On Tue, 1 Jun 2010, Paul Corfield wrote:

On Jun 1, 3:34*pm, "Dr. Sunil" wrote:

The East London Line is basically a north-south route, except for the
upcoming section to Highbury and Islington. But what if a connection
were made to the Lea Valley Lines, which according to my calculations
(which are sometimes wrong!) are only three-quarters of a mile away
from Dalston Junction)? I'm not sure whether this would be best on the
surface, elevated or underground, but then you could have West Croydon
and Crystal Palace trains to Enfield Town and Chingford...

Sorry just daydreaming again!

I think it is very much a daydream. The difference in height is evident
at Hackney Downs / Hackney Central. There is no space at Graham Road to
add a north / north eastwards spur as it would reach line height north
of Hackney Downs and past the junction to Clapton and Chingford.

Oh don't be such a stick in the mud!

The line dives fairly steeply as it comes into Dalston Junction. All it
needs to do is to keep diving. It can follow the line of Kingsland Road
until it's deep enough to fly under the buildings of Dalston (via new deep
platforms right in front of Dalston Kingsland station). It then roughly
follows Shacklewell Lane to sort of Downs Road-ish, where it surfaces into
the alignment of the Southbury loop (taking land from the commercial
buildings along the west side of the line as needed), just in time to
deliver trains to Rectory Road. That branch of the West Anglia thus
becomes a branch of the ELL (exclusively, or still getting some WA
trains). Passive provision would be made for a station on the tunnelled
section in Shacklewell.

Alternatively, fill in the dive into Dalston, and raise the line to
elevated height above Kingsland Road. Reshape Kingsland Road into a dual
carriageway; you might need to widen it a bit, but that's a road project,
so land take will be easy to push through. Build a New York style elevated
railway on pillars set in the central reservation north from Dalston. At
Stoke Newington, curve left to meet the Southbury loop, and slowly descend
to join it. Elevated stations at Kingsland Road, Stoke Newington, and one
or two points in between. Where possible, in particular in Stoke
Newington, associate them with new high-rise mixed-use developments on the
site of whatever grotty buildings are there already, with level access
from the station to the second floors of the buildings. Use the profit
from these to subsidise construction. It virtually builds itself.

I won't repeat my ideas for the Chingford Line - people will start
yawning.

You should do a 2010 remix. How about a line carrying on straight at Wood
Street and going to South Woodford? Put in a triangular junction, so
people can take the Corfield Light Railway to the Central line too.

tom

--
The most savage controversies are those about matters as to which there
is no good evidence either way. -- Bertrand Russell