In many ways the DLR’s story so far is one of five stages – expansion, stagnation, Olympic revival, further stagnation and consolidation. We are now in the transient stage between the last of those two. With timetable and other changes coming, it seems a good idea to turn our eye to London’s premier piece of light rail once again. In a later piece we will look at expected developments for the future.
Whilst some familiarity with the DLR is presumed, we do not expect that readers will necessarily be familiar with its exact workings. Conveniently for this narrative the imminent changes will have more of an impact on one route in particular, whilst longer term changes will affect other routes. So here we focus on the route between Stratford and Canary Wharf. In part two we will look at the routes via Canning Town, and talk of consolidation and intensification.
The Time of expansion
A rare example of a current photo that could have been taken at the time of the DLR opening. Approaching Bow Church station from the north
The expansionist phase of the DLR’s operational life lasted a remarkably long time. From its opening day it seemed as if endless expansion was in the offing, with one extension opening after another. All things, however, must end. In 2011 the extension from Canning Town to Stratford International opened and in the aftermath, for the first time ever in the DLR’s history, no further extension was being actively pursued. This hadn’t originally been the plan – there had been an extension to Dagenham Dock in the works but this had been cancelled by the Mayor in November 2008.
It wasn’t just the length of the network that had expanded. Considerable upgrade works had taken place to allow three-car trains with each of the cars articulated and 28 metres long (excluding coupler). At the time much was made of the fact that a 3-car DLR train was almost as long as a Circle line train, with about the same amount of passenger area. The message seemed to be that the DLR was not a lightweight railway and its potential was just as great as the Underground.
One thing the DLR particularly had going for it in its later expansion phase was a modern reliable signalling system and and advanced form of Automatic Train Operation (ATO). This at a time when the nearest equivalent on the London Underground was on the Victoria line, which then had a very crude form of ATO dating from the 1960s. In other words, unlike the London Underground at the time (and to a large extent now), the expansion of the DLR was not hampered by signalling capability.
Stagnation
The change in approach to the DLR probably happened early on in the financial crisis of 2007-2008 with the Mayor’s cancellation of the proposed extension to Dagenham Dock. The extension relied on a large new housing development, which was clearly not going to happen on the scale (physical or temporal) previously anticipated. The momentum had gone out of that expansion project.
This wasn’t to say that all expansion work ended. The extension to Stratford International, planned long before London was selected to host the Olympic Games, was opened much later than intended but still in plenty of time for the Olympics itself. Other extension plans were much more ambitious though and required capital spending that simply was not going to happen in the newly austere financial climate.
Alongside this a new constraint began to play an increasingly problematic part. Lengthening trains beyond 3-cars was going to be very difficult and very expensive to do. Expansion wasn’t a such a good idea if the existing network would have problems in future just handling the extra traffic that would build up on existing routes. In many ways the DLR was hitting the apparent limit of its scalability.
Olympic Revival
The Olympic Delivery Authority was probably the first in a series of fairy godmothers that turned up to assist the DLR once operational. Of course one could argue that the first fairy godmother was the London Docklands Development Corporation that led to the creation of the DLR in the first place.
With its incredible connections to many of the Olympic sites – most notably Stratford, Excel and Greenwich – the DLR was clearly going to need investment in new trains. It would also be necessary to replace and supplement a lot of equipment to ensure a very high degree of reliability. At a time when new additional rolling stock was badly needed but TfL was already committed to other large expenditure capital projects the intervention of the Olympic Delivery Authority was a very welcome one indeed for the DLR.
Further stagnation
The downside of the Olympic fillip was that once the Olympics were over it was back to business as usual. There was little money available for any expansion and little appetite for it anyway. Even finding money to maintain the existing quality of service seemed to be a low priority compared to other TfL schemes – most notable the development of London Overground. The London Overground, like the Underground, was lengthening its trains. Yet again this helped reinforce a feeling that, as far as development potential goes, the DLR had seen its day.
The only problem was that the one thing that was definitely not stagnating was passenger numbers. In the past year alone passenger journey numbers on the DLR have gone up a staggering 8.5% – compare that with a rise on London Underground of “only” 3.2%. There is no reason to believe that this was freak year and until Crossrail gives a small temporary respite, passenger journey numbers are expected to climb even more.
The need for Short Term Measures
Recent DLR announcement. Shame about the grammar.
Although a progressive series of measures to improve the DLR had been promised with the awarding of the most recent franchise, it came as a bit of a surprise to discover that that a recent announcement informs us of “Improved frequency and capacity on many DLR services”. Given that there is no more rolling stock, this would appear to be quite difficult to achieve.
A look at the finer details of the new timetable seems to suggest this is the start of a shuffling of services towards a final settled service pattern. Of particular importance in this timetable is the elimination of an operational restriction that has held back the DLR for many years.
A simple, stable but flexible network
The DLR network is very flexible and has some quite complex junctions in order to be able to run a frequent service on many lines without too much conflict between trains. The permutation of services that can be run must be quite considerable but over the years the network has settled down to offer six basic services – although not all of them run all day or every day of the week. During times of disruption or engineering work other routes, such as Woolwich Arsenal to Lewisham, have been run.
In a similar manner to London Underground the service is moving towards a simple peak or off-peak service. However, the morning peak service isn’t quite the same as the evening peak and there is also a revised service when a significant event takes place at Excel.
The City routes
DLR routes to the City
To try and make sense of the DLR service structure it is probably easiest to first look at the routes that serve the City. The City is approached from the Canary Wharf/Poplar area by a double track line on an old previously-disused railway viaduct running in approximately an East – West direction. Situated on this viaduct are three stations – Shadwell, Limehouse and Westferry.
The line between Westferry and Shadwell is the most intensively used on the DLR with 30tph – a train every two minutes in peak hours. There are three services that use this section
- Bank – Lewisham (every 4 minutes)
- Bank – Woolwich Arsenal (every 8 minutes)
- Tower Gateway – Beckton (every 8 minutes)
On the diagram above (and in future diagrams) each line represents 7.5tph or a train every eight minutes during the peak period. Because of the way that the DLR now works that line also represents 6tph or a train every ten minutes during the off-peak period. So between Bank and Lewisham there are 15tph in the peaks and 12tph off-peak. Like the Underground, the DLR now tends to run at least 80% of the peak level service in the off-peak period.
It is fairly important that these trains are 3-car trains during the peak rather than 2-car. This is due to heavy passenger demand at Bank. This, of course, does not apply to the Tower Gateway service but as these trains are currently the only ones that serve the Beckton branch in peak hours they really need to be 3-cars long as well. The busiest route, between Bank and Lewisham, has 3-car trains seven days a week whereas currently the other two routes do revert to 2-cars at less busy times.
Shadwell station
Attention tends to focus on the termini in the city but doing so is a mistake. For it is easy to overlook the importance of Shadwell station, not only for origin and destination traffic but also as interchange with the East London Line, and for its position as the final station before the line diverges to serve either Bank or Tower Gateway. Although the island platform is fairly wide it is only really just about adequate to cater for the current level of use. According to the Transport Supporting Paper of the Mayor’s 2050 vision, 25% of the trains go to Tower Gateway but only 10% of the passengers and presumably a lot of people change at Shadwell to minimise the length of time they are in an extremely crowded train. So, as well as the steady trickle of people entering the station, it has to cater for a large number of people alighting at the same time to change trains there.
Both Limehouse and Westferry stations were substantially rebuilt when they were extended as part of the 3-car scheme. Shadwell has been steadily enhanced rather than rebuilt despite being much busier than the other two stations. There was vague talk of rebuilding Shadwell station slightly to the west of its current location. This would make it closer to the other Shadwell (East London Line) station as well as allowing it to be rebuilt to a size and standard more appropriate to current usage.
This currently seems unlikely, however, as Shadwell is not one of the DLR stations proposed to be upgraded in the Mayor’s 2050 Vision Transport Supporting Paper. A large Network Rail 33kV substation has also now been built on the site of the former station building of Shadwell Underground station. More than anything else, this substation has probably killed off any chance of a future combined Shadwell station.
New entrance to Shadwell
With little prospect of a new Shadwell station, the existing one has not been forgotten and has recently had its emergency exit at its eastern end upgraded to a second entrance and exit. This will be more convenient for some locals and should reduce overcrowding at the original entrance. It is also a very pragmatic decision because the former emergency exit did sometimes get used by some people as a short cut to exit the station anyway. Completion of this new entrance means that Shadwell, Limehouse and Westferry stations are all double-ended. This is something one would initially hardly think necessary with the DLR and is something one tends to associate more with Crossrail.
The oddball route: Stratford – Canary Wharf – Lewisham
We now look at the fourth route on the DLR. This is a relatively short but busy one from Stratford (regional) to Canary Wharf. It is the only route that varies between morning and evening peak hours with half the trains extended to Lewisham in the morning peak but none in the evening peak. It is also the only route on the DLR with single track sections which obviously make it more difficult to run a frequent service. The single track sections are between Bow Church and Pudding Mill Lane and between Pudding Mill Lane and Stratford.
Stratford – Canary Wharf extended to Lewisham in the morning peak only
The route between Stratford and Canary Wharf is self-contained and does not share track with trains on any other route. In many ways therefore it is a pity that trains are extended to Lewisham in the morning peak as this means it is dependent on what happens elsewhere on the network.
While all of the DLR has seen remarkable growth the Stratford – Canary Wharf route is exceptional, even by DLR standards. It started off as a ten-minute service of single car trains between a single short bay platform at Stratford and the Island Gardens terminus. Originally it was entirely single track between Bow Church and the single platform at Stratford. As traffic grew that single platform at Stratford became quite a problem because of the number of people boarding and alighting.
In the intervening period since opening the narrow single platform terminus at Stratford had been replaced by a wide double sided platform capable of holding three car trains. A short passing loop was also added at Pudding Mill Lane and a fairly cramped station with an island platform was subsequently built at that location.
Whilst the combination of the short passing loop and the two platform terminus allowed a more frequent service it was still very restrictive. A 5 minute interval was the best that could be realistically managed in the most favourable conditions and, for various reasons, a 6 minute interval was considered a more realistic minimum headway. Despite the millions already spent on the DLR east of Bow Church it seemed that yet more money needed to be spent to provide an adequate service.
