And so ends diamond geezer's first ever Overground week. I managed to find 15 different things to write about, and you managed to write over 400 comments between you, for which many thanks. The number of visitors to the blog was also much higher than usual, not because everybody likes trains but because none of you could be certain when the next post was going to appear. Things'll be less orange from tomorrow, which means the rest of you can come back and start reading again. But Saturday is also the perfect day to take a 10th anniversary ride on the Overground - perhaps to one of these points of interest - in celebration of the orbital link that drives outer London.
Orangewatch (5)Night Overground
It's coming in just one month's time - the orange version of the Night Tube!
They're going to call it the Night Overground, because technically it isn't the Night Tube because the Overground isn't part of the tube network. But the pocket map you'll be able to pick up will still call everything the Night Tube, because there isn't room for a long title. However the extra-large map displayed in frames on station platforms will be titled the Night Tube and London Overground map, because that has loads of room across the top, so the pedants were allowed to win that argument.
Back in July when the start date for the Night Overground was announced, all that anybody official would say was "December". The start has to coincide with the annual National Rail timetable change on the second Sunday of December, which this year is Sunday 10th December. But that won't be the day the Night Overground starts because the switch takes place in the early hours of the morning, not at midnight. Instead the Night Overground is timetabled begin on the night of Friday 15th December, specifically the early hours of Saturday 16th, when the 0019 train departs New Cross Gate. Trains will be running every 15 minutes.
Not all of the Overground will be running throughout Friday and Saturday nights, only a tiny part of it. That tiny part is from Dalston Junction down to New Cross Gate, but that's great because it goes under the Thames so will be a dead useful link between east and southeast London. The plan is for the Night Overground to be extended up to Highbury & Islington in January 2018, which'll be even better. But there are no immediate plans to extend the Night Overground to any of the other 99 stations on the network, sorry.
When it launches, the Night Overground will only interchange with the Night Tube (Jubilee line) at Canada Water. In January it'll also interchange with the Night Tube (Victoria line) at Highbury & Islington. But trains won't be stopping at Whitechapel until next December, because there's too much overnight Crossrail work still to complete over the coming year.
It'll be interesting to see how the Night Overground affects Citymapper's first regular bus service, the CM2. This independent minibus runs every Friday and Saturday night between Highbury & Islington and Aldgate East stations, via Dalston, Hoxton and Shoreditch... pretty much the same route as the Overground will be taking. The bus is cheaper and starts earlier in the evening, but is also slower, and only accepts contactless. Citymapper moved in because their data analysts identified this East London corridor as lacking in overnight connections... will the introduction of the Night Overground fill the gap?
Overground quiz (5)The Inbetweeners
For today's quiz, all you have to do is identify the Overground station inbetween the two I've named.
1) Whitechapel --- ????? --- Hoxton 2) Shepherd's Bush --- ????? --- West Brompton 3) Forest Hill --- ????? --- Crystal Palace 4) Kensal Rise --- ????? --- Acton Central 5) Hackney Central --- ????? --- Hackney Wick 6) Clapham High Street --- ????? --- Peckham Rye 7) Silver Street --- ????? --- Bruce Grove 8) Gospel Oak --- ????? --- Crouch Hill 9) Carpenders Park --- ????? --- Watford High Street 10) Walthamstow Central --- ????? --- Highams Park
Answers are in the comments box, so have a good think before you peek.
And that should give you a score out of 10. Do tell us how you get on.
1) EMERSON PARK
259490 passengers
Romford-Upminster, Zone 6
The least used station on the Overground, perhaps unsurprisingly, is the single stop on the runty shuttle in distant Havering. Only a quarter of a million passengers boarded or alighted from a train here during the twelve months ending March 2016 - the latest year for which figures are available. But I've blogged about Emerson Park twice previously, before and after the Overground took over, so instead let's move on and look at least used stations numbers two, three, four and five...
2) THEOBALDS GROVE
351986 passengers
Liverpool Street-Cheshunt, Zone 7
This outer suburban outpost lurks one stop before Cheshunt, just beyond the edge of Greater London, in the rarely-seen Zone 7. It's also one of the most used stations of my childhood, because my grandmother used to live just round the corner, and it's here that my Mum grew up. I remember getting the slamdoor from Liverpool Street and alighting on the viaduct platforms, then heading down the dark and gloomy stairwells to the street outside. The stairs are much brighter now, with strip lights and orange-trim handrails, and no sign of the wooden treads I stepped down as a boy. Blimey, there are also now ticket gates on the way out, and a couple of staff standing close by, the kind who write a Thought For The Day in marker pen as a welcome message on the whiteboard outside.
