For almost a hundred years people have talked about extending the Bakerloo line. The latest consultation report on doing this has now been published. We look at its conclusions, and explain why it’s about housing, not transport – something that may well mean it actually succeeds.
Less is more
We have said it before but, in the transport field, it often seems that the less important something is the more interest it attracts. Much has been written about London’s cable car. Trams are a consistently hot topic, and yet they carry the same number of passenger journeys as just the two busiest bus routes in the capital. A recent article on this website on the Oxted lines generated over 600 comments and nearly all were about the lightly used branch to Uckfield and very few about the busier and more important one to East Grinstead.
It seems to be the same on the Underground. Comments on the Waterloo & City line (and especially extending it) seem to be such a popular subject that they have generated one of our few specific rules on comments – the subject is almost always banned in comment threads for fear of it drowning out the actual subject of discussion.
So it goes with the Bakerloo. It is the next least busy Tube line (at least if you regard the Sub Surface Railway as one entity) and yet an article on proposals to extend it has currently attracted over 1700 comments.
A lot of the reason behind the enthusiasm for small things is due to the possibility of seeing them grow. The idea of railway lines being extended always attracts interest and, as far as the Tube goes, the Bakerloo line is perhaps the only one left with a realistic possibility of being extended. To that end we now look in detail at the latest consultation report on proposals to extend the Bakerloo line.
Death by considering all the options
If “Death by Powerpoint” was a late 20th century phenomenon then “Death by Consultation Responses” is a candidate for its 21st century successor. With the modern democratic ideal that all consultation suggestions have to be considered and responded to, no matter how daft, we have reports where the message that it was meant to convey is in danger of becoming lost. Here, the three individuals who TfL confirm suggested the Bakerloo should be extended to Gatwick Airport should perhaps step away from their respective computers and take a long, hard look at themselves. We will also ignore the details of why a Bakerloo line extension to Hextable, Wilmington, Coney Hall, Hammersmith, Birkbeck, City Hall and a host of other equally bizarre locations was rejected and attempt to find what the report is really trying to say.
The lessons of Crossrail
It is unfortunate that despite our best intentions and revised plans, events have conspired against us and we have not yet managed to report on the latest Crossrail 2 consultation (which expires on 8th January 2016). Had we have done so, one of the messages we would have got across is Crossrail 2 is not just about transport. It’s not even just about London.
Crossrail 2 is largely about housing in the South East of England. If one fails to appreciate that then one fails to understand a lot of the decisions the project and its backers make. People can (and rightly will) get bogged down in arguments on whether it should go from Wimbledon to Clapham Junction via Tooting, via Balham, via somewhere else or directly without an intermediate station, but these are mere details and hardly matter at the macro level.
In the same way, a few years ago, one could have made a case that Crossrail itself was as much about London maintaining its prominent position in the world and its markets as it was about providing a better transport system. Again, this was something its detractors (such as Simon Jenkins in 2009) failed to grasp when suggesting how the money could be better spent on other transport schemes that wouldn’t have sent out the same message to international investors.
So it goes with the Bakerloo. As with Crossrail 2, the rationale for extending the Bakerloo line is largely about housing – something that we have been trying to emphasise for some time and something that this latest consultation report makes abundantly clear. A failure to grasp this will result in a failure to fully understand why the decisions made so far have been made.
The report’s conclusions
For our purposes it is easier to give the main conclusion of the report and then look at how it arrived at it, rather than the reverse. So, without further ado, the report recommends that the Bakerloo line should be extended from Elephant & Castle to Lewisham via the Old Kent Road and suggests an opening date of 2030.
The chosen route. Short. Straight. Simple.
Clashing with Crossrail 2
Surprisingly, the report hardly mentions Crossrail 2 and when it does it is only in a fairly minor context. This would initially seems to be an oversight as Crossrail 2 is proposed in the same time frame. The question has been posed many times: surely we can’t afford to finance both a Bakerloo Line Extension and Crossrail 2 at the same time? The answer to this is made clear in the report and, perhaps unsurprisingly, it follows one of our Editor John Bull’s favourite maxims – you build the railway you can pay for, not the best one you can plan.
Here, that means the Bakerloo Line Extension has to be mostly self-financing through much-needed housing development. Once one accepts this criterion then a lot of other decisions fall into place.
Follow the money, follow the housing
Many different options and their combinations were considered. Only in the light of looking at the housing issue can you clearly see why the route chosen was selected.
As we have covered before, south of Elephant & Castle the first major issue has always been to decide a route to Lewisham. One option went directly via the Old Kent Road and New Cross Gate, the other would have served the historical favourite of extending to Camberwell before heading Eastward to New Cross Gate.
The report is pretty blunt. The area around the proposed two Old Kent Road stations is ripe for redevelopment and a line down the Old Kent Road to Lewisham could support 20,000 to 30,000 new homes. By way of contrast housing along the route via Camberwell is already established and going to Lewisham via this route would only provide around 5,000 – 10,000 new homes.
As a result, the Old Kent Road route has been selected.
The minimalist option. Just two stations on the Old Kent Road.
Something else that has been considered is whether to just go to the Old Kent Road and terminate there or, alternatively, to go a little further and terminate at New Cross Gate. Proceeding a little further means proving that the major benefits haven’t been achieved once the second Old Kent Road station is reached.
Option to go as far as New Cross Gate
One might think that, having considered the housing issue, transport considerations would then feature heavily and it is true that much is made of the improved connectivity. Nevertheless, it is still the housing issue which dominates. The report suggests 5,000 homes are already planned between New Cross Gate and Lewisham and with the Bakerloo Extension that could go up to 8,000.
Other considerations for rejecting the Camberwell route
The report provides other reasons for rejecting a route via Camberwell. It suggests that it would cost £1.5bn to go to the two Old Kent Road stations, £1.98bn to do this and extend to New Cross Gate and £2.57bn to include Lewisham as well. All prices are 2015 prices.
The rejected Camberwell option
To go to Lewisham via Camberwell would cost £480m more and take an extra two minutes. The construction would be more difficult and more disruptive because the area is already largely built upon.
As a transport consideration, the report comments that the road traffic congestion is roughly the same on the Camberwell – Elephant & Castle route as on the Lewisham – Elephant & Castle route (the Old Kent Road). This might initially suggest that this is not a factor to consider but the report makes the point that the journey is longer via the Old Kent Road. Journeys from Lewisham to Elephant & Castle currently take 25 minutes as opposed to 15 minutes from Camberwell and these figures will get worse as road congestion worsens. So the saving to people like bus passengers is greater if the Old Kent Road Route were to be chosen.
Beyond Lewisham
What may be surprising in the report, especially in the light of earlier consultations, is the lack of committed support to extend the Bakerloo line beyond Lewisham. In particular, even the Hayes line, previously so strongly favoured, is seen as problematic. For starters it is seen as costing £680 million more than if one terminated at Lewisham and, unlike on the other side of Lewisham, there is little prospect of recouping more than a small proportion of that cost. Whilst emphasising many of the perceived advantages of going to Hayes, the report acknowledges the challenge of construction complexity at Lewisham and difficulty and risks involved in converting existing infrastructure would be negative factors. On top of that it is expected that there would be a period during construction (length unspecified) when journeys would be considerably worse.
Timescales
Just as the report seems to be in denial about Crossrail 2, it seems to also be in denial about issues concerning Bakerloo modernisation. An opening date of 2030 is proposed but it would be inconceivable that we would have a new Tube extension with 1972 tube stock, nearly 60 years old by then, as the means of carrying the passengers. Apart from any other consideration, there simply aren’t enough trains to provide an extended service let alone the proposed 27tph one. The Bakerloo line currently manages 22tph at best and then that is for 75 minutes in the morning peak. 20tph is a more sustainable figure.
Unless TfL has some trick up its sleeve, with timescales slipping the way they are, it is going to be very hard pressed to have introduced New Tube for London on the Piccadilly line, on the existing Bakerloo line and have a sufficient pool of extra trains to run a decent service on the newly extended Bakerloo line to Lewisham at 27tph. It is noticeable that the indicative timescale does not include when the trains will be ready.
Indicative timescale
The proposed opening date of 2030 also requires the 1992 stock on the Central Line to keep going for a few more years. This stock hasn’t performed well and at one stage it was thought that updating Central line stock would get a higher priority than the Bakerloo line stock. The Bakerloo line stock might be old but it is currently going through a major refurbishment and its low tech nature means it could, if necessary, be kept going almost indefinitely.
Lewisham
It seems clear from the fact that costs are given that there must have been some detailed investigation in the civil engineering aspect of stations. Despite this, details of stations are not mentioned in the report. Building a Tube station at Lewisham must be fairly problematic. It is also difficult to see how it could be done to provide good interchange with National Rail, which is on a viaduct.
Lewisham as at September 2015
Over the past few years Lewisham has witness a dramatic surge in high rise buildings near the station but no provision has been made for an Underground station. As the report acknowledges, a problem is going to be how to safeguard for future extension when one does not know in which direction that future extension would be. The report will only state that “[a] future extension beyond Lewisham has … not been ruled out”. At the very least, this does seem to suggest it is already in considerable doubt.
The report does allude to the benefits of Lewisham as a transport interchange. So it could well be that passengers from Hayes and other lines change at Lewisham for the Bakerloo line. What the report still fails to grasp, however, is the capacity issue on the London side of Lewisham. If the Bakerloo line from Lewisham is full by the time it gets to central London and the National Rail services and DLR from Lewisham are also similarly full, then reallocating lines on the country side of Lewisham from National Rail to the Bakerloo line does absolutely nothing to increase capacity into London. It frees train paths, certainly, but these are replaced by other trains. The mix of people changing at Lewisham changes, as does the precise rail service, but the overall result is the same.
Much more encouraging is mention of Network Rail’s Kent Route Study which is currently in progress. TfL will work with Network Rail on this. This co-operation does seem to be long overdue as, up until now, there has been no real sign of a joint proposal with common objectives.
A station at Camberwell at last?
Possibly the biggest surprise – and perhaps the most welcome thing to come out the report – is the proposal for a station at Camberwell. Whilst this was mentioned in the December press release, the details were not available until now. Notable is the positive benefits this station is seen as likely to bring.
Many people have suggested that proposal of this station would be a political expedient to make up for the Bakerloo line not serving Camberwell itself. Instead, the report suggested that an additional reason for the Bakerloo line going via the Old Kent Road was that there was no realistic alternative transport strategy to support housing in the Old Kent Road but, if the Bakerloo did not take that route, there was an alternative for Camberwell that could be pursued. The obvious question, though, is: if this is such a good idea how come it is only now being seriously considered?
A proposed Camberwell station and its catchment area
Reasons have been given in the past as to why reopening Camberwell station is not possible. One is the reduction in capacity that stopping trains there would cause. This is a bit difficult to believe though, given that the same argument could be applied to Elephant & Castle station on the same stretch of track and surely that station is more critical.
Another reason often given is that it would affect the critical timing of the Wimbedon Loop trains. A lot of analysis is being done on the 2018 Thameslink Timetable and, whilst it will work if everything goes according to plan, it is extremely fragile. One cannot see much enthusiasm in adding yet another variable, in the form of dwell time, that could affect Thameslink trains. Then again, this could be an opportunity for the DfT to get out of its commitment to run the Wimbledon loop trains through the Thameslink core. Regardless of whether or not the Bakerloo line extension gets built, the saga of Lea Bridge station and the time taken to build that shows that it is unlikely, even if rapidly approved, that a new Camberwell station will be in use in the near future.
Finally, a bonus
Unintended preview of the Turn South London Orange plan?
Nothing really to do with the Bakerloo line, other than very tenuously, is a diagram in the report suggesting how a more intensive service could be run in South London. This seems to be awfully like a TfL proposal to improve south London lines to provide a more frequent all day service. Generally known as TSLO (pronounced tis-low) it stands for Turn South London Orange. The diagram appears to be part of this long awaited proposal, the details of which have until now, for the most part, been kept strictly under wraps. When it surfaces, we will cover it in detail here.
This time it will be different
It was all about housing
On the surface, a report (and proposal) so clearly focused on housing rather than transport may seem a bad sign but for almost a hundred years plans have been made to extend the Bakerloo line south of Elephant & Castle and nothing has come of it. The reasons for that have been varied – the lack of priority, proposals that weren’t serious and just a bit of political posturing, lack of money, lack of focus and declining use of public transport. With the current mayor, and almost certainly any future mayor, concentrating on housing and this being seen as a vital part of the housing solution, it just may be that this time things will be different.
I am currently experiencing a completely illogical sense of smugness that my responses to the consultation matched up almost exactly with what the final report suggests. I suspect this will be the only time in my life this will happen.
And I can only pray that the Camberwell station will happen sooner rather than later!
If it doesn’t extend past Lewisham, then speeding up automatic train operation on the Dartford and Hayes lines to Cannon Street will have to be brought forward presumably. How much would that cost?
How else can the increase in population for that area be catered on the current rail network? Crossrail only serves one of the four lines, and even that line is to see mass housing that should make up for those switching to Crossrail.
A question — is “New Cross Gate” linked simply to the existing station of the same name, or will it include a dedicated link to New Cross station too? Such a link would be of great use to those coming off the Greenwich line and wishing to go to the West End.
It does seem that the most sensible route has been selected, whether you like it for being a nearly straight line, or for driving regeneration (and presumably the New Cross Road stations will have tall residential towers over the stations to net TfL a bunch of money) and reducing the cost of development, or even for taking road traffic off the congested Lewisham->E&C route.
And yeah, Camberwell Station on Thameslink is a nice carrot to make up for not selecting the unwieldy expensive Camberwell route. And arguably that’s a better result for the area than a Bakerloo station. I just don’t see them rushing to build it anytime soon, but they’ve got 15 years until the Bakerloo line extension is open for it to become a meaningful loss…
The connectivity both into London westwards, or eastwards to NCG (interchange) and Lewisham (DLR) will be a massive benefit come 2030ish. Maybe it should extend to Blackheath, Charlton and Woolwich for interchange to Crossrail afterwards rather than Hayes.
PoP,
Don’t forget that there will be 8 SE services and 4 non Wimbledon TL services through Camberwell post 2018 though probably on 6 being stoppers or semi-fasts so it isn’t just about the 4tph TL services on the Wimbledon loop
Err but the BR symbol on the map is on the site of the former Camberwell station between A202 Camberwell New Road to the North and Denmark Road to the South…
[Oops. For at least twenty years I have been absolutely convinced it was north of Camberwell New Road. Not quite sure why I formed that idea. I have removed the erroneous line. PoP]
Also has anyone at TfL ever watched the traffic queues to turn right on to Albany Road before getting their red electronic crayon out on the same map???
The timeline indicates a date for finishing construction – it very carefully does not suggest when it might actually open and services run so it can ignore such practical details!
Minor typo: The tis-low acronym should of course be TSLO, not TLSO.
[Thanks. This and a few other minor errors corrected. PoP]
This is intended as a genuine question and not a moan – why can’t it open sooner than 2030? If the construction takes 6 years why couldn’t there be 2 year of planning design and then construction from 2017, opening in 2023? Is it to do with when funding becomes available (ie not enough money available this early) or other reasons?
being pedantic really, any it realist ice that the northern line will get extended, potentially even further than currently planned?
The TSLO picture reminds me of the quiz! In that it seems to propose removing Crofton park from the catford loop and diverting ( presumably by new tunnel) to brockley!
It also seems to suggest that rebuilding Brockley High Level could be considered at some point as a transport hub, definitely a bonus….
I passed through there recently and it looks possible.
Good summary, and yes, the choice of route was always going to be about the delivery of housing, coupled with which locations offered the most opportunity to increase value on the air above the sites CPO’d for the stations.
I suspect that the 2030 date may have been put in there as a way of forcing the hand of the Mayor/Chancellor regarding this, the other upgrade programmes that must come before it, and TfL’s TSLO ambitions.
OK, I’ll bite. So which line is less busy than the Bakerloo if the Sub Surface Railway is broken down into its differently-coloured constituents?
@CG:
It’s tied to the available slots in the upgrade programmes for the rest of the network. The capacity of TfL and its suppliers to deliver multiple upgrade programmes, and the desire to be able to upgrade in the future in a manageable, cost-effective way, depends on things like new signals on the SSLs, new rolling stock and power systems on the Piccadilly and Central Lines and then also new rolling stock on the Bakerloo being carried out in turn, ahead of the Bakerloo extension.
@Caspar Lucas:
Read the paragraph before that one. It’s the W******* & C*** Line.
Peter R,
Just New Cross Gate [NXG not NCG…], TfL already own most of currently vacant site to the north of the station that was used as a laydown area for the station reconstruction recently.
Greenwich Line – only potentially passengers from Charlton and further east at 2 tph but then CR will be a better West end option or change at London Bridge where there will be more stopping Charing Cross services or change to Thameslink etc.
Also note on the unintended map Brockley High Level reopening and interchange for Vic – Blackheath services with Southern and Overground.
Re Caspar & Marckee,
Oh no it isn’t! As the W&C is not SSR, read what Caspar actually wrote.
If the SSR is split out the Hammersmith and City (especially since the modification to the circle a few years back)
I love the extension suggestions – love the idea of the Tube at Hextable! – although some of the reasons given for not pursuing them are almost as barmy (like rejecting New Addington because it’s close to East Croydon). Think it was five to Gatwick, mind.
I’m intrigued that running it to Bexleyheath and Slade Green is sat on the back-burner along with the Catford/Hayes proposal, particularly as neither Greenwich nor Bexley councils seem particularly bothered. Kidbrooke desperately needs better transport links, and the idea that the new development there can be served only by existing rail or running buses (or, in the fevered imagination of local politicians, the DLR to North Greenwich is a bit of a joke. It’d also free up more train paths at Lewisham NR. Maybe depot space would be easier to grab at Slade Green? I can imagine some seriously upset residents in Blackheath’s posh Cator Estate if they have to build a tunnel portal there, mind.
Would love to see *both* Hayes and Slade Green (heck, extend to Rainham, new river crossing) done – you could boost a lot of NR services if you took both those out of the equation – but accept all that hassle probably wouldn’t be worth it for just 15 trains per hour. (Better than the 6 they have now, mind…)
A thought sprang to mind – would selling London Road depot for redevelopment, and moving it to the end of a southern extension, help fund it in any serious way?
@ngh & Caspar.
Oh right, I didn’t read the question properly. Duh.
Sykobee – Maybe it should extend to Blackheath, Charlton and Woolwich for interchange to Crossrail afterwards rather than Hayes.
Specifically ruled out in the report, as apparently Woolwich would have enough trains from 2019. You’ll also have the difficulty that you’d orphan the Greenwich line if the Bakerloo took over Charlton-Slade Green (and lose the “regional” Gillingham trains that Southeastern run along that line).
[Crayonista suggestions snipped. LBM]
Re Daryl,
Bexleyheath is unlikely now as 10tph each way pass or stop at Blackheath in the peak (to VIC, CHX and CST) and some of them are loop services via Greenwich or Sidcup because of the Dartford issues. To maximise capacity if they were all 12 car Class 700 equivalents you would use up 18tph of Bakerloo capacity by Lewisham to replace them so not enough to replace Hayes as well let along any passenegers from OKR 1&2 or NXG stations (and no room left at E&C or Waterloo to get on either!).
Diverting some of the NR Bexley services would be problematic too so I can still see Hayes being the NR favourite and it also has the fewest passengers which is key.
Caspar et al: Each of H&C, Circle, and Metropolitan when considered alone has lower ridership than Bakerloo.
‘A lot of analysis is being done on the 2018 Thameslink Timetable and, whilst it will work if everything goes according to plan, it is extremely fragile.’
Are we to presume then, that the Wimbledon Loop service is about to become even more reliable?
Re Metrication,
“Are we to presume then, that the Wimbledon Loop service is about to become even more reliable?”
You presumably mean reliably cancelled and put into the Blackfriars bays instead? 😉
One point of clarification, PoP….when you quote 3.25bn to extend to Hayes, surely that *includes* the 2.57bn cost to get to Lewisham as well? That was how I read the figures in the report. I appreciate you’re a Hayes sceptic, but an almost entirely on-surface route to Hayes costing more than a tunnelled route to reach Lewisham sounds a bit far fetched!
As for whether to Hayes will happen at all, I’m choosing to look at the report’s conclusions from the ‘glass half-full’ as opposed to the ‘glass half-empty’ point of view which you (reasonably, I hasten to add!) take. As I said on the other thread, my reading of TfL’s intentions are, ‘Let’s get the ball moving and safeguarding/planning done for E&C – Lewisham first, since that is where the biggest cost and complexities lie in getting the extension built. At the same time, we’ll plan for things at the Lewisham end to make a future extension possible, and study things in more detail with NR as to whether a Hayes extension is the best way of utilising transport capacity in this area of London’.
What will be interesting to see is if NR make crystal clear in their Kent Rail study that they want to be rid of the Hayes line for their own reasons….and so the discussion will begin again!
Anything which moves the loop trains back to the Blackfriars platforms which were designed for them must be a ‘good thing’ (TM) in my book.
@Pedantic of Purley
Thanks for the timely article.
I’m pleased to see the re-opening of NR Camerwell station coming out of all of this, at least from the Reconnections point of view.
I’m sold on the Old Kent Road for Housing angle, works for me.
Which makes the back- shelving of Hayes and Slade Green via Bexleyheath disappointing.
Both routes have large area of redevelopment land (or allotments as they are now) which could be made into new housing areas – like that planned up the (CR2) Lea Valley or Old Oak Common.
It’s interesting to read that the reasons for not taking over both NR lines is the cost of the tunnel to join them to Lewisham. It would appear that if the benefits of such a change accrue to a NR franchise rather than TfL they score badly.
I guess the costs of conversion from to Bakerloo power and Signals and the associated risks is far, far too high?
CG – reread the section “Timelines”, there isn’t enough 1972 stock to run an extended service. In addition why on earth would you build a brand new extension with outdated signalling systems only to have the replace it in a few years? The extension will only be opened when the rest of the Bakerloo has new trains with modern ATO signalling which is extremely unlikely before 2030.
Darryl – the question of depot space is a very good one, apart from London Road which I believe has room for 10 or 12 trains and the two sidings at Elephant & Castle which will be lost when the tunnel is extended everything is stabled north of Queen’s Park. So where do the first and last trains for the south end of the line stay overnight?
I love the sentence “To go to Lewisham via Camberwell would cost £480m more and take an extra two minutes”.
I have been conjuring with the thought of this incredibly expensive ticket for a marginally slower journey, or alternatively a trivial increase in construction time for a pricey project.
Thanks for giving me a chuckle to brighten my New Year.
Dropping the extension past Lewisham is an unexpected twist, given the level of certainty that has existed since possibly the 60s that any line ending at Lewisham would then take over. I very much suspect that more is at play than is being explicitly revealed here; the suggestion of recent construction blocking an underground alignment sounds cynically possible. If that later transpires to be the case, it would be an unfortunate indictment of Londons’ love hate relationship with long term planning.
I think it is extraordinarily brave of JB to publish this article with all the inevitable risks that we will have a complete marathon re-run of the arguments from posters on the previous thread, complete with their failure to read what is put in front of them….
PoP says it, others have said before pretty bluntly: the BLE has nothing to do with SE London’s travel needs and cannot. It’s an opportunistic move to exploit the one remaining substantial bit of spare tube capacity to deal with development between E&C and Lewisham, but once it is full, it’s full and that’s that regardless of whether it projected further to Gatwick, Hayes or (my preferred option) the Porte de Vanves. The needs of SE London will need some specific and quite other project, not merely the appendix to the Bakerloo. Those who argue for BLE extensions into the “overfull” territory are doing SE London a serious disservice
Beyond Lewisham – I’m going glass half full:
From the report
NR now needs to do some optioneering etc.
I also wouldn’t rule out some kind of option for Crossrail to Dartford or beyond as a comparison to solve the Semi-fast issue as an alternative (if Bexleyheath is looked at too)
Agreed with anonymously that cost of Lewisham Hayes is an additional £680m not £3.25bn which is E&C to Hayes.
The key question for me is:
Would NR prefer 6 paths Lewisham – CHX/CST at £680m or the cheaper alternative of 12 paths on CR if extended to Dartford and beyond? (i.e. stoppers only on existing Greenwich, Blackheath and Sidcup routes as all semi fast are on CR). Or is growth going to be such that they want both.
[HS1 paths may be cheaper after 2040]
Anonymously 15:17
Clearly writing this up at some silly hour in the morning meant I wasn’t reading and writing things clearly. Yes the £3.5 billion includes the £2.57 billion to get as far as Lewisham.
So around £680 million to convert around 8 miles of double track from Network Rail standard to LU standard and associated work and link it to the southern end of the extended Bakerloo line at Lewisham.
I’ll modify the wording in the article when I can get access to it.
Before deciding on where to extend the Bakerloo beyond Lewisham, you could also ask those likely to be affected to find out how keen they are. When takeover of the Hayes Line (by the Fleet Line) was mooted (when I was a boy) the reaction to people who already have a pretty dreary journey up the Mid Kent today was not favourable. If you want new capacity, you need to go to areas not currently well served – and no I am not going to stick my neck out with a suggestion!
Good article, but I fear that the people making comments about extending the line beyond Lewisham have missed the point of the article. Any arguments about better connectivity or congestion relief are irrelevant – a route beyond Lewisham needs to serve an area with a high potential for additional housing. So if you want it extended towards you, just be prepared to accept thousands of new houses.
Nevertheless, any further extension is unlikely as it would overload the central section too much.
The selection is pretty much what I was expecting. I agree with the focus on housing development to help with funding, and also with underlying implications that marks a continuation of the pragmatic “do something; we can always extend it later” approach that was applied to the Northern Line’s Battersea Extension.
Another possibility is that they’re “doing a Crossrail” here: officially, it was only going as far as Maidenhead, but it was clear to anyone who cared to look that the intention was to terminate at Reading. I don’t get the feeling that this is the plan though, and I suspect, as the article implies, the problem is that Lewisham will likely ram the Bakerloo quite nicely all by itself. It certainly manages this with the DLR, and it was doing so long before any of those high-rise buildings were any more than a glint in a councillor’s eye.
The interchange at Lewisham is definitely going to give the engineers nightmares. Quite aside from the technical and logistical difficulties of building a brand new terminus under the existing site, nailing a fresh set of platforms below the river level will result in an ugly multi-storey wedding cake of a station that will be difficult to love.
Presumably, the Old Kent Road routing will give a quicker journey time to Lewisham than Via Camberwell? Which would be better for an extension beyond Lewisham, e.g. Hayes.
Re Jim Cobb,
The economic model is different beyond Lewisham as the report notes that the benefit of paths released by Hayes conversion could be spread wider hence more more homes spread over several lines.
£680m spread over Hayes + 4 other lines that from released paths shouldn’t be too hard. The key will be getting the developer contribution framework set up with all 4 councils before the developers build lots and don’t pay anything…
I suspect Crossrail extension to Dartford will have a far higher BCR with lower cost.
@ngh:
There are two problems with your notion of sending semi-fasts via Crossrail 1:
1. Most of those fast(er) services start well beyond Gravesend, let alone Dartford. They are also affected by other routes that converge on the route through the Medway Towns at Strood, so any delays on those could easily ripple through to Crossrail itself. TfL are going out of their way to segregate services wherever possible, so I don’t think it likely that they’d allow those semi-fast trains to travel on their shiny new railway.
2. There are semi-fast services to Victoria via Lewisham. The route is not particularly quick despite the skipped stations, so you have to have a very good reason for choosing it for your commute. As the West End is easier (and quicker) to reach from Charing Cross, and even from St. Pancras, I therefore put it to the court that Crossrail 1 is not a viable substitute for commuters who want to get to Belgravia.
A few comments and not intended as a criticism of the article more the source report.
– there is no bus from E&C direct to Lewisham via OKR so quoted journey times are clearly mythical. Ditto if you can get from Camberwell to Lewisham in 15 minutes. Is this some new rocket powered bus service that TfL have invented? Traffic conditions are appalling via both corridors and demand levels are ridiculous. If anyone thinks a NR station at Camberwell somehow absolves TfL and City Hall of responsibility for improving the travelling conditions for those in Burgess Park, Walworth and Camberwell then they must be mad. I know this all about “financial pragmatism” but it stinks in transport terms.
– hardly surprised at the report’s conclusions. Anyone with the ability to see which way the wind has been blowing for the last decade would know TfL have no ability to build anything new unless there are third parties from which to suck finance from. Ditto no shock at all that “beyond Lewisham” is now vanishing over the horizon never to return.
– having watched the webcast of the Assembly Budget and Performance Cttee today that was looking at the next Mayoral Budget and TfL in particular it is demostrably clear that TfL and City Hall lost the argument with Government over the revenue grant issue (and timing of self sufficiency), lost the argument about preserving investment spend (annual cut of £300m already), lost the argument about progressing big schemes and has not won the argument about securing extra powers with which to raise future finance (via new taxation models). In short they lost all the vital arguments. This must bode badly for the future.
– given the above I think TfL will never build the Bakerloo Line extension even with the development prospects that they think are there. If Mr Khan wins the election his vision is for a lot of affordable housing. That’s fine but that does not give you the revenue base and return that developers say they need for large scale developments which means any private funding for a tube extension will be similarly depleted. I don’t see how any of this gets resolved unless someone, somewhere blinks first. By that I mean a politician at City Hall or in Whitehall blinking not the developer. They can just sit and wait and keep their wallets closed.
– TfL were also not able to say anything concrete about the shape of the new business plan other than they are looking to get the cost base down (sack lots of employees and automate even more processes) and to value engineer projects (reduce scope at its worst). They were extremely cautious about the prospects about third party revenues and commercialisation which is pragmatic but also says to me that the real world is proving rather hard to deal with in terms of extracting really substantive sums of cash from the private sector (quelle surprise!). TfL said they were seeking to preserve the investment programme and service levels but a cut of £240m this next year is extremely difficult to deal with (IMO).
– TfL’s new finance chappie was at the meeting and was quite scathing about some of what he had seen on his arrival and first few months at TfL. Seems that the financial analysis of the organisation is going to change quite radically as is the financial reporting. There is also going to be a move to clarify revenue and capital spend per mode to increase clarity – I read that as a nice accountant’s move to look at costs and revenues in much harsher terms than perhaps has been done in the past. Mike Brown was trying his hardest not to look too “shocked” at what his finance chap was saying. A telling remark occured when between sessions (TfL first, LDDC second) Assembly Member Tracey (Conservative) said “oh the new finance chap seems jolly decent” presumably because he thought Mr Finance would be getting his knives out to cut out waste and duplication. 😉
– the new map at the end of the article is presumably from the imminent “Rail Vision” documents. Nice to see consideration of nodal interchanges on the map and love the way the CR2 text box completely covers Balham and Tooting 🙂 The devolution word is notably absent on that map with the focus much more on identifying routes in scope for improvements.
Glad to see the option via Bexleyheath isn’t completely dead.
The report is noticeably quiet on depot plans for the extended line – in fact, the word “depot” doesn’t appear even once in the documents!
The quality of the interchange at Lewisham will be key to any potential for extension. If it’s too long people won’t do it willingly (and any extension won’t be viable), and as the line is likely to be pretty loaded from the primary route alone, ideally you want anyone coming from any extension to change onto a fast NR service if possible.
Re Anomnibus
1. change for fast Crossrail service in from Dartford / Gravesend etc. all SE services become all stops. Everything segregated.
2. Belgravia – Change at TCR for CR2
@mr_jrt: The quality of the interchange at Lewisham is of course important. But I doubt if it will be crucial. People will mainly base a decision whether or not to change at Lewisham on (i) where they want to go in central London, and (ii) whether they perceive there will be space on the train onto which they might change. This applies even before any putative further extension is built; and if such an extension is built, it will apply to changes in either direction. Whether it is a 1 minute or a 4 minute walk will be very much a third, and minor, issue.
I agree that where extra depot space is found for the extra trains is an interesting question. And operations will be slightly more economically provided if there are depots at both ends of the line. But this will probably be considered as a secondary issue: if all the trains have to be stabled north of the Thames, that will not be a show-stopper.
Surely what the ‘full from Lewisham’ argument means is that any putative extension from Lewisham cannot attract significant numbers of passengers who will continue on the Bakerloo to the West End. Any extension, therefore, would have to deliver ‘local’ connectivity without attracting passengers who would stay on the Bakerloo past, say, Waterloo.
Answer=42: Local connectivity is all very well. But big capital spend which can only provide local connectivity is most unlikely to get to the front of any investment queue these days. The message is that henceforth only schemes which transport additional people between new housing and high-paid employment in (broadly defined) central London have any hope of actually happening.
(I am aware that the Croxley link breaks this rule, but I suspect it just squeaked in before the door firmly shut for half a century or so on such schemes).
@ngh:
1. So, that’d be the “HS1 Domestic” approach, whereby the better service was deliberately degraded to make the shiny, new, (and rather more expensive) service more attractive.
As I said, this will not be popular. It may be TfL’s preferred option, but Southeastern currently run the relevant services, not TfL, so TfL don’t get to vote. Yet.
2. Given Walthamstow Writer’s comments above, I wouldn’t be too sure about CR2 happening anywhere near 2030. Not unless Londoners have another riot and demand Whitehall stop meddling about incompetently with transport policies and start getting serious about long-term infrastructure planning and development. Like that’s ever gonna happen.
Anomnibus: Extra stops on conventional services from places where HS1 is an option are often referred to as if they were an evil cynical ploy. An alternative interpretation is to see them as just a way of spreading a little of the HS1 benefit to some travellers who cannot actually use the new line.
Would there be any benefit in *not* having a good interchange in Lewisham, or actually have separate stations ?
If the new terminus was south of the current station, it would expand the potential development area within the town, rather than concentrating it around the current station. It would also make the new terminus easier/cheaper to build and provide better transport for the Lewisham area. You would lose the inter-connectivity benefits but may make further extensions easier/cheaper as well.
PeterR
I fear you may have been looking at the South Eastern map that was the subject of the Christmas quiz question. Trains on the Greenwich line do not stop at New Cross, indeed the line does not go through New Cross. It joins the South Eastern main line a little north of New Cross.
So there won’t be a benefit to Greenwich line passengers unless they choose to get on the 177 from Greenwich.
Walthamstow Writer – blimey that sounds bleak. I’ll have a watch. I’m normally pretty upbeat about London but recently things look bleak. The population growth, if it continues at current levels, will mean a rise from 8.6m now to that magic 10 million in about 11 years. So 2027 and not 2030 as planned, which is already a vast rise.
There’s no real plan for it. Crossrail & Thameslink are solutions for the levels of 10 years ago. I can see the norm in 10 years as being many people living two to a room in overcrowded flats and who knows how all those people get to work, which is increasingly concentrated in zone 1-2.
Robert – and even a 177 from Greenwich to New Cross can take way longer than you’d expect. So very slow.
In terms of people changing at Lewisham from SE lines onto the Bakerloo, or even those starting trips in Lewisham, I can’t see the Bakerloo being that popular. It doesn’t serve the two main areas of employment – the City, where a direct train from Lewisham takes 12 minutes after 2018, or the DLR to Bank which is slower. Nor Canary Wharf – with the DLR.
So unless you want the West End, and for some reason wouldn’t stay on a Charing cross train or change to one, then those taking the Bakerloo will be mosest. Which means we still have a need to improve SE frequencies into London terminals. Which means ATO and signalling changes.
@ASLEF shrugged
By 2030 there will be an almost 24/7 tube so the concept of first and last services will be but a memory.
@Malcolm:
Most of the additional stops are west of Gravesend.
HS1 Domestic services via Gravesend don’t serve any stations west of Northfleet station (inclusive), and there weren’t any stops skipped between the Medway Towns and Gravesend itself to begin with. (Note that the services you see starting beyond the Medway Towns today are a rather later addition, after it became clear that Southeastern’s cheap tricks weren’t fooling anybody.)
As you can’t get to Ebbsfleet from stations west of Gravesend without changing trains and doubling back from the latter, I’m curious as to exactly how these slower services help anyone. It’s not as if the skipped stations didn’t see any trains at all; most were getting plenty to meet the demand. We’re talking about the likes of Northfleet, Swanscombe, and Stone Crossing, none of which are particularly important stations, having originally served major industrial areas. They’re surrounded by an awful lot of not much today.
There are, incidentally, three lines (and four routes) from Dartford to London, so any argument about capacity is utter codswallop. Even taking the freights into account, there’s plenty of scope for a couple of semi-fast services per hour.
Lewisham is incredibly cramped and having quite the apartment boom… not surprised it’s back to the drawing board.
Could a solution be
– Split the line with a spur to Lewisham, giving a nice close-to-town turnback spot, plus:
– Avoiding Lewisham, a grade separated junction branching off in tunnel to Ladywell and on to Hayes. End of Hayes trains and thus any trains between Lewisham and the Hayes line – possibly problematic, although Ladywell covers the southern bit inc hospital
or
– Avoiding Lewisham, a grade separated junction branching off in tunnel to Deptford/Greenwich, and then on to Abbey Wood – with Crossrail taking over service beyond. End of Greenwich line trains to Cannon St possibly, and some impact on loop services from the other Dartford lines. Controversial if a loss of London Bridge services.
Not sure how you’d get to Bexleyheath. But both options would avoid Lewisham, and create paths for London Bridge – although not without a lot of ruffled feathers. 15-17tph each should probably be fine.
I wonder whether the apparent agnosticism towards new trains is deliberate. New trains by 2030 would seem to me to be undeliverable. Is there any way that a few trains could be cascaded from the Piccadilly line, the tunnels be hacked out at the bends and the line be delivered with old trains and signals? Not pretty but the developers start to see a return sooner.
Thanks for this article PoP. Is there a follow-up in the pipeline which investigates Lewisham, and why it is so difficult to create an effective “strategic interchange” here?
At last Camberwell gets the nod from officialdom. But that map shows in purple the route west towards Brixton. Are there plans to provide a new passenger service on this? And if so, where would it go, and how are they going to deal with the bottleneck at Brixton?
@Malcolm
I’m not advocating ‘local’ (think cross-river) connectivity as an argument. I’m just trying to show that the ‘no more space beyond Lewisham’ and ‘we might extend beyond Lewisham’ statements are not necessarily mutually inconsistent.
My own views would be rather closer to WW’s.
As for the London Road depot, TfL were making noises about flogging the air rights over it for development. That was around 1 yr ago IIRC. That could, of course be transformed into closing it and building a new one at the south end (any suggestions?). The flaw with that is that the opportunity at London Road is there now, and TfL should be able to get their desperately needed cash a lot sooner than if they wait until they can close it.
This is straying off the topic (a little). I welcome the idea of a Camberwell Station. However, some money spent improving the existing stations there would go a long way to attracting passengers. I use both Elephant and Castle and Loughborough Junction a fair amount, and both would come quite close to the bottom in a station beauty competition. Spending modest sums on upgrading these two grotty horrors would improve the rail experience in South London significantly.
[Snip. Political insult. PoP]
@mr_jrt: The most likely alignment of the station is pointing Southwest along the High Street…
@Kit Green: NO, read WW’s commemts: no, night, tube…. @c: Ditto…
Anomnibus: This digression onto HS1 is quite off-topic, and I’m sorry that I contributed to it. I have not snipped your comment, as it is a direct reply to mine and that would not seem fair, so you get the last word (unless another moderator snips), except for me saying I do not agree.
Grammar:
“… and it is true that the much is made of the improved connectivity.”
[Corrected. Thanks. PoP]
So, if the line gets built, but ends up not going past Lewisham for whatever reason (either temporarily or permanently):
– Is there enough depot space at Stonebridge Park +/- London Road for the extra trains that are required? One merit of a Hayes takeover is that a new depot could presumably be situated somewhere along the line, notwithstanding any planning issues. If London Road does get flogged off to help pay for an extension, this question becomes even more critical.
– Would you need a three track station at Lewisham to terminate all trains there, increasing the complexity and cost of a station there, or would a two track station suffice?
And as for new trains…..I find it *very* hard to imagine that any extension could go ahead without a complete stock replacement taking place as well circa 2025 (anyone who questions otherwise really does need to go and see the current trains for themselves!). If the cost of those trains means that an extension is delayed or even shelved, then so be it.
It’s all about priorities, people…..
@Kit Green: No prospect of anything remotely approaching 24/7 for any existing tube lines by 2030. Even the currently suspended proposals were only to run on two nights out of 7.
Re lemmo,
That would surely be the shortest article in LR history…
Title:
“Why is it so hard to create a strategic interchange in Lewisham?”
Article body:
“Lewisham Council”
I’m guessing the two responses that wanted the Bakerloo to run to Burgess Hill actually meant Burgess Park. Though extending it to Burgess Hill would certainly make an interesting addition to the A Study in Sussex series. Perhaps the proposal should be called Bakerloo Main Line Too.
@Peter R: Currently the walk between New Cross and New Cross Gate isn’t too bad; sometimes if I have to go to Cannon Street I walk to New Cross Station instead of going to NXG then change at London Bridge just because I can.
I wonder how they are going to implement the interchange at NXG though. The platform width (especially platform 5, used by the Overground and some Southern services to London Bridge) is going to make this interesting…
As an interesting aside: When the Bakerloo was planned/constructed, was “l’enfant en castille” really the final destination?
[The intended destination is OK as an aside, but please let’s skip the origin of the name “Elephant and Castle” this time round. It has been discussed many times before, here and elsewhere. Malcolm]
answer=42: I was not claiming that extension beyond Lewisham was in any way infeasible or undesireable. It could obviously provide some useful benefits. Just not enough (in my opinion) for it to actually get built. The current plan is what it is, that is to say that extension is to be passively provided-for. Whether such extension will eventually happen is just conjecture at this stage, and we try (not always successfully) not to do too much of that here.
A few thoughts:
The proposed limit of Lewisham seems the right option to me as it meets the main objectives of serving the general Old Kent Road area, making use of spare capacity on the Bakerloo line but without overloading it.
Also presumably part of the reason not to head into Bromley borough relates to the lack of enthusiasm from the locals / council.
With Northern line trains at Waterloo soon to arrive there much more heavily loaded (from Battersea rather than Kennington) and with Bakerloo trains also arriving there much more heavily loaded post-extension, any more loss of tube capacity at Waterloo would presumably create problems there.
I am sure if there was a clear commitment to the OKR route for the Bakerloo it would also hasten the provision of the Overground station at Surrey Canal Road as it would benefit from the developer / investor confidence in the area (and could be delivered over a much shorter timeframe too).
Depot location? Possibly associated with the unused land adjacent to the New Cross Gate station?
The new / reinstated Camberwell station sounds like a good compromise for commuters in that area, although the optimum station location would be a bit further north in my view to link better to Walworth Road.
Finally, not extending the Bakerloo to Hayes would keep the BML2 dream alive! (not for me I hasten to add!)
If there is to be an underground station at Lewisham then presumably it will need to have over-run tunnels stretching hundreds of metres beyond the platform ends. These will be have to be threaded between the piling of the various apartment blocks in the area. Presumably these tunnels will have to stretch out along the alignment of either the proposed Hayes or Bexleyheath extensions, regardless of whether TfL have any plans to go with an extension or not. So the choice of possible future extension will have to be selected before tunnelling starts on the Lewefant section.
Personally, I would expect NR to pick up a large part of the cost of any further extension. They get the benefit of selling the freed-up slots to train operators.
@Sothern heights
“As an interesting aside: When the Bakerloo was planned/constructed, was “l’enfant en castille” really the final destination?”
No, as the name of the BS&W implied, it was Waterloo – it was only extended further in order to find somewhere for a depot. The Hampstead Tube ran to Golders Green for the same reason. We may find the Lewisham extension gets built out to somewhere (Hither Green?) for the same reason, with all that means for possible future extensions.
You can travel by bus from Lewisham to the Elephant without changing, but not via the Old Kent Road – the only direct bus is the 136, which goes via Peckham and Burgess Park . This appears to be a fairly new innovation, having only been extended to E&C in 2014.
Ed
I have no illusions about the speed of bus services through much of the day. At least there is a top deck once again from which to admire the slow traffic.
@James GB
“If there is to be an underground station at Lewisham then presumably it will need to have over-run tunnels stretching hundreds of metres beyond the platform ends. Presumably these tunnels will have to stretch out along the alignment of either the proposed Hayes or Bexleyheath extensions, regardless of whether TfL have any plans to go with an extension or not.”
You could hedge your bets and build it as terminal loop, so that an extenskion can be tied in on either (or both) alignments!
Re anomnibus,
Resignalling into CST would probably gain about 3tph, 6tph released from Hayes and probably an extra Vic via Lewisham if the other service patterns at Lewisham were okay and a temporary 4-5tph reduction due to LBG works.
If you initially take an additional 8tph (circa 50% of the above assuming rest are fasts) on the remaining 4 suburban branches how would you fit them on the 2 track lines without doing something about the semi fasts?
Hence my thinking about all via Dartford semi fasts being rejigged with a change at Dartford or further out on to a semifast crossrail service so everything inside Dartford on the existing lines being all stops rather than the current mixed service pattern.
Lemmo,
Is there a follow-up in the pipeline which investigates Lewisham, and why it is so difficult to create an effective “strategic interchange” here?
I have been meaning to do one for ages. I know what to write. The photo included was originally taken for that purpose. However there are quite a few other articles in the pipeline, some more time dependant, and I am trying not to almost incessantly write about trains in South London so it is low priority.
Ian Sergeant,
Apart from the length, the other problem with the Piccadilly stock is that it is almost equally old and more sophisticated – which means more difficult to maintain as it gets well beyond its intended life.
There is the almost unmentionable option of ordering a new fleet of “modern equivalent” conventional trains for the Bakerloo – either as a complete fleet replacement or an add-on order. This still has the problem that they have to be paid for at the same time as financing the Piccadilly line upgrade and locks London Underground into obsolescent stock for many years.
tyteen4a03,
I despair at platform 5 at New Cross Gate (up slow). It should ideally be wider and the stairs to the footbridge should not be at the angle they are. All because too much land was sold off to Sainsburys. I would argue, ideally, you want to convert the existing platform 5 into an island platform 5 & 6 with 6 becoming the up East London. It means raising the road and widening the road overbridge.
If this progresses it will be interesting to see the plans for New Cross Gate Bakerloo line station. I would hope there really good integration with the National Rail station and that there would be a comprehensive redevelopment of the Sainsburys site on the west side of the line. Sainsburys are planning to redevelop the site anyway.
Re Malcolm,
HS1 returning to government control in 2040 with a potential reduction in usage costs for SE will very probably be part of NR analysis as it will cover to 2043 and will probably effect the benefit NR sees from released Hayes paths.
The TSLO map is also interesting for two other features – the CR2 destinations in the SW are as in the current consultation exercise, which is clearly become The Plan now. But both the Wimbledon and Catford loops (which are the only possible services that could serve Camberwell) are in grey for the “regional services extending outside London” which Wimbledon clearly doesn’t. The Catford loop service to Sevenoaks and, in the other direction, both services to St Albans, are no further out than Weybridge, Shepperton, Dorking, Epsom Downs etc, all of which are included on the map).
The Cat/Tat services are another surprising omission.
Ed, the West End is quite a centre of employment too. And you might go by Bakerloo because it takes you straight to Oxford Circus without the crawl from London Bridge to Charing Cross followed by the scrum through the barriers and the miles of tunnel to the tube station there. I sometimes think there is too much emphasis placed on the speed of mainline journeys whilst ignoring the frequency and greater ease of getting to the centre of things by tube.
“It is unfortunate that despite our best intentions and revised plans, events have conspired against us and we have not yet managed to report on the latest Crossrail 2 consultation”
Yet another overdue and over-budget rail project?
@answer=42
As PoP alludes to in the article, conversions of NR routes beyond Lewisham are unlikely to have a significant impact on Bakerloo loadings “further in”, simply because people who want/don’t want the Bakerloo are likely to change either way at Lewisham anyway.
It seems to me that the only real case for an extension onto an NR route is one that creates more paths into London Bridge by simplifying use of the junctions around Lewisham, not one that simply transfers paths between routes.
@ Timbeau 2323 – just a wild guess on my part but it is possible that Thameslink routes are deemed “out of scope” of both devolution and service enhancement proposals led by TfL. I would hazard a guess this is at DfT’s request / demand so that questions about the end state of Thameslink’s services and the TOC running them are not raised whenever the “Rail Vision” is launched. How embarrassing for them to have TfL come along and say “oh your service proposals are c*** why don’t you enhance them like this even though you’ve just spent £2+bn over 15 years on the project?” Given there may be other “prizes” for TfL in the Rail Vision then I expect they are content to keep their views to themselves for the sake of overall harmony and presenting a unified front whenever the launch is. Cynical, moi? 😉
Anonymous 8 January 2016 at 00:38
The report rejects extension onto NR lines (see ngh’s post). This was also discussed exhaustively and exhaustingly in this website’s previous article on the subject. It convinced me, at least.
So, no.
@PoP: That could work, but if NR wants to future-proof the line for OHLE then it might mean they would probably need to lower the platforms and raise the bridge simultaneously. It will indeed be really interesting to see the final plan.
On a side note: Do Sainsbury’s also own the carpark/road adjacent to it? How expensive would it be to buy some of it back?
@answer=42
Don’t understand where you’re coming from there? As discussed already at length, the report doesn’t reject the extensions (“…has not been ruled out….”), it’s just pretty lukewarm about them.
So no to what?
I’m surprised the Bakerloo isn’t given higher strategic priority given how many NR lines it connects with: WCML (QPW – Harrow), Chiltern (Marylebone), GWML (Paddington), SouthEastern (Charing X) and Thameslink (E&C). Plus the Met and District at Baker St and Embankment. Must have the most NR connectivity of any tube line?
In contrast the Piccadilly line only has two interchanges with NR, both on the same line.
Re tyteen4a03,
BR sold the land to them! (and NR still have access rights thought the delivery entrance). Sainsbury have sold some of their site on to property companies over the years and then lease them back so ownership may be less clear cut in some cases.
See the new cross gate article and comments:
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2014/new-cross-gate/
It would require complete redevelopment as taking any land back would stop HGV access.
The bridge might need replacement at some point and could do with widening as well (it is a TfL administered road…)
Forgot the NLL at Willesden Junction as well!
With the rolling stock I can only see last 5o odd years and thats pushing it. I have to say motors and the doors will be the thing that are the main problem with the rolling stock. How long will the motors last we have to remember the 1972 stock is a very old design a copy of the 67′ stock but without ATO. So the design is from the mid 196os would been handy to kept a lot more of the Mk1 1972 stock for parts or trailer cars.
