Bank's reopening delayed?

Signalling software issues apparently

Publicity was put out as "the end of January", but within the railway game it was supposed to be until 24th January. I suppose you could say they've covered their backsides rather well on this occasion.

Indeed it does, however my reply was in response to the first 3 posts in this thread.

Behind the scenes it was originally intended to be completed by the 24th January. There appears to have been some slippage but because the DLR rather cleverly only put out "end of January" in their publicity, nobody is any the wiser (well not unless they read this thread anyway).

Apparently, the whole of the "west leg" will be closed this Friday, as per a press release -

"In order to finish the work an additional network closure will take place between Bank/Tower Gateway and Westferry from Friday 29 January to Sunday 31 January to allow extra signal testing to be carried out. A full bus replacement service will operate during this time, and has been enhanced at the weekend when engineering work is also taking place on the Jubilee line".

The following bus replacement services will operate during the coming weekend closure:

Friday 29 January: 07.00-20.00 Bank/Tower Gateway to Canary Wharf every two minutes, Shadwell-Limehouse-Westferry every four minutes. Before and after this time Bank/Tower Gateway to Canary Wharf every five minutes, Shadwell-Limehouse-Westferry every 10 minutes.

Saturday 30 January: 08.30-19.00 Bank/Tower Gateway to Canary Wharf every three and a half minutes, Shadwell-Limehouse-Westferry every seven minutes. Before and after this time Bank/Tower Gateway to Canary Wharf every five minutes, Shadwell-Limehouse-Westferry every 10 minutes.

Sunday 31 January: 09.30-19.00 Bank/Tower Gateway to Canary Wharf every four minutes, Shadwell-Limehouse-Westferry every seven minutes. Before and after this time Bank/Tower Gateway to Canary Wharf every five minutes, Shadwell-Limehouse -Westferry every 10 minutes.

The weekly TFL closure email says:

"Bank station is closed until late January 2010. For further details and alternative routes, please click here"

Encountered the substitute bus service operating along The Highway in this morning's rush hour. They were unfortunate that an incident that closed the Blackwall Tunnel had caused huge traffic queues all around.

There were substantial numbers of high capacity double deck buses, carrying - virtually nobody. The ones I looked inside had loads varying from half a dozen down to - zero.

I do wonder how the rail replacement service provision is so often got wrong for the loads that will actually turn up. Out on the Beckton line at weekends the opposite applies, and I have been left behind before now by the substitute bus operating at no more than the normal DLR 10 minute frequency. But today the opposite applied, with a large fleet of buses from at least three different operators running round mostly unwanted.

when will the longer trains start running between bank and lewisham ? is it when all the work is completed at bank.

Thanks for the links to the London Reconnections Blog. I'm still trying to understand what the issues are here, but as far as I can see, a posting in the blog from last September said that Bank Station would be closed from Christmas for "about 4 weeks" and therefore re-open on 25th January - though I still can't find any official source for this (can anyone help?).

Now even if the "about 4 weeks" did come from an official source I've been in project planning long enough to know that an "about 4 weeks" more than 3 months before the start date of the project can very easily turn into much longer time scale once the scope of the work has been fully clarified. So the fact that "about 4 weeks" turned into 5 weeks seems very reasonable.

And I return to my original point - As far as I can see, by the time it came to officially publish a timescale for the works, TfL have only published the "end of January" date for the end of the closure. And that's what's happening. Closed until the end of January which means open on 1st February (that's not clever marketing by the way, it's just simple logic).

There's a lot that TfL/DLR/Serco do that I think we can worked up about and I'll be with you on the barricades with most of them, but publishing an end-date and sticking to it is sadly not one of them.

I've just checked the TfL website 'Live Travel News' for the DLR.

It reports 'Good Service' and makes NO mention of any work in connection with Bank DLR Station.

I then requested information on a journey NOW from Bank DLR to Lewisham DLR.

Guess what?

Offered a walk to Cannon Street, followed by a journey on South Eastern to Lewisham, or

Northern Line to London Bridge, change to NR for a journey to Lewisham.

Wonderful!

Yet, if you go on the TfL homepage and click on the DLR link, you are greeted with a headline and picture feature from their pressroom stating that the DLR platforms at Bank HAVE reopened. I tried to click on the link, but the page was 'not available'!

Someone is NOT coming clean with Joe Public this morning!

Update: Just had an e-mail from DLR following my complaint, confirming that the DLR to Bank IS open, that the website is faulty, and TfL have been asked to rectify it.

There was nothing wrong with the site - it was working as it should. I tried it a few minutes after your post (I can read but not post where I was at the time) and got the same as you.

Walk to Northern Line 2 minutes
Tube to London Bridge 8 minutes
Train to Lewisham 10 minutes (total 20 minutes)

Try checking the "fewest changes" box
Walk to Cannon Street 7 minutes
Train to Lewisham 14 minutes

Then I tried it with the "National Rail" box unchecked:
Bank to Lewisham by DLR 28 minutes

So the reason you didn't see it was because there is a faster direct service by another route. (It's 10p cheaper too!)

Replacing "Lewisham" with "Deptford Bridge" will also reveal the DLR in all its glory!

Visited Bank this afternoon and tried to identify where the extension took place: this appeared difficult having not been there for several years. Asked when the longer trains would appear and was told one had been on test today. Unit 114 passed as I travelled back to Lewisham, out of service, Is this the one that has been lengthened?

But that junction was 'reworked' when the reduced Tower Gateway to single track/double platform wasn't it?

Seems a bit of a cock-up all round!

No units are being lengthened - they are still two-piece artics. The trains are being lengthened by running three such units coupled together, instead of two.

No sign of any yesterday (Thursday). I've seen speculation that they were due to start "later this week" but no official confirmation.