Why has the Croydon Tramlink never been extended?

[Metro95]

Since it opened in 2000, why has the Croydon Tramlink never been extended?
(I know that there was a new stop opened at Centrale in 2005, but that doesn't count as an extension.)

 

[bramling]

Since it opened in 2000, why has the Croydon Tramlink never been extended?
(I know that there was a new stop opened at Centrale in 2005, but that doesn't count as an extension.)

I’ve always got the feeling that, despite being popular and successful locally, TFL view Tramlink as something of a nuisance, and a problem child. The Sandilands derailment won’t have helped that.

 

[Joe Paxton]

Since it opened in 2000, why has the Croydon Tramlink never been extended?
(I know that there was a new stop opened at Centrale in 2005, but that doesn't count as an extension.)

There was a serious proposal to extend Tramlink to Crystal Palace, basically taking over the NR line through Birkbeck.

IanVisits has more:

The South London trams snake around the region offering a convenient east-west link, but once could have also been extended to just outside the former Crystal Palace.


The extension to Crystal Palace would have provided a service of six trams an hour to Croydon, bringing 11,000 more households within 800m of a tram stop.

Tramlink Route 5 would have run from where the Crystal Palace bus station is today down towards East Croydon, replacing a little used railway line with a far more frequent tram service.

Running along the existing railway was not difficult, the problem was what to do when the trams got to Crystal Palace. The existing railway station is in a deep cutting next to the park, and then runs through an even deeper tunnel under the bus station.


Anyone who has walked up the hill there knows how deep that tunnel is.

There were three options on how to get to the Parade: on-street, off-street and a mixture of the two. After a consultation in 2006 the off-street option was favoured.

[...]

P.S. I don't really agree with bramling's take on there being a dismissive TfL attitude towards Tramlink, though perhaps at times it has felt a little forgotten. The complicated initial contractual arrangement, established when Tramlink was created in the mid 90's before TfL came into existence, probably didn't help in earlier years.

 

[Adoarable]

There’s also the Sutton Link which was being pursued by TfL until the pandemic destroyed their finances.

The Sutton Link is a planned new Tramlink line or separate bus rapid transit (BRT) in London, between Wimbledon or Colliers Wood via St Helierto Sutton.[1][2] As of 2020, it is the only Tramlink extension actively being pursued by the Mayor of London and TfL as part of The Mayor's Transport Strategy 2018 and the New London Plan.

In February 2020, TFL endorsed Route Option 2, Colliers Wood - Sutton, operating as a tram route, as the preferred option, conditional on any changes that may force a reevaluation during the funding procurement period.[8]

It was announced on 24 July 2020 that the extension has been put on hold by TfL due to funding issues.

 

[JonathanH]

Since it opened in 2000, why has the Croydon Tramlink never been extended?

Lack of funding?

It is all very well taking over disused railway lines (or indeed the rest of the Crystal Palace to Beckenham Junction line) but anything else needs disruptive work and potentially on street running. As well as a possible extension to Crystal Palace, an extension to Sutton has been considered.

Other proposals for trams - eg Cross River Tram, and West London Tram - have also not happened. Optimism in the early 2000s has not translated into anything and it is difficult to imagine any new tram routes being favoured over buses. Indeed, even buses are being cut back in London.

 

[PGAT]

I believe the Crystal Palace project was about to happen until Boris Johnson cancelled it. The Sutton Route isn't really an extension, more a separate network that very briefly meets up with the current Tramlink route. Other than that, it's only been around for 20 years and doesn't rack in enough money to justify extensions unlike the other TfL services.

 

[Metro95]

I believe the Crystal Palace project was about to happen until Boris Johnson cancelled it. The Sutton Route isn't really an extension, more a separate network that very briefly meets up with the current Tramlink route. Other than that, it's only been around for 20 years and doesn't rack in enough money to justify extensions unlike the other TfL services.

It's been almost 23 years since Tramlink opened.

 

[PGAT]

It's been almost 23 years since Tramlink opened.

22 and a bit years. My point still stands.

 

[MikePJ]

At the New Addington end it comes very close to the boundary of Greater London, so TfL wouldn't have any authority to extend it further. All the land beyond the boundary is greenbelt anyway, so you can't extend the route in that direction and create development. Other extensions would require either the takeover of heavy rail routes (e.g. Crystal Palace) or a lot of street-running, which is not good for reliability. I remember when I lived in Croydon in 2004 there was talk of an extension to Thornton Heath Pond, but that would have been entirely on-street.

 

[WatcherZero]

TfL have always said its a solution for Croydon but doesnt have wider applications, I think they get sick of other boroughs asking for their own tram systems.

