bits of Crossrail that are predicted to get very full very quickly are the approaches to Paddington and Liverpool Street. The Central Line is also predicted to have spare capacity between TCR and the city. The Waterloo and City, on the other hand, is full already.
@ngh: Thanks for the map. Without getting into generalised north vs south London issues, it is clear that the area of very high transport accessibility in central London is much larger north of the river than south, and that the non-parkland areas closest to central London with the lowest PTAL seem to be around Hackney, Nine Elms (not for much longer), and, more importantly for the current discussion, either side of the Old Kent Road. Croydon, Barking and Romford stand out with unusually good accessibility for outer London.
Related to this:
@timbeau Londoners have a choice. In general, if you want frequency, you live north of the river. If you want end-to-end speed, you live south of it.
Very true, but for places in roughly the Zone 2 area, the end-to-end speed advantages get swallowed up by the need to change trains at (or walk from) a London terminus, and the greater waiting time, which start to become the lion’s share of the actual journey. Hence the huge popularity of the tube in those parts of inner south London that have it.
Basically, I think I’m saying that generalisations about north vs south London matter less than inner vs outer London, and that the case for a Bakerloo extension gets harder to make the further out you go.
Arguably the same is true in north London too but once a service exists it tends to remain: hence the view I think I have read here amongst some TfL people that, say the Northern Line was extended too far in the 1930s (and three tube lines have in fact retracted from their northernmost extent).
@Long Branch Mike
“For what it’s worth, here is the Wiki page of Underground line lengths https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground#Lines.”
Thanks. That doesn’t really help with the “north-south outside zone 1” question, but it was handy to check against.
@timbeau
Here’s we go. The figures are in. These are the “distance” figures – double them for the track figures.
North of the river there are 766km (345km Underground, 421km Rail)
South of the river there are 369km (62km Underground, 307km Rail).
So, NORTH is 2.12 kmallrail/sqkm and SOUTH is 1.57 allrail/sqkm.
If you EXCLUDE the Underground the figures are 1.16 kmrail/sqkm and 1.30 kmrail/sqkm which I would say in really a tie.
DATA
North South
Bakerloo 17 0
Central 46 0
District 38 10
Docklands Light Railway 26 4
Hammersmith & City 6 0
Jubilee 18 5
London Overground 83 29
Metropolitan 34 0
Northern 29 11
Piccadilly 37 0
Victoria 11 3
345 62
North South
Abellio Greater Anglia 116 0
c2c 30 0
Chiltern Railways 42 0
First Great Western 36 0
Great Northern 59 0
Heathrow Connect 26 0
Heathrow Express 0 0
London Midland 42 0
South West Trains 33 56
Southeastern 0 117
Southeastern high speed 21 0
Southern 0 63
Thameslink 16 71
421 307
766 369
@timbeau
If you factor in the population, rather than the area.
NORTH is 149kmrail/million-people
SOUTH is 123kmrail/million-people
As the figures would be 5.12m people in the North-outside-Z1 and 3.00m people South-outside-z1
@Graham Feakins: it in no way differentiates between modes of transport
Not true – PTAL assumes that people will walk further to railway/tube stations than to bus stops (which is observably true), so rail lines “serve” a larger area, and also weights more frequent routes over infrequent routes (so an area with fewer frequent routes does better than one with multiple less frequent routes – in practice favouring tube lines over buses). To serve the Old Kent road hinterland to an equivalent level to Camberwell Green would thus need multiple frequent bus routes rather than one tube line. I guess you could fund these by withdrawing Camberwell Green’s buses if the Bakerloo went there instead, but then remember the Macchiavelli quote on the other thread…
(I’ve called the DLR and Overground “Underground” services in this context.
If you want to call the Overground “Rail” and not “Underground” the figures for non-U RAIL become:
NORTH 504km at 1.40kmrail/sqkm
SOUTH 336km at 1.43kmrail/sqkm
This does rather challenge your assumption that “rail density South of the river outside zone 1 is much greater than the North”.
Because if you factor in the Overground – it’s the same.)
@Briantist,
“I fear you are making too much of this and using your own definitions of things in order to disprove what timbeau is saying. ”
To be fair, I think I’m just trying to challenge the “well, it’s obvious, innit?” . He stated “For historical reasons, the south London network is denser … than in north London. ”
All I’ve done is “done the maths” and it turns out that it’s not true.
I’m not sure how you prove or disprove something without coming up with definitions first?
—
I know it’s not a proper PTAL map, but it does take the TFL data (and add in the missing sections from Wikipedia) and combine it with Google Maps:
http://tubedreams.london/london-heatmap/
@Ian J – but then neither is the JLE; nor is TCR a major traffic objective. Of course there will be some churn there but so far as the SW punters are concerned, they will simply be swapping one crowded interchange (and swapping one that will eventually be offering c40 tph for one that will offer no more than 24 tph) for another. No matter how Dr Pangloss’ followers may wish to dress it up, the perception will be that there is no improvement.
Yes,the Drain is full but – as a regular user – I can assure you that it’s rarelymore than 4 minutes of crowded discomfort – and don’t forget the plan to replace the present 5×4 sets with 10 x 4,which may well have actually happened by the time CR2 opens.
BTW, it is an old politician’s trick to compare like with unlike. Comparing the position shortly after CR1 opens with the position when CR2 may open (2030? 2040?) is not very rigorous…
@Graham H: it’s not the 4 minutes of discomfort, it will be the half hour queue to get on the Drain at Waterloo that will have passengers crying out for improvement (cf. TfL’s predictions about Euston). There is a difference between a crowded interchange onto a service with spare capacity and one onto a service with no spare capacity, whatever the perceptions of the punters.
BTW, it is an old politician’s trick to compare like with unlike. Comparing the position shortly after CR1 opens with the position when CR2 may open (2030? 2040?) is not very rigorous…
I was going off various charts TfL and Network Rail have produced showing expected crowding in the 2030s when I said the Central Line and Crossrail 1 were not expected to be crowded between TCR and the City. If you have access to better data feel free to share it.
Comparing the claimed “c40 tph” on the W&C at some unspecified point in the future with the 24tph on Crossrail at opening is exactly the trick you claim I am making.
@Ian J – no trick – it’s in the plan for NTFL. Like you. I may have been surprised at the number, but it’s there.
Half an hour to get onto the Drain – come off it: I use the line regularly and even at its most dire ten years ago, it was never more than 10 minutes and that was with the queue all the way up the ramp. for it to be half an hour, the entire Waterloo concourse would be swamped, which it isn’t patently.
I think, in the absence of the detailed modelling results for CR2 (and TfL haven’t shared those with the wider public yet) , the best way of demonstrating my point – which is ever so simple: CR2 offers no serious prospect of anything much better for the SW inners – I suggest you draw up a before and after table of access to zone 1 stations from Waterloo and then via CR2. Mark the improvements in green, the same level of changing and the likelihood of getting on a congested train in amber, and those which are worse in red. You will see that there is one and only one green – TCR – many ambers and a few reds (eg Grim Pok and – most importantly, Bank*). Not as rigorous a methodology as I would have wished but enough to demonstrate the point.
* Moorgate is no substitute for Bank as those of us who have worked in the City know full well, doubly so because the exit from Bank W&C is easy, from Moorgate, not.
@Graham H, “CR2 offers no serious prospect of anything much better for the SW inners”
To passengers using the branch lines it does offer the prospect of more frequent trains. From 2tph to 4tph+ is a significant improvement. Granted, it’s not much use if the service doesn’t take you where you want to go; cf. Hayes to Elephant and Castle vice Cannon Street.
@JA – Entirely agree. How easy it will be to sell on that basis is guesswork – as you say, the Hayes debate is instructive, although 4tph is at the limit of turn up and go, whereas the potential Bakerloo offering would be several times that (even if half the service turned at Lewisham, say).
If I were cynical (cries of “No!”) I would offer a reduced legacy service which just happened to decline over time until, one day…
@ JA
“Granted, it’s not much use if the service doesn’t take you where you want to go…”
It doesn’t now, such as Sunbury direct to Richmond or Putney. The track is there but the service isn’t
@Castlebar: What you and Chelsea-ites are forgetting is that not everyone who works in Chelsea lives in Chelsea… There are shop attendants, cleaners, bartenders – they all need to get to their workplaces somehow, and given the congestion on the roads buses probably just won’t hack it…
@Graham H:
no trick – it’s in the plan for NTFL. Like you. I may have been surprised at the number, but it’s there.
The trick (your term, not mine) is in comparing what will definitely exist in 2019 (24tph on Crossrail) with what may happen with the NTfL (which has just been delayed 4 years and no longer has funding, thanks to the SSL signalling overrun).
for it to be half an hour, the entire Waterloo concourse would be swamped, which it isn’t patently.
I’m not saying the concourse is swamped now. I’m saying it will be in the future if passenger numbers into Waterloo continue to grow. One answer to this could be to divert some inner suburbans into Crossrail 2.
Complaining that it Crossrail 2 would not benefit inner suburban passengers is a bit like complaining that the Thameslink works at London Bridge don’t benefit Greenwich line passengers, who have lost their direct service to the West End, or that the diversion of Great Northern inner suburban electrics to Moorgate made it harder to get to King’s Cross, or the replacement of the South London Line with the Overground. Passengers seem to have got used to the changes despite protests at the time, suggesting a more frequent service with an additional change required to get to the old destination can be “sold” over a less frequent one without.
@JA:From 2tph to 4tph+ is a significant improvement
Just look what has happened to passenger numbers on the Overground with similar frequency increases.
“Passengers seem to have got used to the changes despite protests at the time, suggesting a more frequent service with an additional change required to get to the old destination can be “sold” over a less frequent one without.”
Exactly my point re: frequency versus speed – given the choice SE passengers might prefer the former. Speaking personally I’d prefer 4tph Hayes-Cannon Street all stations with a change at Lewisham or London Bridge for Charing Cross instead of the unsatisfactory compromise we have now.
@Ian J – No,I’m not confused at all: what happens in 2019 is wholly irrelevant to the debate about CR2 which may or may not open as early as 2035. By 2035, we “should” have had the completion of the tube upgrade and NTFL programme, but CR1 will still be there,still running 24 tph and in all probability fuller than the predictions. CR2 may solve some of the growth problems on the SW outers by relieving the slow lines but it offers at best a very modest increase in frequency (too many branches…)and decidedly little improvement for those using the SW inners to get to major traffic objectives. You cannot deny – well you can try – that for at least two such (Bank and Oxford Circus),CR2 offers nothing at all, indeed probably a significant worsenment in the latter case.
Yes, of course, as anonymous of 0806 this morning implies, you can force the punters to do what you want for the greater good and you can cut off their hands (by taking away legacy services) if they won’t behave as you wish. I just don’t believe that you can sell that as an obvious improvement; there are tradeoffs, again as anonymous says, and I think it pretty silly to ignore those. I have lived in GosPlan economies…
@Briantist
I think that what Timbeau perhaps should have said was ‘more complicated’ rather than denser. The networks south of the river are all interconnected to a much larger degree than anywhere north. All the routes North of the river into the different termini are completely separate, there are very few junctions and lots are grade separated. The only exception is the West Anglia routes but even they don’t have conflicts between trains going in opposite directions to different termini.
@ Graham H – I rarely disagree with you but surely CR2 does do something for people wishing to reach Oxford Circus? The safeguarding shows the northern entrance for TCR CR2 will most likely be half along Oxford St between TCR and OXO so within 5 minutes walking time. A direct CR2 train and 5 mins walk will almost certainly beat a journey via Waterloo and a more involved, time consuming interchange to the Bakerloo line.
A similar argument applies for those wanting Picc Circus / Cambridge Circus / Chinatown with the proposed southern CR2 ticket hall at TCR which will be half way along the western end of Shaftesbury Avenue. Again pretty short walking distances to areas in the catchment for Picc Circus LU station. Crossrail at TCR, post CR2 completion, will have a triangular set of entrances – Shaftesbury Av, Oxford St and Centrepoint. That assumes the safeguarding holds true for the eventual CR2 scheme.
@WW – A fair point, although it would be interesting to know, with these “mega-stations”, what the in-station walking time to the exit would be. We have had contributors on other threads remarking on, for example, the time taken to access StP domestic from the tube, although nominally inside the same station.
[When transport planners start discussing zone centroids , I find myself reaching for the metaphorical gun – people don’t travel very often to centroids, although I understand their necessity for modelling purposes… and that may underlie my uneasiness about Very Large Stations]
@ Graham H – yes the stations may be huge and access times may be long but they’re likely to be reasonably convenient to use. Let’s be honest places like Victoria and Waterloo can also have long access and interchange times depending on the precise route being taken. I think it’s inevitable that future lines / stations will be to a larger scale than previously seen to try to give some sort of capacity “overhead” for future growth. I’d be more worried if people were building “small” for schemes in London or other cities.
Multiple exits have the big plus that they take advantage of dead time waiting for trains. If you start your journey at an entrance at the country end of a train, and end it at the town end, then a 4tph service feels like a 6tph one, as you are less aware of the 5 minutes that you spent strolling up the platform before your train arrives. Walking along platforms is much better than walking along passageways, as you can board whenever the train arrives.
@John B – that may be so for the time spent on platforms but the time spent hastening down darkling corridors doesn’t seem that way – and increasingly the VLSs (as at StP) seem to have long access corridors as well as long platforms. (BTW I can’t imagine any time when CR1 or 2 will have as few as 4 tph, except in relation to CR2’s many outer ramifications in which case,hastening down a corridor in the uncertainty as to whether you will arrive in time or have a 14 1/2 minute wait, will be stressful I fear…)
@WW – as in life generally, I guess a compromise is necessary… No to Chatelet Les Halles or perhaps Euston/StP/KX but yes to Faringdon?
@Herned
“”I think that what Timbeau perhaps should have said was ‘more complicated’ rather than denser. ”
OK, that’s (another) fair way of looking at it.
I’ve put a little graphic together. I’ve taken off the Underground, and left only rail stations and lines in Zones 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 (as per the the original quote).
http://cdn.pseph.co.uk/styles/images/2015/rail-only-z2-to-z6.svg
“The networks south of the river are all interconnected to a much larger degree than anywhere north. ”
I’ve NUMBERED all the stations on the map. It turns out the are – if you cound all the stations where trains can go one way or another (using the same line) there are 16 stations in the north compared to 19 in the south. Which isn’t that much more complex.
“All the routes North of the river into the different termini are completely separate, there are very few junctions and lots are grade separated. ”
Except that you can get to both KXStP AND Moorgate from the Finsbury Park branches. This is a bit of an artificial thing because there is the tube in reality.
“The only exception is the West Anglia routes but even they don’t have conflicts between trains going in opposite directions to different termini.”
Well, apart from the Tottenham Hale to Liverpool Street either VIA Stratford or NOT. Also there are loops and links there, but they have been disused (parliamentary trains aside).
So, once again, I’m not able to agree with the proposition. I think it just LOOKS the way you suggest because the Tube crowds out the NR lines.
@Graham H – “I can’t imagine any time when CR1 or 2 will have as few as 4 tph, except in relation to CR2’s many outer ramifications in which case, hastening down a corridor in the uncertainty as to whether you will arrive in time or have a 14 1/2 minute wait, will be stressful I fear…)” – Not forgetting, of course, that 4tph there may well be but perhaps not at even intervals to fit in with all the paths of other ‘normal’ services, so one might end up with 10/20/10/20-minute intervals, or indeed any combination thereof other than 15/15.
It happens already on Southern today. Even in South London Line days, the 4tph to Victoria from Peckham Rye on two routes left within two minutes of each other, so effectively forming a 2tph service but with two trains apiece. Not everyone was blinded by the advertised 4tph as one can imagine.
Even if it is a regular 15-min. interval through the core, then consider that one or other might well be timetabled to be held at an outer station to produce an extended interval to slot in a path. Tulse Hill station, for example, has long been a favourite location for both Southern and Thameslink trains to be held for 3-5 mins. or more for such purpose.
@Graham Feakins – exactly so, and with the further implication that if people do treat 4 tph (even if badly spaced) as turn-up-and-go, there will always be a large number of people hanging about at core stations, giving anything up to 6 trains a miss, waiting for their own specific route to arrive. This would seem to have implications for station design, information and crowd management which will be different to,say, CR1. [Can’t say I care much for the RATP approach with itstypically French formalistic “families” of names to reflect routes/stopping patterns.]
The trains leaving Peckham for Victoria close to each other is not a good example; these were two entirely different routes. Now had there been 4tph LondonBridge-Victoria, that would have been a proper metro style service. Rather like anyone going from Anerely to Shoreditch know they only have a fifteen minute wait at worst.
The waiting time at Tulse Hill is often to accommodate everyone’s favourite conflicting Wimbledon Loop trains, and for the duration, the wretched Brighton-Bedfords diverted at great sloth via Palace and Tulse Hill.
Southern’s Metro model is slightly awkward as it is so much more interconnected than South Eastern’s. To simplify it would involve withdrawing trains entirely from certain tracks. Hence they appear to have gone for a corridor based frequency off peak at least ie 6tph Vic-Selhurst; 4tph Vic-Palace; 4tph Vic-Epsom; 4tph L Bridge-Tulse Hill and 4tph L Bridge-Sydenham. This does of course mean some of the branches at the end of the corridors drop off to 2tph or even 1tph unfortunately.
On South Eastern I think it would be largely easier to dedicate routes to one terminus with interchange at Lewisham, Peckham or Herne Hill. So say, Hayes-Cannon St, Dartford-Hither Green-Victoria, Dartford-Blacheath-Charing Cross, Orpington-Victoria, Sevenoaks-Blackfriars. Same frequency all day every day. If fast line platforms could be reinstated at New Cross that gives Lewisham avoiders from the Tonbridge main line interchange there but I should think with today’s congested network that’s out of the question. With the Bakerloo line extension the Hayes line is taken out of the question however and then maybe Orpington-Lewisham-Cannon Street instead.
@ Graham H – surely CR1 has precisely this issue with the stopping pattern west of Paddington? Reading trains are half hourly and parts of the timetable will be skip stop so directly analogous with RER practice with all the waiting on platform issues. You also have Heathrow trains only being 4 tph so possibly 15 min waits with people with luggage. Farringdon may end up as “case on wheels” city given trains to Heathrow, Gatwick and Luton plus a simple change one stop east for Stansted. Heading east I’d agree it’s not too problematic although as PoP has said before headways may not be even given the split service.
@GTR Driver: You would definitely need better interchanges – e.g. at Streatham or Selhurst; along with grade separation at Balham…
@WW: You will also be able to reach London City Airport and Southend Airport with one further change at Stratford…
Somebody’s mentioned Southend Airport !!!!!!!!!
~~~~
Surely, IF this line does get extended to Lewisham, it should be re-named the “Bakerlew”?
GTRdriver,
It is a matter of opinion of course but I think that under normal circumstances (i.e. not in the middle of the Thameslink Programme) that the Southeastern pattern works quite well. You think of it as serving two distinct London termini. Think instead of it as serving London Bridge as a common destination with some trains continuing to Charing Cross and others to Cannon Street and you may see it in different light. There is little to be gained by consolidating routes. What is important is being able to make a simple change at London Bridge but that is the case whether or not you consolidate routes.
The other factor is that with the Tanners Flydown doubled Lewisham has sleepwalked into gaining the status of a major interchange station with direct services to both Cannon Street and Charing Cross. I appeciate not all trains call at Lewisham. Even for New Cross from the coast you don’t need additional, capacity sucking, platforms. A change at London Bridge should be easily possible for those who would make such a journey. If TfL ever managed to extend London Overground from New Cross to further into the metro area other possibilities emerge.
straphan,
This is the first time I have seen a figure mentioned for the off-peak platforms. 10tph seems very low for six platforms and is going to give off-peak London Bridge terminating platforms a renewed feel of old-St-Pancras desertion with the average platform used for a service of less than two trains per hour.
One wonders if 10tph terminating at London Bridge can give any kind of decent off-peak service at a time when LU seems to generally have off-peak service as a mininum of 75% of peak service – and sometimes it goes up to 100% (or slightly more). This seems to be very much pre-2010 thinking and I hope it is substantially better than that.
If you only have 10tph you could run an off-peak service from London Bridge using 2-car trains to serve Kings College Hospital at Denmark Hill which as a large off-peak demand. The trains could continue to Battersea Park or Victoria (avoiding Battersea Park) and be run at marginal cost. There’s a thought.
@WW – sorry, you’re right! (I’d forgotten about skip stop -presumably, if feeling Cartesian and all -RER-ish, we’ll have the different patterns with similar but confusing names – lot’s of fun: for the Readings, Roger, Roderick*, Ralph etc.
@Castlebar – quite wrong, you KNOW that it’s the W&C that gets extended to Southend…
* As in Welease Woderick, presumably (as a potential operating instruction?)
@PoP: Sorry did I say 10? I meant 9:
– 1tph Uckfield
– 2tph Beckenham Jn
– 2tph West Croydon via Tulse Hill/Norbury
– 2tph Victoria via Crystal Palace
– 2tph Caterham
All else will be Thameslinked or otherwise diverted to Victoria (Reigate/Tonbridge trains)
@Graham H: I know Paris RER is not exactly best practice when it comes to customer information, but how difficult would it be to actually number the National Rail services in and around London? There used to be those two-digit codes for trains which have been discontinued, but could these be at least brought back?
I really don’t see any serious obstacles preventing train services here from being numbered like in Germany.
@Graham H – and if an ex army allocator Wodney or Wupert
@straphan – absolutely . Having lived and worked within the catchment area of a German S-Bahn, and as a frequent user of the Swiss variants, I am a great fan of that approach. (needed for DLR also these days…). In Another Place, there is a current debate on this and the associated issue of how a complex system is publicised in mapping terms. Hasn’t shed much light yet but they may get somewhere idc.
A particularly useful German and Swiss practice is to number variants in blocks of 10 to include shuttles and minor variants. Thus Reading might be S1, but the stoppers to Maidenhead S10, and Heathrow S11, or whatever. The only problem in a system as large as London is that there are probably more primary routes than single figure designators. [I realise that even just to mention this will provoke a tsunami of numbering enthusiasts – not sure what this subspecies of crayonista might be called… Anyone for Nummerwang?]
@Graham H: Fortunately the Latin Alphabet has 24 letters – a slightly wider variety to choose from…
Re Staphan,
Even with letters* there might not be enough to have fully logical numbered system as Graham describes due to the number of gaps you might want to leave to keep things neat and the number of once a day/week stopping patterns and alterations for engineering work.
Especially if a non confusable subset of 15 or so letters is used (no B because it is similar to 8 etc.)
With most routes odd numbers on up services and the corresponding even number on down services but I’m not sure that would work on all routes.
I’m not going to venture into numberistic crayonism – just to make the comment that the German route numbering imposes its own discipline on the operations. So skip-stop would have its own related number. It’s not difficult to imagine that the system puts a severe constraint on the barmier excesses of stopping pattern fiddling that goes on in parts of the UK. Also, a system the size of London’s might impose some useful constraint on too many variations, simply to stay within the limits of two or three digit numbering.
I write public transport guides for my colleagues who travel in Germany and elsewhere. It is hugely convenient to just be able to write ‘catch Sx or Sz (direction Hildesheim or Paderborn) to Karlsplatz, 4 stops)’ and even those who are illiterate in train matters seem able to cope.
Anyway, what was the subject of this thread?
@ngh and Fandroid: I think there are enough similarities between the peak (and other ‘odd’ patterns) and the all-day patterns to allow these to have the same number and just mention on the noticeboards ‘this train calls additionally/does not call at X’.
@Briantist:
“I’ve put a little graphic together. I’ve taken off the Underground…”
That rather defeats the point, surely?
Long-distance(-ish) services from Dover, Canterbury and Brighton all have to fight for access to London Bridge, Charing Cross, Victoria, etc., because the local metro routes share the exact same tracks. There is no segregation. That is the critical problem with the Southern and Southeastern networks.
Compare with Kings Cross, where you have no less than two local metros between that station and Finsbury Park (and beyond), both underground, and both wholly segregated not only from the main line above, but even from each other. That’s a minimum of eight tracks. The other main lines north of the Thames all benefit from having so many metro services handled by the Underground network. They do have some residual commuter services, but even those are closer to regional metros rather than urban ones.
TfL (and, therefore, London’s taxpayers), are indirectly subsidising those main lines to the north, west, and east of London by shouldering the burden of the loss-making urban metro services in those districts. Southern and Southeastern don’t get any benefit from TfL at all. Quite the opposite, when you realise that the Overground is the exact opposite of “fully segregated”.
@ Anomnibus – I feel compelled to point out the Tube network makes an operating profit so I’m not sure where this “loss making” remark comes from. Sure LU cannot fully fund its capital investment but then neither can the TOCs or Network Rail. There aren’t that many TOCs which fully cover their operating costs plus the notional allocation of track access changes for their areas. In many respects the Tube does better financially than TOC services.
I would also point out that referring to London taxpayers as subsidising TfL is not accurate either. Farepayers fund the Tube network’s operations. All taxpayers in the UK fund TfL’s investment monies. Only £6m pa is raised from London council taxpayers via the GLA precept – this is a fixed sum and has not varied for many years. I’ve put the special funding arrangements for Crossrail to one side for the purpose of this response.
Your argument about one geographic area of London subsidising another is false – whatever subsidies there are for whatever form of expenditure on rail services come from two sources – the farepayer and the UK’s taxpayers.
Last time I looked longer distance services had fast tracks into Victoria, Waterloo and London Bridge. Barring the latter where there are major works going on have all the fast line been shut when I wasn’t looking? Yes there is a greater burden on the main line network in South and SE London but that’s the historical legacy that railway pioneers have left us with. You can turn the argument on its head and say that North Londoners are largely lumbered with slow stopping services with claustrophobic trains running in stuffy tunnels rather than those nice big trains that run almost exclusively in the open air so people can see where they are going and where they are and which also have faster limited stop services. This is one of the points people are arguing about over the Bakerloo extension – what sort of service do people want? As with all things there are plusses and minuses and London’s rail services are not going to change to any material extent for a very long time.
I really don’t see what people are trying to prove. The networks are differently structured but they still serve the same basic purpose of getting people around. Yes they can be better and yes it’ll take decades for that to happen if we can find the money to do it. Forever bemoaning the lot of SE London rail passengers doesn’t get us anywhere. Anyone who’s read this blog and comments for more than a couple of months will be well aware of how aggrieved those people are.
Few people in London who have to commute in the peaks have a stress free, idyllic journey and, let’s be frank, they’re never going to because the peak has been hell for decades and it’s just gettig worse. Even if we build 10 XR type tunnels to create rail nirvana it’ll still all fill up and people will still be moaning and complaining and demanding more. It’s a never ending cycle of disappointment for peak time travellers because the demand will always grow, barring the odd dip for a recession every 10 years.
@WW – Your comment helpfully explains,incidentally,why the EU (and many theortetical transport economists’) obssession with cross subsidy is so wrong – do you look at the journey, the route, the network, the sector,or even the economy s a whole? (There’s no answer to the conundrum,although politicians will devise one to suit their prejudices).
More generally, having followed this thread over many weeks,I’m still bemused as to the exact nature of SE London’s deprivation compared with everywhere else. At the risk of lighting the blue touch paper once more, it’s difficult to see any acceptable metric to justify the whinging. Yes, of course,the trains are overfull, but the worst cases of overcrowding are not confined by any means to SE services; yes, of course, the trains don’t always go where people want but then try living in parts of NW or SW London and find an easy commute to the West End or the Wharf; yes, of course,folk who live on tube lines have a more frequent service but then they also have less appealing invehicle travel quality,and so on and so forth. It may be that the source of the whingeing springs from the long term poor performance of the specific operators (reinforced by a periodic dose of LBR chaos) but that is not a function of the infrastructure or network. This is not to say that matters can’t be improved,merely that SE London doesn’t seem to be specially disadvantaged in any way that can be demonstrated by measurement.
Graham H
The S London trains are INFREQUENT.
Out of LST you expect 4 tph.
Dartford-loopers excepted a lot of the others are only every half hour.
And finish ridiculously early, too!
Which reminds me:
I went to a talk on “The Night Tube” last Tuesday, by the LT planner responsible.
Very interesting stuff.
They are expecting a big pick-up on Sat AM especially, rather than the slow start you get at present with first tubes being so far apart in time …..
On-topic (!!) they are also in favour of extending to Lewisham, as soon as reasonably practicable – beyond there ( & on to Hayes) maybe, maybe not …
WW & Graham H – Well said both of you. As a retired Londoner I am struck by how extensive the transport choices are and whilst I have no experience of Paris ‘ public transport system. I have visited a number of other European cities where I have used public transport, including Berlin, which is perhaps a good comparator. I live south of the river in the South west of London and perforce use South West Trains but I use Southern and London Overground and to a slightly lesser extent South Eastern and Thameslink.
There is a tradition of criticism of the south’ s train services which do not match the frequency of the Tube and yet it is the connectivity of the old Southern network which I find astonishing and beneficial. Just one example I had occasion a few months ago to go to Bexleyheath from New Malden. To my surprise Bexleyheath appears to have an off peak service of six trains per hour two terminating at Cannon Street, two at Charing Cross and two at Victoria. Given the additional permutations you have via changes en route it is a really good service with 8 or 10 coach trains.
I think too much is made about the alleged awfulness of the service and I do accept that peak hour travel is at best something to be endured and at worst just horrible but it was ever thus on all lines and arguably the Tube is worst especially in summer and there is no easy solution to this problem given the population continues to increase and most people are required to be at their place of work at approximately the same time.
@ Richard B – there are two striking differences between London and Paris. London has a vastly better and more comprehensive bus network than Paris. Paris, however, has done better with light rail / trams and is cleverly building a step change in orbital rail connectivity. I’d argue the rail networks are pretty similar with so many terminal stations in each city and not all of them are on the RER – St Lazare has a massive commuter network running from it but no through RER line (yet). We have a very strong rail bias amongst commenters here which I think gives a skewed view. Most of my discovery of South London has been by bus so I really don’t see it as impenetrable which is what you could conclude if you took some of the comments here at face value.
As you say there are advantages to the complex rail system south of the Thames if the connections work in your favour. You can make decent progress if you know the service patterns and where to change. The downside is that you can equally take forever if you just miss a train or a connection because frequencies can be low. If only service patterns were consistent across every day and frequencies could be increased without sacrificing reliability then I rather suspect many of the moans would go. You could then start boosting capacity where it’s needed. I’d expect the consistent service levels to help get more “bums on seats” thus bringing in revenue.
@Anomnibus (Lewisham People’s Front [Catford Branch])
“because the local metro routes share the exact same tracks.”
I see that @WW has already pointed out this isn’t the case. And there are services in the North side where this happens (Standstead Express being one).
The http://cdn.pseph.co.uk/styles/images/2015/work-out-km-of.svg graphic does show the lines where there are express (non-stopping in London) routes – they have “x2” (with x4 Waterloo-Clapham Junction)
“Compare with Kings Cross, where you have no less than two local metros between that station and Finsbury Park (and beyond), both underground, and both wholly segregated not only from the main line above”
However, the point was to remove the rail services from the map so you can compare like-with-like because that was the point of this discussion!
Anyway, I think this does rather prove that my point about creating long non-stopping full-size underground (TBM-made) from:
12.8km from just south of Victoria Station to East Croydon;
13.9km from just south East of London Bridge Station to East Croydon; and
16km from Surbiton to Vauxhall; and
14km from just south East of London Bridge to Chislehurst.
OK, that’s going to be 130km of tunnel bore costing £13bn: but you could then rejig the whole of the rail network south of the river to be an Underground level of service AND get the “Rail M25” that everyone keeps suggesting.
Given that £13bn is LESS than the cost of Crossrail 1 (as it would all be “cheap” tunnels, rather than expensive stations) AND you could drop the intercity times for Brighton, Southampton, Kent and so-on.
It seems very win-win to me.
PoP @ 10:51 – I think the idea of all trains converging on London Bridge was fine until useful interchanges for Greenwich/East London/Docklands were created at Lewisham and New Cross. Now surely the idea is NOT to go into town and back out again if you want to go from Hayes or Hither Green to Shoreditch for a night out. As it stands it can work but only if you time it perfectly – which is not always possible. Being faced with a half hour wait at Lewisham means that you might as well head back to London Bridge thus reducing the overall usefulness of the network as a whole. I realise we don’t have a formally integrated transport network in London of course – maybe with a TfL takeover?
I do wonder if it’s possible to run a South London service to Battersea Park. The paths are there. The route knowledge is being maintained. Don’t think Southern would want the conflict at Battersea Park junction changed for a new one at Battersea Pier Junction which would be needed for a L Bridge-Vic service but a Battersea Park turnback is a compromise.
Straphan @ 11.01 – Are the Reigate/Tonbridges really being diverted to Victoria permanently? Presumably taking the two paths freed up by the loss of the 06/36 fast Brightons?
Walthamstow Writer @ 00:42 and subsequent posters who can’t understand the ire directed at SE services. Much of the underground is above ground anyway and frankly being able to look out at the dumped rubbish, vandalism and tower blocks is no comfort when you have just waited half an hour for the train because one was cancelled or you just missed one and it’s after 9pm. Six tph through Bexley off peak! Wow! How many through Becontree? And because they are split between three termini that still means only 2tph to key points such as Peckham or New Cross. And of course they are longer, they are far less frequent! No one is saying the travelling environment is terrible, in a 21st century city we just don’t want to have to work out exactly which train to turn up for, because without knowledge of the timetable you won’t know if it calls at Lewisham – a VITAL interchange whatever anyone thinks of it – or ends up at Cannon Street, or whether trains for London Bridge are at 09 past and 29 past the hour – not my idea of an interval service I must say. We also know we are hide bound by the infrastructure to a large extent. But it is not outrageous to desire a regular predictable train service running at as frequent intervals as the network will allow all day every day – indeed there are large swathes of London where this is taken as the norm. We are sick of being treated as if we are not part of the city and some offshoot that should put up with what it’s given.
Briantist, services out of Victoria and Blackfriars on the SE side are shared by stoppers and expresses, it’s one of the major constraints. A Vic-Orpington stopper holds up a coastal train once it gets beyond Brixton; and meagre though the Catford Loop stoppers are they are then blocking the alternative route if a fast train has not overtaken them by Crofton Road Junction between Denmark Hill and Peckham Rye. The Atlantic Lines (those that run through Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street) offer a diversion of sorts from Victoria to Brixton/Crofton Road but these are heavily used by LOROL/Freight services anyway. The only meaningful quadrupling is from North Kent Junction to Orpington and Shortlands Junction to Swanley. Your tunnels would be greatly appreciated!
@GTR Driver
“The only meaningful quadrupling is from North Kent Junction to Orpington and Shortlands Junction to Swanley. Your tunnels would be greatly appreciated!”
Thanks, I’m glad I’m not going mad over this.
I suppose it’s because – and I’m guessing you already know this – that the mathematics of train line operation says that you can get high capacity from, either:
– running trains at high speeds. The faster they go, the faster the signal blocks (of what ever type) clear, so the faster the line can be reused for another high speed train; or
– running trains as all-station stoppers. The slower they go, the closer the trains can fit together on the track. This is because the distance left between trains basically there to stop them crashing into the back of each other;
and that’s it – if you try and mix it up then either the slow trains get in the way of the fast ones. The best you can do really is send a fast train out, follow it with a slow train and wait for them both to clear.
I use the HS1 line from St Pancras to Stratford International each day, so I can see for myself how “straightforward” it was building that tunnel under the path of the Overground (from Caledonian-Road-and-Barnsbury to Homerton).
It’s only 2km shorter than the Victoria Station to East Croydon would need to be.
Tonbridge and Reigate trains will become the Victoria to Redhill fasts. The current slow trains will be altered to become Gatwick to Bedford. Releasing 2 off peak paths into London Bridge. Unfortunately the sample timetable shows the trains from Purley and East Croydon to lbg bunching. I suggested a solution by changing the timings of Tattenham Corner trains in the consultation. I doubt anyone will take any notice though.
@Briantist:
Adding capacity by building fast tracks in tunnels is something I’ve advocated myself in the past. It’s doable technically, I’m sure, but the devil is in the details. Once you pick the portals at each end, you’re effectively nailing down future service patterns for generations to come, so you really, really need to get it right first time.
Key questions include: “Do you run the tunnels only as far as Bromley and Croydon, or do you take them further out to, say, Orpington, Sevenoaks, and Redhill?” After all, we’re talking about express inter-city services here. If you go for the longer option, do you then add interchanges for key hubs like Croydon, Bromley and Lewisham? Or do you skip them entirely? And if you’re going to build fast tunnels, does it make sense to duplicate existing routes particularly closely, to the extent of building separate tunnels for both the Chatham and South Eastern (“Tonbridge”) Main Lines?
Also: where do you build the inner London portals? Or do you just extend them under the city and out the other side, effectively building some additional Thameslinks?
It gets very complicated very quickly.
I’m personally in favour of this approach, for a number of reasons too tiresome to go into again, but it’s a tricky project. It’ll probably require an entity like TfL to take the lead and use it as a carrot to gain control over the existing urban and suburban network.
@ GTR Driver – you misunderstand what I said. I am completely clear why people in SE London are annoyed about their train service. I am also clear about the improvements they would like to see and why they want them. I have no issue with people wanting a better train service. Heck if it was more frequent and logical to use I might well use the train more than I do.
To be blunt I am just a little tired of reading the same old refrain every few posts when it’s all been said before. People need to turn their ire on the people who have the responsibility. Nothing will change until they do. It really is as simple as that on the political level which is where the pressure must be applied. I note with interest that business bodies in London are now expressing concern about the efficacy of main line suburban rail services in the capital and want to see a TfL takeover so that’s another bit of pressure to be applied in the right place. I trust the people who feel aggrieved are making their voices heard given where we are in the parliamentary cycle. Given recent pronouncements about fares but not the related consequences I hope people are thinking a bit wider than their wallets and considering that a financial bribe may not given them the better service quality they actually want. It was refreshing to note, in a BBC voxpop at Euston, that more people wanted high service quality rather than a monetary bribe. They want to get value for money for the money they pay out. It is noteworthy that so far that choice is not being given to people in any clear cut way.
@ Briantist – I was extremely careful in the choice of terminals that I listed that had slow and fast tracks on the approach. I was deliberately selective because I knew someone would instantly reply and say I was wrong / misguided / whatever. I note you have already been corrected with reference to some of the South Eastern routes into town.
It’s clear that peak fares need to rise substantially – that is where we are short of capacity. Off peak, a price freeze makes sense – the more off peak demand rises to peak levels the more efficiently the network runs.
@Theban – it’s not clear at all that increasing peak fares substantially (on its own) is the solution. For those whose employment situation demands they travel in the peak, it’s simply a tax increase. For that group, it will have little effect on demand.
Unless and until “presentism” (I so hate that word) is greatly reduced, along with much greater flexible working hours, this will remain the majority of those travelling in the peak. No-one with a meaningful choice would travel at that time today. It’s not clear to me that either of those will happen any time soon.
@MikeP “Presentism” is an obscure philosophical term. However, you probably meant “presenteeism”. One definition of this is “coming to work while sick” (the logical opposite of absenteeism: being absent from work while healthy). I do not think coming to work while sick makes much impact on rush hour crowding.
However, another interpretation is “coming to the workplace, not because you can work better there, but because working at home is banned or discouraged by management, or because you think it will result in negative perceptions of you by colleagues or management”. Did you mean this?
But this still leaves a large number of workers who authentically need to get that face to face interaction with colleagues, customers and suppliers which can only happen “in the office”.
@Anomnibus (Lewisham People’s Front [Catford Branch])
“Once you pick the portals at each end, you’re effectively nailing down future service patterns for generations to come, so you really, really need to get it right first time.”
Given that London Victoria Station has been in use since 1860 and the Brighton Line was open to passengers in 1841, I’m going to take that as an “Established Pattern”! Yes, Gatwick is a newcomer, but given that’s now over 70 years I think we can be reasonably sure that some type of well-worn pattern.
