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Post by ashlar on Jan 9, 2015 19:58:30 GMT
The refurb / gate installation at Walthamstow Central is progressing at speed. They have now installed the posts for the segregation wall along platform 2 to funnel Vic line exit-ers out onto the street. It is rather cheaply done, with low grade metal girders clumsily welded to the existing tatty roof, so this looks like a temporary solution, with TfL aspiring for a more substantial rebuild later down the line. Let's see.
The gateline has started to appear as well. Currently the "fake" gate readers have been installed (I assume these are empty boxes of the right shape which they use to measure up and fit the other components).
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Post by snoggle on Jan 9, 2015 20:18:22 GMT
BTW, I notice from the schedule of TFL closures at weekends, the Chingford Line is included for early June under London Overground, so that presumably implies it will be so branded from 31 May..... Where is shown on the TfL website? On the planned track closures pdf. tfl.gov.uk/cdn/static/cms/documents/track-closures.pdf
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Post by snoggle on Jan 9, 2015 20:21:35 GMT
The refurb / gate installation at Walthamstow Central is progressing at speed. They have now installed the posts for the segregation wall along platform 2 to funnel Vic line exit-ers out onto the street. It is rather cheaply done, with low grade metal girders clumsily welded to the existing tatty roof, so this looks like a temporary solution, with TfL aspiring for a more substantial rebuild later down the line. Let's see. The gateline has started to appear as well. Currently the "fake" gate readers have been installed (I assume these are empty boxes of the right shape which they use to measure up and fit the other components). If you mean the white wooden boxes that are "gate shaped" then they actually cover the metal plinths that are attached to the ticket hall floor. You can't leave them uncovered because they'd be a trip hazard.
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Post by ashlar on Jan 10, 2015 23:20:02 GMT
That's what they are?! Thanks snoggle. Makes sense.
So the final gateline can be "plugged in" in an overnight install?
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Post by snoggle on Jan 12, 2015 10:42:14 GMT
That's what they are?! Thanks snoggle. Makes sense. So the final gateline can be "plugged in" in an overnight install? They can bring in the gates, fix them to the plinths and then connect them up to power and comms. I doubt they will be ready to be switched in to service immediately as other works are needed at the station and it's better to switch in a final and full layout. You also have to do testing and training on the equipment and there may need to be safety and fire brigade sign off too. Many years ago I did a night shift with the Cubic team to see how they installed the kit - I saw them do the installation at Seven Sisters High Rd ticket hall. Very interesting to see how they got the gates down the steps. ISTR I ended up with a brush sweeping up the dust and muck.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2015 8:43:09 GMT
If LO operate the services, what stock will they use?
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Post by snoggle on Feb 10, 2015 9:22:05 GMT
If LO operate the services, what stock will they use? Almost certainly the same stock as now - class 315s and 317s. What is not yet clear is quite what mix of stock will be with AGA and what will be with LOROL. There is also the issue about where stock will stable - will AGA trains stable at Chingford sidings for example as they do now even though the trains may not run on the Chingford Line. New trains will follow in a few years but the tendering process is not yet complete so we do not know who will build them. I think it's a couple of months until TfL will make the winning bidder announcement (assuming the process is running to time).
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Dom K
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Post by Dom K on Feb 10, 2015 9:25:03 GMT
If LO operate the services, what stock will they use? Mainly 315s with a few 317s thrown in. It's pretty much as it is now. I'd expect the depot would be Chingford and that between now and 31st May, Abellio Worser Anglia will get the fleet in the right locations. On a side note, just had a 315 pass me at Angel Road, which is very rare!
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Post by norbitonflyer on Feb 10, 2015 10:09:51 GMT
Are there currently separate fleets for the different service groups? Or can, say, a train work into Liverpool St from Chingford and depart as a Hertford? (either scheduled or as an extempore measure to cover for disruption). If two fleets are to be divided out of a common pool, who gets first pick?
