On Wed, 22 Dec 2004, Mrs Redboots wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote to uk.transport.london on Tue, 21 Dec 2004:

(Re Fenchurch Street & Tower Gateway DLR stations):

In any case, DLR are unlikely to close Tower Gateway station at its
current location; it's extremely useful.

Why?

I found it useful when I was commuting to Docklands on the days I went
from Streatham, as I could get a direct train into Blackfriars, then a
short ride on the District Line, and then a direct train towards East
India or Canning Town. I didn't have to faff about changing trains at
Westferry, or walking for miles around the Monument/Bank complex.

Nor would you with the new station - i'm not talking about closing the
Fenchurch Street DLR station (Tower Gateway), i'm talking about moving it
a few hundred metres - indeed, moving it closer to the tube station (Tower
Hill), as well as increasing the frequency of trains calling there.

However, it is due to be reduced to a single but lengthened platform as
part of the capacity improvement project, as the island platform would
become dangerously overcrowded.

When you say 'single', do you mean it will still be an island, or will
it become a single-face platform? I can't see the latter being great
for capacity, but if reverses aren't a limiting factor, i suppose it
would work.

The trains reverse now - they come into the platform (normally platform
2), and head out the way they came.

Right, but they've got two places to do it, one on either side of the
platform, which means you can have one train pulling out as another
arrives, which you can't with a single-faced platform. However, i think
the frequency and dwell time of DLR trains is sufficiently low that a
single face would be fine.

tom

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