Canning town DLR- how to make it better

[jopsuk]

Right now, Canning Town is a bit of a mess. Trains to either eastern branch can depart from platforms 1 or 3, the connection between these being below the Jubilee line.

Ideally, all eastbound trains would use an island, whilst all west/north bound would use another.

So, ignoring any nicities such as "there's no money for that", but taking advantage of the DLR being able to cope with steep gradients and tight curves,

so, ordinarily platform 1 would be for Beckton, 2 for Woolwich, 3 for Stratford, 4 for via Poplar- but 1/2 and 3/4 would be flexible.

Minor issue of the A13 being in the way...

 

[edwin_m]

Minor issue of the A13 being in the way...

Indeed, along with its slip roads. I think your platform 3 track would have to fly over the whole lot, demolishing Wickes on the way down.

 

[jopsuk]

it might be closer to possible if the cross overs between the ramps and the platforms were ditched- reducing flexibility

 

[Stats]

I don't believe there is the room for your proposal.

There are only 2 solutions that I can see for Canning Town.
1. You demolish half the bus station and have the island platform adjacent to the current P1 line. The line from Poplar would serve the new Platform 0.

2. Expand the width of the upper deck to cover both the Jubilee line and the Stratford DLR lines with P3 being over P1. That way passengers from the Jubilee line go up to the upper deck where they are informed if the next Beckton/Woolwich train is from P3 or P1. If from P1 they then go downstairs by the direct connection between the upper and lower platforms for the DLR. This would not add any additional time for current P1 users from going down and under the Jubilee line to access P1.

 

[swt_passenger]

They should have tried this. (No not really.)

Four islands, two upper for northbound and two lower for southbound (directions optional). Jubilee line through the centres, with two platform faces, and doors opening both sides. DLR either side of the outer faces of the islands.

Anyone wanting to transfer from DLR to DLR simply waits for the next (higher frequency) Jubilee line service to act as a bridge... As seen at Stratford P3/3A on the Central line...

 

[SpacePhoenix]

Would the geology of the area have prevented the Jubilee platforms from being underground and the Jubilee to have emerged a little further down the line?

 

[D365]

Would the geology of the area have prevented the Jubilee platforms from being underground and the Jubilee to have emerged a little further down the line?

It would have been vastly more expensive to put the Jubilee line platforms underground, bearing in mind that the DLR takeover of the former NLL route east of Stratford only emerged after the JLE was complete.

 

[DynamicSpirit]

Right now, Canning Town is a bit of a mess. Trains to either eastern branch can depart from platforms 1 or 3, the connection between these being below the Jubilee line.

Ideally, all eastbound trains would use an island, whilst all west/north bound would use another.

So, ignoring any nicities such as "there's no money for that", but taking advantage of the DLR being able to cope with steep gradients and tight curves,

so, ordinarily platform 1 would be for Beckton, 2 for Woolwich, 3 for Stratford, 4 for via Poplar- but 1/2 and 3/4 would be flexible.

Minor issue of the A13 being in the way...

You're right that, from the point of view of passengers, Canning Town is a complete mess. The diagram you've put up is (roughly) how I would have naively thought the DLR lines should've been built in the first place (assuming the tight curves to the North don't prevent it). (Obviously, not remotely worth the huge expense of fixing it now)

One comment though: Your diagram appears to be more complex than necessary. I would have thought you could get away with crossovers at only one end of each bay platform - for example, for platforms 3-4 you could either remove the crossover to the North or massively simplify the flyover to the South (by making P3 only accessible from Woolwich and P4 only accessible from Beckton, or vice versa). Ditto for platforms 1-2. That's of course assuming that having trains to any destination depart from either side of a bay platform isn't a problem - but offhand I don't think that should be a big issue for passengers.

Of course a cheap-ish fix that could presumably be done now is to have much better information screens on all the platforms that clearly show how many minutes to the next departure and where it's heading to for all DLR platforms - so that no matter which platform you're on, you can judge which platform you're best off going to.

 

[glbotu]

This seems to be a problem that London's transport planners don't have a problem with. I'm currently invisaging chaos at KXSP for passengers trying to get to Cambridge but not quite knowing whether to go to King's Cross or St Pancras.

 

[Clip]

I think they were just constrained when they built it and have adjusted timetables every so often to try and stop having to go from top to bottom all day.

During the day there is now Canning Town to Beckton from the bottom as well as the normal Tower gateway to Beckton services up top so no matter which platform you come in on you can always make it to either branch without crossing platforms.

Of course at night its strictly Woolwich from downstairs and a mix of Beckton and Woolwich upstairs

 

[telstarbox]

This seems to be a problem that London's transport planners don't have a problem with. I'm currently invisaging chaos at KXSP for passengers trying to get to Cambridge but not quite knowing whether to go to King's Cross or St Pancras.

At KXSP there is a big list of destinations at the point where pax turn left or right so this dilemma is avoided

It says Cambridge, Leeds, Scotland etc under Kings Cross and Paris, Brussels, Derby etc under St P.

Edit: sorry, misunderstood the previous lost.

 

[jopsuk]

This seems to be a problem that London's transport planners don't have a problem with. I'm currently invisaging chaos at KXSP for passengers trying to get to Cambridge but not quite knowing whether to go to King's Cross or St Pancras.

I doubt that will be much of an issue- the difference in arrival time between an Great Northern Cambridge Express from Kings Cross and the preceding Thameslink from Brighton will only be ~5 minutes (based on current timetables) and the Thameslink from Tattenham Corner will always be passed by the Express.

Off peak, currently the eg 1352 service* from KGX arrives CBG 1455. The 1414 Express service arrives CBG 1502, seven minutes later. The 1405 slow service** then arrives 1529.

Unless you're very tight for time, in most circumstances unless you're already on Thameslink it'll be best to go to Kings Cross where you'll get on a train that starts there and so won't already have passengers on board.


* which will become Thameslink from Brighton and get a matching xx22 (subject to times being shifted to suit the TL timetable)

** becomes a Tattenham Corner TL service and gets a matching xx35 service