Another thing is what will be the consequences if nothing is done to the Bakerloo and the service dilapidates. More pressure on Watford DC LO, Jubilee and Northern Line Charing Cross Branch.
The really only option for stock replacement on the Bakerloo Line is the NTfL since a cascade of any other stock the 1995 or 1996 stock wont work since they wont fit.
Graham H @ 16.13
Yes, the rest of this is down to CR3, I assume, though the timescales seem to be stretching horribly.
James: An interesting finding. But I don’t quite understand what “strategic priority” is. If it is something like choice of where to spend available upgrade money, or which lines to buy new trains for, or various other kinds of priority, then I can see the relevance of total ridership, yes. But whether a passenger is directly connecting with an NR train – just what has that got to do with anything?
Southern Heights (Light Railway) says:
7 January 2016 at 21:58 As an interesting aside: When the Bakerloo was planned/constructed, was “l’enfant en castille” really the final destination?
My French is obviously in need of some revision.
On the other hand it might be my lack of joy du vive.
[There is controversy about the origin of the name “Elephant and Castle”. French and also Spanish interpretations have been advanced, as have alternative theories. Interested people may search the internet, or discuss it wherever, but please, not on this site at this time. Malcolm]
James
Err.. Victoria Line interconnects with (ex) GNR @ Kings Cross, MR @ St Pancras + International, LNWR @ Euston, LBSCR & LCDR @ Victoria & LSWR @ Vauxhall – I might add GER Cambridge services too @ Tottie Hale.
How’s that for connectivity?
And why it loads up so much, of course.
@CBS – or even your French spelling (but perhaps you were writing ironically….)
Re Anonymous 0924,
DC traction motors can be rebuilt almost indefinitely, there are some in the SWT 455s that were second hand when the stock was built and the motors date from the 1940s so 70+ years shouldn’t be an issue.
@James
“Bakerloo must have the most NR connectivity of any tube line? ” (six TOCs)
The Victoria and Circle Lines both have NR interchange with eight TOCs if you count TSGN and LO as one each – several more if you consider their individual constituents. (I have not included Euston Square or Tower Hill in the Circle’s tally)
Well if they are only planning to open by ‘2030’ then the latest time to submit a Transport and Works Act until 2020? Then that leaves 7 more years of consultations and politic-ing, both local and national.
Crossrail 2 is an agreed national project (mostly) and it’s chugging along towards a funding agreement. Crossrail 1 provides the funding model and I’m sure an agreed bodge will be made.
As to the Bakerloo it seems Northern Line extension will provide the model there.
Of course this all assumes that things will continue on as they are. I suspect the Conservatives will remain in National government as to the Mayor.
Both candidates are stressing housing and the Bakerloo extension is one route to that. But Mr Kahn is more likely to stress the need of council rented properties and decry a line built for millionaires etc etc. It might be still sorted if a big enough housing grant can be leveraged in along it’s route. Mr Kahn is more likely to prioritise lower fares than investment in transport infrastructure.
At the same time considering national sentiment that the Conservatives only spend money on London etc, no one outside London accepts that London needs yet more money spent on transport. I suspect permission to spend more in London will only arrive after some cross Pennine tunnels are under construction.
As to the Bakerloo extension, if they really abandon the idea of taking over a surface line then maybe extend the line one more stop to Hither Green, thereby giving access to more train services and mainly because there is lot of unused railway land South of there and an ideal spot for a decent sized depot.
If it worked out operationally, you might partly pay for it by closing down and selling off the London Road depot.
@ Rational Plan – in the Budget and Performance Cttee discussion re TfL’s budget the issue of funding for CR2 is apparently to be considered in the 2016 Budget which is set for mid March. That timing is very interesting in the context of the Mayoral election given purdah kicks in 2 weeks later. It will be fascinating to see what “help” (ahem!) the Chancellor is prepared to kick in London’s direction as part of the election and how it aligns with your views. I broadly agree with your sense of things that CR2 might get to the point of funding but not much else will. I also don’t see the Government giving any help (money or new revenue sources) at all to Mr Khan if he wins. TfL were clear that anything that isn’t committed or contracted is in scope for “reassessment” and “rescheduling” which is the usual old routine of descoping, postponing or cancelling projects or spending altogether. Same as it ever was – I’m a former expert at doing that with investment budgets.
2022, I mean for the Transport Act.
@Rational Plan: If you did that, then you might as well continue on to Bromley North…. 😉
@ Southern Heights. But would that not be rather symbolic? You’d need separate track to Grove Park and a flyover and then conversion costs.
I don’t see why TFL need to extend any political capital to Bromley since it’s not been willing to extend any to them.
The idea for the Hither Green extension was more to do with lots of rough green waste land for a nice large depot with an additional station as bonus.
Extending any further would depend if the extra cost would be justified by extra passenger numbers.
Anonymous
Extending the Bakerloo onto an existing NR surface line is explicitly ruled out by the report, hence dead as a Norwegian Blue. Other types of extension are explicitly not ruled out, hence vampire-like undead.
re Walthamstow Writer 00:42 ,
I understand Thameslink is effectively out of TfL scope
Re A=42,
Really? Try reading the report again especially the quotes in my comment above:
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2016/extending-bakerloo-not-transport/#comment-261584
Taking over NR routes is cheaper than a reasonable length new build extension beyond Lewisham.
It will be the little things that will start too fall apart of the 72 stock. Does anybody have any clue how much it will cost to refurbish the 72 stock. The Central Line stock seems to be far more far problematic in terms of electronics.
If there isn’t any money to extend the Bakerloo line just maybe if possible try to improve the current Elephant & Castle terminus. In terms of the crossover points though it is difficult
20tph seems quite low for E&C terminus but considering the constraints of it they’re sweating it. Improved an cross-over and minor tweaks with new trains maybe you can squeeze 22.5tph to 24tph.
In terms of mayor we could just see with in terms of Sadiq Khan Ken Livingstone V2 just not so lefty.
Bakerloo line is the forgotten line of the London Underground its not that important compared the Picc or the Central.
Interesting behind the scenes stuff in here…
Page 6 http://www.tma.uk.com/tma-cms/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/TMA-Capability-Statement-1509-Screen-Compressed.pdf
Page 4 http://www.tma.uk.com/tma-cms/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/TMA-Current-Activities-Template-Sept-2015-R00.pdf
@answer=42…..Er, no it isn’t. To quote directly from the report’s executive summary:
‘Our assessment has shown that an extension beyond Lewisham can provide specific benefits to wider rail capacity, by potentially converting an existing line and re- allocating rail services to other routes. A future extension beyond Lewisham has, therefore, NOT BEEN RULED OUT.’
@Rational Plan…..Why should the long-suffering residents of Bromley (particularly the younger, apolitical ones) be made to put up with substandard transport links into London due to the parochial, unrepresentative views and attitudes of its council?
And before you say, “Well, get out there and vote in your council elections!”, I do (or did, I should say, before I moved away), but without PR it is very hard to end up with anything other than a Tory-dominated council. ?
As the government subsidy is reduced slowly to zero, TfL will have to become more like MTR in Hong Kong – having to maximise revenue from development around stations and depots.
This extension would be an excellent way to prove (to the often sceptical Treasury) that TfL could, given a loan – make money on a new line, slowly paying back the investment.
TfL has property developer may seem absurd to some now, but it’s already happening. Interesting times.
@ngh, anonymous,
I take it all back. I mis-read ngh’s original post and then didn’t go back to check.
Looking at the timeline above, it strikes me that there are incredible lags between stages even if there was a blank cheque ready and waiting. How can it take eight years to begin construction? 18 months to sign off a TWAO? Is this normal? Everything seems to go at a snail’s pace although I am no expert in these matters.
If anyone wanted to explain to the layman why decision-making takes longer than even tunnel boring and station fitting, I would be very interested! 🙂
Putting on a penny-pinching hat, it occurs to me that there is now a “cheap and cheerful” solution to the Bakerloo extension on the table:
1) Two new underground stations on the Old Kent Road, interchange at New Cross Gate as per PoP’s summary. That would be 8km (x2) of extra track.
2) Above surface (cheaper to build) termination of Bakerloo somewhere around/above Lewisham station, with room for a siding; possibly with “build over here soon” like Shoreditch High Street station.
3) Cut the north end of the service back to Willesden Junction. That’s taking 9.5km and 7 stops out – this would supply the extension with existing rolling stock.
4) Increase the London Overground “DC” service to make up for the missing trains between Willesden Junction and Harrow & Weldstone. These trains don’t need to be “special underground stock” and seem to be easier to come by.
This would allow the project to go ahead with the existing stock and would make the Bakerloo line a “99% underground” line from Willesden Junction to Lewisham. Any new stock would be for the Overground service, which would be easier to lease as it is standard sized (with third rail, of course).
I should have said, looking at the National Rail data, there are currently only 9tph from Willesden Junction platform 3 [WIJ] to Harrow & Wealdstone [HRW]
XX:04 Bakerloo, XX:11 Overground (to Watford Junction), XX:14 Bakerloo, XX:25 Bakerloo, XX:31 Overground, XX:34 Bakerloo, XX:46 Bakerloo, XX:51 Overground and XX:55 Bakerloo
So, that’s 6tph to move to Lewisham. The replacement Overground trains could just be Willesden->Willesden trains or Euston->Watford or something inbeween?
@ James S – I think the regulatory and housing market conditions in Hong Kong are rather different to those in the UK. I understand the HK government takes deliberate decisions about how it allows MTR to exploit land and air space rights above stations, depots and tunnels. Most development is coincident with new line construction so MTR don’t own the land anyway until construction powers are granted. TfL are in a different position because they have large inherited land holdings because of the organisations that have been melded together to form TfL. Not all of that land can be developed as it is rightly designated for operational purposes and can’t be disposed of nor developed. It is far to say, though, that land disposal is a routine issue for TfL with regular reviews and then a final sign off at City Hall. The Bakerloo extension would probably more closely mirror the MTR new line concept but I don’t know if TfL (or City Hall) own land already along the planned corridor .
I am not certain that TfL would ever have the same degree of “freedom” that MTR has. The market conditions are also different as is the political context. Hong Kong politics are basically stable with low levels of opposition to things like development. It’s viewed as the norm. London is not the same – Mayoral politics can change every 4 years and there are limited opportunites to gain any momentum or get anything done. Views on housing policy also differ as does the view about TfL’s role in housing. My sense of things is that we have a split between forced land sales and development vs TfL partnering with developers but retaining the freehold and gaining rental income. I’ve no idea which works best in terms of delivering better and more housing and giving TfL an appropriate income with limited or no risk exposure.
@Briantist: Above surface (cheaper to build) termination of Bakerloo somewhere around/above Lewisham station
You’re having a giraffe right? About the only space still left is by the Carpetright on Thurston Road and you’d better be quick as I expect it to be on the list for redevelopment as well… Not that that’s big enough for a surface station…
After that it’s Cornmill Gardens by the recreation centre, and that is even more cramped…
@Briantist
Er, out of curiosity, where on earth would you find the space to build a surface Bakerloo line station with siding at Lewisham? Especially with the recent developments, the place is now chock-a-block!
Curtailing the service at Stonebridge Park (doing so at Willesden Junction would cut off the line from its main depot!), as was briefly done in the early 80s, is hardly likely to prove popular, as the subsequent reversal of that decision demonstrates. And I really don’t think this is justifiable for the sole reason of saving on new rolling stock for the extension. Not only is it bad publicity (Fifty-year old trains to operate new extension, scream the hradlines!), but the Bakerloo trains are unlikely to last much beyond 2025+, even with a complete overhaul.
Plus any new Overground stock (and you would need quite a few new units to replace the equivalent frequency Bakerloo service over the same stretch) still has to be ordered/leased, paid for and built. And where would the extra trains terminate past Queens Park? The only options are Euston (where there is unlikely to be sufficient capacity, even post HS2) or onto the NLL via Primrose Hill (which is unlikely to be popular with freight operators).
Gio,
A TWO requires a certain level of design to be completed before it can even be submitted. The design will require things like detailed ground investigation, environmental assessments, constructability assessments (no point asking to build something you can’t build), identifying affected land owners etc. and there must be a local consultation of people / business directly affected. This all takes at least 2 years.
Then the TWO process (or Development Consent process, or Hybrid bill for a bigger job) will take at least 18 months, normally 2 years. crossrail’s Hybrid bill was over three.
Even assuming a chest full of cash at the immediate disposal of the project team, gaining the TWO doesn’t mean you can start work. You then have to buy the land, take possession, secure the sites, engage contractors, mobilise them and so on. A TBM takes several months to build, and you won’t place the contract before getting consent to build the tunnel. So at best, you won’t start work until a year after consent is granted.
All in, it’s a least 5 years from having an initial concept to spade in ground. And that is very good going.
But it’s not just a UK thing. the Nîmes – Montpelier bypass line in France got its Declaration of Public Utility (equivalent to a TWO) in 2005. It opens in December 2017.
Having checked the Wikipedia entry for the 1967 stock (so clearly the following is the gospel truth), some 1967 stock trains are stored at Eastleigh “possibly as spare cars for the Bakerloo line”. I agree that old trains on a new extension would be bad publicity, but non-enthusiasts can be fooled by a really good internal refurbishment if the finishes are of high enough quality.
I really like the Hither Green depot and interchange idea. From a passenger point of view, there is the opportunity to provide a really good quality interchange in a way that will be difficult at Lewisham, generally spreading the load. And the new depot could be built specially for the new trains, with Stonebridge Park sold later on to raise finance. Perhaps air rights for HG depot too, helping to raise finance for the extension.
Regarding new trains, will the Bakerloo ones really be ATO? What happens north of Queens Park – driver takes the controls?
The extension of the Bakerloo to Elephant and Castle only took one more year after it first opened from Baker Street to Lambeth North. That suggests that it was planned to do that well before the line opened. It’s worth remembering that E&C was a significant destination in 1906. It provided the interchange with the very first Tube, now the Northern Line. Also, at that time E&C was a massively important node on the tram network. I have never seen any figures for interchange between trams and Tube there, but I suspect the Bakerloo promoters would have been keen to grab as many tram passengers as possible. Remember that local politics meant that tram connections into the West End were just about non-existant.
The 1972 stock trains are undergoing a major refurbishment? I have not seen one of these in service yet or maybe ive just been missing them? Any details as to what this includes?
A lot of this seems to turn on freeing up more capacity NW of Lewisham (whether for ex-Hayes trains or something else). Why is the Nunhead line never considered in that context, with trains onward to the Blackfriars bay (or even Victoria SE, if capacity permitted)? And that would improve the business case for the lovely new Brockley HL, which at least we can now visit on a map.
It’s true that if exploiting this potential there would be conflicts further up with TL and LO, but the latter could be avoided if the Victoria service stayed on the Chatham lines rather than diverting to the Atlantic after PMR and (usually) switching back after Wandsworth Road.
At present Lewisham-Nunhead is less than 3tph peak, 2tpo off-peak. From Nunhead it merges with the Catford loop (4/2tph). Even allowing for remaining conflicts, surely more than 7tph could be squeezed through in the peak with modest investment? Not sure how many freight services need to be accommodated, but that’s what the off-peak is for.
What am I missing?
Trains from the Nunhead direction cannot access the bay platforms at Blackfriars without crossing the whole formation on the flat. A similar problem would arise at Brixton if more trains ran to Victoria from that direction.
“The extension of the Bakerloo to Elephant and Castle only took one more year after it first opened from Baker Street to Lambeth North. That suggests that it was planned to do that well before the line opened.”
Maybe planning the extension started before the original line opened, but probably after construction of the original line started. After all, the decision to build HS1 to St pancras was made several years before Waterloo International opened – so WInt was already scheduled for closure before it opened!
It would not be the first time a new extension opened with old trains – the Jubilee stage 1 did (with 7 year old trains of, yes, 1972 stock!) as did the Terminal 4 and Terminal 5 extensions (1973 stock which was ten and thirty years old at the respective opening dates), and the Central Line extensions (opened in the late 1940s with Standard stock which had been stored in the open throughout the war and was well past its use-by date) .
The S stock will be at least eight years old when the Croxley link opens. The first re-opening to Corby in 1987 was with dmus which were nearly thirty years old, and the class 158s working the recently-opened Borders line are 26 years old.
What worked the Met’s Stanmore and Watford branches when they first opened?
@Gio:
There’s an underground metro station in Rome’s Parioli district, “Euclide”, that was formally requested in 1947, approved by the Board of Public Works in 1948, but had to wait until 1952 for the necessary ministerial decree to authorise its construction. (The equivalent of the UK’s Transport & Works Act Order). The station was completed and opened in 1958.
So that’s 11 years, start to finish, for a single station, six of which consisting solely of tunnelling through paperwork rather than Rome’s soil. This wasn’t on a brand new line, but on a line that was already opened in the 1930s and doubled in the 1940s through the proposed site.
Sadly, while even quite railway networks can be automated today, nobody has come close to achieving a fully-automated bureaucracy.
[We prefer more local examples where possible. Malcolm]
Timbeau,
rhetorical question? I think that at least one of those Met extensions opened with ‘new’ EMUs which were actually old loco hauled coaches with new electrical equipment.
Re. Hither Green:
This station is on a viaduct above ground level. Furthermore, there are already multiple depots and sidings in use here, including a track maintenance depot. There is also a triangular junction. Most of this is on viaducts and embankments, and there is little additional space for another depot for the Bakerloo. There’s certainly nowhere near enough room for a depot big enough to replace both London Road and Stonebridge Park, as has been suggested in other posts.
(The ‘southern’ side of the junction is not, as far as I’m aware, used by regular passenger services, but is used by freight.)
The only way such a depot could be achieved here is by relocating all the existing facilities elsewhere. The nearest possible site I can think of is the area around the rather complex Chislehurst Junction.
timbeau says “[Waterloo International] was already scheduled for closure before it opened! ”
A nice soundbite, but a weeny bit exaggerated. Waterloo International opened in 1994, and at that time, plans were certainly being made for a new line, but the details were not fixed at that time. Moreover, it was generally supposed that some trains would continue to use Waterloo, and the new terminal would be additional. I do not know exactly when it was announced that all trains would use St Pancras, but I am fairly sure it was later than 1994.
Although Jackson[1] is clear the Watford branch was electrified on opening – for example the station platforms were lit from the traction current – Bruce[2] says the only new train in 1925 was an experimental unit, and most services were steam hauled. To work the electric service from Rickmansworth and Watford twelve motor cars arrived in 1927 to work with the existing steam vacuum braked carriages, followed by motor cars in 1929 and 1931, which arrived with some new trailer cars.
The branch was not initially considered a success.
[1] Jackson, Alan (1986) London’s Metropolitan Railway pp. 252-255
[2] Bruce, J Graeme (1983) Steam to Silver
Are these costings for a tunnelled extension? Would it come in cheaper and quicker if it was cut-and-covered down the Old Kent Road? The stations would cost less, for sure.
Jackson continues on p.279 so say that the new trailer cars were compartment stock (i.e. with a door by each seat), which were preferred over open saloons on the longer distance journeys.
The Stanmore branch opened in December 1932, eight months before the demise of the Metropolitan Railway. No new trains are mentioned in Jackson as specially for the branch, but passenger numbers were falling and the bottleneck remained between Finchley Road and Baker Street. This was relived when the Bakerloo line was extended to Stanmore in 1939, and the ’38 Tube Stock was built for the Bakerloo and he Northern line.
Re Hither Green, I personally would not remove Stonebridge Park. Hither Green would be in addition and act as a Southern Depot.
Whether it was just a stabling facility and minor repair centre, with Stonebridge remaining the main works.
Either the maintenance depot in the triangle would need to be moved South or the Depot would need to be further South on former railway land next to existing depots. Not easy as it would mean cleating scrubland that screens residential land from railways uses, but the Thameslink programme managed it.
Re. Lewisham Station:
In the photo shown in the original article, the station is towards the back, with its two railway platforms curving away to each side of the photo. Below these, at street level, is the later DLR station. A few metres away is the confluence of the Ravensbourne and Quaggy rivers.
This confluence is being moved away from the station as part of the redevelopment of the area. The rivers will be diverted a little to meet at a more convenient and aesthetically pleasing spot, and some culverts opened out.
Lewisham itself sits on a valley floor, on soft sand and gravel beds, with some chalk and lots of loam. It’s wet, soggy ground that needs extensive piling to support the new high-rise buildings. These are inevitably going to limit the options for an underground Bakerloo Line terminus in the area. (They also make building such things inherently more difficult as the water table is not far below the surface.)
Any new underground station will need to be well below the level of the rivers if an extension is intended at some point in the future as the Ravensbourne crosses right in front of Lewisham station and continues underneath the western platforms. The river bed is a good 6-7 feet below ground level in places here, and the DLR’s own station must also be protected from movement.
Given the nearby high-rise buildings, which all sit on piles, it’s quite possible that the new Bakerloo platforms may have to be at a depth of 10 or more metres to get beneath it all.
I’ll be very surprised if much, if any, of the present station will survive this.
Sorry, I misunderstood Bruce (not the first time!), and EMUs provided the entire service to Watford “within a year” of the branch opening. Traffic between and Baker Street to Rickmansworth picked up after electrification.
Chiswickian,
As a rough guide £100 million per kilometre for single track bored tunnel. Not a big cost in the scheme of things. As always, it is the stations that cost the bulk of the money.
Cut and Cover for building the track would almost certainly cost more. Tunnel Boring Machines are very efficient in digging out only what is needed. This means less spoil to remove. I can’t see a fleet of lorries removing spoil from a cut and cover extension being acceptable. With tunnel boring machines you also can concentrate your spoil extraction on one site which is more suited to removing it. Tunnel Boring Machines also make it possible to provide a strong lining for a minimum amount of material.
The problem with cut and cover is the presence of utilities. Even if there aren’t the usual utilities just below the surface you can bet there will be a few major water mains, sewers and high voltage electricity cables to deal with. Its also more difficult to build over cut and cover afterwards, and the properties would be more subject to noise and vibration, which rather defeats the point of the extension.
Whether the stations would be built by cut and cover or not is a more interesting question. It is highly likely at the Old Kent Road stations that there will be at least an element of cut and cover (or at least dig down and make a big hole) which makes it much easier for the lifts and escalators. Whether or not they will go for a full station box is a complete unknown to us. Lewisham will be “problematic” as they will probably only find enough available space for the top of the escalator barrel or rather escalator barrels as I suspect there will be a main line station entrance and another one closer to the shopping area.
Re Timbeau
While it is true that an approach to London from the east and a terminal in the vicinity of Kings Cross was on the agenda when the Chanel Tunnel was being built, it is incorrect to state it was a done deal. You also conveniently ignore the fact that the British Government did not get off its backside and start the process of building the CTRL / HS1 for nearly a decade after the tunnel opened.
The only way the construction of Waterloo Interntional could have been avoided was if the anti-rail Conservative Government had done what the French did and have the CTRL / HS1 built and ready for operation by 1994. Once the UK ruled out having the link ready for the Tunnel opening, the need for Waterloo International is a no-brained – however much of a short life it may have had as a international terminal.
[Minor edit for politeness. Malcolm]
@Chiswickian: The Old Kent Road is also the A2… Using cut and cover on that road would probably be akin to digging up the A4 between Hammersmith and the Fullers brewery at Hogarth’s roundabout.
@PoP: I believe the intention is to have one entrance on the high street, but I can’t remeber where I saw it…
@Wry Lane
‘What am I missing?’
Er, the Chatham Main Line fast trains, some of which go via the Catford loop?
@timbeau
If, for the sake of argument, the Bakerloo line trains were much newer (e.g. nearer 15 years instead of 50!), or if stock of a similar age could be cascaded from another line, then it would be easier to argue against a brand new stock model to go with the extension*. But neither of those factors apply, do they?
Let’s face it…..the Bakerloo line needs new trains, extension or no extension, so the sooner this happens the better!
*The unfortunate example of the 1983 stock shall be left unmentioned….
@Anomnibus
‘I’ll be very surprised if much, if any, of the present station will survive this.’
A thoroughly good thing too, IMHO! But I agree that the engineering involved in building a subterranean station will be very complex, and not at all cheap.
@Anomnibus: Grabbing land between Chislehurst and Petts Wood is a non-starter. Most of that is either common land or owned by the National Trust, so good luck!
Grabbing a part of the goods station should be O.K., if it contains more than two trains, then they are NR measurement trains, they could go into the maintenance depot in the triangle. So you’d end with around 5 tracks that could be used for a depot, each of which is easily long enough for a 12 coach set of Networkers…. Now if only they hadn’t sold of all that land next to the up fast for housing!
Chiswickian, Southern Heights (Light Railway)
I must admit, I was presuming that it would be recognised that cut-and-cover along the Old Kent Road would not be feasible and that the suggestion was to use the brownfield sites that are supposed to exist to support all this incredible amount of housing.
Re Chiswickian and PoP,
One of the main National Grid electricity substations for London is adjacent to the Old Kent Road so cut and cover is not an easy option. There are at least 3 tunnels under Old Kent Road (circa 3.5 m diameter) with 275KV or 400KV cables in them and then there is the *huge* gas main under Old Kent Road. NG will have build a new set of tunnel between Eltham and New Cross (Gas works) by the time the Bakerloo work start.
Lewisham Station locations:
James Scantlebury @ 12:06 posted 2 links to the Architects TMA website (station architects with several CR1 stations and proposals for all the CR2 stations and plenty of other TfL and NR work)
The second link dated Sept ’15 happens to show detailed Bakerloo Station location options for OKR1, OKR2, Camberwell, Peckham Rye, New Cross Gate and 2 for Lewisham:
Page 4 http://www.tma.uk.com/tma-cms/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/TMA-Current-Activities-Template-Sept-2015-R00.pdf
1 Lewisham Proposal is under part of the current Tesco site to the North of the Blackheath line, the other proposal is under the Hayes/Hither Green line and Platforms (both options pointing towards Hayes).
New Cross Gate is under the Sainsbury site
OKR1 = Tescos on OKR (Where LR commenters have bet on it for years!)
OKR2 = Aldi, Tile Giant and ToyRus on OKR (Just 40m from the former “Old Kent Road” Station on the SLL!!!)
Both OKRs could be dug from the surface sites
JS
TfL as property developer may seem absurd to some now, but it’s already happening. Interesting times.
No different to “Metroland”?
@ngh: so in fact under the current Carpetright store….
@Greg: Indeed! I wonder when the Treasury are going to clamp down on it. Their current thinking seems to be that public bodies should only be ripped off by the private sector and under no circumstances should they behave in a way even remotely like that…
Re Wrylane & Anonymously,
Wrylane:
“What Am I missing?”
anon:
“Er, the Chatham Main Line fast trains, some of which go via the Catford loop?”
And that is just for starters
Post 2018 through Nunhead etc:
Current + known TL changes i.e. Known Knowns
VIC – Lewisham 3tph Peak (2 off) stopping
Luton/St Albans – Sevenoaks 2tph peak (2 off) stopping
Luton/St Albans – Maidstone East 2tph peak (0 off) fast
VIC – Gillingham 2tph Peak fast
VIC – Ashford 1tph Peak fast
VIC – Sheerness 1tph Peak fast
VIC – Dover Priory 1tph off peak only fast
So 11tph peak with flat junctions at either end and mixed service pattern (sounding reliable already?). [Not the 7 you mentioned]
Then post 2018 Known Unknowns: there will be another 8tph of SE paths into the Blackfriars bay platforms both via Herne Hill and via Catford Loop.
Assuming those 8 are split 4 via Herne Hill and 4 via Catford Loop (each SE route would be running about the same capacity) that is potentially 15tph via Nunhead which is a bit more than double your thinking.
Thanks ngh for that those links to plans and other information. I have to pose the question, as for sure someone will, what names are OKR1 and OKR2 stations likely to get?
@Phil – there never was any question of an “HS1” when the Channel Tunnel was approved – I can assure you – I was part of the negotiations at the time. Certainly, there was some scepticism about the capacity issues related to the use of BTR1, but it was difficult enough to persuade the PM that the tunnel shouldn’t have been a road one.
@Edgepaedia – at least since Janu ary 1934, the Stanmore branch was worked by the Met double-ended cars 2768 and 2769 which had already got some mileage under their belt by working the Rickmansworth-Watford service.
@WW – the problem with receipts from property development is the Treasury doctrine the “We could have had that money anyway” – so it’s vital to demonstrate to them that the development is entirely dependent on the rail infrastructure. In HK, no doubt, they have a less rigorous approach.
Malcolm
If the link is correct, then “Burgess Park” and “Brimmington Park (change for London Overground)” would seem sensible…
I have not found mention of the names in my perusal of the links given. But “change for London Overground”? “Alight here to see the London Overground passing over your head without stopping” would be more like it, wouldn’t it?
[Please see moderator’s note below]
@Southern Heights (Light Railway)
“About the only space still left is by the…”
@Anonymously
“Er, out of curiosity, where on earth would you find the space to build a surface Bakerloo line station with siding at Lewisham? “
There looks like enough room to slide in a couple of Bakerloo length platforms (stacked perhaps) to the south of Armory Road. Might have to chop some trees down, but just to the north of the railway lines.
If the line is NEVER going on anywhere else this would be – and this is my point – a cheap way to get the new Old Kent Road stations and then say “the line is full”.
“Curtailing the service at Stonebridge Park (doing so at Willesden Junction would cut off the line from its main depot!), as was briefly done in the early 80s, is hardly likely to prove popular, as the subsequent reversal of that decision demonstrates.”
But, I’m not saying get rid of the service, I’m saying keep the same level of service but use larger Overground trains.
“And I really don’t think this is justifiable for the sole reason of saving on new rolling stock for the extension. Not only is it bad publicity (Fifty-year old trains to operate new extension, scream the hradlines!), but the Bakerloo trains are unlikely to last much beyond 2025+, even with a complete overhaul.”
Perhaps, but it would certainly mean it COULD open without the need for brand new trains – which also means the other line size problems on the Bakerloo – holding up the critical path. It would mean that they could start digging next year and open the new section in 2022+ and the have new trains whenever they are ready.
“Plus any new Overground stock (and you would need quite a few new units to replace the equivalent frequency Bakerloo service over the same stretch) still has to be ordered/leased, paid for and built. “
Yes, that’s for sure. But they don’t need special-specifications, designing, and testing! They can just be leased “off the shelf” in time for 2022+. Normal-sized trains of this type are being ordered for the other Overground lines including Barking-Gospel Oak (overhead power coming soon!) and the West Anglia Lines.
“And where would the extra trains terminate past Queens Park? The only options are Euston (where there is unlikely to be sufficient capacity, even post HS2) or onto the NLL via Primrose Hill (which is unlikely to be popular with freight operators).”
They only need run from H&W to Willeden Junction, they don’t need to run into Euston (which would be useful) but they could run to Camdem Road perhaps for a little extra circular connectivity?
[Moderator’s note: Briantist has given here a full response to objections to his idea, and the limitations of the idea, which he clearly admits, are apparent. We would like to avoid the main discussion being side-tracked into these details, given that the scheme is somewhat hypothetical. So replies to this message are discouraged. Malcolm]
Station names: “Bricklayers Arms” and “Old Kent Road” would do nicely, but perhaps they’ll try to come up with more ‘up and coming’ incarnations. On the other hand, “Nine Elms” is quite old-school, so there’s hope. Much as endless flats are needed, the Bing Birdseye view of the area suggests that it will be at the expense of council estates and places of employment – there’s not actually that much vacant land knocking around in the way that used to be the case by Bermondsey church… unless the big gas works near OKR2 is going.
Slightly straying away to matters around NXG, the A2 around there is absolutely dire, with buses mixed up bumper to bumper with trucks in jams at any time of the day, without even room for bikes to pass. A Tube alternative will be a great relief to many.
@james GB
“at least one of those Met extensions opened with ‘new’ EMUs which were actually old loco hauled coaches with new electrical equipment”
Nearly all the Southern Electric’s suburban units were old bodies on new frames, so most newly-electrified services had old trains on them – at least the parts the passengers saw. This also included completely new lines like the Chessington and Wimbledon-Sutton lines.
It is evident that building a Tube station under the existing NR/DLR station would be very difficult. But does the tube station have to be near the NR one? The NLE is, apparently deliberately, planned to terminate well away from any NR station. Interchange will in any case be available at New Cross and Waterloo.
So why not put the station further south, so that end of the town centre also gets a station?
Waterloo Int redundant before it opened? Of course not, the decision to send the CTRL to Kings Cross was far too late to get it built in time for international services to use anything other than Waterloo for many years. But the decision was made before the end of 1994, even if the details needed working out – at one time the plan was to use the North London Line!.
@ Graham H – and MTR is partly privatised and quoted on the HK Stock Exchange. It is positively encouraged to act commercially and has reasonable freedom so to do – hence Metro lines in Beijing and operating contracts in the UK, Sweden and elsewhere. TfL really does not have that scope at all and I struggle to see it gaining such power.
Mr Khan wants TfL to bid for franchises etc but fails to say where they will get the money from, how they resource this work without damaging the core business and what on earth happens to bid costs if they don’t win the work. Do I really want my bus or tube service cut so TfL can go on a bidding spree and possibly lose millions in the process? Err no thanks. If TfL were wholly profitable and had massive surpluses to splash then maybe but I can’t see it working. Heck at one point *I* was even going to be “sold” by LU to go and design a smart ticketing scheme for Bangkok but unfortunately it didn’t come to pass. 🙁 That was before TfL was even thought of but there were all sorts of legal issues around doing it with potential recourse against LU in the event I cocked up. Having done consultancy you’ll understand the issues.
Re Timbeau
The situation at Lewisham and the position of any Bakerloo extension station will vary depending on which priorities are though more important. Ordinarily and historically having as reasonably good interchange between different services as the physical constraints allow is thought to be a very good thing in transport terms as it makes the whole network much more effective at distributing users around and aids user movement if part of the network is out of service for whatever reason.
However, as is the case with the NLE to Battersea, there is also an argument that if providing a good interchange at the terminus merely fills up trains from connecting services and does not provide a good service for users at intermediate stations as a result then its hard to justify demanding lots of money from developers building things near said intermediate stations.
From a connectivity point of view taking the NLE to Clapham Junction after Battersea would be incredibly useful – but until someone sorts out the chronic overcrowding on SWT and to a lesser extent Southern services stopping at Clapham Junction then going there is a non starter if you want the NLE extension to be funded by private developers building mainly upmarket living acomadation.
Similarly taking the Bakerloo to Lewisham is a no brainer from a connectivity point of view – but will not help the case of demanding substantial private sector funding if developers along the Old Kent Road think it will be disadvantageous to the prospective purchasers of their housing.
Having said that it is important to note that the demographic of the potential purchasers will make a big impact on how this plays out. For example taking the Bakerloo to Lewisham allows a potential Old Kent Road commuter to Canary Wharf to avoid going via central London thanks to the Docklands connection which could potentially appeal.
Its also worth noting that TfL have not ruled out extending the NLE to Clapham Junction in the future – they simply require Crossrail 2 to be open and swallow as many passengers as possible before they do. If SE services get some sort of uplift – such as Thameslink like ATO which increases throughput or the DLR manages to squeeze even more capacity out of its infrastructure then interchanging Passengers may be less of a worry when considering the impact of having the Bakerloo terminate at Lewisham.
@Brockley Mike
I’m not sure that loading on the Bakerloo is a significant issue with extensions beyond Lewisham, especially not with the more direct OKR route.
Currently Lewisham to Charing Cross services are timed at around 19-20 minutes. I’d be surprised if the 8 proposed stops on the Bakerloo will take that long, plus it’ll be more frequent and get closer to many West End destinations. People will change onto it anyway.
And if there is an extension, people will change the other way for London Bridge too. So the same people will end up on the same route whether there’s an extension or not.
@Phil
I’m not sure I’m with you on the NLE to Clapham Junction. Unlike Lewisham Bakerloo, the circuitous 4 stop route to Waterloo is going to be slower and less attractive than the direct SWT route, even if that’s crowded.
Running on to CLJ would give the Battersea residents much more direct access to Gatwick as well as the South Coast and many other places that might be of interest to potential purchasers.
I’m pretty sure it’s a simple matter of money rather than anything else that’s holding it back.
@briantist @timbeau and others Re: station site at Lewisham
Isn’t there still a retail park on the West side of Lewisham station, with a Matalan, and Mothercare plus a Carpet Right and a bus park right next to the viaduct? Or is there a development scheme for that already?
If not I’d say that “safeguarding” this site will be fairly high on TfL’s agenda. Not sure you’d be able to cut and cover a full platform length like Paddington but it’s easily big enough to build the station underground in the more usual way.
The “obvious” (and maybe only conceivable) place for a tunnel portal towards Hayes and possibly a small depot is the Lewisham Council site on Wearside Road.
Funny you should mention Hong Kong; indeed MTR is encouraged to act commercially, but strategic rail development is still carried out (and intervened) by the government, not MTR/KCR. I don’t think there has been a rail project in Hong Kong since the 80s (except the CRH HSR, which is a £10 billion sinkhole) that did not involve some kind of land as a way to allow MTR/KCR to profit (and as a side effect, secure ridership, although most of the buyers would probably be mainland Chinese speculators anyway).
It is fair to say that MTR has become a proeprty developer more than a railway operator in recent days, and I don’t really want TfL to go down that path.
@NXG Station: If they are building under the carpark then there might be an opportunity to buy the whole plot of land and allow NR to expand a bit.
Graham H
but it was difficult enough to persuade the PM that the tunnel shouldn’t have been a road one.
Politicans & engineering really don’t mix, do they?
That should read: ” … that the tunnel could not possibly be a road one” of course, but you try telling some arrogant politico that, no, it can’t be done, & here’s why & how … um.
[ See also WW’s comments on Khan’s “proposals” ]
Re. extension beyond Battersea developers-dream, I would have thought that not going to CLJ, but towards Wandsworth Town / Putney would be a better move?
[ Crayons now back in box … ]
The longest public road tunnel in the world, today, is 24.5 Km long. Of course, Greg is probably correct that a road channel tunnel could not have been sensibly built at the time, it would have cost too much and been too little use. And that still applies today. But technically infeasible? I don’t think so.
[The channel tunnel service tunnel is of course a road tunnel, and is even longer].
@Malcolm
By amazing coincidence, I was only looking at the 19 minute You Tube video of said tunnel, Lærdal tunnel Norway, a couple of days ago. They have lots of safety systems including a extraction air shaft over a kilometre in length.
I guess the set up works because, by UK standards, there is virtually `no` traffic in the tunnel.
@Greg T – No 10’s opening shot was for a road bridge but the obvious safety risks of putting bridge piers in the world’s busiest shipping lane put paid to that – Battersea Bridge springs to mind*. As to the next No 10 idea – the road tunnel – my Highways colleagues were concerned about both safety (the risk of drivers nodding off) and ventilation (I believe some artificial islands were proposed to house the ventilation shafts but that sent the cost through the, err, roof)
*When I did a stint at the PLA, the Bow Belle had recently run into Battersea Bridge for the second time; the black joke then was the captain’s remark “Are we at Battersea already?…”
The financial, technical and safety issues of a road tunnel across the Channel should be obvious to all.
And if a well-educated (albeit ideologically myopic) PM such as Mrs T still needed to be persuaded of this, then it’s any wonder why we end up with things such as the New Routemaster and other political vanity projects.
@Greg Tingey…Actually, if you’re going in the general direction of Wandsworth/Putney, you’ll be passing through Clapham Jct anyway, so you may as well put a station there!
@Timbeau, didn’t BR originally intend to send the CTRL into Waterloo anyway?
@Tiger @Timbeau
There was a pretty serious proposal in 1994 for a tunnel portal in Warwick Gardens, between Peckam Rye and Denmark Hill where CTRL trains would emerge for the final run in to Waterloo. That would also have been a major worksite for construction with the promise, if I remember, of 60 lorry loads of spoil a day being removed past my then front door.
The opportunity for an interchange with a reopened Camberwell Station seems unaccoutably to have been overlooked in the planning.
@Anonymously – remember “the great car society”?
@PoP
Apart from the length, the other problem with the Piccadilly stock is that it is almost equally old and more sophisticated – which means more difficult to maintain as it gets well beyond its intended life.
I’m not proposing that the new line opens with old stock. I’m simply pointing out that, should the worst case happen and the new stock isn’t ready, there is a way of delivering the Bakerloo Line extension by putting the dependency on a few New Tubes on the Piccadilly Line.
@ASLEF shrugged
In addition why on earth would you build a brand new extension with outdated signalling systems only to have the replace it in a few years?
You wouldn’t want to, but based upon the cost of the Northern line resignalling, it would cost an extra £75m. Which, if it was the difference between the developers supporting the extension or not because of the time to market, would be unlikely to be a show-stopper.
@Graham H….Is that a Mrs T phrase? As I was a child at that time, I’m afraid not ? (although I am old enough to remember the hoo-ha when she left office).
Plus didn’t she rather (in-)famously remark that, “There is not such thing as society”? Surely she was making a special exception for those who own and drive a car? ?
Ironically, the original Bakerloo line tunnels at Elephant & Castle (beyond the platforms) pointed towards the currently proposed alignment. They were replaced in 1940 by the current siding/overrun tunnels, which were aligned towards Camberwell. I understand that the old tunnels were backfilled (evidence to the contrary gratefully received!).
@Anonymously -yes, in both cases. She also described BR board members as a bunch of losers to their faces. So, boorish with it.[There’s obviously more, but I hear the blix of Hans Snip approaching…]
[Indeed, albeit an interesting backstory, this is exceedingly remote from the Bakerloo and the official extension proposal. No further Mrs T stories shall be entertained. LBM]
@Anonymously – That is just a phrase from a longer statement, which added “There are individual men and women, and there are families”.
The quote attributed to Steven Norris about “horrible, smelly people” on public transport is also a soundbite that doesn’t convey the full meaning – he was explaining it was a view that some people held. Norris himself was a regular user of the underground at least.
[Not snipped in the interest of balance; but what LBM said… Malcolm]
@ Abe
Indeed, this comment by Vince and those by JR following it probably explain the overrun tunnels best.
I might have mentioned a few of my thoughts below before on another thread but the article says: “The report is pretty blunt. The area around the proposed two Old Kent Road stations is ripe for redevelopment and a line down the Old Kent Road to Lewisham could support 20,000 to 30,000 new homes. By way of contrast housing along the route via Camberwell is already established and going to Lewisham via this route would only provide around 5,000 – 10,000 new homes.
As a result, the Old Kent Road route has been selected.”
But supposing the housing along the Old Kent Road axis is developed long before the Bakerloo is extended anyway, which I guess it is likely to be (those huge hoped-for numbers quoted seem suspect to me anyway – it’s almost the population of New Addington squeezed around a single road, even if one counts the numbers as individual members of the population, let alone the number that might occupy “20,000 to 30,000 new homes” – or will they become the new slums?). Surely that would extinguish any hope of funding from those developers?
If developers have put their proposals in to Southwark Council on the OKR alignment long before they could even guess that the Bakerloo might come that way, then to me that would immediately demonstrate that property + tube might not be related, except in the eyes of the authors of the consultation report because redevelopment has not already commenced.
Again, it may well be too late for Camberwell developers to take advantage of this because there are already a large number of new blocks of flats being erected north of Camberwell Green towards the Elephant at least as far as Albany Road (and remote from the proposed reopened Camberwell Station on a side road in a sparsely populated area beyond the south side of Camberwell New Road beside a bus garage and Royal Mail sorting office on the Thameslink route, I may add). That indicates to me that housing along the Camberwell – Elephant axis is not “already established” (but perhaps it fairly soon will be).
However, it is interesting that a neighbour of mine made these comments once he had read the report: “Did you see the bar chart on page 175 concerning the crucial question as to which route was preferred ?
93% in favour/don’t mind for the Peckham route and only
79% in favour/don’t mind for the Old Kent Road route
i.e. 18% more in favour of Peckham route
Nowhere in this report any comment that I could find that negates that majority verdict e.g. “OK you might want it but we cannot afford it”.
On page 173-4 the view of stakeholders is discussed at some length and the conclusion is that the stakeholders also supported the Peckham route 50% to 53%.
So what was the consultation for ?
Talk about “going through the motions”.”
That’s the view of a neighbour and also the view reflected by at least one commentator above – plus me.
The more I think about it, the housing is needed now but the extension to Lewisham won’t be for at least another 15 years, so the developers will simply get on and build whatever they can and make hay whilst the sun shines and even Lewisham on the Bakerloo tube map will suffer the same fate as the post-war Camberwell map did. The clue is in that extract from the article – “The area around the proposed two Old Kent Road stations is ripe for redevelopment”. That’s right – that means ‘today’, not 2030+.
@Graham F – and the force of your point about timing is given further wind by the wish of the present government to tackle “sink” estates as a matter of urgency (with the usual Mr, now Lord, Stratford in the driving seat). [Actually,given Heseltine’s track record, I could see him pushing the BLE, but not perhapsunless Zac Goldsmith gets elected as Mayor…]
Who has the final say? You can only get a developer to pay for one thing, affordable housing or a transport project, but not both. If Southwark decide they’d rather have the housing, and sign off on the sites now, can the Mayor block it because he’s still working up a longer term deal for the BLE? As WW and PoP have explained, there’s no guarantee that TFL will even be able to pay it’s share of BLE anyway, so Southwark might think best to get as many homes as they can now while the market is hot.
Graham F:
Yes, the timing is all wrong. But better late than never.
Yes, the popularly preferred option is not the one pursued. This happens: consultation is not a Swiss-style referendum.
No, the report does not say explicitly “OK you might want it but we cannot afford it”. But that message is very clear in the overall conclusion.
Yes, the consultation has been a bit like “going through the motions”. But being slightly cynical, this could apply to any consultation, anywhere, about anything.
@ PoP Very good article, and I agree with the general message that raising funds by (in effect) taxing new housing development is the logical way forward, but as per the comments, you can either subsidise a railway build or housing build but not both. The simpler the better when it comes to development – i,e. straight tunnels are relatively cheap while underground stations are not – hence the OKR route preference.
Not quite so sure about the “don’t extend to an interchange, as the trains will then be full for the new stations” argument. Turn-back sidings could be used, or some trains could be run non-stop through the interchange stations.
[Sorry for going slightly off course, but the following is closer to home and I think the same arguments apply …]
@ Greg Tingey 9 Jan 2016 09:08
Fully agree that the NL extension should (in theory) continue past Battersea to Clapham Jn, Wandsworth Town and either Putney or East Putney. The CJ – WT surface section is already 6 tracked – so no need for significant crayoning for that section. A new (surface) intermediate (tube only) station near Point Pleasant junction would be useful given the large number of new apartment blocks between their and the river. Wandsworth council would like to re-build many estates near CJ and WT – so more development financing should be available. To overcome the objection of trains filling up at CJ before Crossrail 2 is built, the tube line could always be built to Putney/East Putney with trains non-stopping at CJ until Crossrail 2 is opened.
I suspect the real secret is to have a joined up long-term plan for tube extensions, crossrails and NR extensions, although I suspect NR would need to hand over suburban lines to TfL for that to happen.
At least I won’t have to travel far to record these works…
There is a significant strip of undeveloped land alongside Lewisham station, in the form of Tesco’s car parks. If the route from New Cross Gate took the line a bit further Eastwards, an approach on this alignment, under the DLR, would be possible. I’m sure someone will know where the water ring tunnels run and whether they would be a complication. This would also give the options of further extension either under Lewisham High St or Molesworth St, avoiding any of the new high rise foundations. If bets were being hedged both could be built as overrun tunnels doubling as much needed stabling. I wonder what the London Road depot site will be worth when it can be vacated?
At New Cross Gate, proposals had been made, (about 8 years ago), for a redevelopment of the whole of the retail park where Sainsburys is, including a new (secondary?) station entrance, and adding housing. So rebuilding that area is already imagined, and I can’t see that having a station underneath will be seen as much of a problem. At least it should be easy to add extra entrances to either side of the station footbridge complex.
I think it’s a pity that there aren’t any opportunities for extra conections with the Oveground, particularly the Clapham Junction route. I wonder if there is scope for an Old Kent Rd Overground station in the future?
@Graham Fakirs
Of course there would be more support from the existing residents for the route via Peckham rather than OKR, but this ignores what might be the views of future residents. As there are potentially far more of these that would prefer OKR, because that’s where the capacity for building homes exists, that sort of swings the argument the other way. You might also argue that, to the extent that building via OKR ensures more homes are built in that area than would happen without it, you have to weigh off the enormous benefit to those who would now get a decent home against the somewhat smaller benefits to the admittedly much larger number of existing residents.
Re Graham Feakins.
“93% in favour/don’t mind for the Peckham route and only
79% in favour/don’t mind for the Old Kent Road route
i.e. 18% more in favour of Peckham route”
Might this just be a reflection that more people currently live along the Camberwell alignment. Naturally they will vote in favour of a tube extension their way. Graham also quotes the report as saying “housing along the route via Camberwell is already established”.
@ Graham F – not sure you can describe anywhere in Camberwell as “sparesely populated”. OK there are not 20 storey tower blocks beside Camberwell Bus Garage or the rail line but the overall area is densely populated and a busy local area. Surely the case is that both corridors, via Camberwell & Peckham and via OKR, are densely populated and very busy? The reality is that with a more rational planning and funding regime without skewed development needs then both routes would be being planned. It makes equal sense, in my head anyway, that you cater for existing *and* potential transport demand. Anyone who has ever taken a bus down OKR, via the North Peckham area or down the Walworth Road and Camberwell will know just how dense the transport demand is across that whole swathe of inner SE London. There is a lot of existing dense housing, some recent, and there is always some scope to add more – just look at the building sites.
I may be wrong but surely it doesn’t matter hugely if the housing is built before the tube line in terms of financing? I’d imagine City Hall will force developers and Southwark Council to include provision for funding the BLE via some form of conditional levy or tax. IIRC one of the locations on OKR has been defined as an Opportunity Area by City Hall which supports its redevelopment but will bring in conditions as to what is built and what money has to be forked out. I am sure I will be corrected but developer contributions are channelled via local authorities and then on to bodies like TfL when they are earmarked for transport improvements. For example Hounslow Council has been holding on to cash from the redevelopment of Chiswick Business Park for a bus service into the park which was going to be the E10 but is now supposed to be route 70 running on from Acton. The process to get that extension in place has been going on for several years but the money has been held on account. If you can do it for a bus service then surely you can do it for a tube line? I also understand Greenwich Council is sitting on £1m from developers for bus improvements in its area. Once the Greenwich Peninsula redevelopment really gets going then even more money will be directed to Greenwich Council for transport improvements. TfL have certainly identified plenty of transport issues from that redevelopment.
