London Bridge reconstruction works

[Agent_Squash]

I am told Thameslink drivers were recently quietly paid an extra £3,000 a year to use their cab monitors for dispatch at ALL stations, including those that had CD/RA such as Blackfriars and London Bridge. I believe the £3,000 also included being prepared to work East Grinstead & the other new routes, although only one person has told me this, whereas the use of cab monitors at EVERY station had been confirmed by all those I know at Thameslink

Surely they won't be using in cab monitors at certain stations such as East Croydon, though?

 

[XDM]

Surely they won't be using in cab monitors at certain stations such as East Croydon, though?

So I have been told & seen. At the former CD/RA stations there are dispatchers usually but they do not operate CD/RA plungers. They raise the white baton & the driver checks the high quality monitors in his/her cab,shuts doors & goes, East Croydon included.

 

[tsr]

So I have been told & seen. At the former CD/RA stations there are dispatchers usually but they do not operate CD/RA plungers. They raise the white baton & the driver checks the high quality monitors in his/her cab,shuts doors & goes, East Croydon included.

That’s really not how dispatch works on NR metals. Nor have you seen full DOO dispatch of 700s at staffed platforms anywhere south of London Bridge. You’re getting very confused between the “SATs with Bats” concept on the Tube, and modes of DOO dispatch on the wider National Rail network in scenarios where there are no safety instructions given by any platform staff.

CD/RA stations are not a “thing” - CD/RA is just the name of one approved indication method of displaying Station Work Complete and Train Safety Check Complete signals to a driver, present on certain platforms. You would not be displaying batons to any driver if CD/RA indicators were present, except under degraded working. The concept of displaying a white bat to the driver as part of a procedure also involving in-cab monitors is also not something which is in accordance with the Rule Book at any National Rail station, as in-cab monitors are for driver-only dispatch at selected approved locations.

East Croydon and many other stations south of London Bridge still retain dispatch by platform staff for 700s. There are recently-issued dispatch plans (which I have read) which will include this for the time being. Some platforms have CD/RA, some handsignal + RA, and some only have handsignals. Some of these methods vary for 700s as against other stock, but dispatch is still carried out by station staff. This may change, but not yet...

 

[hozza94]

Yeah. I did Blackfriars to London Bridge on 1T55 last night and confirm, 'PLATFORM CLOSED' at London Bridge. Also, London Bridge not shown on the platform PIS at Blackfriars, nor was the stop announced by the Blackfriars platform staff through the tannoy. It was however on the PIS in the train and the driver explained it as an 'additional stop' just before we got moving. About 5 people got off at London Bridge, so seemed to know about it.

Was on a PM peak 1755 from East Croydon, and around 20 people got off, people seems to already know the train has an extra stop at London Bridge and were preparing to alight even I was still doubting whether the driver would release the door!

 

[BingBong50]

Any news recently on all things London Bridge? Seems to have gone a bit quiet.

 

[ijmad]

Any news recently on all things London Bridge? Seems to have gone a bit quiet.

I think because most of the interesting bits are over!
Though, some random observations from a frequent commuter:

• What the hell is up with the cladding in the lower concourse? More bits seem to be being removed, replaced, removed again and replaced again every week.
• The next train signs on the gantries at the bottom of the escalators still aren't sorted out (some are missing, some are turned off).
• More shops are opening in the Western Arcade.
• They still haven't removed the wooden hoardings from Platform 15.
• No sign of anything happening to the temporary gateline on the upper concourse, either.

I guess this will all get sorted by May, although I'm beginning to wonder.

 

[Daz28]

Travelling through LB yesterday, it looked like services on platform 4and 5 are now being shown on the platform indicators.

 

[USBT]

Travelling through LB yesterday, it looked like services on platform 4and 5 are now being shown on the platform indicators.

Well if the preview services (Peterborough-Horsham and Cambridge-Brighton) are extensions of the regular LBG-Horsham and LBG-Brighton, they’ll have to show those as departing platform 4.

Are they showing the Bedfords? That would be news.

 

[ijmad]

Are they showing the Bedfords? That would be news.

Not as far as I saw yesterday. It was saying "listen for announcements", which is an improvement on "platform closed" I guess.

 

[MML]

More Thameslink northbound services now appear to be travelling via London Bridge, but Southbound services still seem to be routed via Tulse Hill. This morning's journey was particularly slow and torturous. Is it still luck of the draw or is there a reason why ?
May can't come soon enough.

 

[FOH]

Looks like the Low Level platforms concourse gateline is moving this weekend as around 4 gates have already been removed

 

[Mikey C]

What's up with the lifts on the through platforms as many seem to be out of action? The last two times I've been there, one of the escalators to platform 1 was also out of action.