A spruced-up entrance opens out onto the top of Waltham Cross High Street, beside a pub I suspect my grandfather once drank in, and a parade of shops with diminishing cultural overlap. Holy Trinity church looms symmetrically across the mini-roundabout, and a Metropolitan horse trough slowly fills with leaves. The station's named after the royal palace up Theobalds Lane where James I held court, now a characterful public park complete with cafe, hedge maze and tiny zoo. The name's also occasionally misspelled as Theobolds Grove, most embarrassingly on the day the Overground took over, but I'm pleased to report that all the roundels subsequently installed on the platform are correct. But why wait here when trains from Waltham Cross station are faster... unless you have business in the neighbouring avenues and terraces, which alas I no longer do.
3) SOUTH HAMPSTEAD
456228 passengers
Watford-Euston, Zone 2
Who would have guessed that a least used station would lie quite so close to the centre of the city? South Hampstead is the first stop out of London Euston, in the dip below the Finchley Road, amid a highly residential zone. But it's also only a short walk from Swiss Cottage, where trains are considerably more frequent and ply the heart of the West End, hence the Jubilee line station sees 16 times as many passengers. Still, this is the ideal stopping off point if you've ever wanted to admire the stepped terraces of the Alexandra and Ainsworth estate, whose modernist architecture begins just past the closed-down dry cleaners on the other side of the street.
South Hampstead station isn't easily spotted, being little more than a hut on a footbridge, but large enough to contain an office where members of staff wait to sell tickets and a couple of machines which will soon replace them. Press the right parts of the screen and you could buy an Off-Peak Return from Penzance to Wick in three weeks time for just £356. But safer to touch in and step down into the open cutting to await the slow train to Watford, which emerges dramatically from a tunnel at the far end of the platform. Or watch the Inter Cities whizzing by to Euston, where you too could be soon, just not quite so quickly.
4) HEADSTONE LANE
473014 passengers
Watford-Euston, Zone 5
Almost half an hour up the line, in the wilds of Harrow, is the Overground's fourth least used station. Headstone Lane may have been a 'major' road in Middlesex's rural past, but no longer is, and now funnels residential traffic up the western edge of Harrow Weald. The station sits in a bend where an actual lane still extends into Pinner Park, a large expanse of proper farmland, trimmed back a little by the occasional playing field. The station building is small, smart and square-ish, most probably dating from between the wars, and embellished by two spikes at each end of its tiled roof. Something of the nature of the local area can be gleaned from the sole advert tied to the railings immediately opposite the entrance - a laminated poster for the weekly delights of Hatch End Chess Club.
Grab your Metro from the bin outside, or a selection of mundane leaflets from the rack inside by the ticket office. A deep staircase descends to platform level, these covered at one end by canopies that've seen better days, and whose rooftop glass could do with a good scrub. The northbound platform boasts an impressive-sized 'Cycle Room', with space for a couple of dozen wheeled steeds arrayed along the far wall. No need to lug them up the stairs either, because a gate further along the platform is open to the street via a convenient ramp, which means Headstone Lane is step-free (hurrah) in (alas) one direction only. Be sure to touch out on the reader, and boost next year's ridership figures.
5) STAMFORD HILL
503130 passengers
Liverpool Street-Enfield/Cheshunt, Zone 3
Back on the Lea Valley lines, Stamford Hill is one of an underused trio of stations serving northern Hackney. Southbound trains mostly empty out at Seven Sisters, where hordes of Tottenham and Enfield residents alight to speed into the centre of town on the much faster Victoria line. Stamford Hill thus has a somewhat lonely feel, not helped by all the boarded-up windows in the Victorian station building which spans the tracks. Full marks, then, to Gladesmore School who turned up and painted a mural along the footbridge leading to the northbound platform, featuring a colourful variety of characters from the local community.
The staircases are open air replacements for the long-removed originals, and somewhat precipitous, demanding care and attention from passengers ascending or descending. On the southbound platform the former shelter is closed, whereas on the northbound it's merely taped off temporarily behind a strip of plastic, which someone has kindly ripped so that passengers can wait on the benches inside. I was shocked to spot a far more serious misdemeanour at the far end of the platforms, as a would-be passenger vaulted the security fence to gain entry from the street, then walked nonchalantly across the tracks to reach the London-bound side. He'll have saved a few pounds on a fare, but I wouldn't rate his chances of reaching retirement.
6) Turkey Street (603754) Zone 6 7) Penge West (640978) Zone 4 8) Cambridge Heath (646748) Zone 2 9) Hatch End (707454) Zone 6 10) South Acton (722238) Zone 3
Orbitalgeek (4)Overground/Underground
It's a well-known fact that at Whitechapel station the Overground goes under the Underground. How we laughed the first time we were told. How weakly we now smile.
If you've been down to Whitechapel recently, you'll know that the Overground looks a lot more underground than it did before. Previously it ran through the station in a cutting, open to the sky, but enabling works for Crossrail have put paid to that, and as 2017 has progressed the sky has disappeared. A brand new concourse has been built directly above the Overground track and platforms, which from December 2018 will provide customer access across the heart of the station. To the south will be the main entrance on Whitechapel Road, while to the north will be the escalators leading down to the Crossrail platforms. You can get a slight glimpse of almost what's happening up top if you use the new footbridge, very recently opened to link the northern ends of the two Overground platforms.