Key questions include: “Do you run the tunnels only as far as Bromley and Croydon, or do you take them further out to, say, Orpington, Sevenoaks, and Redhill?”
When I said “Victtoria to East Croydon” I suspect that’s because that’s when I meant!
“After all, we’re talking about express inter-city services here. If you go for the longer option, do you then add interchanges for key hubs like Croydon, Bromley and Lewisham? ”
Nope. Just the inter-city and Airport services. The whole point is to make them fast and then use the existing lines for the London Metro services.
“Also: where do you build the inner London portals? Or do you just extend them under the city and out the other side, effectively building some additional Thameslinks?”
At Victoria they would be built alongside Peabody Avenue, to replace the sidings there. At East Croydon the Selhurst Depot is a great asset for the portal there.
@Walthamstow Writer
“I note you have already been corrected with reference to some of the South Eastern routes into town.”
Yes, me too. I’m actually happy to be corrected here on the specifics as it clearly means that the general point – build Zone 5 to Zone 1 bypass tunnels for the top intercity routes to get the existing lines for a TfL-style metro – is getting over.
@Anomnibus
Sorry, you asked about funding.
I suppose it’s the old question of “Cui bono?”
This would be split between the intercity Southern customers, Gatwick (Express) users and those many people who use the Southern’s Metro services.
The intercity customers would be able to get to Zone 6 in 8 minutes, making a 15 minute Gatwick and 30 minute Brighton service within the scope of “sensible”.
Quite if you would leave Southern the existing lines to make up a Zone 1-6 high-capacity all-stops service or bring in TfL and their Overground brand is an excellent question.
In terms of funding, it would seem that 50:50 intercity vs Greater London split might be a good place to start thinking that through.
But… if you remove all the fast trains from the Victoria->Clapham Junction->Balham->Norbury->East Croydon Line … what would you actually do with it? What else is possible?
I work in IT and 99% of my job I could do from home (or anywhere with internet really). But there is no culture of working from home in the company. How can the GLA/Mayor/etc encourage companies to let people like me work from home?
I like the idea of express tunnels. But there is no point of doing it if all the extra services you want to run have nowhere to go.
As we can’t build many more platforms at these stations we are talking about new cross london tunnels.
To avoid overcrowding on central london platforms you need a limited number of destinations with a high frequency of service, at least 10 minutes probably every 6 minutes.
To maximise throughput on those central London stations you want metro stock not long distance commuters with lots of seats.
That suggests you might want a tunnel portal to dump long distance commuters near your terminal and anther portal to take all these new metro services under London to the other side and really it needs to be repeated on the other direction.
So really a £13 billion plan is probably nudging £40 billion (this assumes only two crossrails through the CAZ) and more if you want to do it properly. All those extra metro services would still need more suburban turnbacks and grade separated junctions plus more depots for more trains.
The problem we have is we are running out of the relatively cheap option of extending trains, as the limits of existing train stations and junctions are met.
We are now at the stages where multiple junctions need to rebuilt at once to squeeze enough extra train paths, and that will only work in some places. We are running out of cheap options (less than £2 billion a pop).
Even if all the stars align I doubt there will be more than one mega project (over £10 billion) built in London at a time and it’s pushing it if we get more than one a decade. We are not China where something like 20% of GDP is being spent on infrastructure, we barely manage a tenth of that.
In fact if you consider the promised role out of HS2 and 3 and more across the rest of the country then we are looking at a mega project launched once every 5 years or so, which is probably far higher than the UK is used to since the end of the Motorway programme in the 1970’s
OK, Malcolm, you knew exactly what I meant :-). I did say I hated the word, even when correctly (?) spelt. Having spent (probably) longer than I ought to have as a “lone” worker, I do not underestimate the benefit of face-to-face interaction with colleagues. It was a breath of fresh air to resume it.
But that isn’t what we’re talking about here. It would only take a marginal increase in flexi-working to take the pressure off the peak hours. “Core hours” of just 10:00 – 16:00 could make a huge difference. 10:30 – 15:30, even more. Plenty of time available for interaction.
@Mike P. I think flexi time is already being taken advantage of where possible. The rail press talk of considerable growth in “Shoulder Peak” Considering the growth in travel the market is already pushing people ,who can, to travel at less congested times. Several TOCS have mused over cheaper season tickets for not quite peak travel.
Flexi time can only be taken so far, you need to be at work when you can contact other people are also working. When I was working at the Bank I knew there was no point in trying to get answer from a solicitors office on a Friday all the senior staff will have gone home by Friday lunchtime and will only have done minor clerical stuff or super urgent cases in the morning.
If I was trying to get hold of people at work in what ever capacity, the best times were between 10 and 12 noon and the 2pm to 4pm but really before 3pm. So if they had not actually done what they said they were going to do, the extra hour would give them enough time cobble something together. Otherwise it would be excuses and a call back tomorrow.
@RationalPlan – but Theban claims that peak fares need to rise substantially. That’s a somewhat different policy from reducing prices for not-quite-peak travel 🙂 Though hopefully it would have the same effect.
Sorry, Theban, “I disagree with It’s clear that peak fares need to rise substantially ” You clog the roads that way and achieve little else.
Elsewhere, I see that “Tunnel Crayonistaism” is becoming contagious.
@Briantist:
I’m not sure I agree with your portal suggestion for Croydon, but that’s just quibbling over details. However, I’m not sure an express tunnel from anywhere near there could get away with going direct to Victoria. Clapham Junction may need to be served as well.
The Southeastern network, which you didn’t address, is a lot more problematic however: There’s no obvious Croydon-like interchange hub in the outer zones, and London Bridge also doubles as the SE London network’s Clapham Junction. (There are quite a few junction stations, but none on a remotely comparable scale. A number of them are also in close proximity: Lewisham, Blackheath, New Cross, St. Johns, Ladywell, and Hither Green are all junction stations. It’s impossible for an express tunnel to serve them all.)
That leaves Lewisham as the only ‘proper’ junction station south of London Bridge via New Cross, but turning that into a decent interchange station is going to be a nightmare for reasons more than covered elsewhere.
Where do these tunnels interchange with the metro network? Should they call at Lewisham? What about passengers who’d like to interchange with the LOROL network? Do we need to add a stop at Surrey Quays, or would it be possible to extend the New Cross branch south via Lewisham using the released capacity?
Perhaps the most important question for a megaproject like this is whether it even makes sense to retain the existing multiple-terminus pattern for the tunnels. Currently, Southeastern alone serves Victoria, Blackfriars, Charing Cross, and Cannon Street—the latter two via London Bridge. Perhaps it would be more logical to devote Charing Cross and Cannon Street solely to the metro network and only have the tunnels serve Victoria and London Bridge, before continuing on beneath the city to points north. But this also adds to the costs.
The thing is, once you start looking at the details, what you end up with invariably looks like a new Thameslink or Crossrail-style project rather than a simple ‘express’ tunnel—especially for the southeastern rail network.
For the BML, an express tunnel does make sense, but even then, you’ve got the Clapham Junction question to answer, as well as what happens beyond Victoria. (Not to mention the wailing of the good burghers of Leatherhead and Dorking who are unlikely to see any benefit at all.)
@ Anomnibus (and others) – might I venture to suggest that it’s “difficult” because no one has defined what the issues / objectives are that require a solution / solutions? We no more know if SE London needs a Croydon like hub than if we need a tunnel(s) for some form of unspecified service nor if we need to serve one, two or no terminal stations somewhere near the Thames. It’s beginning to feel as if the “crayons are on crack” given the ever more fevered varieties of ideas for sending trains somewhere.
[Indeed, the long distance tunnels discussion does seem a long distance in practical terms, as they were not even addressed in the London 2050 Plan. So, please restrain yourselves from discussing them on LR. LBM]
Anomnibus – Would Dartford serve as a similar type of outer London hub as Croydon does but serving Kent, with a tunnel from there? Not now of course but that whole area in SE London and NW Kent is supposed to see the main area of growth for London’s population with tens of thousands of new homes which would house hundreds of thousands of people.
I know Crossrail could extend there and there HS1 but if the population forecasts are correct and 10 million people is London’s total soon, and many of that will be housed there, would those alone be enough? I presume mass development further out at Ashford, Ebbsfleet, and also Stratford will fill up HS1 themselves before we start looking at Dartford and surrounds.
@WW:
I think we’re violently agreeing with each other. My point was that the “express tunnels” approach only really works for the BML. If you try and apply the concept to other lines, you inevitably end up with a Crossrail or Thameslink-like project, not a simple, station-less tunnel.
@Ed:
The new developments around Ebbsfleet and Bluewater are mostly in a ribbon alongside the A2. They’re being built in a series of disused quarries and pits, with a long chalk ridge separating most of this development from the North Kent railway. Dartford itself therefore won’t be of much interest to most of the new residents. Ebbsfleet International is likely to be their preferred station.
I suspect a tram / light rail network linking Dartford with Gravesend via Bluewater and the new housing developments would be much better value for money given the difficult terrain. (The existing Fastrack bus service was actually designed with conversion into a tram in mind, so this isn’t as bonkers as it sounds.)
In theory a tunnel from Vic to Croydon can take all the long distance trains out of the equation – even those services that have to cross to make calls on the slow side of the Brighton main line, if they have the right grade separation in place. This would allow more stoppers on the fast lines – plus fast East or even West Croydon shuttles to keep that traffic off the coastal trains. There are still the twin issues of two tracks south of Three Bridges and many single points of failure on the line as a whole of course.
The SE side is still very much like two railways – one radiating from Vic/Blackfriars and one from Cannon Street/Charing Cross. A tunnel from Vic-Bromley South and one from London Bridge-Sevenoaks gets round all the two track sections and speeds them up to a reasonable chunk.
@Anomnibus (Lewisham People’s Front [Catford Branch])
Hi. I posted a long reply but I didn’t see LBM’s comment about not doing so (sorry, Mike): I will assume that it got deleted.
“The Southeastern network, which you didn’t address, ”
Just to stick to the facts: there is ALREADY a SouthEastern long-distance tunnel service using HS1. It goes St Pancras International, Stratford International, Ebbsfleet International: this was the “inspiration” for the original posting about other ones.
Would “Tunnelista” count as a new word?
Briantist,
Yes having read Long Branch Mike’s comment I thought you original (deleted) comment was too long and dealt far too much with the specifics of discussing where such tunnels should go. I let GTRdriver’s comment stand as it was short and more of a comment about the potential benefits of tunnel if such a tunnel were possible and suitably designed rather than a discussion of exactly where such tunnels should be.
Long distance – they have 2 big issues for me (and I suspect others):
a) where do you find terminating space for all the extra services (everything apart from Victoria SE is virtually full)?
b) how do you get the extra passengers beyond the termini to other destinations?
@NGH: Another problem is of course what you do when (like this morning) London Bridge goes t**’s up?
I have to say though that on the long distance side Charing Cross could cope with more trains. The Hastings trains regularly have 20 minute turn around times, did they timetable that back in the age of steam?
Southern Heights,
Just to make it clear to everyone, I understand the the problems at London Bridge this morning were on the Southeastern side. There was engineering work on Sunday which appeared to be put in at short notice. So my guess is that a judgement call was made as to whether to try and do it in one day or close the lines to Charing Cross on Saturday as well – which would not have been a popular move. In retrospect I suspect the wrong decision was made.
Also, I don’t know the exact details but as we have said time and time again it is not usually the capacity at Charing Cross that is the issue but how many you can get in on the approach lines. In all probability there are linespeed restrictions due to adjacent work and the signalling is not optimised for the slower speed.
SE issues this morning:
NR’s Press release:
http://www.networkrailmediacentre.co.uk/news/london-bridge-disruption-april-13
Re Southern Heights
The average turn around time for CHX in the peak is 12m52s. How much more could you realistically squeeze out of it given you won’t be able to eliminate all the issue on the approaches?
The Haykerloo would have provided some useful resilience this morning.
@Briantist
“The only exception is the West Anglia routes but even they don’t have conflicts between trains going in opposite directions to different termini”
It happens in only a few places (e.g Peckham Rye, where trains to London Bridge and Victoria go in opposite directions), but there is no conflict as there is grade separation.
There are several places where trains depart in opposite directions for the same terminus – e.g the St Helier and Kingston loops. It also happens at Canonbury and H&I, where trains can pass in opposite directions, both going to Clapham Junction.
@Straphan
“There used to be those two-digit codes for trains which have been discontinued, but could these be at least brought back? ”
Not nearly enough: even on one region some codes were used three or even four times: for example code 70 was used on the South Eastern Division for CX-Bexleyheath line trains services and for Victoria-Orpington services, as well as for services whose identities I don’t recall on the SW and Central divisions
@WW
“Last time I looked longer distance services had fast tracks into Victoria, Waterloo and London Bridge.”
They do, but the “slow” tracks are used by services from as far out as Guildford and Dorking, and some double-track routes are shared by fast and slow trains – e.g those via West Dulwich or Richmond. Grade separation between fast and slow is not complete either – see the Tanners Hill flydown, Borough Market, East Croydon, Barnes
“St Lazare has a massive commuter network running from it but no through RER line ”
Nothing unusual about a Paris terminus serving a large “transilean” network as well as the RER – Line E already serves St Lazare and is about to be connected to, and take over, a branch of RER line A.
@Briantist
“Given that London Victoria Station has been in use since 1860 and the Brighton Line was open to passengers in 1841, I’m going to take that as an “Established Pattern”! ”
Indeed, but could Victoria cope with the extra people? How many people are actually going to the Victoria area and how many are travelling further? (Clue – Victoria Tube station isn’t one of the busiest because of the number of tube journeys made by the residents of Belgravia and Buckingham Palace!)
@GTR Driver – you can always choose/twist comparisons carefully (see my earlier comments on politicians) but nothing you say demonstrates factually that SE London has a worse service than any other part of London. To repeat, precisely how is SE London generally disadvantaged by comparison with any other sector of London comparable in size? Is it: (a) number of stations? – take any other 60 degree sector of the conurbation and count them! Or (b) frequency of calls- try comparing Sudbury & Harrow Rd or Longcross or … with any SE station of choice; Or (c) frequency of trains on a route – GOBLIN v S London for example. The point is that for every metric there are equally poor services in virtually any 60 degree arc of the capital you care to name.
To be sure, the view from the SE window* isn’t as nice as for SW services, but it is no function of an operator to provide nice views… And there are some fairly grim views from MML and LTS windows… GE Inner views not much recommended either.
*Just for amusement, in the days when I was the internal client for research in DfT, one of my early hits was to eliminate a project that showed that motorists preferred driving in the countryside to towns. (The second successful hit was a project that showed drivers tended to put their lights on when it grew dark…) Crowthorne’s other name was Laputa.
Graham H @ 1533 and others above
I sense some frustration by both those who think SE London is different and those who don’t. To paraphrase Eric Morecambe, SE London has “all the right stations, just not in the right order”. There are really a number of separate railway networks, partly overlapping, but not properly connecting in a practical way and thus not providing as useful or effective service as it could do.
Your comments about the people at Crowthorne remind me of my mother telling me of when she was in the ATS during WW2. She was charged with undertaking some extensive research about typing. It came to the amazing conclusion that those who had already been trained to type were better typists than those who hadn’t. The research commissioners had no idea that she had written her report before the research had started, just adding a few numbers later to make it look authentic.
Absolutely not going to happen but often thought about adding a spur of the North Kent Line upto North Greenwich to interchange with Jubilee to take pressure off of London Bridge. Maybe a goer if AEG pay for it. a lá Northern Line to Battersea.
As this Bakerloo extension and SLL Overground shows that any new services have to come from piece meal improvements in places where the space exists from former industrial landscapes or re-jigging existing services.
@ngh
“The Haykerloo would have provided some useful resilience this morning.”
If only built out as far as New Cross or Lewisham your comment might have some validity, but if extended right out to Hayes it’s hard to see that there would be enough residual spare capacity between E&C and Waterloo to offer any resilience benefit. Possibly some people displaced at Lewisham could have got on but Ols Kent Rd would then inevitably have got shut.
Graham H, since you used the words, “twist,” I think that is exactly what you do by using Sudbury and Harrow Road as an example. Which is next to something called Sudbury Town Underground station on the Piccadilly Line, which will tomorrow have 12 trains into the heart of town between 8 and 9am at 5 minute intervals. Hayes will have 5, 3 of which will allow interchange for the DLR at Lewisham; 2 of which will allow interchange for the Overground at New Cross, at bizarre intervals. Thus demonstrating the difference neatly. There is no comparison in terms of convenience. Especially when you factor in the sheer number of interchanges possible from a central London tube line, also providing a frequent service. The disadvantage is not in number of stations or number of calls but in infrequency and poor interchange. This is why some of us are salivating at the prospect of having the Bakerloo line in our neighbourhood.
Also I didn’t bring up the views – I don’t think they are important – I was merely making the point that being able to look out of the window isn’t compensation for a far worse frequency than a tube line offers.
Another poster made mention of our long the metro services are. Yes, sometimes, because it’s operationally easier outside of the peaks, trains continue to run at 8 and 10 cars. But the reality is frequently 4 cars. Come and sample the half hourly 4 car that runs on a Sunday on the Vic-Orpington route at the height of the summer for the best example of our apparently not disadvantaged transport.
James Bunting hits the nail on the head – “…not properly connecting in a practical way and thus not providing as useful or effective service as it could do.”
@Timbeau
You have picked out a quote that I used to support the idea that the South London rail network was more complicated (you had said denser) than in the north. I was thinking of places such as Tulse Hill, Herne Hill and Lewisham (partly) where whole services cross each other on flat junctions, on their way to separate termini and that there was no equivalent anywhere north of the river.
@GTR Driver – I was merely showing that one could always find an example to fit one’s argument, not that I believed the argument. There are plenty of half hourly services in the rest of London – M-F, too. The point is that for every whinge about the poor service in the SE.you could match it with several identical whinges about the poor service in the rest of London. I’m sorry, but these tales of deprivation are mere special pleading. What we haven’t yet been told is why SE London is different – so far no one has been able demonstrate it factually. James Bunting has a point when he says that the possible source of a”deprivation” is that the service is split between multiple terminals, but even this won’t do: Marylebone v Baker Street, for example – and neither convenient for major traffic objectives. And if you were to rationalise so that each suburban station had a single terminus, imagine the howls of complaint(not to mention the complaints from all those who insist on “resilience”)
No,SE London is not any better or worse off on any measure that anyone here has yet devised. Bring on that measure and we can then see how good it is.
[Of course, SE London’s services could and should be improved and those improvements should address all the problems well rehearsed here, but they shouldn’t be undertaken just because SE London is in some sense specially deprived].
@Herned
“I was thinking of places such as Tulse Hill, Herne Hill and Lewisham (partly) where whole services cross each other on flat junctions, on their way to separate termini and that there was no equivalent anywhere north of the river.”
I was struck, when I was making the two diagrams I did earlier, how if you rotate them though 90 degrees how very similar the Lea Valley Lines are to the South Eastern Ones.
I think you will agree that the three branches via Bruce Grove, Angel Road and Wood Street are very similar to Abbey Wood, Bexleyheath and Sidup.
Given the Stansted Express services run via Tottenham Hale (as well as services to Cambridge and beyond) Lea Valley Line, this is very similar to the Dartford services on the SE Lines.
Take your Hakney Downs and Clapton and compare to Lewisham and Blackheath.
And never mind your flat junctions: Northumberland Park, Brimsdown, Enfield Town, Enfield Lock and Highams Park have level crossings. At least on the three routes to Dartford you don’t have to stop the traffic for each train.
Some of these stations have less than 4tph too? Want to get the 3km from Clapton to Tottenham Hale? For that, there are no stopping trains. None!
Chingford has 4tph, Angel Road is closed most of the day, no trains at all outside peak. Enfield Town has just 2tph to Liverpool Street (and none anywhere else!)
@Herned
“where whole services cross each other on flat junctions, on their way to separate termini ”
I had misunderstood you when you said “opposite directions to different termini”, to mean trains travelling through the station e.g east – west and west-east, rather than on diverging routes. This is rarer but by no means unknown – Exeter St Davids is a well-known example – others include Ramsgate, Dover, Fareham, Edinburgh Waverley, the Wimbledon Loop (London Bridge/Bklackfriars services) and some circular services in SE London.
Briantist…..
……Not quite…..there’s a least ONE level Crossing on he Dartford lines:
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/place/Charlton+Ln,+London+SE7+8LD/@51.48925,0.039879,3a,75y,90t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sQ0KaJkP6RL_F9R-JdJ0EsQ!2e0!4m2!3m1!1s0x47d8a85a4af10f25:0xa9a865c6bbc5d697?hl=en
@Briantist, Slugabed
…and I know there is a level crossing at Stone near the Dartford crossing as well (not on the M25, though, obviously)
That would be Charlton Lane Crossing.
This is on the original North Kent line, which serves two routes: the original, rather roundabout service via Charlton, Blackheath and Lewisham, and the (much) later, more direct service via Greenwich. It also sees a surprising amount of freight.
@Graham H:
As I pointed out before, the key difference is the lack of service segregation. Imagine if all those express services from places like Edinburgh and Leeds had to share the tracks into Kings Cross with the Piccadilly Line.
Briantist points out that there are similar issues in the Lea Valley area, which also gets a fair amount of moaning aimed at it—and for similar reasons.
There are other problems, such as poor line speeds (often just 60 mph), but I won’t belabour the point. Suffice to say that there’s a good reason why neither the APT, nor its more successful sibling, the HST, were trialled and demonstrated on the line through the Medway Towns.
@ChrisMitch:
You’d be surprised where they’ll build a level crossing. Best not to give our politicians ideas.
I’m claiming that the metro rail network in SE London is generally worse than that of the London on a variety of measures, but particularly frequency and interchange. And since the tiniest bit of the Jubilee Line is the only bit of the Underground there; and bus travel is not much of a realistic option given the quality of roads and the inherent bottlenecks created by (lack of) bridges, there is a lack of alternatives. Hence worse off. Yes other areas have similar lines (usually the ones that LOROL has or is taking over) but other areas also often have underground lines as reasonable alternatives which are inherently better. I know of people in other parts of London who either don’t either realise there are main lines in their area such is the reputation of the tube’s usefulness; or know of them and immediately discount them as first choice. Not a choice you have in SE London. I’m actually not pursuing any further debate here any more; I feel like I’m repeating myself and others are not really listening.
@GTR Driver – Yes,I felt that,too!
@ Timbeau
Indeed, but the salient point is that none of those are in North London
@ Briantist
The West Anglia lines are the most complex group north of the Thames. There are parallels with parts of the South. However there is also a plan (and money) to add extra tracks north of Tottenham Hale and I’m sure I have seen proposals from Network Rail to close at least some of the level crossings. The handover to TfL will lead to at least cleaner and nicer stations and better information provision, followed by new trains. Also there is Crossrail 2 on the horizon.
So there are short, medium and long term plans to improve that section of the network. Where is the equivalent plan for Sidcup, or Norbury or wherever? To bring this back to the topic, the Bakerloo extension is the only proposal on the table, and whilst that will be a massive benefit to the immediate area, it doesn’t offer major network-wide improvements.
Graham H: “To be sure, the view from the SE window* isn’t as nice as for SW services, but it is no function of an operator to provide nice views.”
On the contrary! What south London needs, particularly on the route to West Croydon, is a more atmospheric railway.
@Slugabed
“……Not quite…..there’s a least ONE level Crossing on he Dartford lines:”
Thanks. Very true. I looked at http://carto.metro.free.fr/cartes/metro-tram-london/ and I missed it.
@ChrisMitch
“Stone near the Dartford crossing as well “.
That one isn’t on because it’s not in Greater London!
@GTR Driver
“I’m claiming that the metro rail network in SE London is generally worse than that of the London on a variety of measures, but particularly frequency and interchange.”
I’m actually interested to know what you would actually change. Aside from the option I can’t mention, the only other suggestion I can see is to pick one of the three routes to Dartford, send all the fast trains that way and then “Overground” the other two sections, leaving a 2tph service on one used for expresses.
Other ideas might be to modify the routes to make them more Underground-like in their operation: get rid of the flat junctions and make passengers change trains, but with much higher frequency services.
Perhaps another DLR?
@Herned
” However there is also a plan (and money) to add extra tracks north of Tottenham Hale and I’m sure I have seen proposals from Network Rail to close at least some of the level crossings. ”
Yes, there are two. One is the Crossrail 2 “Regional” service, the other is the STAR line.
http://tubedreams.london/star-stratford-to-angel-road/
“Where is the equivalent plan for Sidcup, or Norbury or wherever? ”
It’s probably worth pointing out that the trackbed for making it four-track from Tottenham Hale to the M25 still exists, just the permanent way was pulled up. Making new railway here is straightforward because they left the rights in place and – more or less – they just need to fit new rails and signals.
Sidcup there isn’t a “insert railway here” option. You would need to either demolish, or take the boring option.
@Briantist & @herned
The Lincoln Road level crossing south of Enfield Town has been closed “for safety reasons” for a couple of years now. As it is (was?) manually operated with proper gates, I would be amazed if it reopened. Are there any other level crossings on the Orange?
@Anonymous
As I said above there are going to be a few on the Overground very soon. Most notably, as it’s actually at the station, Highams Park.
@HTFB – 🙂 (But be careful it doesn’t get mixed up with LBM’s pneumatic service…)
Anonymous @13.01
Acton Central, and Bollo Lane south of South Acton, off the top of my head
SE only have the one in London, as does Southern (at Mitcham Eastfields) – the one at Merton Park is still there, but now part of Tramlink. There are none on the Underground, but the Overground has two on the Richmond branch at Acton (Central and South) and will acquire three more on the West Anglia lines (one on each branch). There are several on the Lea Valley line, but the biggest concentration is on SWT’s network, which has thirteen in the GLA area. (If you are playing north / south divide, note that five of these are in Middlesex)
Hounslow Loop services negotiate no fewer than eight of level crossings.
(These are crossing over public roads – there are other crossings over private access roads, and public footpaths)
@Briantist:
Although Stone Crossing is outside the M25, it should be noticed that the eastern side of that motorway is closer to central London than its western side. (The reasons for this are complicated.)
Pragmatically, I suspect the most viable solution to the problems of south London is tram / light rail. Trams were sufficiently competitive back in the day as to abstract passengers from the railways—this is why Camberwell station, among others, was closed long before Beeching’s day. Modern trams can do this again, but the trick is building them and ensuring they’re reliable. That means segregation wherever possible, and probably a lot of road traffic diversion to make that happen.
The trams would be south London’s equivalent of the Underground, with both networks overlapping in London’s CAZ.
Facetious comment about Sidcup, etc.: The SouthEastern franchise renewal from last year specifies deep cleaning for all the stations. That is all. 🙂 Oh, and tablets for gateline staff.
On a more serious note, for the northern chunk of SE London, we do need to wait and see what people do once Crossrail gets to Abbey Wood. It could make quite a difference to all 3 lines – f’rinstance, Bexleyheath station is 15 minutes away by B11 bus (and that takes a tortuous route)
@MikeP
“The SouthEastern franchise renewal from last year specifies deep cleaning for all the stations.”
Yes, I had a little time to spare yesterday so I would take my Oyster Travelcard on a little trip to look at the SouthEastern Lines.
I first started at Woolwich Arsenal (arrived via DLR) and went Plumstead, Abbey Wood, Belvadere, Erith, Slade Green to Crayford. Woolwich Arsenal was quite modern as it had been refitted for the DLR, but the rest were clean and in good repair with the usual levels of CCTV and security fencing. Nothing that says “modern and cool”. Abbey Wood is being reconstructed for CR1, but everyone knows that.
As far as I could tell each station had ticket barriers with Oyster readers.
I did have to wait quite a while for the next train – almost 15 minutes – but when it arrived it was clean and 8 cars long. So, via Bexley, Albany Park, Sidcup, New Eltham, Mottingham, Lee to Hither Green the story was the same: clean and in a good state of repair, but visually boring.
The only moan I would have is the signs that use a tiny, tiny font for the station names.
Hither Green is a large station, because the line to Sevenoaks has both a slow and fast pair. I took the train to Chislehurst and all the stations here were well kept, some have almost rural charm. The stations are much larger and have platforms on both the slow and fast lines.
Taking the train back to Lewisham, I noted Grove Park with the strange little connection to Bromley North. Lewisham seems to have been remade as the route to the DLR was very new.
If I combine this with the trip I made three weeks ago from Greenwich via Deptford to London Bridge, it does seem that the stations are clean and safe.
Given that there are only 4tph on some Overground lines (Gospel Oak to Barking) and these are short trains, I’m sure that a better service could be provided.
The only problem I can really see is that much of the area covered by the Sidcup, Bexleyheath and Plumstead are a mixture of low-density housing, light industrial and allotments.
This means that the station catchment areas have (relatively) low populations. Compare Sidcup with Edmonton Green (same zone) and the former is surrounded by two-story homes and the latter has a huge market, hotels, bus station and high density housing.
In 2013-14 Sidcup saw 3.15m entries and exits; Edmonton Green 2.7m.
@HTFB
West Anglia Route Group counts on the door for Edmonton Green in Autumn 2014 put that station at 3.56m entries and exits compared to 2.82m ORR (if you added a general London & South East growth factor to last year’s 2.70m ORR).
That doesn’t mean that the Sidcup rail figure is necessarily right either, as ORR is bad in the London area for converting zonal volumes into point volumes, but Sidcup doesn’t have high frequency bus routes also competing with the railway for intermediate distances.
It is probably fair to say that the combined rail and bus corridor of 6 miles along the Hertford Road from Freezywater via Edmonton Green to Seven Sisters (itself 5.7 miles in a straight line from Charing Cross), is doing more public transport business than an equivalent 6 mile Sidcup to Lewisham corridor (Lewisham is also 5.7 miles in a straight line from Charing Cross).
@ J Roberts – in addition to your comments I’d also say the demographic in North London is much more oriented to bus travel than rail. You are completely right in highlighting the vastly different levels of bus service between the two corridors. The four main double deck routes running south of Edmonton Green towards town carry a combined >40m pass jnys a year. Those numbers ignore the 76 and 243 which also run close to the rail corridor but which join the corridor further south. Sidcup to Lewisham only has the 321 bus which carried 5.5m pass jnys in 2013/14 and some of that will be west of Lewisham, The 233 part parallels the 321 but barely gets to 1m pass jnys a year. Something tells me there is probably rather higher car usage on the Sidcup corridor than the Edmonton one.
@Walthamstow Writer:
South London has infamously bad roads. The South Circular—despite the lying signage suggesting the contrary—never happened, so the major roads tend to be radial. (As an illustration, try getting from Lewisham to Croydon, or from Lewisham to neighbouring Brockley.)
Up in the freezing wastes of north London, orbital connectivity is better, be it by car, rail, or bus. It’s by no means great, let alone perfect, I grant you, but it is definitely better than down south. Roads tend to be much more consistent in terms of widths, for example.
I think this is partly because north London has traditionally been where most of the high-value jobs are: Westminster, the West End, the City, etc., are all north* of the Thames. The Victorians were therefore more likely to invest a bit more where it mattered most.
Another contributing factor is simply that the ill-fated Ringways project saw more components built in north London than to the south. It never came close to completion, but there is, in effect, a partial ‘Inner North Circular’ in place that has no counterpart in south London.
Also of note is that most of the motorways that serve London end up in north London. As a result of these, a number of major road improvement schemes were implemented, as the alternative would have been to dump all that traffic into tiny, single-lane roads.
* (For wildly varying values of “north”, given the meandering of the river.)
@ Anomnibus – I must be suffering brain fade because I completely fail to see the significance of orbital roads when the discussion was about two *radial* links (Edmonton – Seven Sisters – Charing Cross vs Sidcup – Lewisham – Charing Cross). The fact the City, West End and Whitehall are clustered just north of the Thames is of no consequence either to the two specific examples discussed by Mr Roberts and HTFB.
There may be some people who remain keen to concrete over swathes of London so Mr Toad can go “toot toot” in his car but I cannot see residents agreeing to the loss of housing when it is such short supply and prices are rising. I’d venture to suggest that we’re more likely to see people demanding the closure of lightly used roads and adjacent land so they can have housing built on them.
@anomnibus -” orbital connectivity is better, be it by car, rail, or bus.” Apart from the NLL, which has its counterpart in the SLL, and both of which are pretty close-in to the centre (and well inside the orbital roads/routes) , which north of the Thames orbital rail service did you have in mind? You mention Westminster, so perhaps it was the Circle Line?
@Anomnibus (Lewisham People’s Front [Catford Branch])
“South London has infamously bad roads. ”
I can’t help noticeing that though the South Eastern metro-train area under discission, there is the A2, which http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A2_road_%28Great_Britain%29 says
“Shooter’s Hill to Three Crutches … the A2 joins a dual carriageway, the Rochester Way Relief Road… with a 50 mph (80 km/h) limit.
The A2 meets traffic lights at Kidbrooke … shortly after here, the A2 meets the South Circular Road and becomes a motorway in all but name, with 3 lanes and a hard shoulder in each direction. Within the London section the left hand lane is used for local traffic.
At Falconwood, the road becomes the East Rochester Way … Motorists should be aware of the numerous speed camera along this stretch.
Once the A2 enters Kent the speed limit increases to the national speed limit (70 mph, 113 km/h) and the road heads east towards Dartford, bypassing the town to the south and cutting through Dartford Heath. The next junction links the road to the M25 London Orbital Motorway”
Yes, an infamously bad high-speed grade-separated non-stop traffic-light free nightmare!
@Walthamstow Writer:
I was talking about the general question of why buses were more popular in north London. The answer is that “central” London is north of the Thames as well, and it has some pretty good infrastructure. (See my answer to Graham H below for further frothing insanity.)
@Graham H:
Last time I checked, the Circle Line, the Euston Road (née “New Road”), etc. were all Victorian-era investments in infrastructure built in north London. (Hardly surprising as London’s sprawl had yet to extend much beyond the south bank of the river at the time.)
Once upon a time, there was a string of important docks and ancillary industries supporting them all along both banks of the Thames, from Rotherhithe all the way out to Woolwich. All of that has gone now. London’s CAZ has therefore retreated further away from the south bank of the Thames over recent generations.
*
Finally, I deeply resent the implication that I am in favour of “concreting over” vast swathes of London. Give me some credit: I’d use reinforced concrete! Mostly on Eros House in Catford. That said, I do have a little list…
@anomnibus – so it was the Circle Line!
@Anomnibus
And surely the lines between Croydon and Sutton and Sutton and Wimbledon, not to mention New Maldon to Twickenham, count as orbital lines which have no parallel in outer North London.
@Anomnibus – your comment still makes little sense in the context of bus routes between Edmonton and Seven Sisters. None of them reach the West End or Whitehall. One reaches the City (149) and one Kings Cross (259) while the others stop in the suburbs. You can only reach the Holborn edge of the West End on bus routes that start at Seven Sisters itself. Sidcup doesn’t fare so well as passengers must change to reach the centre of town. However a change at New Cross gives a wider range of in town destinations including Victoria, Whitehall, Regent Street and the City.
Buses between Edmonton and Seven Sisters are busy because there are huge local flows and people are rather less well off so buses are the cheap option. Service levels are also vastly highly than the parallel rail route meaning people trade frequency and price against journey time. I actually don’t think the road design has anything to do with it nor the fact that some business activity is in the middle of London.
@anomnibus – having lived in North London for 25 years and still having many friends who live there, we would all be astonished to hear that the Circle Line is in N London.Of course cabbies famously won’t cross the river at night but I don’t think that means that central London is in any way the same as north London. On your basis, east London begins presumably somewhere round Charing Cross,where west London also starts. Those of us who live in the area tend to think of north London including such places as Hampstead and maybe Camden Town but never ever have I heard anyone referring to Piccadilly or Westminster as north…. Presumably,using your river test, Chelsea is also in north London?
As would be Hampton Court Palace.
Re Graham H,
As an undergrad at university the Thames was used as the north – south dividing line. Those from Chelsea, Clapton or Carlisle were all classified as “northerners”.
Cabs south of the river – Yes I have had that at times (last time I heard the comment was after an East Coast “special” arriving at 3am at Kings Cross, at least they ordered circa 600 taxis!) but when frequently working very late in the office for a previous employer there would be cab drivers arguing over who got the booking to take me home south of the river as it would be their last trip of the night!
Back on March 11th, 1949, this what “The Engineer” had to say, at a time when the Bakerloo was already reversing trains at a rate of 28-30 tph at the Elephant in the peak:
“London Transport Developments
On Friday, March 4th, Lord Latham, Chairman of London Transport Executive, announced plans for an extension of the Bakerloo line and for the abolition of trams in south London. The Bakerloo extension will be from the Elephant and Castle to Camberwell Green, running entirely in tunnel 40ft to 80ft beneath the surface. This development will take three or four years to complete, starting in 1950, but the preliminary work along the line of route is now going ahead. Conversion of tram routes to bus operation cannot be actually carried out until about 1100 additional buses are available, but Government sanction has been obtained for the building of new garages, and for alterations to tram depots for the buses. It is planned to change over from trams to buses in nine stages, beginning with the first stage, possibly by the end of 1950, and completing the work in two or three years, provided unforeseen delays do not occur in the supply of buses or in the building programme.
The tube extension, starting at the Elephant and Castle, the present Bakerloo terminus, will run in twin tunnels, roughly following the line of Walworth Road and Camberwell Road to Camberwell Green. Here there will be reversing sidings. The total length, including the sidings, will be about 2 miles. This extension will meet two urgent needs: it will provide improved travel in south London and it will improve the whole service on the line, for the reversing facilities will permit of an increase in train frequency of about 25 per cent. The Bakerloo line is heavily taxed at present and the existing congestion at rush hours should be relieved. The cost of the extension itself is estimated at £3,000,000 and a further £1,000,000 will be required for the construction of fourteen complete train sets, made up from ninety-eight cars. To accommodate the new rolling stock, a new depot will be built at Stanmore, the other end of the line, at a cost of about £600,000.”
@ngh
@Graham H
Another complication about the North-South division is that when you look at a handy London Postcode Zones map
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b5/LONDON_post_town_map.svg/550px-LONDON_post_town_map.svg.png
You can easily “see” that the WCx and ECx zones are “Central London”, but SW1, 3, 6, 7, 8, and 10 are “north of the Thames”.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/71/SW_postcode_area_map.svg/2000px-SW_postcode_area_map.svg.png
However, I really thought that the context of the discussion was provided much earlier on when we started using the “outside the CAZ” or “Zones 2-6” definitions.
@ngh – a propos cabs,I was writing ironically – cab drivers’ reluctance to travel south is a mere standup comedian’s topos and is rarely encountered in fact.
North – south? – what do transient students know compared with the actual inhabitants? Clearly if they think Piccadilly and Scotlandgate are the same, that has no value for serious transport planning or analysis. But perhaps you were writing ironically, too?
Interesting to go back into the mists of time to 2008 and see the comments made about the prospect of a Bakerloo extension then. John Bull’s comment seems especially appropriate
People in Edmonton Green probably use their heads and travel to Arnos Grove to pick up a tube(!)
So because one stretch of the A2 is dual carriageway that negates the comment about bad roads? As Anombious tried to do, compare the North and South circulars.
You are also conveniently ignoring the fact that much of London doesn’t have to cross the river to reach the main areas of business; crossings at the eastern end are notoriously scant and every bridge in the centre is a bottleneck. Since most of the trains that cross terminate just after crossing, that doesn’t compensate for that general feel of being cut off. Those who seem resolutely unable to see the benefits of a ramped up Thameslink core; a Bakerloo extension or proper regular interchange for the Overground at New Cross might consider the benefit of travel straight into the heart of London rather than being left to walk or change.
