Overground Expansion

September seems another big expansion of the London Overground (LO) as it takes over stations on route to Croydon ahead of next years running of services on the East London Railway (ELR). The following stations will be taken over on the 20th September;

• New Cross Gate
• Brockley
• Honor Oak Park
• Forest Hill
• Sydenham
• Crystal Palace
• Penge West
• Anerley
• Norwood Junction
• West Croydon

This will lead to a re branding of the stations ahead of the East London Rail services expected to start serving these stations in Spring next year. It remains to be seen if the first services using Oyster at these stations will be Southern's or London Overground's.

This comes along with the news that Imperial Wharf station is to open of the 27th of this month. The new station which has been in the planning stage for years is the second completely new station opened since TfL took control of the Overground network and also the second new station on the West London Line.

Shoreditch High Street - UPDATE

After weeks of waiting I finally got a reply from TfL over why all of a sudden Shoreditch High Street has been re-branded from a Zone 2 to Zone 1 stations. The following is what TfL told me;

“Thank you for your email.
Yes, I can confirm that the Secretary of State (Department for Transport) has set out a condition that Shoreditch be a Zone 1 station as part of the funding deal that’s been agreed.
As with most of these type of agreements, they are complicated and involved and I'm not in a position to provide further details of the reasoning behind the decision.”

So although the price of using the East London Railway will bring in extra money, the addition cost means that the full extension gets built and built quickly. Now its just a case of seeing if TfL can get the cash for the Surrey Canal Road station.

The original story can be found here.

Crossrail Update

Here's an update from Crossrail confirming what I had already guessed. West Ham reversing siding is to be used to replace Whitechapel as a reversing station.

Here is the email confirming this

Thank you for your enquiry dated 27th July 2008 to the Crossrail Helpdesk.

In regards to your enquiry concerning West Ham please find a response below.

Purpose of the West Ham Reversing Sidings

The Crossrail ticket hall is to be built above the District Line and Hammersmith & City Line (H/C) platforms. The construction of an interchange to serve Crossrail, the District and H/C lines as well as the East London line will require the District and H/C track layout to be simplified to just two through tracks. This is to create sufficient space to widen platforms to accommodate new entrance and interchange stairs and escalators. Before this can be achieved, alternative train reversing facilities for the District and H/C line need to be constructed, London Underground have identified that this can be achieved within existing railway land on the District and H/C lines between West ham and Plaistow Stations, this will allow trains to reverse in both directions.

This really means that Whitechapel station in a few years isn't going to look anything like what we are used to now. The fact is Whitechapel will end up a closed in station on four levels (booking hall, District/Hammersmith & City Line, East London Railway (Overground) and finally Crossrail). I'm also guessing the tracks will change on the eastern side to enable easier access to the southbound Overground platforms with longer platformed access over the tracks. One thing tho is that using a siding to reverse will create a longer turn around with LU's tipping out procudres. This means the train has to be checked as empty at West Ham before it can go into the siding, driver change ends and come back into the west bound platform. Currently at Whitechapel the train pulls into the platform and the driver changes ends. Simple, especially if there is service problems. Well my view anyway.

London Overground Works

It been reported in the Construction News (12th June issue) some information over the final stages of phase one of the East London Railway (the old East London Tube Line). The £6.5m Dalston Curve job is up fro grabs for firms with dedicated tracks as well all know. What's new from the article is they plan to put tracks from the Whitechapel to Cannonbury, Highbury & Islington, but keep them going to have reversing platforms at Camden Road. I think this is a mistake as there is no mention of Caledonian Road & Barnsbury. so does this mean services from south of Whitechapel are going to be extended to Caledonian Road & Barnsbury or is the plan to run empty to there from Highbury? I think is another mini extension of the Overground that TfL isn't talking about. The south end at Croydon is going past the published terminus of East Croydon, with two services terminating there an hour with a further two terminating new platforms at South Croydon. More on that when I find out.

Also mentioned is the £100m four tracking of the North London Line from Stratford to Gospel Oak. Now this is interesting as they mention the line is at capacity now on the 11 station section and works include platform lengthening and loops. Funded by DfT, the idea is to run longer trains, which is likely to be the 4 car Electrostars already ordered by TfL. This mean that freight as well as Overground trains will be running on the line. I have a feeling this will also tie into the mega Thames Port development at Thurrock providing a decent rail link for cargo. Just where it will go after Gospel Oak is questionable though.

LUL has also to do some further work on the four more station though which ones aren't mentioned. Basically the work is on CCTV and basic structure work to bring it up to the standards expected by a London Underground stations, good news for the regular user of the line!