Night tube ELL to run to Highbury & Islington from February 23

The East London Line night time service from New Cross Gate to Dalston is being extended two more stops. City AM reports:

The Night Overground service is set to be extended to Canonbury and Highbury & Islington from Friday 23 February after coming to the London Overground in December.

Since 15 December, there have been 24-hour services every Friday and Saturday between Dalston Junction and New Cross Gate. Whitechapel is still to be included as it waits until Crossrail works are completed.

Over 30,000 journeys have been made on the Night Overground since the service began in December [which is surprisingly few].

East London Line closure due to safety fears

The lack of ELL service this morning is due to problems with the trains. The BBC reports:

"Services on the London Overground network have been disrupted after engineers were forced to take trains off the tracks amid "safety" fears.

"Part of the braking system is understood to have fallen off from one of its trains "within the last week".

"As a result the network's branches to Croydon, Crystal Palace, New Cross Gate and Highbury and Islington have all been forced to close.

"TfL say the "extra safety checks" has resulted in a "shortage of trains".

"The problems have caused severe delays on other parts of the network at Richmond, Clapham Junction and Willesden Junction."

The London Overground twitter feed says:

"Customers for the North & East London Lines are strongly advised to use alternatives routes. There is no estimated time when this issue will be resolved. Updates will be posted on the feed."

New Cross Night Tube debuts in December

TfL has announced that its successful Night Tube service will be extended to the East London Line between Dalston and New Cross Gate on Friday and Saturday nights, starting on December 15th. The plans were first revealed in July.

The service will allow people to travel throughout the night and connect with the equivalent Jubilee Line service at Canada Water.

The service will be extended to Highbury & Islington next year.

TfL works out how to add 4 trains per hour to East London Line peak

A new strategy paper from TfL reports that increasing the capacity of the East London Line will be cheaper, easier and faster than previously expected, allowing them to reduce peak time overcrowding. London Reconnections reports:

In the case of the ELL, it has become possible to increase the frequency by removing signalling constraints long before anyone imagined it would have happened and at little, or no, cost to TfL.

To quote the paper:

"In the 2016 Autumn Statement the Chancellor announced a £450m Digital Railway fund for trialling digital signalling technology, expanding capacity, and improving reliability. The strategic outline business case for the ELL 20 trains per hour project has been shortlisted to receive funding from this fund. Funding of £6m has been received to develop the project to outline business case but a final decision is not expected until spring 2018."

So an unexpected opportunity has arisen to both buy trains at a cheaper price than they would otherwise cost and to have the ELL signalling upgraded at no cost to TfL. Despite TfL being strapped for cash, it must be hard to resist such an opportunity. Indeed, one could even argue that because TfL is strapped for cash it is even more important to take advantage of such an opportunity while it exists.

The ELL is well-known for operating at capacity at certain times of the day. Of particular concern are stations such as Honor Oak Park in the morning peak, where passengers cannot always board the first Overground train that arrives.

For many years there has been talk of running an extra 2tph ‘pixie busters’ (‘Passengers In eXcess of Capacity’, or PIXC to its friends) on the Crystal Palace branch in the peak period. Indeed it is a bit of a mystery why this hasn’t already happened, as the trains are available (they are currently designated as ‘hot standbys’). The main reason for this not taking place seems to be the issues at London Bridge during its redevelopment...

We can fairly safely conclude that the proposal is for the service to be increased to 6pth on both the Crystal Palace and the Clapham Junction branch. At Crystal Palace, where there are two dedicated terminating platforms available, we can be confident that the terminus can handle the increase in services.

There is much more extensive analysis here. Thanks to Richard for the spot.

New Cross Night Tube from December

The current Night Tube service

It's been heavily teased, but TfL have now confirmed that a 'Night Tube' service will be coming to the East London Line, stopping tantalisingly-close to Brockley. Until now, Canada Water was the closest station on offer. The Standard reports:

The capital’s 24-hour transport network was expanded again today after it was announced the London Overground will run through the night from December.

The East London route will operate all night on Fridays and Saturdays between New Cross Gate and Dalston Junction, then extended to Highbury & Islington next year.

It means passengers will be able to travel across even wider swathes of the capital 24-hours a day as it will also connect with Canada Water station on the Jubilee line.

East London Line trains could get juiced to 24tph

The most recent minutes from TfL's Programmes and Investment Committee notes that they are exploring the possibility of using new digital control systems to amp-up the East London Line service and deliver 24 trains per hour, rather than the current peak of 16.

Digital signalling effectively means that computers drive the trains and can do so more efficiently than humans, squeezing more trains on to the same track. Southern train services might also be increased.

Bring on the rise of the robots.

Thanks to Monkeyboy for the heads-up.

