Stratford to North Woolwich
 

I see this journey is no longer available in the NR Journey planner after 09
Dec 06.

I know that there is a need to close the line at some date 'no sooner than
01 Nov 06', presumably the timetable change date has now been confirmed, and
the following links show the 'proposals'....

http://www.londontravelwatch.org.uk/...nt.php?id=2081

http://www.londontravelwatch.org.uk/...nt.php?id=2085

Do the formal closure procedures now also require notices at stations etc,
or can the service just be amended out of the public timetable?

Paul

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

Paul Scott wrote:

I see this journey is no longer available in the NR Journey planner after 09
Dec 06.

I know that there is a need to close the line at some date 'no sooner than
01 Nov 06', presumably the timetable change date has now been confirmed, and
the following links show the 'proposals'....

http://www.londontravelwatch.org.uk/...nt.php?id=2081

http://www.londontravelwatch.org.uk/...nt.php?id=2085

Do the formal closure procedures now also require notices at stations etc,
or can the service just be amended out of the public timetable?

Paul


I can't give you a thorough answer but I can provide some background
information.

As you possibly know already 10 December is the date when the GB
railway timetable change happens - the NLL Stratford to North Woolwich
service didn't have to be withdrawn when the timetable change happens,
but it's a convenient, 'natural' break point.

The second Travelwatch page you give (id=2085) - the proposed closures
notice on a teal background - was displayed as a poster at all North
London Line (NLL) stations in November/December 2005.

On a fairly recent journey on the NLL from Custom House to Stratford I
looked out for but didn't see any information about the withdrawal of
service. Perhaps that's changed - I'd imagine Silverlink is obliged to
put up some kind of notice near the time, and it would be common
courtesy for them to do so to anyway! I may be down that way later this
week - if so I'll look out for any new information on display.

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

"Mizter T" wrote in message
ps.com...

As you possibly know already 10 December is the date when the GB
railway timetable change happens - the NLL Stratford to North Woolwich
service didn't have to be withdrawn when the timetable change happens,
but it's a convenient, 'natural' break point.

The second Travelwatch page you give (id=2085) - the proposed closures
notice on a teal background - was displayed as a poster at all North
London Line (NLL) stations in November/December 2005.

On a fairly recent journey on the NLL from Custom House to Stratford I
looked out for but didn't see any information about the withdrawal of
service. Perhaps that's changed - I'd imagine Silverlink is obliged to
put up some kind of notice near the time, and it would be common
courtesy for them to do so to anyway! I may be down that way later this
week - if so I'll look out for any new information on display.

I was on the section between Canning Town and Stratford a few weeks ago too,
again nothing to see. There never seems to be an intermediate stage where
they 'announce' the decision that has been made following the 'proposal'.

Paul

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

In message , Paul Scott
writes
I was on the section between Canning Town and Stratford a few weeks ago too,
again nothing to see. There never seems to be an intermediate stage where
they 'announce' the decision that has been made following the 'proposal'.

Would I be jumped on for saying Silverlink never cared too much about
the Canning Town to Woolwich part anyway? They rarely put forthcoming
engineering announcements or special timetables out even when it
affected stations the immediate section of the line.

--
Paul G
Typing from Barking

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

Paul G wrote:
In message , Paul Scott
writes
I was on the section between Canning Town and Stratford a few weeks ago too,
again nothing to see. There never seems to be an intermediate stage where
they 'announce' the decision that has been made following the 'proposal'.

Would I be jumped on for saying Silverlink never cared too much about
the Canning Town to Woolwich part anyway? They rarely put forthcoming
engineering announcements or special timetables out even when it
affected stations the immediate section of the line.


Its a great shame that a useful rail link is being closed. When I
travel on it, it often seems fairly full, certainly there are less well
used routes.

The main problem is it has been ignored. The Canning Town interchange
hasn't been encouraged. The fact that Silver Town is almost on top of
the airport, was never really made clear (its closer than many stations
are to their airports in terms of distance).

The replacement is a toy railway that resembles a switchback when
riding it (even the Victoria line is more comfortable a ride), which
does not have through routes to North London (useful for me and many
others), and which is rather slow. Not encouraging.

Francis

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

wrote:
Its a great shame that a useful rail link is being closed. When I
travel on it, it often seems fairly full, certainly there are less well
used routes.

The main problem is it has been ignored. The Canning Town interchange
hasn't been encouraged. The fact that Silver Town is almost on top of
the airport, was never really made clear (its closer than many stations
are to their airports in terms of distance).

The replacement is a toy railway that resembles a switchback when
riding it (even the Victoria line is more comfortable a ride), which
does not have through routes to North London (useful for me and many
others), and which is rather slow. Not encouraging.

Francis

It is also useful to some that one can carry a bicycle on Silverlink
but not on the DLR.

