My proposal for a new London Overground Service

[waterboo]

Hello guys, using the fantastic Carto Metro Website, i have devised by own crayons plan for a new North London Line within London. The following route i have designed uses existing track infastructure along its entirety with no new track needing to be installed, apart from a crossover at Crickewood station. Do you think that such a route below would ever be feasable at London Overground Frequencies?

Hounslow => Stratford / London Liverpool Street

Calling At:
- Hounslow
- Isleworth
- Kew Bridge (New platforms constructed on Old Kew Junction)
- South Acton (Joining the existing North London Line)
- Acton Central
- Harlesden (New platforms constructed on site of the old station)
- Neasden/Dudding Hill (existing "Dudding Hill" station reopened ???)
- Crickewood
A crossover would need to be built in order for trains to be able to access Carlton Road Jc from the Up/Down Hendon Lines. The existing crossovers west of West Hamstead Thameslink would potentially restrict paths on the MML.
- West Hamstead Thameslink
- Gospel Oak (New Plaforms) ???????????? This would be an excellent interchange station for other London Overground Services
- Upper Holloway
- Crouch Hill
- Harringay Green Lanes
- South Tottenham
From here the line divereges to two possible destinations

-Stratford Terminators
- Lea Bridge
- Stratford
- Liverpool Street Terminators
- Clapton
- Hackney Downs
- London Fields
- Cambridge Heath
- Bethnal Green
- London Liverpool Street

 

[Domh245]

Do you think that such a route below would ever be feasable at London Overground Frequencies?

Not if you want to keep the existing frequencies.

 

[Bald Rick]

One doesn't like to stifle innovation, but these are the issues you would have to overcome if you wanted to run this service without taking existing (all busy) services out of the timetable:

Electrifying Kew Curve
Build a bridge for the Level Crossing at Acton Central
Electrifying Acton Wells - Cricklewood
Grade separation at Cricklewood / West Hampstead (presumably that is what you meant by 'crossover' as the relevant point work is there now)
Grade separation at Carton Road Junction
Electrification of Carlton Road Jn to Junction Road Jn
Resignalling Gospel Oak - South Tottenham for extra capacity
New grade separation at Tottenham South Junction to get to / from WAML, and new lines along the WAML to Coppermill Junction, as the line is at capacity. (And note the Crossrail 2 tunnel portals and related grade separation are proposed for this area, and would not be compatible)

For the Stratford service:
Grade separation of the access to Orient Way carriage sidings, or relocation of the sidings somewhere else handy for Liverpool Street
New platforms at Stratford (requiring the demolition of either a soon to be built mixed use development, or part of Westfield)
A new bridge across HS1 to get to those platforms

For the Liverpool St service:
Two new tracks from Clapton Junction to Hackney Downs, and Bethnal Green to Liverpool St.
Some new platforms at Liverpool St.

Solve all that and you're on to a winner!

 

[Bevan Price]

Apart from the cost - are there enough potential passengers needing a high frequency service along such a route ? Or would the money be better spent improving capacity elsewhere ?

 

[306024]

Money? What money? That little scheme would make HS2 look a bargain

 

[Dr Hoo]

A regular high capacity service (by London standards) would require a significant additional fleet of rolling stock. Plans would require a new or much extended depot somewhere.

 

[A0]

I think the problem is this doesn't really have a USP.

If you want to go from Hounslow (or Richmond for that matter) to Liverpool Street there are quicker ways than picking you way around the NLL.

Richmond is already linked to Stratford, not sure what adding Hounslow on really achieves?

As for getting the services onto the GOBLIN - given the likely frequency uplift that will see once electrified the interchange time at Gospel Oak is going to be minimal moving forward in any case.

 

[AM9]

Nobody has mentioned the need to bore another pair of tunnels just to reach Junction Road junction, given that the whole of the up Thameslink MML branch service uses the slow line to Kentish town. Not a cheap option.
Plus there would be yet another unnecessary compromise of DC lines in an ac-only environment. A better solution might be to make Dudding Hill an overground route and somehow, create a link onto the NLL between West Hampstead and Frogmore. That would be a challenge both in gradients and minimum curve radius.

 

[Mutant Lemming]

There is a need for some kind of service over the Dudding Hill branch - providing a link from West London (Ealing Broadway, maybe) to Cricklewood and/or Hendon. This is a service that could be provided fairly cheaply with a new platform at Cricklewood and a few DMU sets. The busy bus routes like the 83 and 266 take an age to traverse from West to North West London as does traffic on the North Circular. An interim service could be up and running in a short relatively short space of time with longer term aims to electrify and open new stations along the route.

 

[Class 170101]

I can see the advantage of serving Cricklewood or Brent Cross and also it would give an additional link from SW lines to HS2 station at Old Oak via a change at Acton Central.

 

[waterboo]

So in fairness, i can understand that the majority of the route shadows the current North London Line, meaning there is a relativly weak USP. Also, the difficulties of grade separating at Crickewood make it a rather costly project.

However, there is the general idea that the Dudding Hill track is relativly underused.

So, what if the track could be used to form a route from Heathrow Airport to Luton Airport?

