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Gospel Oak to Barking Overground Closures

The Gospel Oak to Barking (GOBLIN) Overground line is about to have some major work done to it so that instead of it being diesel, it will be an electric line, and then longer electric trains will run on the branch.

In order for this work to happen though, there is a staggered closure taking place, and we don’t think the way that the publicity has been done is here is very clear. It focuses on what is closed rather than what is open, meaning that your brain has to stop and think harder to work out the reverse of what they’ve told you (what’s not working) for you then to realise what is working.

Here’s what the TfL page shows you:

GOBLIN Closure

See how quickly you can work from that what is open, and not closed!

Similarly confusing signs appear at stations along the line itself, as well as on the new June 2016 Tube Map which is about to come out where the dreaded ‘daggers’ make an appearance and you have to refer to the key to try and figure out what it means.

Instead, we’ve come up with our own simple graphic showing what is open which we think is much easier to understand at a glance.

Any chance TfL, of doing something like this in future?

Easier to Understand

Met Closures

We spotted this on the Pinner Twitter account that talks about all things Pinner! No Metropolitan line trains to run beyond Wembley Park to Aldgate after 10pm on Mondays to Wednesday only (that’s very specific!) whilst track work takes place. And this goes on for a year and a half…

Met closures

Engineering — — 04 Apr 16

Battersea Extension Underway

The first official shovel hitting the earth happened last week out at Nine Elms to mark the official start to the Northern Line Extension, even though preparatory work had been going on for weeks.

We found ourselves walking through Kennington though the other day, exactly above where the Kennington loop is, and found a site there where work has also started, along with a nice noticeboard explaining to local residents what is going on.

Your new Northern Line Extension should open in 2019 …

NLE Kennington Park Site

Engineering / Future services / Tube — — 06 Dec 15

Waterloo Shell Entrance Closed

Here’s a change to the network that we didn’t know about until someone pointed it out to us – seems like it was one that TfL slipped under the radar and didn’t publicise much. The ‘Shell Centre’ entrance and exit at Waterloo has been closed, whilst building work takes place on the rest of the complex by the entrance, and the entrance has obviously been affected. It’s going to be closed for the next three years.

As far as we can tell, no work is being done to the Tube entrance itself, but it has been affected by the works.

Closed Entrance

Contractor Notice

Engineering / Tube — — 04 Dec 15

Men on the line

Whenever we look at the planned engineering works for the weekend, it’s always annoying to see if the bit of the Tube map that you want to go to is the bit that’s closed – that’s why it’s always nice if there’s an explanation as to what work is being done – or better still, it’s always nice to be able to see the work being done!

Which is what we saw at West Brompton at the weekend just gone, where there were clearly works going on at track level.

Works at West Brompton

Engineering — — 09 Sep 15

Victoria Line Blockage

A reminder … that there’s going to be no Victoria Line past Seven Sisters up to Walthamstow for three weeks, starting from Saturday August 8th.

This is so that work can be done on the line that will let the Underground run up to 36 trains in the peaks hours, so that trains will be more frequent than ever. Unfortunately, it will also mean that there will be a slightly reduced number of trains running on the line between Brixton and Seven Sisters, so that it could be even more congested than normal, to the point where TfL have produced this map (below).

More over on their official website here.

Victoria Line Blockade

Engineering / Tube — — 03 Aug 15

No Victoria Line during August

This one has been planned for a while now, but the carriage stickers in the trains have now all been updated to reflect that there will be no Victoria line between Seven Sisters and Walthamstow between the 8th and 30th of August.

The work is to allow a renewal of a crossover at Walthamstow which at the moment means only 24 trains an hour can run – after the works, the Victoria line will be able to run 36 trains per hour in the peak – that’s one every 100 seconds. You can read the full TfL Press Release here, but it does mean that once complete, more trains will run to Walthamstow too.

Replacement buses are running throughout the duration of the works, hence the pecked blue line on the carriage maps!

No Victoria line

Engineering — — 18 Jun 15

Queensway Reversal

With engineering works taking place between North Acton and Queensway on the Central line this weekend, there were obviously no trains running through that section. Station Master found itself caught up in the going-ons of it all, and noticed a few interesting things.

Firstly, not all trains going west were terminating at Queensway as you might expect. Instead it seemed that two out of every three trains were terminating at Marble Arch instead, and then every third service going onto Queensway. This is due to there being a reversing siding to the west of March Arch, meaning one train can be turning around whilst another is in the platform.

Central Line reversing points

But at Queensway, there is merely a crossover just before the station (when heading west) leaving just a single platform to reverse trains. This meant that we got to ride the crossover and be on a westbound train that pulled into the eastbound platform.

Queensway is a station with stairs and lifts – except, oops – only one of the lifts was in operation (probably another reason to reverse the majority of trains at Marble Arch instead) meaning a LOT of people backed up on the platform trying to get out of the station.

Queensway Crush

At Covent Garden where there are 194 steps, they actively discourage you to use the stairs. At Queensway (where the sign says there are 123 steps, but actually there are 126), they were actively encouraging you to walk up, rather than wait for and use the one solitary lift that was in operation.

Engineering — — 19 Apr 15

Croxley Link go-ahead given

A TfL Press Release today announced some major news, that the Croxley Rail Link had been given final approval, and work will start later this year – 2015, but won’t open now until 2019.

Actually we thought approval had already been given, but the press release confirmed that:

An agreement had been reached between the DfT and HCC over funding of the scheme
Work due to commence by the end of this year
The extension will see Metropolitan line trains serving Watford Junction and Watford High Street stations, as well as two new stations on the route
The new rail link will provide Metropolitan line customers access to West Coast mainline National Rail services from Watford Junction station

Map of new extension

Construction work to re-route and extend the Metropolitan line to Watford Junction is planned to start later this year. The plan, which is part of a major investment designed to support the growth and regeneration in the area, includes creating new links to Watford General Hospital, Croxley Business Park and Cardiff Road Industrial Estate – increasing employment opportunities.

Two new stations will be created at Cassiobridge and Watford Vicarage Road, served by new walk-through air-conditioned trains every ten minutes to and from central London during peak hours. The existing Watford station will close following the opening of the new stations, and the first trains are expected to run on the extended line by 2019.

Engineering / Future services / Infrastructure / Upgrades — — 27 Mar 15

Turnham Green to Ruislip

We’re always on the look out for anything fun or unusual on the Tube network, so we liked it yesterday when we saw this engineering train heading westbound through Turnham Green station on the District line tracks.

We knew it was coming before we saw it, because the Dot Matrix next train indicator flashed it up as a service to Ruislip, something that no District line train does so it immediately made me think we were about to some something unusual! And we did …

Engineering Train to Ruislip

Engineering — — 22 Mar 15

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