… the Overground, the next video in the ‘Secrets’ series produced for Londonist by Station Master is now in full swing, production wise. Here is a screenshot from the animated map giving an overview of the the current Overground network.
Expect the finished video to be completed by the end of April!
Out of the fleet of 25 trains required to service the East London Line part of the Overground, the halfway point for the extended trains has been reached, as 13 units are now five cars in length.
Whitechapel, Wapping – and here at Rotherhithe though – are three stations on that line where the fifth carriage doesn’t fit, (you can just make it out in this picture here). The fifth car sits in the darkness of the tunnel, and Selective Door Opening makes sure that the doors in the last carriage don’t open into the tunnel.
Five car Overground train
With five car trains arriving on the London Overground, many of the platforms have been extended. An oddity arising from this can be found at West Brompton, where due to the southbound Overground trains now stopping further forward than they used to, it has been possible to open up another space in the fence that is adjacent to the eastbound District Line platform.
This exit data has been added to Station Master and will be in the next release!
New West Brompton
Five Car Unit
The first of the new five-car (carriage) trains rolled out today onto the London Overground, as it went into service on the Highbury – New Cross branch (East London Line) of the network.
Over the next year, all London Overground trains will receive an additional carriage, and we’ve just realised (with a resigned ‘sigh‘) that it means we’ll have to go and get the exact carriage and door exit positions all over again for Overground trains now that they have this extra carriage!
Too many blobs
It’s always interesting to see where old links on the Internet take you. Whilst clicking around, we discovered an old BBC article that spoke about the launch of the London Overground back in 2006, and the new proposed tube map. It seems that at the time the designers planned on having interchange ‘blobs’ all along the whole stretch where Overground trains stopped at the same stations as Bakerloo Line trains.
This had never been considered on parts of the map where two lines ran on the same tracks (e.g. the Metropolitan and Piccadilly lines out to Uxbridge) but it seems that it was considered here. Considered, not finalised because obviously they recognised that it was ugly, and didn’t go with it for the final version.
We passed through Gospel Oak station last week to find that the new ticket hall which they’ve been building for several months is now in place. It’s opened up a large space – about three times bigger than it was before – with over twice the number of barriers that there were before to cope with the increased number of passengers now passing through this station.
What with the lifts, and the new coffee shop on Platform 2/3, Gospel Oak is a much improved station than what it was just 18 months ago!
Gospel Oak Ticket Hall
Did you miss this? It seems there is a consultation running on whether there should be a new Overground station as part of the redevelopment of Old Oak Common.
“A number of proposals are being developed in the Old Oak Common area which impact on local transport needs and strengthen the case for a new Overground Station in the area” – says the website, and basically they are asking local people whether they would like an new Overground station on this stretch of track or not.
You can read the full proposals and consultation on this website.
Old Oak Overground
TfL released their consultation a couple of days ago about a proposed extension to the London Overground which would extend it east and south by 4 kilometres – mostly over existing track but a new section over a new piece of proposed line to bring a railway station to the housing development planned at Barking Riverside.
Diamond Geezer looks at the social issues here, but for the consultation you’ll want to look at the TfL page here.
What we liked most of all though, because of how oddly strange it looks, is the new proposed London Overground map, which also contains the section between Romford and Upminster which may go over to the London Overground.
Click on the section of the map here to get the large PDF of the whole thing …
Barking Riverside
The new station link between Walthamstow Central and Walthamstow Queens Road is almost open … almost.
It’s only taken almost 20 years to happen since it was first touted, and talking to the station staff at Queens Road yesterday, they said it was all “Down to the council digging their heels in with red tape” which had slowed it down.
New Entrance/Exit
The new ramped entrance at Walthamstow Queens Road has in fact been in place since 2013, and there are articles online suggesting that it would have been open last summer, but instead – it now really looks as if it will open next Monday – 11th August.
There’s a new footpath through the car park too – which is necessary to form a quick path between the two stations, and it’s been named Ray Dudley Way after a long standing member of Barking to Gospel Oak Rail User Group (BGORUG) who sadly passed away last year without seeing this project come to fruition.
Through the car park
But for the geeks amongst us, it means that you’ll be able to change between the Victoria Line and the Overground here in a short 2-3 minute walk instead of the 6-7 that it took previously.
Walthamstow Map
Lots of publicity is currently appearing in all Overground stations, including a nice map showing you what work is taking place at Overground stations to extend the length of the platforms to accommodate five-car trains.
Overground extension map
The new longer trains should be ready to roll out and be in operation from December of this year, and you can see work taking place all over the Overground network to lengthen platforms, as can be seen here at West Brompton.
West Brompton Extension