Transport For London Train Times


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Transport For London Train Times

Transport For London Train Times

The Barking to Gospel Oak User Group advises that an additional unadvertised service is departing from Woodgrange Park at 07.59, calling at Wanstead Park (08.02), Leytonstone High Road (08.06), Walthamstow Queens Road (08.11), Blackhorse Road (08.14), South Tottenham (08.18), Harringay Green Lane (08.21), Crouch Hill (08.24) and terminating at Upper Holloway at 08.26.

The User Group has been leafleting passengers but are concerned that many commuters are still unaware of this train as it is not in the timetable, and has seats to spare, while all the other westbound morning peak trains remain heavily overcrowded.

London Overground has confirmed that the train is on trial and that funding from Transport for London would be required for the train to continue. They declined to confirm that it will run beyond the new winter timetable which starts on 11 December.

The User Group is calling on commuters to make use of this service to ease overcrowding on other morning services, and hopefully lessen the likelihood of its withdrawal.

Birmingham in 49 minutes, Leeds in 80, and 45 minutes shaved off the journey to Scotland’s major cities. For some, this is reason enough for the Government’s new High Speed Rail line (HS2) – stretching from London in the South, to Manchester in the North-West and Leeds in the North-East.

Many, including myself, would love to see the line extended all the way up to Scotland, providing a real boost to domestic tourism and sustainable growth.

But in amongst the disputes over cost benefit analyses and NIMBYism, there are some startling figures which remind us why High Speed Rail is vital for the future of British transport; and why it is that we included it in our 2008 policy paper Fast Track Britain, our 2010 Election Manifesto and now the Coalition Agreement.

Over the last 50 years the length of our rail network has roughly halved, but, since 1980, the number of passenger journeys has doubled. This reduction in capacity, at a time when demand has soared, has fuelled over-crowding and led to eye-watering price hikes.

Network Rail estimates that by 2024 the existing line to Birmingham and the North West will be full – already we are seeing serious congestion on commuter services at the Southern end of the line, seriously harming service reliability and passenger welfare.

These fundamental facts have been largely ignored by politicians and the press alike; the debate over the HS2 project has been damagingly distorted. The need for the extra capacity which this project will provide is not a luxury, it is a cold, hard necessity which we cannot afford to ignore.

There have been some ludicrous suggestions that this capacity problem could be fixed by extra carriages and the reduction of first class seats. It sounds like a simple solution, but running that many services on a single would result in a completely unreliable service. Massive infrastructure works on a deeply overcrowded line is not a solution, it’s not even a quick fix, it is a completely unrealistic alternative.

The only possible alternative would be to just build a non-high speed line along a similar route. But current estimates place the cost saving at just 9% and, crucially, the line would not stop the extraordinarily damaging growth in road and air travel.

Current projections suggest that the HS2 project will transfer 6 million air trips and 9 million road trips onto rail. If you’re going to build a new train line, you have to make it fit for 21st century travel.

There are some who say that we are so far behind our competitors in Europe and Japan that we should construct the whole line all in one go. But this would delay the commencement of building due to the size of the consultation and the complexity of the Parliamentary process, and it would lead to disproportionate financial and logistical difficulties. Just think back to previous Government IT projects.

For years Liberal Democrats have derided Government plans to patch up the old train lines and ignore technological advances abroad. But now, with massive pressure on freight and commuter services, disproportionate economic growth in London and the South-East and a pressing need to reduce our carbon emissions, High Speed rail is no longer the transport of the future, it is a logistical imperative.

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