Pudding Mill Lane station
Whilst Pudding Mill Lane was (and is) generally an exceptionally quiet station, it became clear before the Olympic Games that it would have to be closed during the games as it would be unable to handle the large crowds who would then want to use it. It was also clear that, if the planned sporting legacy use for the Olympic site were to come to fruition and Pudding Mill Lane station was to be a part of that plan, the station would have to be rebuilt to handle large crowds.
Approach to Pudding Mill Lane from the east
The second fairy-godmother to come along and help the DLR was Crossrail. The original site of Pudding Mill Lane was exactly where Crossrail wanted to build a tunnel portal. So Crossrail built a bigger and better Pudding Mill Lane station just to the south of the previous one. This opened in April 2014. The diverted route was required to have double tracking through the station (as before) and provision for double track throughout the diverted route. By paying Crossrail for the additional cost of installing more double track than originally intended on the eastern side, the DLR got not only a new station large enough to handle sports events in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park but also a reduction in the length of single track between Pudding Mill Lane and Stratford.
At the time of opening TfL issued a press release promising improvements in the future but offering nothing at the time. In particular the press release stated that:
Completion of the double tracking work at both ends of the site has enabled a capacity of 6,600 passengers per hour in each direction. The current frequency of ten DLR trains per hour delivers a capacity of 5,500 passengers per hour in each direction.
A crucial 4 minute frequency
We have already seen that the busy route to Lewisham has a train every 4 minutes to and from Bank and some morning peak period trains from Stratford are extended from Canary Wharf to Lewisham. It follows that if trains are to run from Stratford to Lewisham then these trains have to be spaced apart by 4 minutes or a multiple of 4 minutes to fit in the gap between the Lewisham – Bank trains. This then also determines the frequency on the Stratford – Canary Wharf section. With a train from Stratford to Lewisham every 12 minutes, as was the case, the maximum realistic frequency between Stratford and Canary Wharf was every 6 minutes with half the trains continuing to Lewisham.
Double track goes to single track west of Pudding Mill Lane with obvious opportunities for further doubling of the track
The frequency on the the Bank – Lewisham route pretty much determines what frequencies can be run on the Stratford – Canary Wharf route. It would be almost impossible, for example, to have a train from Stratford to Canary Wharf every 5 minutes if some of those trains were to continue to Lewisham. One could do it if only every one train in four went to Lewisham because that would mean a train every 20 minutes and 20 is divisible by 4. However that would mean just three trains an hour. One could of course abandon a fixed interval time timetable between Stratford and Canary Wharf and have an erratic one but this is not just unpopular with the public, it leads to some trains being overcrowded and consequently the timetable being less reliable with knock-on effects elsewhere.
Approaching Pudding Mill Lane and the site of the Crossrail Portal from the east
The big surprise of the new timetable is that instead of running every 6 minutes in the morning peak between Stratford and Canary Wharf and every 12 minutes between Stratford and Lewisham, the trains now run every 4 minutes between Stratford and Canary Wharf and every 8 minutes between Stratford and Lewisham. Given that some trains on this route were previously 3-car it follows that even if every train is now 2-car there will be some capacity increase as well as an obvious frequency improvement. Indeed the trains will all be 2-car but the DLR nevertheless proclaims a 20% improvement in capacity. By an extraordinary coincidence, or possibly not, the press release of around 16 months previous promised an increased capacity from 5,500 to 6,600 persons per hour – an increase of 20%.
Between Lewisham and Canary Wharf there will now be 22.5tph instead of 20tph. The 15tph to Bank remains the same but the Lewisham – Stratford service will now be 7.5tph instead of 5tph. The service will be on an 8 minute cycle with a Bank-Stratford-Bank-(gap) pattern. 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.
Unlike on the Underground, a 4 minute turnround per platform on the DLR at Lewisham is achievable without the added complexity of “stepping back” drivers and there should be no reason why it cannot be sustained. The DLR has the twin advantages that the trains are relatively short so clear the crossover outside the station quite quickly and, with a train captain opening and closing the doors from any doorway in the train, a train can depart from a terminus within seconds of arrival provided the passengers have all alighted or boarded.
Necessity or desirability?
The timetable improvement of services between Stratford and Canary Wharf has the feeling of an improvement being brought in before the planners really wanted to in order to cater for demand. The line is due to be double-tracked all the way from Pudding Mill Lane to Stratford in 2018-19.
Single track section shortly after leaving Stratford
In some doubt is just how much will be double-tracked between Pudding Mill Lane and Bow Church. Some TfL sources say that all of this will be done but others suggest that the tight curve just north of Bow Church station (in the very first photograph) will not be doubled. A look at Google Earth suggests double-tracking west of the River Lea (to the west of Pudding Mill Lane station) to Bow Church station may be problematic.
Magnify the map to explore between Bow Church and Pudding Mill Lane stations to appreciate the difficulties of double-tracking between these locations
A further increase in service capacity is promised as a result of completing the double-tracking. Whether this translates to a further increase in frequency as a result of the additional length of double track or whether the capacity increase is achieved solely by replacing the 2-car trains with 3-car trains – or their similar trains of an equivalent length – remains to be seen.
Looking further Ahead
Having finally slain the operational restriction that for many years was holding the DLR back on one of its more overcrowded routes, the way is now clear to develop so that it has a consistent regular frequent service on all branches. To do that more rolling stock will be required. In a future follow-up article we will look at longer term plans, future rolling stock provision and also look at the routes through Canning Town in more detail.
A detail: you mention turnaround of trains at Lewisham in 4 minutes… something “that the Underground cannot do”. Yet at Brixton the turnaround is currently approx. 3.5 minutes and will reduce to 3.3 minutes with the 36tph service.
[I have added ‘without the added complexity of “stepping back” drivers’ which is what I meant but omitted to state. Thanks. PoP]
I wonder if any of the extension ideas south of Lewisham will ever occur… given that it would require significant redevelopment of Lewisham station and the A20 to get the trains further south it seems unlikely. However with a 2m service at Lewisham, there’s enough trains to service both the conceptual Catford/Forest Hill branch and the conceptual Bromley North branch…
Obviously these are both concepts by local councils, and thus suffer from being barely thought through in the first place.
A different sort of upgrade is required, to ease the nastiest of the sharp curves which abound on the system, imposing severe speed reductions and making the system feel downbeat and quirky. Those sharp curves are causing significant wear and noise pollution each time a 36-wheeled train graunches its way round them, as well as slowing down the services.
And another thing – the Jubilee Line / DLR interchange signposting at Canary Wharf needs drastic upgrading.
@ Sykobee
“Obviously these are both concepts by local councils, and thus suffer from being barely thought through in the first place.”
As someone who works in corporate policy and strategy for a prominent local authority, it is this kind of trite dismissal of the work we do that makes my blood boil. On the whole, councils do a very good job of promoting or lobbying for positive change in our localities and we can and do see the bigger picture. We are also keenly aware of the limitations of our spheres of coverage and influence.
It is, however, our job to secure the best settlement for our localities and developing and promoting such “barely thought through” proposals ensure that we as individual local authorities are represented at the negotiating table when funds for scheme development and construction are allocated by others (Treasury, DfT, Mayor and GLA etc.) The recent Sutton Tramlink article outlines how such a proposal can grow legs. And that is without factoring in the other inward investments and developments that can accrue. So, next time, please understand that local authority proposals for infrastructure and network enhancements are often made for a number of well-founded reasons before dismissing them completely out of hand.
THC
Typo: “Line the Underground, the DLR now tends to run at least 80% of the peak level service in the off-peak period.”
[Typo fixed thats. PoP]
Shadwell is a very useful interchange. But given the restrictions on the LO station, lifts which don’t go to platforms so no step free, platform constraints and heritage features then the walk across the road is not a key constraint. When crossrail opens will be interesting to see how patterns change. Through cr2 at Dalston and rebuilding an integrated Shadwell interchange can wait.
I’d be more interested given the capacity on its way in making Bow Road to Bow church better.
@THC, Sykobee
I wholeheartedly support THC’s comments. Part of my professional life has been advising authorities at senior officer and political level, including (this year) giving oral evidence on behalf of one authority at a Commons’ Select Committee. LAs have a broadly based view of an area’s requirements and future opportunities and prospects, and many such ambitions are dependent on a decent transport offering.
Obviously in the real word not everything will be justified or come to pass, but it is fact that some schemes would not have happened without the authorities’ support, persistence over a number of years and in some cases funding. Some examples are the East London Line extensions, DLR to Lewisham, and the currently progressing STAR scheme.
As some lightish reading about a determined group of LAs who pressed their case for nearly 20 years despite all the twists and turns arising in national politics and the railway industry, can I suggest this: http://www.jrc.org.uk/PDFs/ELLG-An-Enduring-Legacy-final.pdf
There’s a local pressure group on the Isle of Dogs who have been campaigning to increase the frequency of the service south of Canary Wharf to every 2 minutes in the peaks but have been rebuffed by TfL – apparently Lewisham couldn’t cope with such an intensive frequency (I would be REALLY happy if someone here could debunk that argument though). But why some trains couldn’t run into the unloved and mostly unused Platform 3 at Mudchute …
Interesting stuff, thanks PoP.
“In some doubt is just how much will be double-tracked between Pudding Mill Lane and Bow Church. ”
I’ve always wondered about this point because it does seem from sitting in the front of the DLR train round this corner, and then from being at street-level that there isn’t space.
I can imagine some kind of one-track flyover round the curve, but there doesn’t seem to be space to the east of this, at least not without building out nearer to the buildings in Thomas Fyre Road.
Out of interest, there is another line (double I think) that branches off at the same point as the section to Bow Church. It is in general use, I’ve always wondered?
@Sykobee – just to reinforce what Jonathan Roberts says, it is important to distinguish between those council (and central government) policies which have been developed by officers and professional advisers at politicians’ behest – he lists some – and those which politicians announce without bothering to take any sort of advice or prior scrutiny – except sometimes from other politicians. We can make another list of those, too.
Good to see TfL being pro-active and pushing this improvement. Badly needed with growth shooting up. In Stratford alone, you will see about 7-8 towers between 100-150 metres rising in the next couple of months ( a couple are already widely visible having reached 50m+).