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Post by snoggle on Feb 10, 2015 10:38:54 GMT
Are there currently separate fleets for the different service groups? Or can, say, a train work into Liverpool St from Chingford and depart as a Hertford? (either scheduled or as an extempore measure to cover for disruption). If two fleets are to be divided out of a common pool, who gets first pick? I'm not clear how it currently works but services certainly did interwork across Liverpool St in the past. I think that was under National Express's tenure.
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Dom K
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Post by Dom K on Feb 10, 2015 12:23:23 GMT
Are there currently separate fleets for the different service groups? Or can, say, a train work into Liverpool St from Chingford and depart as a Hertford? (either scheduled or as an extempore measure to cover for disruption). If two fleets are to be divided out of a common pool, who gets first pick? I'm not clear how it currently works but services certainly did interwork across Liverpool St in the past. I think that was under National Express's tenure. I use both the Tottenham Hale and Seven Sisters line quite regularly and the Enfield Town and Cheshunt destination is mainly served by 315s, but not exclusively. The trains to/from Hertford East via Seven Sisters and 99% of the time 317s. Trains via Tottenham Hale are 317s or 379s. The 379s predominantly service the Stansted Express, although at weekends, Sunday's especially they operate normal routes, such as Cambridge to Stratford. On rare occasions, a 315 can be seen on a Hertford East via Tottenham Hale. (Such as today!) The Chingford branch operate a mixed fleet of 315/317s probably for stabling purposes. Sometimes trains a short formed, 4 instead of 8 coaches mainly so Abellio Worser Anglia can still run a scheduled train, just less capacity, which would make them run a journey that the fleet wouldn't normally serve. Hope that answers that
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2015 13:17:21 GMT
I'm not clear how it currently works but services certainly did interwork across Liverpool St in the past. I think that was under National Express's tenure. I use both the Tottenham Hale and Seven Sisters line quite regularly and the Enfield Town and Cheshunt destination is mainly served by 315s, but not exclusively. The trains to/from Hertford East via Seven Sisters and 99% of the time 317s. Trains via Tottenham Hale are 317s or 379s. The 379s predominantly service the Stansted Express, although at weekends, Sunday's especially they operate normal routes, such as Cambridge to Stratford. On rare occasions, a 315 can be seen on a Hertford East via Tottenham Hale. (Such as today!) The Chingford branch operate a mixed fleet of 315/317s probably for stabling purposes. Sometimes trains a short formed, 4 instead of 8 coaches mainly so Abellio Worser Anglia can still run a scheduled train, just less capacity, which would make them run a journey that the fleet wouldn't normally serve. Hope that answers that The train fleet to service GA Inners will remain broadly the same mix of Class 315 and 317 units. Current work is to split the service patterns and diagrams. For example on Sunday trains from the Cheshunt line start from Hertford East and run all stops to Edmonton Green then fast the Seven Sisters and Hackney Downs then Liverpool Street. South of Edmonton Green only the half hourly Enfield Town service serves all stops. TfL have already announced that the Sunday stopping service will increase to 4tph south of Edmonton Green. I suspect that the semi fast Hertford East service via Edmonton Green will continue being operated by AGA as now but perhaps missing out more stops north of Edmonton Green as TfL will serve them - hope you all followed this 'Byzantine' explanation - but this one example does illustrate that the whole process is not as simple as changing an operator! As regards rolling stock AGA have just taken 8 class 317s out of storage. 42 Class 315s will pass to TfL Crossrail for GE metro services. That leaves 19 for the GA Inners which currently requires 28 sets. So the remainder will be made up of 8 or 9 existing 317s. The new rolling stock contract will not be signed till March or April as we are still at the ITT stage. 30 units for GA Inners. Although there is still a discussion about making these units 8-car walk through. Watch this space! AGA units will most probably continue to use Chingford sidings running ecs.
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Post by norbitonflyer on Feb 10, 2015 13:41:46 GMT
Although there is still a discussion about making these units 8-car walk through. Although an Electrostar cannot be longer than five cars, it might be possible to form them as two four-car single-ended units. After all, Bombardier are currently building a large fleet of such units for TfL, and they already have clearance to run over NR tracks.