But Whitechapel's not the only place where the Overground goes under the Underground. This amusing contradiction isn't just restricted to stations, there are sections of track where it happens too. So this evening I'm wondering if we can make a definitive list of all the places where the Overground passes underneath the Underground. There are at least twenty locations on the tube map where the two networks intersect, so I reckon we might be able to find around half a dozen.
Locations where the Overground passes underneath the Underground 1) Whitechapel station 2) Between Brondesbury & West Hampstead, the Overground goes under the Met/Jubilee [map] (thanks Roger) 3) Between South Acton and Gunnersbury, the Overground goes under the Piccadilly/District [map] (thanks Joe) 4) Just north of Shepherd's Bush, the Overground goes under the Hammersmith & City/Circle [map] (thanks Jimbo) 5) Between Kenton and South Kenton, the Overground (and Bakerloo) goes under the Metropolitan [map] (thanks Ben) 6) Immediately east of South Hampstead, the Overground goes under under the Metropolitan [map] (thanks poconnor, Peter and Amir) 7)
n.b. A delightful design quirk of the tube map is that if a tube line is drawn underneath another tube line, then it also passes underneath that tube line in real life. But that's not the case for the Overground, which is always drawn underneath all the other lines, so this particular feature won't help you in today's quest.
Orangewatch (4)Pixies and Goblins
The Gospel Oak to Barking line is having a rough time at the moment, thanks to totally-ballsed-up electrification works. Network Rail were supposed to have the gantries up and ready last spring after a six month shutdown, but bad project management meant two more line closures have been required. The first of these was for five weeks ending last month, and on 18th November a further eight week closure will begin, forcing the Goblin's usual clientele onto a godawfully slow rail replacement bus service, again. I've taken advantage of this brief engineering hiatus to ride one of the Overground's very special trains, the so-called PIXC-buster service.
Trains on the Gospel Oak to Barking line trains used to run every 30 minutes before TfL took over, and were notoriously unreliable. As part of the introduction of the Overground the frequency was increased to every 20 minutes, and more recently increased again to every 15. But the smart new Turbostar trains introduced on the line in 2010 still only have two carriages, so at peak times the Goblin becomes a can of sardines. The official Department of Transport acronym for such seriously overcrowded trains is PIXC, or 'Passengers In eXcess of Capacity'. Hence a PIXC-buster service has been inserted into one of the 15 minute gaps in the evening peak to ease the strain, and from what I've seen it seems to work. [timetable]
It's 17:10 at South Tottenham station. The train west to Gospel Oak is just leaving, so it ought to be 15 minutes until the next one, but instead there's a special train due in nine. It's already visible waiting in the distance, but not in the direction you'd be expecting, because it has to drive up from the depot at Willesden. This is the 'spare' train, the seventh set they keep on standby in case one of the other six goes wrong, but if all's well it slips out in the evening to make this single mercy dash. Dozens of people on the eastbound platform are a bit confused as to why what they think is their next train isn't getting any closer, until an announcement eventually confirms "The approaching train is not scheduled to stop here", and the PIXC-buster rides slowly through, its interior dark.
It then hides up the line, at a crossover just round the bend, giving the driver the opportunity to turn on the lights and swap ends. I should point out that all of this manoeuvring is cunningly inserted into a lengthy gap between other scheduled trains so as not to get in anyone's way. And then, just as the next eastbound train arrives to clear the opposite platform, the PIXC-buster slips in heading west. The Next Train Indicator briefly lies, stating that the approaching train is not scheduled to stop here, before changing its mind and correctly announcing that this is the 17:19 to Gospel Oak. Five of us step aboard.
The train is empty and smells (sweetly) of detergent. It's the middle of the rush hour in the middle of the line and yet I have the choice of any seat in the carriage, apart from that occupied by my other fellow passenger. And it doesn't get much busier at the next couple of stations either. I wonder whether any of the handful of people getting on are here because they know this capacious train exists, or whether they just happen to have turned up at the station six minutes early for the usual quarter-hourly departure. Whatever, this short run isn't the actual PIXC-buster, it's a rolling stock manoeuvre to get an extra train in place for a bonus journey heading east from Gospel Oak. Which is where things get complicated.
Departures from Gospel Oak: ...1705 1720 1728 1735 1750...
The train ahead of us, which would normally sit in the platform at Gospel Oak for 12 minutes, now has to get out of our way. It's therefore timetabled to depart earlier than it normally would, so it gets to form the 17:28 bonus train, while the spare set from the depot gets to be the normal 17:35. Fret not about the details, just know that a extra rush hour train runs all the way to Barking at the busiest time of the evening, sharing out the people who would normally have squeezed onto one train onto two. The 17:28 PIXC-buster eases travel for those interchanging from a train from Richmond, leaving the 17:35 to mop up the next crowd from Clapham Junction.