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

wrote in
ups.com:

Its a great shame that a useful rail link is being closed. When I
travel on it, it often seems fairly full, certainly there are less
well used routes.
SNIP


I agree with you 100%. Though word of warning, when I made this comment
here a few months back I got flamed to buggery :-)) The
"Slitherlink" doesn't appear to have too many fans on UTL for some
reason.

The worse thing is that it's going to take a while for the Stratford to
City Airport DLR to be completed, meaning that for those living near eg
Hackney Central, they would need to get the Silverlink to Stratford, the
Jubilee to Canning Town and the DLR to City Airport.

Personally, as a local resident, I'd have liked them improve the
Silverlink service throughout the entire line (which they're going to
be doing anyway between Richmond and Stratford) and dispense with the
DLR idea from Stratford to Canning Town altogether.

(a) it's not needed what with the Jubilee and the Silverlink, and West
Ham underground station serves the population well enough re those who
live on eg Abbey Road.

(b) by not building it, and simply having more trains on the Silverlink,
people will not have to change trains if going from eg Canning Town to
Camden, or Hackney to Silvertown (City Airport). Or rather, they CAN
change in Canning Town to the DLR (providing they don't have a bike).
And there will be no "downtime".

Changing trains with luggage isn't always a good idea anyway.

Also, another bit of history down the pan. I know I came out with all
this ******** when the Shoreditch bit of the ELL closed, but it's true.
Always sad to see lines and routes disappear, even if they are going to
be replaced a few years later by a shiny driverless version.

I recently read "Maid in West Ham", a sweet autobiography about a young
girl growing up in the Cody Road area of Canning Town during World War
II, near the railway lines.
http://www.britishexpat.com/History_...In_W.61.0.html

It's all changing.....

now, where's my slippers..........

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

Are we forgetting this section is supposed to be used by Crossrail?

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

wrote:
Its a great shame that a useful rail link is being closed. When I
travel on it, it often seems fairly full, certainly there are less well
used routes.

It's not useful. It has far too little capacity and runs through some
less than modern areas of southeast London. The DLR on the other hand
has far more capacity to run a proper service to serve the airport, and
has the advantage of providing a direct connection to the City and a
single-change connection to Canary Wharf, whereas the NLL only goes to
Stratford and beyond. The demographics of the area suggest that most
people want to go elsewhere in Docklands, not to Hackney.


The main problem is it has been ignored. The Canning Town interchange
hasn't been encouraged. The fact that Silver Town is almost on top of
the airport, was never really made clear (its closer than many stations
are to their airports in terms of distance).

The reason why is because Silvertown is a dump. No air passenger would
want to use Silvertown station to go to the airport, because the area
doesn't feel safe.


The replacement is a toy railway that resembles a switchback when
riding it (even the Victoria line is more comfortable a ride), which
does not have through routes to North London (useful for me and many
others), and which is rather slow. Not encouraging.

It's not a toy railway, it's an intermediate-mode transport system that
provides far more mobility, capacity and utility than a heavy rail
line. I for one am glad that the DLR went to King George V.

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

Tristán White wrote:
I agree with you 100%. Though word of warning, when I made this comment
here a few months back I got flamed to buggery :-)) The
"Slitherlink" doesn't appear to have too many fans on UTL for some
reason.

I'm not a fan of it mainly because it's so run-down, dirty and
obviously uncared for. Had TfL taken over the NLL early on and cleaned
it up, I'll bet there would be more people wondering why the NLL was
being replaced.


The worse thing is that it's going to take a while for the Stratford to
City Airport DLR to be completed, meaning that for those living near eg
Hackney Central, they would need to get the Silverlink to Stratford, the
Jubilee to Canning Town and the DLR to City Airport.

This is what I don't understand - you (and others) keep going on about
how everyone on this part of the NLL wants to go to and from Hackney.
Why?!?

I would have thought that people living in this area would only want to
go as far as Stratford, or west to Canary Wharf and Poplar, or even to
Bank. I'm genuinely curious as to why you feel that there are
signficant flows to and from Hackney (or further) along this part of
the NLL.


Personally, as a local resident, I'd have liked them improve the
Silverlink service throughout the entire line (which they're going to
be doing anyway between Richmond and Stratford) and dispense with the
DLR idea from Stratford to Canning Town altogether.

I partially agree with this, but only because I'm not sure that the
three new stations being put in on the DLR route are going to prevent
it from duplicating the Jubilee between Canning Town and Stratford.

But you should also keep in mind that this link also allows the service
to City Airport and Beckton (and later Woolwich) to be substantially
enhanced - right now both services are constrained by the junctions at
Poplar and the double track section between Poplar and Canning Town. By
replacing the NLL with a DLR route to Stratford International, at a
bare minimum both branches will get double the number of trains they
currently do. This, at least, is one of the reasons why building this
project is a good idea.