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Post by Deleted on Feb 10, 2015 13:47:57 GMT
Although there is still a discussion about making these units 8-car walk through. Although an Electrostar cannot be longer than five cars, it might be possible to form them as two four-car single-ended units. After all, Bombardier are currently building a large fleet of such units for TfL, and they already have clearance to run over NR tracks. Its not a technical discussion going on - the technical side is not a problem - its a financial discussion! Much more difficult!!!!
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Post by snoggle on Feb 10, 2015 23:21:09 GMT
The new rolling stock contract will not be signed till March or April as we are still at the ITT stage. 30 units for GA Inners. Although there is still a discussion about making these units 8-car walk through. Watch this space! AGA units will most probably continue to use Chingford sidings running ecs. * blink* 8 car walk through formation? Wow. Obviously that works for the peaks on West Anglia but it gives a vast capacity "overhead" off peak but would mean TfL are future proofed for a long time. It also prevents short formations in the peak which can be a nightmare. A 4 car to Chingford in the PM peak is no fun and I expect Cheshunt or Enfield short formations are even worse. Throws a bit of a wobble into the planned unit formations as the order would constitute 2 types - 4 cars for GOBLIN and Watford DC and 8 cars for West Anglia. If the money can be worked out it may well be cheaper in the long run to go for a slightly smaller fleet of 8 cars for West Anglia although clearly you've got long trains slogging back and forth racking up a bit more wear and tear and maintenance cost rather than just 4 cars plus a few sitting in sidings off peak. I guess it all depends on TfL's view of growth on those routes, likely revenue and if they can get a decent lease cost for the new trains. IIRC the deal with government is that there is no DfT grant paid to TfL consequent to West Anglia (unlike for the Overground lines) so TfL have to be careful about keeping revenue ahead of costs unless they've budgeted for some subsidy.
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Post by rincew1nd on Feb 11, 2015 10:13:44 GMT
Perhaps the solution could be 4 carriage walkthrough trains, but with corridor connection on each unit for easy multiple working? I don't understand why TPE didn't opt to put corridor connection on their Diesel Desiros a few years back, especially as they now run them as six carriage trains as capacity busters.
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Post by ashlar on Feb 25, 2015 22:03:57 GMT
The Walthamstow gateline separation works are progressing, and now the "cage" preventing passengers leaving the Victoria line from accessing the soon-to-be-LOROL platform to Chingford is nearly complete. I wait until it is complete before passing judgement, but I struggle to see how it will work. There is already some pretty strong condemnation of this on the local civic society blog (who also seem to have published some interesting email correspondence): wfoc.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/walthamstow-central-new-entrances.html
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2015 11:43:31 GMT
I have been following the comments regarding the 'Gating'of Walthamstow Central, reading the link that ashlar provided makes interesting reading. What I think should have happened is that the staircase that runs up to platform 2 which has a right hand turn halfway up could have been altered to run in a straight line up to the booking hall. When I passed the station a few weeks ago and saw that one side of the booking hall had been removed, I assumed that something like that might happen, so was dismayed the next time I passed to see two large plate glass windows put in and I am not sure why? As there is a set down point for buses in Selbourne Road, a huge amount of people use this way in to the Victoria Line also, using the subway to go to platform 1 for Liverpool Street, so anyone coming up to surface level will confront a wave of people going down this very narrow passageway. I suppose that the costs to reconstruct the staircase might be viewed as too excessive. Regarding the staircase on platform 1, a wall has been knocked down to make an opening in to the street area so that passengers will have to go through the new gates into the open and back throuh the hole in the wall. (See picture on Ashlar's link) I would have thought that the wall could have been knocked through into the old booking hall but as this is listed building so may be it couldn't be done. To sum up I think that the 'gating' of Walthamstow Central has become a shambles.
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Post by ashlar on Mar 9, 2015 14:11:21 GMT
Let's wait until it's finished, but the signs aren't good. I sincerely hope TfL rethinks this once it takes over the station. Gating the whole station in one gated area has to be a better solution.