My ride on the 'extra' train was almost comfortable, with space to lean against the bulkheads if not any spare seats. The journey was initially unremarkable and civilised, with an on/off drip of commuters heading quietly home. But we lost a few minutes on the approach to Blackhorse Road, which is where the busy Victoria line connects, so here were the multitudinous hordes I'd been expecting. They crammed in and packed out the train, so I can only imagine how bad it would have been if trains had been the normal 15 minutes apart. The PIXC-buster had done its job. Meanwhile the 17:35 departure was considerably quieter and did have spare seats, because being only six minutes behind it hadn't had time to fill up. This, you'll remember, was the spare set of carriages inserted into the system back at South Tottenham, but now with a muddy floor and no longer smelling of freshly-washed dishes.
The spare train had one final surprise at Barking, which was to deposit us on platform 7 rather than the usual platform 1, because that was already occupied. A swift, passengerless departure was then required to make way for the 18:23 to Pitsea, which meant the driver taking a trip to the sidings, before returning half an hour later as a timetabled passenger service back towards the depot. And all this kerfuffle takes place every weekday evening, bringing the spare set of carriages into play simply so that commuters can be provided with one extra train where they're not packed in like cattle. Things'll be very different next year, when electrification's complete and new longer trains can be introduced. With four carriages rather than two, running happily ever after, the Goblin will no longer have to play with its PIXCs.
There's also a morning PIXC-buster, which runs in the opposite direction. It starts at Woodgrange Park, not Barking, and slips into the middle of the gap between the normal 07:51 and 08:06 departures. It eases overcrowding all the way to Upper Holloway, and then does something highly unusual by skipping Gospel Oak because the platform's already full. It sits in the siding for a bit, with passengers on board, then continues (like absolutely no other train does) via all the other stations to Willesden Junction. Geoff's ridden that one, it's in his Secrets of the Overground video, part 1.
Overground quiz (4)Guess the percentage
There are currently 112 Overground stations. What percentage of them... 1) are in South London? 10% 20% 30% 2) have step-free access? 30% 40% 50% 3) are in Zone 2? 25% 35% 45% 4) are also Underground stations? 15% 25% 35% 5) are underground? 5% 10% 15% 6) serve more than a million passengers a year? 40% 60% 80%
Make your six selections, then check in the comments box to see how you got on. How did you do?
Orbitalgeek (3)Overground boroughs
London has two 'Overground boroughs' - that is, boroughs where the majority of stations are Overground stations.
One is Hackney. Every station in Hackney has an Overground service, except for Manor House and Old Street, and they're very much on the boundary. The Overground's dominance of Hackney began on day 1 with the North London line, and got serious when the East London line was extended and transferred. No other borough has had as many freshly-opened Overground stations as Hackney (four, on the alignment from Dalston Junction to Shoreditch High Street). When the suburban lines out of Liverpool Street got Overgrounded, the takeover was complete. The people of Hackney are very much in thrall to the Overground, which isn't necessarily the most efficient way to get around. Perhaps that's why they get on their bikes so often.
The other is Waltham Forest. There are only 12 stations in Waltham Forest, and 9 of them have an Overground service. In this case the exceptions are the new Greater Anglia station at Lea Bridge, plus Leyton and Leytonstone on the Central line. Additional Victoria line services at Blackhorse Road and Walthamstow Central mean the tube is probably more important than the Overground at moving passengers around. But with only one station served by any rail operator other than TfL, and that station very much on the periphery, Waltham Forest is very much an orange borough now.
This map shows the dominant mode of rail transport in every London borough.
» Orange shows the two Overground boroughs. Not coincidentally, they're both neighbours.
» Red shows the 14 Tube boroughs. These are the boroughs in which over 50% of the stations are tube stations, or include tube services. They're all north of the Thames. Every station in Westminster is a tube station, or has a tube service. Kensington & Chelsea is the same.
» Dark blue shows the 13 National Rail boroughs. These are the boroughs in which over 50% of the stations are served by National Rail (non-Overground) trains. Every station in Bexley and Kingston is a National Rail station. The only National Rail boroughs north of the Thames are Enfield and Havering.
» Green shows the Tram borough, which is Croydon. If you exclude trams from this analysis, then every borough south of the Thames is a National Rail borough.
» Light blue shows the two DLR boroughs, Tower Hamlets and Newham. DLR services operate at the majority of stations here.
The odd borough out is Haringey, which has the most balanced spread of modes. Haringey has 5 stations with Overground services, 6 stations with National Rail services, and 7 stations with Tube services. Every other London borough has one mode which exceeds 50% of stations, but not Haringey.
Some other facts from the data:
» Every borough has at least 10 stations, except Havering (which has 9) and Barking & Dagenham (which has only 6). Outer East London's connectivity is poor.
» The boroughs with no Overground stations are Barnet, Bexley, Greenwich, Hillingdon, Kingston, Merton, Redbridge, Sutton and Westminster.