Brockley's Crossrail connection completed

Whitechapel station, which will provide an interchange between the East London Line and the Elizabeth Line, is now ready to take five-car ELL trains.

Gary Stevens, Operational Task Manager, Whitechapel said: "Customers using Whitechapel station via London Overground will now be able to use full lengths of platforms 5 & 6 as there is no need for customers to walk through car 5 to car 4 of the train to depart the train. This should ease congestion on the platforms."

The Shenfield to Liverpool Street service opens in May using existing rail lines, and the new route comes online in a phased roll-out from 2018. Thanks to Monkeyboy for the update.

East London Line part-closure, July 30 - August 7

Thanks to Monkeyboy for sharing this

No Brockley or Honor Oak train services today

Main line and East London Line services through Brockley Station are still disrupted following the emergence of a gaping 50 feet-deep hole beneath the tracks at Forest Hill yesterday.

All day, no service btn New Cross Gate and Crystal Palace / West Croydon due to a track fault at Forest Hill pic.twitter.com/4yTzn7XtPR

— London Overground (@LDNOverground) July 19, 2016

⚠️ We are unable to call at Anerley, Penge West, Sydenham, Forest Hill, Honor Oak Park, Brockley or New Cross Gate https://t.co/fN5Fw3XQ4A

— Southern (@SouthernRailUK) July 19, 2016

Forest Hillhole creates (more) Southern chaos

Rham Jas: You'd be surprised what you'll be willing to do, when the Lamia comes for you.
- Drag Me To Hell

A gaping chasm has opened on the site of an ancient Indian burial ground in Forest Hill, spawning travel chaos on Southern and ELL routes. The Evening Standard writes:

The hole, reported to be 50ft deep, is affecting two railway tracks between East Croydon and London Bridge and trains are currently suspended.

It is set to cause chaos for commuters travelling home this evening and passengers are being advised to take alternative routes.

Thanks to Monkeyboy and Fabhat for the warning.

The wrong sort of boiling water

. @BrockleyCentral in case people were wondering about ELL problems, this is ACTUAL boiling water https://t.co/SkWiWXJHuC

— Peter T (@Chimpman) June 23, 2016

Flooding wrecked the train service throughout South East London this morning. The ELL is going for a boil-dry solution.

East London Line night time service doubled

TfL has doubled the number of East London Line trains running each hour between 10pm and 11.30pm.

Services to and from New Cross, Crystal Palace and West Croydon have been increased from a pitiful two trains per hour per route to an acceptable four trains per hour per route.

New deal for East London Line promises later trains

TfL has appointed train operator Arriva to run the entire London Overground network and has promised that as a result,  East London Line trains will run later into the night.

No details of the extended service have yet been provided. Arriva's contract starts in November.

Gareth Powell, TfL's chief operating officer, London Rail, said: “We have worked hard to deliver major improvements for our customers, taking a neglected part of the transport network and transforming it to support new homes, jobs and economic growth across the capital. Arriva will build on this by extending operating hours, improving frequencies and introducing new trains.”

Brockley passport snub causes diplomatic incident

It's one thing to obliterate women from Britain's glorious cultural history, it's quite another to rub Brockley's tube-like station off the map.

The new-look UK passport has been helping journalists fill space for the last week and now the Evening Standard has spotted that the designers have used an old tube map, which cuts the East London Line dead at New Cross, missing the most important part.

ELL: Two more trains each hour from 2018

TfL has confirmed plans to introduce two more East London Line trains between Dalston and Crystal Palace from 2018, which would increase the frequency of ELL trains through Brockley at peak time from eight trains per hour to ten. 

The scheme to deliver a 25% capacity increase on the line has been necessitated by the phenomenal growth of passenger journeys on the East London Line, which has outstripped the rest of the London Overground network (see below). 

In 2014, East London Line trains were lengthened, to add 25% more capacity, but even this has not proved enough as Greater Brockley continues to draw more and more commuters into its gaping maw. As Huw Edwards, head of programme delivery at London Overground, commented:

“If we stretched and sweated the fleet, we believe we could be running an 18tph service between Shoreditch and New Cross Gate. But the reality is, that’s not where demand is – the demand is south… so the next discussion to be had with the industry is ‘can we sweat two additional paths south of New Cross Gate’.”

The new service from will be introduced in 2018 subject to the availability of paths being confirmed by Network Rail.

Thank you to Monkeyboy for the intel.

Rail strike threatens train services [Strike cancelled]

UPDATE: The strike's off after the union got a pay deal

Just in time for the bank holiday, TfL says:

Network Rail unions have called 48 hours of country-wide industrial action on Monday 25 and Tuesday 26 May. If the strike goes ahead, it will affect Southern rail services on Monday, Tuesday and into Wednesday morning.

