Funding Approved for New Bermondsey Station and extra ELL services

[hwl]

Yeah, Canada Water is frankly near breaking point in the morning peaks at the moment. The Northbound Overground platform has one escalator down to the Jubilee Line and it's congestion regularly skirts 'dangerous' IMHO. While there's a large waiting area away from the platform edge for people wishing to use it, it's now barely emptying before the next Northbound overground pulls in. At 20tph I don't think it will cope.

But you're right, Crossrail may be the saviour. Although it seems unlikely many will wait to change at Whitechapel to get to Canary Wharf (unless their office is at North Quay i.e. just outside the Crossrail station), those going to Stratford may well change their journeys. Westbound, a lot of passengers who get on the Jubilee Line at Canada Water seem to stay on well past Waterloo (my old commute, I remember the patterns). So hopefully this means Crossrail will present a higher capacity, quicker westward link for many of their journeys too, wherever they might be going eventually, staying on the Overground until Whitechapel might attract a good fraction of them.

If there is not a wholesale switch, the only alternative for Canada Water would seem to be a very awkward one way system in the peaks.

The awkward 1way system has been used at times before. The single escalator was some what due to fears about the Jubilee platforms getting too crowded (original frequencies) combined with cost minimisation.

CR impact: We're looking at 15-21 months till the initial 12tph Abbey Wood - Paddington service on CR which may not be enough to get people switching initially due to comparatively low frequency and capacity.

TfL could of course uncancel the next phase of Jubilee improvements... I suspect one of the reason they could justify it was Jubilee growth expected to flat line for a number of years post CR opening.

Overall just 10-15% of the Canada Water changers swapping to Whitechapel would make a big difference.

 

[cle]

Canada Water definitely needs an additional access point between the lines. It is going to explode under these developments.

Good problems to have, and all that - and Crossrail will help -but the ELL also needs to become a high frequency metro. If that means trimming branches to simplify, so be it.

 

[ijmad]

Was Canada Water even built with the ELLx in mind? Or was it built with expected interchange volumes for the old East London tube line? I don't know how far back the conception of ELLx went.

 

[Timmyd]

As a West Norwood user, I’d agree with a lot here but the one downside of the (generally good) timetable change has been the services to LBG via Crystal Palace are virtually unusable now, owing to long stops at Palace both ways, plus towards London Bridge, ridiculously long timings NXG to LBG, and going from London Bridge, leaving at almost exactly the same time as the services via Peckham Rye. This effectively means the service has been halved. I used to prefer the service via Sydenham because of it being a 377 as opposed to a 455 but the time difference is too big now. I’m confused that LO is blamed for this as the long waits at Palace and long (up to 9 minutes) NXG to LBG timings wouldn’t immediately seem to be connected to LO

 

[JaJaWa]

Was Canada Water even built with the ELLx in mind? Or was it built with expected interchange volumes for the old East London tube line? I don't know how far back the conception of ELLx went.

Was designed for the old tube line and no growth – even has a shorter platform than the other stations.

 

[ijmad]

Was designed for the old tube line and no growth – even has a shorter platform than the other stations.

Wikipedia suggests TfL were thinking about ELLx in the late 90s when the Jubilee Line extension was under construction, but perhaps cosmic forces didn't line up in this case. It does seem borderline negligent that they spent £20m on a station and delivered only four car platforms.

 

[hwl]

Wikipedia suggests TfL were thinking about ELLx in the late 90s when the Jubilee Line extension was under construction, but perhaps cosmic forces didn't line up in this case. It does seem borderline negligent that they spent £20m on a station and delivered only four car platforms.

I'll ask one of the people involved when I next see them.
But from memory:
they wanted to do more but got value engineered down
space was left for an extra escalator

Then when it came to ELL rebuild they needed so save some money so Canada Water was the obvious one to cut back on as it would be easier to justify improvements later and needed the least work excluding track anyway, but important to get passive provision for 8 car in as many places as possible.

[ELLX was technically the Clapham Jn branch works]

 

[Class 170101]

I'll ask one of the people involved when I next see them.
But from memory:
they wanted to do more but got value engineered down
space was left for an extra escalator

Then when it came to ELL rebuild they needed so save some money so Canada Water was the obvious one to cut back on as it would be easier to justify improvements later and needed the least work excluding track anyway, but important to get passive provision for 8 car in as many places as possible.

This is depressing that engineers have to think about how to get something in the future rather than planning and executing it in the present - when its bound to be cheaper.