» After Crossrail begins, every borough north of the Thames (except Enfield) will be dominated by stations with TfL-run services.
» South of the Thames non-TfL services will continue to dominate... until the Overground is once again allowed to spread its wings.
Overground quiz (3)Roundel words
Here are 15 close-up photos of Overground roundels.
Can you name the stations they were taken at? n.b. I have removed the spacing in some cases, to make a word.
Let's call the top row questions 1-3, then 4-6, then 7-9, then 10-12, then 13-15.
And then imagine these are questions 16-25...
16) OUCH 17) SHUNT 18) FROG 19) HEN 20) RAT
21) KEYS 22) TONG 23) SPARK 24) SPARK 25) SPARK
How many stations can you name?
Answers in the comments box... and, please, only one guess each!
Orangewatch (3)The golden brand
By any recognised measure, the first ten years of the Overground have been an enormous success. New parts of town have been linked together. The trains are clean, and generally run on time. Passenger satisfaction is amongst the highest of any rail provider in the country. London is very fortunate to have its golden trains. So what went right?
a) Control: Plans for an orbital rail network in London had been on the drawing board for years, repeatedly held back because there was no money for a bit of track that needed building. Only when TfL was granted some regulatory clout in the mid-2000s did these plans finally start to come to fruition, and the transfer of lines from other franchises began.
b) Vision: Applying TfL norms to a disparate collection of rail lines raised expectations, whilst also giving users a good idea what to expect. They also linked parts of the capital many passengers hadn't previously realised were linked, simply by including them on the tube map. London's remaining rail services are run by a broad church of operators with very different philosophies, not all of them positive.
c) Brand: The Overground was strongly branded from day 1, using an arresting name, grabbing an unused colour and running with it. You see the orange and you know what it stands for. If the service had been awful that could have been a disaster, but the Overground was always going to be an improvement. We may not like that none of the individual lines have proper names, but maybe calling them all the same thing was the masterstroke.
d) Connection: Ten years ago suburban London, especially suburban north London, didn't really do orbital train travel. But an improved service on radial lines means you no longer have to go all the way into the centre of town... which saves time, and money. Just look at how much busier these trains are now compared to how they used to be - it's a capacity-enhancing triumph.
e) Visibility: Once the Overground lines were under TfL control they started appearing on the TfL website, and maps, and lists of engineering updates, and now those ubiquitous apps, in a way that the Hounslow Loop and Orpington fasts never do. It's been like stepping up a division, while the poor sods on Southern and Southeastern get left behind.
f) Frequency: Providing a more regular service has changed behaviour. On the railway, passengers check the timetable. On the Overground, TfL prefers to hide the timetable and encourage a turn-up-and-go mentality, which better conceals how late a train is, and reduces moaning.
g) Reliability: ...and trains aren't generally late, not significantly so. A mostly self-contained network is easier to run reliably and efficiently. Also it's easier to focus well on inner suburban railways when you don't have any complex long distance commuter services to prioritise.
h) Cleanliness: Overground trains scrub up well, not least because most of them are much newer than the older carriages they replaced. Even where the trains being used are still the old stock, one of the first thing TfL did when they took over was to give them a good clean and brush-up, because they know first impressions count.
i) Accessibility: Making underground stations step-free is a costly nightmare, whereas Overground stations are invariably above ground so are much easier to fix. Improving accessibility on the Overground is therefore a problem TfL can genuinely solve, and so they are, which looks good on them, and is good for you.
j) Staffing: Many of the swallowed-up stations were dark unfriendly places, and generally unstaffed, but TfL added youths in hi-vis jackets to the stairs and platforms, and that looked reassuring, even if they didn't generally do very much. TfL may be about to take this idea even further by closing all the ticket offices and making everybody wholly visible, but passengers like that don't they?
Orbitalgeek (2)A brief Overground history 2007: Official launch of Overground services, including Stratford-Richmond/Clapham Junction, Euston to Watford and Gospel Oak to Barking. East London Line closed for redevelopment. 2008: Shepherd's Bush station opened. 2009: Imperial Wharf station opened. New Class 378 trains introduced. 2010: New bridge at Shoreditch allows reopening of East London Line from Dalston Junction to New Cross/Crystal Palace/West Croydon. 2011: Extension from Dalston Junction to Highbury & Islington. 2012: Former South London Line incorporated from Surrey Quays to Clapham Junction. 2014: Length of (most) trains increases from four carriages to five. 2015: Addition of services from Liverpool Street to Chingford, Enfield and Cheshunt, plus the Romford to Upminster shuttle. 2016: Overground operator changes from LOROL to Arriva Rail London. 2017: Night Overground begins between Dalston Junction and New Cross Gate. 2018: Night Overground extends to Highbury & Islington. Gospel Oak to Barking electrified. 2019: Greenford to West Ealing added? 2021: Extension to Barking Riverside? 2025: Two new stations at Old Oak Common? ????: ????