 

[Barn]

What's up with the lifts on the through platforms as many seem to be out of action? The last two times I've been there, one of the escalators to platform 1 was also out of action.

Yes, the reliability has been terrible. Bad as the new station (unlike the old) is completely reliant on lifts for wheelchair/pram access.

 

[danthekyle]

What's up with the lifts on the through platforms as many seem to be out of action? The last two times I've been there, one of the escalators to platform 1 was also out of action.

It seems like there hasn't been a day so far when all the lifts are working. They're perhaps more complicated than most, being freestanding and pushed up from below, rather than on a usual counterweight system. It's a bit of a shame they didn't put two lifts in for each pair of platforms - the space appears to be there for it.

Also seems to be very little progress being made on the final alternations to the high level platforms. There's been machinery parked up in the concourse taking up a lot of space ever since it opened in January.

 

[swt_passenger]

More Thameslink northbound services now appear to be travelling via London Bridge, but Southbound services still seem to be routed via Tulse Hill. This morning's journey was particularly slow and torturous. Is it still luck of the draw or is there a reason why ?
May can't come soon enough.

Just noticed this, it’s probably far better to ask about the continuing timetable tweaks in one of the various threads about the 700s, or the GN/TL timetable changes. There’s quite a few to choose from unfortunately...

 

[FOH]

Based on no evidence and nothing other than my eyeball and memory, the Southeastern trains into Canon Street seem just as queued up into London Bridge as they were in 2012 before the main works began. Am I wrong?

 

[SEClass375]

Based on no evidence and nothing other than my eyeball and memory, the Southeastern trains into Canon Street seem just as queued up into London Bridge as they were in 2012 before the main works began. Am I wrong?

I can remember as a child going up to London Charing X and stopping between New Cross and where the Southern lines come in and being told by my parents that it was to change to the 'London Tracks' and that we had to go slowly on them as they were old track and the other reason of waiting for an available platform.

 

[ijmad]

Based on no evidence and nothing other than my eyeball and memory, the Southeastern trains into Canon Street seem just as queued up into London Bridge as they were in 2012 before the main works began. Am I wrong?

Is that really a surprise? There isn't much in the way of improvements for Cannon Street services, still three platforms at London Bridge and roughly the same layout. Cannon Street's lack of space and paths for ECS is as big a bottleneck as ever. The only thing that's changed is the withdrawal of Charing Cross services to the Greenwich line which removes a few conflicting moves in the peak, shortly to be replaced by all day conflicting moves from Thameslink!

 

[carriageline]

Based on no evidence and nothing other than my eyeball and memory, the Southeastern trains into Canon Street seem just as queued up into London Bridge as they were in 2012 before the main works began. Am I wrong?

Borough Market Junction is the problem. Many a time have people sat down wanting to reduce the problems here. It’s too many trains trying to squeeze through the junction, with complicated approaches from the Cannon St end, and very short signal sections meaning 8/12 cars lock up most of the junction. The linespeeds are also now lower in the Cannon St throat (although this doesn’t make a massive difference)

The London Bridge layout is a little worse (loss of the scissors in favour of 2 separate crossovers). People forget that the TL Programme was for Thameslink trains. So improvements never happened to Cannon st or Charing X ends of the layout. It was essentially signalling recontrols to enable all signalling to be moved

 

[ijmad]

The London Bridge layout is a little worse (loss of the scissors in favour of 2 separate crossovers). People forget that the TL Programme was for Thameslink trains. So improvements never happened to Cannon st or Charing X ends of the layout. It was essentially signalling recontrols to enable all signalling to be moved

It certainly seems like there are improvements for Charing X services - not having Thameslink crossing in front of them and having four fully segregated platforms (that are set up for platform alternation and can turn late trains) are all surely a good things?

 

[carriageline]

It certainly seems like there are improvements for Charing X services - not having Thameslink crossing in front of them and having four fully segregated platforms (that are set up for platform alternation and can turn late trains) are all surely a good things?

Sorry, I meant Cannon St station & Charing X station ends having no changes.

A lot of the stuff ‘added’ is built in resilience for Thameslink trains. The majority of points and cross overs mainly give Thameslink trains diversions and alternative routes. No auto signals have POSA signals on the South Eastern lines as an example.

Don’t get me wrong. It has made a massive difference, and the entire area as a whole has benefitted. But some areas have had no changes physically, on the ground. And things like the “line of route” policy leaves a lot to be answered for

 

[ijmad]

Don’t get me wrong. It has made a massive difference, and the entire area as a whole has benefitted. But some areas have had no changes physically, on the ground. And things like the “line of route” policy leaves a lot to be answered for

Interesting. What is the "line of route" policy if you don't mind me asking?