Now many will be sold abroad and not lived in by anyone (a disgrace but another topic entirely) but even being conservatative and saying 50% occupied, that’s a big increase in demand. And more widely in Newham, TH, Lewisham and Greenwich, population growth is running at 3-5% a year. Many thousands of people in boroughs with populations around 250k.
@Pop:
the Lewisham – Stratford service will now be 7.5tph instead if 5tph.
[Fixed. Thanks. PoP]
“instead of”….
Otherwise a great article, looking forward to the Canning Town edition…
There’s the odd ECS using the line to Gas Factory Junction, and I think it gets some use for engineering diversions?
I’m sorry to appear thick but was the Pudding Mill Lane rebuild the “removal of the operational restriction”? It doesn’t leap out in the article for me. As someone who likes to have a direct Stratford to Lewisham train I am slightly surprised by the somewhat negative tone in the article. While I understand the operational priorities the lack of an all day through service does mean a regular mad dash across the platform at Canary Wharf to get a Stratford train. As off peak and weekend frequencies are now better there’s much less risk of a 10 minute wait at Canary Wharf as a result of the Stratford train leaving 20 seconds before the train from Lewisham arrives. For those who live and work south of Canary Wharf who want the Stratford line it must be rather irritating given the original service pattern always provided a through service to Stratford.
I remain bemused as to how they are going to double more of the single track sections east of Bow Church. It’s the section I use the most on the DLR and I can’t see where the space can come from unless Network Rail release a track or slew tracks on their land. I struggle to see how that will happen before Crossrail runs through east of Liverpool Street.
Overall I find it a tad disappointing that there is an apparent “lack of interest” in DLR. You cite the recession as one issue but I think there are two others – the move of DLR under stronger TfL Rail control and obviously the Mayor’s lack of understanding of the role of transport investment in the wider context of making London work. Only too late has he woken up to the fact that you need a sustained programme of “build ready” schemes coming out of appraisal, design and legal powers stages of development.
Without wishing to wreck your second article there are significant developments underway or proposed that must pose some level of “peril” for the DLR in terms of how / if it can cope. In times past there was a plan for a new bit of DLR line to serve the massive Wood Wharf scheme just to the east of Canary Wharf but I believe not an extra inch of DLR will be built to serve that. Instead more loading will be whacked on the existing DLR, Jubilee Line, Crossrail and bus services. Just feels like a bit of a missed opportunity although I recognise there would be an issue of service complexity and interchange to deal with.
@Ed
A couple of quotes from the FT:
“Nine Elms is seeing a wave of “flat-flipping” as investors try to sell unbuilt properties amid fears the capital faces a glut of expensive homes.”
“About 54,000 homes are either planned or already under construction in the priciest areas of the capital. Most of these homes will be priced at close to or above £1m. However, just 3,900 homes worth more than £1m were sold in these areas in 2014…”
Hopefully this will not lead to non payment of various developer funding for transport schemes in London.
@Briantist
“Out of interest, there is another line (double I think) that branches off at the same point as the section to Bow Church. It is in general use, I’ve always wondered?”
This is the original connection between the GER and Fenchurch Street, and used by the LTS before the cut- off via Plaistow was built in 1858. The LNER’s plans for electrification would have seen a shuttle between the bay at Stratford (later used for the DLR) and Fenchurch Street. (Don’t forget that Fenchurch Street was always a GER/LNER station, with the LTS/LMS only there by virtue of running powers.
The line is, I think, only used for empty stock movements now.
The awkward curve at that location is because the DLR has to transition between two quite separate lines which used to cross on the skew – the aforementioned GER Fenchurch Street branch, and the E&WID&BJR’s* main line from Primrose Hill to the Isle of Dogs
*East & West India Docks and Birmingham Junction Railway, later known as the North London Railway to save space on the side of its locos.
Two omissions, probably because of space-restrictions in the article …
( As opposed to the obviously-tight squeeze between Pudden Mill Lane & Bow Church, that is )
Both referring to possible/desired future development & the difficulties imposed by the obvious fact that the DLR is pretty damned full up already ….
1] Lewisham:
We’ve discussed this before & even given THC’s very valid protests about councils looking forward, it is very clear that a huge opportunity to remodel the entire Lewisham layout, comprising the DLR the ex-SER lines & the Southern connections put in during the 1920’s was quite neglectfully (deliberately?) thrown away during the past 10 years.
An extension southwards of the DLR or any sort of rational associated rebuild of the “heavy rail” station is going to be very difficult & horrendously expensive.
All because, AFAIK no-one even looked at or considered the problem, until it was too late
( Please point out where/if my judgement is incorrect. )
2] Bank:
The single-track reversing stub @ Bank is still a fairly serious capacity constraint.
But, IF it is still possible to extend in a northerly/northwesterly direction, where should the DLR go to?
One assumes that passengers would not travel much right through the central section, but there is the usual advantage, Crossrail/Thameslink style, of having your termini further out & less-loaded.
But where?
Or does one go for a connection to CR2, somewhere in the central zones 1 or 2?
( ?? )
@Kit – whilst I think there is a lot of truth to the FT’s article (not least the appreciating pound making it trickier for overseas investors to ‘buy in’ to the market), their figures were, I believe, based on Land Registry figures.
The vast majority of flats in Nine Elms have not yet completed – and as such, existing buyers have not yet completed the sale (just paid the deposit) – so you would not expect to see any entries in the Land Registry just yet.
Apologies for length of comment.
Sykobee, Greg: Extension south of Lewisham
Personally I think it is a great shame this has been squandered as I understand considerable effort was made to ensure the line could be extended south once the long-planned road diversions were in place. It needn’t have been far. Just to get to the shopping centre would have been very useful – and have created the option of an alternative interchange site should the Bakerloo have been extended.
David Holt: sharp curves
Sadly the failure of opportunity to sort out the tight curves is probably down to the legal framework in our country and the difficulty of acquiring land. It’s been a problem since 1666, if not before. Golden opportunities have been lost. Most notable was when the IRA bombed South Quay. If it hasn’t happened up until now it probably won’t happen in the future. It is not just a DLR issue. Sometimes there are missed opportunities at National Rail locations also.
Sykobee and others: Councils
I go along with Graham H. I see silly ideas being bandwagons for various councillors and other politicians in the initial stages. On the other hand, once these schemes get serious the more clued up councillors go to a lot of trouble to understand the issues and promote sensible policies. No politician wants to be associated with a dead duck or white elephants so common sense does kick in – just sometimes not soon enough.
David P, Walthamstow Writer: 30 tph south of Canary Wharf
I can see absolutely no reason why terminating at Lewisham should not be achievable with a 2 minute service. If they can manage 3 trains each 8 minutes with 2-2-4 minute gaps then, as I see it, 2-2-2-2 must be possible. I have seen a very fast turnaround at Lewisham with the doors open for around 15 seconds. The difficulty is that there aren’t any spare trains to run the service.
Also the 7.5tph Lewisham to Stratford are all 2-car so an obvious improvement is to male them them 3-car – if you had the rolling stock.
The extra platform at Mudchute is, to all intents and purposes, useless. As is the turnback siding at Crossharbour. The platform at Mudchute involves crossing the other running line to get to it and, as they currently are, the crossover to do this is not conveniently located thus either causing delays to trains in the other direction or potentially delaying a following train whilst waiting to cross. I heard a story that the platform was only built to placate a local MP. In the circumstances I can quite believe it.
My comment about it in many ways being a pity that trains were extended to Lewisham from Canary Wharf could have been better worded. Perhaps a better way of saying this is one could question whether the loss of flexibility for the sake of 5tph in the morning peak (as it was) was worth it. If you extended this for all trains at all times (provided you had the trains) I think it could be different.
Walthamstow Writer: Loss of expansion opportunities
I think we are back to the problem of any proposed expansion would cause more capacity issues on existing lines. I don’t call that being negative. I call it being pragmatic.
Briantist, Walthamstow Writer: Doubling north of Bow Church
It all looks possible. It is just how much trouble you want to go to in order to achieve it and is it worth the effort. As pointed out by others the other line enables trains via Stratford to go to Fenchurch St but I doubt if it has been used for that purpose for years. It makes you wonder how useful it is and if it is worth retaining if a better use could be made of the trackbed. Yes, shifting the line to make space for the DLR wouldn’t be an easy sell.
Walthamstow Writer, Operational Restriction
The diverting of diverting of the track at Pudding Mill Lane made a 4 minute timetable theoretically possible and this timetable is the first to take advantage of it. Sorry if it wasn’t that clear.
To expand a bit, a 4 minute timetable raises the future possibility of dovetailing all these trains into the Bank-Lewisham route south of Canary Wharf.
Greg, Bank
The single-track reversing stub @ Bank is still a fairly serious capacity constraint.
No it isn’t. Trains can turn around at two minute intervals at Bank without a problem.
The main capacity restraint at Bank is the station itself. It is true that the DLR at Bank would benefit from two reversing stubs of longer length but that is for resilience in order to be able to maintain the timetable better and be able to park up any train that needs to be urgently withdrawn from service for whatever reason. For some reason people confuse capacity issue with resilience and journey time issues. They are all quite different.
@Greg
“The single-track reversing stub @ Bank is still a fairly serious capacity constraint.”
But is it? Turnround can be as quick as the time it takes to change the points. Unlike the similar layout at Waterloo (W&C) the train captain doesn’t have to change ends.
You can have one tipping out, one in the shunting neck and one loading simultaneously. Dwell time is the main constraint at Bank.
I’ve always wondered about the possibility of extending the bank trains to Moorgate and Farringdon, given that the Moorgate to Farringdon tunnels already exist and Farringdon would provide an interchange with Thameslink. Maybe it would be just too popular and nobody would be able to board at Bank. Or maybe the tunnels are in poor condition and bringing them into service would be too expensive. I’d be interested to hear what others think.
@THC I was being a bit tongue in cheek, and I’m sorry to upset you. Sadly some councils do have rather strange transport thoughts – my local one being Croydon, with their support for “patio-esque tram platforms”…
Micheal Woolley,
Covered in great detail in Fulsome Farringdon around three years ago. You are correct and the main objection seems to be the fact that no-one could board at Bank. There are other issues and the current thought is to press for Crossrail type schemes as though these are the most expensive they tend to provide the best value for money. Also, London Underground are so desperate for siding space they need the Moorgate to Farringdon tunnels in order to store trains in order to, wait for it, run more trains on the Jubilee line.