(a) it's not needed what with the Jubilee and the Silverlink, and West
Ham underground station serves the population well enough re those who
live on eg Abbey Road.

Yet the lack of NLL trains means that everyone takes the Jubilee, which
fills it up and overloads it. Having the parallel route might help
relieve the Jubilee of local traffic, allowing it to carry
longer-distance traffic into Docklands and beyond.


(b) by not building it, and simply having more trains on the Silverlink,
people will not have to change trains if going from eg Canning Town to
Camden, or Hackney to Silvertown (City Airport). Or rather, they CAN
change in Canning Town to the DLR (providing they don't have a bike).
And there will be no "downtime".

Again, I am genuinely curious as to whether or not there really are
people doing these types of journeys, and if so, if there are enough of
them that replacing the NLL with the DLR will force them to change
modes.


Changing trains with luggage isn't always a good idea anyway.

That could be said for any interchange.

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

TheOneKEA wrote:


This is what I don't understand - you (and others) keep going on about
how everyone on this part of the NLL wants to go to and from Hackney.
Why?!?


Well, I tend to travel during the day (for some reason) and usually
travel Highbury and Islington - North Woolwich. Most of the North
Woolwich passengers have boarded before Stratford.

But it also links North London, much further West than Hackney, to
London City Airport. That is useful. There is already a DLR link there,
which "links" to central London (with lots of shaking around), but the
silverlink supplied a north london link.

Francis

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

"TheOneKEA" wrote in news:1161798788.083458.123100
@e3g2000cwe.googlegroups.com:

Again, I am genuinely curious as to whether or not there really are
people doing these types of journeys, and if so, if there are enough of
them that replacing the NLL with the DLR will force them to change
modes.



I live in Canning Town and work near Hampstead Heath BR station, so I'm one
for a start.

I also go to Camden Town market a lot and use Camden Road. And I play poker
in Finchley Road & Frognal, and use it then as well.

So yes, I am a big user of it.

Then there's the people who live in Hackney etc and want to go to City
Airport. I know of two girls in Hackney who go to City airport quite often
for trips to Germany and Holland.

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

Barry Salter wrote in news:ehoiuj$oia$1
:

SNIP
The only times it seems to suggest using Silverlink are if you put a
Silverlink Station in as the origin...And even then it says to change
to
the DLR at Canning Town.


Not surprised. The Silverlink seems to not work well on the Journey
Planner website, I've been complaining about that since it started.

Want a proof? Try typing in

tomorrow 26 October, 13:10

STATION START: CANNING TOWN
STATION END: CAMDEN TOWN


Now, the Silvelink does it in 26 minutes.

But the first option given is a journey involving two two journeys
(Jubilee to London Bridge, London Bridge to Camden Town) and then a bus
journey (Camden Town to Camden Road).
Total: 48 minutes.

It even chooses a route starting at 12:59!

So complete and utter ********.

You and I know that the Silverlink is the best service, yet it decides
that it's the second best.

There is a bias about the Silverlink south of Stratford on the site. It
even gives as an option waiting 18 minutes (why?) for a Jubilee Line,
missing the Silverlink from Canning Town and then getting the later
Silverlink from Stratford.

As you can see, the website is clueless about the Silverlink. If this is
the data they rely on when trying to decide whether or not to close part
of a service, no wonder they decide to close it down. I bet you those
that make the decision don't live in Canning Town and use the line
themselves, but probably in some nice big house somewhere greener.

****'em. I have never ever been approached or asked or polled about my
decisions on that line or any line. I have never seen a poster saying
"we are thinking about removing this section of the line, do you have
any feedback". Just a poster saying the section is being withdrawn and
******** to ya.

I'm bitter about it. Very bitter.

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

Tristán White wrote:
Barry Salter wrote in news:ehoiuj$oia$1
:

SNIP
The only times it seems to suggest using Silverlink are if you put
a Silverlink Station in as the origin...And even then it says to
change to the DLR at Canning Town.


Not surprised. The Silverlink seems to not work well on the Journey
Planner website, I've been complaining about that since it started.

Want a proof? Try typing in

tomorrow 26 October, 13:10

STATION START: CANNING TOWN
STATION END: CAMDEN TOWN

You meant CAMDEN ROAD

Now, the Silvelink does it in 26 minutes.

But the first option given is a journey involving two two journeys
(Jubilee to London Bridge, London Bridge to Camden Town) and then a
bus journey (Camden Town to Camden Road).
Total: 48 minutes.

It even chooses a route starting at 12:59!

That's because, quite reasonably, it offers several journeys starting
either side of the departure time you specified.

So complete and utter ********.

