East London Line to Queens Park and beyond

[ijmad]

Looking at http://carto.metro.free.fr/cartes/metro-tram-london/, I can't help but notice that the North London line is very nearly 4-tracked all the way from Highbury & Islington to Camden Road West junction. There are a few sections where tracks have been torn up (although the railway land and bridges over roads are largely in tact), and a couple of pinch points which seem like they could be worked out with some investment in a 'scheme'.

Why a scheme? Because pretty soon it seems like it's no-longer going to be acceptable to run tube trains and National Rail together due to the platform height issue creating a large step up or step down. With the Bakerloo Line extension in the offing and the New Tube for London hopefully going ahead I suggest that we want an accessible railway with step free access.

If we curtail the Bakerloo to Queens Park (and adjust the trackbeds there for level access and cross platform interchange), a new service is needed to replace it.

So, how about extending ELL trains via one pair of these NLL tracks, taking it via Primrose Hill (reopen) and then joining the existing Euston services on the Watford DC lines, something like:

• Existing 4ph from Euston to Watford
  
• 4tph from New Cross to Watford via Queens Park
• 6tph from Crystal Palace to Harrow and Wealdstone via Queens Park

Minor spanner in the works is that the Bakerloo's depot is at Stonebridge Park, but trains could still run on these lines to access the depot, just not in passenger service.

 

[PeterC]

A couple of short workings frm Harrow to Euston on the DC lines each hour would probably be sufficient, assuming capacity at Euston.

Reinstating the northern pair of tracks all the way from Dalston to Camden Road along with platforms wouldn't be trivial. Land acquisition would be required around the Camden Road junctions to build a new bridge as there is only a two track crossing of Kentish Town Road. I think that the other, curently unused, bridges around the station would need replacing too.

Has your timetable accounted for the daytime freight paths? These aren't going to go away.

My inner crayonista loves this idea but, sadly, it really is a non starter.

 

[VT 390]

If not having tube/national rail trains at the same stations is what your after then would it not be easier to extend the Bakerloo line to Watford Junction and have the Overground just run a frequent service between Queens Park and Euston? Alternatively if turning back Overground trains at Queens Park was a problem they could run non stop to Willesden Junction and terminate in the bay platform there.
The reason I suggest this is that even if it were possible to extend the East London line trains would it not make the risk of delays greater?

 

[ijmad]

A couple of short workings frm Harrow to Euston on the DC lines each hour would probably be sufficient, assuming capacity at Euston.

Reinstating the northern pair of tracks all the way from Dalston to Camden Road along with platforms wouldn't be trivial. Land acquisition would be required around the Camden Road junctions to build a new bridge as there is only a two track crossing of Kentish Town Road. I think that the other, curently unused, bridges around the station would need replacing too.

Has your timetable accounted for the daytime freight paths? These aren't going to go away.

My inner crayonista loves this idea but, sadly, it really is a non starter.

Yup yup and yup. Appreciate it's a fanciful idea.

As for freight workings, I figured having a full extra pair of tracks would help that a lot! Would provide some extra passenger capacity for a long stretch of the NLL without requiring more paths. But I am sure it would cost a pretty penny as you suggest. Perhaps funded by the Bakerloo line extension project?

Although perhaps more likely, we would see the Bakerloo go to Watford and the Overground curtailed (or entirely withdrawn in favour of more paths for mainline services that make local stops at South Hampstead, Kilburn and Queens Park before going off to far flung places).

 

[randyrippley]

Isn't this more or less reinventing the wheel? The Watford Line - Broad St services ended due to diminishing demand, is there any evidence that this new service would do better?

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

Isn't this more or less reinventing the wheel? The Watford Line - Broad St services ended due to diminishing demand, is there any evidence that this new service would do better?

Remember it would not end at Broad Street but maybe Clapham, New Cross, West Croydon or Crystal Palace so I do not know but there maybe some demand. And times have changed since the service was stopped.

 

[randyrippley]

Remember it would not end at Broad Street but maybe Clapham, New Cross, West Croydon or Crystal Palace so I do not know but there maybe some demand. And times have changed since the service was stopped.

But still the same problem as the Broad St service had: its a long way round. Would anyone really travel Watford - Clapham via the ELL when the tube or the WLL would be quicker?

 

[ijmad]

But still the same problem as the Broad St service had: its a long way round. Would anyone really travel Watford - Clapham via the ELL when the tube or the WLL would be quicker?

You could make a similar argument about Richmond to Stratford. If there is demand for shorter journeys overlapping along the line, even if no-one goes end to end, it still makes sense to connect things up I think?

Also I would use the New Cross and Crystal Palace services, not the Claphams. That route is probably too long and weird to make sense, whereas New Cross and Crystal Palace to Watford are both SE to NW skirting London, and yes might be slower than changing to the Jubilee and Bakerloo but not crazily so.