@PoP
‘London Underground … need the Moorgate to Farringdon tunnels in order to store trains in order to, wait for it, run more trains on the Jubilee line.’
How is that even possible? Admit it PoP, you’re dieing for some sucker to ask you to explain. OK, here I am. Please explain.
Pop noted “but I doubt if it has been used for that purpose for years.” Do the different rail-land owners have a nominal ‘carrying cost’ for the land their tracks are laid on, ie. is there a financial penalty for having metals and not actually using them?
@Michael Woolley
You wouldn’t be able to get as far as Farringdon in the first place without a lot of fiddling and tunnelling (or placing the platforms back behind where the points to be, which would also be a bit of a mess). Whilst the DLR faces in vaguely the right direction at Bank it still has a maze of tunnels to negotiate before Moorgate (which also might well require new platforms), and all that to re-use a bit of track less than the length of the Waterloo & City line. Bit of a non-starter.
That said, the Horizon studies suggested a similar thing, IIRC one of the wackier ideas was a loop around Liverpool Street and Bishopsgate, and a more expensive option favoured by me would be extension all the way to Victoria. Point being any extension westward of the DLR would have to be almost completely newly tunnelled anyway.
@answer=42
At the risk of being ninja’d by PoP himself again, at a guess I’d say they’d store Metropolitan line trains there in order to free up space at Neasden depot? Would make for interesting northbound morning timetabling arrangements.
Alfie,
Very nearly – but on the right track (excuse unavoidable pun). It’s actually Circle line trains. And yes, they do have to store Circle line trains at Neasden since they lost some of the triangle sidings at Earl’s Court (too short) and elsewhere.
@David P: I have yet to see a train in the Mudchute siding and wonder why it was built at all. I agree with you that the extra service could be terminated there, but how would it slot into the existing working? Perhaps that is the real question.
I am pleased to see that there will be direct trains from Lewisham to Stratford meaning I can avoid the dreaded Blackwall Tunnel on the 108.
I make some comment about 2 minute headways, reversing trains at Lewisham, dealing with the headshunt at Bank and, my original comment about reversing 36 Victoria Line trains at Brixton.
Starting with the latter, right back in the original design for the Victoria line, the designers (we’d call then systems engineers today) were challenged to devise the means to get X tph (where X is substantially less than 36) though the terminus, first at Victoria and then at Brixton. Early forms of “time and motion” study and “critical path analysis” were used to analyse every activity from wheels start on the first train leaving a platform to wheels start on the next train to leave that platform. This led to “cab clear” platform plungers though to not winding the destination display for the northbound run (and the only use of reversed print destination blinds where the destination in only visible if its illumination is on).
In principle, every increase in TPH since then has been accompanied by a discussion along the lines of “what do we have to do to get a “run in, dwell, run out time of X:XX” to deliver the service. the odd second here or there helps. LU does this sort of optimisation in other places too.
DLR has also been doing this sort of optimisation ever since it adopted the Thales signalling system, and it will do so again as it develops its services to respond to continuing growth particularly to accommodate the new trains whose potential purchase was signalled (sorry) by a notice in the EU Official Journal earlier in the year. Possibly the most complex issue is Bank/Tower Hill if more than an combined 30TPH is to be delivered.
@PoP – I do agree with you when you say Lewisham should be able to cope with a train every 2 minutes perhaps TfL aren’t as confident and feel there needs to be a bit of redundancy in the timetable?
As for Mudchute Platform 3, I was wondering aloud if you could run 30 tph south from Canary Wharf with 1 in 4 crossing the northbound line from Lewisham to get to Mudchute Platform 3. I would compare that the west branch where currently in the morning peak there are 30 tph heading west from Shadwell with 1 in 4 crossing the eastbound line from Bank at Mint Street Junction to get to Tower Gateway.
@Pedantic of Purley
If we’re talking about the same curve (Bow seems to be awash with disused and reused lines and stations), it’s used for stock transfers and the occasional engineering alternate service to bypass West Ham. I don’t know if there’s a parliamentary service on it.
There is certainly a lot of demand for Stratford to Lewisham services – one thing the DLR in general isn’t good at is syncing up predictable quick interchanges whilst it likes chopping useful through services. I’ll say more when Part 2 comes but there are some journeys within Newham where I often wind up spending more time waiting on interchange platforms than actually moving on a train.
Information for passengers changing from the Jubilee Line to Woolwich Arsenal DLR trains at Canning Town is also poor, especially since trains can now depart from two different platforms which are in opposite directions when leaving the Jubilee.
Regading turnaround times, on the W&C, the driver doesn’t change ends (at least on the same train at the rush hour) . There is another driver waiting at the opposite end to reverse the train. In this way you can reverse a train in 2 minutes (depending on the initialisation procedures)
@Peter as both trains usually get to Canning Town at roughly the same time it’s easier to go up the escalators and wait.
@Hugo
Certainly that is the case at Bank, but I was talking about Waterloo. Do they step back there as well?
David P,
A look at Google Earth reveals that I was wrong about the problems of crossing the line in the other direction at Mudchute. It shows the danger of relying on Carto Metro for too much detail. So I suppose you could terminate every fourth train at Mudchute.
I would still argue that it makes more sense just to run every train to Lewisham.
The junction for Tower Gateway is quite complex as revealed here. You can have a train having just left Tower Gateway and another just about to arrive at the same time. In peak hours a train leaves Shadwell for Tower Gateway then a minute later a train leaves Tower Gateway for Shadwell ensuring that they make parallel movements over the junction. There is no equivalent possible at Mudchute.
How many trains a day (or week/month!) use the Gas Factory Junction to Bow Junction spur? If it is only a handful, but Network Rail are unwilling to give it up, couldn’t the DLR share the single track for a brief distance after it climbs up from Bow Church to facilitate double tracking to Pudding Mill Lane? Then the only (albeit expensive) remaining obstacle is bridging the River Lea and A12.
One thing I’m unclear about from the article…..is there now going to be an all-day Lewisham to Stratford service in the near future. Changing at Canary Wharf is a pain.
Re. councils and ‘Walter Mitty’ transport schemes….Bromley’s pursuance of DLR/LO to Bromley North definitely falls into this category, and I very much doubt any councillor has taken the trouble to seriously discuss or explore this with transport consultants or even with TfL. If they did (or even just read the LR Bromley North article!), then I bet they would soon enough stop mentioning it, or else fall prey to accusations of making undeliverable promises…..
@Tim Roll-Pickering
Travelling from Stratford International DLR to Cutty Sark DLR, which is one of my favourite “leisure trips”, I must admit that the start-stop nature of the DLR, it if often faster to use the Jubilee from Stratford to North Greenwich and then continue on the 188.
This is because the wait at Canary Wharf DLR is somewhat random, and the walk between the Jubilee and DLR stations there too long to help with timing.
@timbeau
Thanks for that, I have looked a Detailled London transport map (track, depot, …) and your historic information makes it much clearer. It certainly explains what looks like a double-track from the ground being only a single. Shame about the loss of Old Ford and Victoria Park, would have made fine DLR stations…
@AlisonW
A fascinating question. I’m hoping someone here will have a detailed answer.
On my travels, I’ve often wondered whether the single track curve between Bow Church and Pudding Mill Lane stations could be sorted by double decking. Or is there not enough room for the gradients needed?
Regarding the design of Pudding Mill Lane station, I still wonder why it wasn’t built as an island platform. The advantages I’d see are resilence for accessibility, with two shared lifts, also I would have thought that fewer staircases in total would be needed to handle the traffic flows.
Anonymously,
One thing I’m unclear about from the article…..is there now going to be an all-day Lewisham to Stratford service in the near future. Changing at Canary Wharf is a pain.
All I can say is that I have not heard or read about any plans for this but it does seem to be a logical thing to do – if they had the rolling stock.
I can’t see why changing at Canary Wharf is a pain on a journey from Lewisham to Stratford. You get off the train, cross the platform which is totally protected from the elements, wait an absolute maximum of 5 minutes and continue. Your Stratford train will probably already be at the platform. If you said it used to be a pain I could understand because you would have up to 10 minutes to wait at Canary Wharf.
@PoP
If you said it used to be a pain I could understand because you would have up to 10 minutes to wait at Canary Wharf.
Which is precisely how I remember it the last time I travelled that route (I think in 2012)! I find a direct train always preferable if possible to changing, but I take your point.
In terms of the LTS diversionary line at Bow then it has been used for engineering diversions but also a regular weekend service for the last two Christmasses. This is so C2C can provide a direct service to / from Stratford (for Westfield) and still serve Fenchurch St. In the new franchise and from the December timetable this year the service via Stratford is formalised but trains will run into Liverpool St and not via Bow. Having had a ride on the diversionary line the main problem was low speeds and having to wait time for clearance on to the respective main lines at either end. You can see the new timetable info in Open Train Times if you set a date for Jan 2016. It also allows you to see various other major changes which are due to NR services.
@Greg Tingey (and others):
Apologies for the long reply, but the topic is not a simple one…
Lewisham Council have had mixed results with transport projects, so there’s a good reason why they’re not doing a Croydon and demanding Tube extensions, Thameslink, several Crossrails, and a partridge in a pear tree. They’ve learned their lesson.
That said, until the 1920s, Lewisham’s station was never even considered as an interchange or hub station. It was just a minor junction station serving secondary routes. The primary interchange role fell upon nearby St. Johns. That station’s main purpose was to provide interchange with the new cut-off line via Hither Green and Chislehurst (now known as the “South Eastern Main Line” or ‘SEML’).
On opening in the 1870s, the SEML originally had no connection at all with the platforms at Lewisham as it swung out in a loop to avoid having to plough through the town centre. In order to do this, the junction had to be at St. Johns, not Lewisham, hence the siting of the interchange station. This is why said station was opened with no less than three island platforms. Serving the local population was very much a secondary consideration at the time.
In order to re-site Lewisham, you need to ‘unpin’ it from its present location. Unfortunately, you can’t do that by sending the Bakerloo out to Hayes as the Hayes branch isn’t the problem here: it’s the routes via Blackheath that are the problem.