But then I wouldn’t expect someone in North London to understand what that’s like…
@Anonymous – it’s not that S London is poorly served – it is – but then so are many other parts of London: for example, live on the LTS and try to get anywhere other than FST; live on the SW Inners and have an enforced change to get anywhere other than Waterloo – something that CR2 will not remedy significantly; try driving from central (sorry, north) London to places like Highgate or Enfield – how they would wish for an A2 clone; Live in Muswell Hill and want to get anywhere by rail? – impossible.
Yes, the S Circular is a joke (but not for those who live on it) but the rest of London has very poor orbital roads/public transport. too: ever tried to travel by any mode from Harrow to Ealing? Or Kingston (on the edge of north London, apparently) to Croydon?
Yes, the train service from the SE doesn’t always take you where you want to without a change (but note that Cannon Street is one of the three termini that are actually located in a major traffic objective), but that can also be said about people arriving at Euston, Victoria, waterloo, etc.
Yes, something needs to be done to improve transport in SE London. But special case, no.
Not sure anyone is saying it’s a special case…but since the article is about a tube extension to SE London that may be why its comparatively poorer transport is being debated. And in terms of ease of just rolling up to the local station without planning or checking times when heading into town it most certainly is disadvantaged compared to swathes of other parts of the capital.
As an ex London student I can also confirm that they do know something about the places that they live and study in – and that often shapes their decisions about future work and where to settle. Three to four years is plenty of time to get a feel for a place. At the LSE south London was pretty much regarded as the countryside by most of the overseas/non London students because it wasn’t on the tube map and required much greater effort to reach. Twenty years later their views have changed little. Unless they know something near the East London or Jubilee line.
@LSE Alumni (alumnus?) – and besides not knowing anything south of Aldwych or north of the Euston Road, how much did LSE students discover Harrow, Redbridge, Kingston or Upminster? These too, would have been “countryside”, surely? (Most students – self included – didn’t travel further than the university library within walking distance of their accommodation unless they went on major expeditions to the other end of the country to visit fellow students, and that applied in my generation and to all my extended family in this, whether they went to Bristol, Durham, Sheffield or Bath.
@Graham H
“how much did … students discover …. Upminster?”
Upminster, home to Brunel University. I went there for an interview once and that was when I first discovered how long tube lines could be?
Brunel is in Uxbridge, not Upminster … no wonder the tube journey was long …
@ Anonymous
My wife never gets that Woking and Worthing are different
@Anonymous 16April 2015
*Brunel is in Uxbridge, not Upminster … no wonder the tube journey was long …”
It was 28 years ago!
@ Graham H
“Most students – self included – didn’t travel further than the university library within walking distance of their accommodation unless they went on major expeditions to the other end of the country……”
Or in my experience were making a determined effort to validate all the entries in a pub guide within x miles radius from their college.
@Paying guest – 🙂
@Briantist – I was invited to the opening ceremony for Brunel; this was notable for the fact that the band that was playing were clearly paid until 1700 hrs. On the dot, mid-tune, they stopped and by 17.01 were in their bus and ready to leave…
re Paying Guest,
“Or in my experience were making a determined effort to validate all the entries in a pub guide within x miles radius from their college.” and frequently within a given time period.
The Oxford (within the) Ring Road or the alternative all colleges being some what harder than the Circle line within a day…
@NGH
Indeed – like the King Street run in Cambridge, officially banned by the University in the mid 60s.
Castlebar
How does she react then to “Jill”-ingham & “Gill”-ingham or the two Hayes’ ……
[To be taken as a rhetorical question – we have extensively discussed homonyms and heteronyms before. PoP]
*Brunel is in Uxbridge, not Upminster … no wonder the tube journey was long …”
It was 28 years ago!
You could’ve waved. 2nd year ‘lectronics student there then ! :O)
Another reason for students to leave known safe areas was to engage in a bit of mascotry. I took the journey to Gower Street with abut 80 other injuneers one lunchtime to recover a long-forgotten spanner from behind a UCL bar. The Picc was nice and direct for that.
@MikeP – it’s finding the right journey purpose classification for this sort of trip that is one of the weaknesses of transport planning.
MikeP – you were a Guildsman?
@AlisonW – Elec Eng ’73-’76. Also worked for HENP (as it was then known) ’77-’80. Which I s’pose makes me a bit of a traitor….
@NGH April 8th
“TCR should be a nicer interchange and wait than Waterloo, and there is more space to wait ”
Depends whether you are going to work (when your statement is probably true) or going home (almost certainly not)
There is also another issue in the “homebound” direction. This will be familiar to people on branched Tube lines like the Central or District, but the number of branches on CR2, and consequent lower frequencies on each, will make the situation worse:
at present, people turning up at a terminus like Waterloo for the suburban services fall somewhere on a spectrum from “any train will do” (if you are going no further than Raynes Park), to only one will do (for e.g the Chessington, or Shepperton lines) and you will probably have to wait for it to arrive. This means that the longer-distance passengers, for whom getting the 1812 is essential, will have the best chance of getting on it (and getting a seat!) because when it is arrives the longer distance passengers will be the only ones waiting for it – all the short-haul passengers will still be going to the earlier services at 1806 and 1809. But if you are joining at a through station, it’s a free-for-all and your chances of getting on are just the same, whether you are going to Clapham Junction or Raynes Park (next train, three minutes) or to Effingham Junction or Kempton Park (next train, thirty minutes). This problem is already apparent at Vauxhall and Clapham Junction – one reason so many people working in Westminster walk to Waterloo even though Victoria (for CJ) and Vauxhall are nearer – and although there may be more space at the CR2 stations boarding will be just as difficult
@timbeau – indeed, there is evidence now of people using quite different routes home to their outward journeys, presumably for that very reason.
One might even be tempted to get on the first train regardless to get off the crowded platform and then change later down on the line, near say Raynes Park, when the number of people has decreased, for the service they actually want.
@Kingstoncommuter – indeed, used to do that a lot on the District.
In the hope that discussing Sidcup remains on topic, as an example of the transport needs of SE London, I cycled out through there yesterday. It’s very much the land of the two-car driveway, though visibly poorer than, say, Orpington. But I don’t think those cars are used to drive into town much.
From Edmonton the corridor towards London is the Lea Valley with industry and employment all the way along it. The Sidcup equivalent for work is the Cray valley, further out from the centre. Sidcup actually feels very poorly connected to the inner suburbs. The A20 there is the Sidcup bypass and the place really is bypassed: there’s no access on the London side. The old road, the A211 Footscray Road, leads to the wrong end of Eltham’s congested High Street. Sidcup’s high street is thriving, in a small way, without large chain stores. There’s nobody living further out to come to shop there, but the locals clearly don’t always leap for a bus or their cars to spend their leisure time.
There aren’t any buses along the A20. Google’s traffic congestion map for a typical 8:30am shows over a mile of red queuing, starting just here, and that is surely why. There’s more red between Sidcup and Lewisham, Catford or the Blackwall Tunnel than on the A10 all the way from Edmonton to the centre; and from Edmonton there would be other main roads to choose from. Another measure suggesting that the roads here are near capacity is that nine of the ten routes with the most crowded buses (the GLA says here) are in SE London. Three of them start at Orpington; another is orbital a bit closer in than Sidcup. If the roads could take more buses on these routes then presumably more would be running! But these routes aren’t going through Sidcup itself. The furthest towards town you can get in a single bus is Greenwich, or Catford through Eltham and along the purgatorial South Circular.
Basically my sense from the visit was that comparing Sidcup (zone 5) with Edmonton (zone 4) is not comparing like with like. Sidcup is really very much an outermost suburb. If you want to get to town from there it’s the train or nothing. To increase London’s density here, if the railway reaches capacity, would need express buses along the A20 to a useful interchange and that means declogging the roads somehow. One obvious problem is the South Circular along Brownhill Road and the centre of Catford: anything that could relieve Catford would help Sidcup. So maybe the Bakerloo extension is just what it needs.
@ HTFB – sorry to burst your bubble but the quoted list of “overcrowded buses” is an entirely subjective, self selected set of results. People voluntarily filled in a survey put out by the Transport Committee with absolutely no controls over sample size or trying to ensure a fair London wide survey. Even my very simplistic “demand vs capacity” calculation that I’ve done by working up capacities from vehicle types multiplied by service frequencies and scaled up to an annual capacity set against annual demand numbers (from TfL) does not bring up that list of routes in any shape or form. I know my calculation is not especially robust and could be easily critiqued by statisticians or TfL who will have stop by stop boarding data from Oyster / CPC validations.
I am not saying people don’t experience busy buses on those 10 routes but you’ll note the absence of extremely busy and overloaded routes like the 25 or 86 or 149 from the list. You also need to bear in mind that some survey submissions were “organised” by groups of passengers wanting to lobby for improvements to their routes. You can see this because they also wrote to the Committee complaining about specific services. The Committee published all of the submissions it received.
In terms of freeing capacity at Lewisham, are NR trying to get a free lunch and move the cost on to TfL via a Bakerloo extension?
NR could achieve the same by extending the Hayes line underground to the central zone (e.g. to Liverpool St) but then they would have to pay. Of course, NR would probably do something other than that, but is it possible that the extension to Hayes more about who pays then the absolute merits of the plan?
@Theban
Whether a new tunnel between Lewisham and the central area is built to Tube gauge or main line gauge, the funding will come from a mixture of TfL and central government (NR or otherwise), and therefore ultimately from public funds. A main line gauge route (as has been suggested would be Crossrail 3) would be much more expensive, especially as it would be expected to cross central London rather than just feed into it. It is also unlikely to happen before Crossrail 2.
The Bakerloo extension would essentially provide the cross-London connection much sooner, as the NW end of it is already there. Largely because of the Tube gauge, it is not as good as starting from scratch, but achievable within our lifetimes!
The situation is rather different from the many proposals to extend a certain other line that also terminates in SE1, running orthogonally to the Bakerloo’s axis. Unlike the Bakerloo, that line already has serious capacity problems, and unlike the Bakerloo neither end already runs into the suburbs. In that case, it is better to build an entirely new line – with the opportunities to use main line gauge, and a different alignment albeit roughly parallel to the existing line. Yes, Crossrail 2 is the New Drain, and the Bakerloo extension is Crossrail 3. (Thameslink could be considered as Crossrail 0)
@timbeau – well said! The logic is clear,isn’t it: there is no solution to SE London’s prpblems from extending the *existing* tube network and if you are going to go for new build, then it had better be some form of Crossrail-type project.
Except that extending the “loo” to Lewisham gets you some short-term & (relatively) cheap gains.
It buys time.
@Greg t Indeed; don’t get me wrong:extending the Bakerloo has a very good BCR and provides some extremely useful links; it should, of course,along with”the difficult”, be done at once (or at least 80 years ago). What it isn’t – and can’t be, not least for physical reasons – is a panacea to SE London’s mobility problems, so extensively described here in relation to Sidcup, amongst other places. So – do it now – and do the other thing (CR Line C) asap.
But the Bakerloo extension to Hayes doesn’t adress the two main priorities – adding Old Kent Road AND Peckham to the Tube. It requires a choice between them. It is therefore self-evidently not the right scheme because a short, loopy Bakerloo extension could meet both priorities as could extending the Met from Aldgate.
Any further spend that’s meeting those two identified priorities should go in the pot for a strategic solution to SE London not extension to Hayes.
@Graham H
“So – do it now – and do the other thing (CR Line C) asap.”
@Theban
“But the Bakerloo extension to Hayes doesn’t address the two main priorities – adding Old Kent Road AND Peckham to the Tube.”
Hakerloo does one, Crossrail 3 the other.
Anyway, Peckham is already on Crossrail 0 (aka Thameslink) and the Overground. It’s Camberwell which is lacking a rail connection.
@timbeau – no need to to go all the way to Hayes to deal with OKR, of course.
@Theban – extending the Met from Aldgate? Have you been there? I mean, what had you in mind? A burrowing junction using Loecher (rather than Strub) rack,perhaps?
@Graham
You’d obviously need to burrow down well before Aldgate station
Is Thameslink via Peckham going to be a metro-type service (>4tph?) or is it just half-hourly?
2tph is the current plan, but it has trains to Victoria – and London Bridge – and Shoreditch – as well.
2tph is not going to set the world on fire – we expect better in London.
@ChrisMitch
Doubtless 2tph is little more than a skeleton service by Tube standards, but as I said Peckham Rye, like many places in south London makes up for frequency on any one route by having a variety of routes available – in this case a choice of three London termini, plus the Overground – total 12tph.
Old Kent Road and Camberwell have nothing at all.
@timbeau
Of course you are right. Putting two stations on the Old Kent Road will bring the historical route into the 18th Century at last!
Looking at the response document it is actually a toss-up between the Old Kent and the alternative, but I think that in terms of longer planning adding two new stations beats giving the Bakerloo line extra interconnects.
But .. It is a hunch, rather than something I can’t put in figures. Not yet…
But we risk going round and round: what we need is a service-level promise for all London residents and workers that we can judge what NEEDS to be done.
This extension is tinkering.
@timbeau
I understand your justification, but I don’t agree that it is ‘equal but different’ to the service provided north of the river on tube lines.
12tph is an effectively meaningless metric for passengers if the 12tph all go to different destinations. It may be impressive from a logistics point of view, but it’s not much use if you are waiting 25 minutes on a windy platform (and the platforms at Peckham Rye are VERY windy) for the next half-hourly service to your destination.
@Briantist – Quite so: the bakerloo extension should not ever be seen as a cure-all for SE London’s transport needs;it can never be that. It is what it is: a useful,good vfm, project which exploits spare capacity and brings benefits to a relatively small corridor.In that sense,it is unlike any other tube extension proposed in recent decades , but no worse for that.
@Chris Mitch – we are going round in circles, aren’t we? No one has yet found (at least inthis forum) a metric which demonstrates whether or not S/SE London is or is not badly treated. For every metric put forward, a counter-argument exists. For example, the multiple destinations/routeings point certainly dilutes the frequency available fromany single point, but it does offer a great variety of choice which isn’t available on the tube generally. The argument about frequency versus range of opportunities not only needs information that none of us seem to have but also depends on some assumptions that haven’t otherwise been spelled out. One of the most important of these is that tube users are willing to trade a lack of routeing options for a higher frequency because they know that interchange is generally good (measured by distance to walk, environment, info etc). Note,however, that that assumption holds good only for people travelling to the central area. Interchange, whether in S or N London outside the CAZ is generally poor to lousy.
@ChrisMitch
I would be the first to agree that even 12 tph in Zone 2 is mediocre by Tube standards – although there should be no need to wait 29 minutes on the draughty platforms at Peckham Rye – it is usually quicker and certainly warmer to get the first London train and change at whichever terminus you end up at for your actual destination. Even on the Underground people do that (e.g Northern Line from Clapham Common to TCR or Bank and change for the Central Line to Chancery Lane).
(It is of course a different matter if you are at a London terminus trying to get to Peckham, but at least there are things to do there)
But you have rather missed the point: it is not whether Peckham has a decent service compared with say Camden Town, or some arbitrary benchmark. It is whether Peckham’s needs are greater than those of OKR (or Camberwell). And you will have to wait a lot longer than half an hour for a train at either location. Camberwell hasn’t had a train for 100 years – as for the Old Kent Road, Bricklayers Arms station closed to regular passenger traffic in 1852
@Graham H, timbeau
Fair points, both of you. I’m just generally grumpy about the underwhelming nature of Thameslink I suppose.
Yes ChrisMitch, just be grateful you have all these choices, get a tube to Victoria and hope you haven’t just missed the half hourly train there too. Or walk to London Bridge, though of course, by that time the next Catford Loop should have arrived, so you’ve gained nothing. And be grateful you didn’t want Ravensbourne as then you don’t have any alternatives. The LR crowd generally don’t realise people don’t like to chase half way round town for a regular service.
Graham H etc al, Jarrett Walker’s Human Transit blog humantransit.org has a lot to say about the various merits of frequency versus direct links, and comes down firmly on the side of frequency, with good interchanges – “frequency is your friend” is his mantra.
Indeed – if Thameslink’s Wimbledon loop had a decent frequency I wouldn’t be risking my neck cycling from Waterloo to St Pauls and back every day.
@ Graham H 1624 – I think you must be using a different tube to the one I know. Many of the LU line to line interchanges in the suburbs are cross platform or sometimes via stairs and bridge / subway. Nearly all are under cover or you can seek shelter if you need it. Here are a few examples – Finchley Road, Rayners Lane, Acton Town, Mile End, West Ham, Stratford, Finsbury Park, Kennington etc etc. OK changes to National Rail are often more involved but not exactly impossible – Seven Sisters, Stratford, West Ham, Highbury, Ealing Broadway.
The massive advantage with the tube is frequency as you say. Now OK sometimes you have to change and some people don’t like that but the basic concept has been accepted by people for well over 100 years. I’m not aware of there ever being a campaign saying the tube has to provide direct links hither and thither. Lots of people would like to be on the tube network but that’s because it gives access to the wider network and its spread of destinations.
There needs to be a second extension, that of the Victoria line, down from Brixton in a wavy route (to pick up areas with current low land values) towards Croydon and the southern point of London. This would pull a lot of traffic away from Clapham Junction and Victoria and regenerate the whole corridor.
Well, that will work just fine! Riots at Victoria as every train arrives jam packed from the South. They are bad enough already just coming from Brixton.
@ Anon 2358 – no point in extending the Vic Line. It’s running beyond its design capacity as it is. If South London needs a tube line as you suggest then it will have to be a completely new line justified on its grounds. As I have said many times we need somewhere between 3 and 4 new radial tube lines to serve new corridors and open up some new interchanges to relieve existing pinch points on the network.
Whether we need to copy Paris in building orbital metro lines depends on seeing how TfL want to develop the Overground network and whether it is feasible to do so.
Build an Overground station at Brixton and that will give commuters in Brixton (and the surrounding area) an alternative route. In fact, do this and one at Loughborough Junction anyway, regardless of any other plans.
Anon
Brixton new/re-opened station – YES
Loughborough Junction, err… no.
Why?
Because at the latter platforms on the S London loop will be well away from the others & difficult of access & as for putting them back on the N-E curve, have you seen the curvature? NOT for a new station, no way.
Unfortunately, the second Anonymous is right; one of the reasons TfL identified the Bakerloo as a candidate for extension is that it has spare capacity. The Victoria line is full from the start. Thoughts were given to a station at Herne Hill where the tunnels pretty much run to; given that much of the traffic comes straight off the Orpington trains at Brixton (a terrible constricted interchange itself) that might disperse the crowds a bit; but given the enormous cost of stations I suspect that would never hit the right cost effectiveness buttons in itself.
An Overground-isation is our best bet. If you want Shoreditch to Penge West you’ll take a Palace train if it’s first because you know you haven’t got long to wait at Sydenham; if you want Hayes, it’s far more hit and miss because the connecting SE trains are only every half hour at New Cross and you can find yourself waiting most of that.
As an earlier poster said frequency is more important in urban transit; it mitigates against big crowds building up for ‘the particular destination train’ and promotes rail use because of the sheer convenience of not needing to know the timetable; just where to change. When I’ve journied into tubeland suburbia I never worry about which tube to get; but coming back is a different matter; get it right or it could be only to the gain of the infamous retail opportunities that populate London termini. And having a possible alternative eg Cannon Street if you miss the train at Charing Cross doesn’t really work; by the time you’ve established this and found your way there on another tube either you’ve just missed that too or the half an hour has passed anyway! As we have seen at London Bridge, the cost of greater robustness and frequency (in the future hopefully!) is to segregate routes – so some routes go only to Cannon Street; others terminate at London Bridge; some continue through the the core and so on, thus forcing a change for some passengers – but at what looks to be a better interchange space. Of course the seemingly politically led insistence on Wimbledon Loop trains continuing through the core throws a new conflict into the ointment, and in the process denies the poorly served Catford Loop its long awaited four trains an hour; but maybe sense will prevail in the future. Maybe when TfL gets greater control of London’s rail services – they seem to have successfully won hearts and minds with their high frequency approach on the Sydenham line even though that cut the number of trains to London Bridge.
@WW – my apologies -I should have been clearer; I was referring to the quantity of interchanges rather than their internal characteristics – have spent too many years of my childhood standing on Acton Town changing trains not to know the facilities well. (Acton Town less interesting now than in the ’50s without all the movements to/from the works).
The short point is that outside the CAZ, there are relatively few opportunities and those that may superficially seem to have been missed, such as Kenton, really only offer the chance to swap between radial routes. Orbital movements – say Ealing to Harrow, or Barking to Enfield – are tricky.
Re. Choice vs. Frequency:
Choice is only valuable if it is meaningful. Ask Apple, Inc. (Incidentally, if you need an example of a private enterprise that manages to (a) satisfy their customers to a very high degree, and (b) make spectacular amounts of profit, you need look no further. Unfortunately, the British rail industry isn’t open to dedicated “Pullman-only” trains…)
When passengers go to a particular station, they usually have a destination already in mind and aren’t interested in a “magical mystery tour” of London’s termini. I.e. they already know where they want to go, and therefore aren’t interested in the trains that don’t go there. To such passengers, those trains might as well not exist and that means the effective frequency is… 2 tph.
What matters in a mass transit network is the interchanges. That is how you provide multiple destination options. It’s the network that’s key here.
It’s worth noting the push towards separating the Northern Line’s routes into two segregated lines. While this hasn’t happened yet, the intent is clearly there, and this is from TfL itself. They know full well that it’s frequency and interchanges that matter, not choice for its own sake.
*
I should probably mention that there is a branch of science dedicated to this. Ironically, it’s the same science Jony Ive at Apple relies on. It’s the science of Design.
I strongly encourage anyone who hasn’t read Donald Norman’s seminal work on the subject to do so. It’s not a long or difficult read, but it’s one of those books that will spark off multiple ‘light-bulb moments’ while you do.
@Anon 0933
“And having a possible alternative eg Cannon Street if you miss the train at Charing Cross doesn’t really work; by the time you’ve established this and found your way there on another tube”
Not a good example as, except for the duration of the current works, SE commuters have known for 150 years that the best thing to do if no train to your destination is shown is to take the first train to London Bridge and change there.
@Greg
“Loughborough Junction, err… no – platforms on the S London loop will be well away from the others ”
Not sure how you make that out. It’s fifteen feet (vertically) at most. The S London line viaduct actually spans the southern end of the Thameslink platform at Loughborough Junction
https://anonw.files.wordpress.com/2012/05/dscn7535.jpg
Compared with the new Walthamstow or Hackney connections, interchange would be a doddle.
@timbeau Yes, the London Bridge solution works nicely for places with a mixture of Cannon Street and Charing Cross departures (except for now). But unfortunately the builders of railway lines from Victoria to [arbitrary place in the south-east] foolishly forgot to route their lines through London Bridge, so in these (pretty numerous) cases, the option of dashing to a different terminal and missing another train there is still very much alive.
(Except later in the evening when trains-per-hour drop down to levels of one or less, meaning things get a bit different).
Timbo, being a little bit cute there and I think you probably know it…even if you get the next train to London Bridge it isn’t guaranteed to connect with the next one out of Cannon Street; it still has to be carefully timed. I know, I’ve tried it enough times. And there are no alternatives for many stations, especially on routes out of Victoria and Blackfriars, so the point remains. With the same minimum frequency on all routes at all times serving ONE terminal only, changing trains becomes more viable as the overall journey becomes more predictable and less hope, luck and seat of pants flying. Interestingly, off peak certainly, this model has (I suspect inadvertently) developed at Herne Hill as I believe there are four trains per hour Vic-Orpington and Thameslink to Tulse Hill; it has certainly made this a viable change for me when I’m heading to Kings Cross, avoiding the tube completely. Coming back late of course it falls apart because guess what, frequency drops to 2 trains to Orpington even though those late trains are rammed, indicating a latent demand I imagine.
Indeed, the SER and LCDR networks are to a large extent still separate, but with a few exceptions like Catford and Orpington, suburban destinations are served by one or ‘tother. Victoria/Blackfriars doesn’t have the same mix as CX/CSt.
“even if you get the next train to London Bridge it isn’t guaranteed to connect with the next one out of Cannon Street; it still has to be carefully timed”
meant to add – why do you need to time it? You haven’t burnt your boats for ex-CX services by going to London Bridge – but you have gained the chance of getting a CSt train .
@timbeau
Thank you for the photo. I’ve looked at Loughborough Junction on Google and Bing maps (especially the 45 degree view) and I think an Overground station here may pacify many Camberwell residents if the Bakerloo extension doesn’t go their way.
timbeau
I was assuming that platforms @ Loughboro’ were wanted on the tracks used by the LOROL services – which are the Southern pair, not the Northern ones:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Streatham_%26_Tulse_Hill_Hastings_%26_St_Leonards_RJD_100.jpg
Though quite frankly, new p[latforms @ Brixton would be much better value.
I forgot, & pressed send too soon…
If you want platforms on the southern pair of tracks @ Loughboro, you are going to have to widen the viaduct & slue the tracks, to get platforms in.
Whereas at a re-opened E Brixton or a new Brixton-on-the-loop station, the viaduct itself remains “untouched”, carrying the trains, with new platforms added at the sides, where there is room, in these cases.
@ Greg – thanks for confirming my suspicions after I’d looked at Google Maps. I’d concluded Overground platforms at Loughborough Junction would be difficult and costly to achieve and very unlikely to be affordable / justifiable given the massive capital cost and relatively poor level of connections that would be achieved. We know a station at Brixton is likely to be costly but it stands a much higher chance of having a decent business case because of the massive local footfall and wider bus / tube interchange possibilities there.
Looking at Google maps now, yes the fact that the 4 tracks are close together makes it awkward. I thought it was a good idea because a) it’ll pull Thameslink traffic away from London Bridge/zone 1 in general if passengers don’t need zone 1 and b) current land values are pretty low, opening the area for development.
And an Overground station at Brixton may prevent Victoria line trains filling up rapidly.
Brixton is just as tricky though. The high level line crosses the Chatham platforms at an angle, and has gradients either side of the bridge over the tracks below.
If you were to try and tie both the new platforms into the existing station directly, you end up with the Gordian knot of where to build all the necessary lift shafts. Atlantic Road is a major obstacle here as the station’s stairs open directly onto the narrow footpath.
One option is to convert the Chatham platforms into an island layout, but this would be very disruptive and involve a fair bit of demolition. On the plus side, you could then relocate all the entrances and exits inside the viaduct, rather than having everything hanging off the sides. It also halves the number of stairs and lifts needed to get at the new High Level platforms above.
Another is to transfer all that accessibility stuff to the Victoria Line building instead. Expand this and turn it into a combined Victoria Line + Brixton High Level station entrance. Access to the existing ‘Chatham’ platforms would be an OSI, which isn’t ideal, but better than nothing. It’s only 100 metres, and there may be a case to be made for building a secondary entrance facing directly onto Atlantic Road—perhaps with a direct link to the Tube station too.
(Note that a footbridge to the existing station might be possible, but given the narrow platforms, and their cantilevered design, I suspect it would require some heroic engineering as you’d likely be hanging some lift shafts from it directly above the road below.)
The only other option I can think of involves moving the existing station to the other side of Nursery Road, where the two routes start to converge. It’d mean fettling the gradients, but you’d get a layout similar to that at Peckham Rye. Dorrell Place would become the main pedestrian link to the Tube station, which would remain an OSI.
In any case, it’s clear that TfL and LOROL had good reasons to avoid building an interchange here (and at Loughborough Junction): no matter which option they go for, it’s going to be expensive.
@ Anon – if the tracks were on seperate spaced apart viaducts at L’boro Junc (as they are at Brixton) then it might have been possible to insert platforms for the SLL. Unfortunately it’s never been the case that platforms existed on that route – they did exist on the curved tracks heading east and west. It’s a shame, for example, that the Sevenoaks line doesn’t have its platforms in place at L Junc if no other reason that it would double the frequency at that location. I suspect that today’s regulations about accessibility would prevent the restoration of those platforms but that’s the sort of improvement that should have been part of the Thameslink project but for some reason isn’t. What is more galling still is that Overground platforms at Brixton have been roughly costed at £50m and yet it takes mere seconds to find examples of where vast sums of money have been or will be splashed on alternative schemes which are unlikely to be as beneficial. I won’t name the schemes for fear of diverting the discussion but we do seem to make some rather strange choices as to how public money, in TfL’s budget, gets spent.
Given the passenger loadings in the peaks on the SLL overground services where would room be found for all the extra potential passengers unless some of the SE Victoria services were altered and also stopped (along the lines of the Vic – Bellingham proposal that got pushed into the very long grass) or overground (SLL/ELL) gets extended to 8 car*, neither option is cheap so the marginal cost of opening a new station is massive if those are included as prerequisites.
* the recent draft NR Anglia route study includes the possible suggestion to increasing the length of NLL(& WLL) services to 8 car in the long term to meet increasing demand which is somewhat easier than for the ELL/SLL services.
There would appear to be space enough at Loughborough Junction to slew the westbound LO track over far enough to put an island platform in. Loadings is an interesting question, but if there is an interchange at LJ, direct trains from Denmark Hill to Elephant could be replaced by a better frequency on the Elephant/HH and DH-Brixton axes: aren’t we always being told high frequency plus an interchange is preferable to low frequency on each of a multitude of direct routes?
High level platforms at Brixton, built on top of the building that incorporates the Tube booking hall (or spanning the A23)and with access at first floor level from that booking hall looks achievable.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.462783,-0.114989,3a,75y,95.56h,89.61t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1s25BSo1-mo2ysAjXrMJLv1Q!2e0
(note that the roof of this building a=is more or less at platform level!
Interchange with the LCDR station can be an OSI at street level, or lifts and stairs between levels – although I appreciate a lift from the LCDR platform direct to the street would be a problem as the platform is cantilevered out over the street.
Anomnibus discusses Brixton and he mentions the layout and Atlantic Road. Here is the view of Atlantic Road from street level underneath Brixton station (no longer a major bus route) looking towards the main Brixton Road:
http://tinyurl.com/ktsesnx
You can see the up platform from Herne Hill above the pavement and the South London Line/Overground crossing at an angle above that.
A friend in the Lambeth Council Transport Department was one who worked on their proposals for a station up above on the SLL and he assured me that they would be retained after he departed for pastures new. However, I have not approached Lambeth to see whether I can inspect them. If I can find time during a normal working day, then it might be useful to try, since I understand that they were quite advanced.
https://www.google.co.uk/maps/@51.462762,-0.113365,3a,75y,1.86h,85.84t/data=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1si4tMYLTiL14-8_KkboHxhg!2e0
This is the current entrance to the LCDR up platform at Brixton. Adding lift access here would seem challenging!
@Anon 0933 (26 April) “And having a possible alternative eg Cannon Street if you miss the train at Charing Cross doesn’t really work; by the time you’ve established this and found your way there on another tube”
PEople on here don’t seem to have grasped that there is the mobile internet around these days.
I work midway between Charing Cross and Cannon Street. It takes me 5 seconds to see (right now) that the next trains to Blackheath from CHX leave at 19.32, 19.39, and 20.02 and they all appear to be running.
And another few seconds to see that the 19.24 and 19.54 from CST are also running to Blackheath.
So I can decide whether to get a bus along Fleet Street or the District line eastbound or westbound. I don’t have to keep a timetable in my head, or just hope that the trains are running as advertised. I can find out and plan accordingly.
@Alan Burkitt-Gray – 28 April 2015 at 19:15
PEople on here don’t seem to have grasped that there is the mobile internet around these days.
Not everyone has grasped that not everyone has a mobile telephone, let alone one that it is internet enabled.
I am not sure why, in order to access timetable information, or park in Westminster, for that matter, it should be necessary first to pay out for additional technology.
If Brixton station is as terrible as everyone seems to imply, perhaps a rebuild would be a good idea.
@Alan Burkitt-Gray.
Good point about the information on a smartphone. But what even the smartphone cannot tell you is exactly how long the bus ride will take. So just missing a train and wishing you had gone the other way is still possible. I accept though, that for a frequent user, with a smartphone, the downside of a “choice” of terminals is these days reduced to a pretty low level.
@ Malcolm – you’ve used the word “exactly” which I guess is the useful get out clause but you can certainly get a smartphone to give you a reasonable shot at how long any individual bus ride will take. The London Vehicle Finder website (not an app) allows you to see which company’s vehicle will turn up on a TfL service at any stop. Once you have the vehicle ID you can type in “ETA” followed by the company name and vehicle ID and you will get the timings for the next 30 mins of that bus’s journey. It can certainly help in judging if you’ll reach a station or interchange stop at a time to make a connection. LVF uses TfL’s I-Bus data so it’s not performing any calculations on the info, merely presenting it. I accept there’s a bit of a learning curve for the company IDs and vehicle IDs but it did start as an enthusiast’s tool although I think its popularity has spread. It’s also fair to say that I-Bus can’t predict the events that may cause a bus to run slower or faster than the predictions generated by its algorithm.
Maybe it’s just me, but whenever I’ve tried to use my phone to get realtime travel info at a London terminus, or stations like Clapham Jn, the bandwidth is terrible. Mobile apps are a useful add-on, but they are not an excuse for running poorly timetabled trains.
As smartphones get ever cheaper, and non-adopters age, I expect that in the 20 year timescale of the changes we are discussing, everyone will have a device with a ‘quickest way home’ button that will give accurate real-time advice. Information dissemination should be much cheaper than infrastucture, so fluid re-routing is going to be much more common. For South Ken to Orpington, I tend to change at Westminster and LBG, but an app that whispered in my ear at Sloane Square that Victoria is best right now would be useful.
There were 254m smartphones in western Europe last year (source: http://www.gsmamobileeconomy.com/GSMA_ME_Report_2014_R2_WEB.pdf which also has lots of other data). Observation on my trains to and from central London indicate that most people travelling at peak times have smartphones and are using them.
My Android phone does show me the quickest way home. TfL’s website (though I don’t think TfL has an app, nor is the site directly connected to short-term cancellation/change data) will also show the quickest time to travel between two points in London. TfL is heavily promoting its live bus info, telling people that they don’t need to walk to the bus stop until the bus is close.
Now that there is wi-fi on Tube stations (it would be even better if there were 3G in tunnels as well) it’s trivial to check online National Rail departure boards (which often indicate platform numbers as well).
Feeding all that data in from live sites into travel planning services would not be a difficult challenge for an app developer.
It could be used for smartphones and it could be used for displays on platforms or even trains. Last night, for example, coming into Lewisham on platform 2, I could see on my phone that there was a departure from platform 4 in 7 minutes — a reasonable time to catch the train. And that, if I didn’t get that one, there was another a few minutes later. Wouldn’t it have been nice if a display on the LBG-LEW train automatically showed that info as it approached the platform?
Wouldn’t it be nice if, when there’s a broken-down train at New Cross, rather than tweeting about tickets being available on alternative routes (which isn’t much use to Oyster users anyway), TOCs ensured their on-train displays helped passengers re-plan their journeys? Or fed the info via on-board wi-fi to passengers’ phones.
It seems to me that transport planners are still stuck in the era of drawing lines on maps and haven’t caught up with the fact that mobile technology can make transport systems hugely more efficient and effective. Other forms of transport and logistics have recognised this: parcel delivery, airline ticketing and vehicle engine management, for example.
Rail organisations don’t seem to have got much beyond using mobile networks to relay information they already have in individual packages, rather than importing information from different services and doing something really clever with it.
@Alan Burkitt-Gray – 29 April 2015 at 14:45
There were 254m smartphones in western Europe last year (source: http://www.gsmamobileeconomy.com/GSMA_ME_Report_2014_R2_WEB.pdf which also has lots of other data). Observation on my trains to and from central London indicate that most people travelling at peak times have smartphones and are using them.
I certainly agree that transport providers (all modes) should make full use of smartphones to transmit information to enable users to plan journeys and access real-time information about a current journey.
However,
http://media.ofcom.org.uk/facts/
and http://www.deloitte.co.uk/mobileuk/
show that 61% of UKadults own a smartphone, about 30 million adults, and that 73% of premises have 4G coverage.
My concern is for the 20 million who do not have a smartphone, or find themselves in an area with no coverage.
There seems to be an increasing lack of concern by transport providers to cater for them, as witnessed by absence of TfL countdown indicators at new/moved ‘bus stops, and an instruction to text a number.
@ John U K
EXACTLY!
Speaking as somebody who knows of a lady who had her phone nicked and didn’t know whether she’d missed the last bus home or not. She hadn’t, but did miss it whilst she was looking for somebody to ask!
@John UK/Castlebar – Quite so! Many of us see no need for the expense of a smartphone just for occasional use, and in any case, the data fed to you is only as good as the data collected – which is often bad. (I write having used recently Surrey’s system for texting the address of your bus stop to find out when the next bus was due – it was only an hour and 40 minutes wrong.. . I could have walked)
Many transport users – eg the elderly – are wholly unlikely to own a smartphone. I have been appalled but not surprised over many years by senior staff/politicians/consultants whose minds are blown by the latest technology regardless of whether it is useful or available to the target audience but do wish to show how cool/hip/real they are. Remember how politicians were obsessed with podcasts a few years back (or was that the satirical sketch…?) Now, they are obsessed with facebook and twitter, not noticing that everyone under 30 has migrated to instagram or, quite probably, something else by now. In fact, the moment such people pick up such technology, the market has already moved on.
One of the problems with smartphone’s is that they don’t work if too many people are too close together, as an example take a major station during a major train service outage.
I noticed this a few years ago when the London Bridge signal box caught fire…
So all the technology in the world won’t excuse the TOC’s from providing decent information…
There is a tendancy for new technology, which is cheaper to operate, displaces older technology. The prime example is the call centre based information / resolution service. Remember when there were (free?) train timetables by telephone?
The internet reduced the population that desired such services; where they exist, they are now premium-cost or more strongly rationed by queuing.
The mobile internet will do the same – it is much cheaper to provide a telephone-based solution than a Countdown system. Today’s request to users to text a number works on all mobile phones (John UK’s mistake makes his point for him) but sending an e-mail or similar is cheaper for TfL.
Yes, I agree that new technology does exclude or add costs for older people. But the answer is, if you can, make the effort to adopt the new for as long as you can. Because there is no escaping it.
“Yes, I agree that new technology does exclude or add costs for older people.”
Plenty of “older people” find an iPad and Skype very easy to use. They can struggle with more complex devices, but the days when every computer required you to remember an arcane string of obscure commands to make it do anything are long gone now. It’s still an option, but most IT users just swipe with their fingers, or point and click with a mouse.
Tory and Labour MPs can’t all be octogenarians, yet their ineptitude in setting up IT contracts is legendary in the industry. The problem is ignorance, nothing more. You can be 30 years old and be staggeringly ignorant too. The Jeremy Kyle show is more than sufficient proof of this.
*
It’s high time people stopped referring to IT as a “new” technology.
Most of it is at least 40 years old. The foundations of the World Wide Web (i.e. websites) date back to 1945 and the work of Vannevar Bush, making it exactly 70 years old this year. Alan Turing’s work on digital computers also dates back to WW2. Even programming, using punched cards, predates the steam locomotive.
Yes, technology changes over time, but nobody sells washing machines with integrated mangles these days, so this is hardly unique to IT.
@ Anomnibus – I am happy to be corrected but since when did MPs, of whatever age, sit down and scope IT contracts and conduct the procurement process? Surely that is the work of civil servants and whatever specialist advisers they’ve appointed? A minister might well “front” an idea for a system and may also sign off on the contract but they’re very unlikely to possess the expertise to fully review the contract line by line. They’ll ask for confirmation from the appropriate senior civil servants that everything is OK. I don’t believe for one moment that TfL Board Members personally review every last line of project and procurement paperwork for Crossrail, Bond St congestion relief, New Buses for London or new computers to control London’s traffic lights. Organisations rely on their own experts to get things right. Humans being humans they sometimes get things wrong in the drafting or the modelling or in the actual running of a contract. BTDTGTTS.
@anomnibus – first steam loco 1804, first punched card machine c1820?
Re Graham H and Anomnibus,
Development of punch card programming by Jacquard 1801-1804, first seen in public 1804, patent granted 1805, patent taken over by the french state 1806 after which he got small royalties.