@unravelled “There is a significant strip of undeveloped land alongside Lewisham station, in the form of Tesco’s car parks.”
In the 1980s I lived in one of those 19th-century semis overlooked by platform 4 at Lewisham station, and lived through the closure and demolition of the old Whitbread’s depot and the construction of Tesco, which opened I think in February 1987.
It always surprised me that Tesco had designed such a giant open-air car park, especially as it has one underneath the store too: it was almost completely unused.
The wisdom of Tesco’s planning became apparent later in 1987 or early 1988 when the DLR started talking about its Lewisham extension and it was clear that the railway was going to run right through the car park. It was no doubt fortuitous for the planners that such a large space had already been cleared.
@Briantist: Armoury Road is not place… There’s a substation there probably supllying the railway lines there… The railway is on a steep embankment there as well.
But I’ll stop here before scissors snip!
@Walthamstow Writer (and others):
[Repetitious content snipped. LBM]
There is already existing rail transport available for this route: Peckham already has the four-platform beast that is Peckham Rye station, served by both Overground and mainline services. There’s even Queens Road Peckham station further east.
Camberwell Green / New Road and its environs could certainly use a new station at, or near, the site of the closed one, but that’s really about all you need for this area as, again, there’s nothing like the housing density needed to justify duplicating part of an existing rail route with a tunnelled metro.
For this corridor, light rail would be a far better solution.
In contrast, Lewisham’s recent redevelopments mean it now has sufficient density of housing to justify such a project, but you don’t want to run a Tube from Lambeth all the way to Lewisham without some intermediate stops.
The high-density plans for the OKR corridor and the NCG Sainsbury’s site are a much better fit. There’s also no alternative rail-based transit along that route, so the Bakerloo would get to keep all those passengers to itself.
Re apparent misalignment of timescales between Old Kent Road housing development starting soon, and the Bakerloo extension completing in 2030, I think this may be less of an issue than it appears. The timescales for multi-thousand home developments are almost as long as for building tube extensions. The 4000 home Kidbrooke Village started construction in 2010 and isn’t due for completion until well into the 2020s. Greenwich Peninsula’s 15,000 homes gained planning permission last year and construction will continue into the 2030s or even 2040s. Therefore 15,000 homes on the Old Kent Road which haven’t even started the planning process yet should still be under construction by 2030. The scale of development considered viable will also be much greater with tube access than without.
@Paul III I wouldn’t be so sure about the delays to housing -where the political will is there and the admin machinery put in place – as in Docklands – much can be done in a very few years – hence the significance of the latest announcement by the government that they want to build a lot of houses in a hurry. They will want results before the next election. The appointment of Heseltine as the supervisor is significant -he has form in this area. Expect the use of central powers of intervention to override local planning authorities and new agencies to deal with land assembly.
@WW -I didn’t know that CIL/s106 monies could be held apparently indefinitely. The examples you cite all seem quite small compared with the implied sums needed to bankroll BLE; are there are any really large scale cases?
I’m delighted to see that TfL have chosen the sensible option of OKR plus Camberwell Thameslink station. If Camberwell station isn’t too expensive, there seems no reason why it shouldn’t be developed and opened independent of the BLE. I suppose housing developers will want a joined-up plan.
I was surprised to see that the additional reopening of Walworth Road was disregarded as “increas[ing] the density beyond the necessary level for residents in the area to have good access to rail transport”. Once all the new housing is filled, a station at Walworth Road would see plenty of use.
Also, a connection at Loughborough Junction to the Southeastern and London Overground services overhead would be helpful. If many passengers travelling north change at Loughborough Junction for trains to Victoria/Clapham Junction/Canada Water, the trains stopping at Camberwell will have more capacity and the Thameslink core will be less busy.
IAmHedgehog refers to a connection between Overground and the radial line at Loughborough Junction. There are also other places on the Overground orbital bits where such a link appears desirable (e.g. Tufnell Park). In a money-no-object world, they would doubtless all be built. But in the cash-strapped world of the present-day London, I doubt if they will be. London desperately needs more capacity. In contrast to new lines and extensions, new interchanges do not really add any capacity. They just move it around. So unless they can be done very cheaply, I don’t think they will happen.
Reading here about the likelihood that there are serious H&S issues related to the longevity of the trains running on the Bakerloo, and Piccadilly, and Central (for starters) I’m sortof wondering whether TfL should announce closure dates for each line.
Announce a clear date by which, without replacement kit being delivered by, each line will have to close because the safety implications of continuing to run services with the present equipment will be too dangerous to contemplate.
Government seems to have this concept that gaffer tape and baling twine can keep everything moving. Time to call their bluff and announce ‘use before’ dates. Should concentrate the minds wonderfully …
@ Graham H – you may very well be correct about retention of monies from levies etc. I don’t know how long funds can be retained for – perhaps one of our resident local government experts can say? I was merely wondering if it was possible. What is of relevance is the fact that London has seemingly coped with the Olympics levy, Crossrail levy and other charges without too much discontent. There has certanly been some from smaller businesses and those remote from the infrastructure being funded but it’s not proved fatal to commerce or development.
@ Anomnibus – I really don’t need to be told about the existence of railways in Peckham. I’m not a blithering idiot. I have been there by train many times and multiple more times by bus. I think I’ve covered almost every bus route through Peckham barring the 197 so know the hinterland very well. I think it is acknowledged by a reasonable cross section of people that south London’s rail network is not terribly attractive to a lot of people for reasons much discussed here. It can hardly be any sort of shock that people in the area want a tube line. The tube is seen as vastly more attractive given its breadth, its relative affordability, the fact it runs a frequent and comprehensive service and is publicly run. People value those key service attributes – you must surely understand that. Being “on the Tube” is also seen (rightly or wrongly) as being better connected to London than having a rail line. Much as I would like to see trams right across London I think hell will freeze over before we see a start on a proper street running tram network. Therefore condemning people in S London to a solution that will never happen is no solution at all. There is more prospect of new tube lines than there is of new tram lines because politicians do at least seem to know of the tube’s existence and probably use it.
Interesting idea from AlisonW about ‘use before’ dates. Sadly, I don’t think it will work. Heritage railways keep stuff going, essentially for ever. Other operators could, in principle, do the same. Of course, a vehicle continuing for ever will eventually have none of the original parts in place. But long before that happens, replacement will generally have become desirable for economic or performance reasons.
Safety is a different matter, of course, but inspection routines should mean that no train which has become dangerous to use is ever operated. Instead it will be repaired or replaced. The choice of which of those happens is not a safety issue.
Re Camberwell Thameslink station
Currently there is severe overcrowding after 745am for trains leaving Herne Hill – some passengers at Herne Hill and Loughborough Jn get left behind. Even the 0815 from Herne Hill ex Beckenham Jn turns up absolutely rammed.
The new class 700 will result in some increase in capacity – but it is not clear from publications whether there will be an increase in services. currently there are 6-7 tph in the morning peak from Herne Hill that go beyond Blackfriars to the north but post 2018 there will be 4 from Wimbledon/Sutton on the Thameslink core with current Thameslink services from Orpington and Beckenham Jn reverting to Southeastern and terminate at Blackfriars – the DFTs TSGN stakeholder response document from 2013 did not make it clear whether there would be any more than there is currently.
Im all for a station at Camberwell but people may be pretty disappointed if they can’t get on! This is before all the infill development in places like Streatham adding more passengers on to already creaking services.
@ Alison W – and all the government would do is appoint some “independent” engineers who would come along and challenge / disparage whatever assessment LU had made about asset life. Then all you get is one set of experts slapping the others round the chops with wet fish. You get nowhere. The sad fact is that you can keep railways going in a degraded state for a very very long time. The speeds may be dreadful, the frequency awful and comfort negligible but by then people will have changed how they travel. That then means you have a different set of problems requiring action and you could (theoretically) leave the tube lines to rot to extinction. I know it’s far more involved than that in reality but I’m stretching the point.
I don’t think public “scare stories” or threats work on something like this. I suspect that there are robust private discussions about the state of the tube (or other public services) taking place all the time in order to influence those in charge of the purse strings. Yes there are tube lines with old assets but we’re not back in the 1980s where investment programmes were really inadequate and lacked any year on year consistency to support proper planning. The SSR signalling contract debacle has knocked things sideways by many years but the intent to keep things going and to make a start on the Picc upgrade as well as completing Northern and Jubilee to “world class” standard is still there. It may not be ideal, you may think it is not enough but believe me it’s not the 1980s or 1990s. I managed a LU investment budget back then and you rarely got anything substantive done because the money was never there for more than 1 year. You could argue my bit of the budget (ticketing) wasn’t that crucial but the chaps looking after tracks, signals, power and rolling stock had exactly the same issues even though their investment was more service critical. It was a right mess.
@Malcolm
“new interchanges do not really add any capacity. They just move it around. So unless they can be done very cheaply, I don’t think they will happen.”
True that new interchanges don’t directly add much capacity, but they can make some passenger journeys shorter (and faster), in doing so freeing up space on the vehicle they would’ve been on. So adding a bit of capacity, indirectly. Difficult to quantify except through sophisticated modeling.
But I do agree that unless the interchange can be built very cheaply, and the modeling suggests that it will save some passengers an appreciable travel distance (and time), the BCR won’t be there to justify it.
Graham H “Expect the use of central powers of intervention to override local planning authorities and new agencies to deal with land assembly.”
The issue is NOT the speed of the planning process but the speed at which the developers actually build the houses when permission is granted.
DCLG already has extensive powers over planning and exercises them on a regular basis to ‘call in’ applications and over-ride the local authority and grant permission ( and in some cases over turn permission councils have granted)
Examples
I saw an article in the local paper from my home town in the north where a developer was bemoaning apparent local council planing department inefficiency but the council leader’s response was on the lines “you already have permission to build X hundreds of houses already but haven’t started to build them yet so why don’t you pull your finger out first”
And locally where I live now council officers threw an application back at the developers because they hadn’t filed the application properly and made basic mistakes such as no scale on the plans. Now in that case who is causing the delay?
Now will the Government crack down on the developers who really are responsible for houses not being built??
@Malcolm
There is a value in moving capacity around if there is capacity available elsewhere. Jonathon mentions overcrowding at Loughborough Junction. Many of these commuters will be heading somewhere better served by LO or SE orbital trains, yet attempt to board a Thameslink service north because it’s the best choice they have. Sending commuters into Zone 1 unnecessarily is a waste – capacity in Zone 1 has a higher value than in Zone 2.
Regardless of whether Camberwell station ever happens, something will have to be done about overcrowding in the Thameslink core.
Chris C refers to delays by developers. If such delays are occurring, one possible reason could be the unrelenting rise in the price of developable land. If there is more money to be made by sitting on such land (with no further outlay, and apparently little risk) than by building on it (spending money), then we should not be surprised if such sitting-on happens, to the extent that developers can get away with it.
Chris C…at the risk of thread drift…Developers have,in the current market and state of economic affairs,an incentive NOT to build loads of houses…the risk of “flooding” the market (thus depressing prices) is too great…and there’s more money to be made buying land,getting Planning Permission for it and selling it on…
Slugabed
Then why is the Government blaming councils for not giving planning permissions (which is false because they approve far more than they turn down) rather than the developers for not building?
Again the council for my home town was castigated by one of it’s MPs for failing to build the required number of houses when it had approved far more houses than the Government imposed target.
If councils were the log jam (and in general they are not) then they should be rightfully castigated but it’s not right that the developers are let off from the blame when they are the ones not doing the actual building.
@Chris C – as a former vicechairman of our local planning committee, I’m only too well aware of the propensity of developers to sit on landbanks – and so TBH is the government, even if they wouldn’t admit it. So any powers (assuming the government does take intervention powers) would almost certainly involve the state letting the development itself, or using an agent.
@AlisonW – You might like to look at some of my earlier posts on this thread – as WW says, the railways are quite capable of running for many years after they should have had their asset base renewed. In fact, it’s almost impossible to think of any railway (apart from technical oddities such as rack and pinion lines) that actually closed because its assets failed. Mind you, many reached a pretty low level of service before their finances failed – the usual cause of closure.
I’m very pleased with the overall consultation outcome. I strongly support the Old Kent Road route and the redevelopment opportunities it can bring. I agree it should be all about housing!
Lewisham – I take a similar view with the Bakerloo as the Northern line extension, Clapham junction [read Lewisham] is the obvious goal, but the service would be swamped unless other high capacity options are put in place first. Cost of rebuilding both stations means a ‘proper job’ will have to wait.
New Cross Gate is my preferred phase 1 terminus. It offers some limited connectivity, particularly a choice to use/ avoid Thames tunnel. Which benefits the Jubilee.
Phase 2 can wait. Until the future tube stock delivery is in full swing there is little point in dreaming of Lewisham or beyond. I still like Lewisham to Hither Green as the final goal. Which allows SE trains to avoid the diversion into Lewisham, reducing some crossover movements. With Crossrail 2 under construction, NW to SE Crossrail 3 can look at the Hayes branch – with new underground platforms. In combination Lewisham’s curved platforms 3& 4 can then be removed (although keep the line as an engineering connection). Lewisham surface station effectively becomes a simple junction and can be brought up to ‘standard’. Critical point is that there is not much space for Bakerloo and Crossrail 3 so clear safeguarding is needed now.
Camberwell – Plans for a Thameslink station and the closure of Eastfields Road (Mitcham) level crossing need to be high priorities built ahead of Bakerloo extension.
Brockley (High level) – would be very useful, but unless 4tph all day can be found, also calling at Nunhead and Lewisham not much point. Phase 2 Bakerloo as described could properly unlock this.
Trains are the obvious problem – I hate compromise height platforms and hope they can be engineered out of the network. Bakerloo extension needs trains to operate the 4.8km to New Cross Gate, is similar to 5.3km from Wembley to Harrow. Removing 6tph service north of Wembley and replacing these by increasing London Overground by 5tph [to 8tph] can free trains. (Plus more London Midland/Crossrail 1 calling at Harrow &W and Wembley). Thinning Wembley to Queens Park may free (more LO?) may free enough stock for initially 12pth on the extension to New Cross Gate. Bakerloo should then jump up the future tube and signalling order to deliver 32tph from New Cross Gate to Queens Park for when the new housing comes on stream. Queens Park and Wembley (new platforms) need investment to make this happen.
@GrahamH/ChrisC – it would appear the Ebbsfleet Garden City Development Corporation may be unravelling, notwithstanding the odd extra hundred million or two being thrown its way. One tranche of funding has already been thrown at the area through the Thames Gateway project, delivering Fastrack and Jeskyns country park and…. nothing else. As an aside, Fastrack B’s been compromised mostly through developer delays and intransigence. Fastrack A, at least, is fully in place before the major development it serves (The Bridge) is complete – a lesson there to ensure the bus routing doesn’t depend on developers building the roads for it.
So I’m with who think the issues are more with developers than the public sector. I’m beginning to wonder if the LDDC was a lucky success – even then there was one major developer bankruptcy.
There has been no talk of Crossrail 3. Doesn’t any plan need to find a good interchange point for that, and Lewisham doesn’t seem to be it.
Currently the SEML is planned to whizz pass BL, LO and DLR depositing everyone at LBG. Don’t we need a Stratford of the SE to tie it all together, could the X of land where the Hayes line crosses the SEML be suitable, extending Lewisham’s development southwards?
Property and transport are connected in many ways. Land values are partly a reflection of the value of what’s nearby, and that is itself a function of transport (paths, roads, rail, tubes, ports and airports).
Much is made of how transport schemes “unlock” potential. In reality, what it does is unlock planning restrictions. Much development would happen irrespective, but our planning system prevents it.
Landbanking does happen. But it’s a red herring. Almost all the literature in economics suggests that high levels of housing unaffordability are due to planning restrictiveness (but geography and town planning academics tend to find the opposite in their literature). Developers operating in London, San Fransisco and other cities with very expensive housing relative to earnings and tight planning regimes are no greedier than those in cities where planning regimes are looser and homes are cheaper.
London is in an awful situation. Prices are eye-watering, sending a signal to people to cash in by either selling up and going somewhere else, or by supplying homes. But the planning system doesn’t allow them to be built in the two most obvious ways: in the surrounding countryside (green belt) or taller in town (height restrictions, barring a few isolated areas where tall buildings are slipping through the net). It even resists the infill, garden grabbing and basements that are happening to quench people’s desire for space in London.
Partly this is down to transport accessibility. The system says people are not allowed to build the homes until the public transport system is in place to accomodate it. But TfL sets artificially low prices (free, for some) which means that it cannot respond to the demand because it struggles to finance projects which might be viable. So developments are taxed specfically through s106, CIL, etc which in turn distorts where transport projects can proceed. Only those which co-incide with a development where the LA and TfL can capture enough of the artificially high prices which the planning system creates get the green light.
Both need to be fixed. But, I suspect, neither will. People will carry on demanding their travelcards, cheap travel for politically sympathetic groups, etc, which will mean that capacity schemes struggle to make sense financially. And people will continue to reach for the landbanking, greedy developer etc red herrings, to avoid having to look at the artificial scarcity driving up the price of homes (and consequently land). Namely, planning restrictions. Oh well!
@MikeP – I do not know enough about the constitution of the Ebbsleet GC Cpn to comment on its specific performance to date. I do know, however, having been responsible for various aspects of the New Town development corporations, and worked with the LDDC on transport matters, that it is perfectly possible to manage developers in such a way as to ensure that they deliver – it’s a legal problem at root – in the last resort if the developers don’t deliver, you sack them.
@Harry Crayola – ” The system says people are not allowed to build the homes until the public transport system is in place to accomodate it” – if only it did! The current planning guidance states that development can only be refused if either it falls within a protected area such as National Parks, or it is not “sustainable”. Unfortunately, the word “sustainable”(despite what you may think) merely means financially sustainable, according to a great deal of emerging case law, and has nothing to do with infrastructure at all. Indeed, as many of we authorities who are now faced with having to find room for many hundreds of thousands of new houses are discovering, the argument that there is no capacity on rail or road (or sewerage or medical or educational) systems has no weight whatsoever as a reason for turning down a developer, alas.
@Saintsman – do you have any information to support your views about the balance of benefits and demand?
Re Saintsman,
” NW to SE Crossrail 3 can look at the Hayes branch – with new underground platforms. In combination Lewisham’s curved platforms 3& 4 can then be removed”
What about the orpington slows and sidcup services? Aren’t P3&4 the straighter “Blackheath” ones and P1&2 the curved ones?
Slow build rates also help optimise the developers working capital requirements and help keep borrowing levels down. The developers have bad memories of banks being in control when it goes slightly wrong and they have borrowed too much.
Re IamHedgehog,
” Loughborough Junction. Many of these commuters will be heading somewhere better served by LO or SE orbital trains, yet attempt to board a Thameslink service north because it’s the best choice they have. Sending commuters into Zone 1 unnecessarily is a waste – capacity in Zone 1 has a higher value than in Zone 2.”
Really? the number of passengers between Loughborough Jn and City Thameslink might suggest otherwise.
Re Jonathan 19:36
This is a potential nasty hangover from misinformed Wimbledon campaign.
Those services including the Orpington ones (the earlier Orpington/Beckenham Jn services are busier than the one you mention) are incredibly packed so I doubt whether it is possible to fit all the existing passengers on to just 4 TL services using 700s assuming standing at 4 passengers per m^2.
Herne Hill & Loughborough Jn at least have possibility of reprieve with SE services (I suspect 2 tph just won’t cut it though) but Streatham will be left with current service levels (may be +2tph Wimbledon – LBG in 5 years time) for a very long time.
This will lead to StReathamites being on the war path on public transport, buses up the A23 to Brixton for the Victoria line not cutting it (Having given up on trying to get on already full trains) and they haven’t had any luck with Bakerloo extension, CR2 and sabotage from a fairly local MP and former minister on TL service levels and who is now doing his best to sabotage CR2. Buses crawling up the A23 must be costing TfL a fair bit too.
The A23 corridor is crying out for a street-running tramway….but pigs might,also,fly…
@Saintsman
All this talk of ‘safeguarding’ the Hayes line for a hypothetical CR3 (or BML2, for that matter!) is a red herring bordering on crayonism….otherwise, wouldn’t TfL already be talking about it? I suspect that they wouldn’t dare contemplate it before construction is well under way on CR2 (assuming that even happens, of course). IIRC, even the London 2050 report made no mention of a CR3. If the Bakerloo does go no further than Lewisham, then I expect to be receiving my pension before the Hayes line becomes part of any CR3-type scheme!
As for remodeling the Bakerloo service north of Queens Park…..please refer to my earlier comments. In addition, if you still want Bakerloo trains to go as far as Wembley, then I’m afraid you’re going to be stuck with ‘compromise’ platform heights for all of the intermediate stations (unless you build a new parallel line with Tube-height platforms).
Re. planning and housing development…..I suspect, as with most things, that a combination of ‘all of the above’ is responsible for the highlighted issues. Plus there is the fact that we live in a fairly densely populated country, so chances are anywhere you propose to build something, someone somewhere nearby is likely to be affected. Add in typical British stubbornness to encroaching, unwanted change (aka NIMBYism to some), and you have a recipe for miring important planning decisions in interminable delay and limbo.
Re Anonymously,
There has been very occasional mention of CR3 by very senior TfL persons reported and discussed on LR before in the last 18 months…
Jonathan, don’t forget that once the SE terminators get to Blackfriars there will be far more trains from the London Bridge direction going through the Thameslink core for passengers to change to, many of them 12 cars long.
@Slugabed….If the M23 had been built to its original planned length (notice how it ‘ends’ at Junction 7?), then I suspect the A23 would be far more bearable traffic-wise than it is now. The CBRD database had a fascinating article explaining this further and why it didn’t happen (basically a good chunk of South London would have had to disappear under several miles of motorway!), but it seems to have disappeared from the website.
@ngh….I’ll believe it when I see it in writing from TfL (in the form of a press release, consultation, long-term planning report etc). Until then, it remains as hypothetical as my innate desire to extend the Victoria line down the A23 corridor to take away all of that pesky bus passenger traffic heading to Brixton (joke!).
Re Southern Heights 15:30
“@Briantist: Armoury Road is not place… There’s a substation there probably supplying the railway lines there… The railway is on a steep embankment there as well.”
Agreed definitely not the place and far more than the railway lines…
The NR feed from there is for the inner Windsor lines and District line.
TfL’s “Lots Road” replacement feed is via there as well.
The UKPN network feed covers a reasonable chunk of London all the way to Trafalgar Square and Richmond. It is also being enlarged to handle the Battersea Power Station site redevelopment (possibly including NLE feed?).
Probably just over 0.5GW going through there.
@ASLEF shrugged:
why on earth would you build a brand new extension with outdated signalling systems only to have the replace it in a few years?
Like the Jubilee Line extension was and the Croxley link will be? There seems to be a bit of a pattern here – plan for an extension on the basis that the line will be resignalled with a new system, then have to cobble something together at the last minute when the plans fall through… But pushing ahead with construction could be a great way of forcing the Mayor/Treasury’s hand on new rolling stock for the line.
where do the first and last trains for the south end of the line stay overnight?
I believe the plan for the Northern Line extension is that the trains will be stabled in the platforms at Battersea overnight, so I would guess the same for the Bakerloo (on non-Night Tube nights). In principle newer trains should have higher availability so you need relatively less depot space (the way that SWT reengineered some trains to save depot space at Wimbledon and so make space for more trains),
@Timbeau: both the Wimbledon and Catford loops (which are the only possible services that could serve Camberwell) are in grey for the “regional services extending outside London” which Wimbledon clearly doesn’t…. The Cat/Tat services are another surprising omission.
This indicates, as WW suggests, that TfL have no ambitions to turn the Thameslink inner suburbans orange. A less sceptical reason than WW advances might be that TfL accept that having two operators through the Thameslink core would be unworkable given the fragility of the timetable, multiple interfaces etc.
The implication would then be that all the other non-grey lines are ones that they would like to be Overgrounded, and the map hints at some simplifications to the service pattern that might be involved, but that is probably a topic for another day if/when TSLO formally surfaces as a proposal. The relevance here is that TfL hint at alternative potential improvements to those in SE London disappointed that the Bakerloo isn’t proposed to come near them (who will always be a large number of the respondents to a consultation like this).
@anonymous 8 Jan 9:24: I have to say motors and the doors will be the thing that are the main problem with the rolling stock
Motors and doors can be rebuilt or replaced. The more critical bit is the bodyshell, and that is not in great shape.
@PoP: the documents James Scantlebury posted make it clear the options have been costed on the basis of cut and cover station boxes for all the stations. The map also shows the development sites (colour coded, perhaps in terms of density of developments or of phasing of development?), which makes it clear why the Old Kent Road alignment was chosen and why TfL see there still being potential for more development at Lewisham (not least over the tube station itself once built).
@ngh: From the links James S provided, it looks like maybe the southern option for the Bakerloo station box would be under the bus station, rather than the rail tracks – compare the cross section on p. 6 which shows a “bus interchange/development” at one exit and an offset exit alongside the rail embankment on the other.
@WW: Mr Khan wants TfL to bid for franchises etc but fails to say where they will get the money from, how they resource this work without damaging the core business and what on earth happens to bid costs if they don’t win the work
The approach taken by other overseas operators entering the franchise market seems to be to enter the market in a partnership with an established operator (eg. SNCF and Go-Ahead, MTR and Arriva) to limit the financial exposure.
@Graham F: The housing development may well happen anyway, but a development site close to a tube station will support a bigger and more profitable development than one on a bus route only. As others have pointed out, there is a tradeoff between that and affordability. But since transport is a big (maybe the biggest) factor in housing prices, transport improvements will always reduce housing affordability in a given area, unless you do something like maintaining a stock of housing in public ownership, which is the Hong Kong approach but the opposite of current government policy in the UK.
@Harry Crayola: TfL sets artificially low prices (free, for some) which means that it cannot respond to the demand because it struggles to finance projects which might be viable
On the other hand, deregulated fares would probably be even lower, as the tube would have to be priced low enough to match bus competition (as was the case when the tube was privately run – the twopenny fare on the Central Line would be about 45p today). Which meant that the private companies that built the tube were in the most part unable to make a meaningful return on capital and were unable to finance expansion except by financial chicanery if not outright fraud (the Yerkes era) or government loan guarantees (the New Works Programme).
Something that makes life easier in Hong Kong is that the government is the ultimate owner of all the (leasehold) land and so long-term rises in land value accrue to the public benefit, and land can be leased conditional on it being developed within a particular timeframe.
Re: CR3, can someone please confirm any detail on what this route is supposedly going to be? All I ever hear is of random branches that might be on a CR3.
@James – “CR3” is effectively shorthand for a supposed SE-NW CrossRail type route. It’s not more closely defined than that and although I’m sure whole armies of crayonistas (and their more sophisticated relatives, the Faeber-Castellien) are just itching to draw on maps, it’s not worth annoying people on this site by trying to work it up into a specific proposition. Just think of it as a quick way of saying “The problems of SE London can’t be solved by BLE or anything now on the table and at some stage a high capacity addition is needed to the SE London network; what or whether it subsumes from the existing surface network is a future debate when we have some more facts”,
CR3 = “Route F” ( “Rails through the Clay” )
Approx Marylebone – Lewisham by-pass, so to speak.
These days might take ex-LNW line trains as well, unless those join CR1
Hope this helps
@unravelled
I also wondered whether the former Old Kent Road station on the overground could be reopened. According to wikipedia it was partly on the bridge over the road, and from google maps it looks as if there is still space either side to reconstruct it (in a similar style to Deptford Bridge DLR.) However there is less room to the North than there was given the connection to the ELL. If the Bakerloo line station were right next door, it would be a great option giving a high-frequency, one-change route from Peckham to Oxford circus etc. It would not be cheap however!
@Ian J
Regarding the Wimbledon loop trains and the desire to have only one operator through the thameslink core – this is another argument (if more were needed) for terminating them at Blackfriars – they could then be run as part of the overground and share no track with thameslink services.
A general comment – as a former Camberwell resident I would love to see the Bakerloo line extended there. Realistically however like many others I lived there because it was affordable, precisely because of the lack of a tube. Running to Camberwell and Peckham would be a boon for property-owners there but not for other residents.
@canonymous
“a high-frequency, one-change route from Peckham to Oxford circus etc. It would not be cheap however!”
The Overground already provides such connections between Peckham and a number of central London stations which I would expect to be included in your “etc”, notably via Clapham HS. It also has services to London Bridge, Blackfriars, Kings Cross, the Elephant, and Victoria, the last two of which both provide one-change routes to Oxford Circus, and have a combined frequency as good as the Overground’s.
It also has direct services to two future Crossrail stations – Farringdon and Whitechapel)
Greg Tingey and others,
The most significant comment about Crossrail 3 was by Mike Brown to the GLA transport committee. If I recall correctly Lewisham was being discussed and it was something along the lines of a Bakerloo extension won’t solve everything – you would have to wait for Crossrail 3 for that. It was clear from the context it was not intended to be a flippant comment.
Whilst, not surprisingly, many proposals do tend to have a similar corresponding proposal in post war plans one shouldn’t assume that this will always be the case (past performance …) especially with the emergence as Docklands as a financial centre and a possibility of an equivalent new centre at Old Oak Common.
I think it is fairly clear that Crossrail 3 could not be financed at the same time as Crossrail 2 – the costs of Crossrail-type lines are huge. So realistically we are talking about an opening in 2040-45 even if there is massive support and no delays. So yes, Anonymously, we will probably all be drawing on our pensions by the time Crossrail 3, if it gets built, is opened.
I suspect TfL is reluctant to talk too much about it for fear of distracting from mere long term aspirations by blue sky thinking. It would probably be best if we too only had fleeting references to it.
Where this is relevant is the question of is it worth converting the Hayes line to run tube size trains when fifteen years later it might be the case that it is the perfect line to take over as part of Crossrail 3? This also relates to the issue to what extent you only consider the benefits to you in your lifetime and those of generations in the future.
Given that the extension to the Bakerloo line is now intended to only go as far as Lewisham in the first instance, one would also question whether there is need even be a fifteen year gap between a potential Bakerloo line extension to Hayes and the earliest realistic date of a Crossrail 3 opening.
@timbeau
Peckham to Clapham has 4tph, which I wouldn’t consider to be high frequency. Peckham to Old Kent Road would have 8tph based on current service patterns. I know Peckham has services to a lot of places at the moment but none of them are at that kind of frequency.
It’ll be Crossrail 4, as 3 is Richmond to Rainham. I believe there’s a saying along the lines of “Don’t leave a need to be filled by a future project”, ie don’t miss something out with the intention to pick up the slack in another un-guaranteed project.
Saying that, I expect that while they may admit that trains will get fairly full at Lewisham they’ll pick the guaranteed New Tube as the solution. Assuming all goes positively, including depots as wanted, automation and walk-through would be a big boost?
The run-on/sidings tunnels – can they point in different directions? Say if one pointed towards Hayes but a future extension went elsewhere then it’d be a siding for starting at Lewisham?
Re Toby,
Mike Brown did mention CR3 as NW-SE not anything else.
Re Pop,
If it moves to potential model where there is always construction work going on, you could start planning in the 2024 with construction stating in 2031.
At the moment with CR1 and Thameslink not yet completed and running it is slightly harder to “sell” a continuous stream of work to the politician and public. Much easier when they have actually used it (and generates an operational surplus for the financially inclined)
@Toby – no one has got as far as numbering and prioritising CrossRail schemes yet so talk of CR4 is premature in the extreme. We have yet to see the funding for CR2 secured, let alone a timescale that is reliable.
@ngh – Whilst as an erstwhile planner, I would, of course, entirely endorse the idea of a shelf full of shovel ready projects, in the rail sector specifically, the Treasury has many times been bitten by the “continuous workload” concept – eg in the small matter of rail electrification (twice!) and rolling stock. You may have noticed their subsequent attitudes….
@Toby
““Don’t leave a need to be filled by a future project”, ”
The converse of that is that you get one project which, in trying to satisfy all needs, gets overloaded from Day 1 and/or fails to meet any of them satisfactorily – see Crossrail 2’s diversions to Balham and Euston – neither of them on the original “Chelney” route for an example.
In the Edwardian era it was recognised, in London, Paris and several other cities, that several lines were needed and they were planned and built in parallel. If we take it as a given that capital expenditure will be needed eventually, then deferring costs money, in the delay in reaping the benefits. (Simple example – if I am eventually going to have to spend £10,000 on improving my house, and as soon as I do so I save £1,000 pa, putting it off for five years costs £5,000 overall. The only reason for deferring would be if raising the £10,000 would cost a lot less in five years time than it would now. For personal finances, that may be true – I may have saved that money or had a legacy in five years time, whereas i would have to borrow it today. But for publicly-funded projects, the ways of raising money are more or less the same whenever it is done, and interest rates are currently at an historic low.
So we should be looking at a coherent RER-style plan (or Paris Metro, if you look back 120 years) , not just XR2 but XRs 3 and 4 as well.
Look at the British motorway network compared with the French – back in the late 1950s only one motorway was planned to replace the A1, A5, A6, and A41 to the Midlands and the North. It has been plagued by improvement projects ever since, including the current widening project which is causing massive delays.
@canonymous
Peckham to OKR would indeed have 8tph (of which 4 are Overground) but would be heading away from the West End to go back in again, and would undoubtedly be slower than going via Victoria, Elephant or Farringdon (whichever comes first)
@graham h “we authorities who are now faced with having to find room for many hundreds of thousands of new houses”
That’s the thing. Why do landowners/developers need bureacrats/policitians to “find room”? What’s the consequence of a landowner building something without a politician/bureaucrat having “found room”? A demolition order, if it doesn’t get retrospective planning permission. And if national park designation is the only one that matters, why do NIMBYs get so agitated about green belt designation out of town and height restrictions in town? Why do they fight so hard for these things, if the effect of them isn’t to stop homes being built?
@Ian J “deregulated fares would probably be even lower, as the tube would have to be priced low enough to match bus competition”
Why?
@Harry Crayola – National Park designation isn’t the only restriction on land use – besides Green Belt, there’s also AONB’s and SSSIs, and various high grades of agricultural land (and one or two other things besides). I can imagine from your previous comments elsewhere on this site, that you would prefer a complete free-for-all in land use, but – as Mark Twain once remarked: “They aren’t making it any more”.
BTW, somewhere in the exchanges between you and Ian J, there’s an assumption that there is such a thing as a profitable railway. This beast hasn’t been observed for the best part of 150 years (and knowing Victorian accounting practices, probably not even then). A very small handful of mineral lines overseas cover all their costs and earn a profit on their capital and can set aside cash for depreciation, but they are a great rarity. [Even the seemingly profitable Swiss lines such as the MGB and the Jungfraubahn have benefited from massive capital write offs – usually at the public expense…]
Re Timbeau,
Paris is not as far ahead as it might first appear as RER B+D share a tunnel in the core so capacity wise they are on 3.5 RER rather than 4.5 but the long term thinking is definitely far better they also try to leave options open for future growth as well (which appears to be similar to Bakerloo + CR3 thinking?), this can be seen with some of the western A branches shortly to become the western E branches to solve their Défense issues but they left ability to do this relatively easily open while thinking 50+ years ago…
@Graham H
I apologise. I misread your comment. Because I’d been talking about the green belt and height restrictions, I had jumped the gun when you said “such as national parks”, missing the all important “such as”, which led me to assume you were implying that green belts didn’t prevent development. Sorry!
I think the complete repeal of the planning system would be preferable to the status quo, because the status quo is so extraordinarily disastrous. But I am not sure what my ideal system would be. I think a much lighter planning system could be better than either status quo or a wholesale repeal (and presumably a return to a common law and ordinances regime).
The green belt is a good example of why this could be so. When they were introduced following the Town and Country Planning Act 1947, they had little effect as cities including London were then in decline. It pushed some development over the belt and probably kept some within it, “tidying” up the demarcation of rural from (sub)urban. There would have been a little overall loss of development, too, but I understand it was small due to the availability of close substitutes.
Since 1980 or so, that began to change as people started to return to cities, and especially to London. With a rapidly rising population, ruling out the places where buyers actually want to live and building is cost-effective has had depressingly predictable effects on prices. If height restrictions and green belts were more flexible, less rigid, perhaps they would still be worthwhile. But they were designed for a shrinking London of 7 million, not a rapidly growing London of 8-and-a-half million.
I don’t think there’s anything magically dreadful about rail that means it’s impossible for a system to be profitable. I do, however, think that it’s politically high profile enough to naturally attract political attention that makes it irresistable for polticians to demand the unviable services and suboptimal prices that make losses practially inevitable. But even that said, you don’t need a profitable railway for my criticism to be valid in part. If you assume a level of subsidy, such as those laid out in forecasts for NR and TOC grants, then you can set prices at a lower level and have less money for capital projects. Or you can set them higher and have more money for capital projects (and less demand for them, on account of those higher prices killing some journeys).
@Graham H – 11 January 2016 at 12:39
@Harry Crayola – [snip]
BTW, somewhere in the exchanges between you and Ian J, there’s an assumption that there is such a thing as a profitable railway. This beast hasn’t been observed for the best part of 150 years (and knowing Victorian accounting practices, probably not even then).
Did not the GWR (alone) continue to pay a dividend to its shareholders until nationalisation? Or was it paying out of capital?
@Harry Crayola – I suspect we’d be thoroughly snipped if we debated the land use planning system here-actually,I agree with you to the extent that the present system is very negative, and has grown up as a series of sticking plasters applied to specific problems rather than the result of a unified strategic look.
You are right in principle that railways aren’t,by definition, unprofitable, it’s just that a fully profitable system might be very small indeed (cf the discussion on another thread about the persisting belief underlying Beeching, and the general political attitude to public transport well into the ’60s, that there was, somewhere, a “profitable” industry out there). Politicians have tended to answer the question about the multi-dimensional trade-offs between a fully-profitable railway, a fully-profitable railway but with fares subsidies, a non-commercial railway with heavy capex subsidies, and a non-commercial railway with opex subsidies, in different ways depending on their political stance. Tories tend to have favoured investment over operating subsdies but then struggle with the concept of proper capitalisation and the knock-on effect on subsidy levels, and dislike the consequences of all that for fares levels; Labour politicians tend to prefer (every time) opex subsidies and then struggle with the investment consequences of that. The result has been a fairly random walk policywise over the last 70 years or so. Did anyone expect politicians to be consistent?!
Although this excursus might seem somewhat far removed from the problems of the BLE, it will nevertheless be important because the answer to the question about fares /investment balance will determine whether the BLE business case can be made to work. In London,it’s arguable that there is so much suppressed demand that there is little limit to what can be raised by fares, but then again – and here we come into land use territory and arguments about fares structures – how far fares can and should be raised to be pay for an essentially local improvement such as BLE is something that depends on what you are trying to achieve and on what size canvas.
No railway can possibly be profitable if it is paying for maintenance of the way, and capital charges for its land and construction, while competing with motor transport on publicly maintained roads over publicly owned land. It’s not that railways are uniquely awful, it’s that the playing field isn’t level.
Fundamentally transport infrastructure, like other infrastructure, is a public asset rife with externalities and there is no one correct way to meter its value. If I get on my bike, or take a bus, I get value from the railway which takes people off the roads; if I get on a train I get value from the existence of the buses. If I stay at home I get value from the option of taking a bus or a train if I want to. How much the ticketed user pays, and how much the non-using taxpayer does, is unavoidably a political question.
And see also housing development. How much should the builders on the Old Kent Road pay for the demands the future residents will place on the expanded Tube? And how much pain and crowding should the existing residents be forced to bear? How much extra should beneficiary businesses be taxed? You can’t answer these questions without a political judgement, and you can’t enforce your answer without planning law. Cities don’t work like that.
@PoP
Your point about ‘saving’ the Hayes line for something better in the future (i.e. the hypothetical CR3, or BML2 now I come think of it!) reminds me of that old argument of not buying a computer now, since there will be a newer, better model for the same price in 6-12 months time. When this logic is continually applied, then of course one ends up never buying a computer!
Following on from what timbeau said, if preliminary ideas for CR3 were proposed now in something more concrete than a verbal wish from Mike Brown in a relatively obscure setting (perhaps as part of a long-term plan to build several cross-London Tube and/or rail lines), then myself and others might accept the Hayes line being incorporated into this instead of the Bakerloo line.
However, by arguing that the line should not become part of the Bakerloo until a plan for CR3 appears (which may be more than a decade away, as others have pointed out, and may take another 15-20 years to build, or not be built at all!), then once again SE London will be denied a Tube line on the basis of waiting for something better that may never actually arrive.
[Snipped. No, PoP is not encouraging crayoning of CR3 just by mentioning it. And no crayoning of CR3+ will be accepted. The parameters of CR3 have already been mentioned above, vis-à-vis Mike Brown’s general alignment comment, so there should be no further comment on it here. LBM]
Harry Crayola 10 January 2016 at 22:00
“Developers operating in London, San Fransisco and other cities with very expensive housing relative to earnings and tight planning regimes are no greedier than those in cities where planning regimes are looser and homes are cheaper.”
I hear builders are overjoyed by the profits to be made from developments in Blackpool and Detroit.
Anonymously,
I think your analogy with a newer computer is slightly flawed.
In my case I want feature Y but it is not yet available. In fact it may never be available and if it is available one day I may be too old and decrepit to use it. Feature X will be available in a few years time so I have the option of reserving feature X now and, when the time comes, going to the trouble of installing it and enduring the expense and disruption in so doing.
If I buy feature X and feature Y turns up and I buy that too then I have to uninstall feature X and install feature Y, knowing that my original unmodified computer was compatible with feature Y. I will have also spent a sum of money to have feature X before feature Y and I will now have nothing to show for that money.
Alternatively, when feature X is offered I could simply not buy it as my real preference is to wait for feature Y. In any case, I didn’t really think feature X was worth installing although I know many other people who do.
Finally, I could buy feature X knowing that realistically I will now never buy feature Y. I only have feature X but at least I will be able to enjoy feature X at sometime in the future whereas I may never get to enjoy feature Y.
This is rather different from not buying the upgraded model because there is always something better coming along.
@Walthamstow Writer:
My apologies if you felt I was being insulting; this was not my intent.
My points were:
1. Neither Camberwell nor Peckham has any major Lewisham-style high-density developments, nor do any appear to be planned for now. Both are mostly low-density Victorian housing, with a few post-war estates of mediocre quality that certainly don’t justify an expensive metro extension.
2. Both Camberwell and Peckham already have four-track railways running through them in the areas where the Bakerloo was expected to serve. Opening a new* station at Camberwell therefore makes much more financial sense than effectively duplicating sections of both railway lines. You get two transport improvement projects for the price of one.
3. The Old Kent Road corridor chosen by TfL is expected to get both high-density housing, and has no existing rail infrastructure, the Bricklayers Arms branch having vanished under some medium-density tat many years ago. Win-win.
[Repetitious and very general paragraphs snipped once again. LBM]
* (The old Camberwell station closed during WW1. Its platforms were, therefore, much shorter than is required by a modern station, and would not comply with modern standards in any case, especially the requirement for step-free access. Any station opened here in future will effectively be a new build, rather than a simple reopening. This would not be a simple project. The recent replacement of Rochester station gives an idea of what would be involved.)
A few observations:
1. From the points above by Graham H and others re the ground conditions at Lewisham, it strikes me that the Bakerloo station/platforms would have to be really deep level (i.e. Westminster Jubilee deep) to avoid the rivers, underground foundations/pilings for the already built new high-rise blocks in the area.
2. How does this equate to the ‘cut and cover’ stations on OKR? Unless I’m missing the point entirely (my reading of ‘cut and cover’ being SSR-style) there would be quite a gradient from OKR -> New Cross Gate -> Lewisham
3. With point 1 in mind, if there ever *was* to be an extension onto the Hayes line (or any other NR line for that matter), would there not have to be an equally collosal gradient to take the tunnel out to emerge somewhere near Ladywell NR(?) – is this feasible?
4. Lewisham Council are, to be frank, fairly silly for spending millions on the ‘Gateway’ redevelopment without seemingly any provision for potentially a complete rebuild of the station, or the wider railway infrastructure in the area.
5. Given Rational Plan’s preference for an extension to Hither Green, (/crayons out) would not a better/less disruptive route for this to be a DLR extension along the River Quaggy – as they did for the Lewisham extension in the first place – (which gets you out fairly closely to Hither Green) – admittedly you’d have to snake through/around Lewisham town centre somehow…
6…which brings me onto @anonymously/rational plan/others’ comments re LB Bromley. A Bakerloo link would be silly, and too expensive, and slower than the existing (poor) alternatives, save Bromley South. We down in Bromley Town area have had b*gger all of the infrastructure improvements that other boroughs have seen…Apologies in advance for going on ad nauseam about this, but surely 4tph on Catford Loop, and *something* (anything!) to sort out the Bromley North branch would be welcome….
7. Talking of 2-stop branch lines with (well used) direct trains to London, interesting to see the Hampton Court branch (another branch I have got to know quite well in recent months) included in CR2(?)…
@Graham H
I agree with that, essentially. Particularly when you say “this excursus might seem somewhat far removed from the problems of the BLE, it will nevertheless be important because the answer to the question about fares /investment balance will determine whether the BLE business case can be made to work”.
I think Walthamstow Writer’s first comments are particularly astute (as he so often is) when he highlights the conflict between Sadiq Khan’s intentions to extract more “affordable housing” from developments and the desire to get developers to part-fund transport projects like BLE.
There’s only so much excess value created by development that can be extracted. There’s some from granting permission in the first place and there’s some from linking permission into a transport project – planners will allow a denser scheme if the site has a higher PTAL (public transport accessibility level), ie more flats that will each command a higher price. But ultimately there’s only so much that can be extracted. And the more that’s extracted, the less profitable development becomes which then translates into less supply and higher prices.
Tim,
New Cross Gate to Lewisham is 2000m or more. If NXG was sub-surface at 5m below the surface and Lewisham was 25m below the surface, and we assume that the surface elevation is the same for both (which is unlikely) then the gradient is 1:100 or less…
@Harry Crayola – I very much agree about the limits of what surpluses can be extracted. Some (politicians, mainly) assume that the pot is almost infinite. It isn’t and when faced with large quantities of (especially, as you remark, cheap) housing, the sums available for new tube stations (£250m + a pop) are limited. As a specific example, from my own neck of the woods, we are faced with a new town at Dunsfold (future housing stock c3000) and at the same time a clamour to re-open the line through to Cranleigh, to relieve the present jams into Guildford. That will cost c70m at the least or about £23k per house if paid for by s106 monies. That equates to probably about half the profit on each dwelling…
Re Tim /James GB,
As James points out gradients aren’t an issue (1:30 is about the sensible limit and it won’t be any where near that!) Programme the ATO so trains don’t stop on the really steep bits…
Cut ‘n’ Cover Stations – see PoP’s recent article on Paddington Crossrail station.
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2015/crossrail-progress-paddington/
At OKR 1&2 as you won’t want to save the existing buildings above and there aren’t any other underground features to worry about just pile the station box walls then start digging down which will be cheaper than SCL based techniques used at Farringdon, Liverpool Street, Bond Street, TCR etc.
My guess would be track level along OKR would be circa 20m below street level to avoid all foundations completely along the the northern section of the route which means most of the route would be incredibly flat till it surfaces near Court Hill loop Jn. (far deeper under St Johns etc.)
@JamesGB
There is a 5 metre change in elevation between the point on Old Kent Road where the railway crosses and Lewisham Station.
(derived from http://www.doogal.co.uk/RouteElevation.php )
My reasoning re a short extension to Hither Green was that if they really needed a Southern Depot space then the railway lands at Hither Green look the closest and have some spare space and also provides a high capacity link between Lewishams two big interchange stations.
Of Course choosing Hither Green means publicly saying that Hayes is never going to happen, which at this point is not politically wise. But if the surface extension is seen as unpopular with commuters and therefore with politicians then alternatives may be brought forward.
It may be more politic to keep open a possibility of a future extension to Hayes as and when the time is right etc. But a Hither Green option does provide that operational robustness (unless one of the housing sites off the OKR is big enough for a cut and cover depot).
The could string along suburbanites by saying a Hither Green option could go to Bromley North or to Lee or Kidbrooke in a second stage.
Rational Plan, I’m slightly surprised that you think the people of SE London are suburbanites who need to be “strung along” rather than getting a clear decision on just one tube extension is such as the ones they have been promised for decades now.
@PoP
Your analogy is better! You did forget one scenario though…..you order feature X, knowing that although a better feature Y might come along in the distant future, there’s a very good chance that it may not happen at all (or if it does, you may not be around to use it).
Feature X then arrives, and you love it so much that you rapidly forget about feature Y and wonder how you could ever have managed without it. Then you’re not at all bothered if and when feature Y does eventually arrive, since you’re perfectly content with feature X.
Here’s another analogy, this time transport-related…
[Snip. Such analogies get into could’ve/would’ve/should’ve suppositions that could really go on forever. But not on this site. LBM
@Harry Crayola: Why?
Because that is what happened outside London when buses were deregulated. Operators cut services on less profitable routes and times of day (unless paid handsomely by local councils) and piled capacity onto the busiest routes, mainly using clapped-out old buses whose capital cost had been written off years before. This enabled them to reduce fares (sometimes to unsustainably low levels with the intention of forcing competitors out of the market). Recently built capital intensive rail networks like Tyne and Wear Metro and Sheffield Supertram had to cut their fares to compete, and in the case of Supertram essentially went bankrupt. Since then it has been very hard to build new (light or heavy) rail lines in large cities except London: expansion everywhere outside Manchester and Nottingham has ground to a halt, and significantly Metrolink has never even contemplated competing head-to-head with buses on corridors like Oxford Road.
I realise you were probably looking for a theoretical rather than an empirical answer, but in my experience empirical observation is a better guide to real-world behaviour than the abstractions of classical economics.
@Graham H, Harry Crayola: As discussed on the Uckfield thread, Section 106 levies etc don’t count as “free” money when assessing the viability of transport projects, for exactly the reasons you say – the money has to come from somewhere. So a Bakerloo extension still needs to demonstrate enough economic or social benefits to get a high enough BCR to meet the government’s threshold, even if all the money comes from developers/levies.
