If you go to Paddington main line station and follow the signs to platform 14 …
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Almost Terminal: Marylebone’s Brush With Destruction
Looking at the frequent services operated today by Chiltern Railways, it seems hard to believe that the rail lines into Marylebone were once seriously considered for closure. Yet back in the mid-1980s under-utilization of the …
Continue readingQuestioning Capacity: How Quickly Will Crossrail’s New Trains Fill Up?
We had gone for quite a while without looking at Crossrail other than to publish some of the dramatic pictures made available showing the progress of the construction works. That had already started to change …
Continue readingMore Than Politics: Bombardier Gets Crossrail Rolling Stock
As had been widely anticipated for some time, this morning the winner of the Crossrail rolling stock and depot contract was announced. The (approximately) £1bn contract covers the supply of 65 nine car trains (which …
Continue readingA Window Into Crossrail From the National Audit Office
As a public project with Department for Transport ownership (albeit in this case jointly with TfL), Crossrail is subject to a number of elements of public project governance. One of the most interesting of these …
Continue readingSection of Victoria Line Closed Due to Concrete Ingress
As has been reported on Twitter and elsewhere, the Victoria Line is currently suffering delays due to concrete damage in a signal control room at Victoria. Whilst we cannot confirm these apparent photos of the …
Continue readingTfL Confirm Turnham Green Services After Piccadilly Line Upgrade
At the beginning of the month, in our article on the future of the Piccadilly Line, Pedantic of Purley indicated that London commuters would almost certainly see Piccadilly Line trains stopping at Turnham Green on …
Continue readingAutomatic for the People: Driverless Trains and the Underground
In our look at the Piccadilly Line upgrade we explained that the line would be upgraded so as to be capable of unattended train operation (UTO) with the exception of the Rayners Lane – Uxbridge …
Continue readingChristmas Quiz 2013: The Answers
Firstly, thanks to everyone who entered this year. Again, as always, we were amazed at how many people managed to get a good number of the questions right. We’ll reveal the final prize list and …
Continue readingUpgrading the Piccadilly: Calling Time on Mind the Gap?
In recent months on London Reconnections we have looked at the future of most of the tube lines, with articles on the Metropolitan Line, the other Sub-Surface Railway (SSR) Lines and the deep tube lines. …
Continue readingSite Update
As you’ve no doubt spotted, we’ve updated the LR site visually and extensively behind the scenes. As many readers will remember, we shifted to new infrastructure and layout a while back. This new change is …
Continue readingThe Sub-surface Railway and the Big Plan
In part 2 of Uncircling the Circle we looked at London Underground’s proposals for getting rid of the Circle Line in the form of a continuous loop and how they came to fruition. In doing …
Continue readingRIP the Tube Improvement Plan, Long Live New Tube for London
As the new year looms, it seems an appropriate time to look at where, in upgrade terms, the Tube goes next. We will shortly look at the upgrading of the Sub-surface Railway and how the …
Continue readingWord of the Year: Crayonista
Last year at Christmas we provided new words with a theme of transport in London to the song of the Lord High Executioner. In recognition that, as far as we are concerned, the word of …
Continue readingThe London Reconnections 2013 Christmas Quiz
Deck the halls, it is that time of year again! Twenty questions to test your transport knowledge with the promise of prizes for those who do best. This year those prizes include, as usual, a …
Continue readingThe Need for Flexibility and the Dangers of Demand: The Future of London’s Buses (Part 2)
In Part 1 of this series we looked at the recent history and circumstance that have left London with the bus network it has today. Now we can properly begin to look at how it …
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