Arrival in UK somewhat later because of hostilities?
BTDTGTTS – Been There, Done That, Got The T-Shirt
@ngh – thank you (must admit I was thinking of Babbage’s differencing engine). So, programming and steam on rails simultaneous in fact).
@WW – certainly for any of the privatisations in which I have been involved, no contract has been anywhere near a minister – same with legislation: they give their commands and then read out the words the experts put in front of them. I have never known a minister query the small print of either type of document. (Why would they, when only a few months before,they were merely an SME owner, policy wonk, or whatever).?
@Graham H:
Punched cards were first used…
[Who was first in a non-London transport category is not relevant to any LR thread. LBM]
Re. IT and politicians:
[This subject is also way off topic and any further mention will be snipped. LBM]
Not sure if this has been mentioned already, but if 6tph are going to terminate at Beckenham Junction will platform 4 be able to accommodate this? And then if the service is going to be upgraded to 33tph across the whole line that will surely mean an increase in the number of trains terminating at Beckenham Junction. If, in the dim and distant future, tramlink is ever extended to Crystal Palace then platform 1 will become dufunct, so could the whole station be shifted over so platforms 1 and 2 are through lines and platforms 3 and 4 are terminating platforms ( use of platform 1 by bakerloo line trains would surely be almost impossible unless a grade separated fly over or tunnel was used to access it from the Beckenham Spur without getting in the way of 8tph in either direction of through traffic)
Kingston Commuter,
tramlink is ever extended to Crystal Palace then platform 1 will become dufunct
How did you come to that conclusion?
Ignoring the fallacy of the original premise, the road overbridge at the country end of the platforms would cause considerable problems.
However the question raised is a highly valid one (and on topic!). Trains will either need a fast turnround which is not ideal operationally or you will have to seriously upset the residents of Beckenham by reducing the number of parking spaces available at the adjoining Waitrose car park.
@ Kingstoncommuter
Were the Bakerloo to ever get as far as Beckenham Junction platform 4 would still be required for trains from Victoria and Blackfriars that terminate there currently. The line to the east of the station is in a cutting with Southend Road bridging it. To slew the platforms would mean knocking down the westbound platforms and station buildings, loosing much of the forecourt with its bus terminus and taxi rank as well as creating a very steep road bridge because of the shortened distance between the crown of the bridge and the junction of Southend Road and Rectory Road.
I would suggest that the only practical way to deal with it would be to put the Bakerloo back underground. This would also allow an easier interchange with existing rail services and also for a potential extension to Bromley, were the money ever to be found.
But the blackfriars trains aren’t going to be there any more after 2018 and there are no timetabled Victoria trains that terminate at Beckenham Junction.
@Kingstoncommuter – Unless things have changed, this is what the DfT/Government said in response to the TSGN consultation:
“However, some Thameslink services will at various points be curtailed at Blackfriars and instead be operated wholly by the Southeastern franchise, including those to and from Ashford International and Rochester (from December 2014) and Beckenham Junction and Orpington (from January 2018).”
@Graham Feakins
My mistake, but the Beckenham Junction to Blackfriars trains aren’t exactly frequent at the moment, only a few per day. I can’t imagine they would be missed much especially when there is an interchange at Herne Hill for Thameslink services right through the core. I just find it hard to believe that tfl would be prepared to build an underground station for what is initially going to be only 6tph. If they were willing to spend that much money then it would make much more sense to build a proper interchange where the Chatham mainline and tramlink cross over the Hayes line.
@Pop
It was my understanding that the national rail line between Bromley Junction and Beckenham Junction would be converted for use by tramlink in the event of an extension. That would mean the London Bridge to Beckenham Junction trains, which currently use platform 1, would no longer be able to run. I hadn’t considered that other trains might use it afterwards.
Kingstoncommuter,
I misunderstood you actually as regards to platform 1. I may have read the signals wrong but when TfL was really keen on extending trams to Crystal Palace I think they were prepared to accept the liability of running trams between Crystal Palace and Beckenham Junction as a price worth paying, if necessary, to get the extension.
What I think has subsequently happened in that predicted rises in traffic on other branches mean that the Crystal Palace extension is not the favoured option that it once was. If they were to go ahead I don’t think they are now in any mood to take on the liability of the Crystal Palace – Beckenham Junction direct service. They have already formulated plans to increase the service to Beckenham Junction in the long term without needing to take over the adjacent heavy rail line.
Re Kingstoncommuter 3 May 2015 at 18:21
But when the peak frequency of Thameslink services stopping at Herne Hill drops from the current 6tph to 4tph in 2018 they are even more likely to be missed?!?
The (former SE) Blackfriars services from Beckenham Jn would be referred to as PIXC busters in TfL / LO terminology and are very good for that purpose.
@Graham channelling the consultation report:
“However, some Thameslink services will at various points be curtailed at Blackfriars …..including those to and from Beckenham Junction and Orpington (from January 2018).”
Aren’t these the same trains? Bfrs to Orpington via Becky J
@timbeau – No, not exactly. For example, two trains from Orpington in the morning peak with today’s weekday timetable are for Blackfriars, stopping at Beckenham Junction, whilst there are two extra trains for Blackfriars in the same period that start from Platform 4 at Beckenham Junction. The rest of the Blackfriars services from Orpington in the morning peak go via the Catford Loop.
I think the Blackfriars trains would be missed because they form part of the increased peak service operating on the Penge Esst corridor. Some Victoria trains start back from Beckenham Junction too. I have wondered what would happen with tubes using the north side bay. Presumably the extra trains would have to start back from points further down eg Swanley. Also if the Blackfriars trains end, the frequency to Victoria might need to be boosted to compensate. Whether there is room for a)trains to start back beyond Beckenham Junction b)room for extra trains between Herne Hill and Victoria in the peaks c)enough capacity on the Up Thameslinks at Herne Hill to absorb the patronage displaced by the loss of direct Blackfriars trains d)capacity for changing passengers at Victoria to travel by tube to Blackfriars or e)whether the Bakerloo extension might absorb enough of the patronage to compensate anyway is all up for debate.
Re boring tunnels (again)
Interesting article from yesterday on NR re-boring a single tunnel in Bolton (through rock rather than clay/gravel) for electrification in the NW.
http://www.railengineer.uk/2015/05/11/boring-boring-boring/
Key Points:
TBM but direct human controlled excavation
6m /day excavation rate (about 40% of the speed of the Crossrail machines but speed isn’t a big issue for this work)
Re. all this talk about a Brixton High Level station…..it’s a shame that passive provision for this was not included when the viaduct was rebuilt in the late 80s (I think it was to allow heavier Channel Tunnel freight trains to use it; the original lattice girder viaduct can be seen here: http://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Atlantic_Road_Brixton_South_London_geograph_org_uk-468413_crop.jpg). I appreciate that at the time there was only a limited passenger service over this line serving Clapham High Street and Wandworth Road stations; but still, a small amount of foresight then would have saved millions now!
@Anonymous – yes,hindsight is always the best guide.
If platform 0 at Clapham Junction reopened, it would allow more trains to run along the South London Line, adding the necessary capacity to serve Brixton, Loughborough and New Bermondsey. I suppose the line between Surrey Quays and Highbury & Islington would become the limiting factor at that point. Or trains could cut across the tracks south of Canada Water, terminate there and head back downwards.
@Anonymous
That depends on whether tfl wishes to increase capacity on the West London Line or the South London line. Of course they could use platform 0 for both which would probably mean an increase of 2tph for each line (that is if the other two platforms are being used to their full capacity). Also the two track approach to platforms 1 and 2 could be a limiting factor, as I have seen often trains leaving both platforms simultaneously, so the line has to be cleared before any more trains can arrive at the platforms ( You have to bear in mind just how slowly the overground trains enter and leave Clapham Junction ).
@Kingstoncommuter
It would of course depend on what the current limiting factor is. By the fact that TfL are extending the trains from 4 to 5 cars, I assumed that it was platform space. It may well be the volume of trains between Surrey Quays and H&I instead. Some clever timetabling would be needed to stop trains from Clapham Junction short at Surrey Quays or Canada Water and reserve them without holding up other trains.
Re Anon(s) & Kingston Commuter
One longer term aim is for TfL to increase WLL capacity by moving to 8 car (given lack of paths on NLL/WLL limiting additional services) this would need P0 reinstated. (NR Anglia Draft plan 2015)
The ELL north of Silwood Junction (near Surrey Quays) can take another 2 tph but this is already pencilled into go to 2tph peak only extra Crystal Palace services. Beyond that more tph would probably need resignalling.
The other big issue not mentioned so far is that post London Bridge rebuild there will probably be 8tph going down the SLL with conflicting moves with LO services at Peckham Rye Jn and Old Kent Road Junction.
And then there is the freight…
@ngh I can’t find anything about reopening platform 0 online.
Platform 0 would be inconvenient for the SLL, as any train using it would have to cross the path of WLL trains using platform 1. Better to have WLL trains using platform 0.
Eight car trains wouldn’t fit in platforms 1 or 2 without extending the structure.
@Kingstoncommuter
The use of two platforms at the end of a single track approach would improve capacity, as the train in platform 1 could depart as soon as the other train had arrived in platform 2 (or vice versa). With only one platform you need to allow some time for turnround – if only to allow the driver to get from one end of the train to the other.
Re Anon 13 May 2015 at 13:00
See http://www.networkrail.co.uk/long-term-planning-process/anglia-route-study/
Page 117 of PDF, option 40
P0 would be targeted at 8 car WLL rather than SLL but that would leave P1&2 for SLL but there are other issues with adding more SLL services.
NR Sussex Study
http://www.networkrail.co.uk/long-term-planning-process/south-east-route-sussex-area-route-study/
Executive Summary p13
And the detail on p150
Re 10 mph speed limit into `LOROL` Platforms 1 & 2 at Clapham Junction owing to condition of Falcon Road over-bridge, I wonder if anyone has any information as to when the bridge girders will be replaced or overhauled so the speed limit can be raised back to where it was during steam days.
Platforms 1 & 2 couldn’t be extended to 8 car. I suppose you could have the train sticking out and ask people to walk forwards into the 3 carriages where the doors couldn’t open. But platform 0 could open at 8 cars and WLL services run from it.
But there are also Southern trains (South Croydon – Milton Keynes) that cover Clapham Junction – Shepherd’s Bush (AKA the busy bit) that are going from 5 cars to 8 cars. I think the SLL would need the extra capacity more.
I’ve just had a look at Google maps and it may be possible to extend Platform 2 backwards to accommodate 8-car trains. In which case, we’d have long WLL trains from Platform 0, long SLL from Platform 2 and 5-car shuttles for either from Platform 1. I like this idea.
@Anonymous
Southern trains over the WLL have been running in the Rush as 8 cars since last September.
Re Clapham Junction, Platform 1 can take 6 cars currently, although the barriers would have to be taken down.
Re Anonymous
Extra SSL capacity for Peckham (Rye and Queens Road) will effectively come with the reintroduction of temporarily reduced Southern services (due to LBG works) and additional ones currently pencilled in as Wimbledon via Tulse Hill.
The current Platform 2 might be demolished if SLL LO services went 8 car leaving 8+car P0&1 (i.e. reverting to original state pre SLL LO).
TfL and NR are already looking at the extra capacity needed on the WLL when Old Oak Common interchange opens hence looking at P0 going to 8 car for WLL LO.
I know platform 0 has been disused for a long time, but (out of curiousisty) was platform 1/2 (when it was one platform) used before the overground came?
I don’t think LOROL services on the South London Line can be extended to 8 cars; Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street are only 5 cars now, they MAY be extendable; but then there is still the problem of short platforms on the East/North London Line stretches. It would be nice to see 8tph back on the London Bridge-Tulse Hill corridor with 2tph returning to Dulwich-Palace-East Croydon but I won’t hold my breath.
@Kingstoncommuter – Platforms 1&2 at Clapham Junction were always used by the WLL, or West London Railway as it was, when the line was extended from Kensington in 1859. Passenger traffic stopped in 1940 and was reintroduced in 1994, initially using DMU’s, and then class 313’s after the line was electrified a few years later (1997?). LO took over in 2007.
@Kingstoncommuter – 14 May 2015 at 11:02
I know platform 0 has been disused for a long time, but (out of curiousisty) was platform 1/2 (when it was one platform) used before the overground came?
According to Faulkner Rail Centres: Clapham Junction
Platform 0 was indeed platform 1.
From 16thNovember, 1947 – 11thApril 1980 platforms 1 & 2 were Kensington departures and Kensington arrivals respectively, after which date 1 was taken out of use. Previously the platforms at CJ had been numbered in pairs, so 1 & 2 had been 1, 3& 4, 2 and so on. From 1910 the LBSCR numbered their platforms by faces 6-9 becoming 7-12 (the LSWR retained 6 for its face of old 6). In 1947 the Southern Railway finally re-numbered the whole station by paltform faces, 1-17.
The present platform island 0 & 1/2 had been built as new platform 1 in 1901-1906. Before that Platform 2 (now 3/4) had been single face for Kensington departures, and Platform 3 (5/6) had been Kensington arrivals and up Windsor. The original 4 was demolished and replaced by a new no 4 on the up main line.
On the Brighton side, their reconstruction of 1909 resulted in the new platform 12 (now 17).
@ Jim Cobb – 14 May 2015 at 11:32
. Passenger traffic stopped in 1940 and was reintroduced in 1994, initially using DMU’s, and then class 313’s after the line was electrified a few years later (1997?). LO took over in 2007.
Oh no it didn’t! 🙂 You’ve forgotten the Kenny Belle. I used it from time to time at the end of the ’60s, steam with a couple of wonderful coaches – non connected corridor stock with double sliding doors to each compartment from the corridor and external slam-doors from each compartment. Possibly the last steam-hauled suburban passenger service at CJ (until July 1967). Then replaced by diesels. Continued the tradition of using platforms 1/2 and 16/17, but had to to use the latter exclusively for a time after the collapse of ‘A’ signal box in 1965.
Diesel working of the Belle was a 33+TC set for many years, with the odd “Hampshire” demu (class 205) deputising on occasion. Later, when I used it occasionally, (c 1990) odd formations with class 73s would turn up, some times push-pull with a TC, but sometimes two of them “top and tail” on a conventional loco-hauled set.
When the line was electrified for Eurostar ecs workings in late 1992, class 455s took over the Kenny Belle briefly, but when the service was extended to Willesden Junction (and made all-day) in 1994, the route reverted to diesel traction (class 117) until overhead wires were strung up over the gap between Willesden Junction and Mitre Bridge to allow 313s to operate it.
My recollections of CJ, may be of interest. Platform 1 (now disused Platform 0) was taken out of use in 1980, due to weakness in the girders.
@ John U.K.
QUOTE From 16thNovember, 1947 – 11thApril 1980 platforms 1 & 2 were Kensington departures and Kensington arrivals respectively, after which date 1 was taken out of use. Previously the platforms at CJ had been numbered in pairs, so 1 & 2 had been 1, 3& 4, 2 and so on. From 1910 the LBSCR numbered their platforms by faces 6-9 becoming 7-12 (the LSWR retained 6 for its face of old 6). In 1947 the Southern Railway finally re-numbered the whole station by paltform faces, 1-17. UNQUOTE
The numbering of platforms at Clapham Junction is an interesting subject, and the actual situation is as follows.
When the station opened in 1863, the northern West London Extension Railway (WLER) platforms and the Richmond Branch platforms were separate lots of side platforms. Platforms 1 and 2 (2 Separate side platforms) were for the WLER and LCDR; likewise Platforms 3 and 4 (2 separate side platforms) were for the Richmond Branch.
When the Richmond Branch level crossing at Plough Lane – just outside the station was abolished, the Richmond Platforms were re-sited northwards in 1876, resulting in the WLER platforms being re-sited as well. This side of the station now consisted of 2 side platforms at the boundary with a centre island. The platforms for the WLER were Platform 1 (side platform) and Platform 2 (the northern face). Richmond Branch platforms were Platform 2 (Southern Face) and Platform 3 (Side Platform).
In order to give the Richmond Branch 4 running lines through the station, a further rebuild was done, commencing 1901 with the platforms opening in 1906/1907. The northern boundary of the station was pushed further north again, and all the current platforms are on different sites to the old platforms, and are completely new.
The WLER was served by new island platform No 1, both sides. The Up Richmond lines were served by both faces of the new centre island platform No 2. Down Richmond was served by the final new island platform No 3 – both faces.
Clapham Junction had constant rebuilds in the first 40 – 50 years of its existence. The only platform on its original site is Platform 12, Victoria Up Main. The other side – platform 11 – is not as the platform was widened in the 1870s.
Trust this is of interest.
Southern services on WLL normally cross under CJ and use platform 18 which is a longer platform but also has serious problem re gap between train and platform caused by curvature of platform .
One casualty of election was Norman Baker who was a Lib Dem minister in DFT and it was said an opponent of the full BML2 project .
The change of government and his departure may improve the case for BML2 and if that happens the case to extend the Bakerloo so far into outer London would surely be replaced by upgrading BML2 project into a Thameslink 2 project with main line extended in tunnels beneath south London with interchange with Crossrail at Canary Wharf then on to Stratford and then take over one of the northbound routes from Stratford and maybe even link into underused GNGE joint line which would be electrified ?
@Melvyn
I am probably being too pedantic, but there is no Platform 18 (s/b 17) at Clapham Junction, notwithstanding the picture caption in a Middleton book to the contrary.
I certainly agree with your comment about the gap. My 89 years old Dad can only just get off the train here with the awful gap.
I used to joke about this after one drink too many, that I have looked for years for the platfromand cannot find the platform.
@Melvyn
There are only seventeen platforms at CJ. The Southern services to/from the WLL use platforms 16 and 17.
The departure of one of its opponents from parliament does not strengthen or weaken the merits of the case for BML2, but it may make the case against less well heard. But I can’t see it flying – if there is something Hayesites want even less on the Mid-Kent than Bakerloo trains calling at lots of extra stations between Lewisham and Charing Cross, it’s express trains from Lewes that don’t call at all or, if they do, will be full of Sussexers.
The idea of extending BML2 into Lincolnshire seems unlikely – there is a reason passenger (but not freight) traffic is so sparse on the Joint Line.
Frankly I think if electric trains ever get to Lincoln it will beby electrifying the short connection from Newark, which would be extremely simple – no overhead structures older than 1960, so all built with ohle clearance
If if the GNGE line were electrified for freight, an extension of some KX-Peterborough services might be in order.
Although I note that some maps of the grandiose plans for electrifying all of the North include the Sheffield-Lincoln line as part of the last, pie in the sky, phase 4!
Melvyn
That really is speculation, isn’t it?
In any event, it won’t “improve the case”. Many say there is no case. It may improve the prospects for re-consideration/re-crayoning, but I doubt the case can be made any better. And certainly linking this as a reason for extending the Bakerloo out to Banlieue or Tilling perhaps? I don’t think this will happen because Norman Baker lost his seat
@Steven Taylor – 14 May 2015 at 17:30
My recollections of CJ, may be of interest. –
Thank you for those, especially for the lucid explanation of the early days of the LSWR (Windsor/Richmond/WLER) platforms.
Steven Taylor
Thank you for your explanation of the complex history of Clapham Junction….it was my local station from birth,and I still go there at least weekly to visit my dad.
If you forgive the drift,how did this peculiar single-sided platform fit into the scheme of things (I thought it was Up Fast Brighton,but now you have me pondering)?? Presumably it was (only) accessible via the Subway?
http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/c/clapham_junction/clapham_junction_old4.jpg
Many thanks in advance.
@Melvyn – BML 2 to Lincoln? Of course, and then why not carry on to Hull via a new Humber bridge and Amiens* via CTL2? It’s virtually impossible to imagine how the putative bakerloo and the BML 2 markets overlap (and no doubt, if they did,we’d have one set of extendadors contending that the bakerloo should go to Brighton, not BML2…)
*Or any connectable point south and east – the Lake Van train ferry might be a candidate, now that through services to Basra are no longer possible.
@Slugabed
Likewise – it has been my local station since 1953, and I still live in the same family home overlooking the station!
Whilst the single platform was extant, tracks were paired by use, but in an unusual way as described.
Basically, from West to East, the East side of the joint LSWR/LBSCR Platform 6 in the pre 1910 numbering scenario, when the LBSCR were renumbered, between 1863 and 1895 triple track, served the Up Main, the `odd` Platform 7, accessible as you stated only from the subway, was the Up Local, and Island Platform 8 was the Down Line and Down WLER, and Platform 9 was the side platform for Up WLER. Of interest, is that the WLER originally had Broad Gauge track.
From 1895 until 1908/9 the situation, upon quadrupling of the LBSCR, was:
Platform 6 LBSCR Up Main
Platform 7 ( Narrow side platform) LBSCR Up Local
Platform 8 LBSCR Down Main / Down Local
Platform 9 converted to Island, moved somewhat to close up where the Broad Gauge was accommodated WLER Down /Up
Note: WLER at CJ, Up trains were away from London.
—
After my recent London Railway Record Wandsworth Common article, I am now writing up the LBSCR/WLER side for the hopefully November edition. There is so much information at the Kew NA. Lots of lovely full colour signalling maps etc.
Trust this is helpful (and I have no mistakes!!)
Correction
Whilst the single platform was extant, tracks were paired by use, but in an unusual way as described.
Paired by use should read paired by direction. Sorry.
Steven Taylor
Very helpful indeed,thank you very much.
@Castlebar/Graham H
the BCR for Thameslink or BML to Lincoln is unlikely to very high, given that no operator finds it economic to run more than one direct train a day from London.
As for combining the BML and Bakerloo proposals – BakerLewes? Or maybe the Dieppe Tube
@Graham H: *Or any connectable point south and east
There’s a useful list of possible destinations engraved in stone at Blackfriars station. Brindisi maybe? Or St Petersburg? Herne Bay?
Not sure why this thread hasn’t been stopped for the obvious crayoning “combining the BML and Bakerloo proposals”?
I thought we had long since realised that “BML2” was a little joke?
@Briantist: rest assured that it’s been considered. Sometimes things are judged better left to Graham’s gentle mockery, and the average reader’s common sense. But I can confirm that any further mention of BML2 in this thread (or probably elsewhere) will be looked at in a rather askance tone of voice. Melvyn’s comment scraped in because it did contain a piece of “news”.
timbeau
Lincoln’s lack of direct services is more down to DfT than the TOC’s, surely?
And the paranoia ( partly-justified) about train paths between Welwyn GC & Knebworth/Welwyn N N tunnel
@Slugabed/Steven Taylor
Could the reason for the curious staggered arrangement of the original single-sided Platform 7 at Clapham Junction have been a need to squeeze all the platforms in to a limited width? It must be remembered that the railway was there several years before the station was built, (the station only arrived with the West London Extension Railway, in the 1860s) and the Brighton’s site was constrained on one side by the LSWR and on the other by other landowners – and they had had to make some extra width anyway to incorporate the WLER connection – and all the tracks had to feed under the St Johns Hill bridge which further limited the separation of the tracks through the station. As the Brighton had already added one track to the original two, Platform 7 may have been seen as a temporary arrangement pending full quadrupling. It may even have been the plan to have platforms only on the slow lines after quadrupling, allowing platform 7 to be removed. As it was, it stayed until the remodelling in c1910, which saw the Brighton lines paired by use instead of by direction, abolished the singled-sided platform 7, and previously double-faced platform 8 (down Brighton fast/slow) and platform 9 (up/down WLER) were rebuilt and moved to become the present platforms 13/14 and 15/16, with a new Platform 17 built for the down WLER. Each rebuilding increased the curvature of the platforms furthest from the sacrosanct LBSCR / LSWR dividing line down the middle of what is now platforms 11 and 12 – this can also be seen on the LSWR side by the curvature of the modern up fast tracks (currrent platforms 7 and 8). The Windsor Line platforms (1-6) avoided this fate because they were completely rebuilt on the new alignment avoiding the level crossing on Plough Road: this is why there is such a long trek from platform 6 to platform 7.
@Greg
“Lincoln’s lack of direct services is more down to DfT than the TOC’s, surely?”
Sorry, but you’ve touched a nerve. It was the TOC – although the TOC was owned by the DfT.
The “Eureka” timetable introduced in 2011 was to have had a direct train every two hours to Lincoln. After Nat Ex handed back the keys, and DOR took over, DOR announced that they had to save money and, shortly before the timetable was introduced, abolished all but one of those services (which runs at unsocial hours and requires a 150 mile ecs move to Leeds and back every night!), the rest of the services terminating at Newark (and blocking the bay platform, thus preventing any connecting services from running). So no extra paths through Welwyn were saved by not running these services through to Lincoln.
No franchise would have been allowed to cherry-pick in this way. Certainly NatEx were not offered this option before being stripped of the franchise.
To claim, as DOR did, that they needed to make this cutback in order to be profitable is refuted by the figures. It was said to save £9m (not counting the cost of Stagecoach East Midland of having to find rolling stock and crews to operate an alternative shuttle service between Lincoln and Newark – usually a grossly-overcrowded single car class 153 is all they can spare). East Coast made more than £200m a year for the Government. Even if you disregard the franchise premium, EC made enough profit not only to run the full service, but also to pay to electrify the 17-mile line!
The £9m saving is mainly because by turning at Newark the trains can fill an earlier path back, with a net saving of one unit. Although most of the Newark terminators are diesels, the extra diesel unit earmarked to run this service on to Lincoln has been snapped up by FGW, so there is no prospect of a decent service until the IEPs come in 2019 – which I’ll believe when I see it. (When is the next election?)
Sorry for OT rant, but the record needs to be set straight.
@Timbeau 10:18
You raise an interesting point re Platform 7, which seems very reasonable. It certainly looks like an afterthought.
The LSWR by default did a pre-emptive strike, and had their platforms ready by 1861. LBSCR plans were delayed because of the additional up line, which is surmised to have opened with the station on 2nd March 1863 (nothing found at Kew NA to confirm date). The WLER almost certainly had their land purchase complete at the time the LBSCR decided to add an extra track, hence the unusual narrow platform with a track either side, albeit the canopy back wall stopping ingress/egress from the Up Main.
The only caveat is that a similar situation used to exist at at New Wandsworth (1863-1869), at Battersea Park , Wandsworth Common (1895-1907) and Balham (1895 to 1950s).
QUOTE Each rebuilding increased the curvature of the platforms furthest from the sacrosanct LBSCR / LSWR dividing line down the middle of what is now platforms 11 and 12 UNQUOTE
This fact is often quoted, and seems completely reasonable. However, in the 1895-1908 incarnation, the furthest road of the WLER, at the station boundary, abutted an island platform with a severe 7.5 chain reverse curve at the London end. So much so, that the WLER in the late 1890s wanted the LBSCR to pay for a re-alignment, because bogie stock was having difficulty not hitting the platform.
There is so much surviving material for the WLER – late 1850s onwards to the 20th Century and the LBSCR that I am having difficulty deciding what to leave out of the article. I even found a lovely colour map attached to a 1874 accident report, which shows the original 1863-1876 position of the Richmond Platforms, abutting where the current Platform 9 is.
Steven Taylor
Whilst we are on the topic….I remember having read somewhere,that the brick platform buildings and wooden canopy on P.10 is the “oldest surviving part of the station” and the only part that is listed…it certainly is one of the more architecturally attractive parts of the station,but is it really the oldest surviving part?
Reading accounts of the station (and others) I am amazed how readily the Victorians were to tear down quite major (and let us not forget hand-built) structures after only ten or twenty years’ of use.
The only parallel these days would,I suppose,be the constant re-jigging of motorway junctions and widths perhaps.
Please let us know when your article is published….I am on a forum or Battersea History and would be happy to give it some publicity.
@Slugabed
Platforms 10 and 11 are the only ones still on their original sites, (the slow lines being the original LSWR double track formation, before quadrupling). As the island 11/12 has been extensively modified, platform 10 is the only one likely to have survived from the initial building of the station.
@timbeau/Slugabed
My email of 14MAY15 17;30 stated, in my opinion
QUOTEClapham Junction had constant rebuilds in the first 40 – 50 years of its existence. The only platform on its original site is Platform 12, Victoria Up Main. The other side – platform 11 – is not as the platform was widened in the 1870s. UNQUOTE
The evidence is from comparing the following images from 1868/70 and today.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wandsworthheritageservice/5558861736/
and http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/4381743
It is apparent that in 1868-ish, the LSWR and LBSCR lines were roughly parallel and that the joint platform (now 11/12) was narrower than in the later image, where it is reasonably certain that the LSWR formation has been moved slightly westwards, enabling the joint platform to be widened in 1874. The platform has not changed since.
This is my evidence that the only platform face in the same position since 1862/3 is the current Platform 12, and that Platform 11, the other side of the island, has been moved very slightly westwards, together with platform 10.
Trust you concur or otherwise.
@Slugabed
Thanks for publicity offer. Wandsworth Historical Society have copies of LRR for OCT14 and JAN15 re my Wandsworth Common article. I have been charged with rewriting this for their 6 monthly magazine.
The lovely building on Platform 10 is the oldest part of the station to survive from 1874, although much altered above the ground floor. You can see bricked up windows because the later staircase to footbridge is behind. The canopy is original.
I am not sure if there is a more specific post about Elephant & Castle but in relation to the Bakerloo extension does anyone knows what is the status of theplans for the road and station improvements at E&C?
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/roads/elephant-and-castle
@Stephen Taylor
Those photos make a fascinating comparison. It certainly looks as if the platform (then 6, now 11/12) was narrower, but, using the track gauge as a yard(-and-a-half!) stick the separation between the adjacent LSWR and LBSCR tracks in the foreground apperars to be the same in both pictures. The camera angle is also different, and the 1870 photo appears to show the platform extending much further in the “country” direction towards the camera from the prominent building on the LSWR platform 5 (9/10) .
JN Faulkner’s book on the history of the station gives a comprehensive description of the many changes made to the platform arrangements.
1863 – station opened with nine platforms (eleven faces). Only platforms 6 (now 11/12) and 8 (now 13/14, resited) were double sided.
1876 – realignment of Windsor Lines to bridge Plough Road avoiding level crossing – platform 2 (Kensington arrivals) becomes an island with the up Windsor – new platform 3 for down Windsor. Old 3 and 4 demolished (the London end of old platform 4 had been roughly where platform 7 is now).
At some stage before 1900 1,2,3 renumbered 2,3,4.
1885 – second up LSWR line built, using reverse face of platform 5 (now 9, but not on same alignment)
1895 – fourth LBSCR track (down slow) built, using former up WLER face of platform 8 (now 14, re-sited). Up WLER tracks take over down line, and new down WLER line makes an island of platform 9 (now 15/16, resited)
1903- quadrupling of LSWR main line. “The up local line was diverted to the outer face of a new island platform No 4 [now 7] to allow the existing No 5 platform [9/10] to be enlarged in length and width, whilst the space between platforms 4 and 5 was to be laid out to accommodate the future up local and up through lines [i.e tracks 8 and 9] The resited up lines came into use in 1903, enabling the original up and down tracks to become a pair of down lines [current 10 and 11]”
There is nothing to suggest that there was any realignment of these tracks at that time. The original LSWR tracks became the down lines in 1903 and, when the change to pair by use happened in the 1930s, became the present slow lines. Platform 5 (now 9/10) was widened on the north (platform 9) side, but platform 10 is where it has always been.
It appears that there have been no major changes on the SW Main side since 1903.
May 1906 – new island for Kensington lines (No 1, now 0/1)
Nov 1906 – old Kensington departure platform rebuilt as island for up Windsor (no 2, now 3/4)
1907 – old Kensington departure/up Windsor island platform 3 rebuilt as island for down Windsor lines. Old No 4 demolished to create more siding space. Note that the new up loop/up slow on the “Main” side (now 7/8) had already been given the same number, 4)
This leaves the Windsor side substantially is it is now, apart from the closure of one face of the Kensington platform (now platform 0) and the addition of a bay (new platform 2)
1909 LBSCR remodelling. LBSCR platforms renumbered by faces 7-12 instead of structures.
New WLER arrival platform 12 (now 17)
WLER departures transferred to opposite face of platform 9 (renumbered 11, now 16)
Brighton down locals moved from platform 8 (south face) to platform 9 (north face), which became platform 10 and is now 15.
1910 – the central island (the former platform 8) was reconstructed and enlarged (presumably on the north side only, as the platform to its south was unmodified) to accommodate the up local (9, now 14) and down main (8, now 13) on a new alignment.
It is not stated when the narrow island No 7 was demolished, but presumably during the widening work.
Faulkner: “Number 7 [12] still hanlded up main line trains, and as the two companies had not co-ordinated their building, it remained as a narrow platform with flimsy wooden buildings and awnings. ……… Apart from war and fire damage, most of the platform buildings dating from the 1900 – 1910 recsnstruction remain in existence today”
Thus it seems the only opportunity to widen what is now platforms 11/12 would have been when old No 7 was removed, and the gap between 6 and 8 reduced by the width of that platform and its associated track. Faulkner says No 8 [13/14] was widened and 6 [11/12] was not, so track 12 must be on its original alignment . He also says the current LSWR slow lines are on their original alignment.
The “flimsy wooden buildings” on 11/12 were replaced in 1967,according to G.T.Moody’s “Southern Electric 1909-79”.
Functional to the point of bleak in style,these have been replaced in more recent years.
@Kalum – 16 May 2015 at 15:38
I am not sure if there is a more specific post about Elephant & Castle but in relation to the Bakerloo extension does anyone knows what is the status of the plans for the road and station improvements at E&C?
see http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/8186
and
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/roads/elephant/user_uploads/e-c-final-report-combined.pdf
and
https://www.tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/news-articles/a-turnaround-for-elephant-and-castle
@Timbeau
Thanks for your very interesting response. I am convinced that in 1874, the LSWR did widen the joint platform on their side and together with Platform 5. This image may help.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/depotcat/3955320261/
It also shows the remains of the LSWR 1885 Up Loop platform. My contention is that the curvature of the tracks around the platforms is about the same whilst in the later image, the LSWR initially has a lesser curve now in order that the joint platform could be widened. It is really apparent on site, from St.John`s Hill bridge.
I date the widening as 1874. So the quoted Faulkner statement I concur with,and does not really conflict. At the end of the day, I am saying that the Country end of Platforms 5 and 6 were altered slightly, so to all intents and purposes, the tracks serving the current platforms 10, 11 are almost on the original alignment and 12 certainly so.
Faulkner is a very good historian, but I have found errors in the book, and especially in Howard Turners as well. This is not to be ultra critical. And some of the errors only came to light when I saw original documents at Kew.
I am not sure if which Faulkner book you have, but the image on Page 33 of the Clapham Junction book surely is `proof` that the LSWR lines has been altered.
—
I disagree re 1876 northward extension of the station. Here, I got the impression `Faulkner` did not fully appreciate what happened, or simplified it somewhat. For example, the original WLER platforms were not straight, but had a pronounced curve.
–
You are correct about the platform numbers post 1876, I went from memory – should have checked! Where is stated 1,2 and 3, should be 2,3,and 4.
I trust other readers are finding this detailed discussion interesting.
@Timbeau
I forgot to add re 1908/1909 remodelling. Apart from the current Platform 12, all the LBSCR platforms 13,14,15,16 and 17 are on slightly different sites according to my research.
I have several map plans that may be of interest.
—
MODERATOR: Is it OK to add material out of copyright to Flickr?
@Steven Taylor. Your flickr image of the old access road to the LSWR station at Clapham Junction got my detective juices going. You can see a single tramline in the roadway (beneath the bus!). There’s no conduit so it must have been a horse tramway when the photo was taken. Delving into my references, I see the tramway was opened there around 1881-3 and was shown on an LCC map as still not electrified in 1904. So the presumed photo date of 1902 is not contradicted.
Sorry moderators- going off the off topic (Bakerloo- CJ? Trams? !!)
@Steven Taylor
“MODERATOR: Is it OK to add material out of copyright to Flickr?”
Yes.
One advantage which human moderators have is that we sometimes tolerate digressions, typically when they fascinate us AND we suspect that they fascinate a useful proportion of other readers AND the unfascinated (if they exist) have not yet started to act restless!
I am not on the “editorial board” but I think the results of the research referred to here would stand a good chance of being found suitable for a future article. See the link “I want to write” on the LondonReconnections home page.
@Fandroid
I never noticed the 1902 date. but it does fit in. Work on the new loop platform commenced in October 1900 and is obviously in use. The two new lines (in the middle area) were ready in early 1903, and clearly had not been constructed yet. So 1902 is fine. This is a lovely image, and shows the canopy style of the far Richmond and WLER lines to be the same as Platform 7, which makes sense as the rebuilding dates were 1876 and 1874 respectively. I have a much better TIFF of this image, but cannot put on the site as I paid the Science Museum £32 for it for my use only, and if I publish it in the LRR article I have to pay another £30. Reproduction rights can be expensive.
@Timbeau
I will take a photo tomorrow from the same position as the 1868/1870 article, to make a comparison much easier. I appreciate your comments – Very difficult when taken from different angles.
@Malcolm
Thanks for your thoughts. I was concerned that this may not be an appropriate forum to delve into detailed history. I will look at “I want to write”. Frankly, at the moment, I am behind on writing the LBSCR Clapham Junction article for the LRR, which I have promised for the October magazine.
@Steven Taylor. You are correct that LondonReconnections does not specialise in history. But history does form an important part of the mix of articles on the site.
@Malcolm – For my two pennyworth, I found Steven’s articles and the accompanying comments fascinating, and I’m glad these have been left to stand here. One general comment is that compared to the present day difficulties in moving tracks and infrastructure, the Victorians don’t seem to have been fazed by these things.
@Timbeau / others
Thanks for your comments finding this discussion interesting. I have just taken a picture of Clapham Junction – 2nd link below, the is roughly from the same viewpoint as the 1868/1870 image. It looks to me like the far left LSWR lines have been slewed slightly to enable the jointly owned centre island to be slightly widened, requiring the opposite side platform to be re-sited very slightly. We know from records that the left island platform was rebuilt in 1874, with new canopy, which survived into the 1960s (I remember it well – in the last few years, with extra wooden supports around the iron posts – very decrepit).
I would appreciate your views on my statement; the images seems to send a clear message, but amI barking up the wrong tree. Looking forward to any feedback.
(I appreciate this may not be as exciting as the viral post re `that` dress – Gold or blue)
https://www.flickr.com/photos/wandsworthheritageservice/5558861736/
https://www.flickr.com/photos/132506459@N07/
@ Steven Taylor – 17 May 2015 at 10:03
I certainly echoho the expressions of others who would like to see you write an article on this topic!
re: extensions. You could compare the OS 25″ or 50″ maps at different dates: some are on the nls site. http://maps.nls.uk/index.html
and you could prepare overlays.
E.g. compare
http://maps.nls.uk/view/103313105 (rev.1869)
http://maps.nls.uk/view/101919921 (rev.1893-4) and
http://maps.nls.uk/view/101202093
with
http://maps.nls.uk/view/103313372 (rev.1913)
TNA at Kew should have a full collection. Some are available, (at a slightly reduced scale) in the Alan Godfrey Maps series.
Another very useful source for some areas in London is the Survey of London that is the hands of the school of architecture at UCL.
For background see:
https://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/architecture/research/survey-of-london/
The coverage is central London and expanding outwards bit by bit and the Battersea book (published Nov 2013) is available on line and has an entire chapter of 51 pages covering the railways and their buildings in the Battersea area (including Nine Elms, Battersea Park, Queens Town Road, Stewarts Lane and Clapham Junction:
https://www.bartlett.ucl.ac.uk/architecture/research/survey-of-london/battersea/documents/49.7.__Railway_chapter.pdf
Happy reading!
@John U.K. / ngh
Thanks for your feedback. I am pleased to say I discovered the superb nls site for maps. A really valuable resource.