@Graham H: somewhere in the exchanges between you and Ian J, there’s an assumption that there is such a thing as a profitable railway. This beast hasn’t been observed for the best part of 150 years
Union Pacific? BNSF? Hardly minor mineral lines. The main Australian government railways were substantial net contributors to their state treasuries until the 1950s, despite being saddled with plenty of unviable lines for political reasons.
@Tim: it strikes me that the Bakerloo station/platforms would have to be really deep level (i.e. Westminster Jubilee deep) to avoid the rivers, underground foundations/pilings for the already built new high-rise blocks in the area.
The cross-sections in the architect’s document James S linked to earlier suggest that the Lewisham platforms are only envisaged as being 20 metres deep. The station sites envisaged don’t have tall buildings on them (yet). The river might need shifting but that has been done before (and the riverbed is a nice services-free worksite!). The map then shows over-run tunnels continuing under Molesworth St and/or the railway to reach a possible portal or TBM launch/retrieve box site at Ladywell Junction.
I think deciding a route based on a depot site would be the tail wagging the dog – the depot doesn’t even need to be on the route at all (eg. Northumberland Park and the Victoria Line), and there is plenty of railway land at the northern end of the line.
@ Anomnibus – you’re doing it again. Saying the same thing over and over again as if I didn’t understand the first time. I understood perfectly well – I just COMPLETELY DISAGREE. I really don’t give a damn whether someone can come along and build some unaffordable flats and TfL can grab some money from them. I’m a horrible unconstructed believer in the state funding essential infrastructure. I also believe we need far more tube lines than we have. I am firmly of the view that there is more than enough existing and latent transport demand in inner SE London to justify two or three brand new tube lines even if you do clever things to the main line railways. As ably described by those who know, the existing rail network might well have two, four, six or whatever tracks but the trains are all full beyond crush loading. The buses are jammed full. People are inconvenienced having to cope with an utterly inadequate transport network. They simply deserve better. It is government’s job to fix those problems and to find the money. Now please just “accept” my view. I don’t need a lecture or a repeat of past musing. I don’t even want people to agree or disagree with me. Just make a mental note so you understand where I’m coming from even if you consider it a crazed, daft and unrealistic position. We can then move on to other more pressing matters.
For everyone else it is worth noting that the “Centre for London” is releasing a new report on 13/1/16 about turning South London’s rail network into a wider Overground type operation. This seems to have had some engineering input into it (based on tweets and a FT “preview” article) and would appear to be a further step in piling up pressure on City Hall, TfL and Government to do something. It looks to me like a follow on from the Assembly’s work on rail devolution and may even be timed just ahead of the promised “Rail Vision” from the above three parties. One to look out for.
@WW I will look out for the Centre for London report. Just moving South London trains into the London Overground network will not automatically make the situation better.
Re WW,
Ian J
“Because that is what happened outside London when buses were deregulated. Operators cut services on less profitable routes and times of day (unless paid handsomely by local councils) and piled capacity onto the busiest routes, mainly using clapped-out old buses whose capital cost had been written off years before. This enabled them to reduce fares (sometimes to unsustainably low levels with the intention of forcing competitors out of the market). Recently built capital intensive rail networks like Tyne and Wear Metro and Sheffield Supertram had to cut their fares to compete, and in the case of Supertram essentially went bankrupt.”
Perhaps. But I was talking about fare levels. And you said “deregulated fares”, by which I assumed you also meant GLA allowing TfL to set fares purely to optimise services, rather than for political reasons. For the purposes of answering the “why?”, it’s best not to conflate service deregulation with de-politicisation of fares. Assuming all of the same safety, quality and risk values, there is no way that a service-optimising TfL would cut fares.
Some competition already exists. Between TfL modes, but also from walking, cycling, motoring and taxis. To believe TfL would cut prices means you have to believe that TfL want them lower now, but are prevented by politicians who want to keep them high. That may or may not be too theoretical, but the contention strikes me as highly unlikely.
I’m not familiar with other transport systems. What you say about Newcastle and Manchester strikes me as perfectly believable. But the fact expensive, high-capacity, premium transport modes struggle to be viable in poor cities doesn’t tell me a lot about the price pressures in London were TfL able to set its fares without political approval. Buses are already much cheaper than tube and rail and buses make a big loss. TfL isn’t going to cut bus fares, but if it did, how much cross elasticity of demand is there really, given the congestion on the roads and full buses we have?
Now, if costs could fall (by using less fancy, old buses) that might be a different matter. Perhaps punters don’t really care about the newness of the buses. I don’t know. But looking only at prices, it’s very hard to believe that the effect of political influence on TfL’s prices is anything other than being lower than they otherwise would be.
Re WW,
PS – Engineering input appears to be from Atkins and Thales
Re IamHedgehog,
The discussion under the FT article is quite good with most commenters wondering where the required funds will come from!
Re Harry Crayola
“Perhaps punters don’t really care about the newness of the buses. I don’t know.”
Many do when it comes to air quality and air quality improvements will enforce the newness of buses in London for a while to come.
@ngh I have apparently exceeded my allocation of free articles from the FT this week/month so I can’t bring up the article again to read comments. I daresay that there is space capacity on both the WLL and the ELL. I shall not bring my crayons out yet. (Actually not much crayoning is involved.)
@Ian J & Graham H – “there’s an assumption that there is such a thing as a profitable railway. This beast hasn’t been observed for the best part of 150 years.”
An interesting slant came my way perchance last evening with a pal discussing limited liability companies: “Limited companies were introduced under the Limited Liability Act of 1855. The crash of 1866 which had such dire consequences for the railway system, including the bankruptcy of the LCDR and which scuppered plans for an early BML2, was widely blamed on the introduction of limited liability. Indeed, in 1867 Sir Edward Watkin MP, chairman of the SER, pressed the House of Commons to set up a Select Committee to investigate the role of Limited Liability companies in the 1866 crash. He said that Parliament should not sanction anything which permitted or helped deception or wrong-doing, and an enormous amount of wrong had been done under the Limited Liability provisions.”
Comments gratefully received on a postcard.
@Anomnibus: “Neither Camberwell nor Peckham has any major Lewisham-style high-density developments, nor do any appear to be planned for now. Both are mostly low-density Victorian housing, with a few post-war estates of mediocre quality that certainly don’t justify an expensive metro extension” – I remind you of my comment on 10 Jan at 04:27: “…..it may well be too late for Camberwell developers to take advantage of this because there are already a large number of new blocks of flats being erected north of Camberwell Green towards the Elephant at least as far as Albany Road.” They are closely-spaced blocks of the order of 9-12 storeys high.
@ngh
Yes. But I was trying to highlight how that side of things was inconsequential to the effect of pricing, because it was outside the scope of that discussion. I was saying that perhaps customers would react that way to that type of cost cutting, but that I was assuming the same TfL with the same standards on that kind of thing and only talking about what would happen if you changed the pricing.
@Tim [I think I remember you from a post on an earlier article….are you the ‘pissed off commuter stranded halfway between Ravensbourne and Bromley North stations’?]
I think you’re underestimating the benefits of a Bakerloo takeover of the Hayes line (described before ad nauseum in numerous other posts on this and other threads, which I won’t repeat). To address your specific points, it wouldn’t necessarily be slower (in fact, it may even be *quicker* for certain journeys, at least according to TfL), it would provide a decent high-frequency alternative for at least part of the Catford loop (and other lines in the area, whose service I agree leaves much to be desired), and it might even free up enough capacity to allow your beloved Bromley North line to finally get the service it deserves. [Incidentally, I did ponder on the Bromley North page whether the Bakerloo could go there instead, but TfL have clearly stated in their report that this is a non-starter due to the extra cost of tunnelling to reach there].
@Anomnibus – P.S. Mine at 01:00 – “…because there are already a large number of new blocks of flats being erected…” – Perhaps I ought to temper that “large” by substituting “substantial”.
However, had I included the south of Camberwell New Road in the region surrounding Camberwell Bus Garage and particularly the proposed re-opened station on the Thameslink route, then I would agree with you (contrary to the comment of WW) that there is “mostly low-density Victorian housing, with a few post-war estates of mediocre quality”. Then add in the quite extensive sites in the environs of not one but two sizeable bus garages and a school and a church with their own grounds. Look at the area on Google Maps (type in “Camberwell Bus Garage”) and go to the satellite view, then everyone will see what surrounds the station that was closed in 1916.
This Google Map link might work for the area view south of Camberwell New Road (the latest new blocks of dwellings* I discuss have not yet been spied upon):
http://tinyurl.com/z96jdw4
* “Dwellings” rather than “affordable homes” and similar is of course the terminology submitted these days by planners to the council. It makes it all sound so affordable and takes me back to the era of the proud Peabody Estates, much of which has been swept away but “dwellings” also reminds me of that same era of dwellings in the same area which were either condemned, bomb damaged or considered to be slums anyway. That’s what prompted my reference to slums in my original message. What’s different between all this and the sorry tale of the Tower Hamlets tower blocks? And I don’t expect an answer that refers to a building that doesn’t collapse when there’s a gas explosion.
@Walthamstow Writer
Free tickets for the event are at Turning South London Orange: Reforming rail to support growth Tickets, Mon, 25 Jan 2016 at 10:00 | Eventbrite
[Just to note that I and, almost certainly, Jonathan Roberts will be there having booked our tickets ages ago. We hope to do an article on this eventually. If you want to let me know you are going email pedantic ‘at’ londondreconnections.com and we will see you there. PoP]
@IAmHedgehog
“I have apparently exceeded my allocation of free articles from the FT this week/month so I can’t bring up the article again to read comments.”
Try using “anonymous browsing”, it’s ctrl+N in Chrome (or “InPrivate” in Edge, “New Private Window” in Firefox) to work-around the FT limit.
The article is here: Calls grow for TfL to take charge of south London rail network
@Ian J – I never said that s106 cash was free. It is important to understand that besides a business case, there is also a funding case to be considered for each project. In some ways, answering the question “Can it be funded?” is much more important than”Is there a business case?” In the Cranleigh case, there are probably quite strong business reasons to re-open the line, but can it actually be funded? Probably not.
You are right to challenge the word “minor” in my remarks. I must admit that rather than BNSF, I had in mind some of the BrokenHill operations, which are also not minor. However, in neither case are these traditional offering both passenger and freight services. Show me a profitable passenger operation that is not cross-subsidised from something else (usually property) or has not benefitted from massive capital writedowns..
@Graham F – Interesting to see the villains at work, tho’what I had in mind was more about the treatment of asset replacement and the common habit of paying dividends out of capital.
My previous comment having evaporated into the aether:
[It was deleted due to the aggressive and confrontational nature of the wording. PoP]
Ian J & Graham H
Pre WWI many railways made a real, actual decent profit ( & a few after that date …)
They paid dividends, bought new locomotives & rolling stock & ran a service, whilst maintaining their own infrastructure.
The fact that roads have an apparently (note that word) advantage in subsidy, especially in HGV movements is a n other story, not to be gone into here.
I will repeat my polite request to the Moderators that “Whether railways were ever really profitable” be put in the W&C box, unless directly relevant in future?
ngh
I especially noted this phrase from your quote: Crossrail will be running at capacity from the first day it opens in 2018.
Ah, so someone has noticed?
I am Hedgehog
On which day did the FT article appear?
The weekend edition is often worth a read – if it was that, I can probably find it (in paper-copy)
@Greg T – (and at the risk of going too far off topic) – very very few of the pre-WW1 railways had a programme for replacing all their assets; none took account of inflation properly and there was no, repeat, no obligation on companies to set money aside to fund asset replacement. So they didn’t. The Big Four duly reaped the consequences. Si monumentum requiris,just look at the vastly entertaining collection of locomotives and rolling stock, already old beyond economic use, that was around in 1914, even on a good “5%” line – and still around in 1948.
Graham Feakins, Anomnibus
I think we need to call a halt to all comments from Anomnibus describing what is and what isn’t high density housing. A lot it changing in London very rapidly and it is not helpful having someone who resides abroad telling us what is and isn’t going on in London when it is clearly largely based on their memories of when they were living here.
I appreciate that there is Google and there are other means of trying to get a picture of what is going on but there is no point in having an argument between an ex-pat and someone who lives in or frequently visits an area and sees first hand what is going on.
This would have all been done tactfully by email but in this case the email addressed supplied is not valid so this isn’t an option.
All further comments by Anomnibus containing references to housing density will be deleted.
@Briantist (and with apologies for being off topic) presumably the same trick will work with, for example, the Telegraph* and others who have such limits?
*Only read, of course, so that one can see what the Tory Opposition is thinking …
re Greg,
FT – electronic version Thursday 7th jan
Cost £10-15bn!
@tim
“Talking of 2-stop branch lines with (well used) direct trains to London, interesting to see the Hampton Court branch (another branch I have got to know quite well in recent months) included in CR2(?)…”
The Hampton Court branch’s loadings would not, of themselves, justify the service level it gets, never mind what it would get under Crossrail 2, and in any case it is almost always quicker to change at Surbiton for/from Waterloo. But the inner suburban services have to terminate somewhere (something has to serve Berrylands, so they can’t all turn off at Raynes Park and New Malden!) and the flying junction at Surbiton onto the branch makes it possible to do that there.
The service does get reduced to a shuttle at the drop of a hat (or more often a shoe, this being 3rd rail territory)
None of this applies to the Bromley North branch – trains can urn off the main line at Hither Green, and Elmstead Woods and Chiselhurst, which are beyond Grove Park, need a service.
Easy interchange between NR and Bakerloo at Lewisham might be a “nice to have”, but if the extension could be justified on the traffic originating from Lewisham and points west anyway. As this includes people from Lewisham and New Cross who currently squeeze onto the NR services, this would itself free up space on the NR services.
You lose the opportunity for NR passengers to switch to the Bakerloo at Lewisham, but they can still do so at Charing Cross as they do now.
It has been suggested that the Bakerloo terminus be located to the south of the town centre, but it occurs to me that a location to the east might make redundant the operational headache that is St Johns station.
” location to the east ”
west, of course. I’ve moved from SE to SW London so long ago that my mental compass now equates the “up” direction with eastbound!
@ Graham H – for the Telegraph, I just delete cookies (in chrome settings, history) which seems to do the trick.
timbeau,
There would be problems with terminating the Bakerloo at St Johns. Ignoring topography, one would be that at lot of the traffic to St Johns is for the colleges and so originates east of the station and an extended Bakerloo line terminating there would not obviate the need for the National Rail station.
Operational headache St Johns may be but as all trains calling at St Johns call at Lewisham and Lewisham is also an operational headache I suspect eliminating the need to call at St Johns would not achieve that much on its own.
@ timbeau 11 Jan at 12:02
Agree that an RER style plan should be published with tube extensions and more crossrails. The building of the lines may be sequential (and take many years) but the long term impact on the network should be better than planning each new line independently. Hence, [back on topic] the Bakerloo extension should be considered as part of a much wider plan. My view is that two of the branches south or east of Lewisham should be taken over, so that there are less branches to become crossrails or tube extensions in the future [assuming the very long term end goal of removing the terminus stations].
By the way, the original (1946) plan that has become Crossrail 2 linked the branches south of Raynes Park to the Chingford branch. The southern part was direct via CJ and Victoria (i.e. no diversions to Balham nor Chelsea). The northern part did divert, however, from the West End to Moorgate/Broad Street before going to Dalston.
@PoP:
The email I’ve been using for every post is perfectly valid. I just tested it from one of my other accounts and it worked just fine.
[If it is then it is working again – I will test out. We know it used to work. We collectively have tried many times in the past to “advise” you but have been unable to do so. PoP]
[Update: No it doesn’t work. PoP]
Off topic, but it is mentioned in the article, so hopefully I will get away with it.
Is there still going to be a article about the latest Crossrail 2 study, or are you now waiting for the next study to come out ?
Yes, still the intention, one way or another. In fact we expect to do multiple articles but certainly an initial one is overdue. Unfortunately, or fortunately, there are loads of other distractions and unforeseen events. So sorry to say, keep being patient.
At least a Bakerloo station at Lewisham won’t have delays caused by the wrong type of sunshine!
https://twitter.com/Se_Railway/status/686853285576359937
actually moving a real person to lewisham to assist the driver in dispatch would be too easy 🙂
Richie
Agree that an RER style plan should be published with tube extensions and more crossrails. … Called “the New Works Plan”, presumably?
@ Richie
Given the speed at which crossrails can be designed and delivered – at around 10-15 years each – an RER style plan for London stands a good chance of being out of date before the next Crossrail is properly off the blocks.
@Ngh – I know you won’t do this but people are likely to “be rude” about SE’s tweet. They do, however, fail to understand how irksome low Winter sunshine can be in terms of affecting cameras, mirrors and monitors used for checking the platform / train interface and ensuring safe train dispatch. I had years of contractual agony over the same issue on the Piccadilly line where many stations are adversely affected by sunshine issues. In the end a lot of money had to spent on new / improved assets and reviewing umpteen stations to try to get something that worked more effectively year round.
All of the foregoing addresses travel from SE London and beyond into central London.
What are the expectations of new travel patterns and possibly new employment opportunities once any proposed river crossings are realised?
@ Greg Tingey – exactly :). Although the plan should also cover the lines that TfL don’t own. Mind you, didn’t the LPTB take over several LNER and GWR services as part of the 1930s programme – the equivalent of going orange ?
@ quinlet – I don’t think that is a major problem. The key point is to end up with a better network via a long term plan. For example, had the CR2 station at TCR already been planned then much work could have been done as part of the CR1 construction. Similarly, if a future Crossrail is to pass through Lewisham, would it not make sense to provision for it as part of the tube extension ?
@ Richie – the CR1 infrastructure at TCR *does* include some provision for CR2. There are apertures and locations for future connecting links and escalator shafts. Londonist did a video about this and showed where the connections are / will be. Clearly there are limits to what can be done when there is no Parliamentary authority to build CR2 but something *has* been done. I expect there is also some capacity built in on the corridors and links to existing tube lines to carry some future CR2 based interchange. What you can’t do is build new CR2 ticket halls now and demolish buildings etc.
Ngh et al, I can endorse what WW says, I have frequent issues with low sunlight either bleaching out signals or monitors or just blinding me as I drive into it. Swapping to staff dispatch at a station that is usually 100% DOO with monitors is not as simple as it sounds. For a start, Lewisham is busy and curved and you probably need at least three people for a ten car train (they have to come from somewhere). All of them have to know the correct place on the platform to cover the whole length of the train (they have to be trained). And all need dispatch equipment (you can’t just flap hands around or shout, it needs to be unambiguous). If the station is not equipped with trained staff and equipment all of this has to be implemented, which takes time. And in the meantime the sun rises or sets out of the way, making it all for naught! Nothing is ever as easy or straightforward as it appears to the public.
Re WW and GTR driver,
A bit of light hearted humour, plenty have been (not I) and the Standard, Mail and BBC are now busily joining in as it is quiet news day!
The issue at Lewisham isn’t new – it reappears on mornings every winter and the curviest platform is the only one affected. The biggest shame is that SE haven’t put out a decent full explanation. (Also the Bexleyheath route is closed due to a landslip and as many trains as possible are diverted via Sidcup and on to the problem platform at the moment so no margin for dispatch taking longer without major service disruption)
The trouble is a lack of real analysis in the popular media, but the serious consequence is that ignorance prevails on a range of issues for ever more. I still have to convince people that the leaf mulch issue is real, despite them knowing that I have first hand experience of it and no interest in inventing the phenomena. A couple of years back a SE driver was berated for failing his train because his seat had got soaked somehow. Nowhere did I see anyone saying that they would not expect to sit on a wet seat at their desk for two hours (whilst trying to concentrate constantly).
@ngh…That’s surprising. I would have thought any diverted trains would be sent on the mainline to Hither Green, avoiding Lewisham altogether, but then again what do I know about how to operate a railway?
One thought did occur to me today about this episode…..could the new tower blocks around the station be contributing to this problem by creating extra surfaces for sunlight to reflect off of? The reason I ask is because I had never heard about this as a problem prior to today.
@Richie…I wouldn’t really say the New Works extensions are the equivalent of today’s Overground, or even Crossrail 1/2 as it happens. However you look at it, both LO and CR are really only TOCs (albeit ‘special’ ones for the London metro area; nationally the closest similar one I can think of is Merseyrail) who do not own most of the assets they run over (only the central tunnelled or newly-built sections). Everything else is in NR hands, and so they are subject to the same quirks and frustrations involved in dealing with that body and other train operators (both passenger and freight), and ultimately the DfT as well.
Whereas those lines that were taken over as part of the New Works programme became London Transport owned and operated AFAIK after opening (although that could have been a side-effect of nationalisation as well), with only occasional freight or twilight ‘workmen’s’ trains operated onto them by BR; even these had all gone by the end of the 1960s. So now TfL can do whatever they like with these lines on a day-to-day operational basis, without interference from NR or anyone else.
So, were it to happen, a complete takeover of the Hayes line by the Bakerloo would perhaps represent the first ‘New Works’-type extension that you allude to since the 1950s!
@GTR Driver…At the risk of sounding facetious, couldn’t the driver have covered the seat with a thick towel or lots of paper tissues? Given the significant operational consequences of taking a train out of use (and the inability to find and use another chair to replace that at my ‘desk’, to use your analogy), that’s probably what I would have done!
@anonymously
unless you count the converse (BR taking over a Tube line) in 1975 – the Northern City.
“I would have thought any diverted trains would be sent on the mainline to Hither Green, avoiding Lewisham altogether”
there are difficulties with that – for example having to cross to the Charing Cross lines on the flat instead of using the diveunder. It would also be impossible to reach the Nunhead spur without going via Lewisham. Not to mention people who are goin to Lewisham itself, or wanting the DLR.
@WW – thanks for clarifying, although you have raised my next bugbear – lack of devolution for London. Why should the London government require UK parliamentary approval to build new lines when the Scottish government does not?
@Anonymously – Good point. IMO, “going orange” should involve the transfer of lines from NR to TfL. As examples, didn’t the W&C and part of Wimbledon branch of the District move from BR to LU in the 1990s?
Anonymously, as I mentioned, sunlight is a daily issue that causes problems. Why it was mentioned today I don’t know. At a guess the delays were caused by the time taken for the driver to check a long train coach by coach, possibly closing off two coaches at a time.
Also, I’m not trying to sound facetious either, but we don’t carry round thick towels or enough tissues to absorb a seat full of water! Someone on another forum has suggested someone should have stood with a board next to the DOO monitors to block the sunlight. Aside from the fact that it’s just as often an issue of sunlight shining into the camera lenses themselves for which this would make no difference, these improvised items, as everyday as they seem, aren’t just available on demand! A wet seat is just an unfortunate, probably one off incident, that just has to be swallowed.
@ Anonymously 2038 – are you seriously suggesting that someone’s working environment remains satisfactory if it is wet when in normal circumstances it should be dry? Train driving is a safety critical task with responsibility for hundreds of passengers. Employers owe their employees a duty of care with respect to their working environment and things like cab seating, ergonomics and temperature / ventilation are especially important. I really don’t think train drivers should be forced to sit on a sodden seat. There is the related issue as to how it got wet – roof leaking, door seal bust, hole in the cab floor, bust cab air con?
When the air con regularly failed in my old office and the water poured out of the ceiling all over my desk and paperwork was I supposed to just carry on? Ditto for other people on my team who suffered similar fates when the system failed over their desks? In an office you may be able to hot desk or do something else. A train (or other vehicle) driver really doesn’t have that sort of option.
@GTR Driver…Fair enough. But I hope you can appreciate why an irate passenger might beg to differ (e.g. ‘Why should my journey be delayed because a driver doesn’t want to use a wet seat? Just grab a toilet roll from the nearest WC and use that to cover it, or else just grin and bear it!’).
@Richie….If only it was that simple. I don’t think DfT, NR or the TOCs/freight operators would ever allow a wholesale transfer of rail lines to TfL that are likely to be shared with other operators. The examples you mention only occurred due to rail privatisation (Graham H has explained this in more detail on another page).
One reason I am in favour of a Bakerloo takeover of the Hayes line is that it will be transferred wholesale to TfL (rather like you suggest) and be freed from all of the operational problems, constraints and politics imposed by the current privatised rail network. Others (PoP amongst them) will say this is madness when improvements could be delivered by other means in a more cost-effective manner. Whilst this is possibly true, it would require (to quote PoP from another page) ‘wholesale regime change’ at the DfT and in the railway generally to enable this to happen.
And I would put it to everyone here that this is about as likely to occur as an extended Victoria line…..
@WW….I think you’re misrepresenting my earlier point. Of course if there is a potential safety issue, then that train should be taken out of service until it is rectified.
My point was that your average passenger isn’t likely to understand or sympathise if the reason why their train was cancelled was explained to them as ‘The driver’s seat was too wet’, as all that does is provoke grievance and disgruntlement as to why this should lead to entire train being taken out of service. In other words, I’m looking at it from the public’s point of view.
@ Anonymously – OK that’s fine but then we get in to a debate about how and what you communicate to passengers. Do you give them a truthful plain english explanation, as I believe South Eastern did, and then ridiculed by unthinking people or do you use bland, opaque terminology that no one believes? For example do you say “there is a leak in the train cab that makes it unsafe for the driver to drive the train” or “there is a train defect. All change.”? Personally I prefer a little more detail and honesty even if there might be a risk of ridicule. You then have the opportunity to more fully explain to those who are prepared to listen to you. Again I believe South Eastern have done this today and I certainly don’t think they deserve the adverse publicity and sneering they’ve had from the media, including BBC News (who should know better). There’s plenty that South Eastern deserve criticism about but sunlight on monitors isn’t one of them. I think we may have come to the end of this little subthread so let’s call it a day.
@WW…..I think we can blame Twitter for that. Any sense of nuance or depth disappears when you’re forced to provide an explanation in 160 characters or less….
Two relevant (I hope) remarks….
“Londonist” have picked up on the “Wrong sort of sunshine” rubbish, with other commenters, still plainly ignorant or unbelieving about “Leaves on the line”
Oh dear.
The OKR route for the B’loo. …..
This CDRC Map should be very informative as well as interesting in its’ own right.
Note the purple blob all around the OKR, because “no railways”.
I also note a purple blob in Hackney/Islington – presumably because the railways exist, but go to “the wrong places” or something.
WW, agreed, but to finish off I think the fact that Anonymously has now made the same point THREE times without apparent acknowledgement of it being challenged by two different people demonstrates why we keep things vague! No one can argue with “train fault” or when relevant “failure of safety critical equipment” and it tends not to cause yet another media storm due to ignorance and misrepresentation.
The problem with public transport faults is the multiplier effect in terms of time wasted and discomfort. I had problems with sunlight when driving yesterday, but that only affected me. If I couldn’t work because of a broken seat only one man day is lost. If a train driver causes a mere 2 minute delay, this can cause many man days to be lost across their passengers, if a train is canceled dozens of people can get wet.
If I were doing the job short term, I’d probably feel more guilty of the impact of my actions, and run to take out the next train, or suffer a wet bum, but I guess that devotion would gradually erode. Its just their visibility that exposes transport staff to criticism, no-one feels the same pressure if their IT project affecting millions is delayed because of a sickie.
I don’t think trains are cancelled without good reason (cancelling intermediate stops is another matter………….) but would expect the train would be undriveable without a seat. (Many trains, but maybe not this one, can be driven from a standing position). The possibilities of using a seat from another cab (if this could be done without special tools) or reshuffling the units so the faulty cab was in the middle (or running a shorter train) , were, hopefully, explored before the decision was made.
The sunlight issue is a difficult one, and probably only occurs for a few minutes once twice a year (same time of day, on two dates symmetrical about the solstice) when the sun is in exactly the right (wrong) position to be reflected off the mirrors (or shone done the cameras) into the drivers cab. A few minutes later and the sun will have moved round the sky far enough to no longer be a problem. next week and the sun will be higher in the sky at the same time of day. Move the mirror and/or the stopping point and the problem will simply occur on a different date.
Perhaps this is a new problem – in the past drivers would stop slightly short or long to avoid the bright spot, but nowadays they are not allowed that flexibility but have to berth much more precisely. However, I believe there have been instances of drivers getting “phantom aspects”when the sun has reflected off a signal.
@Anonymous…Actually, I did try in my responses to acknowledge others’ comments. And while your ‘less is more’ approach to communications with passengers is fine for the occasional problem, regardless of cause (the wet seat would fall into this category…..no one is going to question it being described as a ‘train fault’), they will (quite rightly) demand a bit more of an explanation if the problem continues to repeatedly occur.
This is where Southeastern got it completely wrong in describing the dispatching issue, IMHO…..in trying to condense all the operational issues highlighted above by others into a tweet-friendly ‘The sunshine is causing problems with dispatching trains’, it opened them up to ridicule from others with no background knowledge of the situation. If they had just taken the time (and possibly an extra tweet or two) to explain *why* the sunshine was causing these problems, and phrased it in a slightly less flippant way, then I don’t think the story would have gone viral in the way that it has.
You are right Timbeau, particularly on older signals, close up all aspects can appear lit or unlit. The newer ones are better at dealing with this as they are designed to accentuate the aspect the closer you get. Ditto the monitors issue, there is obviously only a short range in which the train can stop and the driver still be able to see the pictures. I’ve nearly come to a halt only to be dazzled by sunlight and then tried to continue enough to block the sunlight but not my view.
Reshuffling the units is known as “boxing in” by the way but can require the sort of shunting that would end up cancelling the train due to the time taken! Almost impossible to achieve at places like Victoria though I have done it with a resultant 20 minute delay.
Wet seat – for that read “Vomit in Cab” as often to be found amongst LT Underground’s internal teletexts, in the days when cab doors were not locked and said vomit was only discovered when the driver changed ends. The public were only informed that the train had been withdrawn from service/cancelled, or there was simply a gap in the service. Maybe LT should have emphasised that the problem was down to a fellow member of the public but they never did. On the other hand, passengers then sometimes had also to cope with wet seats, where the windows had been left open (or fell open) as the train passed through the wash – but the train continued regardless.
The low sunlight in signals has long been a problem and the approaches to London Bridge from the east were well-known for that. There have even been instances of reflections from The Shard affecting drivers’ ability to view signals and the line ahead, so the Lewisham incident is nothing new.
@ Graham F – or when the public (me!) got rained on inside a Picc Line train on the way to work (water dripping through the saloon ceiling). I complained to Tube Lines (who were maintaining the fleet then) Fleet Manager about this. My feedback wasn’t taken seriously [1] until it was pointed out, by people in Tube Lines that knew me, to the Fleet Manager that I was part of LU’s Contract Management team for the TLL contract. I got a response after that. 🙂
Also the LOROL Class 378s had a bit of tendency to create internal rain showers when the air con was defective. Seen that with my own eyes but managed to avoid getting wet on that occasion.
[1] “who’s this ******** bloke who E Mailed us?” Err he’s the LU performance manager. Oops.
@WW – Yes indeed! I always worry about dripping air-con anyway, just as perhaps one does when walking into the warm vapour being extracted from an office building at pavement level.
Perhaps useful to add that the vomit was usually to be found in the middle cabs of LT trains because there would have been a guard at the rear, so the intending pukers generally retained enough self-esteem not to do it amongst fellow passengers but worked their way to a ‘private’ space in an intermediate cab of the tube train. When discovered, it still meant withdrawal of the train from service, though. However, if the need was uncontrollable, the driver or guard would often use sand available in the hopper from under the relevant seat to cover the mess on the saloon floor until the train could be taken out of service at the first opportunity. If it wasn’t in the actual driver’s cab, then at least he could carry on. If it was, it was generally down to a fitter to be on hand to collect the train and ‘do the dirty work’, just as fitters were expected to clean up and make good the front ends (and cabs – I shan’t go into detail) when a train had returned to depot after a ‘one under’ incident.
GF
Euuuwwwww …..
@Ww
“Also the LOROL Class 378s had a bit of tendency to create internal rain showers when the air con was defective.”
I have also been rained on through the ceiling of a 458 – I think this was actual rainwater rather than anything to do with the aircon, as it was a cold and very wet night.
@Graham F – having been involved with incident attribution and fault rectification I’m more than familiar with the “issues” that the lovely travelling public and sometimes staff may cause on the railway. As you say someone has to come along and clean up afterwards and others have to agree who is contractually responsible.
Walthamstow Writer,
As you say someone has to come along and clean up afterwards and others have to agree who is contractually responsible
Well, I know which I would rather be doing.
….and,indeed,who is paid more….
Will this really happen (BLE) or will it be kicked into the long grass sometime in the next 6 years when cuts are being looked at. Sadiq Khan wants to make it compulsory that 50% of new developments are affordable housing – will this apply to OKR or will they be exempted.
There is another consultation too – don’t expect huge support from Camberwell and Peckham along with a growing anti gentrification sentiment in this area.
There are huge issues on the Thameslink line that need to be addressed.
Will Bakerloo be extended with a change of Mayor certain ?
I suggest you try using Cross River Tram or Thames Gateway Bridge or simply 2 wheelchair users use the same bus as was possible with Artic buses to see that London’s transport is now more than ever determined by a single person and their whims and fancies rather than practicalities !
I still think the opening of Crossrail will be a game changer as the logic of building or extending small tube trains will no longer apply. A recent photo in a railway magazine of a locomotive in a Crossrail tunnel brought home the sheer scale of these new tunnels.
Anyway it seems money to upgrade infrastructure in south east London would be more useful given that no sooner has the land slip as Barnhurst on Monday been fixed another landslip affecting services through Bexleyheath has occurred today.
@Melvyn
“London’s transport is now more than ever determined by a single person and their whims and fancies”
Wasn’t it always thus? Think of how the Forbes/Watkin and Morgan/Yerkes rivalries influenced developments over a hundred years ago.
For those who may be interested in the “Turning South London Orange” report it is accessible via this page.
http://centreforlondon.org/publication/turning-south-london-orange-reforming-suburban-rail-to-support-londons-next-wave-of-growth/
The introduction by Steve Norris where he describes a visit to the old Silverlink Metro is well worth a read. I’m still working my way through the report but I’ve already spotted what looks like one error (but may depend on how “busiest” is defined).
Ooh I shall have a good read.
Building platforms for trains out of Victoria at Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street is a fine idea.
Without spoiling a future article and having read the main report and skimmed the two annex reports I think there are some interesting ideas. Obviously much is already known in terms of the existing Overground concept but, of course, that isn’t yet systematically applied and there are significant constraints on West Anglia that may prevent what’s been done on the NLL being repeated (e.g. train frequencies).
There is an interesting emphasis placed on really tightening up operating practices and fleet / crew performance. There is also a significant dependency on pretty expensive investment (e.g signalling and control) but if you want a large scale improvement then I guess you need to spend the money. It’s a slight shame that the authors could only analyse one part of S London’s rail network. It would have been illuminating to see the ideas for the other areas.
While there is the obvious “de rigeur” reference to linked housing development there are significant gaps (perhaps beyond the project’s scope?) to identify what happens to operating costs and also to revenue if the improvements are delivered. We know TfL is content to swallow additional opex (e.g. more staffing) and we also know this tipped West Anglia from “break even” into “loss”. However there is usually a reasonable uplift in revenue from improved services. It would have been good to have got even a “broad brush” feel for how these aspects were expected to shape up especially given a potential boom in demand due to the range of factors set out in the report.
I await the “Rail Vision” from City Hall to see how that takes on the key issues of improving S London’s rail network.
The Southern network (including the ex-LCDR lines which run through the area) has particular problems because of the interwoven nature of the services leading from two main origins (Mole Valley and BML) to two widely-spaced termini, with the close historical relationship with the ex-LCDR services an added complication.
A tunnel from Wandsworth Road to near West Dulwich to prevent conflicts between Kent Coast trains and Thameslink and SLL services (the latter then able to call at Brixton using the Cambria Lines), and another from Streatham to Streatham Hill to allow Victoria – Selhurst services to connect with the Tulse Hill route, are interesting ideas (my own crayons have toyed with the latter in the past).
The report does not address the other two-thirds of the south London network, whose problems are different. Interconnectivity is not really a major issue on the SWML (everthing goes through Clapham Junction) or the ex-SER lines (whose Clapham Junction equivalent is Lewisham/ New Cross – although the original Greenwich line means the analogy is not perfect, and there are two London termini. But the presence of such inner suburban nodes in Zone 2 leads to a different problem as these locations become major bottlenecks.
The report does not address this issue, as it does not arise to the same extent on Southern – there may be 8 tph between Croydon and the Streatham area on the two routes, through Norbury and Crystal Palace, but you don’t end up with all of them trying to squeeze through Balham and Clapham Junction because half of them go through Tulse Hill and Peckham Rye instead. Conversely, six inner suburban branches converge on Wimbledon from the south west, and all of them go to Waterloo. You cannot improve frequencies on any of them without somewhere in central London for them to go, and that means a second route into central London – XR2.
The report suggests its proposals could be done instead of XR2. No – they address different problems, and building only one of them will not make the other problem go away.
And yes, if the projects need doing they should be done in parallel, not in sequence. No money will be saved by putting it off, but a lot will be lost in economic benefits every year they are not built.
Borrow the money – the sooner you borrow it, the sooner you reap the benefit and can afford to start paying it back.
@ Timbeau – I don’t think the report says that CR2 should not be done. It is saying that for South Central its proposals may avoid the need for *another* Crossrail which I took to mean something beyond CR2. There are no comments about extra infrastructure for Thameslink, South Eastern or South Western in terms of tunnels, junctions etc although clearly the signalling and control improvements and operational focus could apply across the piece. That’s how I read it but I may have got it wrong.
South Central already has a Crossrail (Thameslink). CR2 and CR3 (in most peoples projections) cover the SWML and SEML, so would be needed whether the South Central spider’s web gets tidied up or not.
Balham – Streatham – Streatham Common is already possible by reversal at Tulse Hill. And the interchange there with the London Bridge – Peckham Rye – Crystal Palace service would allow 4tph on those services by dispensing with the London Bridge – Streatham Common and Victoria – Crystal Palace services. (4tph on two routes with decent interchange is better than 2 tph on four unconnected ones).
It would extend journey times between Victoria/Balham and Streatham Common/Croydon, but if CR2 has a Balham stop then it is likely that more semifast services from beyond Croydon would call there, which would provide an alternative.
@Timbeau, Thameslink is certainly NOT South Central’s Crossrail.
Thameslink trains pre-2018 don’t serve South Central in the slightest, apart from Tulse Hill and Streatham which is away from the most important places such as Balham and Clapham Junction. Even if you create interchanges at Streatham Common and in the Leigham Court area of Streatham between Streatham Hill and West Norwood, the service will only have 4tph into Central London. The long distance routes on Thameslink cannot be described as a Crossrail-its Thameslink, because they are not urban metro routes but regional ones.
It is the idea of actively trying to avoid another Crossrail is what has caused Crossrail 2 to have such a zig-zaggy route trying to tick all the boxes as much as it can. Crossrail 2 should serve the South Central Routes and CR3 should serve the SW-SEcorridor. At least an interchange could be made at Balham without the expense of further tunneling south of Clapham. The reason is, because Victoria needs space for regional services and unless extra platforms are built somehow, the only way is to get rid of the suburban routes, leaving the SW routes to serve the City.
Secondly, the Thameslink route does not serve the West End, nor does it go to the heart of the City (Bank) as someone who commuted from Balham from many years I can tell you it was a busy interchange for people coming off the mainline trains and onto the Northern Line for the City in the mornings.
It’s precisely this argument that makes me lament frequently, that Thameslink shed its long distance service and kept to a high frequency London Overground route. At least Camberwell and Peckham would finally get decent rail links.
My perception was that the reference in the Turning Orange report to saving money on a crossrail did not really refer to CRn for any particular value of n. It was more like a rhetorical device, suggesting that the sort of things they were describing might perhaps be as beneficial all round as another crossrail (a sort of abstract one), while not costing quite as much.
A commonsense answer to a wet seat is to find a newspaper to sit on, not difficult on most trains. However, doubtless there is something in the rule book against it…
[Maybe there is. But if you look at other comments, it seems that “wet seat” may well be a euphemism for something altogether less newspaper-susceptible. Malcolm]
Re Tiger,
The current limitation on fast services to /from Victoria is Clapham Junction and the need to stop and interchange there, see the earlier Sussex articles.
Re Timbeau,
Yet again you don’t seem to understand how south central operates – there has been a lot of very clever optimisation so any “improvements” would need to be substantial to offset the cunning optimisation done. Simplifying service patterns for the sake of cleanness just reduces the overall number of services unless you start doing some big spending on infrastructure.
The Streatham Hill – Tulse Hill (Leigham Spur) is a very slow route (20mph) designed for ECS moves also you cannot go Up LBG to Up Vic and vice versa.
So need an extra 4 set of points, the lack of optimal positioning for them combined with the Thameslink service pattern this is a complete non starter as you won’t be able to run those services.
Tulse Hill also cannot cope with current let alone additional interchange passengers without a significant rebuild.
Passengers from the Palace route won’t want an extra 10 minutes and a change added to their Victoria Journey by being diverted to Tulse Hill then changing – the journey would then be slower than Gatwick to Victoria on a Southern non GatEX service. If they want to go to London Bridge there are 4tph already. It also removes the highly efficient VIC-LBG services which are always peak flow for part of the journey unlike most other commuter services in London. [The LBG- VIC services cleverly interleaves paths with the VIC – West Croydon via Palace service in the opposite direction along the London Bridge slow lines which in turn then interleave the West London Line – East Croydon service at Windmill Bridge Jn area etc. i.e. disturb the service patterns at you peril!]
Doing anything about the Streatham / A23 corridor issues also requires longer trains and more services not just shuffling existing services around so most journeys take longer.
The theoretical limit on VIC stopping services given ATO, fewer flat junctions (the Orange proposal eliminates Balham Jn) and P8 is probably 20tph and it currently runs at 15tph.
For reference the Victoria – Streatham area services are provided by:
Streatham Common:
4tph VIC
4tph LBG (also call at Streatham)
Streatham
4tph Thameslink
4tph LBG (also call at Streatham Common)
NR have long term plans for +2tph LBG not via Streatham Common with no extra infrastructure
Streatham Hill
4tph VIC
& West Norwood has
4tph VIC
4tph LBG (2 tph both routes)
No, JimS, there’s nothing about it in the rule book. But common sense always seems so easy when it’s someone else at the sharp end. I think you just need to accept that a driver can’t sit on a newspaper on a soaking seat and do his job if he thinks it’s going to seep through and leave him with wet trousers and underwear all day. No more than he can drive with a broken windscreen, or no heating in the middle of winter, or a broken lock on the internal door. These are called distractions, and driving a train requires full concentration all the time, not that anyone seems to realise it. No one fails a train easily, because it’s a lot of stress and bother, and in these enlightened times, the driver is usually turfing off ten coaches of passengers by himself. No one is more aware than the driver that it’s a major inconvenience.
And I’ve yet to find a newspaper that can stay up by itself to cover the back of the seat. Though most of them are only useful for sitting on.
Earlier in these comments there was some discussion about the space (or rather the lack of space) around Lewisham station – which will restrict any potential expansion and/or rebuilding at this site.
For those who haven’t had the unalloyed joy of visiting Lewisham recently, I’ve put a few photos onto the flickr photo pool. They’re not brilliant quality (only a camera phone) but hopefully show how the area around the station is now crammed with new towers, some of which are built cheek by jowl with the platforms.
ID
Ah, a “Planning” screw-up almost as good as the famous Barbican “disaster” then?
Left-hand/right-hand/head noone connected it seems?
Thanks for the photos. It seems that Lewisham Tube Station will need to be well underground.
@IslandDweller
There are indeed many new buildings sprouting up around Lewisham station. This plus the redevelopment of traffic arrangements does limit the opportunities for a site for a Bakerlewisham tube. But – as has been mentioned earlier – there is land potentially available on the site of Tesco (store plus car park) north of platform 4.
Of course if this was China, the existence of newly built towers would not be an obstacle. They would simply be torn down to make way for an enlarged Lewisham with tube. Although controversial it’s not completely out of the question. A large student residence block (which can’t be that old) is due to be compulsorily purchased and demolished just outside the site of Birmingham’s HS2 station as it stands in the way.
To echo GTR Driver’s comments about the challenges of being a driver – a friend has recently moved to his third career, from paramedic (life and death), through traffic police officer (high speed pursuit driving) to train driver. He says the latter is much, much harder than either of the others, and it never lets up.
So a wet seat is a fine reason for taking a train out of service.
I seem to have inadvertenly wound up all the South central users.
I didn’t mean to suggest that Thameslink would solve all of South Central’s problems, despite it actually serving quite a wide area of its suburban network – Wimbledon/Sutton loop, Caterham etc. (My own view is that it never had the capacity to act as more than an outlet for the Chatham lines, and is at best a Crossrail 0.5)
And yes, reversal at Tulse Hill would require remodelling of the junction and upgrading the spur. The proposed tunnel would be much better but so would lots of other expensive plans. I was trying to explore whether the proposed service could be achieved more cheaply, and what compromises would result.
Agreed Streatham has a decent service to both LBG and VIC, (as long as you know which station the next train is going from), but 2 tph from, say Crystal Palace to Peckham Rye or East Croydon is not enough to be “turn up and go”.
“Ten minutes slower via Tulse Hill” Indeed so, but a smaller number of routes with good interchanges allows a higher frequency and thus less waiting time. So ten minutes more on a nice warm train, but ten minutes less on a draughty platform.
South Central is not an easy nut to crack, and there is no perfect answer. The tunnel in the Streatham area is proposed as a solution. It is at least worth looking to see if
a. it solves the problem
b. it creates any new problems
c. there are other possible solutions to the problem (and of course assess them on the same criteria).
@Timbeau- Sorry if we hard on you Timbeau, but for us South Central users, the nightmarish mix of London Bridge via Peckham Rye, London Bridge via Crystal Palace then Peckham Rye or Forest Hill, Victoria trains that are always held at junctions to allow said half empty London Bridge trains to pass, useless Thameslink services that come from nowhere and go nowhere and countless stations like Tulse Hill and Streatham that is impossible to get to from Balham or Clapham Junction is enough to make anyone’s blood boil.
Oh how we envy those on the SW division. That said, I’d be anything but a South Eastern user.
@timbeau – never mind, as I recall, Mr Tanaka had his own private metro (a repeat of you Only Live Twice is playing just now…)
@timbeau:
Simplification of services may be the only financially viable solution under present political conditions, but if further devolution of fund-raising powers are granted, that may change.
A key issue with the South Central network is a quirk of history: for about 20 years, the only government-approved route into London from the south was via Redhill and part of what is now known as the Brighton Main Line. Even services to Dover and Canterbury had to take this very roundabout route. A number of cut-off lines were built later, including the infamous “Mid-Kent Railway” line from Lewisham, via Beckenham Junction, to Shortlands and beyond. A year later, the route via Birkbeck opened, making it a junction station. The “Chatham” main line via Herne Hill and Penge East came a couple decades later.
The South Central network therefore ended up with a vast maze of tracks heading hither and yon, mostly on the theory that it was cheaper to build a new ‘bypass’ line than to widen an existing track through what was, by then, rapidly-expanding suburbia. It’s the same problem faced by the South Eastern network: instead of widening existing routes, they built bypass after bypass. (The three lines to Dartford are probably the most extreme example of this.)
Although it seems like a semantic difference, proper four-tracking along the same model as that used by the South Western network is akin to widening a basic road into a dual-carriageway with lots of proper flying junctions. The traffic flows much more smoothly and efficiently: when you need to turn off onto a ‘branch road’, you just switch to the slow lane briefly first, then glide off without blocking any other traffic.
The South Central and South Eastern networks went with building lots more single carriageway roads to bypass their older ones, which makes for a lot more routing flexibility, but at the expense of a lot more congestion due to all the crossroads, roundabouts, T-junctions and seemingly endless traffic lights needed to stop all those vehicles hitting each other. The traffic inherently flows less smoothly and efficiently, and flying junctions are much more difficult to justify given that each individual road carries so little traffic on its own.
It’s a big problem, and solving it is going to take a generation or two at least. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions here.
@Graham H- Alas, my beloved Metro was destroyed when they drilled a Crossrail TBM right through it…
My feeling is that the South Central network is just too complex. Trying to accommodate connections between the Tulse Hill line and both lines out of Victoria, then trying to serve three routes east of Palace and two east of Selhurst results in an unhappy compromise that results in causing more problems than it solves. For example, the London Bridge-Streatham Common-West Croydon spends a lot of time holding up other trains in and around Norwood Junction/Selhurst and East/West Croydon but arguably only goes to West Croydon as a convenient spot to turn round as this is already served adequately by other routes. In a parallel universe there is a suitable multi level interchange wherever the routes cross and the maximum frequency running on every route of course(!)
Whereas South Eastern for all its issues (3 termini and 2 through city centre stations) is actually easier to segregate into metro style consistent frequencies and stopping patterns with interchanges I think – especially the North Kent lines. As a user of the Vic-Orpington route, I think 4tph is fine anyway, I just wish it was all day every day, which is a matter of what is allowed under the franchise, so it’s a question of how to do the same for the remaining low frequency routes such as Vic-Dartford and the Catford Loop (know it’s part of Thameslink now but not any better off!) to make the whole thing work consistently. Of course it requires the political will and strength to stand up to disgruntled voters who may have to change trains, but to paraphrase Sir Humphrey, “It’s your job Prime Minister and you wanted it”!
Indeed – although the SWML situation with just one terminus does mean that if you get a problem on the “trunk” then all the branches are affected – a security alert at Waterloo shuts down the whole system.
The analogy with roads is instructive. The British approach to adding road capacity is to widen a motorway. The French build a new one. So the M1, originally two lanes in places, is now being converted from 3- to 4-lanes, and is still the only continuous motorway from London heading to the North. The French would have two or three two-lane motorways. Maybe the same capacity – until a motorway is closed, in which case the French still have 2/3rds clear.
However, on a railway the advantage of the braided approach is less clear, as the users have to commit to one station on one line and cannot easily switch to another if they discover a problem once they get there. (e. if you’re at Crystal Palace and discover the line is closed, how do you get to Selhurst?)
Re tiger,
The reason some off the “London Bridge” services seem empty is that they only go as far as South Bermondsey at the moment so those aren’t popular.
Re Timbeau,
But in solving the “Streatham problem” you have created far bigger issues for everyone else and that has always been why it hasn’t been addessed.
The biggest issue for most would be increasing capacity so they can get on trains rather than choice of destinations…
This is highlighted in the NR Sussex Report last year.
