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

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

In article , Dave Arquati
writes
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.

Actually, the plan is for Crossrail to take over the NLL route from
Custom House to the North Woolwich area before diving under the river.
If :

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

doesn't happen, the NLL will run to one of the stations on the
Woolwich-Dartford line (I forget which offhand).

- I can't imagine that they'd want to do anything with the section
south of Canning Town though.

If the DLR takes over that bit, they'd just shut it.

--
Clive D.W. Feather, writing for himself | Home:
Tel: +44 20 8495 6138 (work) | Web: http://www.davros.org
Fax: +44 870 051 9937 | Work:
Written on my laptop; please observe the Reply-To address

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?

Provision was made for a further Jubilee extension to Woolwich - that's
the main reason why there's an extra platform at North Greenwich, and
they've left a TBM down there to make starting work on the extension
easier! However, IMNSHO Woolwich is not such a good Jubilee Line
destination because it would only parallel an existing railway (the
Greenwich line) and the Thames, and it would be far cheaper to introduce
a boat service instead. A better route for a further Jubilee extension
would be Eltham via Charlton, but the TBM they left in the tunnel is on
the wrong side of the station for that...

Then there's Crossrail: originally it wasn't planned to go that way, but
now those in charge want it to serve the Thames Gateway. The sensible
way to do that would be to turn the Dalston to Silvertown section of the
NLL into part of Crossrail line 2, replace the North Woolwich terminus
with a tunnel to Woolwich Arsenal, and not build the DLR Woolwich
extension (as this would be emptied by a more direct link). Admittedly
this plan wouldn't save South East London commuters very much time, but
it's relatively cheap and provision could easily be made for a more
direct route from Central London to Custom House to be constructed
later.

The idiotic way to do it (that Crossrail Corporation came up with) is to
build a multibillion pound Royal Docks via Canary Wharf branch as a part
of Crossrail line 1 (not even making it phase 2 or anything like that),
and extend it under the river to Woolwich Arsenal, but to prevent the
DLR Woolwich extension from being a commercial failure, Crossrail would
go straight under Woolwich Arsenal without stopping!!!

As for your question about what will become of that part of the NLL,
nobody really knows. It all depends on when (and thanks to Crossrail
Corporation's incompetence, if) Crossrail gets built. It also depends on
other factors including on what they do with the East London Line
northern extension. And of course DLR want the Stratford to Canning Town
section for themselves.