I bought a very good collection of railway books plus the recent 2 volume set on Battersea. What I learnt from Peter Kay, historian, and editor of London Railway Record, is to go to original sources where possible, as the 2 volume book on Battersea is great read, but had errors re Wandsworth Common Station. Another example is always look at the Deposited Plans first(assuming they exist) and if the act is passed, read the actual Act (available at Kew National Archives) and also House of Lords Record office (need to book in advance). London Metropolitan Archives have an excellent set of Deposited Plans for London entities.
I was recommended by an historian to try Ebay. Initially sceptical to say the least, this has been brilliant. You can pick up a 100 + year old postcard for usually £10, and then you have the Reproduction rights as well.
Are we getting away from the subject of a Bakerloo Line extension a bit now?
Yes. Does anyone have any news?
Depends where you’re planning to extend it! It would, after all, be just as easy to extend it to Clapham Junction as it would to extend the Drain, and that has been suggested (and pooh-poohed) many times!
I have studied all the photographs in Faulkner again (which include both the ones previously linked) . Unfortunately there are none between the very early one (c1870) and a glut around the turn of the century (during and after the quadrupling of the LSWR side) and then none again until after WW1. In particular it would be good to see one during or shortly after the rebuilding of what is now P13/14, giving some clue as to whether the narrowing of the gap between the up and down Brighton fast platforms after the original up slow track and platform were removed was done by widening platform 6 (12 as well as platform 8 (13). (Comparison with post WW1 photos is difficult because too many reference points, such as the girders of the old LBSCR footbridge, have disappeared after WW1.
If the original up LSWR platform (original 5, now 10) was moved further back to allow the tracks to be realigned and in turn allow widening of platform 6 (now 11), it must have been done quite soon after the earlier photo was taken – probably around the time of the rebuilding of the station buildings on that platform some time around 1880 which Faulkner mentions. Indeed, looking at how close to the platform edge the building line is in the 1870 photo, it is likely that the platform could not have been moved back without demolishing the original buildings. However, it is noticeable how much closer to the platform edge the building line (and the subway entrance) is on platform 10 compared to platform 9. (Noting that what is now the frontage onto platform 9 had to be extensively modified in 1902 when it ceased to be the LSWR entrance to the station, (accessed by the ramp from St Johns Hill shown in the 1902 picture).
The platform which marks the LSWR/LBSCR boundary (6, now 11/12) certainly looks wider in all the turn-of-the century photos – there is a good one in Faulkner taken from that platform looking towards the St Johns Hill bridge, and another which shows a cross-shaped object on the platform ramp, off-centre towards the Brighton side. Could this be a boundary marker of some kind?
Not sure how useful these are to the matter in hand,but they are interesting and of the era being discussed….
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=1005026532843324&set=gm.10152696630075566&type=1&theater
https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10152552750439040&set=gm.10152081724015566&type=1&theater
In an earlier comment I indicated that massive digressions like this are sometimes tolerated. There are limits, however, and we may be approaching them now. This is not meant to signal a crash stop for Clapham Junction history, but perhaps a gentle deceleration could start sometime soon…
@Timbeau
Many thanks for your very detailed response. Much appreciated.
@Malcolm
We are in`unison` here. I felt the discussion has just about reached the limits here. Frankly, a 400 page book could probably be written about Clapham Junction station, so much information. My spirit`s were lifted that several readers appreciated delving into the history.
@Slugabed
Cannot access Facebook at present – will try later.
So, back to the bakerloo line, I was wondering if people think that the underground stations at Lewisham, New Cross Gate etc would be like the original underground stations or more like those seen on the jubilee line extension?
@Kingston Commuter
Depends on the projected footfall, and whether the entrance is part of the existing station or a separate building next door, but I would expect the standalone stations at OKR (or Camberwell) to be more like Bermondsey than North Greenwich.
At New Cross, there is an area of undeveloped land directly next to the station, that could be used to build an open box style station.
At Lewisham, you’d have to demolish the shop units surrounded by the A20 and A2210 to get some space. But then you’d also be pinching the bus stand now that they’ve decided to build on every other spare square inch of ground around the station….
I think at Lewisham there is still undeveloped (or low rise) land West of the Station. It would be easy to get a link up to the platform subway level from there.
It’s close enough to the Town centre, but it would be anyway if you still wanted an interchange with the Station.
@Southern Heights
Do you mean New Cross, or New Cross Gate (which is where I understood the station was proposed to be). Google Earth shows a small open space to the NE of each station – but whether either of them is already earmarked (or already built on since the satellite passed over!) I wouldn’t know.
It is a bit relevant to this thread to state whereas I have previously mentioned ideas to extend the Greenford branch to run Greenford – Ealing Bdy, Acton – (WLL) – Clapham Junction, I have now found my source. It is in a document on the web posted by EPTUG, the Ealing Passenger Transport Users Group, and not only was this C1980 idea revived by them in the 2009 document which can now be found on their site, there is an idea to further extend from Clapham Junction to Beckenham Junction. So now, I have re-discovered the source and I’m not commenting on the feasibility, but it’s there for all to see.
So, their “idea” is not to serve Beckenham via a Bakerloo extension, but by serving Beckenham via Greenford- Ealing – Olympia and Clapham Junction
(I am not a member of EPTUG and give no personal opinion. I am just pleased to have found the source for my previous postings)
Re Timbeau
New Cross Gate – the area is still vacant as it was /is the work site for the station rebuilding including delivery and craning in of the footbridge parts.
@timbeau: Yes, I did mean New Cross Gate…
Might it be possible to make passive provision for a bakerloo station under the area where the SEML and the BML join and cross the overground lines (near Deptford Park) in case an interchange station is built there in the future?
The industrial units can always be sacrificed, but it makes little sense to do it as the lines are far too busy to allow trains to stop.
You would be looking at something more the size of London Bridge if you were to attempt to build one. Plus the Overground would be hard pressed to cope with the additional load…
Bakerloo line extension: TfL to make the case to Treasury
Saturday 11 July 2015
Transport for London will this month present a business case for an extension of the Bakerloo line to the Treasury in advance of the Government spending review due to be published later this year.
http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/8381
It is interesting that the local authority in Bromley still disagrees with the residents, seeing as the local authority are the people’s representatives and thus should represent their views.
Kingstoncommuter
Ah but this is BROMLEY Council we are talking about here.
I take it you have never had dealings with them….?
@Slugabed
I am well aware of Bromley council’s reputation, I just don’t understand WHY they always seem to behave in this way.
@ Kingstoncommuter – come now. [Excessive sarcasm snipped from a comment which is already teetering on the brink of being too party-political. Malcolm] Out of 60 seats on Bromley Council the Tories control 51 so they have no real reason to listen to opposition. I cannot foresee a situation where they could lose 22 seats in one go and even then they might be able to govern as a minority administration depending on who won the other seats. The next elections are not until 2018 (I think) so again no imminent electoral threat.
@Kingstoncommuter:
Much the same problem exists across much of Kent. For a number of reasons too tedious to get into here, there’s quite a big disconnect between the political and upper classes, and the rest of the population that has to actually work in the region. The former are almost exclusively interested in improved radial commuter services and see Kent as a giant dormitory suburb; the latter want better local and regional services so they can get to work. [And that’s enough sociology for now, would commenters please stick to transport issues. Malcolm]
@Anomnibus: I just don’t think they’ve realised that they are part of London now (and have been for over 50 years).
@Southern Heights
They do realise, but would rather it hadn’t happened and try to pretend it never did.
@Southern Heights, timbeau and anyone else with a masochistic streak:
Old maps, like this one, show Bromley sitting in splendid isolation well into the 1920s. Croydon, on the other hand, was already part of the greater London conurbation. (Even the Bromley North branch runs mostly through open countryside on that map.)
The mid-1920s saw the building of the Downham and Bellingham estates, but the first sections didn’t open until 1930, so there are still people alive today who can (just) remember when it really was ‘all fields’. The Downham and Bellingham estates are also almost entirely in Lewisham, not Bromley, and some of the latter’s residents really weren’t happy about it. Snobbery, thy name is Bromley:
“In 1926 a seven foot wall was placed across Valeswood Road, at its junction with Alexandra Crescent. It was built by a private estate developer in response to objections from Bromley’s private home owners to ‘vulgar’ people using their road as a short cut to Bromley’s town centre. Bromley’s Town Council refused to remove the wall and the L.C.C. and Lewisham Council found themselves powerless to remove it either. It was not removed until the early part of the Second World War, when fire engine access became essential.” [Source. (Scroll down; it’s next to the final photo.)]
I’ve lived in both Bromley and Lewisham boroughs and there’s always been a bit of rivalry between the two, usually revolving around class, though it’s nowhere near as bad today as it used to be. Bromley’s parochialism will fade away over time, but it’ll be a while yet before they consider welcoming Tramlink and the Bakerloo with open arms.
(My apologies to the mods for the tangential topicality of this post, but it’s hard to avoid politics when planning and designing infrastructure on any non-trivial scale. Infrastructure is built for people, and wherever you have people, you have politics.)
[True, but irrelevant. When we remove political comments, it is not from any dislike of politics as such, just that experience shows that the primary purpose of the site is not well served by allowing them full reign. When commenters do feel compelled to make comments such as these, they are more likely to remain if they are phrased in a non-inflammatory way (as this one is), and concise (where this one does not do so well; but Anomnibus got lucky this time). Malcolm]
I have insider knowledge as well…..I grew up in Orpington, and still regularly travel there to stay with my parents whenever work doesn’t keep me in Cambridge.
There’s so much I could say about the London Borough of Bromley, but I don’t want to raise the ire of Malcolm, so I’ll limit it to this.
The political make up of the council is partly due to local demographics, but largely a direct result of who can be bothered to vote in local council elections.
Therefore, the councillors who are elected predominantly represent the views (held by themselves as well) of a sizeable (but by no means large) minority of voters with very set views about the world and the way it should work.
Hence when it comes to big decisions on issues such as transport which are beneficial for all Londoners, but *might* be perceived as diadvantages to the good burghers and burghesses of Bromley, then unless they’re handled with care, they’ll cry fowl and use whatever means they have to fight against this. This was a major reason why Bromley took the GLC to court over Fares Fair.
I don’t think it is insurmountable to convince the council as to why a Bakerloo extension to Hayes is a good idea; it will just require time and a lot of patient discussion with them as to the merits of it, and why their views on alternatives aren’t realistic or viable (if you look at the council’s official reply to last year’s consultation, they still prefer a DLR or LO extension to the Bromley North branch; might I suggest we point them in the direction of the LR page on the Bromley North branch to demonstrate the folly of these?).
There’s also the problem of internal party-political faction fighting, which can royally screw almost any transport project.
The disagreement between politicos in Bromley & their neighbours in Kent has been spoken of before, & is, very fortunately, relevant to the transport issues we are supposed to be discussing here.
Getting everyone “On side” before beginning any major project or alteration is an often overlooked piece of the jigsaw, & that’s without dealing with the oversized egos of some politicos – see Graham H’s comments in other places (!)
There’s another one brewing in my home borough of LBWF, right now, but it isn’t relevant to this thread, but is relevant to the cycling one, so I’ll shut up.
@timbeau: I think you hit the nail on the head there. It is of course a self correcting problem and just needs time to sort itself out…
@Southern heights – I wish history proved you right – however, we’ve had over half a century now of Bromley posturing – a time span which must surely mean that the number of residents/councillors surviving from before the incorporation into London is going to be small – and yet no change in attitudes.
More generally, I fear transport planners,however rational, must take account of long-term prejudices (difficult to model,I know) . [I had a great uncle who was born in Deal in about 1880 but refused well nto his nineties to travel to Town by the Chatham route – “A dirty railway” ] What hope is there for a sensible debate on Bromley’s needs?
@Graham H….They might be be modest in number (but not that small….it was only in 65 that it became part of Greater London, so you only have to be in your 60s or older to remember the “good old days”), but the fact is that they’re more likely to vote, whereas the newer/younger residents are far less likely to vote. And those that do are more likely (due to socio-economic status) to share similar views to their older neighbours. Thus we get the borough council we probably deserve :(.
@Anonymously – well, yes, I would agree with the last sentence but – people move on average every 7 years, so the number of pre-1965 relics will reduce accordingly – and in my experience few 15 year olds establish an empathy with the areas where they live, so we are really talking about the over 70s – probably the over 75s. I would make the more disturbing point that clearly two or three wholly new generations who have grown up within the GLA now take a similar view to their once Kentish relatives… It would be interesting to know why.
But isn’t that my point? 15-year olds *now* might not establish an empathy with where they grew up (I certainly didn’t, hence why I moved away!), but this might not be so for people of an older generation who grew up in a time when people were far less mobile than they are nowadays. Also, the Kentish identity didn’t disappear overnight…..even during the 1980s and 90s when I was growing up there, all of the adults around me would only refer to ‘Bromley/Orpington, Kent’, never ‘Bromley/Orpington, Greater London’. I only realised I actually lived in London thanks to an A-Z! It probably didn’t help that the postal county (remember those?) didn’t change with the new administrative boundary, but for better or worse, there remains a nostalgia amongst some residents for the days when it wasn’t just another London suburb.
I’m not quite convinced by your ‘new generations’ argument….the people from that area who I grew up with and some of whom I remain friends with to this day (from the type of socio-economic background you’re alluding to) do not necessarily share the views of their parents, but take very little interest in local politics, and probably don’t vote in local elections, AFAIK. They are more likely though to respond to a TfL online consultation (assuming it was well publicised?)….this is the reason I think why there was such a disconnect between residents’ responses and the council’s response.
Plus I think Southern Heights is right……these things go in cycles, and there will come a time when the political compositions of Bromley Council swings back to something a bit more sensible (in fact, for a few years around the turn of the century, the council was run by a Lib/Lab coalition, but they screwed up their short period in power leading to the current Tory hegemony). And if not, it’s going to take around 10 years minimum before any serious construction work starts, so there’s still plenty of time to convince them!
Bromley has little cause to feel part of London. Not on the Tube map, all rail services part of NR (apart from an errant tramline on the extreme edge) postcodes not London, and separated from most of the rest of London by a big hill. It has London buses, but then until the 1980s London buses (albeit green ones) got as far as Crawley.
Overground does penetrate the eastern edges of the borough of Bromley, but Penge is not part of the historic town of Bromley (it is historically part of Surrey, not Kent)
As the name Bromley is not unique, it has to be qualified to ensure post is not misdirected to e.g Bromley by Bow, or other namesakes in Essex, Yorkshire or Worcestershire. And adding “Kent” is the clearest and most concise way of doing that.
Kingston is similar in outlook, for all the same reasons (except it doesn’t have a tram) – “Kingston, Surrey” fits in address boxes on forms: “Kingston-upon-Thames” often doesn’t. The fact that Surrey County Council’s main offices are still in Kingston fifty years after the creation of the LBKuT probably helps:
you can take Kingston out of Surrey, but you can’t take Surrey out of Kingston……….
Sometimes local authority decisions are not made by a local authority. Sometimes, a small sub-committee (often containing a few vested interests) make the “recommendation for rubber stamping”, and on other occasions the decision is passed down from the County Council or even occasionally from Gov’t itself. Do not blame ALL the councillors for what is happening in Bromley.
Essex has a notorious history, as we shall probably find the Ealing Tramlink scheme does too.
@Anonymously et al
This is a good point to end the discussion on Bromley (Kent)’s voting demographics as it is getting off-topic. LBM
@Graham H, Anonymously, et al:
I was raised in Beckenham. London ‘proper’ started in neighbouring Penge, and there was definitely an element of snobbery if you had “Kent, BR3…” in your address rather than “London, SE20…”. That Penge suffered badly during the Blitz didn’t help; unlike its neighbours, Penge has an awful lot of mediocre blocks of flats, rather than the usual streets of Victorian housing.
To this day, you can still sense the lips curling in disdain as you travel from Penge towards Bromley on a 227 bus.
Graham H
That makes me – in the same house since 1948, somewhat unusual then?
Given that my parents were children in the next road in the 1920’s presumably even more so(!)
Anonymously
But “party” politics is (almost) irrelevant, actually – it’s the egos & personal programmes, especially of “local” politicians that make or break these transport & other problems. As I’ve mentioned before, we have one here & Castlebar’s comment is extremely apposite: Sometimes local authority decisions are not made by a local authority. Sometimes, a small sub-committee (often containing a few vested interests) make the “recommendation for rubber stamping”….
Yes, in spades.
And now Croydon Council want to mount a commando raid on the Bakerloo Line extension to bring it to Croydon if Bromley aren’t interested. You couldn’t make it up.
http://www.croydonguardian.co.uk/news/13489065.Croydon_Council_preparing_ambitious_bid_for_Bakerloo_Tube_line_extension/
Re WW,
Some interesting ideas which suggest some north eastern part(s) of Tramlink might get converted to Bakerloo.
It looks like they are thinking about via Birkbeck and Norwood Junction or via Elmers End & Addiscombe.
Unfortunately they have built on some of the useful bits… (but nothing expensive!)
It would still need to serve Hayes though otherwise it is a non starter.
@WW
The good news:
Lewisham and Croydon boroughs talk a similar language. They are also major S / SE centres and interchanges with no quick, convenient direct service between – don’t tell me about the 75 bus!
So IF there is a Bakerloo capacity case to go southwards from Catford (where I am with Graham H that there may not be) then we are into an inter-suburban/orbital corridor where Croydon is tons better than Hayes. BUT…
The less good news…
Four major problems
(1) if the Bakerloo were routed via the Mid Kent Line, how then do you serve Hayes in any form whatsoever that might be acceptable to local residents?
(2) what is the engineering, cost and BCR of a tube link between one lot of rail infrastructure, the Mid Kent Line, and Croydon, as opposed to other types of direct links between those centres?
(3) there are no grandfather rights for tube trains to share with main line trains around the Norwood-Croydon tangle.
(4) overall, might need to be a costly separate route/tunnel into Croydon then, possibly with Tramlink implications.
That’s probably enough queries for a first canter round the subject.
But there remains the orbital transport gap defined above.
Elsewhere in these comments there has been a level of interest in a different sort of linkage, but continuing towards Canary and Stratford not Central London.
Certainly no one in right mind will take an all-stations tube from Croydon to Central London, so any rationale has to be fundamentally different.
It would seem that with the new fiscal year, beginning 6th April, many local authorities bought maps and crayons.
Last night on BBC South we were subjected to Surrey C.C. schemes to extend CR2 to Guildford & Woking via a bifurcation. If all the ideas proposed for the Southern end of the Bakerloo were to be put into effect, the Bakerloo would have more arms at the southern end than an octopus. It seems that the longer this goes on, the more “new ideas” there are for the Bakerloo, and I wonder, do they all have to be equally considered which is only going to further delay any decision being made?? If it goes to Croydon after all, are Bromley likely to call “Foul!”?
Unless there is going to be an awful lot of extra tunnelling, any extension from Lewisham towards Croydon is going to have to use the mid-Kent line, which is the only line to Hayes, and since there are no grandfather rights that means all trains on that line will have to be Tube sized. Beyond Elmers End, Tramlink is in the way – the BML2 lobby have already suggested that it could be moved for their own proposal for that corridor, but unless you want to run the Bakerloo all the way to the South Coast (BakerLewes?) the two projects are incompatible.
Or maybe Croydon are proposing transferring the Croydon branch of the Overground to the Bakerloo? problems with this are:
– it would require the NR tracks on the Forest Hill line to be reduced to just two, again because the lack of grandfather rights precludes mixed working
– you cannot get from Lewisham to the Forest Hill line without a very circuitous route and a long tunnel, and probably not joining that line until Honor Oak Park – what happens to Brockley?
@ Castlebar
We’ve always had the maps and crayons in local government – planning is part of our role, after all. What is potentially hastening the latest round of ostensibly silly-season proposals is the next cycle of cuts that the Spending Review will bring in the autumn and, of more import, the news that Osborne and the Treasury are finally going to move on an overhaul of local government financing to replace in part the formula grant. Business rate relocalisation, council tax rebanding and value capture taxation and variants thereof are among the options that will be considered. Which is why every forward-looking local authority with even a passable chance of some big new infrastructure paid for by someone else is going to be throwing its hat in the ring right now.
THC
@ THC
Thanks for your posting. It explains much, and I understand now why it is all suddenly happening.
Re THC,
” Which is why every forward-looking local authority with even a passable chance of some big new infrastructure paid for by someone else is going to be throwing its hat in the ring right now.”
And therefore Bromley is forward looking? 😉
@ ngh
I sense our friends on Bromley Council may have a rather Majorian view of their future, a Bromley of “long shadows on county grounds, warm beer [and] invincible green suburbs”. They’re not conservatives for nothing!
THC
Various musings above have pondered on how far the Bakerloo Line tunnels extend beyond the Elephant & Castle, most if not all concluding (probably in conjunction with the map Carte Metro tells us) that they terminate just beyond the sidings. However, whilst researching something else, I came across this Statement in Hansard, House of Commons when discussing a London Transport Bill in December, 1979:
“Mr. Ronald W. Brown: My hon. Friend will be aware that in 1948 permission was given for the extension of a line from the Elephant and Castle to Camberwell Green and on to Lewisham from there. In fact, one and a half miles of tunnel has been dug and provided along the Walworth Road. However, when the Conservative Government came into power in 1952 that scheme was killed. We therefore have one and a half miles of tunnel available. That scheme should have continued, but the Fleet Line has been given priority over the completion of that work.”
Was he in fact correct in that is there actually that length existing under the Walworth Road towards Camberwell? If not, where did he get that figure from to quote in a Parliamentary debate?
@Graham Feakins: I don’t know the answer to your question, but “one and a half miles of tunnel” is ambiguous – is that the total length of single-track tunnelling (maybe including crossovers etc) or the length of route?
I’m not sure the rest of his account is correct – parliamentary powers were obtained in 1931, not 1948, for a line to Denmark Hill, not Lewisham. Also the Bakerloo extension was cancelled by July 1951 before the Conservatives came to power (in 1951, not 1952). So it’s all a bit Radio Yerevan.
The Hon Member for Hackney South & Shoreditch (and brother of Lord George Brown ) must have been mistaken – one and a half miles of over-run tunnel would take you all the way to Camberwell. And I’m sure it woukld have been mentioned on this thread
http://www.districtdavesforum.co.uk/thread/24028/original-tunnel-alignment-elephant-castle
I think I’m with Ian J on this one – Might the 1.5 mile include the over run and cross over tunnels, the section of test tunnel in New Cross near the ELL and the abandoned section pointing towards Old Kent Road? If so the answer might just come to something like 1.5miles but not 1.5 useful miles!
@ Graham Feakins: According to the ever useful TFL property asset register the Bakerloo line tunnels at the Elephant end approximately under the NR bridge over Walworth Road (The map shows the Fleet Line tunnels to Aldwych, so it’s unlikely that there’s anything further down Walworth Road – also the BGS boreholes map shows that the test drillings from 1973 when the Peckham extension was being considered start at the Elephant which suggests that there weren’t any tunnels down there already)
@Vince, @others
My presentation in September 2011 to the London Underground Railway Society about a Bakerloo Line extension, shows in photos where the two tunnels stop, in slide 5: http://www.jrc.org.uk/PDFs/Beyond-The-Elephant.pdf
The NB tunnel starts under a small air vent behind the E&C shopping mall. The vent is the one that looks like a metal chimney with struts in the picture, at service road level, which you can see if you use the pedestrian link from the shopping centre to E&C NR station. It is the remains of a construction shaft for the Camberwell Extension.
The SB tunnel ends just the far side of the National Rail bridge over the Walworth Road. The end is roughly where the bus is beyond the bridge, in the slide.
The Southern/TfL edition of Quail (No.5) pinpoints the end of the tracks, in terms of distances, with some precision. Basically there is a crossover south of the platforms, and stabling tracks beyond, numbered 23 NB and 24 SB. The centre point of E&C Bakerloo platforms is at 40.74 km, the NB buffers at 40.44 and the SB buffers at 40.38. So respectively 328 and 393 yards south of the platform centre point. Enough to stable a train each, possibly two on the northbound, but no more than that.
@Vince
Picking up Vince’s point about BGS borehole data available on line, readers might wish to check out these three boreholes, undertaken clearly for potential works (the next round of New Works schemes were being considered in 1937) , one of which (No.3) is precisely on the site of the NB air shaft shown in the photograph already mentioned: http://scans.bgs.ac.uk/sobi_scans/boreholes/598889/images/12227205.html .
It is referenced as TQ37NW1783 — FARRELL COURT PASSENGER T/PORT BH3
British National Grid (27700) : 532062,178934. Depth: 28.96m. BGS ID: 598889.
The boring details and below-ground soils and their depths are shown in page 1, a surface plan showing where the bores were taken in page 2 (nice plan there of the tramlines in the E&C junction area, Graham F to note!), and the commissioning details and report summary, undertaken for the LPTB, are in page 3.
Continuing down the Camberwell extension, and later schemes, on the BGS site, there are further series of boreholes, eg for 1949-50 and 1973, which can give you happy hours of research. The furthest south of the 1949-50 scheme borings was south of the Denmark Hill/Coldharbour Lane junction, at Ashworth Close, so only half-way between Camberwell Green and the main line station at Denmark Hill, and also appearing to point due south rather than towards Peckham, where a very different alignment is defined by the 1973 borings.
NB: for Long Branch Mike’s benefit, there are lots of borings also for the Fleet and Jubilee Lines across Central, East and SE London! There some in the middle of the River as well – try this 1966 Fleet Line one opposite Wapping station as an example:
http://scans.bgs.ac.uk/sobi_scans/boreholes/597247/images/12228918.html
Thanks for your various replies, which I prefer naturally to believe. As well as being the Hon Member for Hackney South & Shoreditch, Ronald W. Brown, was also Leader of the London Borough of Southwark, so a mere mortal might have expected that he knew something of what lay below his borough’s streets and hence my question.
Ronald Brown, not to be confused with his colleague and namesake, the mace-wielding member for Leith. The 1979 – 1983 Parliament was the only one in which they both served (Ronald’s last before he defected to the SDP and lost his seat, Ron’s first)
Update today!
Bakerloo line extension Responses to the main issues raised September 2015
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/tube/bakerloo-extension/user_uploads/bakerloo-line-extension-responses-to-issues-raised.pdf
Enjoy!
@Briantist – Thank you for the link. Most instructive, even if Dr Pangloss appears to have had a hand is some of the TfL responses. I do hope contributors to this thread will read the whole thing very carefully before reigniting many of the debates already exhausted here and elsewhere…
Some interesting Bromley bits from the above mentioned response:
“A Bakerloo line extension link to Bromley town centre from Beckenham Junction would not operate on National Rail tracks between these stations. It is currently proposed that this connection would be constructed in a tunnel underground.
The Underground services would therefore operate between these stations independent from the National Rail services that currently operate between Beckenham Junction and Bromley South station.
From Beckenham Junction to Bromley town centre a new tunnelled section of underground is currently proposed.
Bromley’s current, direct links to Victoria from Bromley South station would remain the fastest way to reach Victoria station from Bromley town centre and vice versa ”
[As a general rule, quoting from a referenced source is not encouraged, as readers, if interested, can read it direct. If your point here is that the quoted matter is particularly surprising, then it might be helpful to say why. Malcolm]
@Graham H
Yes, I think it would be helpful if people did read it first.
I’m impressed by 10.3 “Re-open Camberwell and Walworth Road stations”. Having explained over and again that TfL doesn’t control National Rail, it then says “TfL will work with Network Rail and the London Borough of Southwark to consider how services can be improved to benefit travel to these locations.” Is that a no?
Re Graham H,
Indeed plenty of small morsels.
I suspect TfL are hoping that no one reads it too carefully and spots they frequently argue yes and no in different places on certain points.
First public acknowledgement of the Southwark + NR look at thinking about Camberwell reopening in the Bakerloo extension documentation. The commiseration prize is being reddied.
Hidden in the appendices (p38), an extra 3tph stopping at Lewisham (18 to 21tph in am peak hour) without Haykerloo which is one of the first public signs of benefits of the all SE trains stopping at London Bridge post Jan 2018 and service alterations (Greenwich to Cannon Street only etc), and infrastructure such as the Tanners Hill flydown doubling.
Re Briantist 1215,
Mostly old news – the mayor gave a tiny grant for some work (Southwark and NR) over a year ago and this was covered in a previous LR Haykerloo article comments however the potential re-openings and Haykerloo work never seems to acknowledge the existence of the other till now – that is the new news.
A somewhat different response in tone compared to the Barking Riverside extension document. Section 1:15 especially telling ‘if a decision is made to progress’ with several references to costs, competing with XR2 etc & need for developer funds (as with Battersea). Seems to give TfL plenty of opportunity to consign this extension proposal to the history books with the other aborted schemes, or progress with a truncated scheme to Lewisham only (mentioned several times)
The benefit-cost ratios of each individual section should be interesting to see prior to the next consultation (I suspect heavily weighted in favour of alignments with ‘funding opportunities’. I wonder if the Kent RUS will assume the scheme goes ahead, if not NR may have to come up with some other clever ideas for maximising capacity than removing the Hayes trains.
Re Snowy,
Taking over and converting Lewisham (SW of Court Hill Loop North Jn) to Hayes will be comparatively cheap and far quicker (from start of design work) than tunnelling from Elephant – Lewisham and the financial models for both parts could be very different. The decision to go ahead south of Lewisham – Hayes could probably be finally take 5 years later than E&C – Lewisham and still open at the same time!
E&C – Lewisham could be part funded by development along the route whereas Lewisham – Hayes could be part funded by development in areas getting better NR services as a result of the 6tph to Hayes no longer running for example.
ngh
Good point in regards to the timescales, the document iteslf mentions that the Hayes line would remain under NR operation whilst the tunnels are bored.
Interesting suggestion about the funding models. Can S106 funding be used in that way? Presumably the developers in the areas which benefit from the extra tph (I’m assuming as a generalisation outer suburbs & Kent county) might have to cover the cost of the services if the TOC doesn’t think they would be financially viable but surely they wouldn’t be made to contribute towards the Bakerloo extension if it’s not in their area?
Even if they are forced to contribute, the current crossrail community infrastructure levy is weighted higher for central london & decreasing with zonal distance (as far as I’m aware calculated on amount of crowding produced by a development with central developments assumed to have a higher percentage of rail use, therefore increased crowding so are expected to contribute more). If the Bakerloo extension follows this model then those distant places which gain the benefits from extra train paths contribute the least. As a second point, the levy being mayoral controlled presumably doesn’t apply outside the london boundary either thus how could it be enforced?
Lets not forget that a couple of stations from some stations on the Hayes line have huge housing opportunities themselves – tens of thousands possible – and there are already concrete plans in the high hundreds / low thousands at Lower Sydenham and Catford Bridge.
Apologies for the rubbish first sentence above. Altered the post but forgot to erase some parts.
Bromley council lost on appeal against many houses on former industrial land by Lower Sydenham station earlier this year. This has potentially opened the floodgates for more housing there. I doubt the Hayes line can cope so something will have to give in 5-10 years.
Re Snowy,
1. Make sure the extra NR services don’t go to far beyond the mayoral boundary (e.g. Dartford or Orpington all stops).
2. Have a Bakerloo and associated area transport projects levy and vary it at Borough level for background funding. Close by development extracting individual negotiated S106 for larger ammounts?
e.g.
I.e. reopening Camberwell and Walworth Road hit Southwark and Lambeth for a certain amount of background level funding with very near by developments getting hit harder.
Tunnelled Section – hit everything in Southwark and Lewisham for a certain amount of background level funding with very very near by developments getting hit very hard.
Lewisham – Hayes Section – hit everything in Lewisham and Bromley for a certain amount of background level funding with very near by developments getting hit very hard.
Improved NR suburban service area) due to released paths from the Hayes services) Greenwich, Lewisham, Bromley, Bexley – hit these area with a background level charge.
Even if the levy in Bexley pays for ticket gating (& enforcement initially) / leasing more stock / additional EMU stabling area. There is a certain amount of fungibility to the funding when it actually enters the system.
I’m delighted to see 10.3 Walworth Road and Camberwell Road stations being mentioned. Thameslink services would make an ideal commiseration prize, especially as the line is already there.
@ngh – “hit Southwark and Lambeth for a certain amount of background level funding with very near by developments getting hit harder.” – Maybe a tad late for that, for masses of redevelopment and new build is already taking place between Camberwell Green and the Elephant via Walworth Road, or did you mean existing developments of affordable housing will have to contribute more through council benefits?
Required new housing development cannot hang around for the Bakerloo extension. Mind you, some relief might have been there almost by now should the Cross River Tram……
@ngh…..I’m afraid putting together the words ‘levy’ and ‘Bromley’ is akin to putting together ‘red rag’ and ‘bull’. They’re already cool enough on the idea as it is…..don’t give them an excuse to fight it like they did in the 80s with Fares Fair! The resulting political mess will then result in everyone losing out.
Given that Network Rail has the most to gain from a transfer away of the Hayes line, why not ask them for a contribution, at least for this part of the line?
Re Graham F and Anonymously,
1. Unless TfL act quickly every developer will have huge numbers of buildings up before they get the funding model approved.
2. “Given that Network Rail has the most to gain from a transfer away of the Hayes line, why not ask them for a contribution, at least for this part of the line?”
Rather NR passengers benefit – so just put it on tickets and for example move everything in Bromley out one Zone instead?
The big cost with conversion Lewisham – Hayes (with some stopping short at Beckenham Junction) is probably the 24-25 extra trains (inc. maintenance cover).
Fares Fare – But they’ll have the tube this time!
@Snowy and others – -just how much CIL/S106 money do you think there would be? It’s pretty difficult to extract more than about £10k per dwelling from developers so funding the extension beyoynd Lewisham (somewhere north of £250m plus rolling stock) would need money from 25-50000 dwellings if fully funded. I don’t thinl LB Bromleyknew that its population was about to double. If you looked at a more realistic number of dwellings – say< 10 000, you'd raise only about £50m – not a gamechanger…
@GH
Dwelling numbers probably even worse than that, the document reports only 2500 dwellings & 2000 jobs in Bromley (town centre) which isn’t going to cover much of the tunneling costs for the Bromley spur. There are also no opportunity/intensification areas along the Hayes branch beyond Catford to cover this section. Clearly it will be cap in hand to the treasury if TfL proceed with this (which I guess we already knew/assumed & TfL clearly know & are not that confident of getting the funds).
Re GH & Snowy,
As with Crossrail the local funding elements would be a contribution not payment in full. If nothing is offered locally then they aren’t likely to get anything.
Bromley borough is a big and varied place. It’s north west corner is far more urban in tone than even the town centre. Moving the already poorer areas of Penge and Anerley out one zone is not helpful to those needing to travel towards town for work. Indeed there has been a movement to move Penge into zone 3 as Sydenham and Crystal Palace are.
@Snowy – even less of a gamechanger, then! (Typical CIL money in this part of Surrey has been around the £1000-2000 per dwelling mark, so 2500 houses might buy a dab of paint on the stations…).
@ngh – it would be difficult to think of any part of the tube network (the odd station apart, perhaps) that had been paid for in full by a developer.
Snowy – “There are also no opportunity/intensification areas along the Hayes branch beyond Catford to cover this section”
That’s wrong. Look at the large industrial area by Lower Sydenham station within Bromley borough. After a long battle developers won approval for thousands of homes earlier this year. Those thousands are only on a fraction of the industrial estate.
The report of 2500 being the max seems to be overtaken by events.
I mean, clearly it wont cover the full costs, but if 5k could be built at Lower Sydenham and 5k at Bromley, that’s a decent income. 2.5k seems very conservative.
@Ed
Thanks for pointing that out, do you mean the Dylon development to the east of the station or are there plans for redevelopment of the Gardner and Abbey Estates to the west? By opportunity areas I was referring to the Mayoral designated areas to streamline planning approval for large scale redevelopments which I don’t think includes the Lower Sydenham area. In the Dylon case, being designated might have saved them a bit on the appeals process!
Whilst all developments would be expected to contribute s106 & CIL payments these developments are large enough that payments might at least cover a TfL roundel rather than just a tin of paint.
@Graham H
” it would be difficult to think of any part of the tube network (the odd station apart, perhaps) that had been paid for in full by a developer”.
……with the notable exception of that major property developer, the Metropolitan Railway.
CIL Community Infrastructure Levy, a planning charge introduced by the Planning Act 2008 for local authorities to help deliver infrastructure to support development of their area.
@timbeau – hardly “paid for in full” (which was my point – and until the extension got going, not paid for by property development at all…)
BTW – I wasn’t counting 23-24 Leinster Gardens as property development…
Just how much is it projected to cost to extend and convert the line from Lewisham to Hayes (assuming the extra tunnelled section into Bromley isn’t built)? We’re talking building the connection at Lewisham, converting the electrification and signalling, refurb of the stations (including step-free access and platform lowering), and perhaps a new depot/sidings somewhere en route. Assuming most of this work could be done using weekend and overnight possessions (and by running all trains fast from Ladywell using the spur onto the mainline), rather than a blanket closure as was necessary with the ELL and Wimbledon to Croydon conversions, hopefully not too much? The extra trains required can be added on for hopefully not too much extra cost onto the future huge NTFL order that will still be churning off the factory line around that time.
Given that most of the expenditure is going to be spent on getting the line to Lewisham in the first place, then the required contribution from property developers or Network Rail for this part of the line hopefully won’t be too much (ngh, I would strongly caution against raising commuter fares in this part of London by whatever means….that’s just putting a red rag to a different bull!).
I am bemused that anyone is expecting funding from Network Rail. Surely Network Rail will be *charging* TfL a load of money for its costs for surrendering its infrastructure or changing it where there will be interfaces? Network Rail is no longer independent either – it’s tied to the Treasury so you’ve effectively got a sort of “money go round” with HMT having to pay a significant sum to TfL to build the extension and TfL having to fork out to NR for their costs. I’m assuming here that the Bakerloo takes over the Hayes Line in its entirety.
I note that TfL have an expectation that the NLE funding model can be deployed for the Bakerloo Line. While there are designated Opportunity Development Areas (ODAs) on the line of the proposed extension I can’t see the same scope as there is at Battersea / Nine Elms for massive redevelopment and regeneration. This must restrict the scope for supplements on the rates to pay back the loans for line construction. This then gets us to a difficult combination of
a) Specific Treasury funding
b) Some money from TfL’s budget (still really HMT money)
c) A future Mayor having to create a new infrastructure levy – on top of the one for CR2?
d) Some private sector funding but unlikely to be huge for reasons set out already
e) Future farepayers funding borrowing repayments for decades into the future.
That’s quite a complex mix to put together and may not be acceptable to some / all stakeholders including the poor passengers.
‘Network Rail is no longer independent either – it’s tied to the Treasury so you’ve effectively got a sort of “money go round” with HMT having to pay a significant sum to TfL to build the extension and TfL having to fork out to NR for their costs.’
Welcome to the madness of today’s world :(.
@Anonymously – “hopefully” is one of those words like “surely” that lack, how shall we say, analytic force. As a rough guide to what it will cost to go from Lewisham to Hayes (about 6 miles) , there will be all of the following costs:
– 12 miles of single track; this will cost not less than £120m to judge from the cost of relaying the Borders line. Yes, I know NR have already placed track on the line, but it has not been intended to take the large step up in t/km (and therefore train tonnage) passing and if I were LU I would be relaying the whole thing. (Any thought that NR might take value out of the assets once they were on the way out is, of course, strictly forbidden).
– LU will have to re-electrify to their standards and very likely add a further substation, given the greatly enhance train weight to be moved – £50m?
– the line will have to be completely re-signalled to cater for the extra trains – another £50-100m?
– the portal works at Lewisham and associated gauntletting around the NR operation will have to be machine dug as TBMs cannot be used – £50m (assumes that it’s easy, requires no land or property acquisition)
– new depot – and more importantly. stabling sidings) -£50m upwards
– fettling up the stations, especially, as you remark altering platform heights (either by rebuilding or altering track levels ) probably the cheapest element here – £20m
– new trains – unfortunately Bombatranz and Siemens don’t behave like greengrocers – you want more trains, you pay for them; they don’t chuck in the odd sprout for free. In this case, the extension will be occupied at any one time by about 10-12 trains (if half the 36 tph is extended to Hayes) or 18-20 if every train runs through. [+ the usual 10% spares/engineering cover]. Taking the lower number, that will be about £100m worth of kit in transit on the extension.