For example you are proposing diverting 10 car VIC via Palace services after West Norwood where they already have 15-30 people standing per car to Tulse Hill with 8 car platforms to detrain them all an put to an already full train from an 8 car route that is being reversed at Tulse Hill (the 8 car platforms at Tulse Hill are short so the rear drivers cab doors could be off the end of the platform adding to the implementation problems). The probablilty is that not all of the passengers will be able to get on the first service being reversed so they won’t be particularly happy. 40 minutes from Z3 to Victoria instead of 30mins isn’t great either*, then there are the onward tube journeys after that.
Resignalling Tulse Hill for bi- directional signalling would be tricky as would replacing any of the crossings on the Leigham Spur etc with a pair of points to facilitate the line swap during reversal without major civil work or making 12car platform extension virtually impossible later. (NR are looking at 12car longer term for VIC – Southern metro route capacity issues).
The last estimate for getting Tulse Hill to 10 car I heard was £70m…
* This will also push Sutton passengers not to take the via Palace services as it would then be quicker to wait for the next via Selhurst or via Mitcham service increasing the crowding levels on those services.
If we are to make some sense of the South London networks, how about:
1. Crossrail 2 taking of the Wimbledon to Sutton portion of the Sutton Loop, allowing a frequent London Bridge to Wimbledon via Tooting service.
2. Interchange stations at Streatham Common, and a new station at Leigham Court to interchange between Tulse Hill and Victoria trains.
3. extention of the WLL Overground via Balham, Streatham Hill, Tulse Hill and up to Blackfriars. Opening up Camberwell, Walworth and Newington stations.
Crossrail 3 from Victoria to London Bridge via Cannon Street and Charring Cross. Then providing 12tph on Hayes and Sidcup lines allowing:
– high frequency Cannon Street only service on Bexleyheath line
-high frequency Charring Cross only service on Orpington line
-abandoning of Victoria to Dartford services
There are plans for further towers in Lewisham on the site of Carpetright, Sports Direct etc near Lewisham station. The developers have got as far as submitting EIA scoping reports in December. A number of towers are proposed up to 25 storeys, as well as an additional station entrance to the west. Some preliminary plans are shown here: https://fromthemurkydepths.wordpress.com/2015/12/10/lewishams-cluster-of-towers-to-see-new-additions/
Dvd – regarding demolishing student blocks for a tube station. There’s a big student block now rising directly beside the line with around 142 flats and 410 student rooms. If that came down it would have about a five-ten year life! The concrete core is now in place and can be made out from passing trains. Renders of the planned building are here: https://fromthemurkydepths.wordpress.com/2015/09/13/two-more-lewisham-developments-now-underway-as-others-complete/
Space for easy construction for a station are shrinking fast it appears. Maybe the plans for towers where shops now stand will be halted, or the station will go where Tesco stands (some land sold to developers end of last year by Tesco but no EIA yet submitted) or the town centre as part of a shopping centre rebuild, but losing easy connections.
Further to the photos I posted the other day, and to “fromthemurkydepths” post above. This link (below) shows a plan of how the area around Lewisham station will look when the works are complete. Any last bit of available space to re-engineer the station will be built over.
Engineers can solve anything, given enough time and money. But London Borough of Lewisham have certainly made any potential transport improvements so much harder/expensive….
https://www.lewisham.gov.uk/inmyarea/regeneration/lewishamtowncentre/Pages/Lewisham-Gateway.aspx
There are quite big issues with both Streatham area interchanges suggested, aside from the differing levels which inflates the cost, there are so many junctions that it’s hard to know where a suitable station could be sited, Leigham Court Tunnel possibly causing access issues too?
Vic-Dartford service adds a lot of connectivity, and I would have thought helps reduce pressure on other stations and routes nearby that are already busy.
Doubt if there’s capacity for more services through the slow lines at Balham full stop.
Anomnibus
I think that the London Brighton and South Coast railway did go for four tracking existing lines, for example Windmill Bridge Junction to both Victoria and London Bridge are four track. The problems are the bits between those two lines, which are low speed, two track lines, with even lower speed flat connections and no two level stations that might serve as interchange points. For the LBSCR the line via Norbury was originally the by pass line to Victoria, replacing the West End of London And Crystal Palace line Railway which, though conceived of as a main lines was never anything other than low speed.
The London Chatham and Dover did go for bypass lines, the original line via Crystal Palace was by passed by the Penge East line which was itself by passed by the less steep Catford Loop.
The Bakerloo line entrance in a draft consultation response from Lewisham was for it to be located on the southern end of the Thurston Road bus stands. As this is right next door to the proposed NR station entrance/concourse on the Carpetright site, it is not beyond the realms of possibility to link the two together.
@Interested Observer: If the Bakerloo was roughly under Thurston Road with the station box where the bus stands now are then the overrun tunnels passing under the railway and then down Molesworth St, you wouldn’t even necessarily need the Carpetright site (although it would make life easier and would be good for the developers to have a direct link to the Bakerloo). The bus stands are presumably in TfL/Network Rail ownership already and could be temporarily relocated on-street elsewhere for the duration of construction, with an over-site development once the station is built. I don’t think it is too late to fit a not-very-deep Bakerloo station into Lewisham although TfL will need to get land safeguarded quickly.
@Robert Butlin:
The only four track, paired-by-direction bit is between New Cross Gate and Norwood Junction, and is thus also host one of the very few examples of a proper grade-separated junction on the network, linking Sydenham with Crystal Palace.
At Norwood Junction, things get complicated by the second four-track route from Selhurst (paired by use, if memory serves). Both routes then have to be fed through West Croydon (two-track plus a bay), and East Croydon, where the lines become grouped by use, not direction.
Beyond Croydon, the LB&SCR went for the ‘bypass’ option in the form of the Quarry Lines. This was partly to avoid having to use the SER-own stretch between Coulsdon South and Redhill.
It’s all very complicated and makes what passes for my brain hurt. [Unnecessary unpleasant metaphor snipped. Malcolm]
@Interested Observer re Lewisham Bakerloo on Thurston Road: This is what I was thinking and am also wondering whether it could have risen above ground by this point to match the NR station height. This would make the interchange a lot easier and would also mean that it is pointing in the Hayes line direction should it get extended there. Some industrial units may have to make way to achieve this.
@Fromthemurkydepths: Interesting to see that the developer’s sketch of the Carpetright site shows an Underground roundel. Though I imagine that shows either optimism or a simple error, rather than a proactive intention to cooperate in getting the Bakerloo built.
The criticism by LR commenters of Lewisham Council over the developments seems rather unfair. The Lewisham Gateway plans were fixed in 2006, and site clearances started in 2008 (was it?) before the recession put the diggers on hold, so if there were a specific project to safeguard for there would have been plenty of time in which to do so. Twenty-five years is a long time to leave half the town centre semi-derelict, in the hope of making a speculative tunnel easier to dig—or, as people occasionally suggest, to leave room for a less tightly curved viaduct in the event that somebody finds a wondrous new arrangement for the junctions that nobody’s thought of yet.
Lewisham seem generally to be realistic in their hopes for transport infrastructure. Contrast Greenwich and their fantasy DLR to Eltham.
The last bit of land at the moment seems to be the temporary bus park to the west of the station.
This could provide an access for the Bakerloo line platforms and hopefully allow the Hayes/Sidcup platforms to be straightened.
Mind the gap doesn’t even come close. The space between train and platform is some of the worst I have ever seen.
@ Graham H – re 10 Jan 22.22 @Saintsman – do you have any information to support your views about the balance of benefits and demand?
My suggestion to obtain sufficient Bakerloo stock by truncating the line at Wembley, could allow an initial 12tph to run on an extension to New Cross Gate.
I have a strong “access for all” agenda, so one key benefit is improving stepping distance by removing compromise height platforms from 5 stations.
In the south Bakerloo phase 1 terminating at New Cross Gate must give some relief to the Jubilee line particularly Canada Water to Waterloo but have no model to give an informed perspective.
In the north. There are 4 distinct markets. The critical one being Harrow, who under my suggestion loose 6tph Bakerloo replaced by 5tph (making 8tph) LO. If these were 4-car then this is a 14% CUT in capacity. Don’t believe NR would allow more slow line services to call whilst Euston is rebuilt (which is what people really want) so a waiting game for HS2 or Crossrail 1 to WCML capacity. With 5-car LO operation capacity is 4% up. (8-car operation unlikely short term as overall line does not need it and would need a platform extension program). Politically most tricky market.
Wembley. Stonebridge was never a good terminus hence an extension into new platforms on the eastern side of Wembley. 1.7km of new track could be reduced to 700m with a junction before the underpass. Local market in peak drops from 10tph Bakerloo to 6tph all day. With the extra LO this represents 6% peak capacity increase (5-car 18%).
Watford (north or Harrow). LO running 8tph creates a sensible service frequency. Capacity increased by 166% 4-car or 220% 5-car. With Croxley this should be more than sufficient. (Again more slow line services are what people really want at Watford).
Queens Park. Assume the peak of 20tph is possible with only 6tph heading north. Then capacity here increases by at least 20%. (Only 1 extra northern path to find).
If my maths is correct then there is sufficient stock for another peak 2tph for either the core (QP to E&C) or to Wembley; I prefer core. Would look to new signalling contract to coincide with the extension and work back to Queens Park.
With new tube stock I’d like to see 32tph+ Queens Park to southern terminus, with 12tph (8tph off peak) to Wembley. With 8tph LO bound for Euston or Camden. Eventually more on WCML slow lines. In combination sufficient to cover published demand forecasts.
As for LO terminus. Whilst Euston is being rebuilt then extra services are unlikely to be allowed. With the continued investment in the GOBLIN, would hope Primrose Hill with one platform could operate without significant impact on freight. Short term 4tph Euston, 4tph Primrose Hill; long term other decisions are required.
On balance most users benefit from most stations receive increased capacity. 5-car stock would be preferable to support Harrow. Harrow customers suffer greater interchange so investment at Queens Park and a slightly higher frequency here would be useful. As a sequence this seems to work getting the Old Kent Road housing started earlier, a proper LO commuter service and a phased Bakerloo improvement program.
@ NGH – Yes your correct Lewisham curved platforms for Hayes are 1 &2 (not 3&4 I should check than write from memory!). As they can’t realistically be straightened by 2040-50 CR3 could be one option to remove the stepping distance. Let’s get CR2 built first!
@ Anonyomously 11 Jan – Re Compromise platforms and truncating the Bakerloo at Wembley. This would allow 5 station platforms to be repositioned for LO stock. (Wembley receiving new Bakerloo platforms on the eastern side.) Between Stonebridge Park and Willesden junction 3 stations could be shared or at a future date parallel tracks segregating LO and Bakerloo, which allow higher frequency to Wembley (expensive not my highest priority). Solving Kensal Green is more problematic and requires either through running and PED or a major other scheme to come along. ‘Down’ boarding ramps make me nervous. My underlying point is a rolling program of improving platform to train stepping distance across the network us necessary.
@ Rational Plan – I agree part of my support for Phase 2 to Hither Green is about depot capacity. I would still keep Stonebridge Park.
As it is mentioned up thread, I thought I’d add a link to a quick google map I made of some of the proposals from the Turning South London Orange report.
The red lines are the big investments in new express tunnels and underground junctions for Streatham .
The red pointers are my best guesses for additional stations or extra platforms at existing stations.
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zDluGDKgkFeA.kBV5UIDUWq2E&usp=sharing
I haven’t had a chance to look at Turn South London Orange in detail. However, from that map I noticed that they have a strange idea of the location of “Battersea Dogs Home”. Actually, it is Battersea Dogs & Cats Home but we will let that pass.
@PoP
It’s difficult to comment yet – or at least it was yesterday – as one of the annex files is not yet available.
Re Rational Plan and PoP,
Battersea – that site isn’t that easy as the single freight or alternative route to Victoria – the Battersea Reversible means it is difficult to get proper platform length unless the platform goes between the SLL tracks.
They also seem to think that the ELL opened in 2012 rather than 2010 according to the map on p33… (The SLL phase did open in 2012)
Streatham – your thoughts on whether would they divert just the current via Streatham Common via Streatham and Streatham Hill thus eliminating most of the Balham Jn flat crossing issue and then have Streatham Hill as the main higher speed direction of the junction which would help increase the max tph on VIC South Central slows (assuming the overall limit is 20tph max with ATO and P8-12 at Victoria) or would they also divert the Vic via Mitcham Jn Services to get real tube (well almost current Bakerloo like) frequencies and not just tube like capacities?
(Assuming Streatham Jn is grade separated too).
So with all Mitcham Jn services as well you could get something like:
Balham & Streatham Hill: 20tph VIC (/WLL)
Streatham (aka “interchange” with 4 platforms): 14tph VIC, 4tph Thameslink, 6tph LBG
Streatham Common: 10tph VIC, 4tph LBG
West Norwood: 6 tph VIC, 4tph LBG (LBG 2tph via Tulse Hill)
How you get stock into or out of the Streatham Hill Carriage sidings is another matter you also have good connection point for a future Crossrail to emerge by Streatham Carriage sidings as you then have all your surface network and stations etc already done.
Re Ian S,
Which annex file? Both downloaded fine for me and still do now.
ngh,
The online report keeps referring to the online annex for more details of various schemes but these do not seem to be covered by the two annex files that are available.
The devil is in the detail and the detail is not there.
On Battersea Dogs and Cats Home, I was merely pointing out that, if it is to be located where indicated on the map, Battersea Dogs Home is not a good name for it as it implies a very specific location and that is not where it will be at.
Re Pop,
Extra – Appendices may be all revealed next Monday?
Station name: How about Stewarts Lane as the station would still be with the depot safeguarded area?
@Pop
“However, from that map I noticed that they have a strange idea of the location of “Battersea Dogs Home”.”
Surely that’s RP’s map? (showing a station at “Batersea Dogs Home” (sic) that is actually further from that establishment than the existing and planned stations at Battersea PS, Battersea Pk, and Queenstown Road.
There are no maps showing such a station in the Report itself as far as I can see. (Nor, I think does the word “Dogs'” appear in the report).
Re Timbeau,
Dogs – Page 48 Line 4
“Near Battersea Dogs Home” other locations are less genaralised e.g. “Brockley” “Camberwell” where the location is obvious. It may be just to avoid confusion given the Battersea area naming problems (also including Clapham Jn) in the past.
timbeau,
Aha, I see.
That would also explain Lewisham South which I am fairly sure would be north-west of Courthill Loop South Junction (relevant Carto Metro map) rather than south-east.
If not, I don’t see how it could possibly work as trains calling at Lewisham would have to go through it meaning a throttle on capacity – not what the report aspires to!
I am far from convinced it is a good idea anyway. The one redeeming feature about the entire awfulness of Lewisham Station is that it doesn’t block the main line to Sevenoaks whilst trains stop there. It is as if someone was determined to nullify that redeeming feature by having a second Lewisham station. Not an entirely rational argument I know but it just feels wrong.
I suspect the ‘South London Line’ the report refers to in relation to the Battersea Dogs Home station is the northern pair of tracks from Victoria to Brixton and the 6tph service (which might not go from Victoria, but rather Clapham Junction) from Victoria to Lewisham – the additional platforms at Wandsworth Road and Clapham High Street seem to suggest at least a partial swapping over fast and slow tracks there.
And if the fast trains tunnel under Herne Hill, could they all go that way – especially if the reports mention of passing loops is talking about that line?
@Pedantic of Purley
“I haven’t had a chance to look at Turn South London Orange in detail. However, from that map I noticed that they have a strange idea of the location of “Battersea Dogs Home”. Actually, it is Battersea Dogs & Cats Home but we will let that pass.”
I have been promised the relevant “Online Annex” documentation about this by email by a DM from @centreforlondon but it’s not appeared today as expected.
@ Ngh 1640 – there was a BBC London News feature this evening about Southern’s woes. Auntie Claire from the DfT said nothing very meaningful other than “better compensation scheme” as if money is what people really want! I think the public want the trains to work – what a revolutionary concept! In the clip there’s a short chat with Zac Goldsmith who said an announcement about rail issues in London was due in a few days time. Are you referring to that or the 25th Jan talk at Centre for London about SE London’s rail system or are they the same thing or do you mean something else? There are no government speakers at the Centre for London session next Monday.
Two relevant Invitations for Tender issued just before Christmas: “Task 232 Bakerloo Line Extension Assessment of development and funding opportunities of station and route options”, and “TFL/90001 – Task 233 – Lewisham Interchange Study”.
Re Si,
I suspect you could easily put a station on either potential route but it depends what else you want to do too hence very vague location that could cover either?
@Chris L – is this the bus park just off the car ‘shortcut’ from Lewisham to Deptford Bridge?
If so, it would be a hell of a walk (Kings X vortex / Waterloo Jubilee quagmire?) to interchange…?
@ Saintsman
Platform 1 at Lewisham could be rebuilt on the other side of the recently installed lift on a straighter alignment.
Platform 2 could then be moved to the site of the existing platform 1.
There are problems with the positioning of overrun tunnels for the Bakerloo as they re-aligned the rivers to accommodate the new tower blocks.
@Saintsman…..Reading your plans, it sounds as though you’re trying to crack a rather hard nut (the need for extra Bakerloo stock for any southward extension) with a gigantic sledgehammer (a complete re-jig of the Bakerloo/LO lines north of Queen’s Park, almost bordering on crayonism save for the fact that no new alignment is involved!) Whereas I (and, I hope, others) would opt for a better nutcracker….in other words, new trains.
And if there isn’t enough cash for an extension *and* new trains, then I’ll just opt for the new trains for now, thank you very much. Doing something about them sooner rather than later is that critical.
‘Access for all’ is a laudable aim, but practicalities and hard economics mean that this can only be achieved gradually and piecemeal on the existing legacy network….which is exactly what TfL have been doing for the past 15 years. And I imagine there are other stations far higher up TfLs priority list (i.e. the Zone 1 stations) than the ones on the northern half of the Bakerloo line that you list. In no case I can think of has TfL *withdrawn or extensively modified* services on an existing line (as you propose) just to enable step-free access between platform and train. I would dare to suggest that the number inconvenienced by yours and any other similar proposals would *far exceed* the number who might benefit from step-free access to the platform.
@Sainstman – So, your shorter answer to my question is: “No”. You have some strong agendas – don’t we all! – but that is not the same as evidence. Whereas, all the evidence from previous studies shows that LO to Euston, however revamped, is not the service people want. Euston is not a major traffic destination in its own right and compared with the West End, it is trivial. Indeed, the price of running LO into Euston at all is the cost of two extra platforms – say, £200m on to the rebuilding cost, plus savings from a simpler track layout and the closure of at least S Hampstead. For that money one could buy half a new fleet for the Bakerloo…
I don’t think a conventional station box option, as used at Canary Wharf’s Crossrail station, was ever going to be an option at Lewisham, even without all the redevelopments; the roads and rivers would have gotten in the way regardless. The extensive piling needed to support all those new high-rise buildings only adds to the complexity of the job, but it was never going to be easy.
As both the DLR and Bakerloo terminate at Lewisham, the flow of passengers interchanging between those two lines is unlikely to be a major factor. The biggest demand is therefore most likely to be between the Bakerloo and the two high-level lines, and for local access.
One solution is to connect the new Bakerloo station to an intermediate interchange hall constructed under the original station building and its forecourt. This would mean demolition of the original station building to build this by enlarging the original subway tunnel that passes underneath it, to the extent that it meets the later subway linking the DLR with the “Mid-Kent” (i.e. Hayes / Hither Green) platforms.
From here, you run escalators and lifts down to the new platforms, (or, if necessary, to an intermediate level that connects to them, if they’re at too great an angle for a single, direct link). This means the Bakerloo station platforms can be built at a short distance from the present station, at a location that’s more convenient for works access.
Once the new interchange hall has been built, a new station building can be constructed above it, potentially covering the entire site, including the station road itself, giving a street-level entrance to the complex.
@Anomnibus….Your solution is the one closest to the one I had in mind myself. It would mean though that during the period of construction Lewisham station becomes borderline hellish for passengers to use (think London Bridge but in miniature!). Perhaps it becomes much easier if the Hayes line platforms are shut for the duration of construction, with the services that use it diverted away via the avoiding lines?
Also, would your solution allow for overrun tunnels to enable a future extension on to the Hayes line? I guess they could follow the alignment of the existing surface line, thus avoiding the foundations and piles for all those pesky towers, but the resulting curve and gradient required in order to surface just before the junction at Ladywell would be challenging, to say the least.
@anomnibus: I don’t think a conventional station box option, as used at Canary Wharf’s Crossrail station, was ever going to be an option at Lewisham
Yet that is precisely the option that appears to be being currently developed, according to all the information (as opposed to speculation) currently in the public domain. Take a look at the architects’ documents linked to upthread: they show two detailed alternatives for tunnel alignments (including overrun tunnels), plus more schematic station box layouts. For all the speculation on this thread, no-one has yet shown that what is sketched out by TfL’s architects is not actually possible.
@Graham H: all the evidence from previous studies shows that LO to Euston, however revamped, is not the service people want
When were these studies conducted? The idea of killing off the DC Lines service to Euston is one of those things that has vanished without trace from the planning agenda over the last ten years (and you can’t just blame Ken, TfL would have revived the proposal once there was a change of Mayor if they thought it was worthwhile).
Re Ian J,
Lewisham – I haven’t because I agree with the architects, a station box would probably only be for the Tesco car park (easy) option though.
@Ian J – the last such study of which I am aware was undertaken by TfL London Rail about 10 years ago (and there have been several others before that). Yes, it was abandoned because of Ken, but, remember, that was also associated with the re-extension of the Bakerloo to Watford. I suspect that with the subsequent extension of the Met there, a second route to Watford has had a low priority and that’s why we haven’t heard about it recently. I don’t think much has changed in travel patterns to invalidate its conclusion,however; if anything,the future use of Euston for the HS2 terminus has reinforced the idea of removing as much existing interchange from the new station as possible.
@Tim no it is beside the existing station layout on the west side.
Anonomously: You can’t close that line, it’s used by freight between Hither Green and Nunhead….
@Ian J:
Are you referring to the tiny map in the Tony Meadows Associates PDF? I can’t see anything else.
@ChrisL: Platform 1 at Lewisham could be rebuilt on the other side of the recently installed lift on a straighter alignment.
I think you’re suggesting moving the platform closer to its centre of curvature: how can that make for a shallower curve?
The Mid Kent Railway would originally have made a smooth 100 degree turn from its junction with the North Kent Railway (running through platforms 3 and 4). Later the curve was tightened at its northern end to point instead at the flydown spur from Nunhead and the crossover junction. Hence the odd misalignment of the station building with the current platform 2.
To straighten out the platform, at all, you need either (a) to undo the change, removing the connection with the spur lines—which are now the only normal way to Charing Cross as well as the freight route through Nunhead; (b) to move the whole curve eastwards towards the DLR station and Molesworth Street, and push the sharper bit of the turn out beyond the station; or (c) move the platform south along the existing track to a bit with the original (still fairly tight) curvature.
Or you can push your realignments further and further afield, demolishing here and there as you go. None of the new towers get in your way at all, amusingly, unless you want to find a new route for Molesworth Street rather than closing it. It’s only the A21. Possibly this might get a bit extravagant, but compared with Saintsman’s scheme to fix the issue by building a Crossrail 3 I’m sure the relative cost-benefit analysis stacks up. (Putting the Hayes line into a tunnel at Lewisham might be done more cheaply by, oh, linking it to the Bakerloo extension or something. If you then stop the services through Hither Green—and who wants to go there?—you can close platforms 1 & 2 entirely. Problem solved.)
The original curve extends a good halfway up the platforms. I haven’t tried getting on the country end of the train to see if the step there is less.
@Wax Lyrical
The worst gap is at the rear of an 8 car train. They stop 4 cars or so up the platform. People have gone down the gap.
Older trains were shorter and fitted better into the curved alignment.
The platform extensions are at the country end.
With the roundabout gone Molesworth Street is a major two way road for the A20 and A21.
Are you referring to the tiny map in the Tony Meadows Associates PDF? I can’t see anything else.
Yes. The base map showing the tunnels clearly derives from much more detailed tunnel routing work. This must have been done, presumably not by Tony Meadows Associates but by TfL or one of their contractors, and supplied to TMA by TfL for them to use in coming up with concept designs for the stations, but not (yet) in the public domain.
if anything,the future use of Euston for the HS2 terminus has reinforced the idea of removing as much existing interchange from the new station as possible
Then why has no-one in a position to do something about it proposed this? The ideas of diverting WCML services into Crossrail, or moving the sleeper to Waterloo, have quietly died a death as well.
@Ian J
I can’t follow that PDF. Does it show the tube station underneath the Tesco car park? And where are the overrun tunnels shown as going?
@Ian J -you are expecting too much from the present system! HS2 and Euston rebuild are being handled by a body whose sole purpose is to construct that line in that place as cheaply as possible. No one is looking at the wider picture, especially not the politicians who chose the HS2 route.
Graham H says that “HS2 and Euston rebuild are being handled by a body whose sole purpose is to construct that line in that place as cheaply as possible”
This is true, and it does have the disadvantage you mention. However, this model has worked very well with Crossrail, as it does help to avoid analysis-paralysis. If I was paying a builder to extend my house, I would not want them to keep pausing to evaluate whether I should have put the toilet at the other end.
Obviously politicians chose the route – based on expert advice. Who else might have done so?
@Malcolm – I take your point about builders (although,living in an older property, the last major piece of building work we had done was marked by a constant dialogue about mend/rebuild). CR1 just about worked because much of the planning work dated from the days when there had been a single body of professionals working on it .
I’m afraid I disagree,however, about HS2 – as far as I could see, the routeing was driven by a political decision – what body of professional advisers do you think exists to deal with such matters? And when you come to “HS3″…
Graham H: much though I would enjoy further discussion about HS2, it is firm LR policy to avoid discussions about it, except for its direct impact on London. And a fortiori “HS3” (whatever that combination of symbols might be applied to) is emphatically “don’t go there”.
@Malcolm – sorry to follow your lure…
Graham – no I’m sorry that I followed your lure… 🙂
Back on topic, I was interested in the discussion about depots for the extra stock needed, that overnight stabling in the platforms was a possibility. I have had the distinct impression that LU policy was against this (and indeed, a quick skim of the stabling lists that accompany the WTTs shows no platform stabling going at present). Has there been a change of policy?
Graham H,
Overnight stabling at surface level in LU terminal platforms is generally avoided because it isn’t necessary and often there are sidings or a depot nearby.
Overnight stabling in tube platforms is rare but it is done and many Working Timetables show this or did show this. It is rare mainly because it isn’t necessary on most lines.
It is more normal to have stock stabled in the overrun tunnels (e.g. Victoria, Brixton). However these need to accessed once a week so there is a rota published in the Working Timetable for which nights it stables in platform instead. This is usually Saturday night (if two trains then Friday night is the preferred alternative) so that if the train won’t start in the morning the consequences are less serious.
I am pretty sure that in the Waterloo & City line one train stables at in the platform at Bank but I can’t be bothered to look it up. This is a bit exceptional as normally only one of the two platforms are in use at Bank at any one time. I have a feeling one is stabled at Waterloo platform to free of one on the depot roads at night (done on a rotating basis).
Stabling a train at Elephant & Castle used to happen but the trade union finally got a stop put to this as it was inherently dangerous walking to the train with the track line – I believe that the issue was that the walking route was none too safe and stable rather than the principle of walking next to the live rail. Anyone who saw the relevant episode of “The Tube” would understand that the unions, at the very least, had an arguable case.
In the case of Battersea Power Station station the plan is to store three trains there – two in the overrun tunnels and one in the platform. I suspect this won’t be a major issue because if they have an early morning problem they can just turn some trains round on the Kennington Loop where they can sit and await their slot for the return journey.
@Ian J:
If that tiny map in the TMA PDF is all we have to go on, how do you come to the conclusion that the plan is to build a conventional station box? Of the proposed sites, only the Tesco car park option seems like it could be done using a conventional top-down station box approach. The others would probably have to be dug out from below, as is happening at Tottenham Court Road.
It’s also worth noting that the A21 starts in Lewisham, spurring off the A20. It used to diverge at the roundabout, but the new layout will have it running down Molesworth Street at the junction where the A20 veers off towards Lee High Road. That’s a lot of traffic, and the new layout isn’t going to change its capacity in any meaningful way; the purpose of that exercise is to make it easier to get from the High Street to the station.
An endless stream of HGVs carrying spoil and tunnel segments, plant, and so on, is going to play even more havoc with the local road network than the current redevelopment does today.
I suspect the construction and logistics will play an important part in deciding where the station goes.
On the subject of a depot at Hither Green, surely, if there is a case to be made for this, it should be built under the existing depot and the existing depot reinstated on top of it?
Hither Green is rail connected so you could get rid of the spoil. As the rail depot would be much larger than the underground depot you would only have to close a portion of it during reconstruction. Better still, if TfL was in charge of the depot as part of running Southeastern Metro there wouldn’t be issues in acquiring the site or arranging for co-operation with the TOC and Network Rail.
@Anomnibus
Molesworth Street is already 2 way and some distance from Lee High Road so it is a staggered junction.
Traffic for the A21 is actually routed down the west side of the Shopping Centre soon after the railway bridge.
At the moment the construction work means a lengthy pedestrian diversion between the bus stops, shopping centre and stations.
When is the property development likely to start?
@PoP – “Stabling a train at Elephant & Castle used to happen but the trade union finally got a stop put to this” – in the sidings beyond the platforms.
However, one train is now stabled in a platform overnight; the platform track chosen alternates to permit cleaning and access to the other one.
If TfL takeover the running of the rail lines in SE London, I would suggest that there is much more likelihood of an extension of the Bakerloo line to Hayes, since TfL will directly be able to benefit from the freed up paths through Lewisham.
Much of the discussion here between those for and against this extension are at talking at each other. Those against claim the trains will be full and many of the Hayes line won’t like it. But those for would argue that it makes little difference to traffic on the Bakerloo line since the Hayes line won’t fill the tube trains, or dis-benefit to passengers on the Hayes line (winners and losers there, but even the losers aren’t particularly worse off), but it is an extremely cheap way to gain 4-6 new paths through Lewisham in the peak.
@haykerloo -I f I understood your comments correctly, they were actually already answered in the article itself: “If the Bakerloo line from Lewisham is full by the time it gets to central London and the National Rail services and DLR from Lewisham are also similarly full, then reallocating lines on the country side of Lewisham from National Rail to the Bakerloo line does absolutely nothing to increase capacity into London. It frees train paths, certainly, but these are replaced by other trains.”
Graham Feakins,
Much to my surprise, they also stable a train in one of the platforms at Queen’s Park four nights a week to free off one of the four tracks in the depot to the north of the station. As two of those four tracks in the depot are actually through running lines we have the situation where trains are stabled on the running lines not at a station.
@Haykerloo/Graham H…I wouldn’t necessarily call it ‘cheap’ (at least not if you include the tunnelled part to reach Lewisham), but probably the most realistic option that is on the table at present. Unless of course you include the fabled CR3 (which is likely to cost several billion more than Bakerloo to Hayes).
@Graham H….Just so I can fully understand, if extra train paths are used up by other train services that didn’t exist before, why is this not considered an ‘increase’ in overall capacity?
One other advantage I presume of releasing train paths is that it introduces more resilience at that particular bottleneck in case something goes wrong (such as a delayed service becoming further delayed since it has missed its ‘slot’ to pass through the Lewisham spaghetti junction). I guess one would achieve this by distributing the freed-up train paths in such a way that the existing services have greater leeway to pass through Lewisham if they are running late. Is this correct, or am I being overly simplistic?
Anonymously,
I could unhelpfully say that this is all a consequence of the Max Flow Min Cut Theorem but I can assure you that you really don’t want to go there.
Lets assume that the Bakerloo goes to Lewisham and in the morning it is full up on leaving Waterloo. Similarly the DLR is full up by the time it reaches Crossharbour. SouthEastern suburban trains are also full on reaching London Bridge.
Some people will be changing at Lewisham for the Bakerloo line. Some intending SouthEastern passengers are effectively forced onto the Bakerloo line because the trains upstairs are full. Basically, at Lewisham people switch mode, if necessary, to travel on services where there is capacity available.
Now consider an arc to the west of Lewisham stations. People are crossing this arc (boundary) to get to London. Your objective is to increase capacity i.e. get more people to cross this arc.
If you extend the Bakerloo to Hayes and reallocate the paths of suburban trains to, say, the Dartford lines then you don’t increase the number going to London Bridge. You might increase the number going on the Bakerloo but probably only at the expense of people not being about to get on at Waterloo – so nothing useful achieved there.
If you don’t replace the paths freed then you reduce capacity to London Bridge but you haven’t increased capacity on the Bakerloo line so overall you have reduced capacity.
It doesn’t matter what you do south and east of Lewisham. There is no way this can affect what capacity is available west and north of Lewisham.
Perhaps a better analogy is a less complicated one. The channel tunnel has a finite car carrying capacity. Supposed that is exceeded and cars are queuing on the M20. You can widen the M20, widen the M2, build another motorway, and do all sorts of things but you are still stuck with the limited capacity of the channel tunnel.
Let’s now assume that you have three channel tunnels all full and you allocate one of three motorways to each of them but you allow cars to switch from one motorway to another. You can reallocate the motorways to tunnels however you like but it won’t make any difference – your fundamental limit is the three channel tunnels.
Replace cars with people, motorways with the Bakerloo line from Lewisham to Hayes and suburban services to London Bridge, the coast with Lewisham and the three channel tunnels with National Rail to London Bridge, the DLR and the Bakerloo line from Lewisham to London and you have the same situation.
@Anonymously -did I ever say it would be cheap?! Extending the Bakerloo (+£2bn?) for the sake of the Hayes paths would work out at £500m /path …. And then – and this is perhaps PoP’s point put slightly crudely, all you have done is take away one bottleneck. in the circs, you are right, you’d probably cash that cheque in terms of better reliability. Indeed, it may be the only form of cashing that makes sense.
I’m no longer convinced about the releasing train paths argument
I reckon the Bakerloo extended to Lewisham will be full when it leaves Waterloo westbound. No point extending it further at fair expense to attract more traffic that could change on to it there anyway. The Hayes line doesn’t need tube frequencies, nor a slow route to Waterloo.
The reason to extend beyond Lewisham might be to remove the terminus vs through line bottleneck, but that doesn’t seem an issue for tubes as it is for NR services.
*If* there is capacity either side of Lewisham after the Bakerloo arrives, but the area itself is a bottleneck, you’d be better building a NR bypass tunnel under the whole area. If there is no spare capacity to the NW, then that tunnel is extended to become CR3.
@PoP The minimum cut is presumably the Thames – so any future Crossrail should cross the river at both the western and the eastern ends.
@Graham H…..Apologies, my mistake; it was only Haykerloo who commented on the cost, not you.
@John B….In their consultation responses, TfL themselves say that their modelling predicts there will be space on the trains at Waterloo. Presumably this is because some passengers will change at Lewisham (for Canary Wharf / Docklands) or E&C (for London Bridge / the City).
Andrew C,
Well, it then gets a bit more complicated because you have to find the closed loop around central London where biggest restriction is. You can’t make it too small or you start missing journeys made completely outside the loop. You also get to the point where it is practical for people to walk for the final part of their journey to their destination so it becomes a bit meaningless.
For the south side of this loop, the Thames would be a good guess although you would have to ensure the area around London Bridge station – now a destination in its own right – was inside it. I suspect the North London Line would be a good approximation for the north side. I don’t think you have to have a Crossrail line repeatedly crossing the Thames – just make sure you go in and out of the closed loop. I think the Jubilee line extension with its four river crossings eliminated the worst of the Thames being a barrier to travel using public transport.
It would also be interesting to draw such a loop for National Rail only. It is surprising that nowadays trains arrive at many London Termini having already reduced the number of passengers aboard. So Vauxhall and Clapham Junction are good candidates on the south side of the river. On the north side I would think it is less pronounced but Finsbury Park and Stratford are obvious potential nodes.
@Anonymously Hayes line passengers wanting CW change at LEW already, or sit on the train for LBG. They’d not gain from their train becoming a Bakerloo one. The only significant unloading, at E&C, would be for west of Lewisham joiners, would there be that many?
@POP I save a fair amount of money per month buying a travel card that omits Zone 1 so I change at Clapham Junction instead. I am keen fan of Zone 2/orbital connections.
Your Lewisham arc doesn’t exist in a vacuum either. Once Crossrail opens, more passengers will be ripped off the Dartford lines at Woolwich to travel through central London rather than pass through Lewisham or Greenwich. If and when the GOBLIN extension to Thamesmead and Abbey Wood opens, that will offer an easier route north.
As for the other lines through Lewisham, I was under the impression from the excellent DLR articles on here that the limiting factor on DLR trains out of Lewisham was rolling stock. Buying more trains would increase capacity out of Lewisham.
Indeed Hedgehog,
And if you beef up the inner London transport options you may well get to the point where the limiting factor is getting people into Lewisham in the morning. This would be a totally different ball game. But I would suggest that we are nowhere near that point yet and may never be. What could possibly change this is if really high density housing extended outward – to Catford for example.
Meanwhile, “TfL rejects council bid to extend London Underground to Croydon”:
http://www.croydonadvertiser.co.uk/TfL-rejects-council-bid-extend-London-Underground/story-28585562-detail/story.html
Funny that. I’ve heard it all before over many years but then again the local rags for many years pressed for the Underground to come to Croydon and were delighted when it did – except it’s now called the Overground – to West Croydon.
Thanks for your reply PoP.
Readers may find this explanation of max cut min flow more accessible than the wikipedia entry.
http://www.cimt.plymouth.ac.uk/projects/mepres/alevel/discrete_ch7.pdf
PoP
Yes, LST & CST – both those termini have something over 75% of their passengers walking to their final destination, wherever & whenever they started their journeys.
If I’m walking between the two, the “watershed (as observed by the way the other people are walking) is just behind Change Alley in Lombard Street!
Hedgehog
If and when the GOBLIN extension to Thamesmead and Abbey Wood opens
It won’t.
The “final design proposal” is for one such that an extension to Thamesmead can’t be done (!) [ Or not easily, anyway ]
@ Graham F – I just love the pompous response from the leader of Croydon Council – “with repsect to TfL I’ll take those decisions along with other politicians”. Ha ha ha. Does he work in the Treasury or DfT or sit on the TfL Board? No thought not. Therefore he won’t be taking the decisions will he? He’ll be on the sidelines having a strop. Alternatively perhaps he could find the missing £3bn under a sofa or from Westfield Hammerson? Oh hang on he only managed to get about £20m from them for a pretty useless loop of tram track in Croydon. Clear record of delivery of substantive meaningful transport investment there then! And people wonder why there’s cynicism about politicians.
@Andrew C – thank you, I’m reading it now. It’s been a while since I looked at any university material!
@ Greg Tingey
I’ve just left another consultation response impressing the need for provision forward under the river.
Graham H: “Extending the Bakerloo (+£2bn?) for the sake of the [four] Hayes paths would work out at £500m /path”
Er…no, I am afraid I disagree. The cost is the *extension* from Lewisham to Hayes, which is much lower than that (it excludes the cost of building the Bakerloo to Lewisham in the first place). And, in terms of transport infrastructure, is relatively cheap (100 millions not billions). And you not only get the four reallocated Hayes paths, but *additional* paths from simplifying the Lewisham junction throughput.
@WW 🙂 I hadn’t realised that the Leader of Croydon was such an important figure, bestriding the globe* like a latterday Colossus. (It does illustrate the sort of fun and games than any attempt to set up a SE PTE would face).
* perhaps just the High Street.
Addendum:
The crossrail paths cost something like £300 million each. This potentially gives an idea of how much spending could be justified from changes in the layout at the bottleneck at Lewisham.
@Haykerloo- how much do you think a mile of plain single track, unelectrified, on an already existing solum might cost? Now double that for double track, and double it again for electrification and metro signalling… How much do you think it will cost to portal somewhere between Lewisham and Hayes and provide the linking earthworks (cheating with TBMs not allowed)? Now,how many stations to be underground @£250m-500m a pop? And how many on the surface@£50+ a pop? You’d be amazed how far £2bn doesn’t go.
I don’t think the justification for CrossRail rested on paths created but on journey time savings and congestion relief. In fact,it doesn’t create any new paths to Reading and Shenfield, as the good burg(h)ers of Essex are just now finding out.
@POP
More DLR rolling stock seems to me to be a very simple and cheap way of increasing capacity out of Lewisham, to the degree that I don’t know why it hasn’t happened yet. It would enable all Stratford trains to run south to Lewisham during the peaks. No extra infrastructure, just more trains and a slightly tighter timetable. Given the high-density housing going up around Lewisham, this will be necessary regardless of what happens to the Bakerloo line.
In time, a lot of commuters who buy the new housing along the OKR may be travelling contra-peak to Lewisham on the Bakerloo for the DLR north in the mornings.
Hedgehog,
Agreed, but not just the DLR! We have these grandious plans but we still haven’t got 12-car trains and there was a time when 10-car trains were practically universal (as in universe based around Lewisham) in the peaks. We don’t even seem to have that now.
Even more depressingly, tonight I went to London Bridge for a train home. It was half-hourly due to engineering works and then one of those 2 an hour trains gets cancelled “due to non-availability of a member of train crew” which I strongly suspect is verbose waffle for “no guard”. As I sat on the cold concourse floor, due to a lack of seats, to wait for over half an hour for my train, I mused that we have gone to all the trouble to finally build an almost fit-for-purpose if not inspiring station at London Bridge yet we still have a dire service reminiscent of the 1970s because there aren’t enough available staff to run the service.
It would be nice if we could sort out longer trains and reducing the number of trains cancelled before introducing grandiose schemes but it has never happened that way and I guess it never will.
Only compensations tonight were:
i) it was very mild
ii) I could quickly buy a cup of coffee with wave & pay
iii) platform advertised very early – but it said it was an 8-car train and unfortunately one has no real idea of where the front of an 8-car train will be when it comes in
iv> plenty of unused seats on the platform
v) train arrived a long time before departure time
vi) Wi-fi at London Bridge is excellent and means that one can vaguely usefully use the time sitting in a comfortable seat in the warm during the enforced delay.
Guards, POP, on a Lewisham train? Shurely shome mishtake? Someone tell SE so that the last remaining three can be got rid of to save money(!)
@ GTR driver
“Guards, POP, on a Lewisham train?”
As PoP mentioned
“iii) platform advertised very early –
v) train arrived a long time before departure time”
and the second “P” stands for Purley I had assumed it was on the terminal (TSGN) side of London Bridge. If he had been going to Lewisham it would have had to be platform 1 or 2 (as CX trains are not calling at LBR at present)t
2tph to Lewisham would really be a skeleton service!
GTR driver,
Er, no.
Not a lot of trains to Purley from London Bridge via Lewisham today. Actually the number is the same as the number of trains as there were today from London Bridge to Lewisham so I suppose you could argue that all trains today from London Bridge to Lewisham went on to call at Purley and that would be a logically true statement.
I was making the more general point that we (taxpayers) pay literally billions of pounds for a new super duper railway and station and then the effect of this spend is negated because a train is cancelled on a half-hourly service due to non-availability of staff.
This is a bit similar to what Hedgehog is saying. It is proposed to spend a large sum of money to increase capacity through Lewisham but we are not doing the obvious relatively cheap first step e.g. make all Lewisham – Stratford morning DLR trains 3-car instead of 2-car. Or, I would add, the second step and run a decent number of 12-car metro trains on Southeastern.
The train in question was the 17.04 London Bridge to Tonbridge via Purley – or it would have been via Purley if it had have run.
I think Pedantic suffers from Southern, like I do.
timbeau,
but, as I said (posts crossed), platforms 1-3 at London Bridge closed today and all trains running to Charing Cross and, of course, not stopping at London Bridge.
Not really of interest to anyone, except me, platform 3-6 at Purley closed too, so all trains departing from platforms 1 and 2 – a rare sight for the whole day. For the first time ever, after using the station for 23 years, I ventured up to the London end of platform 2. I did this to look at them working on the points. They are also utilising the possession to replace coping stones on platform 5. It’s really weird walking down the platform on your own and the platform lights get brighter as you pass beneath them.
I wasn’t referring so much to the length of the trains (2 car vs. 3 car) but the frequency of service. To quote from Light (Rail) Reading:
“In principle, if you had the rolling stock, there would appear to be no reason why you couldn’t extend all trains from Stratford to Lewisham to give a 2 minute service (30tph) between Canary Wharf and Lewisham. Fairly obviously, if you had the rolling stock, all trains could be extended to 3-car.”
Hedgehog,
I do, but I hope I made the point that because of things that made the delay more bearable, I really wasn’t that bothered. The silly thing is, I knew I would be better off going via Victoria today but I like to go via London Bridge to see how they are progressing with the Bermondsey Diveunder. As it turned out, by the time I caught my train it was dark and I could see diddly squat.
I mentioned extending the length of existing Stratford – Lewisham trains rather than more trains as no-one can seriously argue it is too difficult to do and, if you had the rolling stock, it is such an easy first step. In my opinion both options are possible.
“It would be nice if we could sort out longer trains and reducing the number of trains cancelled before introducing grandiose schemes but it has never happened that way and I guess it never will.” – PoP
Absolutely. Short train length off peak – often weekends – is particularly galling because it is obvious that sufficient stock does exist because it magically appears in peaks.
… Come to think about it the same is true with your experience of lack of train crew. At times that’s a potentially valid excuse, but on a weekend, with services reduced by engineering work as well, there is clearly an available pool of train crew if they had been rostered. It’s hardly difficult to have a spare guard or two available at Charing Cross with so many services terminating there.
@Kate -not magic, alas, but the workings of sometimes rational and sometimes curious lease terms and maintenance programmes. As John B would put it, playing games. The oddest example is probably SWT’s desiro fleets where the leases have mileage caps (with a substantial hike in excess mileage), which make it – sometimes -more cost-effective (at least from the TOC’s point of view ) to run 12 car 450s o/p than 5 car 444s. More generally, it is better to shorten trains in the o/p to provide for maintenance than in the peak…
@ PoP – obviously we don’t the precise reason for the staff shortage you experienced but we can hardly be shocked that the railway is probably run on wafer thin or non existent margins of spare cover. Classic cost saving exercise especially at weekends when staff may not even be rostered but simply working overtime. Also the woes at TSGN can’t be doing much for staff retention and neither can the economy doing relatively well meaning that other jobs with better pay and better hours may well be readily available to people. Coupled with ludicrous housing costs then you have a pretty toxic mix and one that will have impacts well into the future when it comes to building and running a better railway with on the tube or on National Rail. Based on comments on other forums it seems the London bus companies are having a particularly torrid time with staffing and are struggling to cover their work. TfL tweeted about night bus cancellations last week – down to staff shortages. Haven’t seen that in a long time.
Pop I was making a sardonic comment on our ability to spend a fortune on a railway project but de-staff the network and make it a poorer service in the process ie the DOO trains through Lewisham. I can see it didn’t quite fall on fertile ground as I had planned!
Re PoP et al.,
I’m not sure I quite agree on the “extra” (or rather reallocated as I prefer to call them) paths west of Lewisham issue. Whilst the maths and logic are right I’m not quite sure on the scope of analysis… and hence the value of reallocation
With Lewisham and London Bridge stations the passenger numbers using the stations are the long term limitation on ultimate passenger throughput so if you want to maximise this (and get most value out of the London Bridge rebuild for example) you want to reduce interchange passenger volumes at key stations as they effectively count double when it comes alighting and boarding numbers and also really penalise dwell times (the key issue at Lewisham P1/2 in the near term too, where it is already difficult /impossible to board some services).
So for example if you could avoid Sidcup passengers just taking the first train and then changing at Lewisham or London Bridge to reach their desired terminus (or Waterloo East, New Cross etc.) if necessary by instead increasing the frequency of Charing Cross and Cannon Street services from the stations South / East of Lewisham the this might actually be very worth while.
There is also limited capacity to grow services on all the existing routes so Hayes conversion might be the best option overall.
Bakerloo to Lewisham (whether or not it extends beyond Lewisham) should be very useful in reducing the number of passengers from Lewisham for the Charing Cross or Waterloo areas using NR services with some benefit for dwell times.
Ultimately Crossrail 1 provides the extra path capacity* (12/hour at launch) but at the moment they can’t be fully utilised because you can’t deliver the passengers to Abbey Wood or Woolwich (NR, foot, bus, bike) hence the need to extend CR1 to Dartford or ideally Gravesend to maximise what can be done through Lewisham /London Bridge with reallocating existing paths hence the cost of Crossrail paths for the benefit of wider SE users paths is effectively £50m /path as CR1 will already get to Abbey Wood. I suspect this will be seen as better value than Bakerloo to Hayes.
*so does Bakerloo to Lewisham in equivalent paths.
Ultimately Max flow = Min cut assumes that there aren’t other “hidden” constraints which in this case I believe there are in terms of passenger interchange volumes (effectively representable as highly frictional nodes, this isn’t the only hidden constraint either!) hence Max flow <= Min cut in the simple analysis framework being looked at, as the conditions haven't been met for Max Flow = Min cut just the broader Max flow <= Min cut hence sophisticated modelling time!
Expect to see plenty on Bakerloo and CR extension in the NR forth coming SE planning reports.
Re PoP,
PS it might be useful to think of the forthcoming move of the RER A3 Branch to become the future RER E1 branch to solve issues both at La Défense and capacity east of La Défense which is very analogous to Hayes extension (what they are doing in Paris) vs just Lewisham (i.e. just extending RER E from Haussmann Saint-Lazarre to La Défense). (There are also several Transilien routes and Metro line 1 at La Défense and other features that make it similar to Lewisham as an interchange).
Way back, someone suggested that train numbers have decreased in recent years …
I’ve dug out my copy of “Southern Electric”, first published in 1957, though my copy is a later edition.
In the appendices, slack & peak services are given.
Here they are for comparison, working round anti-clockwise, AM peak up, off-peak, PM peak down:
Slade Green 10, 4, 9
Bexleyheath 12, 4, 11
Sidcup 19, 4, 9
Orpington & Petts Wood 12, 4, 12 + 8, 2, 10 on the fasts
Hayes 4, 2, 4 BUT – Ladywell 7, 2, 8 ( I suspect a misprint here for 7, 4, 8 )
CHX 29, 20, 29
CST 25, 2, 21
Catford loop 8, 2/4, 10
Penge tunnel 20, 4 or 5, 16
Vic LCDR 14, 6, 13
Elephant 15, 10, 16
Herne Hill 25, 7, 21
New Cross Gate 27, 5, 30
Gypsy Hill 9, 6, 9
E Croydon 35, 13, 37 (I think)
W Croydon 9, 6, 9
Tulse Hill 8, 4, 8
Stoat’s Nest 20, 9, 22
Barnes 19, 10, 19
Wimbledon (not including S-facing loops) 47 or 48, 20 or 22, 48
How does that compare?
