Stratford to Liverpool St lines for Crossrail

Please don't use initials. Some of us aren't totally au faux with what they mean. For instance to my mind SRA means Strategic Rail Authority. LST as far as I'm aware is an old naval term for Landing Ship Tank.
Whinge over

Some Crossrail trains will continue to run into Liverpool Street in the peaks.

The track layout is flexible so Greater Anglia trains can use the spare capacity.

This will not happen unless additional funding is obtained to resignal the Bow junction area. Such a thing has been mentioned in various long term strategy documents, but with no firm timetable for implementation.

As has been noted the current 'electric lines' as they are known will still be used by residual peak hour non Crossrail services to Shenfield from Liverpool Street as well as other Grater Anglia GEML services in accordance with the current track layout and allocated terminal platforms at Liverpool Street. One thing is for sure the 'electric lines' will most certainly not be 'redundant' as you put it.

Unless I'm mistaken isn't the plan to continue running some Crossrail services into Liverpool Street?

Not significant traffic, but theres also the c2c services that run to Liverpool Street.

Any surrendered capacity will be used by Greater Anglia services. The accepted franchise spec clearly increases the number of longer distance trains into Liverpool St. Others have remarked about Crossrail services. In the very long term Network Rail have a plan (or vision?) to route Stansted services via Stratford and then use a flyover to reach those tracks into Liverpool St. Quite where the billion or so quid for this will appear from is anyone's guess.

While I would dearly love to see the Hall Farm Curve reinstated it is dead in the water I'm afraid [1]. STAR [2] has the priority and there will, AFAIK, be no provision in the track and signalling provisions for the Hall Farm Curve included within whatever works are done in respect of STAR and adding improved signalling capacity. I was told by a very well informed source long ago that a Stratford - Chingford service simply is not as attractive as STAR because STAR supports very large scale redevelopment and new housing and has pulled in money from a range of sources. The same opportunities simply don't exist between St James St and Chingford and no one is going to build in the Lea Valley Park. The reopening of Lea Bridge station has triggered a mini housing boom in that area but that does nothing to support the Hall Farm curve idea.

The Hall Farm Curve should have been put back when it was estimated to cost £25m a fair number of years ago. Unfortunately no one could or would find the money so we're stuck and are likely to remain so for a very long time and all that will happen is that costs increase because STAR will have nicked all the paths and platform capacity at Stratford leaving any subsequent initiative with vastly higher costs to cover.

The next big railway scheme is Crossrail 2 and while that affects the Lea Valley it won't do anything for the Chingford Line apart from possibly make it even harder to get paths into Liverpool St as Greater Anglia try to ram as many longer distance / Stansted trains as possible through Clapton and Hackney Downs because they're the money earners.

[1] I think Hall Farm Curve reinstatement was last floated by Network Rail in its "Anglia Vision" document. There are no signs of that document being developed further or pursued by anyone in a position of authority or influence.
[2] Stratford to Angel Road enhanced service currently under construction

I don't see why they would need a flyover, surely just a simple points restructure would allow this.

There are currently six tracks running between Stratford and to the point where the Crossrail tunnel is, surely just shifting all the tracks down two once past the tunnel portal is all that's needed? That way the majority of trains from P9 and P10 will run on the old Metro lines and the trains from P11 and P12 can run on the fasts. If the points are left in place then trains from P9 and P10 can be use either the old Metros or the fasts which will be important during peak times when Crossrail trains will also run to Liverpool Street Mainline.

I knocked up a quick illustration here to show what I mean:

I believe the problem is in getting the trains into those platforms at Liverpool Street. I think there's a maximum length at the higher numbered platforms, which would be exceeded by the Great Eastern "Intercity" services (ie: Norwich Fasts). The Stansted Express would have lots of space, and the London Overground and West Anglia lines would gain a bunch more platforms. 

Lets not forget that Platform 18 at Liverpool Street will be taken out of service during 2018 to allow Platforms 16 & 17 to be lengthened to accommodate 9-car Class 345 Elizabeth line trains. These trains will be 207m long but provision will be made for platforms 16 & 17 to accommodate 10-car 345s as well at 230m. Such provision is also being made at all Elizabeth line stations where needed.