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Post by snoggle on Mar 9, 2015 14:53:57 GMT
Let's wait until it's finished, but the signs aren't good. I sincerely hope TfL rethinks this once it takes over the station. Gating the whole station in one gated area has to be a better solution. There was stuff flying round Twitter yesterday about a Sunday Times article (which I have not read as it's behind a pay wall) where Ian Prosser of the ORR is quoted as saying operators should remove ticket barriers and move to an open system. This follows the scenes at London Bridge main line last week. Now subsequent tweets indicate that this is not quite what Mr Prosser actually said so the journalist has put their spin on the words. Nonetheless it does not bode terribly well for a scheme which anyone can see will causes queues and congestion on a regular basis. I am hoping that ORR will issue a clarification or statement about exactly what Ian Prosser did mean. I've had a look at what's going on at WWCS and can't believe it's got past any rational analysis or modelling. Perhaps things have changed since I was involved with gating schemes but I would never ever have come up with the scheme that appears to be underway at WWCS. I note that the ticket hall on the Liv St platform appears to be being "opened out" a bit given the width of the hoardings. In a recent public twitter session with Mike Stubbs, TfL Director for Overground, TfL seemed to be distancing themselves from any "responsibility" for the scheme saying it was an Abellio scheme to reduce ticket fraud. That might be true on one level but Abellio would never invest the sort of sums being spent at WWCS for a payback to them of a few weeks. If the gates are live before 31 May 2015 I'll be amazed.
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Dom K
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Post by Dom K on Mar 9, 2015 16:08:53 GMT
My mind might be playing tricks, but can't you access the mainline WWCS from the bus station WITHOUT going through the street side barriers, thus avoiding the barriers completely?
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Post by Deleted on Mar 9, 2015 17:21:35 GMT
Correct me if I am wrong, I think that the sub-surface level at Walthamstow Central belongs to TFL. Soon after the Victoria line opened British Rail removed the over footbridge linking platforms 1 and 2 so passengers had to use the newly built subway however if there was a tube strike or if the Victoria line was not working the wrought iron gates accessing the staircases to the subway were closed. Passengers alighting the buses in Selbourne road had to walk over the road bridge to get a train to Liverpool Street. Regarding bigbaddon's question, you can descend the stairs in the bus station and walk all the way through to the other side of the railway station, where you will now come out into what is now called Station square and if you want to, you can walk through the car park to Walthamstow Queens Road Overgeound Station. Once again I assume you will only be able to use the subway when it is open. The entire subway at Walthamstow is an open area which is why people will soon be directed up the two staircases into open areas and then re-enter the Overground station through the new gates if they want to get trains to Chingford or Liverpool Street.
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Post by snoggle on Mar 9, 2015 18:21:36 GMT
My mind might be playing tricks, but can't you access the mainline WWCS from the bus station WITHOUT going through the street side barriers, thus avoiding the barriers completely? The aim of this new scheme is to separately gate the Chingford Line platforms from the street / interchange links. The current open interchange flows will be shut in the future forcing you out to the street and then into the ticket halls at street level to enter the Chingford Line platforms. The reverse applies from people alighting from Chingford Line trains - you will have to exit via the NR ticket halls, enter the street area and then go through another entrance to go down to the LU level where there is the separate gateline near the escalators down to the Vic Line. If you enter via the subway from the bus station then you will reach the LU gateline first. However, in the future, if you use the steps up to the NR level you be forced out to the street again before having to come into the NR ticket halls and go via a gateline. What Abellio have done is effectively create a physical barrier / blockage on the NR platforms where previously there was a red line painted on the platform surface to delineate the NR paid area and the unpaid walking area down to the LU ticket hall and gateline. When there were revenue checks in the past a tensa barrier was placed on the red line to create separation and only people wanting to walk through the gap in the tensa barrier had their tickets checked. Many eons ago when I was the client for gating the North End of the Victoria Line we faced all sorts of problems at Walthamstow. WAGN wanted the gates upstairs but nothing downstairs. They wanted no LU ticket machines or ticket office because it would dilute their revenue at the station. However they refused to fund any changes to accommodate gates so they wanted all the gain and none of the cost. On the other hand the Victoria Line management wanted us to build an enormous ticket hall and office to steal as much revenue as possible from WAGN. They also wanted every interchange and street level entry / exit flow gated so, for example, at Seven Sisters (NR end) you would have had three gatelines - Street to NR, NR to LU and LU to Street - so no open interchange at all. Quite clearly that was bonkers and we refused to do it on cost and congestion grounds. I suspect that evacuation capacity would have been compromised with such an arrangement. It now seems that "old common sense" has been sacrificed on the alter of inconvenience with gates being plastered all over the place to separate every flow from every other one. Walthamstow is heading this way and Tottenham Hale has gone that way and the lunacy of the current layout will be replicated in the rebuilt scheme. I would really love to see the business case that can carry such a huge amount of equipment cost even with the greater need these days for people to touch in and out with Oyster / contactless payment cards.