Eyeballing it, I think New Cross to Watford Junction would be about 1h20 to 1h30. TfL thinks the quickest current route is 1h13 but that requires two changes.

 

[transmanche]

The Watford Line - Broad St services ended due to diminishing demand, is there any evidence that this new service would do better?

Well, at the time the services ended the NLL had a 2-EPB running every 20 mins. Now it has eight high-capacity 5-car trains per hour running in the peak. That's a capacity increase from about 600 passengers per hour to something like 7,200 passengers per hour.

Times have changed and travel patterns have changed too.

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

But still the same problem as the Broad St service had: its a long way round. Would anyone really travel Watford - Clapham via the ELL when the tube or the WLL would be quicker?

Same argument could be made about Richmond to Stratford or Clapham to Stratford and Highbury Islington to Clapham.

 

[Jorge Da Silva]

Well, at the time the services ended the NLL had a 2-EPB running every 20 mins. Now it has eight high-capacity 5-car trains per hour running in the peak. That's a capacity increase from about 600 passengers per hour to something like 7,200 passengers per hour.

Times have changed and travel patterns have changed too.

And even a 5-car can get very overcrowded in the peak

 

[mr_jrt]

This concept is one of my pet ideas too - going on about 12 years now, I think! When I first thought about it there were options for widening the Camden Road viaducts on either side, but redevelopment a few years back has killed off any widening to the south. On the northern side however, all is fine. It's a dentist's surgery and a small part of a tennis court/playground. The playground you could in theory build a modern flat bridge deck over so the space would remain available for use. The dentists would probably have to go though. Small fry in terms of property acquisition though. Giving the bridges east of Camden Road a refurb is (relatively speaking) trivial, so the only real issue is the elephant in the room of the freight paths mentioned above.

You could try and approach it by making the NLL pair semi-fast, to give the freight more of a clear run, but the problem then becomes that they will be on the wrong pair to reach Primrose Hill/Chalk Farm with a conflicting crossing movement. Now, there is room for some freight loops around Primrose Hill/Chalk Farm (even with platforms there!), but you would still have that flat crossing issue.

The obvious thing to do is to run them via Hampstead Heath instead - the tunnel was enlarged for precisely sending freight that way, so we know they will fit. That solves the problem of the conflicting movement, but you are still awkwardly fitting them in between the LO services. The solution there I feel is to route most, if not all, the freight via the Goblin. It still ends up on the NLL at Gospel Oak, but you've removed it between Stratford and Kentish Town, so you can run shuttles between Stratford and Camden Road using those freight paths. I don't think there's room for a 5th platform at Camden Road, but maybe there's room for a turnback siding around Kentish Town West, perhaps, once the viaduct ends.

There is also the little issue of getting that freight onto the Goblin in the first place, though. Coming from Ripple Lane you're obviously fine, but coming from the GEML the only current way is via Stratford and the NLL. So I propose a chord from the GEML to the Goblin, enabling freight access to it.

We now have *a lot* of freight congesting the Goblin and the NLL between Gospel Oak and Willesden. There is no easy way to alleviate this - you need new capacity for the freight, and that probably means a freight tunnel under London of some sort. Perhaps Ripple Lane to Wembley? You certainly wouldn't need any expensive stations, and it could go s deep as you like because of that. Just have to be mindful of gradients.

That's a rather grand plan though, shorter-term you could bore a short tunnel from east of Gospel Oak to Finchley Road that would segregate the Goblin traffic from the NLL by connecting it to the Hendon lines at West Hampstead. You would be extending the new congestion on the Goblin to Cricklewood at the very least, potentially also all the way down the Dudding Hill line, but you'd be giving the freight a way all around London without going into zone 2.

Summary of interventions, in most useful order (IMHO):

• New tunnel from Junction Road (east of Gospel Oak) to Finchley Road (east of West Hampstead)
• Goblin service expanded to run from Barking Riverside to Richmond via West Hampstead & Dudding Hill.
  
• New chord linking GEML and Goblin.
• All NLL freight diverted via Goblin.
  
• Widened viaducts west of Camden Road.
• Replaced bridge decks east of Camden Road.
• Restored platforms at Camden Road.
• NLL slewed over to north side of the formation between Camden Road and Highbury and Islington.
• Turnback crossover added at Chalk Farm for Camden Road terminating services.
• ELL extended to Primrose Hill/Chalk Farm on south side of NLL formation.
  
• Platforms at Primrose Hill/Chalk Farm restored and linked to Chalk Farm tube station.
  
• Both Willesden Junction LO bays restored as ELL terminus.

...and in the distant future, a freight tunnel from Ripple Lane to Wembley.