 

[Halish Railway]

So there seems to be two options of how you can extend the Tramlink, both of which can easily be dismissed:
1. Take over old Railway lines - Railway lines in the area have been revitalised by the Overground which has directly benefitted Croydon and the surrounding area since the creation of the Tramlink.
2. On-street running - I'd imagine that this would be deeply unpopular given that South London's roads are much worse than West/North/East London, e.g. there is no proper South Circular. Taking space away from cars on already congested roads would lead to a lot of local backlash, or the scheme may present poor value for money is Trams are routinely held up by traffic.

 

[Thirteen]

I wonder if the fact it's priced like the buses rather than zoned like the Tube or TfL makes it not much of a revenue generator for TfL.

I suspect the biggest concern for TfL in regards to the Trams is replacing the life expired CR4000s in due course.

 

[Statto]

At the New Addington end it comes very close to the boundary of Greater London, so TfL wouldn't have any authority to extend it further. All the land beyond the boundary is greenbelt anyway, so you can't extend the route in that direction and create development. Other extensions would require either the takeover of heavy rail routes (e.g. Crystal Palace) or a lot of street-running, which is not good for reliability. I remember when I lived in Croydon in 2004 there was talk of an extension to Thornton Heath Pond, but that would have been entirely on-street.

That's true, looking at the map, possible extension from New Addington could be via Biggin Hill to either Oxted or Sevenoaks, but like you say the line would cut through greenbelt land, their would have been a lot of opposition to any such plans too, & the line would have been outside TFL area too.

 

[mb88]

Wasn’t there talk of an extension to Bromley at one time as well? Can’t immediately think of a suitable route it could take off the top of my head, although admittedly it has been a few years since I was in that area. It would inevitably require a large amount of street-running, but I could see it being popular as the 314 bus can be very busy between New Addington and Bromley.

EDIT: Just realised it would more likely be extended from Beckenham, not Addington

 

[telstarbox]

That's true, looking at the map, possible extension from New Addington could be via Biggin Hill to either Oxted or Sevenoaks, but like you say the line would cut through greenbelt land, their would have been a lot of opposition to any such plans too, & the line would have been outside TFL area too.

It would be more cost-effective to put anyone travelling between these areas in a few taxis. You'd also have very expensive fares or need Surrey / Kent County Councils to subsidise the fares which they would be unlikely to do.

 

[zwk500]

22 years doesn't sound like overly long for the initial section. Shows good planning. Rapid expansion tends to be a political decision rather than a business/transport strategy one.

 

[Horizon22]

Wasn’t there talk of an extension to Bromley at one time as well? Can’t immediately think of a suitable route it could take off the top of my head, although admittedly it has been a few years since I was in that area. It would inevitably require a large amount of street-running, but I could see it being popular as the 314 bus can be very busy between New Addington and Bromley.

EDIT: Just realised it would more likely be extended from Beckenham, not Addington

There was, perhaps to Bromley but with no real consideration of how it would get up the quite considerable hill to Bromley, not to mention a clear route.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Don't forget there has fairly recently been doubling of sections of track towards Wimbledon and an extra platform added (istr there was originally only one).

Beckenham Junction to Bromley would be very useful but hard to see how it could be achieved.

There are recent proposals to put in an extra loop to the West of East Croydon station so trams from New Addington, Elmers End or Beckenham Junction would turn back before central Croydon. Not sure what has happened to that as I think it was associated with the Westfield Development that most locals see as dead.

 

[Thirteen]

The Sutton Link is probably the only realistic option for the trams to expand

 

[Busaholic]

Don't forget there has fairly recently been doubling of sections of track towards Wimbledon and an extra platform added (istr there was originally only one).

Beckenham Junction to Bromley would be very useful but hard to see how it could be achieved.

There are recent proposals to put in an extra loop to the West of East Croydon station so trams from New Addington, Elmers End or Beckenham Junction would turn back before central Croydon. Not sure what has happened to that as I think it was associated with the Westfield Development that most locals see as dead.

The Beckenham Junction to 'Bromley' (very vague destination) idea came out of the Bakerloo Line extension proposals, the idea being it would takeover the heavy rail Mid Kent line to Hayes, with every other train diverted after New Beckenham via the spur to BJ. I believe my old employers the London Borough of Bromley paid out for some so-called consultants to present a glossy folder showing how it could miraculously get beyond the Junction by wish fulfillment alone: suffice to say no civil engineers, or even uncivil ones, were prepared to admit they played a part in this presentation.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the extra loop proposal had been scrapped. Croydon Tramlink long ago lost its prime instigator on the operational side (Peter Hendy) and a Mayor who, despite his numerous faults, was very pro-tram (Ken Livingstone.)

By the way, I never saw TfL publish any plans, even as kite-flying, to extend along the main road via Mayday Hospital to Thornton Heath Pond: it sounds like a Croydon Advertiser story to me, or the attempted election bribe of a marginal seat MP.