If the Hall Farm (south) curve is reinstated it will only be single (electrified) track with bi-directional signalling and would aimed at Empty Coaching Stock (ECS) movements only. As such it comes way down on the NR and TfL investment priority list.

OK, here it is!

Approaching platform 8 at Stratford station to the east of London...

We have stopped at a red signal and in the distance can be seen a Class 307 train calling at platform 8. When it departs we will take its place!

To its left is a class 312 train whilst on the right is a westbound 1962 Tube Stock Central Line train.

Since this photo would have been taken through the open window of a slam door train with proper opening windows (probably Class 307) it would probably have been going to Southend Victoria. Nowadays the TfL service only goes as far as Shenfield.

When this photo was taken there were at least 8 tracks in this area. The train I am on was on track No.7 with the 8th to my right

Simon



[img src="c1.staticflickr.com/5/4227/34744676066_73ce99c87f_c.jpg" src="Stratford-From-Eastbound-Train by Simon Smiler, on Flickr" alt="<a target="_blank" rel="nofollow" href="https://flic.kr/p/UWgxH5"></a>Stratford-From-Eastbound-Train

An examination of satellite imagery shows the bridges over the Blackwall tunnel approaches and the adjacent river Lea have only ever been wide enough for 6 tracks, while the section between Bethnal Green and Bow junction has only ever had a maximum of 4 tracks. Yes having 8 tracks on the immediate approch to Stratford may help with track layouts etc, but it does nothing to provide extra train paths into Liverpool Street which is actually constrained by platform lengths at LS and the junction (crossovers) layout in the Bow / Pudding Mill Lane area itself.

In the dim and distant past there were platforms 4 & 7 at Stratford. It has to be assumed there were tracks for these.

The original DLR layout made use of a new platform 4 and there are now 2 in the new location.

The DLR reused the original platform 4, and the track bed for the platform is still there - albeit shortened as the ramp access to the bridge across the westbound central line uses part of it. Quite what a short, narrow, west-facing bay platform at Stratford would be useful for these days I have no idea.

The new DLR platforms, 4a and 4b, are located south of the mainline viaduct/embankment (not sure which it is), and do not impinge on it (although the approach track does, this has been the case since 1987).

Stratford is probably the station in the country most in need of platform renumbering with (northwest to southeast) 1, 2, 12, 11, 10a, 10, 9, 8, 6, 5, 3, 3a, 4b, 4a and (low level southwest to northeast) 13, 14, 15, 16 and 17 (the only logical bit!).

Its not been 'Outlawed' as you put it - what makes such changes unlikely these days is the sheer number of backroom computer systems (not just NR ones like ARS and by the way) that would need their systems re-programmed at considerable expense if everything was altered, there is also things like station evacuation plans and maintenance / boundary agreements that may need redrafting if wholesale changes are made. By contrast simply adding an extra platform number to the systems involves much less work as the pre-existing data does not need to be changed - hence the widespread use of 'platform zero' when an additional platform is opened next to the pre existing platform 1.

Incidentally in Glasgow the M74 has junction numbers 1, 1A, 2, 2A, 3, 3A so that Transport Scotland did not have to go to the expense of renumbering all the way from Junction 4 to Junction 22 (Gretna) while it may well be more logical than Stratfords platform numbering the principle of not altering what is already there (particularly given the way business advertise themselves as being 'just off junction xx') unless absolutely essential still applies.

I don't think 4 and 7 were passive provision. The idea of the Fenchurch shuttle was to satisfy the need for access to the south-eastern part of the City (a tidy step from Liverpool St), which pre-war was a thriving business district, particularly with shipping, tea and other commodity brokers, used to through trains. These were the LNER's first class ticket holders from places like Loughton and Shenfield/Hutton.
What happened, of course, was that the Luftwaffe put pay to much of the business in that area so by 1949 there was little demand.