How you remove them from the equation is open to debate, though I suspect the mods would prefer it not be debated in this thread, so I’ll stop there. Nevertheless, this is the reason why a major rebuild or remodelling of the station and its approaches is currently off the local council’s agenda… for now. Crossrail 3 will very probably put it back on, but that’s many, many years away yet.
I would, however, like to point out that if you were to re-site Lewisham station, the “ideal” location would be somewhere under (or over) the shopping centre. Despite all the regeneration projects in the area, that shopping centre is not undergoing a major rebuild, despite the potential benefits of doing so. The works only extend to cosmetic tweaks to that structure.
It’s almost as if the local council were biding their time.
Well when it comes to council schemes it all comes down to how much money and time there are willing to devote.
The fact is most such schemes float into the public sphere on the back of some over ambitious regeneration masterplan. Then there are the genuinely mad schemes that nearly always involve some new form of monorail (Brighton, Southampton and Portsmouth to name a few)or pod system someone is trying to flog or someone has come down with an Albert Speer complex, such as certain Greenwich politicians who want to build a DLR viaduct above the A2/A102 from the Dome to Eltham.
Back when new tram schemes were the future of Suburban London nearly every council had it’s own line on the map.
A4 for Hounslow, Kingston to Ewell, via Surbiton and Tolworth, A Wood green centred network, Uxbridge to Ealing. A veritable spaghetti of routes off the Croydon system. The bandwagon was rolling and for a short time it seemed every city might get one.
Then London Transport took over as the nearly every borough had it’s own pet scheme. It launched the Outer London Transport Study. I’ve still got a photocopy of the report, which examines every option and gives projected passenger numbers for different sections.
Some routes had very good passenger numbers but high infrastructure costs (bridges and tunnels needed) sunk them from the appraisal list.
This eventually led the West London tram and Cross river being given the highest priority, with extensions to Croydon and systems for Romford and Wood Green the next most likely (if I remember correctly). But as we know that all went tits up. It would be interesting to run the same study again after almost 20 years, what with the growth in passenger numbers in the meantime.
Major work at Lewisham centre? I’m not so sure. The citi tower at the shopping centre is to be converted to 250 homes very soon. Once that happens rebuilding the site becomes a tall order.
The Lewisham gateway plan is also predicated on many people walking from the town centre to the station. The route should be much better, and the commercial space dependant on it. Move the station and that footfall evaporates.
@Walthamstow Writer, et al:
Re. the Bow branch.
If the route is only used sparingly, there may be a case to be made for fitting the LTS side with interlaced track to allow the DLR to treat it as a double track section. The interlaced section would be offset sufficiently to prevent the DLR’s raised 3rd-rail system fouling any mainline trains. The tricky part will be interfacing the signalling systems. I’m not sure nicely Thales’ system plays with whatever is used on that branch.
It’s interesting to note the designs of the new DLR viaduct sections, which clearly suggest doubling the track is planned for. That said, it makes sense to wait until TfL have the rolling stock needed to provide the improved services confirmed first. (It would also be logical to wait for Crossrail to finish up and release their worksites in the area as well.)
Why don’t trains run Lewisham – Stratford in the PM peak?
@ Anomnibus – unless my memory is failing me the new viaducts between Stratford and Bow Church are all double track. The real issue is to the west of Pudding Mill Lane where there is only a single track over the River Lea / A12 and then right along until Bow Junction and the swing down to Bow Church station. I’ve looked several times to see what could be done here and have never spotted an immediately viable, affordable option. At the Stratford end of things then there looks to be some spare space / disused alignment plus an opportunity to gain some space *if* Network Rail realign the tracks to give a smooth feed into the Crossrail portal. At some point in the next couple of years that work will happen even if trains won’t run in passenger service into the tunnel until May 2019. It will be interesting to see if TfL piggy back DLR work off the back of the assumed track changes.
As an observation I wonder if Lady Bracknell, in stating her distaste for the 108 bus through the Blackwall Tunnel, inadvertently highlighted a reason why DLR services are doing relatively well. Is the traffic chaos at the Blackwall Tunnel causing some people to transfer from car / bus to use the DLR instead? Hadn’t really thought about that but it seems a plausible possibility.
@Ed:
The ideal location for a re-sited station that no longer has to serve the routes via either Blackheath or Ladywell is under the shopping centre site, with tunnelled approaches. Expensive, yes, but the release of vast swathes of valuable railway land more than makes up for it.
We’ve had long discussions on LR about how you solve a problem like Lewisham, so I won’t repeat them here. None of the surface options offer any real benefits over the present site due to the Nunhead link’s location. (An underground station would require a new tunnelled link to that line anyway, so it’s not an issue.)
My point re. the shopping centre site is simply that it’s a lot cheaper and easier to dig a station box under a building before you construct said building, rather than after.
Fascinating article. Thank you.
@Walthamstow Writer:
Looking at Bing and Google Maps, there’s clearly a ‘stub’ end to the new DLR viaduct west of the new Pudding Mill Lane. (Compare with the smooth join on the new viaduct built for the Thameslink Upgrade project at London Bridge.) This suggests to me that there is definitely a plan for a new viaduct alongside the existing structure and bridges.
Crossing over the Lea and the A12 gets us to Wick Lane. Here, the existing GEML alignment widens a little – it’s a shame about the shadows, but there’s clearly space on the southern side of the alignment for an additional DLR track if the boxes and stanchions currently cluttering it up can be relocated.
Which leaves us with the Bow Church Chord. On closer inspection using Google Street View, and the NLS maps site, this also appears to have some scope for widening: note the point where the line passes alongside Polydamas Close…
From Google Street View, you can see the Network Rail stairway up to the tracks above. There’s clearly a fenced-in embankment here, which means – the neighbours’ likely complaints about the temporary construction noise notwithstanding – you could rip up the vegetation, do a little light piling, fill in the space, lay some track on it, widen a bridge or two, and you’re done. Granted, all this costs money, but it’s hardly a showstopper.
(Rail historian’s note: Immediately beyond this, on the branch line, is the disused Bow Road station. You can still make out the platforms, despite it having closed in the 1940s.)
Granted, nothing beats an on-site survey, but I don’t think it’s as difficult as many people here are suggesting. Even if widening the chord isn’t feasible for some reason, a short stretch of interlaced track would remove the problem of the incompatible electrification systems should it be desirable to use both tracks for the DLR. (Then again, it’s such a short section, it may be fine to just leave it single for now.)
Anonymous,
Why don’t trains run Lewisham – Stratford in the PM peak?
A question I have often asked myself and never been able to give myself a satisfactory answer.
Anomnibus,
Intriguing idea using interlaced track but I think an additional problem is that you would need the track base to be almost flat for the route to and from Gas Factory Junction and heavily canted for the DLR.
@ Sykobee
Sense of humour failure on my part, I’m afraid. On re-reading your original post it’s clearer that you were being tongue-in-cheek. I guess I’m just sore after five years of local government emasculation and scapegoating by central government and their pals in the media.
I must also echo Graham H’s point that sometimes politicians do go off-piste when suggesting schemes, but I’ve been lucky enough in my career to date to work for elected members who are open to challenge and persuasion when their pet ideas are shown to be less than practical. So there will be no hover monorails proposed on my patch in the near future, I promise. 🙂
THC
@ Anomnibus – I fear that Google Maps don’t give the whole story. As I have said before I have looked on several occasions at the space that is / is not available on the section of DLR we are talking about. What you think may be viable I have real doubts about – especially at the Bow end where, as PoP says, the track is heavily curved and canted for the DLR. I am very sceptical that you could squeeze in another track because I can’t see the locals agreeing to the land take / possible demolition required.
@anonymous
“Why don’t trains run Lewisham – Stratford in the PM peak?”
Maybe all the rolling stock is in use elsewhere? Although if that is the case, it seems surprising that there is stock to spare in the morning peak – maybe some other flow is busier in the evening)
I remember being impressed when the extension was built how they managed to get Lewisham station into a site constrained by two rail lines, two roads and two rivers. A bit of civil engineering genius that would take a bit of effort to unpick.
Wouldn’t an extension south of there give rise to the same issues of one beyond Bank – trains filling up too early? Which would annoy the many people who now interchange from SouthEastern.
@THC……PLEASE can you get a job at Bromley Council? See my earlier comments as to why…..your services would be much appreciated by the (silent, non-voting) majority of residents. ?
Re interlaced track at Bow, I doubt the signalling systems are compatible, which probably means the only way to do this would be with a possession-like process. Which, on the other hand, should not be a problem. The rail line is not used during normal daytime, and in the evening (and on Sundays) DLR should be able to operate with only one track.
(Hope this is on topic enough.)
The plan below shows the final highways and building layout at Lewisham Gateway which will be complete this time next year. There are also 1,500 flats recently built or under construction to the south and west of the station which will provide further constraints on any extension south.
http://newlewisham.com/masterplan.html
Anonymously….At an LR pub-evening I briefed THC on the wonders of Bromley Council…I’m not sure if he would be keen to make the move…
@CG and at the risk of going off topic, but where the hell is the bus station?
@Anonymous: some of the DLR into Lewisham utilises the old Greenwich Park alignment, which fortunately had not been built upon, but the top of Elverson Road has been severed from Conington Road. It is, indeed, a tight squeeze into the DLR station and if the computer ever goes haywire, the train could end up in the Tesco car park.
‘… or someone has come down with an Albert Speer complex, such as certain Greenwich politicians who want to build a DLR viaduct above the A2/A102 from the Dome to Eltham.’
Too funny.
@Slugabed……Well, how can we expect things to change unless someone makes the effort?
@Lady Bracknell……I don’t think the DLR uses any part of the Greenwich Park branch alignment, IIRC.
@anonymously
“I don’t think the DLR uses any part of the Greenwich Park branch alignment, IIRC.”
It doesn’t – it crosses the DLR alignment a little to the north of Elverson Road station, but there is very little to see, as the area has been heavily landscaped – even the river has been diverted.
Map of Greenwich Park branch here
http://www.disused-stations.org.uk/l/lewisham_road/index.shtml
The remains of the Greenwich Park branch comprise: Lewisham Road station (minus platforms), a short stretch of embankment near Thurston Rd. (now a nature reserve), a short stretch of covered way under Blackheath Hill, and the station master’s house near the Greenwich Park terminus site.