– E&OE – don’t know what these might be but there will be some; it would be foolish to provide an estimate for the unexpected, however…
I make that £500m roughly. As you see, “hopefully” doesn’t really cut the mustard here.
Here’s a thought – Bakerloo trains already run over NR tracks north of Queens Park. Given that new trains would be needed anyway for the extended line (and the existing trains would be well over 50 years old) would it not be possible to leave the Hayes line as it is (Some changes to signal sighting because of the lower cab heights might be necessary), and probably some alterations to platform height.
Build the section from Lewisham to Elephant to NR standards (electrification and signalling, but not loading gauge of course)
Convert the Tube section to Queens Park to the same standard?
As a bonus, the fourth rail could be removed north of Queens Park.
As with the Northern City line, the negative rail can be kept, electrically bonded to the running rails, to assist with current return.
Three-rail operation on tube size lines worked fine on the Drain and the CLR before conversion.
@timbeau – doesn’t save much though – see the estimates in my previous post! (You wouldn’t even save the cost of a substation and you incur the cost of resignalling the rest of the Bakerloo).
@Graham H
Nevertheless it would be worth costing – it might also reduce the number of closures of the Hayes line in the transition.
“unfortunately Bombatranz and Siemens don’t behave like greengrocers – you want more trains, you pay for them; they don’t chuck in the odd sprout for free.”
Indeed – but unit costs do reduce for long production runs – two hundred trains cost less than ten times as much as twenty.
“fettling up the stations, especially, as you remark altering platform heights (either by rebuilding or altering track levels ) probably the cheapest element here – £20m”
Wouldn’t this be a good time for TfL to finally start building high density developments over their stations?
It’s amazing that most of the Jubilee Line extension still has measly one-storey buildings above station, and plans to build on some are glacial.
Look at Catford Bridge – towers planned around it the next 5 years. Why no feasibility study to build a tower above it? Same at Lower Sydenham. It would of course be harder at some of the other stations.
Elmers End, West Wickham and particularly Hayes all look to have substantial under-utilised land around the station. Some is likely to be NR owned which could aid funding directly. Some isn’t, but these large car parks would be purchased and developed for housing if the Bakerloo was given the green light.
@timbeau -cost away! None of your idea avoids the costs of relaying the track to cater for the increased traffic, the cost of the linking earthworks and the cost of extra stock, for example; together these constitute much the greater part of the whole costs.
Yes, 200 trains are cheaper per unit but 400 not significantly cheaper than 200 – it’s at best a curve and more likely something with steps in it – the step changes reflecting the timing of any run -on order. This is because there are development costs for any new type of stock which have to be written off. If those costs have already been written off by the time you get to the third and subsequent new tranche of orders, then there will be no price difference between those later tranches. other factors affecting the price will be,of course, the availability of workshop capacity, the state of the market generally,and so on. By the time you get to NTfL, the price differential beween the last few hundred of one tranche and that ofthe next tranche is not likely to be a significant issue – in the last resort, costs can be screwed down only so far and a manufacturer may well prefer to build something else with a higher margin anyway.
In the latest TfL report of responses to the Bakerloo extension linked to above, there are many repeats in the TfL responses of:
“The option of extending a Bakerloo line onto the current Hayes branch has been proposed for three key reasons:
1. The trains that currently operate on these lines could be reallocated elsewhere to provide greater capacity on other rail lines….”.
Won’t those trains be just about life expired by 2030 or so?
Also, I see no mention of whether the Mid Kent line from Lewisham towards Hayes will have to be closed for conversion work and, if so, for how long. I cannot really envisage tube trains using the existing high platforms and, similarly, existing trains using the track/platforms if realigned for tube trains that have level boarding. Even an interim, compromise height will surely not be acceptable on a ‘new’ tube line these days. Whichever course is taken, it is not going to be just overnight that the work can be done at some nine national rail stations to convert. In short, I envisage a highly unpopular and lengthy period of closure of the route.
Re Graham F,
Yes – life expired shortly after 2030 based on the standard 40 year life. So displaced on to other SE routes for just long enough to show their replacements will be well used…
2-4 week blockade to raise the track heights by adding extra ballast (as the last part of comprehensively rebuilding the infrastructure)?
Re WW,
The NR services references were about benefits (extra paths and capacity) on other NR routes not the Hayes line.
@ Ed – there is no real precedent for TfL directly commissioning the construction of housing or other developments over its stations. It has sold air rights for developments but that has slowed to nothing in recent years. Crossrail has extensive developments planned in zone 1 and at Woolwich but that’s understandable given the funding model and site locations. I wonder if TfL actually has the powers to become a “landlord” for new mass housing developments. It had to jump through all sorts of strange hoops and may still be jumping through the legal ones [1] to allow it be involved in the much criticised Earls Court redevelopment.
The current favoured approach in government is to force the divestment of surplus land from TfL and hand it over to developers. I doubt TfL will gain any return for this and it risks some really horrible short sighted decisions being made because of a rampant desire to “fix” the housing shortage. I fear we may end up in a dreadful mess in a few years time. It’s not as if TfL haven’t been releasing land deemed genuinely surplus from its estate for years. I used to be one of the internal consultees for that procedure.
[1] IIRC the relevant legislation fell at the time of the General Election. I don’t know if it has been resumed in the new parliamentary session.
@ngh – “2-4 week blockade to raise the track heights by adding extra ballast (as the last part of comprehensively rebuilding the infrastructure)?”
Blimey; that would be swift work indeed because surely there would also be the need to sever the rails at each end of 18+ platforms, insert extra lengths to accommodate the rises and drops in height from the levels either side (those rails don’t stretch…) and then install the fourth rail/replace the third rail with the LUL-style power rails and then deal with the signalling and so on (or a combination of such work through the platforms). More like 2-4 months plus (or even 12-14), I would have thought. Look how long it has taken just to sort out the new Tramlink track work at just one platform face at Wimbledon.
I can see the replacement bus services now from Hayes, West Wickham, Eden Park and Elmers End inwards, all classic LT stuff of course, feeding their heavy loads onto Bromley South, Beckenham Junction, &c.
I suggest that one (I use the expression loosely) would need to deal with the new connection north of Ladywell towards the new Lewisham station underground at the same time.
@ngh:
The Hayes line* currently sees six trains per hour, with a power supply to suit that level of service. It also uses Network Rail’s signalling and communications systems, which, again, are unsuitable for a high-frequency Tube service, so all that will have to be stripped out and replaced.
The platform height issue also makes it likely that all the track would be replaced as well. Throw in the likelihood that London Underground would have to provide step-free access to all stations, and chances are this project would effectively sweep away most of the Hayes line’s infrastructure and replace it wholesale. The only money you save is in not having to build the trackbed itself, or most of its stations, from scratch through suburban London.
* The Mid Kent & North Kent Junction Railway company only built the section to today’s Beckenham Junction, later extending their line beyond to what are now Shortlands and Bromley South. The later extensions to Addiscombe, Selsdon, and Hayes, were promoted by other companies and had nothing to do with the Mid Kent company.
@Graham F
““The option of extending a Bakerloo line onto the current Hayes branch has been proposed for three key reasons:
1. The trains that currently operate on these lines could be reallocated elsewhere to provide greater capacity on other rail lines….”.
Won’t those trains be just about life expired by 2030 or so?”
I read that as talking-down-to-the-layman-speak for “paths” – those 6 tph between Parks Bridge/Lewisham station and New Cross – (London Bridge) will be much appreciated on the North Kent lines (if Overground doesn’t snap them up for an extension to Bromley North…………)
GF / ngh
And how long a section-closure was needed for conversion of Leyton-Epping from steam to electric, back in 1947 (ish) ?
IIRC each section was closed a bit at a time….
Re Anomnibus & Graham F,
The work rate would be no swifter than that currently going on at London Bridge during the closures…
You can install all the new systems including all new track with 4th rail during weekend closures (over 1-1.5 years) while still operating services during the week. The recent Northern Line resignalling works have shown what can be done.
Then after all the new track, signalling, comms are ready have fortnight closure to raise the track through the stations before Bakerloo services start.
Tunnel portal works would very probably mean that all NR Hayes Services would probably have to run to Charing Cross on the Fasts (not via Lewisham) for circa 2 years before Bakerloo opening south of Lewisham.
However I suspect they might go for the cheaper option south of New Beckenham.
@anomnibus – that was precisely what I had in mind in suggesting the likely cost build up for the extension. It’s effectively a new railway – you simply avoid the need for land and property acquisition on a significant scale.
@timbeau – I ought also have drawn attention to the fact that LU would find NR signalling standards most unwelcome on a mass transit metro – 24 tph max, the threat of ETCS2 (and all the intrain boxes that go with it), and so on. Following NR standards would be several retrograde steps.
@ngh
You could indeed add a fourth rail bonded to the running rails (as is done on the Wimbledon and Richmond branches, and the other end of the Bakerloo) so that NR trains could continue to run during the transition. But raising the trackbed to accomodate the reduced rail-platform vertical difference isn’t just a matter of shoving some ballast underneath. Graham F has pointed out that
“there would also be the need to sever the rails at each end of the platforms, and insert extra lengths to accommodate the rises and drops in height from the levels either side (those rails don’t stretch…)”
It might be possible to do it with some kind of sleeve joint. How was it done on the GEML when clearances had to be increased under bridges to accommodate 25kV?
Re timbeau,
Cut the rails at either end of the section before raising and weld a short length of rail in the gap after it has been raised and tamped. NR are well practised at track lowers with all the container and electrification clearance works going on in the UK at the moment.
The total scale of the track work renewal on the branch (not just track raise in platforms) is similar to that attempted on the ECML north on Kings Cross in 2 days last Christmas (admittedly without the 3rd/4th rail complication).
@ngh – Add all the recent comments together and you will still come up with a 2-4 weeks blockade, adding perhaps a dozen or more weekend blockades? What about the voltage change required (down from 750DC to 630DC, supposing that the new tube stock will be ‘tuned’ for 630)?
I cannot see how you can compare this extension with the ECML work north of King’s Cross.
As for “Cut(ting) the rails at either end of the section before raising and weld a short length of rail in the gap after it has been raised and tamped. NR are well practised at track lowers with all the container and electrification clearance works going on in the UK at the moment.”, you reckon that that it will only require 2-4 weeks to deal satisfactorily with at least 72 breaks in the rails (9+ stations, 2 platforms each, 4 rails excluding conductor rails through each station, resulting in 8 breaks of rail minimum), on top of everything else? Remember that this work must be done before the tube trains start running and after today’s trains are withdrawn.
The tracks have to be raised.
Once this is done the existing trains can’t serve the platforms so 2-4 weeks is impossible.
In addition there are several areas of glued ballast. This suggests there are problems with the track which would need to be resolved.
@ChrisL -the odd thing about this debate isthat many seem to assume that LU would use the existing rails in situ. This is unlikely;whatever the degree of wear of the current track, once it is part of LU, the tonnage passing over it (one of the key p/way indicators) will double and LU would almost certainly want to relay it anyway before day 1, not least to ensure that track geometry meets their standards. Raising the railhead level and dealing with such matters as gauge clearance below platform level, would take place at that time, surely.
@Chris L – Would those areas of glued ballast by any chance be in the environs of the former gas works at Sydenham? If so, I think I can answer why, or maybe it is easy to guess.
@Graham H – Ah ha! Thanks for biting the bullet. Now all we (I) want from you is how long you estimate that it might take to relay the whole line to LU standards between Lewisham and Hayes and thus, I assume, require closure of the route in the interim. I’ll buy you a pint….
@Graham F – Goodness knows – but they’ll do it (not just for the reason stated – remember, this is the organisation whose very first move on taking over the W&C was to go down there after closure on Saturday and spend the Sunday sandblasting the NSE “racing slugs” from the platform edges, ready for re-opening on Monday…). Conversion, even without relaying, is going to take a “long” time, not least because of the need to resignal to 36 tph before re-opening. (Relaying the track will be a piece of Esterhazaschnitte by comparison).
@Graham H – I’m glad I asked… Now to my Langenscheidt.
@Graham F – better still, a trip to the Gay Hussar would enable you to try the confection in the flesh (in the pastry?)
More generally, it is difficult to see how conversion of the Hayes branch won’t require a substantial closure period. I would imagine that the timescales would be driven by the re-signalling. I can’t see how a piecemeal approach would work.2
@Graham H
“this is the organisation whose very first move on taking over the W&C was to go down there after closure on Saturday and spend the Sunday sandblasting the NSE “racing slugs” from the platform edges, ready for re-opening on Monday”
This is an urban myth. Despite twenty years of LUL operation, those slugs are still there, marking the positions of the doors on the old 1940 stock!
“https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4b/Waterloo_tube_station_Waterloo_%26_City_line_Bank_train.JPG”
Would it be possible to modify the station levels one at a time, with shuttle services using the appropriate stock either side of the current join?
@timbeau – not a myth -NSE managers went to see for themselves – it’s just that LU didn’t do a very good job. The past will always come out….
So the users of the Hayes branch may or may not welcome their line being redirected to Waterloo and the West End, but I am sure they will not welcome the news that it will be closed for several months for that conversion. They will assume that the old trains will stop on Friday and the new Bakerloo trains will start on Monday.
@Graham H – You mean if we/I go to dine at the Gay Hussar, we might see a performance by the TfL Lewisham Beyondars and Circle Line Travelatoritze as per the last minute of this I posted on another thread?
http://www.britishpathe.com/video/paris-exhibition-2/
I imagine that the scene sets what it has been like within 55 Broadway (not specifying a particular moment in time for health and safety reasons).
@Graham F – The curtain rises to reveal an Extendador on a lonely shore. He is pining for his BLE and sings an aria in which he deplores the closure of the Hayes branch for two years whilst it is re-signalled. No?
Any closure would probably be akin to that for the Overground conversion of the East London line.
@Lawd Dawlish
Methinks you have a future in the theatre…
I shall put my ear to the third (curtain) rail, Graham H. Hold on; my seashell whispers in my other ear that, shock, 24 months, not two weeks is closer indeed but then again the waters from the rising Ravensbourne in flood washes in empty coffers onto the ballast, whilst all commuters and various other users alike about doth fall and flounder, and thus the curtain falls. Coda: The present rolling stock and the third rail is retained, the route continues to serve London Bridge and Cannon Street &c. directly and the BLE terminates at Lewisham. Applause, with general acclaim too beyond the bounds.
@Graham F: the i-version is both less satisfying and less fattening – http://www.konditorei-altvoels.at/sortiment/kuchentorten/esterhazyschnitte
@timbeau – “Would it be possible to modify the station levels one at a time, with shuttle services….”
So far as the present rolling stock is concerned, it could be run on and off the southern end via the New Beckenham spur and Beckenham Junction and hence run to/from a maintenance depot (as indeed some of it is today). I daresay overnight stabling is possible at Hayes. Perhaps an appropriate moment to mention that other trains also use the route on and off the route from the main line at Beckenham Junction to/from London Bridge.
When I used the line as a commuter, there were crossovers at Ladywell, Catford Bridge, Lower Sydenham (see my reference above to the gas works), New Beckenham (plus stabling siding beyond), Clock House, Elmers End, West Wickham and of course Hayes. That is almost every station on the route and I know from experience that at least all bar one of those crossovers could be used by third rail electric trains.
Some will relate perhaps with glee that most of those crossovers have been removed ‘for financial reasons’ or similar diversion but they could be reinstalled, so that my answer to you is ‘Yes’, with shuttle services, essentially provided that the spur to Beckenham Junction is maintained for depot access, if not just for use of bay Platform 4 there (which could thus see the first of its recent revived heydays).
However, maybe this is all rather academic in view of comments above.
“…from the rising Ravensbourne in flood…”
You may laugh, but the line really was prone to flooding before culverting became fashionable.
@Anomnibus
“You may laugh, but the line really was prone to flooding ”
Those of us whose train service catches a cold every time it rains at Fulwell certainly know it’s not a laughing matter………….
@Graham Feakins
Ok, so a conversion may not be as straightforward as I first thought. But certainly doable. A lot of the work could be done using weekend closures, followed by a blockade over the summer (or over Christmas/New Year if you’re feeling particularly brave!) to do the track relaying, platform height alterations, connection to the tunnel ramp north of Ladywell and new signalling/electrification commissioning. Remember also that this line does have the Catford loop and Beckenham lines passing close by, which could temporarily (albeit fairly unpleasantly) take some of the traffic.
But there is something everyone (bar Greg Tingey) has forgotten about…..LU have converted main lines to tube gauge before, when the Woodford/Hainault/Epping and High Barnet/Mill Branches were transferred to the Central and Northern lines respectively in the 40s.
What work was carried out back then? How long were the line closures for? How long did it all take? How much of what was done then is applicable today using current engineering standards? Granted WWII did screw up the timescales (fatally in the case of the Ally Pally branch ?), but there must be some lessons and techniques from that work which can be applied?
@anonymously
I hadn’t forgotten, but was expecting that modern standards would not permit some of the things that were allowed then. For example, the transition from main line to tube gauge trains involved a long period of joint operation – as has been discussed elsewhere, BR dmus were running as far as Loughton right up to 1970, a quarter of a century after Tube trains reached there. Presumably some compromise was necessary on platform heights?
The operation of main line freight trains on the High Barnet line (not to mention empty passenger stock to and from Epping for the Ongar steam shuttle) would have precluded raising the track bed.
I can see that installing a fourth rail (bonded to the running rails) would not prevent Networkers and 376s operating (the electrically similar 378s work quite happily between Gunnersbury and Richmond, and between Queens Park and Harrow & Wealdstone (and are expected to do so between Watford HS and Watford Jn), and Bakerloo trains can run quite happily under NR signals north of Queens Park, so conversion to Tube operation could be done overnight, after the fourth rail is laid but before the signalling is converted. The big problem is platform heights.
Converting one station at a time, with a change at the break of (loading) gauge, would be possible if there were sufficient reversing facilities.
I envisage that, starting at the Hayes end (to avoid the larger NR units ending up trapped there) each weekend the down platform would be done at one station and the up platform at the next station up the line towards London, the latter then having one platform at each level and becoming the transfer station for the week.
This might be preferable to closing the entire line for a couple of weeks.
Aha – the inestimable CULG has some interesting dates:
http://www.davros.org/rail/culg/central.html#dates
1947-11-29 Newbury Park to Woodford closed [LNER]
1948-05-31 Newbury Park to Hainault reopened
1948-11-21 Hainault to Woodford reopened
– so six months closure as far as Hainault, and a year for the Hainault – Woodford section.
No closure date is recorded for the main line between Leytonstone and Ongar, suggesting steam continued until, if not actually beyond, the date when electric trains took over
@ timbeau
Agreed. Things could be done then which are not permitted now. For example, how many photos exist of earlier conversions where workers are wearing hard hats and high-viz waistcoats??
@timbeau – unless there are already reversing/crossover facilities at each intermediate station (which would be astonishing if true), then the “simple” process of installing and removing (and signalling in) the crossovers would in itself require a possession and line closure of a “couple of days” – to be followed by the “couple of days” to change one set of platform heights and the associated trackwork. Do this for 9 stations and you have the best part of 9 weeks’ closure for that alone. (And that assumes that disabled regulations allow you to compromise on rolling stock/platform heights and stepping distances during the transition.) A Big Bang would be easier to manage and probably just as acceptable to the passengers as a week of running followed by a week of closure repeated over several months.
@Anonymously – that was then – before the days of modern engineering standards, safety regulations and disability compliance. What was done in 1947 is no guide to 2015.
Just been browsing next week’s Mayor’s Questions and it seems the Assembly politicians have decided that as Bromley Council don’t want the tube extended there that it should go to Croydon instead!! Several questions in that vein. There’s also a lovely question asking the Mayor what he thinks about Bromley’s stance. Ho ho.
Bromley have lost another planning appeal. This time for a 17 storey tower. Only 55 flats but sets a precedent in the town centre.
It comes after they lost another appeal at Lower Sydenham earlier this year, as mentioned above. Demolition and construction has just begun there. It’s on the industrial area as well as a ‘green’ patch of land (looks more like a wasteland).
@WW…..Ha ha, would love to see how Boris blusters his way through that one!
Have any of these Assembly members suggested how it might get to Croydon (presumably via the Camberwell alignment, since the other route goes in the wrong direction)? How come they get to play with crayons and we don’t? ?
@ Anonymously – well these are questions for a written answer so some poor sap at TfL [1] or City Hall will write the answer for the Mayor. Therefore no bluster from Boris. There are no random crayons in the various questions so no hints as to preferred routes. One question asks if TfL will consult on route options to Croydon. It’s just like the Fleet Line all over again – politicians doodling and questioning in the absence of any firm decisions.
[1] many moons ago I was one such sap as we used to get Mayor’s Questions fairly frequently.
Mention in “Londonist” of re-consultation, since apparently, more inner-London locals want the via Camberwell route ….
I wonder if an answer to that is:
1: Haykerloo via Old Kent Rd
PLUS
2: Re-open the ex-LCDR stations, such as Camberwell, for the 8-coach trains on the Wimbledon loop.
??
@Greg
“Re-open the ex-LCDR stations, such as Camberwell, for the 8-coach trains on the Wimbledon loop.”
Although a slight improvement will be delivered when Thameslink finally stop running 4-car trains (which also cause long treks at double-ended stations with 12-car platforms!) even the eight-car trains are packed.
As it seems that both longer trains and more frequent trains are ruled out by limitations at places like Herne Hill, it is difficult to see how the existing 8-car, 6 tph (two Catford loop, and two each way round the St Helier loop) can be improved upon enough to make it possible to cater for the traffic supposedly on offer at Camberwell/Walworth.
A Blackfriars – Herne Hill (or Brixton, using the disused Cambria Line platform *?)shuttle might be a way forward.
* on the left, behind the nameboard, in this picture
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0d/Brixton_Station_(Main_line)_1910233.jpg
Re Timbeau,
4tph peak Catford loop Thameslink from 2018 so 8tph Thameslink
and
the Blackfriars terminating Southeastern services via Catford Loop or Herne Hill in 2018 (8tph?)
@ Greg Tingey……Is that because there currently more people living in the Camberwell corridor than in the Old Kent Road one, or because it has more prominent support from certain local politicos?
I’m neutral on the issue, but strongly suspect that there is much less scope for new property development along the Camberwell route than along the Old Kent Road.
Probably ..
Yes & maybe, respectively.
The Old Kent Road option would enable redevelopmemt (£££££) of a lot of the current industrial units along it. What no-one in politics seems to recognise is that if goods can brought in bulk to areas like that then we wouldn’t need to have quite so many delivery vans coming in from parts of Essex, Kent and the other home counties….
This is a salient point that no-one in charge (?) seems to be willing to recognise. To take it to ad absurdum: your nearest plumbase is in Thurso?
The way things are going at present will only contribute to emissions..
SHLR: I suspect that the multitude of delivery vehicles coming into London from Home Counties are an illustration of the effects of land prices. If landowners can get more rent by using the space for housing or offices than for Plumbase depots, then they will. Plumbase, by paying less in rent, can afford to pay more for fuel (and drivers’ time). The effects on emissions is negative, but the market does not care. “People in politics”, most of them anyway, will not increase fuel duty, because that would be desperately unpopular.
@ SHLR – interestingly the Assembly Transport Committee are now investigating the scale of “white van” usage in London.
http://www.london.gov.uk/moderngov/documents/s49211/Light%20Commercial%20Traffic.pdf
Other Assembly members have also expressed concern about the de-industrialisation of London with the never ending loss of small industrial units, smaller factories and warehousing. As you and Malcolm state the end result is more housing. Therefore in transport terms we have at least three major effects happening :-
– Longer home to work journeys for those whose local factories etc have to move outside London. This assumes the London employees can travel to new locations.
– Increased freight vehicle volumes on arterial routes in and out of London. These will cause more congestion and pollution.
– More local transport demand when / if the former industrial areas are redeveloped for housing. In the shorter term there may be a loss of local commuter journeys once jobs move outside of London. There is a debate to be had about the relative efficiency of shorter home to work journeys being removed and later replaced by longer average home to work commuter trips which may be on already overloaded radial lines (for example the impending redevelopment of land in Lower Lea Valley is likely to put far more stress on West Anglia and Victoria Line services even allowing for the STAR service). On the Old Kent Road all that will happen in the short term is that the bus service will likely buckle under the strain as housing comes on stream faster than a tube extension.
While I understand the pressure to build far more houses I am not convinced that traditional areas of local employment should be destroyed in order to free land for outlandish and mostly unaffordable housing. Interesting to note that sales in the new Battersea development are struggling because of economic problems in China and adverse currency moves and impending taxation changes in the UK. Hopefully we will get some policy changes at some point that even out these conflicting pressures.
WW says ” I am not convinced that traditional areas of local employment should be destroyed in order to free land for outlandish and mostly unaffordable housing. ”
I agree. I would go further and say that local employment should not be sacrificed for any kind of housing. The fact that much housing built in London (on various sites) is “outlandish and mostly unaffordable” is actually a separate problem, though also a serious one.
Perhaps we should be more specific about which kinds of employment areas should be preserved. Making specialised widgets for distribution nationwide or worldwide, using components sourced worldwide, that could move to deepest Gloucestershire with perhaps a net decrease in traffic (though we should still remember the workers). But distribution and service aimed at the London area – that should stay.
“White Van” usage & deliveries.
Oh dear, the law of unintended consequences strikes again.
That is precisly why there were city-centre good depots & things like this: Mechanical Horse
Which could be electric-powered, now, if re-introduced.
@Greg, in your linked article, I’m not seeing a mention of a re-consultation. I’m deeply in favour of Walworth and Camberwell Road stations reopening for Thameslink trains though.
Plus interchanges at Loughborough Junction and Brixton, which would link up everything. But that’s well beyond the scope of this project.
Traffic on the Old Kent Road is already horrendous and new flats are being flung up before your very eyes. A station is needed.
Oh dear
Did we really need this?
[Reference to Boris confirming that Bakerloo extension into Croydon borough is “being considered”. Malcolm]
The newspaper article to which Greg refers seems to me to be making something out of nothing. If something is suggested, by anyone, however well-founded or otherwise, TfL is bound to say that they are “considering” it (the only alternative would be to say that they are ignoring it).
Now if Boris had confirmed that they were taking it seriously that might be some sort of news.
@Malcolm – 🙂 BTW had you noticed how this thread is showing signs of merging with the BML2/TLK2 proposals via Hayes?
TfL have said it will go down Old Kent Rd http://www.london-se1.co.uk/news/view/8569
“…the preferred route option for a first phase is from Elephant and Castle to Lewisham via Old Kent Road. Any extension would also be supported by significant improvements to the national rail network in southeast London, including the possibility of a new Thameslink station at Camberwell. This route alignment could support up to 30,000 homes and subject to funding and securing powers could be completed by 2030.”
From p37 of the TfL Commissioner’s Report for December 2015.
THC
Another couple of scoping reports are in for towers by Lewisham station. one on the carpet right site at 25 storeys. It looks to include a new western station entrance. Would this affect any potential rebuild of the station for untangling Southeastern lines and/or Bakerloo work?
I’ll now have to delve into that report. I’ve wrote a new post on my blog about the towers and their location. It also covers some of the other developments around the area such as Sherwood Court. It is here https://fromthemurkydepths.wordpress.com/2015/12/10/lewishams-cluster-of-towers-to-see-new-additions/. [Slight edit for clarity. LBM]
I am afraid that I do not agree with the premise of your blog. What Lewisham needs are homes for working people not the ‘investment income’ that much of the new developments have become. I also think that Lewisham needs just the sort of retail space that Greenwich is providing in order to bring much needed jobs into the borough.
Lady Bracknell: Where things in Fromthemurkydepths’ blog impinge on this topic (Extending the Bakerloo) it is OK to discuss them here, but we would not want to wander too far away from transport issues.
Your comment may also be slightly misleading; while Fromthemurkydepths does indeed welcome the decision to build a particular high-rise block near Lewisham station, that welcome does not seem to me to be “the premise” of the blog. Obviously it’s OK to challenge what he says, but let’s note that the blog contains plenty of other material too.
So, if the extension stops at Lewisham that will have a big impact on SE increasing paths on the three Dartford lines. That will presumably change NR’s Kent route strategy.
@ladybracknell – I don’t want to derail the topic too much but just to reply quickly. Firstly, I only wrote in the post that I agree with higher density housing by stations but certainly not the current model of expensive housing, much sold abroad for ‘investment’ or to buy to let landlords, with very little ‘affordable’ housing, which I’ve covered before. Secondly, I advocate retail with housing above, particularly by stations in London and not solely retail barns with large car parks which are a very inefficient use of land. It’s far better to have large retail space with housing above. The Thurston Central development next door with Asda does just that. Sainsbury’s are also adopting that model at Whitechapel, Nine Elms and other places. Transport improvements are additional catalysts with those schemes.
One more thing, and back to the Old Kent Road – the large amount of retail sheds along that road will almost certainly become high density housing. The Bakerloo extension is crucial for this process to happen on a large scale, and in turn will help fund it. I’d imagine a decent number of the large shops will keep a presence on the road but with housing above, complimented by smaller shops along the road which would thrive with thousands of additional homes.
Now then, surely not 2030 just to Lewisham?
“Now then, surely not 2030 just to Lewisham?”
Its the tunnels and fit-out that take time. Could have reached Hayes by 2030, since open section conversion could have been done at same time and little extra cost. CR2 is also expected by 2030, but that is about ready to seek powers. Can funding be found for both?
Fromthemurkydepths 10 December 2015 at 18:54
“It’s far better to have large retail space with housing above” as seen in Caning Town, where a few of the new HA tenants are returnees who had moved away when their previous flats were demolished. Now, if only the fit-out of the shop had begun.
TfL and City Hall have confirmed that the preferred route is to Lewisham via Old Kent Road with work going on to develop plans for a Thameslink station at Camberwell.
https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2015/december/bakerloo-line-extension-to-improve-transport-links-in-south-london-by-2030
Looks like we also need to wait and see what the “Rail Vision” due in Jan 2016 will propose alongside this possible Bakerloo Line extension. Extending beyond Lewisham is now “possible in a later phase”. Looks like Bromley’s issues have come to the fore and I suspect the “Rail Vision” may pull another more acceptable “rabbit from the hat” that will satisfy Bromley Council’s concerns.
Obviously there’s no great shock here about the preferred route – the signs have been there all along although Southwark Council clearly aren’t entirely on board given references to “no final decision having been taken” and “ongoing work with Southwark Council” in the press release.
Re WW,
Fairly sensible splitting the Elephant – Lewisham and Lewisham – Hayes as they need to act soon to get some of the potential developer cash for the former or they will never be able to get it (assuming Northern line Battersea model) and the later is more flexible time wise as it is reliant on the first having been completed and less reliant on individual developer cash as the benefits are more widely spread, so 2 different financial model.
That reads much like pushing for Lewisham-Hayes will be a separate project for NR & TfL to help push as lots of the benefit is derived from the released paths between Lewisham and Charing Cross / Cannon Street to improve SE metro services elsewhere hence very closely tied to Rail Vision.
If memory serves the land along the Old Kent Road likely to be redeveloped is owned by very few freeholders so it should be relatively easy to come to an agreement (similar to Battersea – Vauxhall stretch).
Re WW,
Southwark Council: the issue will be with the local councillors along the non favoured Camberwell – Peckham Route having promised much, holding out for either Bakerloo or Camberwell NR else they will get lots of grief locally so Southwark won’t agree until something is conjured up for the Camberwell NR re-opening to align with the redevelopment of the surrounding area to maximise the overall Southwark gain.
Would the new Camberwell Thameslink station be on the old site or a different site?
Re IAmHedgehog,
I understand they have been looking at the old site but would need at least a partial viaduct rebuild to get platforms to modern requirements. There isn’t really enough width elsewhere and the old site is wider than most of the alignment.
All things considered, a route via OKR coupled with a new Camberwell station on the TLK route (assuming capacity can be found for it?) sounds like the most sensible solution. It will be interesting to see where the two OKR stations are finally located, as well as their names (hopefully not OKR West and OKR East!).
This Rail Vision document sounds interesting…..I can only hope that NR will use it to aggressively push the benefits of removing Hayes line trains from the main line to create extra capacity and increase reliability on the SE metro services into London. One can then put forward the argument to Bromley Council that overall there will be a *benefit* to their residents, not only for the Hayes line, but especially for those using the SEML metro services (stations between Knockholt to Elmstead Woods inclusive), perhaps even the Bromley North branch as well (notwithstanding the difficulties outlined by PoP in his article). Why should residents in one part of their borough be disadvantaged just to placate a small number of vocal people in another part of the borough (who may not even represent the views of the majority of those who actually use the Hayes line, as the consultation seemed to suggest)?
Sometimes local councils don’t always get their way to protect their own parochial interests, as the ones surrounding Heathrow (or perhaps Gatwick) will find out next year…..
As a Camberwell resident I had long accepted the OKR would be chosen but am very interested to hear about the Thameslink station.
Is there any indication that it could serve both the Wimbledon and Catford loops or should we be expecting just the former? The key issue is of course capacity as peak trains are often full at Denmark Hill and Loughborough Junction, though I think there’s a lot of scope for additional trains (terminating at Blackfriars of course).
@Anonymously -there is – alas- a trade off between the amount of line capacity used up, and the level of reliability, so if the Bakerloo were ever to replace the Hayes services, there would need to be a debate as to how to cash the cheque of the released paths. Given that in practice the extension would release only a very few paths/hour, the choice may well be of the either/or nature rather than and/and.
I suggest that the stations should be called “Walworth North” and “Caroline Gardens”.
@ Anonymously – I will probably be proved utterly wrong but I view the more obvious splitting of the Bakerloo Line works into two distinct phases as a warning that the south eastern bit won’t happen. I’ll be surprised if the Bakerloo gets beyond Lewisham. My hunch, and it’s no more than that, is that the plans for suburban rail are something that will please Bromley Council but with a big dependency on investment to ease pinch points. I’d not be astonished to see South Eastern inners hived off to TfL with an aim to bolster frequencies, even if only on the outer ends of branches, plus the much requested Overground service to Bromley or nearby. The key will be some very big investment to remove conflicts and raise capacity (and yes I know some of it will be extremely complex) in order to “persuade” politicians to accept the overall proposition. I’m not convinced the Hayes Line will become part of the tube but I do think New Cross overground trains might wander on from their present terminus.
I’m certainly very keen to see what the Rail Vision contains and what, if any, timescale or programme there is to take it forward. The Mayor certainly dropped something of a hint at MQT “to look out for interesting news in the near future” and that the DfT “had accepted the need for greater locally focussed investment to improve rail services” (or words to that effect). It’s about 1hr28 mins in to the most recent MQT webcast. Assembly member O’Connell (for the Croydon area) was moaning loudly about TSGN’s performance and operation of the new timetable.
Bringing the Lewisham extension plans forward ten years to 2030 brought the need for more Bakerloo trains before the original planned delivery of a new fleet. This resulted in the Bakerloo upgrade leapfrogging the Central Line plans before the public launch of the new train design. I find it hard to believe that the business case for the Bakerloo upgrade can be made. The Central Line is in urgent need for extra trains, a new fleet, 36tph, platform edge doors, etc. In contrast the Bakerloo still only plans 27tph and no platform edge doors after the upgrade. Couldn’t the Bakerloo just receive the Central Line cast-offs? I know they have proved less than reliable, but the worst half of the fleet could still be scrapped. There would still be plenty to replace the current 1972TS and for the Lewisham extension. They would then only travel half the distance they currently do, and not be under such passenger pressure. In any case, the 1992TS on the Central Line is already in line for a serious upgrade to ensure it lasts until the next build of trains, so its performance should be much improved in future.
The Central Line trains are 8-car, so one car could be ditched from each train. They are actually made up of four 2-car all motored units, so the cheapest reformation would probably be to remove one middle two-car unit. This could be split and the motors removed, to have each inserted into the middle of a two-car end unit. Bakerloo trains could then be formed with one two-car end unit, one two-car middle unit, and one three-car end unit. This would result in a 7-car train with only one trailer car, compared with the current 7-car trains with three trailer cars. This may require a power upgrade on the Bakerloo Line, which might anticipate the eventual arrival of the next generation trains. The Central Line trains could be manually driven under the existing Bakerloo signalling, as the current trains are. However, the Lewisham extension is likely to start with automatic train operation, and this could be extended through the Bakerloo in time, at least to Queens Park before transfer to the Network Rail system. The eventual arrival of new generation trains on the Bakerloo would depend on the performance experience of the modified Central Line trains, but it could be that the business case will be stronger for the Victoria Line to receive them first, although shortening those 2009TS trains for the Bakerloo would also require opening out tight tunnel corners for their longer cars.
@taz
Conversion of the 1992 stock to operate on the Bakerloo?
“I find it hard to believe that the business case for the Bakerloo upgrade can be made.”
The 1972 stock is rusting away, and is nearly fifty years old so sourcing spare parts is increasingly difficult.
“They would then only travel half the distance they currently do, ”
The Bakerloo Line may be shorter than the Central, but all that means is that the trains make more round trips in a day. I doubt the actual daily mileage run by an individual train differs much between lines. Unless you are suggesting that there would be a lot of spare units – in which case you have to find somewhere to put them.
“This could be split and the motors removed, to have each inserted into the middle of a two-car end unit.” Wouldn’t it be better to insert it in a midle unit, so that you only had two types of unit (2 car and and 3 car middle)
“This would result in a 7-car train with only one trailer car, compared with the current 7-car trains with three trailer cars.”
This would be under-powered compared with a 1972 stock train – the motors on 1972 stock are bigger than on 1992 stock. I think you are also underestimating how much re-engineering would be necessary to make the two-car unit work with a trailer in between – for a start the compressor would have 50% more brakes to operate.
“shortening those 2009TS trains for the Bakerloo would also require opening out tight tunnel corners for their longer cars.”
They are the same length.
An 8-car 2009 stock train fits the same platforms as an 8-car 1967 stock train did, so the individual cars of the two stocks must be the same lengths. And the 1967-stock cars are the same as 1972-stock cars.
WW
Talking of upgrades & money
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
NR ‘Hendy Review’: This report includes the following projects within Greater London during
CP5 (to March 2019) and CP6 (April 2019 – March 2024) not previously mentioned in BLN:
King’s Cross: Additional approach track into the station (CP5).
Gordon Hill: Island platform turnback facility (CP5).
Victoria: Increasing space for passenger circulation (CP6).
Queenstown Road Battersea: New platform (now two) and track (now seven) alterations (CP6).
Hounslow: Unspecified turnback facilities (CP5).
Acton to Willesden: Electrification (CP6).
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Quoting from “Branch Line News”
That oddity of the Bakerloo, the London Road depot, has its connection to the running lines facing north. Now that may not suit so well an extended line, an aditional spur off the ramp might be needed to provide a new south facing connection. On the other hand if land could be found well south of there on the extended lines for a decent depot, then London Road could be closed and sold off for development its a prime site – do I hear some DfT chap getting all excited?. In passing, the soil conditions around the Elephant are dreadful, and the E & C shopping centre has a concrete boat for a basement, and the whole thing really is actually afloat.
@Stafford: I doubt if altering the access to London Road depot would wash its face financially. It only has space for 10 trains anyway, so these could doubtless manage with the existing ramp. Redevelopment would be a possibility as you say ; building something on a raft over the depot has also been considered.
