I'm going on a trip with work to cover the ELL worksite next week,
alongside various railway and civils hacks, visiting Shoreditch High
Street, Dalston Junction, Thames Tunnel and NXG depot.

Anyone got any qns/issues/areas that they've been wondering about,
that I'd be an idiot to miss out on, etc?

--
John Band
john at johnband dot org
www.johnband.org

On May 22, 3:32*pm, John B wrote:
I'm going on a trip with work to cover the ELL worksite next week,
alongside various railway and civils hacks, visiting Shoreditch High
Street, Dalston Junction, Thames Tunnel and NXG depot.

Anyone got any qns/issues/areas that they've been wondering about,
that I'd be an idiot to miss out on, etc?


Blimey, er, lots probably, need to have a bit of a think about it. Are
you prepared to be inundated with questions from utlers?!

I'm guessing that as is this is more infrastructure related there's
not an awful lot of point asking questions about stuff like Shoreditch
High Street being moved into zone 1 and also the dropping of the
Victoria to Bellingham service (a quasi-replacement for the SLL) as
you'll just get the party line parroted back at you.

A few off the top of my head - I dare say there are already answers to
many of these out there, but I'm not quite as good a document rummager
as Mr Thant, John Bull, Mwmbwls et al.

* Are things likely to be ready for a December '09 start? (Though of
course they're not going to say "yes" as such!)

* When are ELLX phase 2b works getting under way, what's the timetable
etc?

* How bleak is the interior of SHS station, and how are they planning
on making it pleasant etc? And what's the latest with regards to
surrounding developments there?

* How many trains can NXG depot hold - and is the plan to move heavy
maintenance there from Willesden depot?

* What's going to happen to the old LU ELL New Cross depot? Any
thoughts of berthing trains there?

* A quasi-legal one - we know that the core of the ELL route will be
owned by TfL, but does this fact of ownership mean in and of itself
that it won't be subject to (economic) regulation from the ORR? (Of
course it'll be subject to ORR/HMRI safety regulation and inspection.)
That's a rather academic question, as the profile of the line means
running freight or other trains over it is highly unlikely - but the
uk.railway crowd will inevitably jump on this hypothetical possibility
(indeed some already have) with regards to new longer distance through
services, charter trains and freight.

* I said I wasn't going to ask about SHS being moved into z1, but I've
changed my mind. What thoughts are there on how this changes/disrupts/
destroys the business model for the line? Also, when SHS was still in
zone 2, were there worries about overcrowding?

* As a follow on thought to the overcrowding issue, could the line
take 6-car trains, including somehow getting over the obstacle of
short platforms at Canada Water?

* How much bad blood was created between TfL and Network Rail as a
result of the GE19 bridge collapse? (Or was Network Rail merely taking
full advantage of having someone else to blame for once?!)

* At Dalston Jn, can you still see the alignment of the north-eastern
spur from the station site? And have they made allowances for its
potential future use, however unlikely that may now seem? (I know the
alignment still exists and hasn't been built on, apart from being part
of the car park at the Kingsland Shopping Centre.)

* Did all the running water in the Thames Tunnel make you want to take
a slash?

On 22 May, 16:08, Mizter T wrote:
* How bleak is the interior of SHS station, and how are they planning
on making it pleasant etc? And what's the latest with regards to
surrounding developments there?

I noticed yesterday the panels aren't light-tight at the joins, so
there's a tiny amount of daylight, at least for now.

* As a follow on thought to the overcrowding issue, could the line
take 6-car trains, including somehow getting over the obstacle of
short platforms at Canada Water?

Very good bloody question. There seems to be no consistency to their
choices of platform lengths (SHS is 8 car; DJ has 4 car bay platforms
and 6 car through platforms, not sure about the other new stations).
An explanation is in order.

* At Dalston Jn, can you still see the alignment of the north-eastern
spur from the station site?

I can answer this one. They've safeguarded a route/tunnel within the
structure but it's now only wide enough to take a single track.

U

On 22 May, 17:34, Mr Thant
wrote:
On 22 May, 16:08, Mizter T wrote:
* As a follow on thought to the overcrowding issue, could the line
take 6-car trains, including somehow getting over the obstacle of
short platforms at Canada Water?

Very good bloody question. There seems to be no consistency to their
choices of platform lengths (SHS is 8 car; DJ has 4 car bay platforms
and 6 car through platforms, not sure about the other new stations).
An explanation is in order.

See, I'm aware of the reasoning behind the decision to run 4 car
trains. I'm fine with those. What I doubt I'll ever understand is why
new build stations aren't being built with the minimum lengths
required for 8 car operation, if nothing else then at least as
safeguarded spaces. That way, the funding required is a case of some
cheap platform extensions, signalling changes, and a few big spends on
the current crop of stations restricted to 4-car operation....as
opposed to...say...rebuilding everything.

Dalston Junction's having a tower block built over it, but they had
free reign over the station design. Why on earth not build passive
provision in rather than being forever locked into short formations?
Would it have been so hard to have the active area of the through
platforms and the bays line up and have both as 8 cars long? There's
plenty of room for the pointwork south of the station.

* At Dalston Jn, can you still see the alignment of the north-eastern
spur from the station site?

I can answer this one. They've safeguarded a route/tunnel within the
structure but it's now only wide enough to take a single track.

....as above, the alignment is highly unlikely to ever be used, but it
used to be double track (I think?)...and is it *really* that much
harder to leave a slightly wider formation clear...really?

In article
,
(Mizter T) wrote:

* As a follow on thought to the overcrowding issue, could the line
take 6-car trains, including somehow getting over the obstacle of
short platforms at Canada Water?