Overground quiz (2)The longest journey
For today's quiz, we're looking for the longest journey on the Overground.
That's the longest route that doesn't go anywhere twice.
What's the maximum number of different stations you can visit without leaving the network?
You'll want a map for this, and I recommend the London Overground network map here(pdf).
Clarification 1: We're counting stations, not distance or time. Clarification 2: You may only visit each station once. Clarification 3: Only lines and interchanges shown on the Overground map are acceptable. Clarification 4: The only two out-of station interchanges shown are Hackney Downs - Hackney Central and Walthamstow Queen's Road - Walthamstow Central. Example 1: Richmond to Euston would be 11 stations. Example 2: Seven Sisters to Stratford would be 9 stations.
So, how many different Overground stations can you travel through?
Orangewatch (2)Old Oak Common
London's largest development site covers the railwaylands of Old Oak Common at the northern tip of the borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. Hundreds of acres of sidings, sheds, tracks and low-rise industrial units are in line to be transformed into 25000 homes and 65000 jobs, in a flood of rebuilding unseen since the Olympic revolution at Stratford. Although numerous railway lines pass through this redevelopment zone none of them currently stop, but the intention is that some of them will, and big time. [map1][map2][map3]
The Great Western mainline sails straight through, on a four-mile non-stop run between Paddington and Acton, but it's planned that Crossrail will eventually get a station here, say by 2026. HS2 is due to stop here too, right alongside, at a megahub that'll be the only station between London and Birmingham. The Central line nudges the edge of Old Oak Common, but its two Acton stations aren't quite convenient. And that leaves the Overground which, bingo, passes through on two different lines, just to the south of Willesden Junction. And that's why there's currently a consultation underway regarding two new Overground stations within the Old Oak Common development zone, which might just open up within the next ten years. [consultation]
New station 1: Old Oak Common
The first new Overground station would be on the line south from Willesden Junction towards Richmond, about half a mile from the former, alongside Old Oak Common Lane. If TfL get their way it'll look like this.
I went down at the weekend, and can confirm that currently it looks nothing like. Old Oak Common Lane is drab road raised higher than its surroundings, with the Overground on one side and an utter sprawl of railway sidings on the other. If you like railways, there are places round here you can look out and believe London is covered by nothing else. Part of what's down below is GWR's Old Oak Common Depot, another part is where the Heathrow Express marshals its stock, and a significant proportion is going to be home to one of Crossrail's largest train depots. The first batch of new housing will be going in alongside, but oh how much more they could have built if only storing trains wasn't such an uneconomic waste of space.
A couple of car maintenance sheds survive on Old Oak Common Lane, plus some vacant warehouse units, but the adjacent prefab-style greasy spoon has closed. A little up the road is London's first collective block for millennial "co-living", where your room may be tiny but there's a gym, spa and cinema downstairs for an all-inclusive rent. Across the tracks is a small enclave of private housing, somewhat adrift at present, but which may gain an overpass into the new station if built. And further down the road an Edwardian housing estate begins, at the tip of Acton, with posters in windows protesting against the havoc ten years of HS2 construction will bring. These homes will be the 'lucky' recipients of a brand new Overground station on their doorstep, but it isn't for them, it's for the newcomers who will pack out the matchboxes nearby.
If you'd been here yesterday afternoon, or on Saturday, you could have spoken with the Overground project team as part of the official consultation process. Or perhaps you could. The location was The Nadi Park Royal, a Muslim community centre in a former office unit, immediately opposite where the new station's due to go. But there was nothing outside to say a consultation was happening within, and nothing obviously welcoming beyond a closed door, just perhaps some relieved staff sitting beside a plate of uneaten biscuits. I could have tried a little harder to check, but the lack of any signs deterred me, as perhaps was this box-ticking exercise's intention.
New station 2: Hythe Road
The second new station would be on the line south from Willesden Junction towards Clapham Junction, about quarter of a mile from the former, indeed barely any distance at all. It's two miles down to Shepherd's Bush where trains next stop, but none of the existing residents along this hiatus will ever get a new station because they're poor, and the Evening Standard Homes & Property section is not for them.
It's not often I visit a new location and go "Wow, I never knew this was here!" but Hythe Road was one of these. I'd seen the site from the Grand Union Canal towpath, seemingly yet another run of rundown warehouses, but never crossed the footbridge, or thought to follow the uninviting subway from Scrubs Lane under the railway. What greeted me here was a huge trading estate given over mostly to just one commodity - used cars. Cavernous sheds to left and right contain thousands of ready-to-buy vehicles, divided into separate buildings by make, with further cars out front for your perusal. All the poshest cars are indoors, whereas most of the hatchbacks get wet. And it goes on, and on, and on.