@ Taz – interesting ideas there. The one aspect that doesn’t play is the politics. Lumbering the Bakerloo Line with old trains with a poor track record is going to be extremely unpopular in terms of London politics and it doesn’t play with the government’s infrastructure investment “theme”. I know there is an economic reality that sits behind your suggestions but I can’t see 92 stock being used on a shiny new extension to SE London. Opening a new tube line with stock somewhere between 40 and 50 years old? That just doesn’t work on any level in terms of reputation, competence and “show off” value. I could write the Mayor’s Questions now starting with one from Murad Qureshi …… 😉
@WW Strongly agree. It’s unimaginable that Tfl would open the extension with old stock: presumably it’ll be the most significant moment of some managers and politicians’ careers, and they’ll want it to be impressive as possible. However does that not lead to two possible consequences: 1. Opening in 2030 is not actually realistic, or 2. Bakerloo has to be no worse than second in the queue for resignalling and New Tube for London, ahead of the Central Line.
@WW
I do think New Cross overground trains might wander on from their present terminus.
Interesting thought. A service to Hayes would satisfy the desire to create paths at London Bridge, but, as PoP pointed out in March, is impractical because of 5-car trains replacing 10-car trains (unless we are in the fantasy world of a 10-car ELL).
A service to Bromley North intrigues me – what would the BCR be here? And, as with the Bakerloo, why would you bother going beyond Lewisham? The service to Bromley North is 3tph peak and 2tph off-peak, and is not well used. Surely the necessary flyover at Grove Park cannot be justified?
@Greg
“Acton to Willesden: Electrification ”
Is this part of the Dudding Hill line (which runs from Acton Wells to Dollis Hill, in Willesden proper) or is it the spur between Acton Main Line and Acton Wells? (which is half a mile from Willesden Junction and nowhere near Willesden proper)
Both would be good.
@Ian sergeant
“the service to Bromley North is 3tph peak and 2tph off-peak, and is not well used”
Chicken and egg – the connections at Grove Park are inconvenient and unreliable, and there are faster, direct, services to both the City and West End (well, Victoria) from Bromley South. An ELL extension would give Bromley a direct service to Docklands.
But if any capacity between New Cross and Lewisham is released by the Bakerloo extension, using it for 5-car trains is probably not a Good Plan.
@Ian Sargeant…..I think you’ll find all of the issues you raise have been previously addressed in PoP’s Bromley North article, and the comments therein.
FWIW, I suggested in those comments that if the Bakerloo doesn’t end up going to Hayes for whatever reason, going to Bromley North instead might be a good alternative. Which provoked quite a lot of heated debate!
@ Toby C – I agree the timing and phasing doesn’t look wonderful but I am not convinced about the timing of anything to do with tube upgrades. Mike Brown was given a bit of a tough time by the Transport Cttee over the SSR upgrade and the delays. He tried to be as confident as possible and said he’d seen a S Stock move under Seltrac control at Old Dalby. I remain sceptical that the SSR works can be delivered smoothly and that the end result works to deliver the higher capacity and reliability that’s needed.
Until LU actually manage to order new trains and signalling for the Picc Line and there is some sort of commitment to programme dates then we can’t begin to seriously consider where the Bakerloo and Central lines come. There is no firm funding for the Picc Line works and certainly not for anything beyond that. I also think that we are at fairly strong risk of being back where LT has been back in the 50s and 60s which is the old “one scheme at a time” constraint for capital funding. I know we face population growth and other pressures but an economic downturn will come, private sector funding will vanish and the government will pretty quickly stop any wild ideas about multiple tube upgrades and extensions. It’s clear that Crossrail2 is viewed as the “big thing” to do and there’s no great pressure to do much about the tube. I think the Bakerloo Line extension is doomed to repeat its old fate of never reaching number 1 on the funding list. I think we’ve only got this far because Boris foolishly opened his mouth and had to be seen to be doing something. I wait to see what priority the Mayoral Candidates give to tube extensions. You certainly can’t freeze fares and blow a £2bn hole in TfL finances and keep upgrading the tube. Simply not possible.
Sorry to be gloomy but there is vast uncertainty about TfL’s funding beyond 2020 and Crossrail 2 threatens to overshadow everything. I will certainly want to see if there is any funding and any commitment behind the “Rail Vision” or whether it’s just a rehash of the 2020 list of rail schemes.
@WW, Anonymously
Your commentary is interesting. Presumably some form of ‘devo’ is likely with ‘Rail Vision’. This summer I prepared a note for the Grove Park Neighbourhood Forum about service development options in the area. Unsurprisingly, since this is the SE railway, there were multiple complexities amid the options. A link to the note is here: http://www.jrc.org.uk/PDFs/Future%20Railway%20at%20Grove%20Park.pdf
I think there’s a strong BCR for an extension of the Bakerloo to Lewisham. Where it goes after that is another matter.
It’s possible that this short extension is seen as a “quick win” for TfL, given their financial constraints: like the Battersea Extension, much of it could be funded by property developers along the route including the possibility of station boxes built by said developers, as was done for Crossrail’s Woolwich station. That just leaves the tunnel boring itself, plus a cut-price civil engineering fudge for Lewisham station, which is not a station most sane people would choose for a Tube interchange.
Taking over the Hayes line might have advantages if TfL are looking to close London Road depot. While there’s little space in Lewisham itself, the Hayes route does run alongside a fair amount of potential depot sites. This might be sufficient to tip the BCR in its favour given the potential redevelopment value of the London Road depot site.
As for extending the ELL over the Hayes branch: there might be some logic in this. If it’s not feasible to extend the short platforms in the core section, the only other way to increase capacity on the line is by more frequent services. The Hayes line isn’t worked very intensively — though the lack of paths through Lewisham Junction means this may be a chicken-and-egg situation — but it is a very simple layout, so a high-frequency service using 5-car trains could well be viable. Some would terminate at Beckenham Junction, while others would continue on to Hayes.
If it’s a genuinely turn-up-and-go service, I can just about see that working. An added bonus is that the ELL trains are mainline gauge, so there’d be no need for platform alterations.
(Bromley North? Not so much. The branch diverges too close to Grove Park for grade separation to be viable there, and Grove Park itself is in a cutting, with a concrete raft with shops on above the tracks. A flyover isn’t happening there, folks! Even a dive-under would be difficult.)
@ J Roberts – only my wild musings. I think some devolution will come but it will come with strings attached (as it did for West Anglia and does for Crossrail). DfT won’t let that go. We also have Kent and Surrey CCs to placate. There’s a bit of me that’s wondering if the Moorgate GN locals will be handed over too in order to take some burden off TSGN with TfL left to bump up its existing rolling stock orders to cover the new trains. It already has the mechanisms for station works and principles in place for longer station leases. It’s the lack of any comment from Govia themselves about the GN locals that makes my “paranoia antennae” twitch a bit. I think South Eastern will move across but that TfL will be left to “increment” the SWT franchise spec assuming it has some money to pay for the improvements. Oh hang on it’s having its “revenue grant” slashed to zero so that’ll be a no then! 🙁
@ Anomnibus – I’m not terribly bothered about specific routes and their issues. I am afraid I don’t believe you can build the Bakerloo Line extension to Lewisham with just private money. There is simply not enough land or a big enough development potential to fund it. We have to remember how hard it was to pull together a deal for the yet to be built Surrey Canal Road station. Even then Lewisham Council basically had to surrender its LEP funding to push things along even a bit. If that scale of problem exists for a small simple two platform station that already has some provision made for it then imagine the nonsense involved for a substantive tube line extension? We must also remember that there will be a limit to the extent that CIL, S106 and other levies can keep being piled on to London businesses. The City has tolerated it for Crossrail 1 because the City is a direct beneficiary of the line along with Canary Wharf’s businesses. There are no similar big pocketed organisations in place for Crossrail 2 and certainly not for a Bakerloo Line extension. IIRC it is proposed to continue the CR1 levy to fund CR2 but we don’t know if that will be acceptable.
Further it is worth noting the growing discontent in SW London over the potential 10 year “damage” to Wimbledon town centre if CR2 goes ahead. Mike Brown was challenged about that by the Transport Committee and he appeared to back pedal somewhat. Strikes me that the current proposition is simply not tenable and TfL know it. Ditto re the Tooting / Balham issues too. Once you start knocking down large bits of town centres you’re on to a loser politically and with the locals. I’d argue similar issues will come to the fore on Old Kent Road and in Lewisham. Look at the nightmare people are suffering in Lewisham now and then consider that the end result of that nightmare is hundreds of new flats with people living in them (hopefully). Then consider whether they want a construction site on their doorstep for 8-10 years and whether Lewisham Council will want it. People can only put up with so much no matter what the long term gain is. Ironically Crossrail 1 has had it relatively easy in terms of a lack of residential impact from its works given the big works are in commercial centres (I know people do live in Central London but it’s not the same as big construction in the suburbs). CR1’s works in the suburbs are relatively low key as its largely a conversion job plus station reconstruction.
The Northern Line extension has only proceeded courtesy of an enormous loan and Wandsworth Council agreeing to hand over a large scale of incremental rates income. Given we are already hearing adverse comments about high value property developments not selling in London (quelle surprise) and that the Battersea development is heavily reliant on such sales then I’m a tad sceptical that private monies will be available to pay back the loan nor that there will be sufficient rates income to allow Wandsworth to channel funds through. I think the public sector will be left with a very substantial bill on their hands. More doom and gloom I’m afraid but I just don’t see these funding models as working as expected. I hope they do work but we’ve a long way to go and a lot can happen to the economy and housing market. If we want infrastructure the taxpayer should pay for it given the State’s ability to access low cost finance. We just need competence around the design and delivery activities.
But surely some additional transport is going to be needed for all the occupants of those new flats in Lewisham to go to work on? And are there many other alternatives to Crossrail 2 type solutions to the SWT growth machine? I’ve come to the conclusion that a combination of London’s expansion and past neglect is going to see building works going on for the rest of my life if only to play catch up. If we don’t stop more people living and working here, what else can we do?
I wonder what all the buyers of the new Catford Dogs flats will make of no Bakerloo line yet? Especially when they’re cramming on to the generous half hourly trains at Catford.
@WW Thank you for your insightful analysis. Rightly or wrongly, I struggle to see any political scenario over the next decade which substantially increases transport capital spending from current levels. Even if the current public/private mix is maintained – which as you point out is a big if – then Tfl will have done well to get Crossrail 2 away, complete the sub-surface tube and make a start on the deep lines. There’s never going to be enough for a Bakerloo extension by 2030. And I find that keeps bringing me back to your comment about the outgoing mayor’s pushing of the Bakerloo. Purposely or not, he’s ramped up expectations that were never going to be met, and he’ll be long gone before cold reality hits. (Well, unless he ends up as Transport Secretary) But then all politicians do things like this. What surprises me is that Tfl – knowing full well how difficult it would be to hit this timetable – would put their name on such a release. A wise incoming mayor – of any political stripe – would do well to take an early hit on the Bakerloo and kick it into the long grass (again) – or it risks hanging over their entire term.
Anonymous asks “If we don’t stop more people living and working here, what else can we do?“.
The simple, and free market, answer is “nothing”. Not “nothing” in the sense of “there is no alternative”, but “nothing” in the sense of we can (at least in theory) choose to make no transport improvements whatever, and let the increasing difficulty (of living and getting to work) do the job (of stopping more people living and working here) for us.
After all, there is no law of nature that says we have to provide satisfactory and affordable transport for everyone. The marvellous invisible hand of the market will just mean, if we do not provide, that there will be a different equilibrium, and instead of all the new jobs happening in London and the South-East, they will happen somewhere else. We might want the somewhere else to be Stevenage or Sunderland, the market might decide it’s Stuttgart or Shanghai, but that’s markets for you.
Once upon a time it was thought of as a government responsibility to plan for such things. But there’s no point making plans if there is “no money” to carry them out.
@Anonymous
“And are there many other alternatives to Crossrail 2 type solutions to the SWT growth machine?”
I’m not sure what you mean by “the SWT growth machine”, but it sounds like Yerkes comment about straphangers being their profit margin. a deeply depressing discussion with their CEO at their forum last week made it apparent that although he is very enthusiastic about running his railway he is quite happy to sit on his hands until someone else puts their hand in their pocket to pay the cost of accommodating the extra people who are using it, and thinks the £11million profit that disappeared out of the system into their shareholders’ pockets as richly deserved, rather than £11 million of much-needed improvements that didn’t happen.
Rant over – the general point is that you cannot expect the privatised TOCs, whether it is SET or SWT, to invest in improvements unless their franchise requires them to. So projects like the Bakerloo extension or CR2 will only happen with public funding, and if they extract traffic from a TOC they will have to be bought off somehow – look at the higher fares on West Anglia, or the forthcoming tussle with HEx over revenue-sharing when CR1 takes away much of its traffic, or the zoning of Shoreditch High Street. Any Bakerloo extension, even if only o Lewisham, will take traffic away from SET and they will want some dosh to compensate. Even more so if Battersea Dogs Home station is really put into Zone 1 – SWT will claim it’s depriving them of revenue from QTR (whether it remains in Z2 or is moved into Z1), whilst secretly rubbing their hands that they can reduce the number of trains calling there.
(I understand much of the revenue generated by QTR is actually people buying tickets to Vauxhall over the Internet that they have no intention of using, to take advantage of the 2-for-1 offers available at several London attractions on presentation of an NR ticket to “London” [terminals] – taking advantage of Vauxhall’s position in both Zones 1 and 2)
@ Toby C – TfL has no option but to do what the Mayor requests or orders. The Mayor is the boss. It’s clear from past comments from Sir Peter Hendy that he disagreed with some of the fares “games” that Ken Livingstone did but they had to be implemented and the budgets and programmes adjusted as necessary. That’s just how the structure works although I am sure there are “robust” discussions behind closed doors so the issues are properly aired and understood which is how it should be. I am sure the same things will be happening after May 2016 no matter who wins.
I will wait to see the manifestos to see what is said about the Tube but I’m not confident that firm promises will be made other than on the SSR which is a committed project plus whatever is in build come May 2016. The Bakerloo line extension is probably most difficult for Labour given the political make up of the boroughs covered by the indicated first phase. There will be an expectation that some commitment is made by Mr Khan but let’s see if that happens. Mr Goldsmith keeps going on about “more capacity” which I suspect probably means Crossrail 2 given the emphasis on SW London and reaching outer boroughs north and south. Clearly it might also create some issues for him in Chelsea but by and large a commitment to CR2 won’t damage his prospects provided the “Wimbledon factor” can be dealt with. What the other candidates say is unlikely to make any difference. I wonder if Mr Goldsmith will make it a trio of Tramlink extension campaign announcements following on from Boris? Interestingly Mike Brown was much more enthused about Tramlink reaching Sutton but again the dependency on development funding was there. Lots to think about and watch for in the coming weeks and months.
Ian Sergeant @ 1243
“The service to Bromley North is 3tph peak and 2tph off-peak, and is not well used.”
The off-peak service was increased to 3tph some while ago. However, because it connects into a 4tph service at Grove Park the connections are not as robust as when it was a 2tph service. This is especially the case now as two are for Cannon Street and two are for Charing Cross. I understand that the increase was largely political and only enabled by the fact that no extra train or crew were required.
The Crossrail2 consultation closes on 8 January – in just over 2 weeks time, but where is the LR page for comments to be made? On the previous CR2 thread comment back on 27 October (now locked) we were promised by PoP that there would be a separate article on the latest CR2 consultation. It would be useful to see a range of comments from other LR contributors on this topic before sending in my own response to the consultation.
New depot? The Old Kent road is awash with underused land, though of course with an extension it all becomes worth a lot more.
If it goes to Hayes the industrial area by Lower Sydenham station looks promising. It has much brownfield land. A decent amount is in the process of becoming housing (a reason for transferring the line from SE as their limited paths can’t cope with projected housing along the line) but still enough land for a depot, and if that is instead of OKR then that’s more profitable.
Remembering that Yerkes decided it was worth extending the Hampstead tube’s tunnel a mile further so he could build an open-air depot on a greenfield site.
The nearest suitable brownfield sites for the Bakerloo appear to be about the same distance beyond Lewisham – at Hither Green, where the DRS depot could be repurposed. And if you’ve got that far, there is plenty of trackside space to fit in two Bakerloo tracks to Grove Park. Slew the main lines over so the tunnel can emerge on the up side of the main line (even if the depot is on the down side) and we have a convenient layout at Grove Park to continue to Bromley.
timbeau: the idea of extending a tube line to a suitable place for a depot is fairly widespread. Interesting that you should choose an example which was opened over 108 years ago, and of course planned quite a few years earlier. Still, a precedent is a precedent!
Of course we could do the radical thing and build a railway depot and then stick a load of housing over the top of it as they do in the Far East where land values can be very high. It’s interesting that this possibility hasn’t been broached in public when it’s a pretty obvious way of getting two sets of important infrastructure in one go – if you have the land and a willing local authority. With sensible design and good construction techniques there’s no reason why people would suffer disruption from living over a railway depot. I’m sure MTR Corporation would be willing to advise – for a suitable fee. 🙂
@WW – and it nearly happened here: about a dozen or so years ago, my firm was approached by Sir Stuart Lipton who was looking for major potential LU related sites that could be rafted over for development. His main interest at the time was in sites either with easy access to Heathrow or near the M25 and we identified a number of potential depot sites for further investigation – you can imagine which. In the event, his interest moved on and nothing came of it.
Bakerloo Stonebridge Park depot was built in a hurry to replace Neasden, which became a Jubilee Line depot. At the time it was envisaged as the first half of a larger depot, to be completed when adjacent railway land became free. Is that land likely to be available for a larger Bakerloo fleet for the extension?
@ Walthamstow Writer 20 December 2015 at 11:52 The cost of a Bakerloo upgrade as a condition of an extension probably makes the whole thing uneconomic. Heathrow 5 was opened with 1973 tube stock in 2008, i.e. 35 year old trains. The Battersea extension will be served by 106 trains of 1995 design, i.e. 25 years old, although the ceremonial train will likely be one of the five replicas to be built to enlarge the fleet. A refurb can make trains appear new to the public.
@WW, Graham H: White City depot has been rafted over for Westfield, and something similar is meant to happen to Lillie Bridge.
There’s a map here of development sites in TfL’s 10 year Business Plan – sites that seem to be indicated include the DLR depot at Poplar, for example. Although TfL’s focus is very much on Zone 1 and 2 and most depots are further out.
Also some confirmation here from earlier this year that Crossrail have taken oversite development into account in planning their Old Oak Common depot.
@Taz Fair point. Although Bakerloo trains feel so much older than most other lines, you’d have to be pretty creative with the refurbishment to make it feel up to date. But even if that were possible, is it not the case that the line itself still needs a costly upgrading to run the post-extension number of trains, even without new stock?
@timbeau 20 December 2015 at 09:32
Many thanks for your observations. There is an obvious urgent case for newer trains for the Bakerloo, but not for the full line upgrade. Transfer of trains 20 years younger from another more deserving line would meet this need. The last figures I found show Central Line trains run 155,000km p.a., and Bakerloo trains only 83,000 since they spend most time in the central area, not the leafy outer zones. Move a train from the Central to the Bakerloo and reduce its failure rate near 50% p.a. all things equal.
There could be merit with inserting a trailer in the middle of each train rather than at one end, but since the Bakerloo has no turning loops it is not easy to substitute north and south cab units. I couldn’t find any info on power/weight ratios of these trains. I realise there would be many technical challenges to evaluate: perhaps acceptable, or possibly upgraded power – new motors are to be fitted on the Central line anyway. Conversion costs will be less than a full line upgrade.
The current Victoria Line trains are around 3 metres longer than the old ones, since they stop more reliably and can fill the platforms. The cab cars are each around half a metre longer, the non-driving cars less so, and the old trains had middle cabs. They are slightly narrower than their predecessors, but the longer cars still give more overhang on corners, acceptable in the larger Victoria Line tunnels but banned from all other lines. The economics of opening tight corners on the Bakerloo to take this stock would have to be compared with the benefit of a new fleet for the Victoria line rather than the Bakerloo.
There won’t be enough trains on the Bakerloo to serve an extension. New trains and signalling plus som work on the power will be needed by 2030 anyway – the trains won’t go on forever! Also, the extension would only attract the costs of the additional trains solely for the extension. The cost of new systems – power, signalling etc – would have to be paid for anyway. So called upgraded systems are generally just a posh title for asset renewal!
@Ian J – I’m always surprised that more hasn’t been done by now in the way of rafting, although I can see that there are serious problems as to whether track spacing permits installation of supports for the raft, and about subsoil conditions carrying the extra weight. Some of the lack of progress seems to result from a familar attitude in BR (and perhaps also LT) property departments — “This one is so good that we can’t afford not to get it right,so we shall dance round it until we do. It’s a wonder that LST ever got going…
@ Taz – I think we need to disagree. The Bakerloo Line can’t run forever on patch repairs and hand me downs. There are always economic issues but my main point was political. TfL simply cannot avoid the politics around the “perception” that Londoners are not being ignored when it comes to money being spent. The parlous (and that’s a kind term IMO) condition of the Bakerloo Line’s train seats sends a message that no one gives a damn about that line and the people who use it. This issue was raised at the Transport Cttee with Mike Brown who seemed to be unaware of how disgusting the seats were. It’s not too much of a stretch of the imagination for someone to think “if they can’t clean the seats properly what else isn’t being looked after?”
If you keep patch repairing a line and saying it’s not worthy enough of having decent tracks, signalling, tunnels that don’t fall apart, new trains and power supplies then you’re saying that inner NW London can go hang. That’s not going to survive as a policy and certainly not if you’re extending the same line to SE London which will unleash a massive amount of demand which will stress the existing line. I thought LU had genuinely moved away from the old practices of past decades and was working in line with proper asset management techniques. Perhaps the budget cuts have forced them back to 1980s and 1990s practices?
@WW….Agree 100%. I’m still bemused that anyone might contemplate replacing the Central line trains before the Bakerloo line trains, even though they’re 20 years older! Am I right in thinking there were plans to replace these and the Picadilly line trains during this decade, before these were scuppered by the financial crisis?
How long did the 1938 stock last in revenue earning service before final withdrawal from LU? I sense a new (unwanted) record is about to be set…..
Anonymously, some 1938 Stock is still in use.
@taz
“The cost of a Bakerloo upgrade as a condition of an extension probably makes the whole thing uneconomic. Heathrow 5 was opened with 1973 tube stock in 2008, i.e. 35 year old trains.”
The Heathrow T5 extension did not require any new trains, as the trains which go to T5 used to go round the T4 loop. The closure of the Aldwych branch and the conversion of the two ETT units had also made an extra train available.
The distance from Elephant to Lewisham is about 5.5 miles – similar to the distance from Elephant to Queens Park, (yes, I know some trains continue to Harrow) so the fleet required for the new line will be twice as big as at present. Those units will have to come from somewhere, and economies of scale suggest that if you have to build 35 trains anyway, it is a good time to build another 35 to the same design to replace trains which will by then be nearly sixty years old.
@Anonymously
on LU, 30th June 1938 to 19th May 1988. Just shy of fifty years.
Car No 10012 (now preserved) was in service on both dates.
Bits of Central Line had to be cut and carved to fit the ’92 stock, and likewise the Piccadilly for the ’73. This leaves, to my reckoning, the only fully transferable stock since the ’72 (i.e. compatible loading gauges to going back to Standard and beyond), usable on all deep Tubes being ’95/96. With both ensconced with their ATO suited to their current locations, I can’t see any cascading happening. Likewise, it’s difficult to imagine an interim stock until the New Tube is done. They could do a larger batch of clone ’95/96, but they would probably meet the same fate as the ’86’s, come the extension -especially if platform edge doors and a future with articulated cars come into it. 35 units would be a lot for that to happen to.
The potential benefit of waiting for the New Tube is that the shorter cars with lower floors* offer the possibility of genuinely more spacious interiors that will fit the old Standard loading gauge, as well as reintroduce flexibility of stock cascades across the network. (*One of the mysteries of life to me is how the floors of the ’95/96 came to be so much higher than their predecessors).
Anyway, I like the mellow tones and retro-feel of Bakerloo Line travel. It takes me back to an earlier time, when I would divert that way for the ’38’s. As long as the cars can hold together for long enough.
@Walthamstow Writer:
I sort of agree with most of what you said earlier, in that it’s hard to see why the Bakerloo should go beyond Lewisham at all. Getting it to Lewisham is easier though: If you have developers already punching whacking great holes in the ground, all you need to do is twist their arms and ‘convince’ them to build the necessary station boxes for you. That’s two seriously expensive bits wiped off the project’s total.
Granted, that still leaves Lewisham (and, I suspect, one of the New Cross stations) to do, but from a political standpoint, it’s a much easier “sell”: Here’s a new, desperately needed Tube extension to the rapidly redeveloping Lewisham, for not that much more (in theory) than the Northern Line’s Battersea Extension, given that two of the stations on the new line will be built for you and only need fitting-out.
The big question is whether to extend it any further. While Hayes isn’t ideal, it is convenient, and offers scope for new depot facilities as well. However, it would require extensive modifications to accommodate Bakerloo trains.
That said, a tunnel between New Cross and Ladywell, built to mainline gauge and with an intermediate underground station at Lewisham*, would allow Overground services to take over the Hayes branch instead. As these are already 3rd-rail trains built for mainline stations, there’d be no need for extensive modifications to the Hayes branch itself, with transfer potentially feasible over a long weekend.
The Bakerloo could thus terminate at Lewisham and go no further, which is arguably a better use case for a Yerkes-gauge Tube line.
The problem with the Overground option is that you end up with 5-car trains on a line that is used to 10/12-car trains (albeit at much lower frequencies). I’m also not sure what the potential is for higher frequencies through the ELL core anyway.
A new chord connecting New Cross with the Overground route via Peckham Rye might be necessary to spread the load. This could potentially allow closure of the present route via Nunhead, reducing the complexity of Lewisham Junction while retaining a connection to Victoria. (Losing direct Victoria services might be unpopular with some users, but there’d still be interchange at Lewisham itself, and with a higher service frequency. Note, too, that this also releases some capacity on the Catford Loop by removing the junction at Nunhead.)
* (But probably not calling at St. Johns.)
@anomnibus
“The problem with the Overground option is that you end up with 5-car trains on a line that is used to 10/12-car trains (albeit at much lower frequencies). ”
Are you sure about that “lower frequencies” bit. As far as I am aware, the Hayes branch see 4tph (two to Charing Cross, two to Cannon Street, only the latter calling at Lewisham). The New Cross branch of the Overground also gets 4tph. Given the ELL serves three other branches it is difficult to see how this could be improved upon.
@NickBXN
“Bits of Central Line had to be cut and carved to fit the ’92 stock”
Doesn’t necessarily follow that you would also have to modify the Bakerloo to take them – the Central was not built to the same dimensions as the Yerkes Tubes – hence the need for special shoegear (because the positive rail can’t be put in the standard position)
@timbeau:
That’s why I suggested a west-facing link with the Peckham Rye (“ELL Phase 2”) section, so that services could —
Wait, no! NO! Get thee behind me, Crayola! I hath renounced thee, o colourful personifications of temptation! Nevermore! Do you hear me? NEVER! MORE!
Phew, that was close!
Although the majority of commentators on this site are predudiced against the Hayes line, it is a popular line and warrants its 6 trains per hour service in rush hour. Why would users of the Hayes line want less? Current frequency estimates for the proposed bakerloo extension do not improve on this frequency, it will just take longer and be a great deal more uncomfortable
@ Hayesite15 – I would be surprised if anyone is “prejudiced” against the Hayes Line. The debate is about what each commenter thinks is “best” in the wider scheme of things. Obviously existing users of the route will not want their current journeys “worsened” however they define “worse”. I’ve never used the Hayes line so have no opinion about it. I live on a tube line with very high service levels and prima facie if I had the choice of a tube every couple of minutes vs a suburban rail service running rather less frequently then the tube would win for me even though it can be crowded at almost any time of the day. Obviously that’s one opinion amongst millions and has zero weight in terms of extending the Bakerloo Line.
The problem here is the “big picture” and how you raise capacity across London to deal with increasing demand for travel arising from a range of factors. Sometimes some people may need to “lose” a little in order for many more people to gain. That’s the crux with the Bakerloo line extension and its possible impact on the Hayes line and re-use of train paths for other lines. It’s very hard for existing users to willingly “self sacrifice” a service they use – someone (TfL in this case) has to try to persuade them and even then they may not succeed in swaying opinion. It’s then down to a political judgement from the Mayor and then MPs in terms of granting the requisite funding and powers. I remain sceptical the Bakerloo will ever get beyond Lewisham if, and it’s a big if, there is ever the money or will to extend the line that far.
Hayesite, are you getting your wires crossed? The proposal was for 27tph to Catford Bridge, with 15tph to Hayes and 6tph to Beckenham Junction. Something of an increase on the 6tph peak and 4tph off peak (with almost none to Beckenham Junction) now. It’s 6 peak paths an hour into London Bridge that Network Rail get back if it goes ahead. I doubt if TfL would be able to sell it at all without a decent frequency because this is the advantage the tube has over the main line.
@Hayessite15…..Plus if it does reach Hayes, I very much doubt it will do so before 2030 at the earliest. I suspect the majority of present users will not be using the line by then, for whatever reason (moving away, change of jobs and, er, the Grim Reaper etc….). And for the rest….isn’t 15 years (!) sufficient notice to take this into account when planning one’s life? At least very few if anyone will be affected by planning blight (if anything they will experience the opposite!).
@Edgepedia…Ha, ha, yes I am well aware of their continuing ‘heritage’ use on the IOW ?. I was specifically referring to use on LU.
@timbeau….Does that mean the 1973 stock is on the verge of breaking that record, if not already?
@Anonymously
The 1973 stock (and 1972 stock) have a way to go to beat the 1938 stock’s almost-but-not-quite 50-year service record – and of course the A stock beat it by over a year.
The 1938 stock trailers formed in 1960 stock units lasted until 1994 – the standard stock trailers they replaced c 1980 were similarly long-lived, as was the Gate stock that ran until the 1950s on the Aldwych branch. Some early surface stock lasted more than 50 years, but the longest-lived tube stock in London was probably the 1940-vintage stock built by the Southern Railway for the line-that-must-not-be-mentioned, although of course LU did not take over operation of that line until shortly after they were finally replaced.
@timbeau -the prize seems to go to the 3 rigid wheelbase carriages of 1866 that worked the Brill branch until 1936-closely followed by (some of) the Ashbury stock on the Chesham branch until 1960, of 1898. The 2 Aldwych cars of 1906 seem not to have run in passenger service after 1949 but weren’t scrapped until 1956, so falling a bit short of the 38ts record. Another close contender amongst electric rather than hauled stock was the stock used on the Olympia branch until 1958, of which at least one car dated from 1910 -complete with hand operated doors! [None of this seems to compete with the Sprague stock in Paris, which seems to have attained 75 years in front line service…]
@Graham H: …or the 99 years in service of the Brugeoise cars of the Buenos Aires metro, built at the same factory as the DLR stock that serves Lewisham (phew, back on topic).
And more locally on topic the some of the underframes of the most damaged coach at the Cannon Street crash (1991) were manufactured in 1927 & 8 so 63 years old at the time of the crash. They weren’t the oldest in use at the time either. The bodies previously mounted on those underframes originated from the early 1890s.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zohhtKcdNZw
A year’s delay in the NTfL programme was revealed at the LT Museum Friends meeting this June, when a TfL presentation showed expected completion dates of 2026 for the Piccadilly, 2028 for the Bakerloo and 2033 for the Central line. That suggests that the 1972 and 1973 fleets are expected to serve well over 50 years, with the Bakerloo going for the Gold Medal!
Can anyone confirm the exact relationship between the nominal date in the classsification of tube stock and the actual date of build, as I’m pretty sure – by which I mean absolutely certain – that it’s not as simple as “all 96 TS cars were built in 1996”, for example? (And while at it, aren’t the 95 and 96 stocks classified the wrong way round?)
@Ian J – thanks for reminding me of that (a colleague from COMET/NOVA had visited the Buenos Aires stock a few years ago and sent me some pictures – I’d forgotten them again until now).
@Caspar Lucas – and for that reason, I personally prefer the old-fashioned way of designation (eg 1938 stock,or the “58” trailers) even if it hides a multitude of build dates.
Some of the dates were decidedly aspirational, but 1938 stock did indeed enter service in the right year, as did 1956/59/62, 2009 and C77 stocks.
1956, 1967, 1983, 1992, 1996, A60, C69 stocks actually entered service the year after their names would suggest, and 1973, 1986 and D78 stock first appeared two years later – although in most cases they would have been ordered, and construction and testing started, in their nominal year.
1995 stock entered service in 1998 – they were actually built as part of the same run as the 1996 stock and the name is just a name, to distinguish them from their Jubilee Line cousins.
Also, in the ancient but still in service category, the “Clockwork Orange” original cars, built for cable-haulage & then electrified for further use.
Brass! Woodwork! Polish!
And they creaked like a sailing-ship too ….
Timbeau: 1996 tube stock – Jubilee – was ordered separately and earlier than 1995 tube stock – Northern . There are many differences….. the bodies are not the same , the bogies are quite different, the traction packages and compressors are different, as is the cab layout and the Train Control and Monitoring Systems. They may have been produced on the same production line, but they are not just “different badges on the same thing”.
100andthirty
And some of the 96 stock wasn’t built on the same production line either – the “seventh” cars and additional complete trains were shipped from Barcelona having been ordered in 2003, if memory serves (and having contributed to the bid I was at Washwood Heath when the change of final assembly site was announced…).
Which is rather the the point behind my query: stock of a nominal year may have been built several years later, so the designation is not a definite guide to vehicle age.
I never did understand the 95/96 stock designations!
Anomnibus – In terms of developers building station boxes along the OKR but not at Lewisham, why not? OK, so they’ve missed the boat on a huge amount of development and towers south of the line, but the large Tesco site immediately to the north is far further behind on the development path. That could help.
In terms of LO instead of SE on the Hayes line, No chance surely? It currently has 6 trains in the peak at 8 or 10 car. LO would be 4 trains an hour at 5 car. The line is already very busy and that’s without including all the housing now under way eg the blocks by Catford Bridge and the tower beside now under consulation.
I often read of ideas for extending London Overground services onto SE metro lines, but it would often mean a severe cut in capacity in areas of rapid growth.
@Ed:
Station boxes are rarely built under existing stations. You have to dig them out the conventional way, by expanding the tunnels and digging up to the existing structures. Lewisham has four routes converging on it already from various directions, not to mention the adjacent river and the A20 and A21 passing right next to it. The options there for building a decent interchange are very limited, and none are either cheap or easy. If the Bakerloo is extended here, the work at Lewisham will likely dictate when the extension opens; it’s going to be a complicated build.
The only document I’ve seen regarding a Bakerloo extension to Lewisham that includes specifics like station entrances also made it pretty clear that a key objective was to serve the High Street / shopping centre with a dedicated entrance. Tesco is on the wrong side of the station complex for this.
As for the LO option: I suggested a west-facing chord so services can run get at Peckham Rye and beyond, precisely for the reasons you state, but that’s certainly not cheap.
Ultimately, it boils down to whether the Bakerloo’s interchange with Crossrail 1 at Bond Street is a better option than the LO connection at Whitechapel. The latter is a lot closer to Canary Wharf and the City, but the former isn’t limited to 5-car trains and would run at much higher frequencies.
@Anomnibus…..Er, the Bakerloo doesn’t go to Bond Street….the closest it gets is Oxford Circus.
Caspar Lucas: Yes, I saw and participated in, a little ceremony to commemorate the 1000th shell built on the Barcelona production line in about 2004.
The ELL core is going to be a problem sooner or later. It is very much the limiting factor at the moment on TPH on the 3 branches.
@Anonymously:
So it does, sorry. My memory remains exactly what it once was: embarrassingly rubbish.
This counts against extending the Bakerloo to Hayes: If you take the London Bridge termini away from the Popular Front of Hayes, you have to offer them at least a reasonable alternative in exchange. A slower, more cramped, service to Waterloo and Charing Cross isn’t going to cut it, despite the increased frequency, and while one of Crossrail’s Bond Street station entrances will be fairly close to Oxford Circus, it’s hardly convenient.
I think Crossrail 3 is likely to be the catch-all “saviour” of this neck of South London’s urban metro network. Mark my words: the Hayes line will be to Crossrail 3 what the Wimbledon Loop was to Thameslink.
@IAmHedgehog:
The problem is the political will to do what needs to be done, given that the Thames Tunnel is a very important piece of industrial heritage in its own right. I don’t think the engineering itself is the issue as it’s pretty conventional stuff. Tricky, yes, and certainly expensive, but not impossible.
Another factor is that the ELL core has already had long periods of closure within recent memory: one in the 1990s when the Thames Tunnel underwent a major refurbishment and Canada Water was added, and another for the more recent Overground conversion. A third extended closure of the line will not win many friends.
@Anomnibus…..People who want the City can switch to the Northern line via a revamped interchange at Elephant and Castle (or to the District/Circle lines at Embankment). While there might be other issues with Haykerloo, I would hardly consider the absence of an interchange with CR1 to be one of them.
The Popular Front for Hayes might be vocal, but they are fewer in number than you might think, and probably do not even represent the majority of views of Hayes line users (plus I very much doubt they’ll still be around and using the line if and when a Bakerloo takeover happens!).
The consultation showed that the journey time to CX via the OKR route was the same or even slightly quicker than the current service, and the NTfL trains with their walk-through carriages and air-cooled will (hopefully) mitigate some of the disadvantages of tube trains. Coupled with a massive increase in service frequency (particularly off-peak,which is an important benefit that other users of the line who only use it to commute may not appreciate) and separation from the tribulations and woes of the mainline rail network, and overall I would consider it to be an improvement on what is currently available.
If instead we left it to CR3 to provide the benefits I’ve mentioned to the Hayes line, chances are that we’ll be in for a very long wait (2050+?). Even I might not live long enough to see that, and I’m only in my 30s!
@Anonymously:
People who want the City can just get off right now at Cannon Street; no interchange is necessary. The Bakerloo clearly provides a worse user experience for commuters and actually requires a revamped interchange to cope with the new flows.
As for off-peak traffic: the original Mid-Kent route that most of today’s Hayes line uses was never intended as an urban metro. It was intended to carry longer-distance express services from deepest Kent. Like the Catford Loop, the stations were deliberately sited an inconvenient distance away from High Streets and the like, to avoid having to run intensive urban metro services. As a result, the line passes alongside a lot of parks, sports fields, and other very low-density sources of passenger traffic. (It was also built for speed: it’s almost dead straight between Ladywell and Elmers End.)
The Bakerloo’s small, slow trains aren’t going to attract a useful off-peak flow unless the government also plans on building an awful lot of medium-density housing over the extensive parklands the line passes. What’s there is simply not going to provide a lot of off-peak custom.
Even if such developments were to be built, there’s no reason why most of the potential customers would pick a line that takes the very long way round to get to London’s West End. When you already have the Chatham (via Beckenham Junction), Catford Loop, and BML (via Forest Hill) routes to choose from, all of which use proper, faster, grown-up trains with proper air-con, why would you choose to use the Bakerloo? Granted, it’s a bit more frequent, but the trains are shorter, cramped, hotter, and much slower. That’s a poor combination when you’re asking people to take a longer journey that will also involve changing trains.
I therefore put it to the court that the Bakerloo should go no further than Lewisham.
@Anonymously
“People who want the City can switch to the Northern line via a revamped interchange at Elephant and Castle (or to the District/Circle lines at Embankment).”
or more likely they would change at Lewisham (for Bank (via DLR)) or New Cross (for Shoreditch HS) or at either (for Cannon Street). But how many regulars will still have the same commute in 2030 that they have today?
In times past, a period of parallel running was common – e.g District/Picadilly to Hounslow (1933-1964), District /LSWR via East Putney (1889-1941) and to Richmond (1877-1916).
@timbeau
‘But how many regulars will still have the same commute in 2030 that they have today?’
Which is precisely my point! Whoever objects to it now is unlikely to be still using the line come 2030+. And how do you consult with people who don’t use the line yet (and are probably still children!)? Better to make this a very long term plan, so planners and commuters can adjust as necessary.