The embankment at Thurston Rd. used to continue into the park, but this was lost when it was landscaped, as the DLR extension used the river’s concrete culvert to get to Lewisham; the present meandering riverbed through the park is entirely artificial.
@LadyBracknell – was intrigued by your observation that “some of the DLR into Lewisham utilises the old Greenwich Park alignment”. From what I can tell, it crosses it rather than using it, just north of Elverson Road.
Thank you for the clarification all. I was sure that I read somewhere that bits of the extension to Lewisham used some of the Greenwich Park line.
What do you think of the proposed Dagenham Dock extension?
I personally hope they never extend the DLR or Overground south of Lewisham and New Cross. It’s really getting hard for SE14/SE8 users to get onto a train at Deptford/New Cross (& Gate) to London Bridge in the mornings and I’m increasingly finding the DLR/LO as my only saviour for getting into work.
On the Dagenham Dock extension, I’m sure similar issues would apply about DLR trains filling up too fast on the inward morning journey and traffic capacity through Shadwell. The Overground extension has the benefit of distributing people onto a mix of high frequency local and fast options at Barking, To really put Barking Riverside on the map, maybe they should also make it the H&C terminus in the long term – once the place really develops and a 4 per hour LO service becomes inadequate.
Re: Stratford-Lewisham trains *not* operating in the evening peak.
My theory is that this is all to with managing dwell times at Canary Wharf. Canary Wharf (obviously) has a large number of people getting off in the morning peak, and a large number who get on in the evening peak (but little in the way of a contra-peak flow)
*If* Lewisham-Stratford trains operated in the evening peak, this would mean that (most likely) these would need to use the Northbound (Platform 5/6) track to avoid conflict with terminating trains using the centre (Platform 3/4) track.
Consequently, passengers entering Canary Wharf and wishing to travel towards Stratford would all congregate on the Platform 4/5 island to await the next train towards Stratford. If the next train then happens to be a through train from Lewisham, this will create the situation where *all* passengers will be boarding on one side of the train, negating the benefit of the double-sided boarding arrangement, and thus extending dwell times and impacting line capacity.
By having all Stratford trains start from Canary Wharf, this means that boarding passengers are more evenly spread between the Platform 3 side and the Platform 4 side (depending largely on how they enter the station and what is most convenient for them), as you are guaranteed to get any Stratford train from eitehr platform. Regular passengers would “know” which side is likely to be busier and may choose to fill up the emptier side instead, to improve the chance of getting on/getting a seat.
The converse problem does not apply in the morning peak (for train from Stratford), as passengers on a through Lewisham train will just get off whichever side is most convenient for them to exit the station (and few passengers would be interchanging, given it is already a through service to Lewisham).
lanno: Whether or not the reason you give is the correct one, it’s a very ingenious and well-argued one. I’m impressed.
I travel from Stratford to Liverpool St on the train most mornings, and there’s barely a day that goes by that I don’t look out the window and try to work out how the double tracking will work.
From Stratford to PML, it *looks* like it will fit nicely, once you demolish the (abandoned) buildings in the Carpenter’s Estate that run alongside the line – there is a relatively new apartment block on Warton Road which looks a little bit too close for the viaduct to be widened far enough to take the extra track, but I guess it could probably fit.
Then it would need the viaduct widening to get across the Waterworks river to meet up with the double tracked new viaduct to PML.
Heading out of PML, it’s obviously clear to widen the viaduct across the A12/Lea but once you get to the other side, it looks very unlikely that there’s space to squeeze in an extra track without significant effort, and then around the corner down to Bow Church seems very, very unlikely to be done.
That single track train line IS used reasonably often, usually as a diversion from Barking through to Fenchurch St, if some part of the usual route is closed – I’ve ridden on it in an evening before, and usually once or twice a year, you’ll see that it’s being used on a Sunday also.
The improvements are a massive welcome – especially as I’m switching job in October and Canary Wharf will be my destination – although if I’ve read correctly, it will be only 2 car trains, even if at a much improved frequency? This seems crazy – I can’t be the only person who much prefers travelling on the DLR to Canary Wharf to going on the Jubilee, and greater frequency and longer DLRs would fill up very quickly from people who would immediately transfer to the much more pleasant DLR.
Ianno,
I agreed with Malcolm. Right or wrong it is an ingenious argument. If correct then there would appear to be no problem, as far as I can see, provided all Stratford-Canary Wharf trains were extended to Lewisham. Of course they can’t do that at present because they don’t have the necessary rolling stock.
Martin Petrov,
I think you have failed to take into account the possibility, or I think more likely, the probability that it is all about taking advantage of a disused trackbed to the north. If the tracks from Stratford to Liverpool St (high and, from 2019, low level) are reorganised then there is a lot of opportunity to fit the extra track in where currently there is trackbed but no track. The last photo should illustrate this well. Obviously you need to remove lineside cabinets and electrification supports from the trackbed.
I have always presumed that the 2019 date is because it is necessary for the Crossrail work to finish before they can get on with the double-tracking. As such what is there between Stratford and Pudding Mill Lane today is irrelevant. What matters is what opportunities can be taken advantage of in future.
I think it is fairly clear that the viaduct needs to be widened over the A12. Even in this vicinity there is some opportunity to fit in an extra track if the existing tracks are reorganised. It still doesn’t get over the problem of the tight curve just north of Bow Church.
“I think it is fairly clear that the viaduct needs to be widened over the A12.”
If this were ever to come to pass, a bit of joined up thinking would allow room for CS2 to use it as an offroad bypass of the notorious Bow junction (two cycling fatalities in recent years)
Interesting point from Martin P about people preferring the DLR to the Jubilee Line from Stratford. There’s also the issue, of course, of the DLR being the obvious alternative when the Jubilee goes up the creek, as it did yesterday (and presumably was the reason why Monument was closed due to overcrowding). Any increased capacity for this occasional load will be most welcome until Crossrail turns up.
@BCW
Natural light for almost all the journey, 4g reception to surf the internet, seats that allow you to face the way you’re travelling rather than sizeways facing (again, maybe just me) but the obvious advantage being the opportunity to pretend you’re the driver. Given the race to be in those seats, I’m DEFINITELY not the only one.
@Martin Petrov
“Natural light for almost all the journey, ”
The jubilee has it all the way to Canning Town and a bit beyond!
“4g reception to surf the internet”
jubilee has WiFi in stations all the way and reconnects fast!
” seats that allow you to face the way you’re travelling rather than sizeways facing (again, maybe just me) ”
Just been on a DLR train with the same layout!
“but the obvious advantage being the opportunity to pretend you’re the driver”
Can’t argue with that!
@ Martin P – I try to avoid the rush hour if I can but I did get caught on a DLR train from Canary Wharf to Stratford not long after 1700 and it was jam packed the whole way. There were decent numbers boarding and alighting all the way along but the flow to Stratford was huge. In terms of historical patronage growth the Stratford to Docklands flow must be one of the most amazing examples having gone from next to nothing to a massive flow, via Jubilee Line and DLR plus buses, in three decades. Despite having originally been a DLR replacement bus the D8 bus route is not exactly underused either.
Pedantic of Purley 26 August 2015 at 12:04
“I have always presumed that the 2019 date is because it is necessary for the Crossrail work to finish before they can get on with the double-tracking. ”
Is it anticipated that DLR double tracking works would conflict with the remaining Crossrail work close to the Pudding Mil Lane portal or the Remodelling of Bow Junction?
The dates I have for Network Rail remodelling Bow Junction are 2017 February to 2019 January. That is start before the first new Crossrail train is delivered in 2017 April and finish before Crossrail trains run Shenfield to Paddington 2019 May.
Presumably the “Up electric /slow line” will be on its new alignment around and to the south of the Pudding Mill Lane Crossrail tunnel portal before 2017 February?
Martin Petrov
I regret to inform you that if you look at the ‘recent announcement’ linked to under ‘ The need for Short Term Measures’ you will see that the trains are being altered to give a new seating layout. I does however appear to preserve the ‘driving seats’.
Alan Griffiths,
I was thinking Pudding Mill Lane portal but if Network Rail are remodelling Bow Junction as early as early as you say then it may make sense for that to get done too before they start. I suspect the big issue is not that the works themselves will get in the way of each other but that both Network Rail and the DLR contractors would want to use the same worksites as Crossrail currently uses. All speculation on my part. No hard facts.
Re. doubling the DLR from Bow Church to Stratford, there’s a recent cab view video that shows the route in high definition. The link takes you to a point just after the train has left the new Pudding Mill Lane station. (Tip: you can change the playback speed of the video by clicking the ‘cog wheel’ control in the lower right corner of the video player.)
At 2’15”, you can see the new viaduct curves away from the current route before a dead end: this is shows where the existing bridges across the river and A12 will be widened.
Once over the A12, you can see the space between the DLR and mainline tracks where the supports for the overhead gantries currently stand. There’s ample room here for another track if the gantries are suitably modified, releasing that space for the DLR.
This brings us to Tilbury Junction, where both the DLR and the branch line to Fenchurch Street peel away.
The steep curve up from Bow Church to meet the Bow Road branch sliced off a bit of an embankment. The cab view video above, plus the use of Street View, show that the two tracks meet on an embankment, not a viaduct. It is sufficiently wide for the existing single mainline track to be slewed further out if a retaining wall is built and the ground raised to the correct height, so two tracks up from Bow Church is definitely doable. (Street View reveals a low concrete retaining wall already in place on the north side of the embankment, so it might not even be necessary to do any piling work. No demolition should be necessary either, though the thick vegetation is unlikely to survive.)
Some bridging will be needed to get the Bow Road branch across the roads / gaps at either end of the embankment, and the disused Bow Road station itself would lose a chunk of its old “down” platform to allow the track to slew outwards, but this is very much a known science and, while fiddly, none of it appears particularly difficult.
The main challenge will likely be handling the logistics for such constrained worksites.
I think the remodelling of Bow Junction is spread out over two years. I’m not sure Network Rail have designed a new layout yet. I wasn’t expecting work over each of 103 weekends.