This is the Car Giant site, a company who've realised they're sitting on an expanse of land with 'goldmine' potential, and have been hoping to do a deal with housing developers and/or a local football club for years. They'll succeed, but in the meantime London's would-be car owners, and those from the Home Counties, turn up in droves in search of an elusive four-wheeled bargain. They walk round endless windscreens, they peer through an eternity of side windows, they drag their unwilling children along for the ride, and they might even stop off at the Giants Diner for a meal afterwards. I have no idea where 10000+ cars will go once the business closes, but it seems lowbrow commercial activity no longer has any place in Inner London.
The actual site of the proposed station is on the other side of the railway embankment, on what's now Salter Street. The units here once housed Mallandian Corrugated Containers Ltd and the High Frequency Heat Treatment Co, amongst others, but are now fenced off and watched over by guard dogs and a security bloke in a lonely cabin. Across the road is the Triangle Trading Estate, still up and running, but a million miles away from the swish towers and boulevards that'll one day wipe the lot away. The whole area reminded me very much of the Lower Lea Valley before the Olympics came, and in the same way I'm pleased I've seen the place before the whirlwind descends.
A hemmed-in alleyway follows the railway embankment north around the back of a metal recyclers and various other future undesirables. Steps then lead up to a precipitous footbridge which crosses seven railway tracks, including the West Coast mainline, and emerges via an almost-hidden entrance near the back of Willesden Junction station. It's not a pleasant walk, but short enough that the idea of building a new station at Hythe Road looks ludicrous, except to boost house prices. But factor in a five minute walk from Hythe Road to one end of the HS2 station, and ten minutes to the proposed Crossrail platforms, and you can start to see the point. Neither of these two proposed Overground stations are going to be particularly convenient for future interchange, alas, but they'll be a lot better than building nothing at all.
Overground quiz (1)Name that station
Without looking on a map, can you name...
1)2)3)4) The northernmost, easternmost, southernmost and westernmost Overground stations? 5)6)7)8) The four Overground stations in Zone 1? 9) The first Overground station in an alphabetical list? (it's in west London and starts with 'A') 10) The last Overground station in an alphabetical list? (it's in east London and starts with 'W')
Answers are in the comments box, so have a good think before you peek.
And that should give you a score out of 10. Do tell us how you get on.
Orangewatch (1)Ghost train to Battersea Park
London has a secret Overground station, rarely served, and the destination of no more than one train a day. What's more it doesn't appear on diagrams in carriages, nor on anymaps, unless you happen to look at the digital version of one particular timetable and there it is, the connecting track shown with 'Limited service'.
Battersea Park used to be the penultimate stop on South London Line services from London Bridge to Victoria, but these were discontinued in 2012 when the Overground took over and diverted trains to Clapham Junction instead. But the connecting spur still needs to be kept open, and drivers still need to know how to use it, so a parliamentary train service is run very early in the morning and late at night.
Dalston Jn → Battersea Park
Battersea Park → Dalston Jn
Mon-Fri
2206 → 2244
0618 → 0658
2303 → 2345
Sat
(no service)
Sun
0722 → 0813 (to H&I)
I went to ride the only Overground train to Battersea Park, and chose a Friday night to provide a little added frisson.
First up, yes, I can confirm that the final destination is made plain right at the start. It reads Battersea Park on the Next Train Indicator, it says Battersea Park in the announcements, and it states Battersea Park on the displays in the train. Most people at Dalston Junction aren't travelling nearly that far, so would hop on a southbound train whatever it said on the front, but some passengers give the destination a second look. One particular bloke with a bike makes a point of watching the platform display scroll round until he's certain the train will be stopping at Peckham Rye, and only then lugs his wheels on board.
Overground trains via Shoreditch on a Friday night are full of post-drinkers and pre-revellers, resplendent in all the latest on-trend woolly hats and pristine trainers. One has a cased instrument which doesn't quite look like a guitar, one is unwrapping a bouquet of flowers marked with a Reduced sticker, and three are having a loud conversation "so he used to be so like..." etc etc ad nauseam. A smart young lady boards with a large cardboard box full of designer homewares which she plops down on the seat beside me, then drops onto the carriage floor when she stumbles as she disembarks. A bearded youth with a nose piercing wraps the arm of his corduroy jacket around his girlfriend's shoulder and gets a button caught in her hair, which takes until the next station to untangle. All millennial life is here.
At Canada Water it starts to matter that the train's destination is unfamiliar, as lines are soon to divide. The last person to slip through the doors before they close stares agitatedly at the scrolling display, uncertain they're on the correct train, because there are absolutely no clues on board where 'Battersea Park' might be, nor where the train will be stopping on the way. I'm expecting the driver to pipe in and say something at Surrey Quays, but he doesn't, so the recorded announcement that "the next station is Queen's Road Peckham" will have to suffice. At least one passenger near me, a woman in a Hakuna Matata hat, will dash off pretty smartish when we get there having accidentally taken the wrong branch.
