Whitechapel Plain Lining

Whitechapel is being plain lined as part of the Crossrail rebuild. It'll end up as just a simple two-platform through station, with new reversing sidings east of West Ham. Can't confirm the schedule though.

I'm suprised to hear that; I thought it was supposed to be rebuilt to three island platforms?

I expect they will be extended to West Ham. Sidingd at West Ham may also put paid to the bay platform at Plaistow, which always holds up the service whenever it is used.

Maybe they will retain a trailling crossover there.

This then is presumably dependent upon relocation of the DR control room from Earls Court when the SSR is all controlled from a single control room. I never did hear whether the east end of the DR would be controlled from the new CR but I presume the eventual aim is to centralise the whole Met and DR into a single central CR.

Given the above it could be quite some time before Whitechapel gets resignalled as the new CR has been a talking point for the last eight years to my knowledge and perhaps more.

In the supporting documents on the CrossRail website the new siding at West Ham will be double-ended so as to have access both from the west and east.

Plaistow bay appears to remain.

billdocuments.crossrail.co.uk/
Eastern area 'sheet-202A'.

If Plaistow bay does remain, I can't see it getting used much! The track going into it from the points has been on its last legs for years!

All sounds a bit odd and short sighted to me !!!

There is insufficient capacity for reversing H&C trains as it is !

Delays are often caused when both e/b platforms at Whitechapel contain H & C reversers, or a Plaistow reverser waits access to the bay at Plaistow with one present, likewise Barking Bay.

Whitechapel is often used to reverse w/b District's back to Upminster whilst the H&C provide a through service.

Can't see this working unless the whole H & C service is extended at all times to Barking Sidings with a very generous layover (even then Barking sidings reversers always induce delay to the District main) and Tower Hill and Mansion House become accessible from their east ends.

I'm not quite clear what you are indicating here, as far as I am concerned both line controllers and signal operators are service control staff so are you saying that the line controllers have been relocated ? If so the rather redundant emergency CR has presumably reverted to being part of the comms complex as it used to be.

As for the lights going out at Earls Court when the last signal operator goes I don't think so! Tube Lines have been dying to get rid of the DR to enable the upgrade from shared CR to exclusive Picc CR. Personally I believe the Picc should have built a new CR at Acton or indeed Northfields long ago and and 'piped' all the signalling controls, indications and communications using fibre optic links so that the CR and Warwick Road offices could be demolished.

Colin,
Earls Court CR was my workplace too before I retired in 2005. I had always been led to believe that there were two distinct service control organisations right down to signal operator and I was often puzzled at some of the delays to Picc service as a result of DR failures especially as the CR was a Tube Lines asset. Now that you have asserted that all the signal operators are Picc staff I am even more puzzled that the Picc suffered so often. I guess the DR DOM was senior to the Picc DOM!

Interesting point about the emergency CR as I had heard that it was declared unworkable some time ago although I can't now recall the cause.

I cannot understand why everyone gets hung up on the line sharing aspects when thinking about splitting signal controls. For some reason everyone assumes that there needs to be two distinct signalling systems so in order to split line control the whole line between Baron's Court and Ealing Broadway needs to be split, this is simply not so although it would make life easier and is probably seen as a good argument. Only the controls need to be split and that could be done at Earls Court in Warwick Road relay room. I accept that there would need to be some slotting as individual desk controls are split into Picc & DR controls but the output to and indications from the remote sites would be exactly the same. The only site I can think of that already has such an arrangement is Baker Street IMR which has a single interlocking machine driven from both the Bakerloo and Jubilee control rooms. Once controls are terminated to a multiplex system they can be 'piped' anywhere. The east end of the Picc effectively already has this arrangement as it can be controlled from Earls Court and Ash House. I thought union intervention had scotched the relocation of signallers to Ash House and of course there were tentative plans to build a west end control room at Bollo House too. The last I heard before I retired was that Tube Lines had settled for upgrading Earls Court, in fact stage 1 of that process was completed in 2004.

Personally I think the most efficient layout at Whitechapel would be one similar in scope to what exists at White City, with a scissors crossover on the west end just before the points to the center road and a minimum of a trailing crossover on the east end (or maybe a scissors crossover there as well!).

The single double-ended siding at West Ham will NOT have the capacity to reverse lots of trains unless the SER controlling it is built to passenger-carry standards with full overlaps on all four entry/exit points from the siding. IMO it would be a good idea to combine the construction of the siding with the complete replacement of the Plaistow layout with a much longer, higher-speed layout that includes an elongation of the bay road, to allow trains to enter at slightly higher speeds to prevent the blocking back that exists now.

The reason they're rebuilding Whitechapel is because the escalators down to the Crossrail station will be embedded within the District line platforms. I don't think there's enough width to do this with island platforms.

The West Ham siding was discussed briefly before, including a map apparently showing the new track layout.

I do not think a reversing siding at W Ham is better than a 3-platform layout at Whitechapel - cheaper yes but not better. There will always be a delay whilst an EB reverser is tipped out and then driven into the siding. This would not allow a 33tph service. It would work if it was used off peak only. Perhaps the plan is that all peak hour trains going east of Aldgate East will go at least as far as Barking.

Exactly - this is why those of us that have to work with whatever we get are finding the loss of Whitechapel sticking in the throat a little...

As to the current blocking back that occurs approaching West Ham eastbound; that's entirely down to the fact that theres a compromised overlap there (in basic terms, signals stay at danger longer to ensure a healthy gap is kept between trains). The Plaistow reverser's certainly don't aid the situation, but there'd be less of an issue if the compromised overlap wasn't there.

Now call me thick, but I can't make out whats proposed at West Ham from those links, but:

IMHO, the best layout is a centre bay (ie, Putney Bridge, Mansion House, Tower Hill, etc, etc) - there is only a minimal delay whilst the train enters the bay at slow speed and no further delay whilst waiting for the train to be tipped out. When the train departs, it then only affects the line it's heading for - set up's with a side bay road (ie, Dagenham East, Plaistow, etc) have a larger impact when the train departs as it has to cross a running line to reach it's own line - delaying trains in both directions as a result.

Whilst Whitechapel could certainly do with work to speed up journeys through the area, I think reducing the useful reversing facilities would be cutting off our noses to spite our faces - isn't it a bit over the top for a couple of lifts?