Extending the Bakerloo beyond Lewisham (whether to Hayes, Sidcup, Bromley North, Croydon, Lewes or Ramsgate) may not create any more capacity on the tracks through Lewisham, but it may reduce the number of people changing there, and thus make the station itself less congested. I believe that one of the main drivers for extending the Picadilly Line beyond Finsbury Park was the huge amount of people interchanging there between trams and tubes (both run by the Combine, so it was not a question of poaching customers)
@ngh
Can I try to get a grip on what you are saying, which seems to me to be the opposite of how timbeau reads it.
I think you are saying that if Hayes services were diverted to the Bakerloo some Hayes passengers who formerly did not change trains at Lewisham would need to do so, and this would have a negative impact on dwell time. Have I understood you correctly?
I do understand that you are also saying that there is a second effect that bringing the Bakerloo to Lewisham may divert some NR passengers onto the Bakerloo, improving NR dwell times. I’m less certain I agree with this because I think “it depends”. It depends on how deep/easy the Bakerloo is at Lewisham. If it is deep then that will be a disincentive for Lewishamites to use the Bakerloo. Since the Tube seems popular, I suspect a lot of people might catch it at Lewisham. That in turn might have a negative impact on dwell time in terms of passengers alighting from services through Lewisham in the morning peak, or more passengers boarding in Lewisham in the evening peak.
There are so many effects I think it would take some detailed modelling to predict the impact on dwell time.
@kate/ngh
There are three situations to compare – the status quo, the Bakerloo to Lewisham only, and the Bakerloo through Lewisham to somewhere else. Comparison of the second situation with the status quo, one would expect Lewisham to get busier because everyone using the Bakerloo will have to use the station as the trains go no further. This is the case whether those people are changing to/from NR or are coming from the local area (or buses). In this situation the only way in which Lewisham would be no more busy than before would be if everybody changing to/from the Bakerloo are already changing (between NR services) at Lewisham.
However, the situation gets more complicated if the Bakerloo goes beyond Lewisham. Now there are four groups of people whose travel plans might change
(I am considering the “down” direction here)
1. Those who would change from Bakerloo to NR at Lewisham whether the Bakerloo terminates at there or not (because it has not taken over their branch).
2. Those who would change from Bakerloo to NR if the Bakerloo terminates at Lewisham, but not if it goes further (because they live on whichever branch it has taken over).
3. Those who would use NR all the way if the Bakerloo terminates at Lewisham, but would have to change at Lewisham if the Bakerloo takes over their branch.
4. Those (e.g from Charing Cross or Waterloo) who would use NR all the way home if the Bakerloo terminates at Lewisham, but would use the Bakerloo all the way if the Bakerloo takes over their branch.
Only by estimating the numbers in each of these groups, and then adding on additional users, can one see whether more or fewer people would change at Lewisham if the Bakerloo were extended beyond Lewisham.
And it may depend crucially on how convenient the interchange is – if you want to discourage interchange and boost the economy of Lewisham itself, build the Tube station a long way from the NR/DLR one. (As is being done at Battersea – where the new tube trerminus is deliberately put an inconvenient walk away from two NR stations, neither of which have a particularly good service anyway, and a bus ride short of the busiest station in the country.
Careful modelling will be needed to see exactly what is likely to happen, and even then people may not behave the way the model predicts .
@ Timbeau – and then you have to chuck in all the new journeys that will arise because the Bakerloo Line suddenly makes rail a vastly more convenient option overall regardless of how awkward the interchange is. By adding interchange in the New Cross area plus new stations along the Old Kent Road you automatically create new trips. A parallel example is the ELL through Hackney which has reduced patronage on parallel bus routes but also generated a load of new travel options (e.g Highbury to Isle of Dogs via Shadwell or Canada Water). I can easily see plenty of bus travel swapping to the tube and connecting DLR and rail via Lewisham. I believe that will have significant bearing on both station capacity / design at Lewisham plus the dwell time issues already raised.
Re Timbeau,
Almost…
But I was actually looking at a 5th case – those whose branch isn’t taken over and where the passengers use NR services all the way and take the first service if direct or change along the way if there is big gap till the next direct service. (Also what currently happens today.) [I effectively ignore Hayes line and Bakerloo just looking at the rest of existing NR infrastructure (I would expect Hayes Charing Cross passengers to stay on the Bakerloo or the frequent short Bakerloo services to provide a more constant stream of passengers changing to Cannon Street or London Bridge services.)]
The modelling would have to be very extensive and test out some interesting permutations not just “average” service intervals as the real ones on SE are never average (LCDR a bit better than SER infrastructure for even intervals)!.
Quite often with the SE “metro” branches there is an asymmetry of service so passengers will travel to Lewisham (or London Bridge again post 2018) if there is large gap till the next direct service, this means interchange volumes can be fairly large if you aren’t careful.
For example Blackheath – Charing Cross 0700-0800 is 4tph but with 2 big gaps of 20mins and 19 mins. BLK to CST is slightly more even but still has one 20 minute gap (There are 2-3tph of VIC services to take passengers to Lewisham as well). So if you take the first train and change at worst you arrive 7 minutes earlier (best case 14 minutes earlier) than if you waited for the next direct service.
The passenger advantage from changing leads to higher interchange volumes so there could be an advantage in reducing interchange volumes (and dwell times) from more frequent services using the reallocated paths on the non remaining non “Hayes” lines so passengers have to wait less till the next direct service and are happy not to change.
The DLR and Victoria services at Lewisham will always lead to large interchange volumes what ever happens with Bakerloo at Lewisham hence the need to bear in mind the limits on total number of passengers changing overall.
Ditto if worrying about London Bridge interchange volumes.
Not a simple or cheap task to analyse properly.
@Ww
“and then you have to chuck in all the new journeys that will arise because the Bakerloo Line suddenly makes rail a vastly more convenient option overall regardless of how awkward the interchange is. ”
All sorts of permutations there too – those who would have previously travelled by bus to Lewisham to catch a train (or DLR) to the outer suburbs – who would still be included in the interchange figures if the Bakerloo went from OKR only to Lewisham, but might be removed from the figures if it goes further, depending on which outer branch it serves.
And, of course, all the extra journeys that people would not have thought of making at all until the Tube arrived.
If a particularly large number of people are currently* interchanging between Charing Cross services at Lewisham and one particular branch (because most of that branch’s services go to Cannon Street or Victoria), than sending the Bakerloo down that branch would seem the logical choice to minimise the number of people interchanging.
* Actually, best to take the data before the figures are skewed by passengers for London Bridge having to change to CX trains at Lewisham too, after the switcharound happens later this year. Or wait until 2018, when London Bridge passengers can use any train again.
@Greg Tingey:
Re. the odd Ladywell numbers…
Back in the 1950s, the Hayes route was just one of three branches off the “main” Woodside & South Croydon Joint Railway that connected with the Oxted line via Selsdon. The through route via Selsdon was never successful and, by the 1950s, off-peak services were limited to a two-coach shuttle service that terminated at Elmers End, rather like the off-peak Addiscombe branch service. Beckenham Junction saw no off-peak services at all via the Mid-Kent route by this time.
Hence the 2tph off-peak figure at Ladywell: only the Hayes service went all the way to London.
To make more clear the argument, here are some “back-of-the-envelope” calculations.
Crossrail generates new train paths into central London at a cost of about £300-500m per path. [If you want to claim only the Canary Wharf branch counts, then you might argue this significantly under-estimates the cost of each new path]. A Bakerloo extension from Lewisham to Hayes generates new paths into central London at a cost of around £40m each. Admittedly many fewer paths, but they are incredibly cheap.
As for the canard that the tube trains will be full and hence can’t be extended beyond Lewisham. Given current usage, we can expect around 40 additional passengers on each trainset generated by the Hayes extension in the peak hour of the rush-hour. Not a huge number (and this is an over-estimate if large numbers of people change at Lewisham; or indeed if the Hayes trains are currently arriving at Lewisham with plenty of room to spare).
This is an incredibly cheap way to generate new train paths into central London. If the Bakerloo goes to Lewisham, it will almost certainly be extended to Hayes (the only sensibly branch it could take over). Network Rail have been arguing for exactly this kind of takeover for many years in their RUS plans.
What do you think the treasury would have said to Graeme H if he had proposed an expensive plan, when this cheap plan to generate new train paths from SE London exists.
@Haykerloo -kindly provide us all with your detailed arithmetical calculations that show the released paths (if indeed they are released)cost as little as £40m each. That would imply the total cost of extending from Lewisham to Hayes was just £240m. As you say, “incredibly” cheap – “incredibly” literally means unbelievable. Go on convince us.
BTW you still haven’t explained why removing one bottleneck clears the whole route right the way into central London. That would be interesting too.
BBTW, if you must take a snide shot at me (I don’t mind that in the least) you might spell my name correctly. Just another error…
Haykerloo,
Sorry to let pesky facts get in the way but the point I keep making, and I just don’t understand why people can’t grasp it, is that, if you have already built the Bakerloo to Lewisham, extending from Lewisham to Hayes does not generate a single extra train path into London.
All you can do is extend the, by then, existing tube trains from Lewisham to Hayes (or anywhere else) and shuffle around the National Rail trains to London Bridge – with precisely the same number of the latter arriving at London Bridge. How does that generate train paths into London?
So, the amount to convert the Hayes branch for tube use may be a fanciful £240 million or a more credible £600 million but, regardless, it buys you nothing, zero, zilch in terms of additional train paths and if justifying the idea in terms of train paths then I think most people can work out that 0 extra paths for a big sum of money is not good value for money.
There may, just, be an valid argument that extending to Hayes would reduce interchange at Lewisham which would reduce dwell time which would increase paths through Lewisham but the problem is:
i) even if you managed to create these paths through Lewisham you would have to terminate them somewhere and currently there isn’t the terminal capacity. It would, however, mean that you could get more trains to call at Lewisham – but that is all.
ii) as the comments show, it far from obvious whether extending the Bakerloo from Lewisham to Hayes would make the interchange situation at Lewisham better or worse. I suspect not better to the extent it is worth spending £600 million to solve it.
A number of people have suggested that the Bakerloo needs to be a long way underground at Lewisham. Forgive me if I’m missing something, but the Tesco car park and the Carpetright site – two sites which have been suggested – have no such requirement. Both are 75m or so from the National Rail station. Neither need a deep box, the former because there is nothing in the way, the latter because a route under Thurston Road could be used to avoid the tall buildings under construction. What am I missing?
Re Haykerloo,
On a comparative basis as CR1 is already happening the fair comparison is the extension Abbey Wood – Gravesend which was costed at circa £590m in Crossrail prices.
so £590m/12 = £49m /path, 1/10 of what you quote…
Re PoP,
I think there is lots of confusion over terminology the word “via” is often missing from just in-front of Lewisham. If the Hayes branches goes over to Bakerloo there are then 6 paths Courthill Junction or Lewisham to Termini that can’t go down the Hayes branch which are then available to be reallocated to increase the frequency of direct services on other branches. While there isn’t a service level change at Lewisham there could be on all stations beyond on via Blackheath / Hither Green routes (which have far more passengers combined than Lewisham, which is what Haykerloo is talking about and that does have a meaningful value.
That value needs to be assessed against the incremental upgrade cost to ETCS/ATO when resignalling in the next 10 years to give +2tph to Cannon Street or CR1 extension Abbey Wood – Gravesend in the forth coming NR SE study to see what is needed and which is the most effective to prioritise.
@ngh – I would first prefer to see PoP’s desire (and he’s certainly not alone) of “doing the obvious relatively cheap… [and] run a decent number of 12-car metro trains on Southeastern”. Until that is achieved, then what’s the point of exercising one’s mind on anything else?
It’s no good producing endless studies if they can’t even realise ‘firm’ proposals dating back decades. The platforms are there but the 12-car trains to service them remain absent.
Re GF,
Exactly 12 car is a good first step though I suspect they will be filled up before they come into service at current growth rates…
ngh,
I am not disputing, and never have, that if the Bakerloo line went to Hayes you would, overall, get a better service on other lines. It may even be possible that, overall, people on the Hayes line benefit. This would be through more frequent trains south and east of Lewisham. This was not the point that Haykerloo was making though. He was very specific in referring to train paths to London and I reiterate that extending the Bakerloo to Hayes would not provide a single extra train path to London beyond what extending the Bakerloo line to Lewisham would do.
So, if the objective is to improve frequency to the south and east of Lewisham, there is a strong case to be made – but at a cost. If the objective is to increase capacity into and out of central London there is no case whatsoever.
Similarly, you can argue that Tramlink is a good thing and benefits people but you can’t argue that it improves capacity into central London.
Hear hear to the extended trains, both SouthEastern and DLR!
@PoP/others…..So, instead of referring to freed up train paths into London, is this how I (and perhaps others, including Haykerloo) should be thinking about it?:
– Bakerloo takes over Hayes line in its entirety.
– All NR trains running onto the Hayes lines cease.
– You no longer have those 2/4/peak-whatever-it-is tph occupying the lines and terminal capacity north of Lewisham that previously ran to Hayes (either via or avoiding Lewisham).
– Ergo, *if* there is spare capacity on the lines west (Dartford loop lines in all their varying permutations) and south (Orpington- which is where I have a vested interest!- Sevenoaks and on into deepest darkest Kent) of Lewisham, can you then increase service frequency on these routes by running extra trains over these lines into London using the paths that are no longer used by the Hayes trains?
– Alternatively (as I mentioned earlier), leave things as they are and benefit from reduced delays in case of disruption due to the extra leeway now available at Lewisham Spaghetti Junction.
Am I being really thick or missing something very obvious in how I describe it here?
And as for trying to predict passenger flows and usage in the different extension scenarios, it seems almost impossible to predict this for the period when any extension will finally be open (2030+)! I know the London 2050 report had a go, but we’ve already throughly deconstructed its contents in another article.
You also have to remember that many (perhaps even the vast majority) of current users of the affected lines will not still be using them come 2030+, since they would have changed jobs/retired/moved away/met up with the Grim Reaper etc. And future users (most of whom are still in childhood!) will probably just adapt and plan their lives/jobs/homes according to whatever transportation arrangements are placed before them.
Sorry I meant *east* of Lewisham!
Anonymously,
Yes, you could have the Bakerloo extended to Hayes and improve the Southeastern NR service to anywhere you chose .e.g. Sevenoaks. Assuming a one to one match you could then have three of those services calling at platforms 1 and 2 at Lewisham (some slight caveats because there is less significant conflict going to Hayes than through Courthill Loop south junction). Obviously to call at platforms 1 and 2 they must be services capable of reaching them. It may be possible to call at platforms 3 and 4 instead – I don’t know the exact limitations.
There would be the (disputed) benefit to Hayes passengers and clear benefits to the line getting the extra trains. This would be in terms of less crowded trains as far as the Lewisham area and a more frequent service. However, it would not increase overall capacity into central London so I cannot see how a business case can possibly be made.
But (and this is probably where I and others are failing to understand, so please be patient!) if the NR service frequency on other lines into Lewisham from Dartford/Orpington etc. is increased to take advantage of those freed up train paths, those extra (presumably full-to-bursting) trains will be carrying extra passengers *in addition* to what was previously carried on those lines before.
So I take your point that *overall* train capacity on the approaches into London on the SEML doesn’t change if you still have the same number arriving and departing there as before. But since the Hayes trains have now metamorphosised into new Orpington/Dartford services carrying extra passengers into London, is it then more accurate to describe this as increased capacity *from* London into the rest of the SEML network emanating from Lewisham and its environs?
PoP – “However, it would not increase overall capacity into central London so I cannot see how a business case can possibly be made.”. I would have thought that the business case is straight forward in that you are earning X times fares from Sevenoaks and beyond if you release the Hayes paths, against the current situation of the same X times much lower fares. Or am I missing something?
I think we are confusing frequency and capacity for Hayes passengers.
Four big trains an hour of 10 cars carry a lot of people. They are also relatively fast between Catford/Bridge/Lewisham and Central London.
More frequent 7 car sardine cans on a roundabout route to Central London are a poor alternative.
There seems to be some confusion about “increased train paths to London”. It is agreed that a decision to extend the Bakerloo beyond Elephant will increase train paths into London (compared to now). Regardless of where it goes. But there is no difference in this increase depending on where the extension goes. Camberwell, Lewisham, Hayes, or indeed any of the more exotic suggestions. A decision among these has to be based on other things.
(Strictly the increase is in passenger paths between Lewisham-and-beyond and central London, and it arises because the Bakerloo line is currently not at full capacity).
Extension to Hayes may have once seemed necessary to fill up the trains, but because of the massive housing plans along the OKR (which are now going to fund the building, and are the focus of the article), this is probably no longer the case.
Anomnibus
Err … grandmothers, eggs, suck, etc ….
Please – I have traversed all of those services, & lines, been into the delightful end-of-platform box at Addiscombe before vandals torched it, etc – I even have a 1961 Southern Region timetable …..”
Anonymous 07:31
A “business case” in railway context is not simply a case of farebox revenue. It is basically deciding whether the cost is worth the benefit to society as a whole. Yes, sure, if the idea is to maximise revenue then give priority to commuters from far out and let those from within London suffer. That is basically what the good Dr Beeching said was inevitable unless governments accepted the idea of subsidising journeys within London. So on a revenue basis the thing to do is just prioritise journeys from Northampton, Southend, Brighton, Southampton, Winchester etc. But is that what we want?
In fact why not take the idea further and run down the service from Sevenoaks and make it better from Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells.
1) There is currently spare passenger capacity, say 60 people per train, on the cut E&C-LBG because of the Bakerloo
2) Extending the Bakerloo to Lewisham uses 30 of them with new OKR/Lewisham flats.
3) 30 people per train can switch from NR to Bakerloo at Lewisham, and that benefit ripples across the SE
4) Bakerloo at Lewisham might have 30 tph departing, but if you only can afford the stock to be 1/12th full at the start to avoid crush-loading at Waterloo, you really aren’t gaining much in the way of capacity.
5) Claiming that the 6 NR 12 carriage Hayes paths can all be reclaimed by sending 20 tubes up the Bakerloo is daft, as you’d be sending them full from Lewisham, a few might squeeze on at OKR, but then they’d arrive crush loaded at E&C, unlike empty as they are at present.
It all sounds like the reason the Victoria can’t go beyond Brixton.
Comparing the Bakerloo train paths with Crossrail ones is dangerous. Crossrail gives huge capacity to key Z1 employment locations, To a first approximation, everyone who gets on a westbound Bakerloo wants to get to Waterloo, so the extra train paths is really the extra carriage of capacity there. So 1 tube carriage vs 12 NR ones.
BUT there is a big gain eastbound, if Lewisham can become an employment hub, or the DLR/Overground has the capacity to take people to Docklands. Financiers moving into the OKR would do wonders for the area.
I think we should consider the extension’s benefits as being to the East, not the West, and on that basis, why go on to Hayes
Anonymously 02:23
OK, so lets think about what happens when you add six more trains to a route from Dartford to London (3 via Lewisham). It will attract more people. East of Lewisham there will be more trains (good for passengers on those lines). So they will get a better service in the morning. The can change for the Bakerloo at Lewisham if they want. They are undoubtedly better off.
Now consider the Hayes passenger who wants to go to London Bridge or Cannon Street for example. He needs to change at Lewisham. I think we can safely dismiss as fanciful any notion that this would be practical in the morning peak by changing at Elephant & Castle to the Northern Line in 2030+. He, along with a lot of people living in Lewisham in high density housing, needs to get on a train to London Bridge. In all probability usage on other lines has increased and, much like to today at Lewisham, the trains arrive full and the number of people getting on is roughly determined by the number of people getting off (which is substantial).
Now either those extra trains on other lines are bringing more people into Lewisham (or bypassing on a through train) or they aren’t. If they are then the chances of our person from Hayes getting on a train are reduced because someone else has got “his slot” into London. If they are not and you haven’t brought more people on those other lines then you have given them a better service but you haven’t increased capacity into London – it gets used west of Lewisham one way or another.
Of course, if a Hayes passenger wants to use the Bakerloo line then they are better off in convenience but this does not affect overall capacity into London. The journey is more convenient than changing for the Bakerloo at Lewisham, certainly, but that is not a capacity issue.
Undoubtedly, you will be thinking that the Bakerloo line cannot possibly be full at Lewisham with all those trains. Even if they start from Hayes it just cannot be full – and you would probably be right. But it is going to have a awful lot of people getting on at Lewisham. Will they be able to get on at New Cross Gate (maybe a passenger from Sydenham – or Horsham) ? And what about Old Kent Road 2 and 1 (the main point of the scheme, apparently)? And Elephant & Castle ? And, critically, Waterloo? Crossrail 2 might have arrived but there will be a lot of London distance commuters coming into Waterloo – probably the same number in total using Waterloo Main Line station as today.
So you might get a situation where everyone in Southeast London and Kent is better off but those from Surrey and Hampshire are worse off. And now we get back to the age old problem (Wimbledon Loop, Angel Road etc.) The people who would be worse off can’t shout because they haven’t realised that they will be the ones, ultimately, that are worse off. In this case it could be because they don’t realise that they will be adversely affected by a scheme that is nowhere near them.
Assuming all capacity into London is used up you can only improve one person’s journey, capacitywise, by making someone else’s journey worse. You can improve things without increasing capacity. There are now 7.5 DLR direct tph in the morning between Lewisham and Stratford. There used to be 5tph. They were three car, they are now two car. The service has improved but the capacity has remained the same.
I think the point is that if capacity is full into London on the routes from Lewisham then you can do things that would make people’s live better east of Lewisham. These people are easy to identify. But someone else has to lose out somewhere. They are not as easy to identify and may live miles away but they must exist.
@Chris L/Haykerloo – Indeed, I have never seen a business case made on the increase in the number of paths but only on passengers – and as PoP says, at least in London, we look at the wider benefits (and indeed not just to passengers).
Now I am truly peeved! The additional documents section in ‘Turning South London Orange’ has a juicy file on proposed schemes and stations, but it’s in Office rather than PDF. I don’t have office. Does anyone have a PDF version of that file?
Rational Plan – depending on what type of device you have, Libre Office can open docx files.
@John B
“It all sounds like the reason the Victoria can’t go beyond Brixton.”
……..or the NLE beyond Battersea Central
Rational Plan: another option is to install CutePDF and make a PDF of your own from the Micro $oft Office files.
@Rational Plan
“Now I am truly peeved! The additional documents section in ‘Turning South London Orange’ has a juicy file on proposed schemes and stations, but it’s in Office rather than PDF. I don’t have office. Does anyone have a PDF version of that file?”
Here’s it is! https://ukfree.tv/styles/images/2016/Turning%20south%20London%20orange%20extra%20bits.pdf
Windows 10 has a built in PDF printer driver.
@POP “Assuming all capacity into London is used up you can only improve one person’s journey, capacitywise, by making someone else’s journey worse”
I have to disagree with you here. For a start, capacity is not all used up – see our discussion about adding more cars to SE and DLR and improving DLR frequency out of Lewisham.
Secondly, the people who would have commuted in from Orpington/Dartford can move closer to work. There are lot of nice flats going up in the Docklands area – expensive for you and me but ideal for young bankers. Indeed they are certainly the target market of some developments.
Finally, capacity has a time element to it. A system running at full capacity at 8am isn’t necessarily doing so at 11am. A push for flexible working would spread the peak. Once the unions pull their collective finger out and run the Night Tube, we’ll see some people start their commute at 5am.
Hedgehog,
Simple logic. I never claimed all capacity was used up. I said IF it was used up… so no disagreement on that score. But then if it is not used up why spend money converting the Hayes line?
On your other points, you are raising other issues. And of course capacity is not used up at all times. One only has to travel at 8 a.m. on a Sunday to realise that.
Are you seriously suggesting the population of Orpington/Dartford is going to go down or that fewer people will commute from there? Various individuals move about does not cause a decrease in population or demand if they are replaced by other people.
@hedgehog – – I fear I am old enough to remember campaigns for flexible working in the ’70s. Forty years of attempts at differential pricing, promotional campaigns with major employers, and the like managed to move the peak volume to the shoulder peak by just 5%. That’s why the NR Route Studies have abandoned the idea of peak spreading so heavily promoted in the RUS. Dead horse, I’m afraid.
@hedgehog: You seem to be letting your feelings about unions run away with you. The proposed night tube services would have done very little for commuters, for the simple reason that they would have run (or will run) on Friday and Saturday night only. Whether or not agreement is reached with unions, extension to week-nights is most unlikely, ever, for technical reasons (i.e. tracks and stations needing attention).
@Malcolm – True, it would have been Friday and Saturday nights and so would not affect weekday morning peaks. I meant the eventual possible extension of Night Tube services to week nights.
@POP – Twenty bankers moving from Dartford to Canary Wharf takes twenty commuters off of SE trains and away from Lewisham. They will of course be replaced by other people.
@Graham H – That is disappointing.
@hedgehog
“I meant the eventual possible extension of Night Tube services to week nights.”
But as Malcolm says, it is NOT possible. Unlike the New York Subway, or indeed many main line radial routes, the Tube does not have the luxury of local and express lines to allow a service to run on two tracks while maintenance takes place on the other two.
@timbeau
I’m genuinely curious now. Does every piece of tube track need maintenance 5 nights per week? There is plenty of slack in the system. If you close one line or part of one line for a night of maintenance, people will still be able to reach stations in inner London and most stations in outer London by other lines or bus if necessary, as they would do at the moment.
Re Hedhehog,
Just far easier to keep it as simple and flexible as possible for maintenance upgrades i.e. Friday and Saturday only so you don’t need a huge publicity effort to say what is and isn’t working on a particular night an get lots of flak for closures.
Hot news about extending the Bakerloo to Lewisham:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_ouWi0YEwM
(well, it was hot news in 1988…)
It’s not even hot news on here…I posted a link to this video some months ago on the Bermondsey Diveunder page ?.
@PoP…Thank you for taking the time to provide that explanation. I think I now understand what you were getting at.
My only quibble is your (and others, to be fair) assumption about the ultimate destination of Hayes line peak passengers. Sure, a lot of them will be heading to the City (LBG or CST)….but does *anyone* know how many, or what proportion of the number of commuters using this line? Will this still be the same in 2030+. If you start telling people now that there is a pretty high likelihood this line will be removed from the NR network, won’t people adjust their lives accordingly in the intervening period (including ones who are children or yet to be born)?
I don’t think as many as you think will change at Lewisham if they want LBG/CST, but will opt to stay on board (where at least they’re likely to have found a seat) and change at E&C to the Northern (yes, this probably sounds fanciful to you, but that won’t stop people attempting this!) or at Waterloo to the Unmentionable Line. In my experience, once on a Tube line, people prefer to stay on it and change onto another Tube line to reach their final destination in Central London, rather than traipse back overground to catch a surface train, as it is perceived as quicker (even if this is demonstrably not the case). How one could possibly plan for these quirks of human behaviour is for another day/article, methinks ?.
Yes, a lot will be boarding at stations west of Lewisham, but AIUI from the TfL consultation, 18tph will go beyond Lewisham onto any putative extension, with the remainder terminating there. So even if these 18tph are jam-packed, there will at least be 6-8tph originating from Lewisham that these passengers have a chance of actually boarding!
Your final point about transportation winners and losers when major service changes take place is very interesting, and makes me wonder if there is *any* method of modelling that can usefully predict these effects. I suspect not. When CR1 arrives, it would be fascinating to perform a ‘before’ and ‘after’ study to investigate whether its introduction does have unintended negative consequences for other passengers elsewhere, and see if your hypothesis is correct.
“@ngh – I would first prefer to see PoP’s desire (and he’s certainly not alone) of “doing the obvious relatively cheap… [and] run a decent number of 12-car metro trains on Southeastern”. Until that is achieved, then what’s the point of exercising one’s mind on anything else?”
The problem is lead times, and building a forward investment plan.
Actually, while I sort of agree with PoP there is a counter-argument which ought to be on the table. Moving to 12 cars is something which has a relatively short lead time. So that could be held in reserve in case plans which require more engineering don’t come to fruition on time.
@Anonymously – actually, mathematical models of networks (of all sorts and purposes) have been around for decades and there are a number of available software packages for modelling transport flows (in this case,passengers). Most of them seem fairly reliable, though I don’t know which one TfL use these days. The interesting and important thing about them is, as ever, the assumptions made and, so far as the interchange issue you mention is concerned, the current advice to industry in the PDFH is to assume that tube/tube adds 10 minutes to the perceived journey time, tube/rail 15, and rail/ rail 20. From my own experience, I suspect that is too crude – for example, Oxford Circus Bakerloo/Victoria always seems to incur little more than the time taken to cross between platforms, but Leicester Square Picc/Northern much more than the nominal 10. I am sure that the modellers refine the values in the later stages of modelling therefore.
@Hedgehog – whilst it’s certainly true that not every piece of track needs maintaining every night,there are particular problems with LU. The window of opportunity to do works is very limited, with the last train clearing the central area not before 00.30 and the first approaching it before 06.00 Add to that the need to isolate the section to be worked on and then (and only after the service has ceased) bring in the engineering trains and crews (and ensure that they are gone before service resumes), and the window for work is usually about 2-3 hours (less on someof the outer stretches – for which no alternative routes are available and where the last train is still in motion after 01.00 and the first is out and about by 05.00. 2 hours gives you enough time to do some but not by any means all of, say, the Victoria between Warren Street and Victoria, so you come back again and again. The PPP contractors believed that mobilisation time could be saved by bringing, fo example, ballast direct to the deep tube stations and getting the crews to carry it down the escalators in sacks on their backs,like latterday coalmen; that ploy was quickly abandoned…
It may be worth adding that the rule-of-thumb “once you’re on the tube, stay on the tube” is still encouraged by the fare difference, and (in folk memory) the need for another ticket. Whether Oyster prices will still have this old-fashioned surcharge for “mixed” journeys by the time the Bakerloo is extended to wherever is another matter, but it’s going to be hard to get rid of. And yes, Hayes commuters may mostly have seasons anyway – but the rule of thumb will probably stick in people’s minds.
Getting London’s metros to be seen as one system is going to be a long haul, but it seems a worthwhile goal to me.
Re Kate,
The assumption is that Southeastern moves 12 car on the currently 12 car capable routes anyway over time and they should be getting some more cascaded stock at the end of next year which will get them a little bit closer to doing that. This is all about looking at what happens next in the medium term when everything has gone to 12 car.
Re Anon / Graham H,
CR1 before /after: I suspect the bigger issue is that with current growth rates you couldn’t accurately predict what the overall passenger numbers would be in circa 3 years time (especially with new developments not yet completed) unless running the models just a few months before opening. Then you effectively have 5 separate opening phases for Crossrail 1 and plenty of other transport programmes that add capacity which may get delayed (SRR resignalling, or Northern capacity improvements and split for example) that will add capacity shortly after CR1 opens hence there may be some changes in CR1 usage again shortly after it opens where passengers can then get onto other saturated routes after capacity increases.
There is not just 1 before or 1 after.
@Ngh -indeed: you model as well as you can repeatedly up to the moment when you have to start the project. Once you have the TWAO and the construction contracts in place, your wriggle room is very limited.And of course, you carry on once a project is finished – both NSE and LU model(led) the existing system whenever a new problem/opportunity arose; it’s just that the end result may be tweaking rather than a grand scheme. I would expect CR2 to be subject to continuous review after opening, just as the DLR has been.
To be fair to the modellers, it isn’t like the usual jibe about generals always fighting the last war, but however thoroughly you examine future alternatives and plan for them, things change PDQ under you – OOC being a classic case. “Events , dear boy, events” . You just have to stop analysis paralysis and go, sometimes.
Re. Bakerloo to Hayes:
I suspect many City workers will resign themselves to staying on the train up to Bond Street, then changing onto Crossrail 1.
The GWML hasn’t been a proper commuter railway for some time, which is why Crossrail 1 is going all the way out to Reading, rather than terminating closer to the M25. While Crossrail 1 will very likely be heavily used from the Shenfield / Abbey Wood directions, services approaching London from the west will take quite a lot longer to fill up. Even today, the GWML stopping services tend to be quite short and relatively infrequent compared to the Shenfield line.
This may well be sufficient for Hayes-City/Docklands flows. By the time Crossrail 1 is at capacity in both directions, usage patterns and flows will very likely have changed anyway, so it makes little difference to Hayes branch users whether they change at Lewisham (which is unlikely to be a convenient interchange station anyway), or just stay in their seats and change at Bond Street or Waterloo instead. It adds a few minutes to the journey time, but the higher frequency service will likely cancel that out.
@Malcolm
““once you’re on the tube, stay on the tube” is still encouraged by the fare difference, ”
Hopefully that will disappear south of the river, as it almost has already north of it, as TfL takes over more services.
How many Hayesites will change at Lewisham for the DLR to Bank?
@PoP/anon
“Your final point about transportation winners and losers when major service changes take place” Of course, some people are winners because of changes to other peoples services – appoint seemingly lost on Surrey councillors who want XR2 to come out to them, rather than use it as a way of getting those pesky suburbanites out of the way of their fast trains.
Also an argument lost on Tringites and Northamptonians who don’t see how HS2 would do anything for them – clue: why do so many LM services use the slow lines?
Timbeau your point is well made. It is why the extension to Hayes is likely poor value: the issues of paths at Lewisham would be better addressed by tunneling the express lines into London.
I think your example of Tring is wrong, however. There are so many present and potential long-distance WCML destinations which will need direct connections to London that I can’t see HS2 freeing up fast line capacity for Tring.
At Elephant and Castle, the Department of Health building that surrounds two sides of the Bakerloo Line station building (Skipton House) is to be demolished. The replacement includes a cultural space in the basement digging down 17 meters, I guestimate the Bakerloo Line Platform Access tunnel to be 23 meters down. It would be great to see this and the Northern Line Station Upgrade incorporated to build better access to both, step free interchange and capacity for an upgraded and extended line in future…
Planning document here: http://planbuild.southwark.gov.uk/documents/?GetDocument=%7b%7b%7b!J0J4Qj7kbjCAXWEgOT5g0w%3d%3d!%7d%7d%7d
ngh – I don’t want to go over old ground too much, but if SE get more stock next year it’ll go on mainline routes to free up networkers for metro. Trouble is Networkers are really quite hampered in 12 car formations as they don’t have SDO, which presents problems at a few locations on the metro network.
Anyone know how many 12-car diagrams they could run on metro with networkers?
Maybe if some 377s arrive they could run a % on metro routes to utilise their SDO capabilities.
@kate
“There are so many present and potential long-distance WCML destinations which will need direct connections to London”
Indeed, it seems to be lost on many that HS2 is not really for the West Midlands (except for Birmingham city centre) at all. Trains from all over Scotland, the north west, and north Wales, will be able to feed into it through the connection near Lichfield, but the good folk of Wolverhampton, Coventry, Walsall etc, would have no through HS2 services. Even connecting at Birmingham would require a change of station. So yes, there will almost certainly be some trains still using the WCML from further out than Tring!
We seem to have gone to the wrong end of the Bakerloo, but the point is relevant at the SE end too. The beneficiaries of a Bakerloo extension to Lewisham will include those SE passengers who currently can’t get on their Sidcup/Bexleyheath/whatever train because it’s full of people only going to New Cross and Lewisham. If the line is extended further, e.g Hayes, there will be some extra paths through the Bermondsey Diveunder for a few extra Bexleyheath and Sidcup services. So if I lived in Hayes, I would want the Bakerloo to go to Sidcup, and vice versa. (Just as, as a Kingstonian commuting to Waterloo, I would want XR2 to go to Epsom!)
@Kate – you are right – NR planning for HS2 is directed at releasing capacity to increase the range of mid/long -distance destinations. I will refrain from commenting on whether that is a Good or Futile Thing as that will merely provoke the Great Shears in the Sky.
Re Ed,
Current betting looks like 23 (of max 25) units going from Southern to SE so 2/3 of the 465/9 used on outer routes could return (the rest used on branch shuttles?) to metro services…
Woolwich Dockyard is the only issue on SE 12 car routes.
But calculating what might happen to train lengths in 2018 isn’t so easy:
SE will be running more services as some of the Thameslink ones transfer back to SE and the London Bridge works are over so more train running there.
Journey times on SE services via LBG will drop (less congestion on the LBG approaches).
Some SE services via Herne Hill or Peckham Rye are short formed (6 car) so presumably they will return to normal pre Jan ’15 length.
So circa half the extra 465s run additional metro services (or full length into VIC) with the other half for lengthening with a jumble of 8->10 8->12 or 10->12 lengthening. So maybe 10 extra 12 car and few extra 10 car?
@ Anomnibus – since when did the Bakerloo line reach Bond Street? There is no CR1 / Bakerloo interchange. I think you are crediting many commuters with more journey planning skill than they actually have. Most people go in a straight line with minimum number of changes *unless* they are financially poor and therefore will tolerate longer bus trips to reach tube or rail stations in Zone 2 rather than using rail from further out. Returning to your proposition I simply don’t see anyone who wants the City from Lewisham going through contortions at Waterloo and then Bond St to catch Crossrail back. That’s ludicrous given how overloading Zone 1 is in the peaks.
North Greenwich is the classic example of the Z2 railheading issue. With the recent change to Stratford’s zone I’d not be shocked to find a shift of people from rail/tube to local buses to connect into stations now in Zone 2 that were formerly in Zone 3. Given how overstressed buses are in East London that’s not a welcome change but let’s see what happens. It is also worth saying that Lewisham is a Z23 station and if you stick a tube station there then it will suck in people from a very wide area indeed. The bus interchange flows will be eye watering. It is worth considering that the poor are priced further and further out placing more stress on bus links and this will be a factor for transport policy in the future. It’s yet another factor that makes planning ever more difficult and unpredictable.
I also think you’re wrong about Crossrail in West London. I think we will see very big changes in travel patterns with transfers away from the tube and on to Crossrail with people using restructured local buses to access a faster, more frequent and in the short term more spacious form of travel. I think we will see 6 months of madness post Dec 2019 when through services from the west begin. Goodness knows what happens in the year before that when Crossrail is open from Paddington. GWR won’t be able to cope short term if people flood onto their DMUs in order to access Crossrail. Crossrail having taken over Heathrow Connect may help a bit in the short term as the trains will be bigger.
@Anomnibus….I’m not sure if you’re making the same mistake again, but the Bakerloo doesn’t go to Bond St. The closest it gets is Oxford Circus.
@Ed…..I’m slightly puzzled by all this talk of the 465s being unsuited to 12-car operation, since this is *precisely* what they were intended for! All those 12-car platforms extensions on the Orpington, Hayes and other lines weren’t just done for show by NSE, were they? If the plans hadn’t been derailed (as it were) in the early nineties by the then government, we would all be travelling in 12-car Networker trains and wondering how on earth we managed without them.
If they were ordered without SDO, presumably this meant every station (including Woolwich Dockyard), was going to be extended to take 12 cars at some point? A large amount of money (and one man’s life, tragically) was spent on rebuilding the bridge at one end of St John’s to enable a platform extension there after all. Graham H, please help us out here!
@timbeau…..Unless the line is electrified, I very much doubt the (all-electric) HS2 trains will be going anywhere near the North Wales coast.
Re: Timbeau (and others)
There is a popular belief that the 24/7 operation of the New York subway relies on the provision of express + local tracks. But a closer look at the track diagrams shows that they somehow get away with round-the-clock service even on the 2-tracked sections… Don’t ask me how they manage!
@Anonymously – certainly we in NSE had intended the 465s to be run as 12s at some stage, although I have to say that privatisation supervened before we got around to having a firm programme for longer platforms. I recall that longer platforms were one generic item in the (one and only) NSE strategic plan that we drew up in 1991/2. At that time, it didn’t seem to be quite as urgent as it is now!
On the HS2 electrics to N Wales (and way off topic), NR believe that they can be dragged, like the Pendos before them.
@TKO – one issue (and it would require a detailed study of the track diagrams to prove it) may be that in New York, there are many more crossovers and turnback facilities, something London generally lacks in the central area (except round the fringes).
Hedgehog: “I’m genuinely curious now. Does every piece of tube track need maintenance 5 nights per week?”
Every bit needs cleaning. Every bit needs advertising changing. You can’t close stations or sections on an ad hoc basis and expect to retain customers, hence only promising a restricted service – not all lines, remember – on two nights each week.
btw, I can’t be the only one wondering how many different people are commenting here as ‘Anonymous’ (and variations). Could you folks perhaps use individual handles? It isn’t as though we’ll suddenly find out who you actually are, after all …
@Graham H…But platforms *were* extended on some lines. Growing up, I witnessed platforms being extended at every station on the line between Orpington and London circa 1992/3 (including fairly impressive staggered Platforms 1 and 6 at Orpington), where they remain to this day as a splendid memorial to sensible railway investment thwarted by privitisation! I even remember the impressive display in Orpington ticket office extolling the virtues of the Networker programme and the 12-car transportation utopia that we were supposedly on the cusp of. So if there was no ‘firm plan’ to extend platforms, as you say, why was so much time, money and effort exerted* on this ultimately futile endeavour?
Discussing this further here is going to go off topic, but I’d really appreciate it Graham H if you could perhaps provide a further explanation on the ’12 cars to Hayes’ page about what exactly happened ‘behind the scenes’ with the Networker programme that led to so much redundant infrastructure being built. Seeing all those unused platform extensions when I’m in a packed 8/10-car train at times makes my blood boil ?.
*Notice that I didn’t use the word ‘wasted’, since ultimately that 12-car infrastructure will be utilised, as has been mentioned above, albeit 25 years late!
Re Anonymously,
The 465/466s were ordered with a primative form of SDO that is no longer usable* (Locking out first and last doors to effectively create an 11 car train from a 12 car one, thus solving the Woolwich Dockyard problem – the platforms are 11 car with tunnels at either end)
*DOO SDO systems now have to be sure (using GPS / track balises or both) that all the doors being opened are on the platform.
Kent route usage figure dropped by circa 25% in the 1989-92 recession so the proposed 465/466 stock orders which were being placed were reduced from the size originally proposed hence the current lack of stock for longer trains.
I have never quite been able to track down a precise figure for the potential size of reduction of the order (I don’t think it would ever have been 100% 12 car as the aim) but it would be about a 15-18% reduction based on replacing a larger EPB fleet with a smaller networker one (by having more standing space) to achieve the same capacity – I.e. the capacity increase with new stock wasn’t implemented. Interestingly the difference is roughly the 365 fleet size and having 4 car 465s instead of 2 car 466s to get 12 car networker on all SE via LBG metro routes and 8 car into VIC/BKR…
@ TKO / Graham H – NYC does have immensely complex track layouts with link lines, sidings, refuges, crossovers etc all over the system. The track map is a joy and nightmare combined in one! I don’t know for certain but I suspect that they use bi-directional signalling or “one engine in steam” working on two track sections for the 24 hour subway. I’ve only used the night Subway once in NYC and it wasn’t exactly frequent. Just understanding the “service advisories” for engineering works on the NY Subway is a skill all of its own given how stopping patterns and routes can change just for a weekend. It is worth bearing in mind that there is not complete flexibility between the three original company networks that now form the Subway system. Certain lines are of a profile that means stock from elsewhere cannot work those routes. Anyway time to stop before some high powered USA snippers appear. 😉
@Jamesup – That planning application document, to which you referred us, to replace the Elephant and Castle Department of Health building that surrounds two sides of the Bakerloo Line station building (Skipton House) is just one example that prompted my comments way above, including “If developers have put their proposals in to Southwark Council on the OKR alignment long before they could even guess that the Bakerloo might come that way, then to me that would immediately demonstrate that property + tube might not be related, except in the eyes of the authors of the consultation report because redevelopment has not already commenced.”
Of course, Skipton House is actually at the Elephant but it is just one example of where I think that funding for any extension via the developers has already missed the boat.
Re WW, GH (and all others) on 24/7 service:
This is very off-topic, but perhaps the mighty shears will rest…
A link to New York subways track diagrams:
http://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway_Track_Maps
Enjoy!
Marginally ON topic:
Night subway service in NYC is almost always “local”, meaning that the express tracks are free for maintenanced during the wee hours. But what do you do when you need to work on the local tracks? Think think think…
Buses! Yes substitution buses are used on the few nights that work is actually taking place. My guess is that this in effect less than 10 nights per section and year, meaning you´ve got a fully working round the clock service for att least 350 days every year… (no I have not checked!)
But all this requires planning of course. Is that really the problem?
The premiss of this article is that new housing rather than existing transport needs are driving the extension of the Bakerloo line to Lewisham. However, here is a counter-argument.
The extension to Lewisham, and then the further extension to Hayes will cost about £2.5 billion, of which around £250m is the cost of converting the Hayes branch to an underground line. This additional extension frees up a number of train paths between Lewisham and London Bridge that can be used for alternative routes (we can divide this £250m by the number of paths to work out the cost per path). At the moment, at a very, very rough guess, the new paths to the boundary of zone 1 generated by crossrail cost around £300m-500m each.
Of course, as Graham H correctly pointed out, train paths themselves do not enter BCR calculations, but rather the extra passengers which can be shifted. But everyone here agrees that the current trains a pretty much full, and we need to do something to move more passengers. You can move additional passengers by either making the trains longer, or by running more trains. Unfortunately, as Network Rail noted in their RUS study, we are reaching the limit of making the trains longer in this area of London, and creating additional paths can only be done by creating more infrastructure. They pretty much say the only way to cater for the projected increase in passengers is for the Bakerloo line to take over the Hayes branch.
We need more train paths on the Lewisham-London Bridge route, and extending the Bakerloo line to Hayes will generate these paths. The cost of these paths would be comparable to the cost of the cross-rail paths if we added the £2 billion cost of Elephant-Lewisham to the calculation. That is, we could entirely justify the whole extension to Hayes just from the additional paths it creates into London Bridge. It *IS* about transport and we don’t need any new housing to justify this extension.
@Haykerloo you seem very reluctant to accept the point that you cannot take all the passengers on all those full Hayes trains down the Bakerloo, as no-one will be able to get on it at E&C. You can’t take over all the existing Bakerloo capacity in Z1/2
Haykerloo,
Putting it bluntly, you still appear to be deluded into believing that extending from Lewisham to Hayes will generate space for a single extra passenger journey to central London.
The weakness of your argument is immediately clear to see:
Unfortunately, as Network Rail noted in their RUS study, we are reaching the limit of making the trains longer in this area of London, and creating additional paths can only be done by creating more infrastructure. They pretty much say the only way to cater for the projected increase in passengers is for the Bakerloo line to take over the Hayes branch
As I have said for years, the trouble with this argument is that this is Network Rail seeing this from Network Rail’s perspective and they do not appear to care what cr*p they offload onto someone else so long as it makes life easier for them. I am pleased to say that I no longer think this is Network Rail’s attitude.
If you look at it from Network Rail’s perspective then having the Bakerloo take over the Hayes branch makes sense because it offloads stuff onto London Underground, they get an extra six train paths and it gets them out of a hole. However when you look at the total picture this achieves nothing, capacitywise, and doesn’t get any more people into central London than extending the Bakerloo to Lewisham does.
You can argue about how much of extending to Lewisham is about transport and how much is about housing. At the end of the day it really doesn’t matter much and it is a bit of an indeterminate belief. The article only summarises the report and how it presented it.
Usual caveat about this assumes capacity to London is full but then if not then extending to Hayes would not be necessary anyway.
Does it Matter if the Bakerloo line is full?
Some commentators have argued against extending the Bakerloo line beyond Lewisham and on to Hayes by arguing the trains will be full (although no real evidence for this is ever provided). Nevertheless, lets suppose this to be true. The Hayes extension enables additional trains between Lewisham and London Bridge, allowing an additional 5,000 passengers on this route in the peak. So the key issue is how many passengers would not be able to board to tube as a result of the Hayes extension.
Given current usage, we can guess that there will be around 40 passengers from the Hayes branch to Waterloo on each tube train (take the number of trains to the West End, assume they are full, and divide by the number of tube trains). Thus we might have to turn away a few hundred passengers at Lambeth North, if Graham H and others are right. Nevertheless, personally, this is something I would be willing to accept (as long as it is in the low hundreds, rather than thousands) since we can move another 5000 passengers on the route between Lewisham and London Bridge.
Haykerloo,
The Hayes extension enables additional trains between Lewisham and London Bridge, allowing an additional 5,000 passengers on this route in the peak.
No it doesn’t! You will have exactly the same number and capacity as today. You simply replace one train with another. That means you have precisely 0 additional passengers.
@Haykerloo If there is one carriage of spare tube capacity at Waterloo, say 100 people at 30 tph = 3000 pph, we are arguing that that will be absorbed by new housing build up to Lewisham. The tubes must enter Lewisham empty for this, so no Hayes can be diverted.
If we are too pessimistic, and we have 500pph spare capacity, they we could divert half a Hayes service, whoopee!
@Haykerloo:
Taking over an existing railway line is a zero-sum game.
The Bakerloo Extension to Lewisham adds only four new stations to an existing Tube line; it’s not all that much more ambitious than the Northern Line’s Battersea Extension and is essentially a stop-gap measure. That short extension does add new capacity, though not too much of it. (Just enough! A “Goldilocks Capacity Enhancement”: not so many new passengers that the trains are swamped; not so few that the extension can’t be justified.)
If it takes over the Hayes line, however, this is not adding new capacity. All you’re doing is diverting existing services onto a different route into London. You’re not adding any new capacity to the overall London transport network; you’re merely rewiring a small part of it.
Yes, the trains will be more frequent, but the Hayes line isn’t running through downtown Manhattan: great lumps of it run alongside open fields and parkland; the rest passes through increasingly low-density housing.
Crossrail 1 (and 2, etc.), on the other hand, do add additional capacity into central London.
Forgot to add: Tube trains may be more frequent, but they’re also quite a bit smaller, shorter, and notably less comfortable over long distances than the trains used by Southeastern.
It’s also a very inefficient use of valuable resources to send a train designed for intensive, frequent-stop duties along a line that can only justify running six trains per hour today. Extending all the way out to Hayes would require a lot more trains than going to Lewisham alone, and those trains are custom-made, and rather expensive.
@TKO 1305
Not for nothing is there a blog entitled “Second Avenue Sagas”
http://secondavenuesagas.com/
It can often make familiar reading when talking about problems similar to those we have in LU land.