 

[whoosh]

I am told Thameslink drivers were recently quietly paid an extra £3,000 a year to use their cab monitors for dispatch at ALL stations, including those that had CD/RA such as Blackfriars and London Bridge. I believe the £3,000 also included being prepared to work East Grinstead & the other new routes, although only one person has told me this, whereas the use of cab monitors at EVERY station had been confirmed by all those I know at Thameslink

No. Something along the lines of, "DOO from the driving cab will continue to be the normal method of operation on all diagrammed routes," was one of the very many items in the Thameslink/Great Northern multi-year paydeal (8 pages worth).
This will have allowed (because they'll be diagrammed routes) East Grinstead and Horsham to be added to Thameslink with DOO operation.
There was no £3000 extra anywhere, or anything quiet about it, so whoever told you that was talking nonsense.

So I have been told & seen. At the former CD/RA stations there are dispatchers usually but they do not operate CD/RA plungers. They raise the white baton & the driver checks the high quality monitors in his/her cab,shuts doors & goes, East Croydon included.

East Croydon is a Bat to close the doors, and an 'RA' indicator to depart.

 

[carriageline]

Interesting. What is the "line of route" policy if you don't mind me asking?

When the area was controlled by London Bridge ASC, The signalling was controlled by panels. IE Panel 3 controlled all the thorough platforms at London Bridge. Panel 4 controlled all the South Eastern approaches and North Kent East etc. Operationally this gave the signallers a lot of flexibility to make moves etc as required

Now, each terminus has dedicated lines. IE line 6/7/8 Chx, 1/2/3 CST. Which is fine, but these lines are controlled by separate workstations. Charing Cross workstation, Cannon St workstation. Trains are generally not allowed to venture off one line into another. Which on paper sounds like a great idea, it stops delays on Chx trains encroaching on the core trains. But now TL trains will be using north kent east junction, it makes the point slightly invalid. It also removes a lot of flexibility away from the layout.

All of this is available in railnews, railengineer etc!

 

[FOH]

Is that really a surprise? There isn't much in the way of improvements for Cannon Street services, still three platforms at London Bridge and roughly the same layout. Cannon Street's lack of space and paths for ECS is as big a bottleneck as ever. The only thing that's changed is the withdrawal of Charing Cross services to the Greenwich line which removes a few conflicting moves in the peak, shortly to be replaced by all day conflicting moves from Thameslink!

I kinda thought for all the money spent and rebuilding there’d be some operational improvements. I’m sure when 1,2,3 were closed I didn’t ofyen notice a tailback. It feels like it’s only back since the new platforms opened.

 

[ijmad]

I kinda thought for all the money spent and rebuilding there’d be some operational improvements. I’m sure when 1,2,3 were closed I didn’t ofyen notice a tailback. It feels like it’s only back since the new platforms opened.

Given all they've done, and all the money spent, I'm surprised they didn't add a fourth platform for Cannon Street services. It seems like some space could have been found from Tooley Street, perhaps at the expense of part of the top floor of The Shipwrights Arms, but given what they did to The Wheatsheaf this doesn't seem like something that would pose much of an engineering challenge.

 

[swt_passenger]

The plan was always to have 1 or possibly 2 fewer Cannon St services per hour than before, so there would have been no justification for a further platform. It’s been explained before that the feature limiting the overall capacity on lines 1-3 is the number of approach tracks towards Cannon St’s platforms.

 

[mr_jrt]

I can understand why the original platform 1 at Cannon St. was sacrificed, but if the will were there would it be possible to widen the bridge slightly on the eastern side on the north bank or to otherwise adjust the other platform widths to squeeze an 8th platform back in? ...I suspect the listed walls rather set the limits, but thought I'd ask regardless as despite the station and bridge being rather straight there does seem to be the curvature you would expect towards London Bridge (resulting in some spare space on the bridge), meaning you could conceivably retain the longer platforms whilst gaining platform 1 back with said widening.

 

[Daz28]

The plan was always to have 1 or possibly 2 fewer Cannon St services per hour than before, so there would have been no justification for a further platform. It’s been explained before that the feature limiting the overall capacity on lines 1-3 is the number of Cannon St platforms.

I’m struggling to understand that. Cannon Street has 7 terminating platforms fed by three platforms at London Bridge, whereas Charing Cross has 6 terminating platforms fed by four platforms at London Bridge.

 

[carriageline]

I’m struggling to understand that. Cannon Street has 7 terminating platforms fed by three platforms at London Bridge, whereas Charing Cross has 6 terminating platforms fed by four platforms at London Bridge.

Charing Cross is busier throughout the entire day.
Charing Cross station is also fed by 4 tracks.

Cannon Sts major limitation is borough market junction, and how close it is to the station throat. The signalling is also very tight outside Cannon St