The project is to allow the morning peak trains leaving from platform 9 and from platform 10 at Stratford station to continue to Liverpool Street without crossing each others paths. In that way the Liverpool Street platforms no longer needed for Shenfield train can be used for more Southend Victoria or Southminster
Presuming they work south to north and west to east , why would they need the same worksites that DLR doubling would need?
Alan Griffiths,
Taking Bow Junction to be where it is marked on Carto Metro I presumed its proximity to the DLR single track meant that there would be a conflict with finding a worksite – and indeed with any works involved. Worksites are not that easy to come by and the obvious one to use is the one that Crossrail currently has by the portal – again the portal as marked on Carto Metro.
I did mention this was speculation on my part.
@RayK
Ugh. I’ll guess I’ll be rushing to that driver seat….
@LadyBracknell
The buses will run anticlockwise from Lewisham Road – parallel to platform 3 – parallel to platform 2 – Molesworth Street, in a similar arrangement to Canada Water.
@Martin Petrov…..Glad to know that I’m not the only one ?.
Regarding platform 3 at Mudchute, I have seen this used and have even taken a train into it myself (it used to be my local station) during engineering works (iirc it was when Westferry to Poplar was closed)
The biggest constraint is that whenever a train enters or exits platform 3 northbound trains from Island Gardens must wait about 5 yards south of platform 2 while the (slow) maneuverer takes place. I’m presuming this is because the stopping mark is too close to the junction to allow the minimum separation between trains.
If so many trains are still only 2-car how long until the whole network is 3-car? With 8.5% growth and so much housing built practically by every station the need is high, Crossrail or no crossrail.
I presume the govt are not providing funding despite the large population increase? If so, the sooner London can break away from Treasury and central government shackles the better, and raise funding itself.
@ Ed – I think there are a couple of related issues. TfL have only just started an industry engagement process to try to determine the best rolling stock solution for DLR. No point in having money if you haven’t determined the type of train you want. TfL’s capital investment budget is severely constrained because of the SSR resignalling debacle. All sorts of stuff has been sidelined to fund the cost overruns, contract termination fees and much longer implementation programme. Government were never going to bale TfL out of their own cock up.
Anyone who believes that devolution will instantly fix London’s funding issues is living in cloud cuckoo land. The Treasury will stymie whatever is proposed because it won’t wish to lose control of a significant slice of revenue and expenditure. It’s also clear that transport isn’t the number one priority with London voters – it’s housing and I suspect that’s what the next Mayor will spend a lot of time and money on. I know there is a related need to provide transport for those new houses but I’m talking about relative priorities. Unless the next Mayor can find some new sources of funding or is willing to kill off whole areas of activity / expenditure then I think there’s fairly limited room for manoeuvre in the TfL budget and we don’t yet know what the Autumn Statement will bring in terms of revenue grant. I also think the next Mayor is going to get themselves in an enormous pickle because they’ll try to say nice things to the Taxi drivers and to the cycling lobby during the election campaign. Those two groups don’t have compatible objectives so there’ll be an ongoing battle about how to keep the cabbies sweet and somehow meet the demands of the cycling lobby. I also fear it will be a distraction from more basic things like making sure the DLR can meet the demand that it will end up with.
@WW – You wont often hear me say this, but I have some sympathy with the Treasury. So long as the Treasury stands behind local borrowing, they can borrow cheaply; the price is Treasury control to prevent LA bankruptcy, which would also damage the UK’s own central ability to borrow. The alternative is that LAs can borrow away to their hearts’ content and when they go bust, central government installs commissioners and suspends local democracy (and local priorities) altogether. Cutting free from the “dead hand of the Treasury” has a price. Those with long memories will recall certain ex-colonial administrations that went bust (eg Newfoundland) and lost their independence as a result.
I do agree that the next decade or two will see little priority given to transport, let alone the DLR. What funds are available will be swallowed up by CR2, Bakerloo extension, tube modernisation and the like. The trouble is that there are plenty of areas besides DLR-land which also need attention – as our SE London correspondents often remind us – and some of these have may a better claim on priority
@Graham H
“Those with long memories will recall certain ex-colonial administrations that went bust (eg Newfoundland) and lost their independence as a result.”
not to mention Scotland in 1707, after the Darien bubble.
@timbeau – You should not remind the Scots about Darien; they don’t appreciate the joke. The situation is not quite the same for eg Newfoundland as Scotland was not an English colony or arm of British local government at the time nor did the English Treasury exist in quite its present form – the Consolidated Fund was not yet in existence, for example. (The financial administration of England was conducted through a number of separate exchequers, each of which had to balance its own books)..
@Graham H
I agree the Darien disaster was no joke. As for Scotland not being a colony, my (Scottish) Best Beloved is always quick to remind me that England was taken over by the King of Scots, and not vice versa.
Interested to know if >30tph on the joint section is possible, with the extra going to Bank. Anyone know what the actual limit on capacity is? Presume it’s one of:
– Speed into the Bank tail tracks to turn the train
– Bank tail tracks points clearance/change/reoccupation time
– Bank platform dwell time at boarding / alighting platform (which? presume varies by time of day?)
– Single-track into Tower Gateway
– Tower Gateway/Bank merge/diverge jct before Shadwell
Superlambanana,
I am fairly sure John Glover in one of his articles or books stated that the DLR could achieve much better than 30tph. Implicit was “if it had the trains”.
My limited understanding is that the main concern at Bank currently is the capacity of the station as a whole so they don’t want a massive hike in service. It is double track all the way to just before Tower Gateway so I don’t think that is a limiting factor at that terminus. Also the trains from and to Tower Gateway are scheduled to pass over or very near the junction so that should not be a limiting factor either. The main limiting factor here is that people don’t want to go to Tower Gateway.
There are other problems in increasing the Bank service. One is that you really want to have even intervals on the Lewisham route due to how busy it us. Because the entire DLR network is so interconnected you can’t really easily mess about with the service pattern on just part of it and you certainly don’t want any line to have a reduced frequency. So the best bet is to slightly improve the frequency everywhere (if you had the trains). However that starts raising other issues such as the single track sections talked about.
@Superlambanana
In the weekday rush hours, the terminating platform at Bank is still clearing when the next service arrives. The bottleneck seems to be the single escalator from the DLR concourse towards the rest of Bank station – that’s the route most passengers leave by. It is one of those pinch points that is so crushed that it’s positively unpleasant. There isn’t any scope to add more trains (even if DLR had them) until the work to move the one of the running lines on the northern line (and at the same time increase circulation space and create a new exit) is completed.
I happened to read the TfL press release associated with the recent timetable changes and spotted a warning note about last trains *into* Central London being up to 30 minutes earlier than previously. Does anyone understand the logic for this change? It strikes me as somewhat counter intuitive, in an era of night tubes and more night buses, that last trains would ever get earlier and certainly not by 30 minutes. A few mins tweaking is probably OK provided people are told but 30 minutes?
With all this talk of more trains I’m curious as to how much spare depot space the DLR has and if there is any scope for expansion of either of the existing depots or if a third depot would need to be built.
@ Kingston Commuter – I suspect the depot issue is in part 2 of PoP’s opus. Having gone past Beckton depot this week there is certainly surplus land there but who owns it and what development rights there are is open to question. I did note that south of the road that skirts the depot there are more industrial / storage / office units under construction so activity is increasing. We also have the big Chinese funded redevelopment in the Royal Docks which I expect will be mentioned by PoP so I shall now stop typing. 😉
I can’t see where else TfL could secure enough land for a big expansion of sidings. Nothing obvious on the Lewisham branch nor into Bank. One option would be off the line into Stratford International but I can’t see part of the Olympic Park being given over to DLR nor Tower Transit being evicted from the TfL funded Lea Interchange bus depot. Eurostar and Greater Anglia have the land at Temple Mills and that’s full. If DLR wanted to burrow under the Jubilee Line then there is surplus land north of Stagecoach’s West Ham bus garage but again don’t know if that’s allocated for other uses.
Walthamstow Writer,
As far as I am aware there plenty of space for expansion at the depot at Gallions Reach. I have presumed this was reserved for the Dagenham Dock extension.
If you could get to the other side of the Jubilee tracks (not easy) then there is also the option of taking over the enormous West Ham garage. Its a lot easier to relocate bus garages than it is DLR depots.
You also have the advantage that DLR trains can manage steep gradients so there is always the possibility of a double-decker Gallions Reach depot.
As regards the curious statement on the press release regarding earlier last trains I could not find much evidence of this at the time of writing. The only thing I found was that the last train from Beckton to Tower Gateway was a little bit earlier (ten minutes or so if I remember correctly).
@PoP & WW:
There’s also the Westfield option, where the Central Line’s depot was put below an over-site (re-)development. There’s no reason the DLR couldn’t use this trick as well.
With an all-electric railway, you no longer have to worry about toxic fumes and exhausts, so there’s no need for everything to be out in the open air.
One of the things that confuses me about the DLR is the Cutty Dark situation. I just don’t understand why a station built relatively recently wasn’t built with passive provision for platform extensions. How were the platforms at Island Gardens lengthened without the cost being prohibitive?
Then there is the current DLR station at Lewisham, when the DLR was extended from Island Gardens both the original Island Gardens station and Mudchute had to be closed and resited. Now it looks as though if the DLR is ever extended from Lewisham the DLR station there will have to be moved underground. Lessons learned…
Kingsoncommuter,
Perennial questions.
My understanding is that it is claimed that Cutty Sark was an extremely difficult station to build due to the historic buildings in the surrounding area and that it was challenging enough to get permission to build a 2-car platform. It is said that consideration was given to abandoning the idea of a station there due to these problems. It may be that creating a 3-car platform would have involved re-routing the line or even relocating the station slightly in order to get a sufficiently-long straight platform and that is what actually created the difficulties. I am not convinced of this argument but it is what I heard.
I also understand that Lewisham was very deliberately sited to make it easy to extend – probably to Catford. This was assuming that the long-planned reorganisation of roads in central Lewisham took place which is what has very recently happened. It does seem that failure by Lewisham Council to plan with a surface DLR extension in mind has put an end to these plans. I can’t see it being put underground. If you are going to go to that level of expense then you might as well put it to a new underground line rather than attract yet more people to an overcrowded DLR.