The train empties considerably at Peckham Rye, and even more so at Denmark Hill, now down to approximately 30 of us across five carriages. Anybody boarding at Clapham High Street - and there are only two - must only want to go a couple of stops and not to the usual destination of Clapham Junction, because we're not going there. Indeed the Battersea Park ghost train introduces a half hour gap in normal services, which is going to be bad news for anyone waiting at Clapham Junction for a train back the other way.
At Wandsworth Road, the last stop before our train heads off the unusual way, only ten other passengers are still on board. Surely, I think, surely the driver will say something now. He doesn't, relying instead on passengers to make a logical deduction from the automated announcements "this is the train to Battersea Park" and "the next stop is Battersea Park".
I'd like to be able to tell you all about the unique stretch of line this Overground train now takes, slipping off the usual path to rise up and across, but I can't because it was dark outside. I did enjoy a close up view of a train depot, then a bus garage, before passing directly over the platforms at Queenstown Road, but that's my limit. Before 2012 this was the normal line, of course, so you may well have ridden it many times. Indeed what's now the usual Overground route was previously the line taken only by the daily parliamentary train, which goes to show how much 'normal' can change.
At last, one minute from our destination, the driver finally chips in and tells us what's going on. We get all the usual 'this train terminates here' and 'please check your belongings' stuff, plus an additional fact which helps explain why TfL have chosen not to put Battersea Park on the map. It doesn't matter if you caught this train by mistake when you were intending to go to Clapham Junction because another train heading there will be along very soon. Your saviour is the 2247 to Tattenham Corner, which will be departing the adjacent platform in two minutes, and most of those who've just arrived switch across to wait for that.
I join the oddments heading downstairs to exit the station, having deliberately caught the only train of the day to somewhere I actually wanted to go. The pubs and kebabberies of Battersea are in full flow. Meanwhile the driver switches ends ready for the return trip twenty minutes later, in case anyone might want to catch a barely-advertised train late at night from a station it normally doesn't depart from.
When I return to ride home I have the ghost train entirely to myself, as befits its status, at least as far as the first stop where the first bantering twenty-somethings start dribbling in. They have no idea they're on a special train, because in this direction it no longer matters, and business swiftly returns to normal. Only the driver and I know we're aboard something a little bit special, the parliamentary service from Battersea Park, the Overground's unmapped station, and long may it stay that way.
Orbitalgeek (1)Names of lines
We'd better start with this one. When the Overground started there were only three lines, each the same shade of orange, and without any individual identity. As further lines have been added they too have been added to the pool of tangerine spaghetti, and no attempt has been made to give each line a snappy branding of its own. But names are still required, for example on maps or to explain which lines are closed for engineering works this weekend, which leads to over-complicated messes like this.
According to TfL's London Overground webpage, the six lines are called the following:
• Richmond/Clapham Junction to Stratford
• Watford Junction to Euston
• Gospel Oak to Barking
• Highbury & Islington to West Croydon/Clapham Junction
• Liverpool Street to Enfield Town, Cheshunt (via Seven Sisters) and Chingford
• Romford to Upminster
But naming lines after their extremities isn't great, and gets really complicated when there are several branches (as the ridiculous name for the lines out of Liverpool Street makes clear). So should we, and can we, do better? Add your suggestions to the comments boxes below (or, if you have some overall thoughts or suggestions, add them to the usual comments box at the foot of this post).
• Richmond/Clapham Junction to Stratford: North London Line, Line 1, North London Link, Outer Circle North, Regency Line, Nellie comments:
• Watford Junction to Euston: Watford DC Line, Line 2, Watford Line, Northwest Line, Harlequin, Premier, Watston, Wat-Eus, Waterloo, Watford stopper, the Stopper, Bloody Slow Line comments:
• Gospel Oak to Barking: Goblin, Line 3comments:
• Highbury & Islington to West Croydon/Clapham Junction: East London Line, Line 4, Brunel, Outer Circle South, South East London Line, Sellie, Hipster comments:
• Liverpool Street to Enfield Town, Cheshunt and Chingford: Lea Valley Lines, Line 5, Enfield/Chingford, Hackney Lines, Jazzcomments:
• Romford to Upminster: Romford Push and Pull, Line 6, Havering Shuttle, Rominster, Upford, Emerson Line, Emerson Air Linecomments:
Or collectively, e.g. A/B/C/D/E/F, 1/2/3/4/5/6, N/W/B/E/L/U, N1/N2/W/B/E1/E2/E3/E4/L1/L2/L3/U
For several years this blog went totallytubular every autumn with one week's posts entirely devoted to the London Underground. This year I'm going to do the same but for the LondonOverground, in celebration of the orange network's 10th anniversary (which is coming up later this week). It was on Sunday 11th November 2007 that TfL took control of the first routes from Silverlink, and since then the franchise has grown into an outer orbital network the capital can't survive without. Prepare for five days of quizzes, quirks, commentary and obscure statistics, plus reportage on how things are going out there, ten years on. Thank you for travelling with London Overground. Please wait for further announcements.
Orangewatch (5) Night Overground