The route would be:
Heathrow Central -> Feltham (Via a new tunnel)
Feltham - Kew Bridge
Kew Bridge - Hendon (Via South Acton, Acton Central, Harlesden (New platforms?)
Hendon - Luton Airport

In my opinion , the main limitation of this route would be the area between South Acton and Acton Central, but would this be alleviated in high capacity signalling was installed?

I reckon this utilisation of the dudding hull spur would provide a useful link between two major london airports, as well as Heathrow Airport to Old Oak Common.

 

[Bald Rick]

So in fairness, i can understand that the majority of the route shadows the current North London Line, meaning there is a relativly weak USP. Also, the difficulties of grade separating at Crickewood make it a rather costly project.

However, there is the general idea that the Dudding Hill track is relativly underused.

So, what if the track could be used to form a route from Heathrow Airport to Luton Airport?

The route would be:
Heathrow Central -> Feltham (Via a new tunnel)
Feltham - Kew Bridge
Kew Bridge - Hendon (Via South Acton, Acton Central, Harlesden (New platforms?)
Hendon - Luton Airport

In my opinion , the main limitation of this route would be the area between South Acton and Acton Central, but would this be alleviated in high capacity signalling was installed?

I reckon this utilisation of the dudding hull spur would provide a useful link between two major london airports, as well as Heathrow Airport to Old Oak Common.

Grade separating Cricklewood was one of the easier bits!


I suspect you could count the number of people who fly into Luton and out of Heathrow each day (or vice versa) on the thumbs of one hand. Besides, anyone wanting to do it would do Crossrail - Farringdon - Thameslink which would be about the same time (and has the benefit of actually existing in 2 years time)

Post 2018, the MML does not have capacity on the slow lines north of Harpenden for more services in the peak, so this would be an off peak only service, or you remove some of the TL trains. Ditto, there's not much capacity left at Acton Wells.

Yes, better signalling would sort line capacity between Actons South and Central, but you would have to close the level crossing at the latter and provide a bridge. The very best of luck in doing that.

LHR to OOC will be provided by Crossrail when the latter station opens, and will take about 20 minutes. Going via Feltham, Kew etc would take at least 30.

 

[Class 170101]

I reckon this utilisation of the dudding hull spur would provide a useful link between two major london airports, as well as Heathrow Airport to Old Oak Common.

Only as secondary link between Old Oak and Heathrow. The primary link would still be via Heathrow connect / Crossrail.

 

[Busaholic]

In an ideal world, I'm sure such a scheme would seem seductive, but there's a reason why, looked at simplistically anyway (i.e. before Bald Rick goes into the actual measures necessary), not too much new build is required and that's because near-parallel links already exist. A much greater need could easily be proved south of the Thames on a route from, say, Bexleyheath to Kingston via Bromley and Croydon but, of course, you are talking many billions, planning blight, etc etc, because there are virtually no existing lines to help speed the process.

 

[The Ham]

Grade separating Cricklewood was one of the easier bits!


I suspect you could count the number of people who fly into Luton and out of Heathrow each day (or vice versa) on the thumbs of one hand. Besides, anyone wanting to do it would do Crossrail - Farringdon - Thameslink which would be about the same time (and has the benefit of actually existing in 2 years time)

Post 2018, the MML does not have capacity on the slow lines north of Harpenden for more services in the peak, so this would be an off peak only service, or you remove some of the TL trains. Ditto, there's not much capacity left at Acton Wells.

Yes, better signalling would sort line capacity between Actons South and Central, but you would have to close the level crossing at the latter and provide a bridge. The very best of luck in doing that.

LHR to OOC will be provided by Crossrail when the latter station opens, and will take about 20 minutes. Going via Feltham, Kew etc would take at least 30.

Again this may be one of those services which sees little end to end flows of traffic, rather would provide a link between stations which otherwise doesn't exist.

There is also the fact that it avoids having to go into central London, so although it may take longer it could be priced to be cheaper which would attract people.

Even if it didn't run on the MML during the peaks, by the very nature of it connecting at a point not in central London it would mean that the change would be on to/off of a less busy service and could result in a shorter wait for a seat.

Yes a 2tph frequency would be expensive to provide but it may be easy enough to provide a less frequentl service, say, 1 train every 2 hours.

 

[LLivery]

I'd rather Feltham to Barking via Hounslow, Willesden Jun and Gospel Oak. Could only happen if there was less freight on the NLL, electrify the Acton Cord and a new track between Whitton and Feltham.

 

[AlterEgo]

What's the target market of the proposal? Who will use it? Does it have a USP?

Or is this another thread where someone's traced an obscure route on Quail, and said they'd like a train there?

 

[Mutant Lemming]

What's the target market of the proposal? Who will use it? Does it have a USP?

Or is this another thread where someone's traced an obscure route on Quail, and said they'd like a train there?

I did propose an Ealing Broadway - Cricklewood/Hendon service but in hindsight bearing in mind Crossrail will soon be upon us an Acton Mainline - Cricklewood/Hendon shuttle would probably be an easier link to provide. As well as providing connections to airports without crossing London it will provide a link for the proposed expansion of Brent Cross.