No Transport for London or London Underground staff will be on strike and so the vast majority of our services will run as normal. However, as some of these rely on Network Rail signals and power supply, if the industrial action goes ahead, no services will run on the London Overground except between Dalston Junction and New Cross/New Cross Gate which will operate from 08:00 and 13:00 on Monday and 08:00 and 17:00 on Tuesday.

For more information visit nationalrail.co.uk/industrialaction 

New Bermondsey serves up new East London Line station

New Bermondsey is the new name for Old Surrey Canal. The mixed use development planned around Millwall's stadium will be renamed New Bermondsey and get a new station on the East London Line route to Clapham Junction.

The news was part of the announcement made by the Chancellor, which also confirmed that the East London Line will provide 24-hour weekend service from 2017. The station was mooted years ago, but scrapped to save money.

The announcement says:

"New Bermondsey is in the Lewisham, Catford and New Cross Opportunity Area, and sits next to the planned Old Kent Road Opportunity Area. This 30 acre site is just 1.5 miles south of London Bridge and can be reached by train in just four minutes.

"With a combined investment of £1 billion, New Bermondsey will become a thriving new neighbourhood with 2,400 new homes and over 2,000 new jobs. The development will includes London’s largest indoor sports centre, Energize, a church and community centre, space for creative and media start-ups and an integrated health centre.

"This scheme will hugely benefit the 40,000 people already living within a 15 minute walk of the site and the 6,000 new residents.

"The Zone will provide a new station on the London Overground at New Bermondsey and improve bus transport. It only takes four minutes to reach London Bridge from South Bermondsey station.

East London Line to go all night from 2017 [UPDATED]

The BBC reports that London Overground will run 24-hour weekend services from 2017 as part of a a wider programme to boost London's night-time economy. The article says:

"Weekend trains are due to start running 24-hours on the Piccadilly, Victoria, Central, Jubilee and Northern lines by the end of the year. Night-time services will be extended to the Metropolitan, Circle, District, and Hammersmith & City lines by 2021. Services will be extended on the London Overground in 2017 and the Docklands Light Railway by 2021. 

"The government said it will provide £10bn of funding for investment in new London transport infrastructure over the next parliament, including new Tube improvements, better roads, more buses and cycle lanes, amid predictions the population of the capital is expected to reach 10 million by the early 2030s. The so called "night Tube" was announced in November 2013, with all-night services expected to run on Fridays and Saturdays on the Piccadilly, Victoria, Central, Jubilee and Northern lines from September."

An all-night weekend service connecting us to some of London's best nightlife is a great leap forward, and to get it up to four years ahead of many parts of the capital is a rare treat.

UPDATE - Knew it was too good to be true - the service will run from Highbury to New Cross Gate, still helpful for those of us near the north end of town, but not so much for the southerners.

Confirmed that 24hr running on @LDNOverground restricted to ELL core section @BorisWatch @railnews
— GoblinUsers (@RidingtheGoblin) February 20, 2015

Orange order for TfL's tangerine dream

Officer Gilpin: You ever hear the expression the simplest answer is often the correct one?
Detective Boney: Actually, I have never found that to be true.
- Gone Girl

The Transport Committee's statement in support of the Bakerloo Line extension also asks for some much-needed clarity in terms of the options to extend the East London Line south from New Cross.

The Bakerloo Line consultation makes an oblique reference to the idea, but gives no hint which way such a line might head and whether any other services might be sacrificed as a result.

The New Cross extension could head into Lewisham and, once there, the world is its Oyster.

Central Line interchange for ELL could come as part of new Shoreditch terminus

Shoreditch's continued growth as a major employment cluster and the arrival of Crossrail in 2018 could provide the motivation and means for the transport authorities to create a new interchange between the East London Line and the Central Line.

Citymetric reports that Network Rail has proposed a major new rail terminus at Shoreditch - the first new London terminus since 1899 - to enable more people to access the area and take some of the strain off Liverpool Street, which is bursting at the seams.

The new terminus would serve developments like Bishopsgate Goods Yard

With major Shoreditch schemes like the redevelopment of Bishopsgate Goods Yard (pictured) at an advanced stage, new transport capacity is required.

As Citymetric point out, a new terminal served only by the East London Line won't work, so they will need to create an interchange with the Central Line, which many people argued should have been included in the original scheme, but the lack of capacity on the Central Line was a major factor that counted against the idea. Crossrail, however, should address that problem, alleviating the overcrowding.

The ELL is already getting a Crossrail interchange at Whitechapel in 2018. A Central Line interchange in the 2020s would be another useful new connection. But a Terminus at Shoreditch would pose even more questions about the long-term future of the ELL, which is already struggling to meet the demand of South East Londoners for good connections.

More capacity on the ELL and an accelerated Bakerloo Line extension might be needed, to unlock the potential of the City's eastern fringes.