Limitations of the East London Railway?

While you could extend the bays back to their original length, ie nearly up to the LNWR buildings at the north end of the platform, by removing the new stairs and coffee shop and loos.

Making the bays through lines would be very difficult as the whole island platform is wedge shaped and not wide enough at the northern end to allow the bays to run right through. Altering the platform would be difficult as it is sandwiched between a retaining wall and the City Goods Lines, and moving the tracks apart at the north end would also make getting a suitable alignment through the overbridge off the north end of the platforms impossible.

If this work involves any re-signaling the local S&T would probably be greatful if the bay platform signal could be moved forward or backward a few feet. As at the moment climbing the ladder brings your head straight up under one of the girders holding up the station roof.

Are the DC lines going through to Stratford on a permanent basis after 2014 or if/when the Bakerloo goes back to Watford? If so this would eradicate the need for any extensions to the ELR since you'd be able to change for a high frequency service to through destinations anyway.

The current plan is to tie the Bakerloo to Watford scheme in with the line's resignalling/new rolling stock, which won't happen for around 10 years. There doesn't seem to be any prospect of through services via Primrose Hill before then, apart from during this year's blockade.

They've not actually announced any plans for the Watford DC line yet. If they were to bump the service to 4 tph it wouldn't be a terrible idea link two of them up with the 2 tph Camden Road-Stratford shuttle. But I doubt they will.

If possible LM could stop at Queen's Park, giving another direct link to Euston (in addition to Watford and H&W). In fact does anyone know whether LM will be doing this during the upcoming Watford DC diversion to Stratford?

Delaying the Bakerloo extension seems more reasonable and practical now. There are more than enough transport projects going on between now and 2015 anyway. By this stage the Bakerloo will be the only line not to have had modernisation works, making more large scale changes more reasonable. A short southeastern extension might be considered (Camberwell-Peckham-Lewisham?) and the new stock could be designed to better suit the line's profile.

Hello I'm a layman so i will apologise in advance for saying something which is blatantly wrong or blindingly obvious. I have a number of questions which I have wanted to ask about the NLL and ELL.

1. Is there somewhere to find the platform/track plan for the new dalston junction station. As it strikes me that large concrete buildings on top of railways make amendments to track layout impossible, so whatever capacity it has been designed for will limit the ELL for next 50+ years.

2. Is there excess capacity on the line between stratford and bethnal green (bishopsgate goods yard.)
if there is how much, could it be increased.
(reason I ask this question is that could the North extension of ELL be used as an alternative freight route to the Hackney wick route).

3. The most obvious limiting factor on the NLL regards passenger traffic is platform size, I understand the new trains are going to be 4 car, so I take it they will be slightly expanding the platforms. What were the original platform lengths of the older sations (camden Road, H&I,)? Are there any plans to resight or properly expand the platforms to make a difference at rush hour (6/8 car)?

4. I understand from the discussion that segregating the ELL from the NLL between Dalston to H&I makes it easier to operate and less signaling means cheaper. But if money was not an issue, would putting in several signals/points between dalston and Highbury; so that trains in theory could use the tunnel to finsbury park, reduce the number of trains that could travel per hour between dalston kingsland and stratford. Would sticking in a passenger loop where the old mildmay station was make any difference?

5. It was said that getting rid of the pinch point just west of camden road would be a challenge, is this because of blocking road traffic underneath, because from the train all it looks like you would need to do is knock down one house.

6. As I understand the ELL can not be used for freight from south london due to too steep gradients through the thames tunnel, is that fixable?

Two through platforms (~6 cars long) and two south-facing bays (~4 cars long) between them, all curving west towards Highbury & Islington. One cavern for a single track curving east towards Stratford from the easternmost through platform.

idox.hackney.gov.uk/WAM/doc/Floor%20Plan%20(Proposed)-224800.pdf?extension=.pdf&id=224800&location=VOLUME1&contentType=application/pdf&pageCount=1


You want freight to run Stratford-Bethnal Green-Shoreditch High Street-Dalston Junction-Higbury & Islington?

Not good. The bottleneck is west of Bethnal Green where 8 tracks narrow to 6. And it would be near impossible to build a junction, especially since freight would arrive on the middle of pair of the 6 tracks.


The hope is upping the frequency will take care of overcrowding.

By definition yes, since every slot used by allowing an ELL to Finsbury Park is one that can't be used by an NLL train. If you're asking whether signalling of sufficient capacity could be designed to allow enough slots for both, yes it could, but that wouldn't make it a good idea. Segregation improves reliability.

That may well be the case, but building the viaduct is the hard part.

I'm sure the gradients are less of an issue than that TfL don't want it used for freight, and they own it.

(also the gradients at Shoreditch are steeper)