@Briantist and others, thanks for all the help!
@haykerloo
Extension to Lewisham obviously creates more capacity between Lewisham and Zone 1. But, taking the Lewisham extension as a given, transferring Hayes services to it makes not a shred of difference to the capacity between Lewisham and Zone 1.
If the six paths vacated by the Hayes trains are taken up by extra Sidcup/Bexley trains, and extra passengers to fill them, and the Hayes passengers all transfer to the Bakerloo, then the passengers from Lewisham itself (whom the Lewisham extension is supposed to benefit) will be squeezed out.
This is exactly why the NLE will stop a mile short of Clapham Junction – if it went all the way there would be no room for the denizens of Nine Elms who are paying for it!
Conversion of the Hayes line might be justified to reduce crowding at Lewisham – this was one of the principal reasons for extending the Piccadilly Line beyond Finsbury park in the 1930s
The question is will Bakerloo trains starting at Lewisham be full by the time they reach, say, Piccadilly Circus. If not, adding the Hayes branch to the Bakerloo will cause some Hayes residents who would have ridden a Networker into Charing Cross to ride a Bakerloo right into the West End instead, thus preventing the Bakerloo trains from carrying air into London and freeing up space on the replacement Networkers for more people. Network diagrams that merely measure capacity between nodes work for predicting water flow, but they don’t automatically help with predicting person flow.
@Anominibus
Outside of the peaks, Hayes line passengers would kill for 6tph! Off-peak it is 4tph, and evenings/weekends a measly 2tph. The 12 tph *all day* to Hayes will be a massive improvement in frequency, and I predict will be well used. Yes, from the vantage point of Google Maps it all appears to be a load of fields and low density housing, but speaking as someone who actually grew up in the area, believe me when I say there are enough people living within the catchment area of the line to justify a much higher-frequency metro service. Especially when compared with the outer extremities of the Met and Central lines, which run through open contryside! A more analogous line might be the High Barnet branch of the Northern line (similar housing/suburban profile, distance between stations, branch length etc.) that was taken over by the LPTB in the 1940s. Would anyone seriously argue today that the good residents of Finchley, Mill Hill and High Barnet have suffered from having their mainline trains taken away from them and replaced by tube ones?
Yes, the current Bakerloo trains are pants, but the NTfL ones will be a lot more pleasant to travel in over longer distances. And one might also argue that it is an equally inefficient use of transportation infrastructure to have such a lengthy railway branch joining on to the mainline so close to the central terminal zone, since (as we discussed above) it results in fewer mainline train paths to serve other destinations further afield such as Orpington and Dartford.
@timbeau….I tire of having to repeatedly point this out, but TfL’s consultation document proposed that in the event of a full extension to Hayes, *6 tph will terminate at Lewisham*. So even if the trains coming from further afield are jam packed , one travelling from Lewisham would have to wait 10 minutes at most before boarding an empty train that had just terminated there.
@Anonymously
*6 tph will terminate at Lewisham*. So even if the trains coming from further afield are jam packed , one travelling from Lewisham would have to wait 10 minutes at most before boarding an empty train that had just terminated there.
That may be so, but the number of trains between central London and Lewisham will be exactly the same, whether all, none, or some intermediate number terminate at Lewisham.
Either the capacity is needed between Zone 1 and Lewisham and Zone 1, in which case the Bakerloo trains will not be “carrying air”, or it isn’t needed, in which case why build the extension at all?
Increased frequency on the Hayes branch may be desirable, but it isn’t necessary to build a line from the Elephant to Lewisham to do that. You could probably run 12 tph on the branch – just don’t expect them to go any further than Lewisham. If they do, they will inevitably take capacity from somewhere else – whether it is local traffic from Lewisham, or traffic from the Sidcup and Bexleyheath lines, or from deepest Kent, you can’t create capacity between A and B by building or improving a line from B to C.
Anonymously at 0610
On the other hand many users of Hayes have other reasonable choices. As a Biggin Hill resident I sometimes used Hayes because it ws a terminus and I was assured of a comfortable seat. At other times I used Bromley South, Bromley North and Chelsfield. All were railheads for passengers arriving by other forms of transport.
……….
or to put it more succinctly – if as anonymously suggests, the number of people expected to travel from Lewisham and the OKR stations can use the 6tph that will originate at Lewisham, this is way off what the planners are projecting.
There may be a need for more capacity between Hayes and London. There may also be a need for more capacity between Lewisham and London. But if you build a line to satisfy the Lewisham demand, and then use it to satisfy the Hayes demand instead, you haven’t killed two birds with one stone: you’ve robbed Peter (Lewisham) to pay Paul (Hayes).
If you build the Bakerloo extension to Lewisham and then find, against expectations, that it is underused, then it might be worth using that spare capacity to solve the Hayes problem.
The Northern Line extensions may have been a boon to the good folk of Barnet, but it made it much harder to commute from places like Tufnell Park and Camden Town – so much so that they had to build the Victoria Line to relieve the pressure on the central section of the Northern.
Likewise the extensions of the Met and District, these did not use up spare capacity in the central area but displaced short distance passengers with more lucrative longer distance ones.
Anonymously,
Hayes line passengers would kill for 6tph! Off-peak it is 4tph, and evenings/weekends a measly 2tph.
But you don’t need to spend £600 million converting an 8 mile long branch line just to improve off-peak frequency. And please don’t exaggerate. It is currently 4tph in the evenings and I suspect it will never go back down to 2tph. And it is only 2tph on Sundays – Saturdays is 4tph.
All you need to do is change the next franchise spec to achieve this which would be a lot quicker and a lot cheaper. It would also be a lot easier if TfL were running things as seems increasingly likely to happen. Admittedly, currently 6 tph off-peak might be a considerable challenge operationally but 4tph on Sundays shouldn’t be.
Yes, the current Bakerloo trains are pants, but the NTfL ones will be a lot more pleasant to travel in over longer distances.
Yes, but this is a classic case of choosing your comparisons to support your case. To make a fair comparison you need to compare NTfL with modern full size rolling stock e.g. ‘S’ stock at least or the new Thameslink stock or Crossrail stock.
Would anyone seriously argue today that the good residents of Finchley, Mill Hill and High Barnet have suffered from having their mainline trains taken away from them and replaced by tube ones?
Absolutely not but they are still all pretty packed on leaving East Finchley in the mornings – and that is after just after 5 previous stops. When, one day in the distant future, the Northern Line, even at 36tph, can’t cope I bet they look at that main-line-size branch and tack it onto a future Crossrail to give the users of the line an even better service.
So even if the trains coming from further afield are jam packed , one travelling from Lewisham would have to wait 10 minutes at most before boarding an empty train that had just terminated there.
I didn’t quite burst out laughing when I read this but I am sure there was a visible smile on my face. It is the age old belief that if the train arrives empty then you will be able to get on it. Many Waterloo & City users, who have the luxury of *all* their trains arriving empty, will assure you it doesn’t mean you can get on the first train. And they arrive a lot more frequently than every 10 minutes.
I don’t think people can perceive just how many people will be arriving at Lewisham in the morning peak for the Bakerloo if/when it gets built.
You can do a couple of thought experiments to get some comparison. Go to Brixton in the morning peak and imagine the trains starting at Streatham. Then imagine explaining to the people using it that there won’t be a problem because one train every ten minutes will start at Brixton.
Alternatively go to Walthamstow where there are currently around 27tph. Imagine the Victoria line trains have one carriage removed and only six tph are starting from there and the rest are starting from somewhere that was the equivalent of the Hayes branch in 2030. Now imagine explaining to Walthamstow Writer, Greg Tingey et al that this is all fine because six of the 7-car tube trains start from Walthamstow so everything will be OK.
Just to step back for a moment. The current plan is for the Bakerloo extension to terminate at Lewisham. Extension to Hayes (or elsewhere) has “not been ruled out”.
The possible benefits (and costs) of taking over the Hayes line have been discussed in these comments, and it is clear that some contributors are strongly in favour of such a takeover, whereas others dispute their arguments.
This is fine, it is what the comment area of the site is meant for. However, there does seem to be a risk of the discussion turning into a “Yes it does/No it doesn’t” altercation. That would be less useful.
So would contributors on both sides of the Hayes issue please ensure that any post they make is saying something new, not just repeating an argument they have already made. That way we can keep up the quality of the discussion (and perhaps rein in its quantity slightly!).
Instead of the sisyphean about the extension to the extension, I’d be really keen to read more comments about station locations.
I believe the page 21 of the following document was the first mention of a “precise” location for one of the two Old Kent stations.
https://ukfree.tv/styles/images/2016/Turning%20south%20London%20orange%20extra%20bits.pdf
Is it indeed likely to be located there? What do you think?
Re PoP (and many others):
You may be right in your view that an extension beyond Lewisham does not add more capacity into central London. But then again such an extension does not remove any capacity… so the good people of Lewisham will have exactly the same chance of getting on a train.
Right or wrong?
@TKO Lewisham people have more chance, but E&C onwards have less
TKO,
The people of Lewisham will have the same combined chance of getting an Underground, National Rail or DLR train and in addition a potentially more frequent service if wishing to travel away from London.
Don’t get me wrong. One could argue rationally for the Bakerloo taking over the Hayes branch e.g. more frequent service than possible with National Rail, reduced need to change if travelling to the West End, better connectivity (but at a price of making the City less easily accessible), step free access from platform to train (not possible with National Rail) and I am sure there are other good valid arguments to be made. I just don’t want something to happen that is based on a false premise.
@TKO
“the good people of Lewisham will have exactly the same chance of getting on a train.”
Slightly more if the trains all start at Lewisham, as they will be competing with those who are changing from other lines. If one of those lines has a through service, those already on the train will have the advantage over those trying to board at Lewisham.
In the outward direction, they will all be competing for the same space – unless you can contrive to give the Hayesites priority on the through trains, they will have no more, or less, chance of getting on the first Hayes train than someone who only wants to go to Lewisham.
@ PoP – Oi hands off our tube carriages. 🙂 More seriously I haven’t travelled in the height of the peak for a long time. However even years ago trains were full and standing at Walthamstow minutes before trains departed. Passengers from further south used to travel north just to get a seat so there wasn’t even such a thing as an empty train because people were already on it! Further people routinely went to the platform for the second departing train so they could pour inside the second the doors opened on arrival. They traded the headway in order to get a seat but let’s not delude ourselves – an awful lot of people have to stand from the terminal and certainly from anywhere further south.
I suspect things are vastly worse now due to population increases, people being attracted by the better service and reliability (usually – last week or so has been dire) and possibly things like the Overground being better advertised. Certainly volumes further down the line have gone bonkers – even off peak I keep being amazed that trains are full and standing from F Park southbound. Never used to happen. I used to take the bus to Seven Sisters in order to get an empty train out of N Park but so did hundreds of other people so it was still a battle to find space on the platform at precisely the right spot and then fight your way on. The problem then was it only took 60 seconds of delay and the crowds got vastly worse and standing 10mm away from the right spot meant you were standing anyway or facing an 5-6 min wait for another empty and every minute later you are the peak flow into the station is just intensifying and / or you get a NR train arrival upstairs and hundreds more people pour downstairs.
Without wishing to pour oil on the flames of the never ending debate I’m very much of the view that even if you do extend the Bakerloo to Lewisham the trains will be leaving full in the peaks. Those people will materialise from main line trains, DLR (reverse flow into Lewisham), buses, drop offs from cars and locals walking. It will be a massive magnet for people. Ditto up the Old Kent Road whether or not poncy unaffordable flats are built. High frequency public transport in London just sucks people in – that’s an inescapable fact. I actually don’t much care about the semantics of what path is released where – the fact is that the trains are full today, they’ll be fuller tomorrow and vastly more oversubscribed years in the future. Putting the Bakerloo Line there will make little difference after a year or so – it will just pull in vastly more demand and enable more journey options thus triggering even more demand. As so often discussed on here it’s ultimately futile because it takes so long to do anything that circumstances overwhelm whatever is provided. And that doesn’t mean you don’t build extensions or new lines – it just means you’re spending a lot of money to “stand still” in order to cope with pressing circumstances.
@WW your final comments sound like the arguments against road-building. And indeed 4 stations on the Bakerloo will do nothing to stem the timd. The danger is politicians won’t consider it a minor tweak, like the Northern Line extension, but as CR2a, the next piplelined project to occupy the TfL planning department for 5 years, and delaying the project we must not name.
If we don’t start parallising these changes, we will get further behind.
A common mantra here is that each line must wait in turn for its rolling stock to be renewed. Why? Surely there are plenty of carriage works worldwide to build the orders, and if it makes economic sense, why not just invest the money now.
I can understand for road schemes where the justification is often environmental rather than economic (Stonehenge), but if Tube investment allows desired London job growth, why not get on with it. I suspect I sound rather Labourite here, but why not?
Parallel investment on rolling stock for more than one tube line at a time:
The main argument against this is, as John B implies, politician-imposed constraints on how much money per year can be spent in this way. Whether these constraints are justified is a question for political judgment (ideally remembering that, contrary to what is occasionally claimed, running the national economy is not domestic economy writ large, it is an entirely different game with different rules).
There are a few secondary arguments, though. One may be the supply of skilled management, which might get too distracted by trying to manage too many projects at once. Another might be a wish to apply any lessons learnt during re-equipping one line to other lines. But neither of these strikes me as particularly overwhelming.
Walthamstow Writer,
I agree wholeheartedly with your sentiments regarding tube trains full from Lewisham (or Walthamstow). The only reason I did not mention it was it is just supposition and I didn’t want to mix supposition and factual.
JohnB,
Surely the most rational thing is neither parallel builds or one line at a time in isolation but a large order for common, or at least very similar, stock. This is, in fact, what happens now.
When it comes to whole line replacement, on LU at any rate, you don’t just replace the rolling stock, you combine that with updated signalling and a host of other upgrades so it doesn’t pay to concentrate entirely on rolling stock. You can’t get the best out of new rolling stock, destined to last at least 40 years, if you don’t to other complementary work.
@malcolm
Indeed – parallel funding: as the government has effectively an infinite credit limit, the sooner you spend the money the sooner you start to reap the benefits. It’s irrelevant how much a project will cost, if it will save £1m a year, delaying doing it for five years means you’re throwing £5m away.
@WW
If the BLE is supposed to be for boosting the economy on the Old Kent Road, perhaps it should not go as far as new Cross, let alone Lewisham – otherwise the trains will be full before they ever get to OKR. Again, this is precisely why the NLE isn’t going beyond Battersea. Lewisham/New Cross is in some ways a mirror image of Clapham Junction – the area where all routes from the SE (cf SW) direction converge and southern terminus of an orbital connection (DLR/Overground) across the river.
timbeau: to take your argument to the limit, the government should start right now on every scheme (in transport and elsewhere) which has a BCR greater than 1. Apart from the obvious skill and workforce shortages, I don’t think the economy would stand the shock. (Or even if it would, we will never know, because politicians would not risk it).
But within some reasonable limit, I certainly believe that rather more transport schemes should run in parallel than seems to be current practice.
@Malcolm
There is also the need to co-ordinate the disruption – even NR try to avoid digging up both routes to Birmingham (or Portsmouth, or Dover, or Cambridge) on the same weekend.
I’ve updated my Google Map for the ‘Turning South London Orange’ report.
It now includes updated station locations with detailed descriptions.
Plus my best guess at the New express Overground Tunnel from Lewisham to Canary Wharf (allowing 8/10 car trains) and the new R25 outer London orbital service from Woking to Maidstone and Medway Towns via Croydon and Bromley
https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=zDluGDKgkFeA.kBV5UIDUWq2E&usp=sharing
@John B – Supporting transport investment does not make you sound Labourite at all. Labour’s track record for investing in transport under Blair / Brown was poor.
I can see that tunneling is a specialist job, and you want to stagger that (hence the man who has tunneled under the Thames 7 times in his career), but is the same true of signal installers and planners? If we trained more people to do these complex civil engineering projects, there would be worldwide demand for them even if (ha) our need diminished.
You want to stagger disruption, but at any one point that’s a small part of the project lifeetime. Lessons might be learned from generations of rolling stock, but the intervals are so great progress would be slow. There are of plenty of foreign networks to study, is London really that unique?
My worry is the impact on London Overground on the ELL. On the map, ELL is going to look like a high capicity Tube Link between the Bakerloo (New Cross Gate), Juibilee (Canada Water) and Crossrail (Whitechapel). But we all know it is not high capacity mass-transit.
Even if all BLE does is abstract passengers who catch London Bridge trains at present from places like Sydenham onto Overground (suddenly the first train which arrives will do rather than waiting for a London Bridge service) to change at New Cross onto the BLE for Charing Cross or the West End, the impact on the capacity-constrained LO could be dire, but it’s that central section between New Cross Gate and Whitechapel that could easily become critical.
(I also suspect significantly increased dwell times on NR/LO at New Cross Gate.)
I think BLE to Lewisham is a good thing, but I don’t think it should be built without some relief for the LO.
WW
Agree (‘ands-orff are toob carridges) but … they are still reversing from Blackhorse Rd &, where possible, running across the cross-tunnel to catch the train”in front” – I saw this last week when I had to make an early-morning jounrey in – like WW I was shocked by the volumes – it’s really gone “ballistic” in the past 2-3 years.
@Edmonton’Eadcase – couldn’t agree more. Certainly since I was first involved in governments authorising transport expenditure in the early ’70s,it has almost invariably been the case that Labour has wanted to spend on the revenue account – cheap fares, increased operating subsidy – and the Tories have (usually whilst claiming to do the opposite) spent on capital projects -eg HS2. Of course, there have been some projects which fall outside that generalisation but as a characterisation the point remains valid.
@ John B – If I was the “mad dictator of Transport” then lots of schemes would be being done at the same time. However I’m not and I’m realistic enough to understand that there are some genuine limits to what people will tolerate even if the work is being done in the most effective manner. People don’t like umpteen weekends of closures or blockades or months of station closures. Similarly road users (all of them) hate problems on the surface network whether it’s for new roads, Crossrail building sites or adding in cycle lanes. There is a need for balance as to how much any City or town can reasonably tolerate. You know that. There’s also all the stuff already mentioned like finding the money, scarce resources etc that these schemes need. In an ideal world you want you line upgrades to be more like the Northern or Victoria Line (some closures and early finishes) rather than the Jubilee Line (years of agony while people scrambled up the learning curve of how to do it). To be fair to Crossrail they are training a new generation of engineers and tunnellers and are sharing their accumulated knowledge (there was a new press release on this this week). The test is whether any more work will be commissioned sufficiently quickly to use those new people and all the experience.
Everyone knows my preference – a sensible funded programme of works over 20-30 years with a proper planning, design and procurement “pipeline” of works that keeps the scarce resources and the market place sufficiently occupied to contain costs and maximise efficiency. I think we can see, despite all the problems over funding, that London is now capable of coping with multiple big rail schemes – Crossrail, SSR upgrade, Thameslink, Battersea extension and soon the Met Line extension. Alongside those we have some more troublesome road schemes plus all the private sector construction activity. Therefore we should, as you say, be able to sustain much more parallel activity and a larger overall scale of work (funding permitted).
@ Timbeau – I understand your point but there are very long standing travel patterns in inner SE London and not meeting them with a new tube line is pretty stupid. Yes the line will be busy, yes people may struggle with the overcrowding but that’s just how it is / will be. Not serving New Cross or Lewisham is frankly stupid IMO. My view is the BLE should reach Catford and that’s it. IIRC there will be scope for boosting frequency after opening day (depending on the signalling technology chosen and the size of fleet purchased).
The debate really needs to move on from “everyone commuting must have a seat” “oh dear isn’t it awful that I have to stand” “eek isn’t it busy?” [1]. Tough. If you want to live in a prosperous world city then don’t expect to travel in “rural idyll” travel conditions. It is NEVER going to happen. It will be a brave person who makes this point but it really DOES need making. More can be done to eek out capacity etc but let’s not kid ourselves that there isn’t a flood of people waiting to use up any extra space that is provided.
[1] yes, I’m guilty of the last one but my comments are from genuine surprise as to how things have changed!
@Kate – the hope maybe that opening more interchange on the ELL will change some of the passenger flows. Right now in the morning peak the flows all converge on Canada Water from both South and North. During heavy over crowding there are currently tannoy announcements advising folk wanting to go to Canary Wharf to travel north to Shadwell – , an unpopular interchange, not in my experience, due to the distance, but rather the number of stairs). From 2018 – Crossrail at Whitechapel will be very tempting for anyone north of Canada Water.
When BLE opens the same will happen, it will be an attractive option for anyone south of Canada Water who needs to travel west, or potentially (via a slightly round about route) east to Canary Wharf.
That being the case, there would be some rebalancing of passenger flow contra the current pattern making better use of the current capacity and releasing the pressure of interchange at Canada Water.
Having said that this effect may take place and we could still find natural population increase causes the capacity and interchange to be stretched, but now in all directions!
All this means that NCG has the potential to be a nightmare for passenger flows, perhaps even more so than Lewisham, and the design of the station will have to take this into account. I’m very interested to see what they come up with.
There is a poster at New Cross Gate station advising commuters to walk to New Cross to pick up a London Overground train because they tend to arrive full at NXG. If NXG becomes a big interchange, I suspect there will be a big push to encourage this.
If we care to increase the cut between Canary Wharf and the area south of the Thames, we need river crossings. Capacity on the Lewisham branch of the DLR can be improved; the Jubilee not so much.
[Just because comments are prefaced ‘Crayons’ doesn’t make them acceptable. Snip! LBM]
@WW
there are very long standing travel patterns in inner SE London and not meeting them with a new tube line is pretty stupid.
If the new tube line is to relieve congestion on those long established routes between London Br, Lewisham and beyond, it will be full at Lewisham, and there is no pont in building the intermediate stations on the Old Kent Road.
Conversely, if it is to drive regeneration on the OKR, you don’t want it full of people from Bexley and Bromley, so you don’t provide an interchange at Lewisham.
But the more contribution it makes to solving one of those matters, the worse it will be at the other. Just as a “green” tax’s contribution to the environment is in inverse proportion to its success at raising money.
@Anonymously of 2314 on 27/1 – I am sorry not to have replied to your query about NSE’s plans for 12 car working, but I wanted to check two documents not in the public domain (but in my archives over the stairwell…). The (one and only) NSE Business Plan for the 15 years after 1992/93 assumed that growth (which was assumed to recover after the 1989-91 blip) would be met by cascading stock from the CrossRail and TLK projects, with a further continuing programme of cl 371 (the supposed TLK units). There was no mention then of 12 car sets specifically, nor of infrastructure,but the plan wasn’t detailed and I don’t have the underlying analyses any more .
However, there was a further document “Future Rail – the London Agenda” * which contained much more detail and which set out NSE’s actual plans. For Kent Link (the inners), we intended to buy another 356 cl465s to make up 10 and 12 car sets, and for the outers, another 900 cl 471 – later renamed 371s for the obvious reason – vehicles up to 2000, with the intention of making all the outers 12s. (At the time,we had authorisation for only 486 cl465s.) There was an associated programme of infrastructure investment totalling about £400m at 110 locations for station improvements (unclear at this distance in time how many of these were in Kent -probably most). In those days, platform lengthening was somewhat cheaper than it is now!
*The London Agenda was a deliberately subversive bidding document cooked up by Chris Green and his team (egged on by the Chairman**) which set out as plainly as we could the impact of cuts in funding on quality. DTp were aghast – as we intended – and ordered all copies to be destroyed. Some of us were less than diligent,however.
** The Chairman took a particularly active role in devising some of the more telling graphics as I recall
@Graham H
“we intended to buy another 356 cl465s to make up 10 and 12 car sets, and for the outers, another 900 cl 471
That’s vehicles, presumably. (so 89 class 465 units and 225 class 371/471).
“At the time,we had authorisation for only 486 cl465 (vehicles ”
That must include some 466s, unless you had authorisation for half a unit.
That compares with the number of new units that have actually appeared on Kent Rail
Total classes 465/466: 147×4 + 43×2 = 508+86 = 594 So the top up order was 108.
In addition there were Class 376 : 36 x 5 = 180. Total 288 v the 356 you had aspired to, a 20% shortfall. Thgere is also the odd Thameslink class 319 which gets through to Sevenoaks, but certainly nowhere near 68 units are on SE metals at any one time
Class 375 102×4 + 10×3 = 438: less than 50% of the 900 class 371s you aspired to.
Even if you include the class 395 Javelins (39×6 = 236) – which were not even on the drawing board by your target date of 2000 – this still only gets you to 75%.
It is evident that for all the bragging by the operators and politicians about how much has been invested in new trains since the days of NSE, it actually falls far short of these aspirations.
@timbeau -I am most grateful for you teasing out the figures in relation to the actual deliveries (I can’t explain the half unit but given that we were looking up to 8 years ahead, I’m sure no one would swear to the precise mix of 10s and 12s needed- no work had been done on a revised timetable at that stage (and TLK still had its original service pattern). As you say,there is still a gross shortfall…
Basically, the plan was to knock out about 200 vehicles a year for the foreseeable future, with the 465/471 as the inital choice. Dis aliter visum.
@Edmonton ‘Eadcase, Graham H
Knocking the Blair/Brown government is a bit like shooting fish in a barrel, but they did increase capital investment in transport from a typical £5bn a year between 1990 and 1998 up to £8bn a year by 2003, a figure which was sustained until 2011 when it was cut back to £6bn in the early years of George Osborne’s austerity – albeit it then increased again as Osborne realised that his original trajectory was needlessly damaging the economy.
@timbeau
The Hendy report shows that there is still a need for electrical upgrades before the whole SE network can go 12 car – all such upgrading appears to have a target date of the December 2018 timetable change.
Can’t quite work out how many 319s are needed for Bat & Ball line – minimum appears to be 10 – plus there are 2x 8 car peak workings for TL 377s to Rochester and Maidstone East – so that reduces the shortfall by at least 14 units.
@quinlet – not so much the Blair/Brown era as the pause in rolling stock build whilst privatisation happened. Captain Deltic will no doubt remind us how many years that lasted. And even when the famine ceased, stock trickled out in penny packets.
The general level of rail investment was stepped up as a result of the Tom Winsor* coup, not a Ministerial Damascene conversion. The Treasury never forgave ORR for that.
@Man of Kent – the original hope when the Networker was planned was that it would be 30% cheaper to maintain and use 30% less electricity. That hope wasn’t,in, the event, realised but if it had, the need for power upgrades would have been avoided for many years.
* Going through my papers to find the NSE plans, I found Tom Winsor’s book of cartoons of the privatisation process (He was one of the government’s legal advisers – forget which firm he worked for at the time): “The Rail Industry in 1994” – a comb-bound collection of (mainly) Evening Standard cartoons suitably recaptioned. I wish I could find some means of copying and circulating this to one and all; Winsor was quite witty if he put his mind to it.
@timbeau
‘as the government has effectively an infinite credit limit….’
Try telling that to anyone on the right-wing side of the political spectrum (not to mention Treasury civil servants), and they will probably shoot you ?! Yes, governments benefit from lower interest rates and deeper credit reserves…..but if the market starts to question whether you’ll ever be able to pay the money back (e.g. during an economic downturn), your credit rating plunges and you’re royally screwed. Just ask Greece/Italy/Spain/Portugal/Ireland…..
@Graham H
Thank you for your insight from your personal archives ?. So basically, all of the platform extension work was authorised because it was easy and cheap to do, and no one at the time expected privitisation to take the form that it did (i.e. a massive break-up) and stop the whole 12-car plan in its (ahem) tracks. I’m curious about one thing you mentioned though…..why is it so much more expensive to do this work now, once inflation is taken into account?
Your plan for infrastructure and rolling stock sounds very far sighted, and it’s a bloody shame that privitisation prevented it from being fully implemented. If any former civil servant deserves an honour for services to public transport, it is you….arise, Sir Graham H!
@PoP
Apologies for getting my Hayes tph figures wrong…as soon as I posted the comment I realised I had made an error. We’ve discussed before whether a TfL takeover could ever result in a better off-peak frequency all week (4-6 tph+), so I shall just leave it there.
I do though take issue with comparing finding a space on a 6tph Lewisham terminators to the W&C. service. Yes, Lewisham is busy (as would any future Lewisham BLE service), but I really don’t think a large proportion of SE London’s rail passenger traffic is going to transfer itself on the the Bakerloo line to reach the West End in the way that a large proportion of SW London’s rail traffic feeds on to the W&C in order to reach the City. Plus there will always be people alighting at Lewisham from the through trains which passengers could board, space permitting. A spacious three-platform interchange station (cf North Greenwich on the JLE) would definitely help to facilitate this.
I do accept that there is a risk Lewisham might become a new Brixton and attract non-rail passengers from far and wide transferring from local buses etc. I would like to think this could be mitigated by proper planning and sufficiently frequent trains (as well as not indefinitely delaying any future further extension to Wherever), but as I am not a soothsayer, I won’t attempt to make any further predictions in this regard.
Finally, re. transferring over ex-mainline Tube service to future Crossrails….you may well be right, but the one previous firm proposal for this (90s Crossrail’s takeover of the outer-Met line services, which strike me as the most obvious best suited ones to convert) didn’t make it into the final plan in the end. I would safely say that none of us (myself included) will be around to see such a conversion if it happens at all.
@Anonymously – flattery will get you everywhere. The question as to why it costs so much more to extend a platform than it did is – probably – the result of several different things (Cf Captain Deltic’s poikilothermia point about infrastructure generally) – PRTMIS compliance is one thing both because it removes grandfather rights over such things as stepping distances and platform heights, and because it requires new level access arrangements (aka lifts in many cases), hence the cost of providing a second platform at Bricket Wood reaches the exorbitant price of £25m. Another problem is safer working since the ’80s – who could object to that? But it may cost a significant sum. Then there is the disruption cost – I am still shocked after 15 years by a presentation by the then DG of SYPTE in which he explained that 1/3 of the cost of rebuilding Sheffield was compensation payments to TOCs. And then there’s the need for all the parties to earn their markup. Cumulatively, these sums become quite large, alas. There is an interesting comparison with the costs for Chiltern in their rebuilding programme where they were often starting from scratch (so no expensive adaptation of existing kit) and other costs were presumably treatable as internalisatble (sorry for the ugly word).
@Graham H
“I can’t explain the half unit ”
easy – 468 vehicles equates to 100 4-car class 465s and 43 2-car 466s – which was indeed the original order. The clue is the odd number of 2 car sets
“pause in rolling stock build whilst privatisation happened. Captain Deltic will no doubt remind us how many years that lasted. ”
As Capt Deltic has not responded:
class 465 ordered in 1992
class 365 ordered in October 1993 to clear the hiatus: the last ordered by nationalised BR .
Internet says Roger Ford counted 1,064 days from then to the first order by the privatised railway: class 168 by Chiltern: that puts it in September 1996
@Timbeau -thank you! (And even once the famine ended, stock was bought at a much lower average rate than 200-250 a year.)
PoP: “I bet they look at that main-line-size branch and tack it onto a future Crossrail”
Yay! Highgate High level can be reopened!
Boo. Not enough length between the tunnels for a full CR-length platform.
/ back to the drawing board …
Forgive my vague recollections and lack of personal archive as organised as Graham H’s, but I thought that the largef part of the reason for not adding to the original order for Networkers was the recession in the early ’90s. This recession did cause a downturn in customers in a big way (I think someone else has alreadu said this). It was only when the economy started picking up that privatasation got in the way. BTW, anyone remember IC250 which was in competition for a slug of DfT money with the 365s?
@ Alison W – not a chance of Highgate High Level reopening. Rare bats live in the tunnels and fly around the area. When I was with LU I was lucky enough to have an official reason to visit Highgate High Level – fascinating to see it up close but no way will the area be reused in any intensive way.
@100andthirty – the downturn happened in about 1989 and things picked up again by about 1992-3. The long term forecasts we were using in 1990 actually showed a lower rate of growth than has actually occurred . We assumed (rightly )that the blip was just that, based on our analysis of the factors driving that growth. However, it suited Ministers to claim (up to 1994) that the downturn was permanent. This was just one of the reasons for not authorising new stock. The other, and more important, was that there was a naive assumption that “somehow” the private operators would order stock unprompted by government (along with other equally naive assumptions about the franchised operations withering away as more and more open access operators came out of their sheds.) In the circs, the government had no intention of authorising additional stock for any BR operation, whether IC 250* or 365s or whatever. It took them until 1997 to realise that these things weren’t going to happen…
It then suited them to claim that the subsequent upturn was entirely the result of the so much better privatised services…
* In olden times,InterCity would have had a relatively easy ride to justify the IC250 provided it was adequately cash profitable; once the privatisation treacle seeped in, there was nothing IC could have done to secure the build, no matter how profitable it was supposed to be
@timbeau – easy – 468 vehicles equates to 100 4-car class 465s and 43 2-car 466s – which was indeed the original order. The clue is the odd number of 2 car sets
My calculator makes that 486 vehicles……
Re Graham H, Timbeau, Anonymously,
Having a look at the excellent NSE history website chronology pages is worth while:
http://www.nsers.org/chronology.html
Kent Link aka Southeastern suffered a massive loss in patronage in the recession 1989 onwards (20% fall on NSE from 1988 to 1992) which provided justification for far fewer cars and units to be replace the older rolling stock (even after assumptions about networkers having more official standing room so a 10 car networker would have the same theoretical capacity as 12 car EPB. (the 465 end cars being 1.5m longer and intermediate cars 0.6m longer than EPB cars helping add capacity)
Very selected excerpts:
31 August 1989 – Kent Link total route modernisation major announcements by Transport Secretary Cecil Parkinson during a visit to London Charing Cross and London Bridge stations:
-Networker 4-car EMU £257m orders placed today for 100 units – 50 each from BREL York (Class 465/0 – 465001-50) and GEC-Alstom (Class 465/2 – 465201-50) – delivery from September and October 1991, respectively;
-Networker EMU approval in principle given for a further 276 vehicles for Kent Link: these total 676 of the 842 vehicles required for Kent Link to replace EPB EMUs ;
-£200m route infrastructure works for 12-car Networkers which will provide 16% increased seating capacity over present 10-car EPB formations: covers 137 route miles and consists of – platform lengthening at 63 stations, Driver-only operation, power supply upgrade, resignalling, gauge clearance, layout remodelling including London Cannon Street, Charing Cross, London Bridge and Orpington, new train maintenance depot at Slade Green and 16 stabling sidings at Grove Park with new staff accommodation..
Note: Due to Government capital spending restrictions in the early-1990s recession, route infrastructure works are deferred two years in final completion to 1996
So first 400 ordered 276 authorised…
30 April 1990 – Kent Link Networker Total Route Modernisation – Transport Secretary Cecil Parkinson gives authority in principle to BR Chairman Sir Bob Reid for platform lengthening at 63 stations to accommodate 12-car Class 465s and for 276 further vehicles for Kent Link
1 November 1990 – DoT ‘Transport Statistics for London’ review reports commuting down 15,000 in 1989 compared to 1988 – although still 21% up on 1982 for NSE.
13 May 1991 – Class 466 ‘Networker’ 43 2-car EMUs authorised (466001-43); contract subsequently awarded to Metro-Cammell
31 March 1992 – Class 465/1 Networker 47 4-car EMUs authorised (465151-97); 10 April 1992 announced that contract awarded to BREL York.
So 274 ordered vs the 276 authorised i.e. 1 more 2 car 466 and 1 less 4 car then originally envisaged? Hence the magic loss of 2 cars. and 166 /168 short of the original number required to replace the EPBs. Graham H’s numbers put the short fall at just 86 cars (or the difference of all the 2 car units being 4 car instead!)
12 November 1992 – £150m new grant for train leasing announced in Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Autumn Statement; ultimately used to procure new Class 465/3 (later 365) ‘Networker Express’ EMUs (see 13 October 1993).
41 365s delivered delivered = 164 cars. Only 4 cars short of the original number, the first 16x 365 had 3rd rail equipment fitted.
One possible permutation for the original order works out at extending/converting all 2 car units to 4car and an additional 20x 4 car units to get to the original total which suggest what the plan was as it can’t have been all new 4 car units… (only 1 sensible permutation).
Re timbeau,
But the SE Metro services lost 34 465s to outer services (465/2 becoming /9s) so there was still a net loss on the introduction of the 376s! 36 x 376s = 180 cars a decade later and transferring 34x 4car 465 to medium distance services =136 cars, so net +44 cars on suburban still a long way short. Thus reducing the size of 375 order…
There are many peak 395 formation that are 6 car so it keeps happening!
Factoring in the long distance 465/9 use than makes 810 in service out of 900 or 90%.
The extra stock require for all javelin services to be 2 unit /12 car and 12 car south of Tunbridge Wells post power supply upgrade and the 10 3 car units would probably account for something like the last 10%…
As always the longer distance users always seem to fair better.
@CXXX
“anyone remember IC250”
Indeed. It got to the tendering stage in 1991, (three bidders) with plans to enter service from 1995. It even got to a mockup.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/rpmarks/3498872894
http://blog.nrm.org.uk/the-locomotive-that-doesnt-exist/?share=email&nb=1
The project was canned in 1992. Eventually, in 2002, we got Branson’s “why can’t trains be as good as airliners?” Pendolinos.
(Answer – because they can be so much better than airliners – unfortunately the Pendolinos are not.
Branson is old enough to still be starstruck by the “jet set” era, and wealthy enough not to have to endure the realities of ten-abreast transatlantic steerage class)
Apologies the blockquote tags didn’t work in post above so it has jumbled quotes and my comments.
Re NLW,
exactly 3×2 =6 so it is very obviously transposed last digits before even reaching for calculator…
@NLW
486 is what Graham H said, and what I meant – apologies
@ngh
“But the SE Metro services lost 34 465s to outer services (465/2 becoming /9s) so there was still a net loss on the introduction of the 376s! ”
Indeed – it doesn’t affect the total shortfall for SE though – just shares it out differently between inners and outers. (By thinning out the inners they were able to build fewer 375s)
@WW….I *think* Alison might have been joking, so you can relax about those bats ?.
I wouldn’t consider it the main impediment though (blasted Parkland Walk!)…..wasn’t the Oxford/Bicester chord project delayed due to the discovery of rare bats nesting in Wolvercote tunnel, necessitating their removal?
Just a thought….can the 365s be (re-)fitted with shoegear, re-geared for 75 mph and converted into 465s for use in SE London to form longer trains? Or have subsequent modifications made this too difficult?
@ Anonmously – remove bats in *Highgate*!!!? There will be debates in Parliament, the Commissioner called to the DfT and the Mayor being harrangued. You don’t do controversial things in Highgate. Shifting bats in Oxfordshire is a breeze in comparison.
Re timbeau,
The inners always seem to come out comparatively worse than the outers…
@WW….Ha ha ha. I didn’t realise Highgate bats had representation in Parliament, which their brethren in Oxon are denied (a ‘Rotten Bat Borough’). Time for a Representation of the Bats Act? ?
Re WW,
I think Wolvercote Tunnel will have lights linked to the signalling to scare the bats out before a train comes along rather than re-homing. (encourage them to re-home themselves)
I can still remember reading the submission of one of my former tutors (an engineer) who lives backing on to the line to the Public Inquiry on double tracking etc. which made me chuckle.
Summarised as:
“Heavy freight wagons jointed sectional track lots of noise and vibration…
Poor ballast condition lots of noise and vibration…
Bats…”
Many more pages of kitchen sinking in similar in technical detail.
It was thrown out because it he hadn’t read the NR proposed scope of works: Complete re-ballast and new welded track etc. but unfortunately it has given many others a useful template to copy since.
RE Anon and WW,
The Oxford Parkway to Oxford bit still won’t open for very long time as there have been planning permission issues at the Oxford station (Chiltern /EWR side), Aristotle Lane foot level crossing took 7 years to close and replace with a footbridge (see Unravelled’s photos) and the locals wanting limits on freight paths and speeds of all trains across points as they were used to the old knackered ones onto the branch. The local councillors are continually trying to show they can be more obstructive than the other parties ones. Oxford being one of the unnamed places getting obstructive planning references in the Hendy report.
The much bigger station rebuild for GWR side being held up has delayed electrification between Didcot and Oxford by about 3 years so GWR won’t be able to run Oxford to London EMUs for while (so 365 or 387s sitting around on lease costing the TOC money and Reading to London service improvements delayed).
@ngh…So who is responsible for this delay (particularly the station rebuild required for electrification*)? The planning system? Councillors? NIMBYs? Network Rail? DfT?Something else? All of the above?
Answers on a postcard please…..the winner’s prize is a trip to Whitehall to advise the government about how we can get more things built in this country (especially housing)!
*As a Cantabrian, it gives me no greater sense of schadenfreude than to say that by the time Oxford finely gets its electrics, Cambridge will have had them for well over thirty years!
AlisonW 31 January 2016 at 20:51
“Yay! Highgate High level can be reopened!
Boo. Not enough length between the tunnels for a full CR-length platform.”
I suggest a visit to Maryland station and an incantation of “Selective Door Opening”.
@timbeau and others -I dug a little further behind the figures quoted and th 486 was indeed composed of 100x 4car and 43 x2 car. The make up of the 900 was entirely speculative – at the time \tlk was supposed to go to Ashford as was something named as “New Kent main Line”, with journey times to Thanet remarkably close to what is being achieved just now – whether the “471s” would have been able to deliver this is unclear now.
@ngh
“The Oxford Parkway to Oxford bit still won’t open for very long time ”
Oxford City Council suggest “Spring 2016”, although Chiltern reported a couple of weeks ago that it be in time for the December timetable.
(Those two statements are not entirely incompatible, but I am more inclined to believe a date with a specific month rather than a season. Nevertheless, I don’t think by railway infrastructure standards ten months is a “very long time”
https://www.oxford.gov.uk/info/20210/railway_developments/822/east_west_rail_phase_1
http://www.chilternrailways.co.uk/news/chiltern-railways-announces-oxford-city-centre-london-marylebone-launch-date
So the service will open on 12th December – but it might open earlier, I always suppose?
Greg Tingey,
Almost certainly not. It coincides with the timetable change and remember it will be sharing the track with other lines on the approach to Oxford from the north so you can’t just unilaterally start the service. Also, no doubt, there will be contractual stuff with GWR at Oxford station that would probably preclude simply opening it earlier.
I would also suggest that the fact it is a Monday and not a Sunday suggests some last minute engineering works necessary for the service to commence may also be a consideration.
We are a long way off from the Bakerloo line and we will probably cover this when it fully opens so further comments about Oxford on this thread are liable to be culled.
Interesting article in a Sunday newspaper yesterday on how the Nine Elms development isn’t turning into quite the property goldmine that had been hoped. Southwark/TfL/Mayor need to get on and agree the Bakerloo extension quick smart, because if the prime London property market pops in the next couple of years, then all those vital developer contributions will just melt away, and that could be the end of the tube down the Old Kent Road for another generation.
Toby Chopra
Quite so…there’s only a very limited clientele for flats costing £20 mill each.
I suspect that,if there is any signs of a wobble in the prime property market,the plug will be pulled pretty quickly on any more extensions,rather than have the money dry up when a scheme is still only half-built…
Just a thought……would it be a good and feasible idea if and when the extension is built to divert the Bakerloo line away from the current platforms and stub tunnels at E&C, and instead build new platforms alongside the Northern line ones for cross-platform interchange? The whole station is going to need a comprehensive rebuild with escalators etc. anyway, so why not future-proof the station as far as you can? Whether or not the line gets past Lewisham, I can foresee E&C becoming as busy an interchange as Stockwell is today, so this would better cater for this passenger flow than the current passageway linking the two parts of the station. Also, now we know the line is highly unlikely to go to Camberwell, the current stub tunnels (which point in that direction) are in any event now redundant.
@Anonymously
certainly feasible: although looking at Carto Metro, as well as needing to build two extra platforms (the current plan would use the existing Bakerloo platforms, but these are one the wrong alignment and at the wrong depth for a cross platform interchange), a fair amount of extra tunnelling would be needed to tie in the new platforms to the existing alignment towards Lambeth North, and to swing round from parallel with the Northern Line (slightly west of south) back towards the Old Kent Road (due east). The southbound, in particular, would have to leave the existing alignment near Lambeth North, in order to have room to pass under the Northern Line far enough north to have the distance necessary be able to rise to be level with it at E&C.
But for what? Passengers from the Morden direction already have cross platform interchange at Stockwell and Kennington to Waterloo, and to most West End stations served by the Bakerloo and, with another cross platform interchange at Oxford Circus, to the Bakerloo itself. Passengers from New Cross and Lewisham already have direct trains to London Bridge and the Cannon Street/Bank area (with a new entrance to Bank already being built opposite Cannon Street station), and with the Bakerloo extension they will have a cross-platform connection at Oxford Circus for Euston and Kings Cross.
In any case, if the Northern Line wasn’t full already, the Battersea extension and the Balham Bulge of Crossrail 2 would be more than enough to take up any slack.
So, feasible, but at a price that is unlikely to be worth paying.
Anonymously,
The answer, as is often the case, lies in reading the report. In fact you do not have to read far – only as far as paragraph 1.1.1.4
So in one fell swoop you are taking away one of the great advantages of doing the scheme.
@PoP
I wonder what an “insignificant” closure would be – I can’t imagine that they would be able to tunnel from the end of the over-run tunnels without using Elephant & Castle station for access to the worksite, and even if they only tunnel from the other end, they would need access at the time of breakthrough.
It would probably be possible to build step plate junctions east of Lambeth North by closing only Elephant – but indeed it would be a much bigger job.
Keep it Simple: project creep can too easily become Too Expensive.
Re Timbeau and PoP,
As TfL very recently objected to the rebuilding of the adjacent (soon to be ex)-DoH building it suggests their view is to sort out the Bakerloo-Northern interchange with some new Pedestrian tunnelling???
@PoP/timbeau…To be fair, that paragraph (nor anything else in the report as far as I remember) doesn’t comment specifically on whether an improved interchange at E&C is feasible or desirable. But point taken.
I do still believe that the transfer from Bakerloo to Northern line northbound (and vice versa southbound) will be a heavily used interchange post-extension regardless of its final length, so let’s all hope that connecting passage can cope!
Re Anonymously,
Agreed! It would be the interchange between an extended Bakerloo and the Bank Branch of the Northern so will be the main city access for those on the extended Bakerloo, the Charing Cross branch is a red herring. I suspect Tfl would want the interchange to be far better but not too good (cross platform).
@ngh
” It would be ……………..the main city access for those on the extended Bakerloo”
I would suggest that for anywhere other than the two OKR stations, the main city access would continue to be the one built in 1838. Non stop from New Cross to London Bridge, with Cannon Street one stop further. If the Bakerloo ever goes beyond Lewisham, changing there, rather than the Elephant, for the City would probably be a better bet, either for the SER or the DLR.
That depends if you can get on the Cannon Street service at New Cross or Lewisham… (or if you live south of New Cross Gate).
timbeau says ” I can’t imagine that they would be able to tunnel from the end of the over-run tunnels without …”
Well no. The tunnelling will surely be done with a TBM, which will start who-knows-where, but in a big hole somewhere on the line of the new tunnel. There is no prospect of carrying it in bits down the escalators!
The “insignificant” closure would be for breakthrough.
Someone might suggest reducing road truck movements by removing spoil by train from one end or the other. This would surely be problematic from either end, but I think the problems might be particularly severe if the Elephant end were chosen!
@ngh
Of course, but do you think you would stand a better chance at the Elephant? – especially after half of Surrey have switched from the Charlie Line* at Balham.
At least Lewishamites will have first dibs on space on the DLR………
*aka XR2
@timbeau….Nonetheless, it won’t stop them from trying anyway! It would be better if XR2 avoids the southern Northern line entirely, but let’s leave that discussion for another day ?
Re Anonymously,
But that was one of its main aims…
@Anonymously
“Nonetheless, it won’t stop them from trying anyway” [to change from BLE to Northern at Elephant]
They probably will try – once. Just as I tried calamari – once – and having tried it, resolved never to repeat the experience.
@ngh
“But that was one of its main aims”
Oh dear. No mention of it even as recently as the 2011 Route Utilisation Study. Its first appearance was in TfL’s response to the RUS (then a Tooting Twist rather than a Balham Bulge). But we are getting off topic.
The problem of North Kent Line and DLR options between Lewisham and The City is that Lewisham is at the end of the line (and Hayes extensions suggested faster journey times to Cannon Street post-BLE, even when you account for the Lewisham-Hayes journey time savings, suggesting that the change at Elephant was worthwhile). New Cross/NX Gate likewise. Old Kent Road to City traffic will go via Elephant whatever. However, putting in a Cross-Platform Interchange would encourage it as a route from New Cross and Lewisham to the Moorgate area, and so is troublesome even if it cost nothing to build it.
If they fix the problem of crush-loaded trains to the City on the Northern line, that is bad enough without CR2’s exacerbation of it, with another line roughly parallel, but with fewer stops (eg Balham – Brixton – Camberwell – Elephant & Castle – London Bridge – Tower – north), then you can put in a cross-platform interchange for the City at Elephant.
@timbeau…We’ve discussed this before, but if the Bakerloo gets extended all the way to Hayes, then I very much doubt as many people as you seem to think are going to traipse back to the surface at Lewisham to change for the City. A subsurface interchange to another tube line will always prove more attractive for passengers when given the choice, cross-platform or not. Besides, the surface rail trains from Lewisham to the city are likely to be just as packed as the Northern line ones, so why change there even if the overall journey might be slightly quicker?
This of course becomes rather academic if the line goes no further than Lewisham, but I reckon there will still be enough passengers interchanging at E&C to create a strain there without major work. The Victoria line is (in-)famous for being built at a budget cost, relatively speaking, and yet LT still built several cross platform interchanges at considerable cost and complexity (imagine the work they had to do at H&I and Finsbury Park!) to maximise interchanges along that line. Would it have been necessarily better if those interchanges had been through connecting passageways instead?
Anonymously compares CPI – as abundantly provided on the Victoria Line (and at Mile End, and other places) – with interchanges through passageways.
I think this is something where the pendulum may be swinging back slightly. A difficulty with some CPIs (cross-platform interchanges) is that disruption on one of the lines can rapidly provoke non-stopping on the other, to avoid dangerous platform overcrowding. This might happen eventually at any interchange, but the passageways and lobbies provide a bit of a buffer, which can sometimes delay the problem, hopefully while the disruption gets fixed. This is probably more of an issue now than it was in the 50s, when the Victoria line was designed, because of better understanding of some of the risk involved (and maybe more frequent disruptions too).