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Post by ashlar on Mar 14, 2015 9:30:59 GMT
In Walthamstow Central, they have now reopened the London-bound-side ticket hall. The ticket hall no longer has a ticket office, just a gateline right across it. It has been nicely decorated to match the ticket hall on the other platform.
And they have now *bricked up* the entrance from the Victoria line onto the London-bound platform!
It looks like all is nearly finished, so I expect that the full segregation and new gatelines will be operational within a week or two.
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Post by peterc on Mar 14, 2015 16:44:28 GMT
How many passengers for LST services are going to buy their tickets and then go straight through the gateline onto platform 2 before finding that they cannot access platform 1.
As I understand it to go to LST if you don't have a ticket already you must go to the ticket office on patform 2 then leave the station, enter the Underground station, follow the subway into the street on the other side of the tracks and then reenter the LO station. What could be more obvious to the general public?
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Post by ashlar on Mar 14, 2015 18:51:47 GMT
There are ticket machines in the office on platform 1, but yes, its not ideal.
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stapler
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Post by stapler on Mar 14, 2015 19:07:10 GMT
Not ideal = barmy
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Post by crusty54 on Mar 16, 2015 16:46:42 GMT
Enfield Town is getting a neutral paint job.
Could well be a reveal station.
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Post by A60stock on Mar 17, 2015 16:35:19 GMT
at present are there any services to chingford, chestnut or enfield town that dont stop at all stations? And if there are, will London overground make every train all stations immediately?
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Post by norbitonflyer on Mar 17, 2015 17:47:53 GMT
at present are there any services to chingford, chestnut or enfield town that dont stop at all stations? www.abelliogreateranglia.co.uk/travel-information/timetablesChingford line trains run non-stop between Bethnal Green and Hackney Downs, with some peak hour and early Sunday services also omitting Bethnal Green In the peaks Cheshunt via Seven Sisters services omit Stamford Hill, Cambridge Heath and Bethnal Green. There are also peak hour Hertford East services calling after Cheshunt only at Edmonton Green, Seven Sisters, and Hackney Downs (and, in a few cases, Stoke Newington). There is also the "rusty rail" or "Parliamentary" 0531 Saturdays only service from Liverpool Street to Enfield, which takes the pretty route from Hackney Downs to Seven Sisters, non-stop via South Tottenham. Will they go all-stations immediately TfL takes over? Doubtful - not until the May timetable change at the very earliest, and Journey Planner for June 3rd (the current limit) shows little change in the next timetable. ojp.nationalrail.co.uk/service/details/EDR/LST/030615/0800/dep?outwardJourneyId=3&fareId=2&isReturn=false&callingPage=tf&fareType=s&realtime=false&alternatives=false&offpeak=false&offpeakReturn=false&fastestTrains=INCLUDE_CHEAPER&url=/service/times/EDR/LST/030615/0800/dep&saved=false&outwardResponseId=4&&fareDisplayId=3(click on "show calling points")
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