 

[Snow1964]

I think the way revenue is apportioned and treated like a bus route, rather than like a rapid transit system like DLR or Overground is probably its downfall regarding costs of extensions.

Factor in its competitors (basically buses in areas of proposed extensions) are operated on a monthly* funding basis (paid to operate the service, where the cost of vehicles is effectively spread over the monthly payments) means there is no capital budget to build lines and source trams.

* Strictly TfL works on 13 periods of 4 weeks, rather than monthly, with short or long weeks to meet 31 March - 1st April year end.

 

[Peter Sarf]

The Beckenham Junction to 'Bromley' (very vague destination) idea came out of the Bakerloo Line extension proposals, the idea being it would takeover the heavy rail Mid Kent line to Hayes, with every other train diverted after New Beckenham via the spur to BJ. I believe my old employers the London Borough of Bromley paid out for some so-called consultants to present a glossy folder showing how it could miraculously get beyond the Junction by wish fulfillment alone: suffice to say no civil engineers, or even uncivil ones, were prepared to admit they played a part in this presentation.

I'm pretty sure I read somewhere that the extra loop proposal had been scrapped. Croydon Tramlink long ago lost its prime instigator on the operational side (Peter Hendy) and a Mayor who, despite his numerous faults, was very pro-tram (Ken Livingstone.)

By the way, I never saw TfL publish any plans, even as kite-flying, to extend along the main road via Mayday Hospital to Thornton Heath Pond: it sounds like a Croydon Advertiser story to me, or the attempted election bribe of a marginal seat MP.

Yes the Mayday extension looks like it would have to be along the London Road and that gets very congested.

I have always thought extending the Bakerloo line a little and taking over the Hayes branch is very tempting.

 

[zwk500]

I have always thought extending the Bakerloo line a little and taking over the Hayes branch is very tempting.

Funnily enough, TfL think the same thing. https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/how-we-work/planning-for-the-future/bakerloo-line-extension

 

[Taunton]

Such systems often tend to pick off the easy, most useful, "low hanging fruit" first, and any later extensions offer more cost and not equivalent revenue. DLR is a classic, the initial system, still the heart of it, was achieved for the well-known £77m. Subsequent extensions have been way beyond that in cost, and not as heavily patronised.

 

[Peter Sarf]

Funnily enough, TfL think the same thing. https://tfl.gov.uk/corporate/about-tfl/how-we-work/planning-for-the-future/bakerloo-line-extension

Thanks for that. Quite a high approval rating. I imagine the branch to Beckenham junction would soak up the possibly unnecessarily high frequency to Hayes and probably vastly improve the frequency to both destinations.

 

[PGAT]

This is slightly off-topic, but would SouthEastern trains to Charing Cross run alongside the Bakerloo line or would they be eliminated entirely?

 

[Busaholic]

This is slightly off-topic, but would SouthEastern trains to Charing Cross run alongside the Bakerloo line or would they be eliminated entirely?

The latter.

Thanks for that. Quite a high approval rating. I imagine the branch to Beckenham junction would soak up the possibly unnecessarily high frequency to Hayes and probably vastly improve the frequency to both destinations.

Should also obviate the need for an extra platform at Hayes.

 

[zwk500]

This is slightly off-topic, but would SouthEastern trains to Charing Cross run alongside the Bakerloo line or would they be eliminated entirely?

Tube trains only. I'm not sure if there would even be an emergency/maintenance connection maintained.

 

[Chris M]

Such systems often tend to pick off the easy, most useful, "low hanging fruit" first, and any later extensions offer more cost and not equivalent revenue. DLR is a classic, the initial system, still the heart of it, was achieved for the well-known £77m. Subsequent extensions have been way beyond that in cost, and not as heavily patronised.

At least part of the reason for the DLR extensions costing significantly more is that they were built to a much higher capacity than the original system. Tower Gateway, Island Gardens, Pudding Mill Lane, Stratford and South Quay stations have all be completely rebuilt for capacity reasons - Canary Wharf was rebuilt before it even opened. Poplar has been significantly rebuilt and every other station has been lengthened (Mudchute has been completely rebuilt too, but this was for the Lewisham extension, I don't know whether the original station could have been upgraded to handle the capacity it now handles without being rebuilt, the original Island Gardens certainly couldn't have been). This means that it's rather misleading to state the original system was constructed for only the initial figure.
The highest patronage route on the system is Lewisham to Bank - which runs on extensions at both ends and don't forget that branches will of course always have less patronage than the mainlines they link to.

 

[etr221]

My (tongue in cheek) comment about the DLR and its extensions, was that the origianl DLR was built, it was very much to a fixed, low, price, with a corresponding spec. And when they wanted to extend, the first thing they need was a new file for the paper work - for which they needed a new filing cabinet - for which they needed a new office - for which which they needed a new office building: because capacity (of any sort) for any extension hadn't been in the price, hence the spec, hence what was provided.....