London Overground

[SELondoner]

The East London line is actually planned to open rather earlier than the publicly advertised date; summer 2010 allows for a lot of slippage which isn't actually intended to be used. The long contingency is to avoid a situation where the contractors are able to throw spanners in the works to go slow and then name their price to complete on time (as has happened in other time-constrained projects).

[N1]

I am all for the Overground and the tube style service and extending it in the south to offer a proper orbital service sounds like a good idea. But is there a need for it? I have only used it in rush hour when the tube was broken. Anyone uses it regularly?

ADD: the name is odd though

[Trainman Dave]

deleted

[Trainman Dave]

Originally Posted by N1

I am all for the Overground and the tube style service and extending it in the south to offer a proper orbital service sounds like a good idea. But is there a need for it? I have only used it in rush hour when the tube was broken. Anyone uses it regularly

It is unlikely that there will actually be a train which runs in circle'a arround London. At the risk of stirring up debate, I will speculate that that the following sevices will be operating by 2020:

Clapham Junction to Stratford
Wilesden Junction to New Cross
Highbury to Claphan Junction
West Croydon to Wilesden Junction

These overlapping services will provide a series of by passes for Central London which avoid the underground lines through Central London.

A circle route with so many short segments and junctions wold be very unreliable, like LUL's Circle line

[U Thant]

It'll be physically impossible (or near enough) to run trains from the ELL west of Highbury & Islington. I'd speculate the service pattern will remain much the same as now, with no overlap of services save Highbury-Dalston where the NLL and ELL have parallel (but separate) tracks. Possibly the Clapham-Willesden-Gospel Oak-Barking service will happen if the line is ever electrified.

Originally Posted by Bob

Interesting pictures. I reckon the white arches might just be the pieces of the bridge which will cross Shoreditch High Street as the only glimpse I've seen of a render showed something like that.

Yes it is. Have a look at the map I made:
http://londonconnections.blogspot.co...e-through.html

Click to enlarge and there's a little drawing along the bottom showing the design of the viaduct and the station and the bridges.

[DarJoLe]

The new bridge spanning Shoreditch High Street was shunted into place this morning, confusing all manner of Shoreditchen wondering how a bridge appeared on their doorstep literally overnight.

image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr


image hosted on flickr

[NothingBetterToDo]

Oh, i like that bridge. Basic, but cool.

Seems to fit in quite well with both the old buildings and the Broadgate Tower. It looks so low though, will a double decker fit under that?

[Salif]

Originally Posted by NothingBetterToDo

will a double decker fit under that?

We'll know if it doesn't.

Btw, love that colourful mini

[U Thant]

The Mini belongs to Foxtons, the biggest scummiest estate agents in London.

Those pictures make the bridge look smaller than it really is. You can't quite see how far away (and therefore huge) it is.

[delores]

i know this is an urban area and the traffic horrendous but trees will really help this area from looking so bleak if there was room.

[wipasnapper]

Just looking at the renders for Shoreditch High Street station, Im not too keen on an enclosed concrete box as a station situated within the sites of Broadgate and the sleek bowstring Bridge they have just erected. Im more for open areas especially when you are above ground. Bearing in mind this is London OVERGROUND not London Underground "above ground".

[lasdun]

The problem with the station is they want to enclose it with buildings, and have decided to take this city Thameslink approach... But City is lower than this, so it is weird, and seems to be an attempt just to maximise potential floorspace...

The goods yard site looks like it's going to be overwhelmed by a wall of bland tall buildings that don't relate to the suroundings... I usually don't like that sort of Nimbyism but Broadgate Tower has show what the effect of this wall would be, and it's not looking good.

[DarJoLe]

This is certainly a new marker for Shoreditch. I think in a few years this bridge will be considered the dividing line between the City and Shoreditch.

[fishcatdogbird]

Agree with the dividing line, was talking with a mate about this a few weeks ago, we were wondering when they were going to slide it over the road as it looked like it had been finished a while ago. I love it, it looks fantastic!!!

[Jon10]

Lowering it in:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/h...897/html/1.stm

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Is a Central Line station at Shoreditch High Street a viable option, after Crossrail relieves the existing Central Line overcrowding?

[emre_kellerman]

this area looks really precious!

[zfreeman]

The feeling for a connection with the Central line at Shoreditch is it is possible but will not be considered until some time after crossrail is active and ridership figures have been settled......so we are looking at least 20 years. (Opinion from a retired TfL employee)

I don't know whether actual provision has been made for an connection in the new station.

[U Thant]

I doubt it. The land is earmarked for high rise development making it as good as impossible, and the Shoreditch High Street station design has no place for a link to the Central Line to connect in. I think it's dead.

On the other hand, Crossrail at Whitechapel will provide a lot of the same destinations (Stratford, West End, etc). I'd point to this as a major factor in it not being pursued.

[zfreeman]

^ True, the land is earmarked for future development. But it is possible that any proposed development will have to provide an 'embryonic' station beneath it. An example of this is the Moorhouse development on Moorgate/London Wall which has tunnels and and ticket area in its basement.

Crossrail could have the effect of being a relief on the central line as it gets particularly crowded around the typical rush hours between liverpool street and stratford.

anything that relieves congestion should be enacted as a matter of course with the advent of this new line.

[sotonsi]

'Crossrail could have the effect of being a relief to the central line'
There's no could about it - the whole idea behind crossrail was to relieve the central line between stratford and the city (and to give Paddington relief lines better access to central London, seeing as it would be stupid to end it under Oxford Street and then not go on west). They then added things to this, eg Heathrow (a good move) and Docklands (a stupid move made under good intentions) so as to justify the immense cost of mainline OHLE gauge tunnels, with huge two entrance stations.