5-car O/P stock trains were run on the East London for a time in the
1970s. The cars were only 51' 1 1/4" (15.58m) long though, so I suppose
that is shorter than 4 x 20m cars.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

wrote in message

In article
,
(Mizter T) wrote:

* As a follow on thought to the overcrowding issue, could the line
take 6-car trains, including somehow getting over the obstacle of
short platforms at Canada Water?

5-car O/P stock trains were run on the East London for a time in the
1970s. The cars were only 51' 1 1/4" (15.58m) long though, so I
suppose that is shorter than 4 x 20m cars.

And there wasn't any Canada Water station back then.

On May 25, 12:09*am, wrote:

In article
,
(Mizter T) wrote:

* As a follow on thought to the overcrowding issue, could the line
take 6-car trains, including somehow getting over the obstacle of
short platforms at Canada Water?

5-car O/P stock trains were run on the East London for a time in the
1970s. The cars were only 51' 1 1/4" (15.58m) long though, so I suppose
that is shorter than 4 x 20m cars.

As Recliner says, Canada Water wasn't around then - and nor were the
stations on the 'new' stretch of the line from Shoreditch High Street
up to Dalston Junction.

"Mizter T" wrote in message

On May 25, 12:09 am, wrote:

In article
,
(Mizter T) wrote:

* As a follow on thought to the overcrowding issue, could the line
take 6-car trains, including somehow getting over the obstacle of
short platforms at Canada Water?

5-car O/P stock trains were run on the East London for a time in the
1970s. The cars were only 51' 1 1/4" (15.58m) long though, so I
suppose that is shorter than 4 x 20m cars.

As Recliner says, Canada Water wasn't around then - and nor were the
stations on the 'new' stretch of the line from Shoreditch High Street
up to Dalston Junction.

But I thought Canada Water was the one station that had platforms almost
impossible to extend (which is criminal, considering how recently it was
built)?

On May 25, 8:45*pm, "Recliner" wrote:

"Mizter T" wrote:

On May 25, 12:09 am, wrote:

In article
,
(Mizter T) wrote:

* As a follow on thought to the overcrowding issue, could the line
take 6-car trains, including somehow getting over the obstacle of
short platforms at Canada Water?

5-car O/P stock trains were run on the East London for a time in the
1970s. The cars were only 51' 1 1/4" (15.58m) long though, so I
suppose that is shorter than 4 x 20m cars.

As Recliner says, Canada Water wasn't around then - and nor were the
stations on the 'new' stretch of the line from Shoreditch High Street
up to Dalston Junction.

But I thought Canada Water was the one station that had platforms almost
impossible to extend (which is criminal, considering how recently it was
built)?

That's kind of my point in the first place - I asked about "somehow
getting over the obstacle of short platforms at Canada Water?", which
was carefully phrased so as not to focus solely on the issue of the
difficulty in extending the platforms.

So what else can you do apart from extending the platforms - well,
there's Selective Door Opening (SDO). Of course, using SDO is hardly
ideal at busy stations, and Canada Water will almost certainly be the
ELL core's busiest station (maybe when Crossrail comes this could
change to Whitechapel though). But I would be interested to hear about
any thoughts with regards to the possibility of SDO at Canada Water
from people inside the ELLX project.

Also, with regards to platform lengthening at Canada Water, it'd also
be interesting to hear any thoughts about just how difficult this
would be.

I agree that from where we're standing today, the short ELL platforms
at Canada Water do look particularly short-sighted. However I remember
reading a post in the archives of utl which suggested that it was not
always a given that the ELL would even stop at Canada Water - I don't
know how much truth there is to that, but it's an interesting notion,
and if anyone knows any more about that please do speak up!

I suppose one could then say that actually this might have been
preferable - as new long platforms could then be built at Canada Water
as part of the ELLX project. However, apart from other considerations,
if interchange had not been required it would have meant there would
have been more freedom for the planners to place the Jubilee line's
'Rotherhithe peninsula' station somewhere else. Even if
retrospectively adding an interchange at a later date was possible, it
may have been difficult and led to a far less ideal interchange than
exists at Canada Water now.

If the idea that there may never have been an interchange in teh first
place has any merit, then perhaps we should just be grateful it exists
at all!

That said, I do wonder why no provision was made for longer platforms
- after all, the idea of extending the ELL started taking shape in the
early 90's. Perhaps the issue was that the notion of the line
interlinking with the mainline rail network didn't really gain
traction until later on - so the Jubilee line planners made the
presumption that the ELL would always be a four-car service.

If anyone can pad out the history, it'd be most appreciated.

In article ,
(Recliner) wrote:

"Mizter T" wrote in message

On May 25, 12:09 am, wrote:

In article
,
(Mizter T) wrote:

* As a follow on thought to the overcrowding issue, could the line
take 6-car trains, including somehow getting over the obstacle of
short platforms at Canada Water?

5-car O/P stock trains were run on the East London for a time in the
1970s. The cars were only 51' 1 1/4" (15.58m) long though, so I
suppose that is shorter than 4 x 20m cars.

As Recliner says, Canada Water wasn't around then - and nor were the
stations on the 'new' stretch of the line from Shoreditch High Street
up to Dalston Junction.

But I thought Canada Water was the one station that had platforms
almost impossible to extend (which is criminal, considering how
recently it was built)?

My point being that 5-car CO/CP stock trains would have fitted in the
platforms at Canada Water, assuming they fit 4 x 20m car trains. AFAICS
the 5-car CO/CP stock trains were the longest run so far on the ELL.

Aren't the platforms at one of the other ELL stations as short and
impractical to extend as those at Canada Water anyway? Rotherhithe or
Wapping?

--
Colin Rosenstiel