I suspect the ones objecting to Chelsea King’s Road on CR2 are also unlikely to be around whenever the line is eventually built (at least a decade away, IMHO). And by objecting, they’re might end up depriving the silent majority the benefits of this station.
@Anomnibus
Looking at the December 2015 timetable, there are currently 16 TPH between Silwood Junction and Dalston Junction. From there that depends whether the aim is to get more TPH through the Thames tunnel or just get more TPH northwards to Canada Water, where a lot of commuters will want to change for the Jubilee.
Some years ago, a friend of mine was househunting. Estate agents suggested that Ealing was promising because, when Crossrail came, the commute to his office near Farringdon would be very quick. He mentioned this at his retirement party last year – and then went home, as he had done for the previous thirty years, on the Central Line.
@Anomnibus 20/12 19:28
Glad this has come up again as I need a definitive answer!
No civil engineer, but isn’t there room for a flyover from the south of P5 Grove Park rising sharply then slewing around to fill the disused connections to the down lines round P4/P5…the initial curve/rise involved doesn’t seem to be that much more than at New Cross Gate, and there doesn’t seem to be that much a problem doing a near 45 degree turn at other sites on the network (Loughborough Junction?)
However, I still don’t think that such a scheme is necessary unless there is LO (preferably) / Bakerloo extension to the Bromley North branch.
There must be *some* way of running at least 2 peak trains per direction (only, not per hour!) in the rush hour from the branch. It happened in the past happily enough. This would surely displace some passengers from the massively overcrowded peak Orpington/Sevenoaks services and improve these trains’ reliability.
If they have to be fast on the Charing Cross lines – well fine, shove the branch to Z5 a la Bromley South, I’m sure that people would pay for a reliable service. I personally would pay good money for a reliable train to the branch in the evening, as opposed to the shuttle leaving 1/2 minutes behind the (inevitably) late London Bridge trains…and then a 15/20 min wait!
If they have to be stoppers, I still remain to be convinced of the insurmountable difficulties of crossing the fast lines on the level at the points carto.metro indicate still exist just to the south of the TMD. I have stood on the London bound platform at Grove Park often enough at peak times to know that there must be some way of pathing even a 10 car train across the fast lines (given at times several minutes’ gap between each directions’ passing fast…)
On the other hand, if the flyover was built, it could connect to one dedicated track for through NR services, leaving the other track for the shuttle service from B North to Grove Park, the branch having the luxury of 2 tracks throughout…
@Tim:
The branch platform is on the wrong side of the station, so no. You need to allow space for the junctions, signals, and the ramp itself before you can start the curve over to the branch.
There’s already a flat junction with the fast lines just north of the platforms, but that means no interchange with either the DLR or Overground during the peaks.
@Tim – “there must be some way of pathing even a 10 car train across the fast lines (given at times several minutes’ gap between each directions’ passing fast…)” If only it were that obvious and easy. Your observations are at a single point, but (and one would need to study the graph to be clear about this), bringing forward a fast to use a gap at place A, may well then create a conflict at place B (or cause the train to run more slowly to occupy the “correct” time needed between A and B to avoid any conflicts, so blocking the line).
@Tim:
Aside from what Graham H. said regarding timetabling issues, it’s also worth noting that Network Rail really aren’t interested in adding yet more complexity to the junctions in and around Lewisham. They’ve been trying to get rid of the Hayes line for years, and that’s just to gain around 6 trains per hour.
From a purely engineering perspective, the only viable option for a grade-separated junction here of any sort is a dive-under or tunnel. You could probably put a portal in part of the space occupied by the siding / depot a little to the north of Grove Park, north-east of the tracks, with the down slow track slewed out to allow the tunnel ramp to rise up between the two slow lines. But this would be hellishly expensive and massive overkill for the sake of a handful of peak-hour services a day. There’s no way this could wash its face financially.
The only long-term future I can see for the Bromley North branch is as the tail end of a much bigger project. This might involve one or more of the Bakerloo, DLR, Tramlink, Crossrail 1, Crossrail 3, or something else entirely.
The last week or so here have seen a wild scrawling of crayons in many directions, predominantly with a view to (quite correctly) improving the service offering both in quantity and quality. But there are dark times ahead … the TfL budget is being seriously cut (iirc £700m) and much of the rest of the UK is getting increasingly parochial in terms of spending on “the sarf” allegedly outweighing the spend ‘oop north’.
This is not only about the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ rail improvements but also the current flooding; there is a general pressure being reported by the media that outwith the London catchment area the UK electorate don’t want money to be spent on us rich buggers. Even though the vast majority of us aren’t.
This dual attack from government cuts and ‘people pressure’ could mean that we see *none* of these long-desired (and very necessary!) improvements – no CR2, no TL2, and no Bakerloo or other extensions. Indeed as noted above, whilst we’ve seen mock-ups of the new Picc trains and various stations there is little _guaranteed_ budget for much of this. And if you think that “promises” have been made just look how many times the Croxley Bridge / Watford met line extension has been re-announced.
We can certainly seek to justify the business case of improvements in the London region, their positive benefit–cost ratio, the ‘FACT’ that failure to engage in providing transport for the next million residents will mean London starts to fall by the wayside …
But will anyone actually listen?
Re Alison W,
Presumably those complaining will ignore the figures that show spending per capita on flood defences in the north is high than that in the south…
The attack is just on TfL OpEx grant for the time being as George loves CapEx.
Agree there is a very real envy issue that is a threat though. The locals in those parts suddenly get very sheepish when you suggest they make local funding contributions like London does.
@ Alison W – the £700m grant is to support the operation of services and not capital investment. Therefore it’s staffing, maintenance, service volume and the bus network that are at risk. Capital investment, in theory, is not as the investment grant has rised to £11bn. The problem here is that the SSR signalling upgrade has badly affected the budget pushing back other tube upgrades to the point where there is no firm budget. The longer term problem is that if fares have to rise to plug the loss of investment grant you may lose ridership which depresses the basis for future investment. This is because you have fewer people to justify the project with which pulls down the benefit numbers.
I agree that there is a lot of whingeing about London’s investment levels but as ngh says the bit people are missing is that more and more funding is being raised locally and we’re not talking about loose change. We’re talking billions of pounds and heading towards the majority of funding being raised locally for schemes like Crossrail 2. Still if the rest of the country would prefer London’s economy to collapse off the back of having a useless transport network that deters business investment then so be it. We can sit back and expect to be funded by the surpluses generated in Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Bristol etc. Oh hang on ……… 😉
In terms of the next few years it is not government that’s the issue. It’s the new Mayor and whatever direction they set and what funding regime they adopt. Therefore London’s short term destiny is in the hands of London voters.
Alison, ngh, WW
Of course, the answer is that public expenditure is not a case of either / or, whether it is a question of oop north versus dahn saaf or capex versus opex, but both / and. Public spending on ‘partial public goods’ such as transport should be carried out to the extent that such expenditure contributes more to economic, social and environmental policy objectives than handing cash back to individuals would do.
Equally obviously, the above statement is politically contentious. Would that there were an appropriate forum to discuss transport etc policies at the level of this website. If anyone knows?
Walthamstow Writer – have you read about Bristol’s economy? It’s extremely strong, second only to London in the UK in terms of growth and revenues I believe and that’s with a truly dire transport ‘network’ it has no power to improve as Whitehall holds all the strings. With a high quality metro network it has been trying to get for 30 years since local power stripped away it would strive further.
The London v elsewhere (not only the north) argument is tired. The solution is not to take away money badly needed in London but increase the budget nationwide, and not maintain a small pot and then move funding from one area its badly needed to another its badly needed. Whitehall has however made a political choice that transport is not a priority, and denied many cities and local areas the ability to improve things themselves through a dead centralised hand.
@answer=42 – we went through all that in an extended exchange with @Harry Crayola on this site about 18 months ago. Whilst I agree with you about managing the economy on the basis of cost benefit, it has been (wrongly in my view) the orthodoxy for the last 40 years has been that it should be managed through monetary aggregates. Mind you, not everyone (least of all Kate!) would like the consequences, which would be to close substantial amounts of the rural transport network and abolish many rural settlements.
@Ed – to my knowledge, Bristol has been trying to agree on what a rail-based transport system might look like for at least 40 years. The prime reason they have failed was firstly, the terrible power struggles that ensued after Avon was set up, and then Bristol’s own failure to agree internally what it wanted when Avon was abolished. And secondly, they could – actually – have had a decent LRT scheme in the ’80s – the door to capex was wide open but despite broad hints from Ministers about revising their bid for grant, they remained dedicated to a full-blown metro which was unaffordable. One of the political peculiarities is that there are seasons for bringing forward major capex projects and seasons when it’s not worth the effort (seasons usually driven by what the Treasury thinks it needs to manage the economy); Bristol’s misfortune (and Manchester’s with Picc Vic) was to misread the tealeaves. On topic. the GLA has generally been rather good at making the right call, however.
@Graham H.
In fairness, the GLA does happen to live in the same city as Whitehall, so they have the home advantage.
I do feel that Manchester and Newcastle are proof that it is possible to get decent regional transport projects done, and done well, but it does seem to work best with devolved powers. I think this is something that should be pushed further in Westminster. If nothing else, it means the government would no longer be held responsible when a regional committee decides to formally welcome a certain Captain Fubar, as Edinburgh did so spectacularly just a few summers ago.
[This is starting to stray far from London, so let’s not let that continue. LBM]
Graham H. says: “Bristol’s misfortune (and Manchester’s with Picc Vic) was to misread the tealeaves…[but] the GLA has generally been rather good at making the right call, however”
It helps that London is where the ministers are, and that many civil servants use the public transport being provided here in London.
Re ngh
‘spending per capita on flood defences’
Irrespective of geographic location per capita spending on flood defences is a poor statistic to use. It seems to be that many flooded areas are agricultural and therefore lightly populated. We can only forgo protecting agricultural areas if we are willing to buy what they are prevented from producing from overseas.
Politicians choose their statistical criteria to suit their purposes (better than being caught lying) and so must we. I hope that we will choose more openly and for better purposes.
Re Ray K,
Presumably you haven’t read George Monbiot ‘s article in the Guardian yesterday about agricultural land owners protecting their interests through Drainage Boards being partly responsible for the current flooding then?
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/29/deluge-farmers-flood-grouse-moor-drain-land
Grouse weren’t a high volume item in the local super market when I last visited…
Agree it isn’t great statistic but lots of people are claiming it is the other way round at the moment and more rationality would help at the moment.
@Lady Well – curiously, in my experience, there is a love/hate relationship between London government and Westminster. Westminster politicians are afraid of the very obvious platform it gives, even when they have the same party control – you have only to see the edginess in Cameron’s relationship with Boris to get the feel. It’s too easy and too simple to say that just because London is on the Whitehall doorstep that it gets favoured – but it makes good knocking copy
@ Ed – it actually isn’t the politicians who haven’t made transport a priority. It is the voters. On a national basis it never gets anywhere near the top 10 of electoral concerns so it’ll never be an issue. On rare occasions a “crisis” arises that gives the politicians pause for thought – tanker driver strikes, the perceived effect of the “fuel escalator” and ever increasing rail fares are the only three I can think of in recent years that caused any jitters in No.10. However in London things like the efficacy and reliability of the tube and fares do feature in Mayoral elections so they do get some attention every 4 years or so. In the end we only have ourselves to blame for not making enough noise about the transport issues that matter to us and thus making the politicians listen.
Veering very slightly to Bristol I considered a short stay there earlier in 2015 to “do” the Shaun the Sheep trails. However that took place in August when several bus routes don’t run because the University is closed. Looking at the bus and rail networks just brought me to the conclusion that it simply wasn’t practical to cover all the trails over a couple of days. Coverage, links and frequencies were often parlously bad so I opted not to go. First Bristol seem to be trying to improve but they have a heck of a long way to go (IMO of course). It will be interesting to see if the current elected Mayor of Bristol is re-elected in May given his stance on local transport improvements and impact on motorists. If he is kicked out then any great pressure to step up public transport improvements may be lost thus re-emphasising what Graham H said about the “difficult” nature of local politics.
On a final note I saw a news article about Beijing Metro extensions opening a couple of days ago. I then looked at their planned improvements – the scale of expansion and construction planned over the next 5 years really puts London to shame. I know we have very different planning and politics here and not yet a dicatorship in charge but even so – somewhat depressing.
@WW (+others)….It is quite clear that we live in a country (primarily referring to England here….devolution seems to have given some level of autonomy to the other nations with regards to transport planning, at least) where control is largely centralised in the hands of Whitehall mandarins and their political bosses.
Various people have tried to address this over the years, but it always seems to flounder due to:
– Whitehall (or to be more specific, Treasury) paranoia that profligate, uncontrolled spending by local authorities will result in costly bailouts to avoid bankruptcy and the loss of essential public services…think Greece, but in miniature!
– Whitehall mistrust of the calibre and capabilities of local politicians (which is rather astonishing, when you think about it….it’s not as if some of the Westminster bunch are a lot better, right?).
– A lack of appetite amongst the general public for new/additional levels of government and beauracracy to take responsibility for additional powers and spending (basically due to abhorrance at the thought of more politicians!).
– A tendency for the public to blame the central government for problems that are largely within the remit of local government (I believe that MPs mailbags and constituency surgeries are mostly dominated by issues that really should go to the local council first!).
Until all of the above are addressed, it’s going to be a long time before local government outside of London is given greater leeway to substantially improve local public transport. Having said that, it’ll be interesting to see what Greater Manchester’s elected mayor and combined authority do with their new powers…..
And as for China and other developing economies….they basically repeating what the UK did 150+ years ago, when finance was readily available, labour was cheap, safety was non-existent, and any planning issues were brushed aside (unless a local wealthy landowner objected!).
Returning to the Bakerloo….I’m really starting to worry about the aging rolling stock. Travelling on it a few days ago, I was shocked by the overall poor condition of the trains (especially the filthy seats), and their fairly rickety ride. They’re really starting to remind me of the 1959 stock on the Northern line during its final days, except these trains are expected to last an additional decade!
Unless something is done about them soon (like a major refurbishment and refit), I can’t see them lasting two years, let alone ten…..
@ Anonymously – actually I think the opposite of what you suggest is what is happening. I think the current largely unstated policy is to transfer responsibility (blame) for many centrally funded services to local authorities or groupings thereof. Some money will move across but not a regular flow. The decision to “devolve” business rates receipts is indicative of the “you want it, you fund it and don’t bother us for money” attitude. The irony, of course, is that local government is being effectively destroyed by the last and current government. So the plan is clearly to create a load of patsies who crave more power, are given some of it but not enough money and who are then in the firing line when it all goes wrong. The government must be relishing the prospect of getting rid of the NHS in Greater Manchester and dumping it on the elected Mayor / cabal of councillors. If I was a local politician I wouldn’t be accepting any of the “bribes” coming out of Whitehall. I’d want the blame for the mess to be directed at those who are genuinely responsible but that’s just me being my stroppy self.
I think London is in pretty much the same position given some of recent decisions and the likely emphasis on needing very significant private funding to get anything done. The only advantage London has is the scale of business activity and there being a reasonable prospect of being able to grow the revenue base from business rates. Not many other areas have the same ability. I remain deeply sceptical about the “you only build infrastructure if there is a private sector developer to grab the cash from” policy framework we seem to have. How do you improve transport if there is no developer to grab the cash from? I assume in our brave new world you don’t do anything and people can go hang. Bonkers.
[ Noting the comments on the age/condition of Bakerloo stock & concur, incidentally ]
WW/Anonymously
What happens though, if the Bakerloo stock falls down in a big pile, with the repairs/patching, desperate maintenance struggles failing, so that a tube line, effectively ceases to run?
WHo gets to carry the can & the blame & to quote a famous revolutionary politician: “What is to be done?”
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
May or may not be relevant, may or may not be the right thread for this, even given the above.
But should
THIS &
this, too be giving all of us pause for thought?
It could really mean the end for rural railways, assuming rural buses revive & rail-goods (see link to “Driverless lorry-trains”, oops ) & what else?
Higher-speed & actual high-speed rail is immune to this, of course & city commuting.
Depends upon the primary motive power of those road vehicles, I suppose?
Moderators – please move this to a more appropriate thread, if necessary?
For more about the condition of, and plans for, existing Bakerloo trains, see this LR article from March 2015. That would also be a better place for any further comment on them.
@ Greg – we have had endemic fleet failures or emergency line closures before. Everyone moans but life carries on. Something gets sorted out eventually and then it’s forgotten about. What usually happens behind closed doors is that someone is brave enough to point out that trains don’t last forever, patch and mend isn’t a solution and that unfortunately money has to be found for some new ones. Think back to the late 1980s with the Northern Line being in the parlous state it was. Even the Thatcher government had to accept that new trains should be bought.
I think it will take a long time for driverless vehicles to be accepted by the public. Safety concerns will take a long time to be overcome (IMO). I don’t see driverless buses being any sort of salvation or threat.
Driverless cars or taxis are one thing, but a driverless bus would not be attractive to the vulnerable. It’s bad enough when the nutter/mugger/other undesirable targets you when there is a driver to appeal to. Imagine being alone in a vehicle in a country lane with a complete stranger who turns nasty.
Driverless vehicles don’t do anything to solve congestion, which is something I never seem to hear anywhere in the rush to embrace the idea.
“Driverless vehicles don’t do anything to solve congestion”
They could, in some situations.
50% of school-run mileage is mummy driving home in the morning and back to school in the afternoon. A driverless car could simply be left near the school. Same argument applies to school buses – which also have a lot of dead mileage – unless………….
http://metro.co.uk/2011/12/01/joseff-edwards-drives-himself-and-all-his-mates-to-school-on-bus-240501/.
Alternatively, you can free up road space by removing inner city parking spaces, as the driverless car can be sent away to an out-of-city car park and ordered back when you need it.
@timbeau -“A driverless car could be left near the school” – I don’t know how easy it is in urban areas but round here in the rural areas, we don’t have enough parking space as it is, let alone for existing drop-off school traffic. [We seem to be a long way from the Elephant & Castle here…]
In this fantasy land of driverless cars, parking could be done much more compactly, as cars could mutually repack themselves in tight, reshuffling themselves whenever one of them needs to get out. They could possibly stand on end, or shrink their extremities…
It’s quiet, and the year is drawing to a close, but Graham is quite right about the utter irrelevance of this digression. Please be sparing with any further driverless vehicle observations.
FWIW, I consider it far more likely that we’ll see driverless trains (not only on the Tube, but the NR network as well!) long before we see any widespread deployment of driverless vehicles on the road…..there are just too many logistical, safety and psychological issues in the way of this.
If you were to combine driverless cars, with carpooling and an Uber style app, then you’d be on to something… A bit like taxis really, but without the strong opinions….
WW
Trouble is, we are fast approaching that point where the B’loo does fall down in a heap, are we not?
@ Greg 1547 – are we? I don’t know.
Re: the grab-private-developer-money framework of development
This would a side effect of improving transport links whether or not the local authorities take the cash. Land values rise as good transport options increase (up to a certain level of land value and number of transport options). Rising land values will be grabbed by home-owners in the area or housing developers who put in their own time, money and effort.
Walthamstow Writer – “@ Ed – it actually isn’t the politicians who haven’t made transport a priority. It is the voters. On a national basis it never gets anywhere near the top 10 of electoral concerns so it’ll never be an issue”
This is true but very often when delving down it shows that pollsters ask people their top 3 issues (so normally health, education and one other), or even a single issue. Thus even if many people are concerned with their local roads, traffic or public transport it often gets overlooked in those questions. On rare occasions wider lists are asked it comes higher, and is always a strong factor locally in the press & voting intentions. Of course, many people do mistake local and national power on the transport fund eg many still think councils control buses etc.
@Greg T – one of the serious problems of the rail industry is that it doesn’t “fall down” suddenly*. Trains run slower, there are more frequent failures in service and so on, but it is very rare for a line to be closed on safety grounds. So long as the thing staggers by, the politicians are motivated simply to wring their hands and move on to actual crises where something stops dead…
* The Talyllyn would make a good case study – by all technical standards, the line was inoperable after about 1935, and yet… [Or any of the Col Stephens railways to look for a standard gauge example].
GH
I’m all too well aware of that.
However, the previous & well within living memory examples of the Central Line & more relevantly, the Northern line stocks comes to mind …
Where you are quite quickly, climbing up the end of the “bathtub” & something HAS to be done.
OK, rephrasing the question – how long to that point being approached?
@Graham H…..So what would you call Hatfield and its aftermath? A trip? A stumble?
I still have very clear memories of this event and its consequences (mainly because I had just started university and the was relying on the railway for visits home….in fact I travelled through Hatfield on the fast lines about a week before the accident!). If that wasn’t as close to a complete collapse of the rail network as you describe, then I don’t know what is!
@Anonymously -none of the above. The point is that the trains still ran albeit more slowly; at no time was there a suggestion that the railway system would shut, just perform less well. And no doubt, if nothing had been done to rectify the sort of negligence and poor maintenance, there would have been more, and more frequent incidents of a similar nature, and the system would have run more and more slowly and less and less reliably. That is the practical effect of the the bathtub. My homely suggestion of the Talyllyn showed what would happen – firstly, the trains don’t run daily,then they don’t keep to the timetable,then they don’t finish the journey, derailed,or broke down, (or only after someone had had to run back to the works to collect a better tool), then the trains got shorter (and what did run had leaky roofs), and so on. Nevertheless, the trains continued to run and a service was advertised as such. Only a matter of degree really. It’s very much what BR Chairman meant by that phrase which so outraged Ministers in the ’80s: “The crumbling edge of quality”
@Graham H: I believe in the case of the Talyllyn, that the tracks only stayed in their place because there was nowhere else for them to go? 😉
Ah! From the railway guide book: “In many locations it was held in place by the grass that grew around.”
Let’s hope the Bakerloo stock is replaced before it reaches that kind of state!
The gradual crumbling of the Talyllyn Railway makes a fascinating story (as does its revival). But enforcement is rather better these days. Long before any present-day railway carrying members of the public gets to the “run back to Pendre to get a bigger hammer” stage, it would, quite rightly, get shut down. So there is a cliff to fall off, even though, with Hatfield and Potters Bar, Railtrack was only playing near the edge.
Mind you, there are plenty of countries further south than the UK where similar bodging has been going on more recently, if TV documentaries are to be believed.
@Graham H…..My own recollection of the time was that the possibility of a total (if brief) network shutdown to resolve all the track maintenance problems was raised by some of the more hysterical media outlets. I completely agree with you that this would never have been seriously contemplated by those in charge, but it just goes to show the depth of crisis the railway was in at that point. Emergency timetables, reduced services, overcrowding…..it wasn’t simply the case of the trains going a little slower (although that did make long-distance journeys more frustrating and unpleasant as a result…..I remember it taking nearly 2 1/2 hours to travel between London and Norwich!). IIRC, it took nearly a year before the last speed restrictions on the line between KX and Cambridge were finally lifted.
@Anonymously – yes, the media hysteria was something else. (One other great secret that isn’t much mentioned is that the railway can – and does – run without its top management for some time – an issue sometimes debated by BR senior staff in their more introspective moments. Staff on the sharp end will carry on making do and running some sort of service, however poor, around the problem for quite a while. The sort of total shutdown you describe would have required a complete failure of corporate nerve by railtrack’s senior management – and whatever criticisms you may level at them (my list is very long), failure of nerve wasn’t one of them, and is very rare in any institution.)*
In the rail sector, I can think of only one or two – noteably, the predecessor of one Swiss railway who adopted a mountain climbing system that was wholly unreliable, and stopped the day a train ran away; the Montferrat rack line ditto – that’s a technical failure that reveals a completely unsafe operation and I guess, back on topic, that that is the sort of accident which would provide a trigger for closing the Bakerloo, although it’s extremely difficult to envisage what sort of systemic vehicle failure could arise in that way.]
*Note to moderators – I have resisted the temptation to list some non-railway cases.
Rail RCF (rolling contact fatigue), although it was known to researchers before Hatfield, only became a seriously studied phenomenon after Hatfield. The scale of the problem had not been understood previously. There were specific procedural failings locally in that the cracks were known about at Hatfield and new rail was ready for installation, although between them Railtrack and and the maintenance contractor could not agree to prioritise the work appropriately. Nobody expected the rail to fail in the spectacular way it did though and that was what sent shockwaves throughout the entire rail industry, Worldwide.
http://www.ingenia.org.uk/Ingenia/Articles/318
I’m convinced RCF was the final straw for wider application of tilting trains, which had been seen previously by many railways as the ideal way to improve journey times on existing infrastructure. Using tilt to increase speeds around existing curves, although possible safely and comfortably, also increased rail forces and wear considerably and in the new post Hatfield regime increased maintenance requirements significantly for rail inspection, grinding and replacement. Although tilting was committed for WCML pendolinos by then (and on such a lucrative route the enhanced maintenance could be afforded even if disruptive), it was subsequently abandoned for Cross Country (XC) operations in UK and it’s use on sinuous secondary routes in Germany was also curtailed for similar cost reasons. In the XC application, Voyager trains equipped with tilting apparatus were also nearly 25% heavier than the otherwise identical non-tilt variants, weight which itself contributed to rail wear and which limited acceleration performance such that on many typical XC diagrams there was no journey time saving to be made. The removal from the XC franchise of the Manchester- Glasgow route, where tilt was an advantage and the TASS (tilt authorisation and speed supervision) equipment and rail maintenance cost was shared with WCML, was the final deciding factor for XC tilt abandonment, although the former tilt-equipped Voyagers still have their special heavier bogies, adding approx. 10 tonnes per vehicle.
@Anonymously
“…. worry about the aging [Bakerloo] rolling stock. Travelling on it a few days ago, I was shocked by the overall poor condition of the trains (especially the filthy seats)….”
— What has the dirtiness of the seats got to do with the age of the trains? Surely cleaning the moquette is something that could and should easily be done, irrespective of how old and decrepit the vehicles are?
@peezedtee: I am certainly no expert when it comes to cleaning fabrics. But I think that a given level of thoroughness, which would make a 5-year-old fabric look like new, will make a 15-year-old fabric look only barely tolerable. There may also be a tendency, when the car is known to be old, to postpone fabric renewal, and some sort of vicious circle sets in.
Back to the subject… do we know when the aye/nay will be given to Camberwell Thameslink station?
@pezedtee…..I suggest that you take a trip on the line and see for yourself.
@Malcolm…..ISTR the 1959 stock had their seating upholstery replaced only a few years before they were withdrawn; they made for quite an incongruous sight in the setting of the otherwise clamped-out train interior! I don’t see why (monetary reasons aside) why something similar can’t be done with the current Bakerloo trains?
@IAmHedgehog:
I think we’re still at the “promises, promises” phase, so probably not for some time yet. I certainly wouldn’t expect to hear anything about this until Thameslink service patterns settle down after the London Bridge work is completed, and definitely not before a decision is made regarding the Bakerloo extension itself. The two may be physically separate projects, but they are politically linked.
Re. the “Crumbling edge of quality”…
It’s strange to see the old tricks being used on my local line to get it closed down. The bit that runs just past my home is clearly being deliberately run down to discourage patronage, using all the same tricks BR used to apply back in the “bad old days”: reduced services; shorter shuttle services instead of through trains, but with insultingly poor connections; frequent unannounced cancellations and replacement with buses; ageing, graffiti-coated rolling stock, and so on.
Ironically, the half of the line closer to Rome is currently being considered for a major rebuild. (Essentially doubling the line primarily along new alignments, so effectively a brand new railway. HS2 in miniature, if you will.)
Re. Bakerloo rolling stock condition.
There’s a related article that highlights the main problem with these trains: the poor condition of the bodywork itself. Replacing the seats would be like redecorating your Pompeii holiday home shortly before Volcano Day.
These trains are old enough to remember the Ford Cortina and Monty Python. I suspect most of the money earmarked for their upkeep is now being spent on remedial patching and repairs to keep the things from falling apart like a circus clown car.
@anonymously
“I suggest that you take a trip on the line and see for yourself.”
— No need, it is one of my local lines and I use it regularly. You have completely missed my point. I was not denying that the trains are decrepit or that the seat fabric is, in places, in poor nick. I was simply suggesting that these two factors are not commensurable in terms of either scale of problem or possibility of fixing it.
@pezedtee…..Fair enough, I see what you meant. Even if the internal mechanics and bodywork of the trains are being maintained in tip top condition though (for which we only have TfL’s word), I very much doubt the average passenger feels very confident or comfortable travelling in them when the seats have more filth than the footwells of my car!
It’s all about overall impression…..does the system appear well looked after and cared for, or does it give off an aura of dilapidation and terminal neglect? I had thought and hoped that TfL had consigned the 80s nadir of tube glumness to history, but now I’m starting to wonder if history is about to repeat itself….
An October 2015 notice to Bakerloo staff promised a start to fleet upgrade with new interior and exterior finishes, and upholstery in all by end of 2016. They also need to address Rail Vehicle Accessibility Regulations by 2020. More than decorative, a real-time and wireless-enabled train monitoring system is to be installed across the fleet, with the first phase installed on ten trains by April 2016. This will enable the train to confirm faults on the various systems to cut down on investigation of brake and door alleged irregularities. It will also reduce the ‘no fault found’, to enable both operators and maintainers to have confidence that a train will not fail in service (unquote).
Taz
That’s still re-arranging the deckchairs….
I use the B’loo about once a fortnight, & it’s getting obvious that the physical structure of the carriages is wearing badly.
The last time I saw that sort of thing on the Underground was about 1970, just before they withdrew the last of the “G” stock (1923) from the E London line …..
A world of monitoring will do you no good if the trains are … errr … falling apart
@ PZT/ Anonymously – I don’t use the Bakerloo that much but have done so a fair number of times in recent months. As a former Contract Performance Manager tasked with all things “Ambience and MSS (Mystery Shopper Survey)” I can tell you that the state of the seats is the worst I’ve ever seen in the last 20 years. Even trains heading for the scrapyard have been in better nick. While I agree that poor seat condition doesn’t necessarily mean anything is wrong “under the hood” it creates an immensely poor impression of LU and must make some people think – “if they can’t keep the seats clean what else isn’t being done?”. Dirt, spillage and soiling are things that make people recoil from sitting on seats or in parts of vehicles. The problem on the Bakerloo is that you have no escape from the disgusting seats. Just look at people’s faces when they got on a train. Heck I even feel myself pulling a face when I got on a B’loo train.
There are a lot of clever and reasonably affordable things that can be done to keep seats clean and in decent nick. Plenty of that was deployed during the PPP era (much discredited / disliked by people on this blog) and the results were clear for people to see. When Terry Morgan was in charge of Tube Lines he made it company policy for train interiors and exteriors on JNP to be kept clean and tidy even though it cost a fair amount of money. He considered it to be a reputational issue for his company. Station cleaning was another issue but that’s not for here. I still have the stress induced wrinkles from that! 😉
@ Greg Tingey 3 January 2016 at 09:54 There is also the ongoing heavy weld repairs etc. Two trains completed, and the rest of the fleet to be done with a train every six weeks. see: https://www.londonreconnections.com/2015/no-do-nothing-option-the-increasing-cost-of-the-bakerloos-trains/
Taz
Yes, I know … but you can only go so far, before Forth (road) bridge type problems come crawling out ….
I wonder if seat retrimming has become one of those things that used to be “maintenance”, have become “capital” as day to day costs have had to be – er – trimmed. When these trains were refurbished in the ’90s, I don’t think any us who were involved ever imagined that many the seats would still have the same upholstery today.
And for Greg Tingey, in case he’s not already aware, almost all the Bakerloo trains have actually been over the Forth (rail bridge) twice.
“ongoing heavy weld repairs etc. Two trains completed, and the rest of the fleet to be done with a train every six weeks” That looks like around eight trains per year, or four years for the fleet. So some of those trains need to hang on until near 2020 for a fix!
Thank you WW! Glad to know that I wasn’t imagining it, or that it was limited to the two train sets I travelled on that day.
Incidentally, how much would it cost to reupholster the seats, and how quickly could it be done (i.e. would it need to be done at Acton Works)? If ever a quick fix were needed, this is it.
Even if it only cost £100 per seat pair for re-upholstery, the cost would be nearly £500,000. Personally I would doubt that the materials alone could be purchased for such a sum as it’s all bespoke. I would guess somewhere in the order of £1.5m to £2m would be more likely.
@ 100 and thirty – I thought LU had adopted a standardised moquette for all train fleets so nothing should be bespoke these days? You may need a different width of moquette to do the Bakerloo Line trains as they don’t have individual cushions / pads as newer stocks do. I’m not even convinced that you need to reupholster anyway. A decent wash and clean with the modern equipment that you can deploy these days would surely deal with all but the very worst cases? I’d also expect LU to have some stock of the current moquette for repairs etc so the worst examples could be replaced.
To my mind there are two questions – firstly what on earth has gone wrong with depot management and the cleaning regime to allow so many seats to become so disgusting? Secondly if MSS is still used for performance target setting and measurement then why on earth has the issue seemingly (and I use that word deliberately) been “ignored” and how have we got to the point of nothing being done for many months? Something must have changed radically given that I know how things *used* to be done. This sort of thing was never ignored in the past and Bakerloo trains were always pretty nice to travel one. It’s a bit much when the Commissioner (and ex LU MD) is being questioned about dirty seats by London Assembly Members.
@130
“Even if it only cost £100 per seat pair for re-upholstery, ……….I would doubt that the materials alone could be purchased for such a sum ”
What are you planning to upholster them in, Connolly leather?
Don’t be misled by the inflated prices charged for moquette-covered souvenirs at the LTM. I have found websites quoting for small lengths at £40/metre (for 1.5 m width) so about £27/sq m. Even a double seat is considerably smaller than that, and no doubt TfL would get a substantial discount for a bulk order.
Re Timbeau,
And the cost you quoted for that is higher than carbon fibre! Tfl should be getting it much cheaper…
It is also apparently possible (BR technique) to cut half a tube trains worth of seat material at a time using blunt band saw by sandwiching lots of layers of it between 2 templates.
@Walthamstow Writer 5 January 2016 at 17:32 “I thought LU had adopted a standardised moquette for all train fleets” That’s so last year! The Bakerloo trains are receiving a nice shade of brown moquette.
Timbeau………the moquette is just the start of the cost. The seat is a composite of several layers of material on a spring. In general, if the moquette is worn out, so is everything beneath it except, perhaps the frame (wood on these trains). Each pair of seats will use somewhat more than 1 sq m of moquette and all the materials have to comply with the requirements for fire safety defined in a tough British Standard.
I forgot to mention the cost of removal and refit, transport to/from Acton, strip down, cleaning repair of parts to be retained, and building it all up again.
@100andthirty – but maintenance of tube train seat cushions was simply part of the normal business at Acton Works. Each would be stripped down to the springs, the horsehair (treated for flammability resistance) would be cleaned or replaced as required and upper layers and moquette cleaned or renewed as required. Back when I saw the procedure first-hand there, the skilled upholsterer would hold some 10 cushion tacks in his mouth at a time and withdraw them one by one with one end of a special hammer, twist it around, locate it and then twist the hammer to hammer the tacks home and thus the moquette. The thing was, the train itself was delivered (read: “driven”) to Acton Works for general overhaul and thus cost ‘nothing’ because everything was on site to pull apart and replace at the same time.
So I am not sure what you are trying to say. To lift a cushion off its mounting means possibly breaking a tag and replacing it afterwards. My own seats at home have been reupholstered with horsehair locally and the only cost I had to pay was for the time and replacement material. Surely, if something is worn out, then one has to pay for replacement if it cannot be re-used. Replacing the seat cushions was simply that – offering them into the space allocated in the seat frame, which takes moments, even on the Bakerloo stock. Unless I am always lucky, I find that the cushion springing itself remains fit for purpose.
Anyway, according to Taz, I infer that a supply of new moquette is already available and will be paid for.
Timbeau and Graham F are surely right: the cost of materials for recovering the Bakerloo seats is likely to be trivial. How many seats are there on the Bakerloo fleet – about 15 000? Even at £20 a pop (even double that to acquire more horses for their hair) + a half hour’s labour at say £30/hr, we are still nowhere near a million quid. If the process is still as Graham describes it, it could easily be done in the depot, too.
Graham Feakins. Thajks for the feedback. I hope the followingclarifies. I was responding to an earlier comment that I was over-egging the cost of re upholstering the Bakerloo seats, following an even earlier post that amounted to a suggestion that the cost would be small. Whether it’s a total cost of £100, £200 or £300 per seat pair, there are an awful lot of them (of course a total of £500k, £1m or £1.5m is small in the scheme of things). I am familiar with the overhaul process, although, thankfully, horsehair is no longer used and trains won’t be driven to Acton for this job……access to Acton Works from the Bakerloo is challenging since the Jubilee was converted to TBTC. Springs are normally replaced; they may be in a reasonable state on stripping but they have be be good for at least another 10 years, and experience is that they start to fail Whether the materials or staff are available is beside the point.
As to costing, I was stating an estimate for the whole cost of the job. For example, even though the material is available, it will have to be paid for and if the staff aren’t used on this job, then they could be used for something else. That’s the general principle of costing. Of course someone might choose to apply marginal costing
I think it’s time for me to draw a line under debates on the cost of upholstering seats before the moderators do it for us!
It’s mainly a reannouncement of the report summary (which was discussed on 18th December….see earlier comments), but this time with the full report as well. To cut a long story short:
– The OKR alignment is the preferred option.
– A proposal for a new Camberwell station on the TLK line is going to be further developed as an alternative to the Bakerloo alignment (I get the impression TfL only agreed to seriously consider this as a consolation prize for the area!).
– The line will not go beyond Lewisham *for now*, but TfL will continue to further develop proposals to takeover the Hayes (or- less likely- the Bexleyheath) line with NR once their overall strategy for the SE London suburban rail lines is clear. In other words, the message is, ‘We’re still keen to takeover and extend onto the Hayes line, but our current priority is to safeguard, plan and build the line to Lewisham first’.
– Passive provision will be built at Lewisham to enable further extension onto the NR line, if it is not built at the same time.
– An extension to Bromley Town from the Beckenham Junction spur will not be developed further (i.e. the proposal is now dead, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to most people on here).
So will the line ever go past Lewisham? Who knows? The precedent of the Jubilee line ‘staged approach’ (where only one stage was built to the original plan) doesn’t fill me with optimism. On the other hand, sometimes things get put forward and approved at a later date as an ‘add-one’ (the Victoria line extension to Brixton, which was only approved after construction had already started on the rest of the line, springs to mind). So much can happen between now and the projected start of construction in the 2020s that it is difficult to speculate what might happen.
As a footnote, the full report lists *every single destination for an extension that was suggested during the initial consultation* as well as the reasons why they weren’t (or, occasionally, were) taken forward for further consideration. Among those listed are some obvious ones such as Orpington (NOT my suggestion, before anyone asks!), Bexleyheath, Streatham and Croydon, but also some completely inappropriate and just plain bizarre ones (such as Sevenoaks, Wilmington, Hextable, Biggin Hill, Westerham and……wait for it…..Gatwick Airport!!!). Some of the suggested destinations aren’t even in SE/S London (e.g. Richmond). It really does make for an amusing read, what some people use their crayons for ?.
The full report can be found here:
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/tube/bakerloo-extension/user_uploads/ble—options-assessment-report_final.pdf
I travelled on the B’loo again yesterday ….
Bare metal & rust patches – &/but most of the seats are utterly disgusting – they’ve got a lot worse, very quickly – but – relevant – …..
Two pairs of seats had been refurbished/replaced & it really stood out: Four non-adjacent seat-pairs with bright clean & obviously new moqette (to the old pattern) & then the rest of the train, where the seats were almost black – I’ve seen grotty pub-carpets that were in better shape.
Greg Tingey. Today, I must have travelled on the same train as you, or they are all like it! In all my 40 +++ years of working for and using the tube I have never before seen an LU train with such disgusting seats. Curiously the floor looked good and the train sounded pretty OK.