Somewhat buried amongst a number of railway-related announcements from the DfT this month was final confirmation of something that Waltham Forest council have been pushing for some time – the reopening of Lea Bridge Station. The station (as “Lea Bridge Road”) was one of the original stations on the Northern & Eastern Railway, which opened in 1840. At the time, Walthamstow was a relatively popular retreat for London’s businessmen and the station was in part intended for their use. In … Continued

Images bring to life many London Reconnections pieces. We are lucky to have a band of chums willing to brave frostbite, heat stroke and going rusty to capture stuff on our behalf. Therefore our thanks and copyright acknowledgements go to Steam 60163 and Unravelled for these images enabling us to update earlier articles. Over with Steam 60163 Earlier this year we published an article about the new graded junction at Hitchin. Steam 60163 has assiduously recorded the construction of this … Continued

Our recent article on future Northern Line upgrades was not really meant to be about one particular aspect but how the pieces as a whole fitted together. It was acknowledged in the title that the biggest contentious issue would be the upgrading of Camden Town station. The first of these upgrades mentioned – the signalling – is in progress now but attracted very little comment. Whether this is because it is happening in the background or it is because that … Continued

A very strange thing has happened in the the past year or so regarding London Underground and the Northern Line – Senior managers have actually wanted to talk about it. This comes as quite a surprise. One expects the usual over-excitement as they proudly remind you that London Underground can now run 33 trains per hour (tph) on the Victoria Line, or talk enthusiastically of the sheer scale of modernisation underway on the sub-surface lines. Even evangelising over the Jubilee … Continued

Yesterday saw a plethora of headlines hit both the London papers and the web about the Jubilee Line, as it was revealed that closures would be required in order to allow work to address problems of acid damage to the tunnel wall segments along a 90m section of the line. This is not a new issue, with the need for repair work having been identified for some time now. Indeed the “Baker Street to Bond Street Tunnel Reconstruction” project has … Continued

In part one we recalled the history of St Johns station up to World War II. In that time the the station had already been subject to more change than most stations have in their entire lifetime. After World War II though, it did seem that this had come to an end. The station, and the immediate surrounding area, had now remained largely unaltered, and uninteresting, since 1929 and there was no reason to believe that this would change in … Continued

Some railway stations are more worthy of a visit for their own sake than others. History, architecture, location, current operation and future plans, all contribute in their own way to give you a reason to explore a particular station. You wouldn’t think the small suburban commuter stop of St Johns was one of these, but in truth it’s a far more interesting station than one might imagine.

Crossrail have released another batch of photos related to their current tunnelling operations. Interestingly, these seem to focus more on activites beyond the main tunnel drives than the previous batch. It includes, for example, photos of Sophia – the first of Crossrail’s Slurry TBMs – and both Crossrail’s Thames Tunnel and Cable Tunnels at Liverpool Street. The pick of these images are included below. Tunnel Segments at Plumstead Sophia, one of two Slurry TBMs, at Plumstead Crossrail’s Thames Tunnel Digging … Continued

Although we have had a lot to say about the Thameslink Programme over the past few months news on the construction front has gone very quiet. There is a small amount of residual work at Blackfriars station that seems to be taking forever but is rumoured to be due to be completed by this June. Apart from that there has been an apparent lack of activity. In truth an awful lot has been going on at London Bridge but, because … Continued