@Kingstoncommuter:
If you stand on Cutty Sark’s platforms, you can see that there are gradients very close to each end. This is because the tunnels have to get under the Thames in the northbound direction, and up to the nearby Greenwich station in the southbound direction.
To get to Greenwich station, the lines have to pass under the main line above from Greenwich towards Charlton via Maze Hill, which drops into a tunnel just east of Greenwich station. The Greenwich platforms also require a 90-degree turn as well as a steep climb up from Cutty Sark station, all of which happens over a distance of less than 400 metres.
(There’s more – but nowhere near as much as I’d hoped – on the long history of Greenwich station at the Kentrail website. Note the third photo down the page: the DLR’s bored tunnels actually end to the left, in a concrete box built directly below the station’s platform-side concourse. The DLR rises up in the gap between the brick wall seen behind the platform and the new hotel.)
Island Gardens (current station) was a cut and cover build (it’s not deep), so comparatively easy to construct compared to Cutty Sark. That didn’t stop CGL (the promoters of the Lewisham extension) trying to avoid building a replacement station at all. I remember the CGL team going white with horror at a local residents meeting when a local campaigner pointed out to them that replacing Island Gardens was a statutory requirement. The CGL team apparently hadn’t read the enabling Act at all, as they turned up at same meeting with a plan to remove spoil by lorry, unaware that the Act required them to remove it by barge. In the end, to avoid having to use Island Gardens park as a construction site (to load barges) it was agreed the spoil could be spread on Millwall park (which the new IG station is beneath) to raise the level of the pitches which previously were often waterlogged.
Does anyone know what the purpose of the work undertaken on the approach to Tower Hill is? This is just north of the tracks going towards the tunnel to Bank. It looks like the viaduct may be widened. This is visible on google maps. Cheers –
@anonymous
I assume you mean Tower Gateway, since Tower Hill is not on a viaduct.
If you look at Google Street you will see a building hoarding displaying the url http://www.royalmintgardens.com which will tell you all you could wish to know
@Pedantic of Purley: how was it ever going to be possible to extend the DLR from Lewisham given that it’s termination is practically on Loampit Vale? Is not a ‘surface DLR extension’, in fact, a tram system?
Lady Bracknell,
Its termination is not on Loampit Vale. Or, if it still is, then it won’t be for much longer. See here.
It was all part of a well-thought out long-term plan which took into account the plans for re-routing Lewisham’s roads (now happening). Unfortunately extending the DLR itself did not appear to form part of Lewisham’s plans. However I can sort of see it from Lewisham’s point of view. Having got rid of the road to open up the area you don’t really want to then replace it with a railway.
@ PoP – of course the DLR Station butts on to Loampit Vale. It’s the road outside the station that dips under the NR bridge!!
The simple fact is that Lewisham council are replacing one nasty traffic system with another one – just slower and most likely far more congested than the old one. That they’ve also virtually destroyed any practical options for improving rail transport in Lewisham seems to have passed them by or else they don’t care. Strikes me as one of the daftest bits of modern day “planning” that I’ve seen for a very long while. If you believe social media (and I accept caution is needed) then TfL are not remotely happy about the impact on buses either but they may be “nice words” being said to appease a particular local audience. It’s clear you can’t extend the DLR in any meaningful way on from Lewisham now and I suspect trying to put an Underground station in that vicinity will prove extremely difficult leaving us with the delicious prospect of a nasty, convoluted and long interchange between any future tube station and the DLR and NR platforms.
Walthamstow Writer,
It’s the road outside the station that dips under the NR bridge!!
As I understand it, it either isn’t outside the DLR station or soon it won’t be.
The latest Google map shows the changed situation at present or recently. Already traffic towards London goes via Molesworth St not the part of Loampit Vale outside the station.
My understanding, which may be wrong, is that eventually Molesworth St will be two-way and the bit of Loampit Vale in front of the station will become part of the pedestrianised central area. Even if I am wrong, I am pretty certain that was the original plan.
There would have been enough distance for the DLR to continue straight on, go over the river and then start dipping down to wherever it was planned to go to – with suitable long term planning.
the DLR can cope with quite steep gradients, and if the DLR terminus had to be replaced with a new one at a lower level in order to build an extension it wouldn’t be the first time (Island Gardens?) The Ravensbourne is hardly as big an obstacle as the Thames.
Bromley wants a direct link to Docklands – lets extend the DLR there over the Hayes line (solves the platform height problem!) and have the Bakerloo go somewhere else!
timbeau,
Worryingly, I know you write this in jest but a few years ago, so anxious were they to devolved themselves of the Hayes line, Network Rail proposed this in their London & South East RUS as an alternative to the Bakerloo extension!
I remember back in the very late seventies meeting the relief booking office clerk at the station which was to become “mine”. “Where have you come from?” he asked. “Hayes” I replied. “They would close that line if they could” he replied. If you can’t close it, foist it onto someone else!
Re. Lewisham and the DLR.
It’s complicated…
[Complicated description of central Lewisham snipped as, however accurate it may be, it is sure to be challenged and provoke tedious arguments. Malcolm]
In summary, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, m’lud, I put it to you that the present DLR station is a red herring. It would have had to be replaced regardless of what is built in Lewisham.
*
Tangentially related: I noticed in the Fleet Line article that the original 1960s plans state that its terminus in Lewisham would be underground, with its entrance near the town’s Clock Tower. This means under the High Street (now pedestrianised), not the present railway station.
I can only conclude that there was no intention of building a direct interchange here. Presumably, New Cross would have been the main interchange for the ex-SE&CR lines as Lewisham wasn’t a major interchange hub back then. Either that, or the need to substantially remodel Lewisham station and its approaches was already considered “too hard” by the mid-1960s.
And now, back to your usual programming…
So why, PoP, does Hayes entertain such a frequent off-peak (4tph) train service today? Can’t be the demand along the route to/from the likes of Sydenham, Catford, Lewisham, New Cross, London Bridge and beyond, can it? Remember that it used to be only 2tph, so if the line is so unwanted, why the service increase?
@ PoP – let’s agree to disagree. If we write as of today then Google Maps shows Loampit Vale in front of the DLR. I believe Lady Bracknell is resident in the Lewisham area so they would know the road layout. You’re looking ahead to a time when the road network is rejigged with a section of Loampit Vale disappearing under the new development.
[A good suggestion. Further detailed comment about the past, present, future or planned layout of central Lewisham is now off the menu. Malcolm]
@pop
“They would close that line if they could” he replied”
Of course they would – if it wasn’t there the layout at Lewisham would be so much simpler!
In this article
http://www.abandonedstations.org.uk/North_London_Railway_2.html
it is stated that “after closure the Docklands Light Railway bought the route for possible extension from Bow to Hackney.”
So was an extension of the DLR to Hackney ever seriously contemplated?
Graham Feakins 18:25
I didn’t say the Hayes line was unwanted. That is what the relief clerk said to me when I first met him. I certainly recall a general belief at the time that British Rail would be happier without it. It was then 2tph off-peak and so had the feel of a “peak only” line really just there to take city workers to Cannon St. The increase in off-peak service from 2tph to 3tph in 1976 clearly improved off-peak usage and helped build up off-peak traffic but this took time to build up. I suspect that they only got that because they needed to run 3tph to fit in with the revised pattern that primarily there to benefit the lines to Dartford. Incidently, I suspect that was the primary reason it went up to 4tph off-peak and only then could it really be seen that there really was a decent off-peak demand.
I provided the quote to so that the desire to get rid of the Hayes line was a long-held attitude – even if not an official one. Clearly nothing has changed.
@Anomnibus
The former bus station/bus park site was acquired for the Fleet Line station.
@Walthamstow Writer
The new road layout at Lewisham has already been implemented outside the DLR station. More importantly, the waterways have been diverted.
The massive housing development around the station will put a strain on the DLR.
&timbeau
Indeed, Tower Gateway. Tiring day. Confused man. Thank you.
Oh wow, they are going to erect some building(s) over the DLR tunnel entrance! Interesting. Thanks for the tip to check out street view. I wonder if this will vibrate a lot…
Have I been banned from posting?
IAmHedgehog,
Absolutely not. What happened is that we got a lot of very similar comments about a footbridge from Poplar to Canary Wharf and also a possible extension from Blackwall to Wood Wharf or thereabouts. These got deleted because it was getting a bit repetitious. However subsequently (without knowing about these deletions at the time) I have more or less done the same thing.
[Edit: Just to add your email address(es) don’t look very plausible so it was unlikely any attempt was made to inform you as to the reasons for deleting]
So apologies to all who got a comment deleted but, if it is any consolation, it seems that you were in good company with your ideas and the idea you had (or something similar) seems to have some level of popular support.
The latest post on the IanVisits site will be of interest to anyone interested in DLR. A scale model lurking in the Canary Wharf marketing suite. Ian doesn’t say but I’m guessing he got to see this during the OpenHouse event last weekend.
http://www.ianvisits.co.uk/blog/2015/09/25/canary-wharfs-1990s-model-of-the-dlr/
With regards to double tracking the line between Bow Church and Pudding Mill lane, wouldn’t it be possible to raise the tracks up to the height of the viaduct before the trains begin the sharp easterly turn? There is appears to be about 140m between clearing the over bridge after Bow Church and the beginning of the curve. It would also appear that there is enough space on the viaduct from Fenchurch street to slew the tracks slightly northwards before the remains of the over bridge. Since this would have to be rebuilt anyway to accommodate double track surely it can be built in such a way to allow the for the two tracks of the DLR and the NR to merge at the sight of the overbridge? Any comments would be welcome on this idea as I have no been on that section of the DLR in a while.
Many thanks. 🙂
@ D Desert – by a strange coincidence the latest TfL Finance and Policy cttee papers include a project approval for DLR double tracking on the Stratford branch. There is a brief summary of what is involved.
https://tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/fpc-160121-item09-project-monitoring-revised.pdf
You’ll need to page through the paper to find the relevant approval. There are a few other items of interest in there such as new (converted D78) rail adhesion trains for the Metropolitan Line.
@Walthamstow Writer
I think the interesting points are “The project will deliver double tracking to Pudding Mill Lane and Stratford allowing 20 trains per hour to operate between Stratford and Canary Wharf.” and “The project will complete by May 2021.”
I’m also noting “STAR” “contract award” £53m March 2016.