I'm not sure if it is deliberate or not, but I find it daft that the JP
offers a journey that starts earlier and finishes later than the next
one on its list, which is why that 48-minute journey shouldn't have been
included. But it's a general feature of the JP, not just NLL-related.

You and I know that the Silverlink is the best service, yet it
decides that it's the second best.

Not second best, just the second in a list ordered by departure time.
Whether Silverlink is the best service, leaving aside issues of
reliability, comfort, etc., depends on when you get to Canning Town, as
their trains only run every 30 minutes.

There is a bias about the Silverlink south of Stratford on the
site. It even gives as an option waiting 18 minutes (why?) for a
Jubilee Line, missing the Silverlink from Canning Town and then
getting the later Silverlink from Stratford.

Again, you misunderstand what the JP is offering. It doesn't suggest you
wait 18 minutes. It's telling you that if you are late getting to
Canning Town, and arrive there between 13:19 and 13:28, then
Jubilee+Silverlink is the fastest route, which is true.

--
Richard J.
(to e-mail me, swap uk and yon in address)

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

TheOneKEA wrote:

I'm not a fan of it mainly because it's so run-down, dirty and
obviously uncared for. Had TfL taken over the NLL early on and cleaned
it up, I'll bet there would be more people wondering why the NLL was
being replaced.

Agreed. Local heavy rail in general in London is an embarrassment.
There is really no good reason, given how much money there is in
London, why it shouldn't be as good as Merseyrail has become.

The state of the track on the WCML DC lines is a case in point. It's
scandalous.

Neil

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

You meant CAMDEN ROAD


I did indeed; well spotted!

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

TheOneKEA wrote:
wrote:
Its a great shame that a useful rail link is being closed. When I
travel on it, it often seems fairly full, certainly there are less well
used routes.

It's not useful. It has far too little capacity and runs through some
less than modern areas of southeast London. The DLR on the other hand
has far more capacity to run a proper service to serve the airport, and
has the advantage of providing a direct connection to the City and a
single-change connection to Canary Wharf, whereas the NLL only goes to
Stratford and beyond. The demographics of the area suggest that most
people want to go elsewhere in Docklands, not to Hackney.


Its not either/or. The DLR runs into the city from the airport at
present and does so without the necessity of closing the silverlink. I
don't object to that (though would prefer a more comfortable ride),
what I don't see is the need to close the silverlink and put in the DLR
from canning town to stratford.

Francis

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

wrote:


Its not either/or. The DLR runs into the city from the airport at
present and does so without the necessity of closing the silverlink. I
don't object to that (though would prefer a more comfortable ride),
what I don't see is the need to close the silverlink and put in the DLR
from canning town to stratford.

IIRC it's so they can be ready for when (or if) Crossrail eventually
takes over the NLL tracks between Canning Town and Silvertown.

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

In message .com,
writes
Its not either/or. The DLR runs into the city from the airport at
present and does so without the necessity of closing the silverlink. I
don't object to that (though would prefer a more comfortable ride),
what I don't see is the need to close the silverlink and put in the DLR
from canning town to stratford.

Additional to the other reasons presented: The extra stops serving more
people locally?

Stratford to North Woolwich
 

On Wed, 25 Oct 2006 23:10:19 GMT, Richard J. wrote:

I'm not sure if it is deliberate or not, but I find it daft that the JP
offers a journey that starts earlier and finishes later than the next
one on its list, which is why that 48-minute journey shouldn't have been
included. But it's a general feature of the JP, not just NLL-related.

I think it's a good thing. The JP can be slightly inaccurate about
timings (particularly as it assumes buses and Tube trains run strictly
according to the Working Timetable, rather than just semi-randomly
arriving about every x minutes), so I prefer it to offer some
alternatives, allowing me to add some human intelligence in choosing
the best and/or most reliable.

There is a bias about the Silverlink south of Stratford on the
site. It even gives as an option waiting 18 minutes (why?) for a
Jubilee Line, missing the Silverlink from Canning Town and then
getting the later Silverlink from Stratford.

I noticed something similar to this a few months ago. I was putting in
journeys like Wembley Central to King's Cross, to compare journey
times between the Bakerloo and Silverlink. I happen to know that
Silverlink to Euston is the fastest way. But the planner always showed
this route to be slower, if it even suggested it at all.

On closer investigation, this was because it was under-estimating the
Bakerloo journey time (one journey had you stepping off a Bakerloo at
Paddington, and 2 minutes later, boarding an eastbound Circle Line
train! - see WTT comment above), and over-estimating the Silverlink
journey time (it counts the "charter minutes" that are added in the
timetable at Euston - which is fair enough, as the JP only has the NR
timetable to go on - but it also adds a full 10 minutes on top for the
interchange at Euston).

No doubt I'll be adding fuel to your conspiracy theory by pointing out
that TfL want to scrap the Silverlink Metro service to Euston. ;-)