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.