Recent articles looking at the TfL Board and Financial papers have focused on the Underground, and we will return to that subject shortly. It is worth taking a brief break, however, to highlight one other …
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Peace On Our Line? Devolving London’s Railways
It is not often that rail consultations are greeted with unabashed excitement. In this the reaction to today’s announcement that Transport for London (TfL) and the Department for Transport (DfT) are to jointly consult on …
Continue readingDevocalypse Now: Taking Control of South London’s Railways
The topics of rail devolution and London Overground are closely entwined. Without devolution the former Silverlink services in North London would never have become TfL’s London Overground. The success of the Overground has, in turn, …
Continue readingOrange Invades: All Change for London’s New Overground Lines
This weekend saw the addition of 28 new stations to TfL’s hugely successful Overground network. Rail services running from Liverpool Street to Enfield Town, Cheshunt and Chingford in North East London, as well as the …
Continue readingEast of Enfield, North of Stratford
At the end of the month London Overground will take over more of north-east London’s railways. It seems timely, therefore, to take a look at the history of the railways in the area. For though …
Continue readingConsultations Cubed: The Overground (And More) at Old Oak Common
On 22nd September TfL launched a new consultation on the possibility of adding one or more stations to the London Overground in west London at Old Oak Common. With at least two other OOC rail …
Continue readingMTR To Operate Crossrail Concession
We wrote recently about how Crossrail would operate and now we know who – it was announced this morning that MTR have been selected as the successful bidder for the £1.4bn, eight year (extendable to …
Continue readingIn Pictures: Growing Oranges
Whilst attention has begun to switch to TfL’s plans for West Anglia (a topic which we will cover in more detail later in the month) it is worth remembering that taking over control of that …
Continue readingIn Pictures: The Thames Tunnel
Last weekend presented a rare opportunity to actually get inside Marc Brunel’s Thames Tunnel. A temporary closure to facilitate works elsewhere on the East London Line allowed TfL to open it up to a limited …
Continue readingKing of the Underworld: Building The Thames Tunnel
On the 2nd of March 1825 the Thames Tunnel Company began construction of what they hoped would be the first tunnel beneath the Thames. On the banks of the river at Rotherhithe, bricklayers and labourers began their work as the curious watched on. The project had been garnering a certain amount of attention ever since it had been granted royal Assent the year before, and its goal was an ambitious one – the construction of a tunnel beneath the river large enough for both people and horse-drawn traffic to use. It was a goal that many thought was impossible.
Continue readingOrange Blossoms: Romford – Upminster and New Trains for the Overground
Back in September 2013, following on from the announcement that TfL would take over the West Anglia Franchise, we announced that TfL had also agreed to take on the Romford – Upminster Line as part …
Continue readingA Brief Guide to the 2014 TfL Fare Increases
After a much longer wait than is typical, this morning the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, announced the fares levels that will apply to TfL services and National Rail services within the TfL zonal area …
Continue readingFreight Incident Causes Major Disruption to North London Line
At 0300 this morning, a freight train running from Lawley Street to Felixstowe derailed just west of Camden Road station on the North London Line. Although the full extent and cause of the accident remains to be seen, the damage appears significant, although no injuries were sustained.
Continue readingOld Oak Common: Part 3 – Looking Over the Fence
Think of Old Oak Common (OOC) as the Canary Wharf of west London. That’s the Vision: bold and challenging. But will a ‘super hub’ emerge? While the grand plan for OOC may depend on decisions further up the metaphorical line, to a certain extent OOC leapfrogs the institutional black hole of rail strategy and drives deeper changes in strategic planning for London as a whole.
Continue readingOld Oak Common: Part 2 – Putting the Pieces Together
In Part 1, we introduced the many components that need to be integrated into the grand plan at Old Oak Common (OOC), for a new interchange with HS2, Crossrail, the Great Western Mainline (GWML) and …
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