Boltar wrote:
I was reading in the metro today about the DLR extension to king george V
dock and eventually to woolwich. A couple of questions... when this line is
opened will that (already little used) section of the NLL close and wouldn't
it have been better , albeit more expensive , to have extended the jubilee
line to woolwich given the traffic levels that will probably be generated?

B2003

I don't believe there are yet any plans for any of the NLL to close,
although the City Airport branch will abstract almost all remaining
traffic. Given that ExCeL now generates traffic to Custom House, I would
imagine that the NLL will remain open to that point at least, and to
close the North Woolwich section would require new trackwork at Custom
House to permit trains to reverse - it's probably just easier to keep
the line open to N Woolwich.

However there are plans for the DLR to take over the whole section
between Stratford and N Woolwich to provide easier access to Stratford
International - I can't imagine that they'd want to do anything with the
section south of Canning Town though.

As for the Jubilee, I think the setup at North Greenwich allows sending
the line under the river to the Royal Docks and back under again to
Thamesmead (rather than Woolwich). Given the huge delays and cost
involved in the first JLE, a second one is less than likely at the
moment, when similar effects can be achieved for a fraction of the cost
and in a much shorter timescale by continuing the DLR extension which is
well-advanced in its plans.

The JLE also already requires a signalling upgrade to take a higher
frequency of trains; a branch to Woolwich could not be provided without
sacrificing the current frequency to Stratford.

--
Dave Arquati
Imperial College, SW7