Anonymously refers to ” traips[ing] back to the surface”
Sure, where people decide to change will depend, among other things, on how easy the interchange is. But I don’t see the issue of surface versus underground as an intrinsic factor in this (except – obviously – if it actually makes the interchange longer). An interchange is an interchange; at (say) Highbury and Islington, people’s inclination to use the interchange is not particularly affected by whether or not “the surface” is involved.
It’s a bit reminiscent of the “tube” versus “other rail” issue. Nowadays, most people don’t care much. Which is as it should be, really.
“Traipsing back to the surface”
They are going to have to do it somewhere – whether they do it at Lewisham or at Bank will depend very much on the quality of the passenger environment. Indeed, I can imagine people may prefer to change at E&C in the morning (if SE trains are packed at Lewisham) and at Lewisham in the evening (as you are more likely to be able to get on a Lewisham-bound train at Cannon Street than at E&C).
For the same reason that I often change at Wimbledon to get Thameslink to City TL in the morning, but very rarely do the reverse in the evening.
Hi! Thank you for your informative analysis. Great level of detail. I was wondering if you had a projection, under the pace of current consultations and announcements, when we might expect a formal decision on the extension? I remember reading once that it would be summer 2016, but can find that source now. Cheers.
There will only be a decision announced if it is positive. And it is most unlikely that such a decision would be made until we have a new mayor.
@ Timbeau – I think it is worse than that. Reading the NIC report it clearly puts CR2 at the top of the shopping list and everything else is subservient to that. It also rejects the notion of any government funding being sought for a Bakerloo Line extension (BLE). Private funding / loans based on hypothecated fares revenue surplus seem to be the preferred ideas for the Bakerloo Line. Now accepting I am normally a horrible old cynic I am afraid I think the prospect of the Bakerloo Line extension is now about nil if, as I expect, the Mayoral candidates all endorse the NIC report. I can’t see a deal being put together to fund the Bakerloo Line extension and all the supporting works that will be required. There are also related problems like sufficiency of resource in TfL to push CR2 and BLE at broadly the same time. There will also be issues related to parliamentary time to a hybrid bill through plus supply chain issues – e.g tunnelling resource availability at an affordable price. If you try to schedule both works (CR2 / BLE) simultaneously there will be cost pressures which then affect funding and business case. Sorry to be gloomy but I think the great Boris hype about the BLE will be seen to be what it is – a load of spin about not much happening. While I’d like to see a radical tube based solution to transport issues in inner SE London I’ve long felt that Boris’s “promotion” of the BLE was an smoke screen exercise in deflecting long standing criticism of no action being taken to solve the area’s chronic public transport problems.
@WW….Well, let’s just wait and see how the mayorial candidates respond first before we jump to any conclusions. It might just mean that the extension doesn’t happen until CR2 is built (late 2020s+?). Plus I don’t see any long delay going down very well with the inhabitants and political representatives of Lambeth, Southwark and Lewisham……
@ Anonymously – well that’s me told! 😉 I agree a delay won’t go down well locally but what can they do? Nothing much.
Indeed – but note that not making a decision to build it is not the same as making a decision not to build it. So there may well be no announcement at all unless, and until funds are allocated to take it further.
I know very little about financing these kind of projects. What percentage of the cost of the BLE could be met by developer contributions from new housing between Elephant & Castle and Lewisham? The bubble on super luxury apartments will soon burst but there is still a market for normal, reasonably-priced ones.
Last weeks London Infrastructure saw several speaker discussing the subject of funding.
The bottom line I guess is that there is no “magic bullet”, development usually contributes little to financing infrastructure projects and it is difficult (and not really working in terms of time frame) to capture land value uplift.
There were suggestions to raise the council taxes and devote that raise to financing infrastructure projects.
Many people seemed to be against Sadiq Khan’s commitment (repeated by Mrs Shawcross) to freeze for 4 years TfL prices (precious to fund infrastructure projects).
A lot of enthusiam for all major infrastructure projects (CR2, TfN, BLE…) but few answers about funding them.
🙁
@ Hedgehog – I’m guessing but I would not expect very much to be raised directly from developers. Past S106 agreements might scrape a few million quid for transport issues but that gets you precisely nowhere in terms of building a tube extension. You need something else in terms of mechanisms that can pull in money in the future to fund borrowing today. However there must be limits to how many times politicians can suggest continuing Crossrail levies, raising council tax precepts, continuing the Olympics precept, hypothecating shares of future fare revenues etc etc. The problem with all of the above is that they have to run for decades in order to raise anything like a decent sum of money and all those revenue flows are dependent on the economy remaining bouyant and that won’t happen. Then where does the risk sit? Oh yes with TfL / City Hall / local authorities. Far far simpler to just fund it directly from the public sector than via overly complicated risky quasi private mechanims and yes I’m old unreconstructed person!
@WW….Perhaps you ought to have a quiet word with HM Treasury then ?.
It had been repeatedly drummed into me over the last few weeks by one side of the EU debate that we are the 5th largest economy in the world. If so, why do we find it so much more difficult to fund and build public infrastructure projects than other countries with economies of a similar size? Even NYC is finally managing to build an entire new Subway line (2nd Avenue Subway) from scratch, and don’t even get me started on what France and Germany have managed to do!
Anonly 17.31: I am not expert enough to deduce precise causes, still less to propose changes, but it does strike me that there is a particularly British (English?) politico-economic-financial culture that cannot justify the same investment as others. Judging by the routine media pronouncements, it appears to affect both public and private sectors. I cite the plaque on the door of 10 Downing Street* as evidence and – possibly – indicator of origin of this phenomenon.
*The prime minister of the UK is described as First Lord of the (monarch’s) Treasury and not, for example, the agent through which the people’s will is executed or equivalent.
@Anonymously
Let’s not get into a comparison discussion here about who’s fifth biggest, EU debate, or what France and Germany have managed to do please. We’ve been through the latter discourse and there is no point in discussing the first two. There are other online forums for that. LBM
A passing reference to the self-driving car is OK. Let’s take it as understood (from earlier discussions) that some people disagree, and not discuss the details here.
@Caspar Lucas – I can assure you, having worked with foreign governments from a wide variety of cultures that there is nothing particularly strange about UK financial practices. [To be sure, there are differences of detail but the intentions are much the same – for example, in Denmark, they prefer payback periods to DCF, and the Indians do not wish to consider such things as the value of time or life in appraisals, but appraisals they have].
I am not sure I would finger the Crown (not being Ian J) as the origin of Treasury control freakery. May I recommend that well-known C12 Treasury manual, the “Dialogus de Scaccario”, the opening sentence of which begins “I was sitting in the window of the Exchequer when I was approached by one who asked “Master, will you explain the mysteries of the Exchequer?” ” Says it all really.
Caspar Lucas 14 March 2016 at 18:00
*The prime minister of the UK is described as First Lord of the (monarch’s) Treasury and not, for example, the agent through which the people’s will is executed or equivalent.
Been there, three times, don’t recall seeing that.
@Alan Grffiths
http://media.gettyimages.com/photos/the-words-first-lord-of-the-treasury-sit-engraved-in-the-letterbox-of-picture-id466590390
5th biggest economy (by GDP) is not necessarily 5th richest anyway. The difference between turnover and profit.
Graham H
Modern English translation HERE
Enjoy!
@Greg T – thanks for the link. I’m sorry to say I used to own a copy when at University, but sold it before I realised what career path I would follow…
More Lewisham developments are speeding along. I’ve covered some on my blog. A 410 room student block beside the station is rising quickly, and Lewisham Gateway’s first two towers are nearly complete with the third now rising.
https://fromthemurkydepths.wordpress.com/2016/03/21/lewisham-developments-progressing-quickly/
The large scale estate renewel is proceeding just north of the station. Not great to read then that some doubt Bakerloo even by 2030!
I was wondering if any sort of survey had ever been carried out into employment destinations of Lewisham station users, and how that may impact on future demand?
Clearly if working at Canary Wharf then the DLR is the choice to take. If working in the City or West End then it’s Southeastern. I suppose some people take the DLR to Bank but at 27 minutes against around 12 minutes to Cannon Street it wouldn’t make sense.
Anyway, with a plethora of other big developments coming over the next 2 years alone in Lewisham, pressure will get worse. Ideally, in the short term SE could go for a completely 12-car metro network subject to some issues being overcome (within 5 years being very optimistic?), DLR gets a frequency and train length boost in the same timescale perhaps and Crossrail takes a few people off trains from the east. Though as that connects to the Greenwich line, which doesn’t see any trains from Abbey Wood or Woolwich Arsenal go through Lewisham anyway at peak times, respite may be limited. All that should buy 5-10 years. Without Bakerloo by 2030 something else will be needed. Crossrail 3 seems way off in the distance.
Graham,
those class 371’s you mentioned, according to this old Rail magazine, were intending to run at 125 mph? Were these intercity built stock then? Surely the Brush/GEC traction packages on the existing 465s couldn’t sustain 125?
Link here- http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RAIL-MAGAZINE-NO-162-CLASS-371-LEEDS-LOSES-EURO-TRAINS-ELY-FREIGHT-/161783039670
@ Fromthemurkydepths – I suspect any move to 12 car trains on the main line will take marginally longer than you suggest. This is based on South Eastern not really doing very much between now and 2018 when they will be booted off suburban services. Therefore you are looking to the TfL era and even if TfL start the procurement process in advance of the actual takeover then you are looking at over 3 years for even one extra train to turn up and be put into service. You might run ahead of that if Bombardier or Siemens have kept production lines “live” so they can offer Class 710s or Class 700s at a keen price with fairly quick production. However there may well be other nasties to deal with in terms of power, signalling and other infrastructure and then you’re on sticky territory about what Network Rail can actually deliver because you’ll be straddling CP5 / CP6 and the undoubted nightmare of how the heck anyone scopes and funds CP6. We already know a shedload of work has fallen out of CP5 into CP6 and that must place restrictions on what else can be added at shortish notice by TfL to underpin whatever they want to do to improve services on South Eastern inner suburban routes.
Sorry to be gloomy but I do feel it’s going to be really hard work to upgrade those routes. IIRC Ngh has said in the past that there is a bit of a bow wave of infrastructure works to be done once London Bridge has finished and they’re going to be first in the queue in terms of scope and design and the prospect of being funded / procured.
The real Bakerloo problem is Queen’s Park, it’s all very well saying you’ll increase the service frequency and put in new trains and new signals, but unless you can fix the turnaround time at QPK, or indeed at Stonebridge Park and Harrow & Wealdstone you are never going to fix the Bakerloo line frequency issue. Basically increased frequency is held back by the need to inspect the train to check its empty before it leaves the northbound platform, in order to turn around in a siding to come back south. The only solution, especially necessary at QPK is to change the platform allocations. The current northbound Overground platform, needs to also take the northbound Bakerloo trains, so that only Bakerloo terminators use the current Bakerloo northbound platform. This may or may not be possible with the current platform lengths and the way the Bakerloo trains emerge from their ramp out of tunnel, but it is the only way to fix the turnaround capacity issue.
Or the silly rule could be relaxed?
Or a scissors crossover at the south* end of the platforms?
* topologically – north geographically
BBC article on the Mayor’s 5-year plan for TfL says that “Improvements to the Tube network will see the Bakerloo line extended to Lewisham by 2029, two years earlier than expected.”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-38236327
Which is bad reporting as the Mayor’s 5-year plan does not mention bringing forward to 2029. I do wish the BBC would report accurately.
The correct but less dramatic story is that one of the items on the agenda for the next TfL board meeting is a paper on extending the Bakerloo line. A completion date of 2028/9 is suggested. 2029 would be only bringing it forward by one year.
More significant is the statement:
suggesting that the upgrade (NTfL) won’t be ready until then.
You might also note that in here, as in the draft 5-year plan, TfL and the Mayor no longer seem to be able to spell in British-English. A sad day.
New TfL Baker-Lewisham consultation launched today:
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/tube/bakerloo-extension/?cid=bakerloo-extension
with the (previous) preferred route:
Elephant and Castle
Old Kent Road 1
Old Kent Road 1
New Cross Gate
Lewisham
Old Kent Road 1 option B (Tesco) and Old Kent Road 2 option A (Canal bridge) would only be half a mile apart. Two and a half bus stops…
That cannot happen, right?
Re QRP,
Indeed that doesn’t make much sense. The other OK2 (Toy ‘R’ Us) option would be circa 1300+m from OKR 1 Tesco option and looks much more sensible but they would be wise to have 2 option for each of the OKR stations at this stage. (I reckon Tesco and Toy ‘R’ Us are the preferred site options in each case, the Toy ‘R’ Us option also makes it easier to avoid the HV electricity cable tunnels at New Cross Nat Grid substation (aka the former gas works which is actually a large exclusion in the opportunity areas not accurately shown on TfL maps).
The only interesting new things overall are at Lewisham:
1. Using the Bus stand area for the station so everything stays west of the NR Hither Green Lines is good for lowest construction risk.
2. Overrun tunnels finishing under LB Lewisham Wearside depot (used for Council vehicles) adjacent to the Hayes line for easy extension there later if desired.
3. 9 extra New tube for London units needed to run the extend service and the proposal is to store 4 in each overrun tunnel and 1 in Lewisham station overnight.
The background to consultation report mentions that consideration is being given to building a completely new Bakerloo station at Elephant and Castle, with the connection to the existing line somewhere between current E&C and Lambeth North. Would cross-platform interchange with the Northern Line be feasible?
Also, nine new trains would be needed for the extension and eight of these trains would be stabled in the overrun tunnel beyond Lewisham (which conveniently runs until right next to the Hayes line junction). The other one would be stabled in the platform at Lewisham.
Sorry, just saw that ngh already mentioned the stabling. Point being that there is no need to extend further than Lewisham just for the sake of getting to a depot.
Mighty long over-run tunnels. I reckon they will need to be at least 700m long, possibly more. Also they will have to have proper walkways to allow drivers of the stabled trains to exit or other staff to access the trains. I am hedging my bets as to the driving mode or modes.
Stabling trains in the overrun tunnels is not a substitute for a depot. Yes, declining need for regular inspections might make this feasible, but as 130 indicates, it is not cost-free. In fact for them to fulfil the intended role of overrun tunnels (making a Moorgate-type accident impossible), they should be left empty at all times. Yes, a dual role is possible if you do the risk calculations carefully, but justification is likely to be tricky. There is also the completely different risk of a won’t-start train blocking in up to three others, but perhaps such things are sufficiently rare these days.
However, where this stabling scheme wins hands down is that it avoids putting much of the cost of extra depot space on the current project, thus helping it to keep below whatever arbitrary limit has been set by a cheeseparing government diktat. A new depot can be built, or ordered, later, on someone else’s watch.
((Yes, it must be time for my pills)).
Re 130,
As it is post Bakerloo resignalling I bet some portion of driverless. With new E&C Bakerloo station, E&C to Lewisham would be an easy section to open as driverless and given the depot access is north of Lambeth North Lambeth North might be an useful add on if they decide not to go for Platform Edge Doors on the Queens Park to Waterloo section.
Proposed platform ends to proposed headhouse is 650m so the question is how much further beyond the headhouse they would go.
Re Ian J,
E&C station cross platform not a go-er (and out of fashion anyway due to rising passenger numbers) as the Bakerloo route needs to use either the existing over-run tunnel location under the shopping centre or the original under New Kent Road route to avoid deep foundations. New Bakerloo platforms would be far closer to the Northern platforms for better interchange.
Re Malcolm,
As it is just after panto season the answer is “oh yes it is”.
They aren’t over-run tunnels they are dual purpose extra long extended over-run tunnels (See similar on Northern Line Extension). The potential issue would only be at the 4th /5th trains stored per tunnel/track stage (only if the scissors crossing was North but not South or Both of Lewisham Station) at which point ATO sets a very low approach speed for the last 3 trains of the night into Lewisham. This arrangement is already used at Brixton and (if extra stock is acquired?) for future Northern at Battersea in both cases just 1 train stored per track beyond the platforms.
NTfL will probably have depot maintenance requirements lower than a third /quarter of the current Bakerloo stock so the issue isn’t depot space but simple stabling and longer tunnels are comparatively cheap compared to other options for more stabling especially if it is driver-less as option North of Queens Park wouldn’t be. There is no extra depot cost in the future unless there is a second extension and even then it would only be extra stabling cost.
On the Victoria Line there are now three trains that spend the night at Brixton, one that spends the night in the siding at Victoria and two that spend the night at Walthamstow Central.
The trend would seem to be for dealing with the increased number of trains by stabling some of them at night away from the depot, including in platforms, and passing through the depot during off-peak hours during the day.
I am pleased to see that the Lewisham overrun tunnels end right next to the Hayes line, making it the obvious candidate to extend over if and when this becomes feasible.
Of course, whether or not this happens partly rests on the forthcoming Kent RUS (anyone have any idea when this is due to come out?), in which we’ll find out just how keen/desperate NR are to rid themselves of the Hayes line and its services through Lewisham Spaghetti Junction.
Anyone willing at this early stage to suggest station names for the OKR stations? My own suggestions are to name them (running west to east) as ‘Bricklayers’ Arms’ and ‘Old Kent Road’.
As far as names for the two stations on Old Kent Road are concerned, Walworth North and Peckham North seem obvious but they’ll probably have some sort of horrible branded name!
Anonymously,
But, interestingly for me, the report only mentions Hayes once and then totally innocuously.
Assuming that there would still be some spare capacity – something on which I have severe doubts – then I would say the obvious candidate is central Catford with Ladywell Fields providing an almost ideal temporary work site.
@anonymously
However convenient for the operators, you can be sure there will be many people from Hayes, and even more from Ladywell, who would prefer 12 full size coaches every ten minutes over seven little ones every four, especially if some of them go to the City.
Are we certain to get two stations in Old Kent Road? OKR2 option A looks like a suitable site if only one station is built.
Suggested names: Walworth East (surely not North) and Hatcham.
I presume a scheme will be prepared for a new platform or platforms at Elephant to compare with the costs of modifying the current station whilst maintaining a service. The current line end was moved from New Kent Road to Walworth Road in 1940 in preparation for the Camberwell extension, so starting from there will give a circuitous route, whereas a new station could be aligned for Lewisham. A shorter, higher speed new route rather than via the old station could save a train or two. Running times to Lewisham will also depend on the exact route of the tunnels which can be planned when the shafts and stations are decided.
The existing E&C platforms could be retained for emergency reversing and overnight stabling, as currently. This would provide an ideal filming location like Charing Cross, just when Aldwych is to be isolated from trains by the Holborn rebuild.
Note only 27tph envisaged, unlike 36tph for Picc & Central, so no full-auto or platform doors were planned on the Bakerloo.
@Taz – And remember that as recently as 1972, the official LT Underground Guide quoted in particular “Intervals between trains” on the various lines, with 1½-2 minute intervals for the Bakerloo in and out of Elephant, which I reckon was some 35tph. That was, of course before the Jubilee Line and thus the Bakerloo still served both the Stanmore and Queen’s Park/Watford Junction branches splitting at Baker Street. I have a printed record stating that a 42tph turnaround was achieved during a pre-war trial period!
I believe that the present Bakerloo platforms at the Elephant are aligned with and thus underneath London Road, extending towards St. George’s Circus, so I wouldn’t expect any realignment there for any extended route. It’s the run-on tunnels, used until recently for stabling (note – no longer – one train is stabled in one of the platforms instead), that were realigned somewhat towards Walworth Road (for Camberwell).
I note that the proposed worksite at New Cross Gate takes up the whole of the current Sainsbury’s site. Now I’m being a little speculative here but this could provide the perfect opportunity to take back some of the railway land that was lost to the superstore and allow a redesign of the main line station which could be a necessity on account of it becoming a key interchange with the new line.
See here for more info:
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2014/new-cross-gate/
I am a bit amazed at how relatively straightforward and well defined this is.
Even the where will the EC station go- seems to be in there to make the consultation a bit more interesting…
Particularly when some of the questions are, would you like us to build a shaft next to a primary school or in the middle of bricklayers roundabout, or do you mind if we bulldoze this eyesore retail/storage unit.
Not to say I don’t think it’s worth asking.
Interesting that most tunnel spoil will go out via rail from NCG.
@PoP….As I’ve said before, you’re looking at the glass half-empty, whereas I’m looking at the glass half-full ?.
@timbeau…..We’ve discussed this to death before on this and other threads, so all I’ll add is:
– 12-car Hayes line trains every 10 minutes (!) are not going to appear for foreseeable future, especially now that TfL takeover has been shelved.
– Where is the hard (as opposed to anecdotal) evidence that Hayes line commuters would prefer this hypothetical service to a Tube service? Until someone produces this in the form of a survey etc., I remain to be convinced that this is indeed the case.
– What about those passengers using services impacted by the presence of Hayes trains north of Lewisham (e.g. from Orpington)? Wouldn’t their interests be better served by transferring the Hayes line away from the NR network?
Surely the argument for new platforms at Elephant would be to gain a trajectory that avoids the tightly curved S-bend to reach the shaft in Bricklayers roundabout or the site by Faraday Gardens. I cant’s see it being cheaper than shorter/straighter tunnels for a faster service though. They appear to have ruled out Nursery Row Park for a shaft. It’s a good thing if parks are a ‘no-no’ at the outset, as appears to be the case.
NickBxn….Yes,Patrick Abercrombie identified this area,in his 1943 Plan,as being deficient in open space…despite the building,at his suggestion,of Burgess Park,this remains the case,so it is a cause for relief that public open space is not regarded as the obvious choice for working sites any more.
About stabling trains in platforms. It is not of course any old platform – in most platforms they would be in the way of engineering trains. Typical suitable platforms are those at termini, plus extra platforms clear of running lines (e.g. Arnos Grove).
If things got really desperate, I suppose trains could be stabled all along one track, leaving the other one for that night’s engineers to play on.
I would assume most of you well-informed people have already noticed a second round of consultaiton started.
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/tube/bakerloo-extension/
Can’t wait to read your comments on the subject.
😀
Kalum,
The previous twenty or so comments prior to yours surely qualify.
In essence don’t expect much more than that. The current consultation is effectively filling in details – possibly of more interest at a local level – rather than revealing much new information.
The is very little that we can add that you wouldn’t learn from reading the consultation document.
Access to the overrun sidings at Lewisham could be from the station or the far end access shaft, so there’s only need to walk through two trains at most. With the new walk-through trains planned, that will be no problem. Anyway, the new tunnels will presumably be as large as the new Northern line to Battersea, which are almost as big as Crossrail, so plenty of room for a walkway. Consultation info confirms a crossover in the overrun tunnels, presumably before the last berth to avoid trains being trapped behind a dud. A similar track layout is planned for the new City Sidings to Moorgate Circle line, with access for crews from stations so no more than two trains to be walked through.
It is a pity that sufficient overrun tunnels were not planned for Battersea, where nine trains are also required but will have to come from Morden to provide the early morning northbound service from Kennington. Battersea will only hold two in the overruns and one in the platform, which means a slow service start-up until the first arrival from Golders Green 45 mins later. A full split of the Northern line branch services must therefore await additional stabling on the Battersea branch. The Northern line world class capacity paper pointed out that outstabling requires traction power modifications to allow over-night supply to such trains, and also requires signalling modifications to prevent losing train positioning when a train is powered down overnight.
I guess any extension beyond Lewisham would require less tunneling and therefore be achieved quicker, so could immediately follow on from this proposal although consultations would not need to start for some years. Barking Riverside consultation started in Autumn 2014 and is expected to open in 2021, although a new branch line must be built. Adapting existing lines would probably be quicker.
@taz
“Battersea will only hold two in the overruns and one in the platform, which means a slow service start-up until the first arrival from Golders Green 45 mins later. ”
Running time Golders Green to Kennington via CX is 26 minutes, so it is likely to be a lot less than 45 minutes to Battersea. And a frequency at that time of the morning of 10-15 minutes is not that unreasonable.
@timbeau The first arrival at Kennington via Charing Cross is just after 6am, then every 5 minutes. It would need to run on to Battersea before starting back. The first northbound, from Morden, is currently 5.37am, then every 7.5 mins. (Working timetable on TfL site.) So three trains to provide morning start up northbound won’t go far. Northern line world class capacity paper said needed nine trains from Morden to make up the difference.
@taz
A bit of arithmetic suggests that while three is not enough, you shouldn’t need as many as nine more.
To maintain an interval of 7.5 minutes from first train at about 0530 from Battersea (0537 at Kennington) until the first train from the north gets to Battersea at about 0615 would only require six or seven trains, including the three stabled at Battersea overnight – not twelve. So is the early morning frequency going to be greater than the current 8tph?
@timbeau Perhaps 12tph to match start southbound? Perhaps also to build NB frequencies for peak in same fashion. Would expect the future service to match growing demand.
timbeau, Taz
A bit off topic but the latest I heard was that they were seriously looking into providing a shuttle service between Battersea and Kennington at the start of start of the day which would at least link with the first trains coming up from Morden.
Trouble is this relies on running trains the “wrong way” around the Kennington loop and this presents various problems – not least that it is not currently signalled for workings in that direction. The Kennington loop would otherwise be largely redundant during normal operation as the intention is to eventually send all Charing Cross trains to Battersea Power Station. Earlier reported plans which suggested 30tph to Kennington and and 28tph to Battersea Power Station were in fact wrong and started off because a revised diagram wasn’t fully updated.
More relevant to the Bakerloo thread, partly due to the deep piles at Battersea Dogs & Cats Home (of the variety used in construction in unfavourable ground near a river) limiting the length of the overrun tunnels, they are also looking at storing trains at night in Nine Elms platforms rather than the overrun tunnels. It seems that this lesson has been taken on board with the Bakerloo line extension to build really long overrun tunnels rather than have to resort to measures such as storing trains in non-terminal operational stations overnight. Of course on the Bakerloo the tunnel boring machine can build the overrun tunnels and so this option is relatively cheap – on the Northern Line Extension the overrun tunnels have to be built by more expensive sprayed concrete lining since they are to the rear of the starting point of tunnel boring.
Whilst I haven’t thought though the implications, LU could exploit the inherent bidirectional capability of the TBTC signalling system to run a two train shuttle service on both roads until trains populate the branch from the north.
One of the implications would be that early passengers from Battersea Dog Station could only use the shuttles to change at Kennington and travel on the Bank branch. (Unless I’ve got it backwards). If normally the Charing Cross branch northbound is covered by trains starting at Battersea, then there will be no trains via Charing Cross until they stop messing about shuttling. Unless some trains from Morden are sent that way, but it all starts to get a bit fiddly.
Re running the wrong way round the Kennington Loop.
Seem to recall being told of this happening with an engineers train or something similar a few years ago. This meant that the airflow from the train was also in the reverse direction. Apparently it took quite a while for the dust that had built up in the lee of various in tunnel items (like tunnel segments !) to settle …
Re Malcolm,
The early trains out of Morden (till 0615 ish departing Morden) alternate between Bank and Charing Cross branches then start to mainly go to the Bank branch as enough services have made it down to the loop to run the Charing Cross branch.
Re PoP,
The ground conditions can’t be that bad if they have been able to use SCL! They could of course have gone for a deeper station (it is actually very shallow for a deep tube station) but a cunning manoeuvre to prevent an easy extension westwards.
[SCL is sprayed concrete lining. LBM]
ngh: Thanks for that. I should have looked at the timetable, or applied a bit more thought.
More generally, any problems with the first trains at Battersea are presumably mirrored with the last trains. But at that end of the day, it could be worse because the last hour of running – throughout the tube – has typically (I think) far more passengers per train that the first hour.
inherent bidirectional capability — I believe this wasn’t included for TfL to cut costs.
Taz: If inherent bidirectionality is a feature of the basic system, then should it not be possible to just include it locally where it happens to be needed, without paying for it to be included over the whole system?
ngh: Building the terminus station shallow need not be a cunning manoeuvre, necessarily. If you reckon that the line could never be extended westwards for other reasons (contentious, I know, but a not-unreasonable belief) then the shallower it is built the cheaper, if only because of shorter escalators, lift shafts and so on. It would also save a tiny bit of energy ever afterwards, as gravity would assist braking into the station and acceleration out of it. (Only a tiny bit because by the time this line opens, most braking energy, hopefully, will have eventually learnt how to get fully recovered).
Taz.. Other changes need need to be made to the railway, eg bi directional signs, and work to the track, to enablebi directional running; it is this cost that wasn’t incurred. On the main runs on Jubilee and Northern line, there is little or no benefit of bidi. TBTC is inherently bidi capable and it would have cost a significant sum to redesign the system to eliminate it.
100andthirty,
TBTC is inherently bidi capable and it would have cost a significant sum to redesign the system to eliminate it.
Yes but TBTC had no capability of supporting a loop and LU had to have this specifically added for the Northern line signalling upgrade. So, I suspect, bi-directional was specifically omitted from this add-on feature to cut costs as Taz suggests.
This is really not about the Bakerloo though.
@PoP
Are we saying that bidirectional operation is inherent in TBTC, but so is not having a loop? And in adapting it to accommodate the loop the bidi capability was lost?
Was it lost only on the loop, or on the entire line?
PoP, I would be very surprised if bidi was omitted from just this small section. It’s not the first time that Seltrac has been applied to a railway with a loop. Indeed the very first Seltrac installation has a loop, albeit no longer in use today.
Photos of the experimental tunnels at New Cross
https://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2017/07/05/photos-from-south-londons-forgotten-tube-tunnel-experiment/
First consultation report is out:
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/tube/bakerloo-extension/user_uploads/ble-consultation-report-final-1.pdf
The initial consultation report has been published. No great surprises, but interesting nevertheless.
[Link already provided. LBM]
The appendices are entertaining to see vastly far and wide the crayons were out regarding suggestions for alternative destinations.
For those wanting a laugh, it’s page 192 and on. The furthest specific location is Ebbsfleet… However one gave “Kent”, I can only assume this is that corner of Kent now in London.
Surprisingly few gave “Croydon” (generally or East Croydon) as their alternative destination, just 5…
@SHLR – yes, I enjoyed this display of crayonism.; I thought “A23” merited a special prize for vagueness,and I doubted if the inhabitants of Chislehurst, Orpington and Swanley would relish an hour or so on a Bakerloo train every day each way. Mocking apart, I thought the consultation was – as you might expect from TfL – well done, and in such a way that the answers , if not binary, at least helped narrow the choices. All we need now is the pelf…
@Graham H: We both missed Sevenoaks! Possibly even further than Ebbsfleet. Not quite sure how you’d get there, possibly via St. Mary Cray, Swanley and Otford?
Honourable mentions should also go to: Queen’s Park and Watford.
Ed’s: I’ll stop there….
@SHLR 🙂
In terms of OKR station sites – OKR 2B (the preferred option from the last consultation for OKR2) will soon be vacant whatever the result on the Toys’R’Us Company Voluntary Agreement (CVA) meeting later today.
The initial TfL response to consultations on the Bakeloo Extension proposals has now been published
p.47: “Can you remove the groundworks via the Ravensbourne River rather than road?”
–> lol
Genuine question which appears to be alluded to in TfL’s response – is the demolition of the Bricklayers’ Arms flyover being mooted? If so, why?
Quick summary –
-A station (not specifically itself) at Bricklayers Arms (site of shaft option ‘A’) is being considered in conjunction with wider plans of Old Kent road vision.
-OKR1 preferred location is Option ‘B’ (OKR/Dunton Road)
-OKR2 preferred location is Option ‘B’ (OKR/Asylum Road) (Possible consideration of a NR/Overground station link ???)
-Other stuff.
@Tim: Only by using some old DLR trains converted to freight use…. 😉
Bricklayers arms flyover doesn’t have that ‘liveable’ street feel, so you could probably engineer it out as part of an OKR master plan. its going to go at some point so might as well do it when you have the biggest freedom to re-design the whole surrounding area?
The new overground station is Surrey Canal Road, but a bit confused about that, as i don’t think that would be a national rail station and its a fair way from Asylum road, which would be much closer to QRP…
@ Hayes Cyclist – any station served by London Overground is effectively on the National Rail network although some stns are run by London Underground (e.g Highbury) or Network Rail (Liv St / Euston) rather than a TOC. Despite TfL’s huge efforts to pretend that the Overground routes and Crossrail are nothing to do with National Rail they absolutely are part of the network. All the usual regulations and obligations apply on these concession contracts – it is just that TfL specify and fund the services. TfL and MTR Crossrail have had to comply with the regulatory and licensing requirements for the new Crossrail core. If the station at Surrey Canal Road is ever built then it will certainly be part of the National Rail network.
On the Bricklayer’s Arms issue then yes TfL are not fans of old style urban flyovers and will happily get rid of them if conditions permit. I’d not be surprised to see the Bricklayers Arms one go if the BLE is ever built.
@WW. I stand corrected! Makes perfect sense.
Two petitions for Bricklayers Arms station probably made them look again. That’s the point of public consultation.
Updated response to consultation just issued by Tfl
Here for inspection
Potential re-realignment of the tunnels at Elephant? Definitely no new station at BA.
Ben,
The problem was that no-one safeguarded the ideal alignment soon enough. When they built Elephant Park (housing) with deep piled foundations the sensible route was blocked. So the options were to go around the piled area or rebuild and realign the platforms.
I am presuming they have decided to realign the platforms at E&C so they can take a straighter route.
I did wonder if the straighter route might actually reduce costs despite more tunnel and additional platforms, due to the removal of the additional shaft?
Or, more likely, the cost is not increased as much as it would initially seem.
This is just my musing though, I have no facts to back it up.
http://districtdavesforum.co.uk/thread/24028/original-tunnel-alignment-elephant-castle
These original tunnels are shown on carto metro. The current over-run tunnels (actually sidings) were built on a new alignment in 1940 in anticipation of extension to Camberwell. Could the original tunnels be used or is the plan to go on yet a third alignment?
See also here
https://www.londonreconnections.com/2014/haykerloo-bakerlewisham/#comment-251033
(comments on c 31st July 2015)
There would be a big advantage of building new platforms if this enables the existing ones to remain operational throughout the construction period, and provides better step-free access int he long run. Curtailing the line to Lambeth North for a few years probably wouldn’t appeal either. The alignment through the existing overrun would also create a massive S-bend to reach Old Kent Road (adding to journey times /slower running speed), and the requisite shaft site located between a primary school and a Grade I listed church created a lot of opposition during the options consultation.
@PoP in the extension’s self-financing property schemes surely relocating the London Road depot from a valuable Lambeth site is worthy of mention.
Two new points from the updated consultation report:
– The new Bakerloo station at Elephant and Castle would use the new ticket hall to be built at the Northern Line station as part of the shopping centre redevelopment. TfL have confirmed the new ticket hall could cope with the passenger flows both lines so that must be a reasonable cost saving. I think that the new Northern Line station is already funded, with the developer building the station box and TfL allocating £130m from the Growth Fund.
– They are considering replacing the launch shaft at the end of the over-run tunnels at Lewisham with a “train reversing and stabling facility” at the same location (the Lewisham Council depot off Wearside Road). This would apparently allow a higher train frequency. It is not clear whether the facility would be underground or on the surface, but it would require a larger area of land than the shaft.
Aleks,
I am not aware of any plans to relocate London Road Depot and would be very surprised if there were. As the Bakerloo Line extension consultation shows they are desperate for all the train stabling space they can get. Abandoning London Road depot wouldn’t make any kind of sense. If you could replace it I suspect it would cost far more than keeping what you already have.
I think you must be confusing this with oversite development plans which have been around for a long time and make far more sense – but never seem to get anywhere.
The to-be-abandoned platforms and tracks at Elephant line up very well with the Aldwych branch. Future North-South line?
Just a forewarning for ~10 years time coloured wax dot-to-dot drawings. At least it isn’t as totally absurd as Charing X Jubilee platforms – Aldwych Piccadilly platforms, which did the rounds in the 15-20 years after they closed.
SI,
Lets kill this one dead now and point out that short shuttles underground tend to be very unsuccessful due to lack of use and rolling stock and staffing inefficiencies as much of the time is spent waiting at terminals. Ask Berliners about the three station U55 line.
The Waterloo & City is an absolute exception for various reasons – most notably that it links a very busy rail terminal and an area where there is an incredibly high density of jobs. Elephant & Castle – Aldwych doesn’t quite fit the bill.
@PoP
My post wasn’t meant to be even a semi-serious proposal, but an annoyance at future crayonista plans I could see coming. Sadly the fake “sponsored by Crayola” tags I put on it were eaten.
So, absolutely – let’s try and stop it becoming even an embryonic not-a-joke, by applying a prophylactic “this is infantile joining dots with a wax crayon”.
PoP
Except that, as I found out a week-&-a-half back, because Unter den Linden & a couple of places zwischen there & Alexanderplatz are holes in the ground as U5 is extended from the last-named through to the current SE terminus of U55 @ Brandenburger Tor, thus “joining up the dots”, for properly useful service.
Let’s not talk about the continuing absence of any rail service to Tegel, shall we?
Greg Tingey,
Yes, I know that. But that emphasises my point rather than diminishes it. As a three station temporary service it was hardly used as all. Once it is incorporated into an extended U5 it is expected to be very busy indeed.
All emphasising the fact that one shouldn’t normally waste time with short shuttle services – with few exceptions. It is rare that one can justify the tunnelling cost to achieve it.
Greg T….Isn’t Tegal supposed to be replaced by Brandenberg? (Light the blue touch paper and retire to a safe place)
@ Greg
The absence of the link to Tegel is because it closed in 2012 and was replaced by the shiny new airport (or not). Which somewhat puts the Crossrail delays into perspective!
@Herned
I think you are confusing Tegel (still open) with Tempelhof (closed in 2008).
Perhaps the wider point about extending is that, even if a viable longer route existed that could make use of the abandoned infrastructure, it would usually make sense to start afresh. (counter-example: Connaught tunnel)
Having just been there, I am quite aware that Tempelhof is closed. I mean to go next time for the architecture, though.
Partly it’s tied into the insanity of Berlin Brandenburg/Willy Brandt / Schönefeld airport & it’s (at present) 11-year over-run.
Tegel was also supposed to close, so they didn’t proceed with the U-Bahn extension ( U-5 through from Hauptbahnhof IIRC ) … & then the new airport still wasn’t open.
Now, there are many calls for Tegel to remain open, with the Berlin / Brandenburg / National authorities at odds as to what to do next ( Two want to keep it, but one still wants to close it ) – & so, still no U-Bahn line.
Normally, when the Germans do things, it is with “Teutonic efficiency”, but, when they screw up, they also do that with …. you get the idea?
@Answer 42
No, not confused, I didn’t point out the sarcasm clearly enough. I was referencing the ongoing issues with the shiny new airport, as mentioned by Greg above
The new Berlin airport terminal (akin to current Gatwick expansion plans rather than a wholly new airport) puts Crossrail in very different league for how late can you go before someone says the Emperors has got no clothes. In this case it was some British engineers doing the certification work about 29 days before opening who raised the alarm (the fire alarm and control system being a big part of the problems). Lots of now “ex” construction firms had been brown paper enveloping which worked until the Brits arrived to start checking.
It is currently only 6y 11m delayed but will be about 11y before completion. The Ryanair terminal approved in June 2018 is likely to open first!
The German equivalent of the ORR has also proved to be very useful and politically unbendable as they are still asking to see the airflow calculations for trains entering / leaving / passing through the station at line speed and how the smoke extraction system will work (knowing full well it won’t and the calculations don’t exist). Siemens still complaining that they haven’t had the same calculation data to do the extraction system software yet.
If the architects hadn’t wanted a certain aesthetic and to defy the laws of physics (hot air rising) then it would have been completed years ago.
A new Bakerloo extension consultation…
“We are proposing to extend the Bakerloo line beyond Elephant & Castle to Lewisham, serving Old Kent Road and New Cross Gate.
We are also considering a second phase of the extension beyond Lewisham to Hayes and Beckenham Junction, involving a conversion of the National Rail line via Catford to Hayes to London Underground operation.”
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/tube/bakerloo-extension/
The new stabling location at the end of phase one makes sense:
“The end of the new section of line is proposed as the Wearside Road Council depot site, where empty trains would be stabled.”
The 3rd consultation is open to 22 Dec 2019.
Can someone remind me why the Bakerloo Line can share with full-sized train services between Queens Park and Harrow & Wealdstone, but the idea of doing it between Ladywell and Hayes (and Beckham Junction) is not being considered?
Probably because it’s already an operational nightmare having interfaces with a ‘foreign’ system at one end. Both ends would make signalling and timetabling as complex as crossrail – it removes the ‘simplicity’ of individual tube lines being (ideally) self-contained, and also because the disability accessibility requirements are much stricter for new infrastructure than for pre-existing stuff.
The idea of taking over to Hayes is to release existing paths for other destinations.
“Grandfather rights” – exempting existing practitioners from having to meet a new requirement. For example vehicles built before the mandatory fitting of seat belts, catalytic converters etc to new cars do not have to be retro-fitted.
I guess my pointing in asking is … there only seems to be one reasonable objection to extending the Bakerloo to Hayes/Beckenham Junction, which is that some people are quite keen on having a comfortable seat to take them to somewhere in the City.
These people look at the Bakerloo operation and see that, rather than catching a full-size and empty train at the start of their commute, they are going to compete with the rest of south-east London to fit into trains at Lewisham station, which will be a non-trivial change.
I agree with TAZ about getting more paths, but it might be possible to get these commuters on-board with Bakerloo Line operations if the service could slip in 3 or 4 trains an hour during the morning and evening peaks.
The Bakerloo line service does rather thin out at the other end of the line, so it’s not like the proposal would be running 24tph down to Hayes.
Yes, it means that the stations couldn’t be step-free 100% of the time, that is a huge problem, but the Watford-Euston Overground trains that share the northern end of the Bakerloo the manage to run OK with their 3tph all day.
If it were me, I would say upgrade it all to step-free and hope the new trains (by then) on the Bakerloo would do wonders for commuters with their access to the west end. But it is worth scuppering a useful idea because the front-facing-city-commuter guy objects loudly?
One thing that would be lost if the Hayes Line transferred to the Bakerloo would be the diversionary routing from Beckenham Junction to Nunhead. With increasing use of the Catford Loop for stopping services the use of that line has become a little less flexible.
I have been on trains between Bromley South and both Blackfriars and Victoria that have been routed via the Hayes Line when there were problems in Sydenham Tunnel on the main line. There have, in the past, also been timetabled services from Orpington into London calling at Beckenham Junction and then using the Hayes Line.
TfL’s plans to Turn South London Orange would lose valuable flexibility, essential if they are to co-exist with SouthEastern services into Kent, by giving up the line to the Bakerloo. Whether the train path saving between Lewisham and London Bridge outweighs that loss would require careful consideration.
Is there another option to Hayes? Hither Green is now flagged as a possible work site for launching tunnelling machines. So if it was, and rather than abandoning the tunnel to Wearside Road, why not extend south, mainly on the surface at the edge of the Grove Park sidings, to link to the Bromley North branch? In turn, this could be extended southwarsd, but in tunnel, to Bromley South. Just a thought!
The only benefit I would see from the Bakerloo taking over the Hayes line would be a night tube service for the area. Neither Brixton or New Cross is much use, being at least a night bus away from Bromley/Beckenham
@Peterr a link from Bromley North through Bromley South was first mooted over a hundred years ago (London’s Local Railways. Alan A Jackson. David & Charles, 1978) and as an idea I’d be in favour, but I’m afraid that it is now in the realm of crayons.
Bromley contingent
The only realistic alteration to the Bromley N branch is as part of Tramlink, coming in from the S, running through the shopping centre & up to Grove Park
[Small snip for tone. PoP]
Alternatives to Hayes considered here:
https://consultations.tfl.gov.uk/tube/bakerloo-extension/user_uploads/summary-report-further-extension-hayes-beckenham.pdf
I am a bit baffled by how the document referenced by Taz works out (figure 3) that converting to tube will lead to a 3 minute saving of journeys from Hayes to Cannon St.
If, by some miracle, it is achieved by a reduction in dwell time then it is also rather misleading as it would only apply to Hayes. Benefits up the line would be less and would have evaporated by Catford Bridge – the busiest station on the line.
Alternatively, it could be plausible if comparing with the proposed Hayes service in the aborted re-franchising which would not directly serve Cannon St. The trouble with that explanation is that it is quite clear that the document is comparing it against the existing service (para 3.16).
I also note that para 3.1.6 states
Could there be a reason that the longer trains are used for the Cannon St services?
PeterR, Bromley Contingent
Apart from a very limited real-world benefit, the idea of tunnelling from Bromley North to Bromley South is not really very practical due the considerable difference in elevation (even more so when actual platform elevation is taken into account rather than the entrance).
Yes, it was proposed more than 100 years ago but then so were many other bonkers schemes.
All covered a long while back in 2013 in The past and future of the Bromley North-branch.
Brain Butterworth
If it were me, I would say upgrade it all to step-free and hope the new trains (by then) on the Bakerloo would do wonders for commuters with their access to the west end. But it is worth scuppering a useful idea because the front-facing-city-commuter guy objects loudly?
I speak as someone who grew up in the area and our family used the line a lot for both commuting and leisure. ‘The front-facing-city-commuter-guy’ phrase does not do justice to typical users – at least in the past. The line was dominated by city types, male and female. Historically the Cannon St peak-hour trains were always busier due to the suburban area served being a major supplier of city labour. Even the Charing Cross trains would contain a significant portion of people who would alight at London Bridge station and walk over the bridge to get to the city.
So, personally, I think the answer to your question is “yes”. My one caveat is that I have not lived in the area for a long time so my suppositions may be outdated – but I doubt it.
PoP @ 09.46
That paragraph 3.1.6 has managed to invent a new kind of train anyway, as five-car 376s cannot form trains of 12 cars…
If something as simple as this is wrong, then together with your 3-minute-saving example, how much more of the document must be open to question?
PoP I don’t know what the journey times are, so this comment could be rubbish, but is it possible TfL is comparing generalised journey time (including average wait for next train), rather than actual travelling time, so that it is the shorter average wait for the more frequent tube that is generating the quicker journey? (I’m guessing based on the reference to frequency in the paragraph above the figure.)
@PoP: Living in a similar area as Hayes, just slightly further SE, I would say that your suppositions are still valid.
I didn’t think the Hayes branch had any 12 coach trains? I must read this again….
Re PoP @0951,
Hayes – The Cannon Street (CST) longer 12car and Charing Cross (CHX) shorter 8/10car is a mix of via Lewisham or not, the platform length issues at Charing Cross where 12car 465 effectively isn’t an option as the 12car capacity is focused on long distance services and a limited amount of stock overall.
Also not mentioned is how long the hayes line would have to be closed for while conversion takes place. During this period there would be no service at all for Hayes line passengers.
When the East London Line was converted to 3rd rail it was closed for (what I thought was) a surprisingly long time. But maybe this included other works that might not be necassary in this scenario?
Didn’t the East London Line conversion incorporate complete renovation of the Thames Tunnel? Hopefully the Hayes-line infrastructure is in better nick.
@Peterr:
Hither Green is now flagged as a possible work site for launching tunnelling machines
Flagged in the sense of “we want to use New Cross Gate Sainsburys as our worksite but need to show we have considered all possibilities, so here is a report showing why Hither Green and Catford, the only two other possible sites, are less suitable”.
@PoP: If, by some miracle, it is achieved by a reduction in dwell time then it is also rather misleading as it would only apply to Hayes. Benefits up the line would be less and would have evaporated by Catford Bridge – the busiest station on the line.
The comparison is with the current journey time of 46 mins Hayes to Cannon St in the morning peak. The document refers to “the faster breaking [sic] and acceleration capabilities of modern Bakerloo Line trains” (presumably NTfLs with ATO), which they imply would be 6 minutes faster Hayes to Lewisham and 2 minutes faster Catford Bridge to Lewisham – so as you say the time advantage is much more for Hayes than for Catford Bridge where the 2 minutes wouldn’t be enough to compensate for the need to change at Lewisham.
I suspect ATO is responsible for much of the journey time gain which is a little misleading as in principle similar technology could be applied to the existing service anyway.
DJL 24 October 2019 at 17:03
“When the East London Line was converted to 3rd rail it was closed for (what I thought was) a surprisingly long time.”
Work was just about to begin in the Thames tunnel, when Historic England very belatedly decided it wasn’t acceptable.
@IAN J
I agree, comparing journey times from the NTfL to the existing Southeastern trains is misleading, as by the time any of this happens they will be replace by new stock, presumably with faster acceleration AND wider door openings and gangways than the Networkers to reduce dwell time.
A question re costs, or rather accounting. This doesn’t apply just to the Bakerloo line though… Does anyone know how the land purchased for the project which is then sold on once construction is finished is accounted for? i.e. does the theoretical resale value, with some sort of discounting factor get deducted from the property cost, or does the accounting assume a zero value for this, as it is an unknown?
“Transport for London (TfL) is exploring the possibility of taxing landowners along the proposed Bakerloo line extension route to fund the £3.1bn project, New Civil Engineer can reveal. TfL is carrying out a land value exercise to determine how much landowners along the route stand to benefit from the extension.
“A TfL spokesperson said: “We are working with the mayor to make the case for steady and sustained investment in vital transport projects in London, such as the Bakerloo Line Extension and Upgrade. We are exploring all options in order to fund infrastructure projects to support the growth of London, including capturing a proportion of the land value that those projects would generate.”
“Former Greater London Assembly Labour member Murad Qureshi believes a levy on local landowners is the only feasible way to fund the project.
““I am completely signed up to the extension of the Bakerloo line beyond Elephant & Castle to Lewisham and even further but l also think we need to upgrade the whole of the Bakerloo line and fund the project with a levy on surrounding land of the extension, as it’s unlikely to attract grants from central government in the political climate for up to the next 10 years,” Qureshi wrote on his website…
“He added: “Assuming the enhanced land value is greater than the build cost of the Bakerloo extension a land levy should be introduced and be applied to the whole of the catchment area of the new extension with no need for contributions from existing taxpayers.”
“TfL has previously used levies to fund projects, such as the £4.1bn raised through its supplementary business rate on large commercial properties within the Greater London Area, which went towards funding Crossrail.”
LBM
Including on private householders in the area?
THAT will go down like a Lead Balloon, I can assure you.
If it applies to “commercial” properties only, then maybe….
Commercial taxes in London are already totally divorced from reality, especially for small businesses, so I doubt this will be very popular, but nobody cares about small businesses as they don’t get a vote and they don’t have much lobbying power. The commercial rating system needs a complete overhaul, but then so do local government taxation powers in general.