Gospel Oak to Barking line

Original lines

The line has existed in its current form since 1981, and is mostly an amalgamation of lines built in the 19th century. The main section, between South Tottenham and Woodgrange Park, was built as the Tottenham and Forest Gate Railway, a joint project between the Midland Railway and the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway. This opened on 9 July 1894, linking the Midland and Great Eastern joint line at South Tottenham and the Forest Gate and Barking line at Woodgrange Park. The section west of South Tottenham was built as the Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway, which opened in 1868 but had not been commercially successful as a stand-alone railway.

Predecessor routes

Although the route between Upper Holloway and Woodgrange Park has been constant, several stations have been the ends of the line. Kentish Town, St Pancras, Gospel Oak and Moorgate (via St Pancras) have all been the western termini. East Ham was an alternative eastern terminus for some time. Some trains were extended beyond Barking to destinations such as Southend and Tilbury. There was a regular boat train service between St Pancras and Tilbury.

A connection to Gospel Oak was added in 1888, but the routes via Kentish Town remained the primary ones and the Gospel Oak branch was abandoned in 1926. The connection to East Ham was abandoned in 1958.

The Tottenham and Hampstead Junction Railway section of the line had stations that were closed due to proximity to other stations or for other reasons. These include Highgate Road (closed 1918), Junction Road (closed 1943), Hornsey Road (closed 1943) and St Ann's Road (closed 1942).^[4]

The line was considered for closure to passengers in 1963 as part of the Beeching Axe,^[5] but local users protested and formed an action group to prevent closure. Beeching's proposals for London were not implemented for the most part, and the line remained open. Even so, it was allowed to fall into a poor state of repair and reliability,^[6] and by 1980 had been cut back to an hourly service between Kentish Town and Barking. The station canopies were gradually demolished, ticket offices closed and staff withdrawn from stations.

Introduction of the present route

The situation began to improve in 1981 when electrification and upgrades to the line out of St Pancras (later part of Thameslink) displaced the line from Kentish Town. A new link to Gospel Oak was built and the hourly service from Kentish Town was replaced by the current route from Gospel Oak with two trains per hour. The service remained very unreliable due to the age of the trains, which were initially Class 115 and 108 units, replaced in the early 1990s by class 117 and 121 units.

Private operators

Initially part of British Rail Network SouthEast, the line was privatised in 1994, the track being owned by Railtrack (subsequently Network Rail) with the passenger service provided by the North London Railways franchise. This passed to National Express in 1997, which operated the line under the brand name Silverlink until November 2007. Under Silverlink, the slam door trains were replaced by Class 150 units in 2000, which improved reliability significantly. There were minor improvements in station facilities (such as CCTV and information points) but no major investment to upgrade the line and boost capacity, and the stations remained unstaffed.

London Overground

Early London Overground branded signage at Wanstead Park

Many lines within London were running at full capacity, and as a consequence the line took on a new strategic significance as a by-pass, relieving load on other lines by allowing passengers to travel between north and east London directly.

The Railways Act 2005 abolished the franchise and gave the operation of passenger services to Transport for London (TfL). In 2005, TfL started funding a small number of additional peak time and late evening services to relieve the worst overcrowding.

TfL took full control in November 2007 introducing improved late night and weekend services, and staff, ticket machines and Oyster equipment at all stations. The frequency was increased to three trains per hour during morning and afternoon peaks and the line was included on the Tube map for the first time.

The line was closed throughout most of September 2008 for upgrade work carried out by Network Rail. Capacity was increased from six trains per hour to eight (four each for passenger and goods trains). By replacing the overbridges carrying Sussex Way and Albert Road, and lowering the track in some other locations, it was made possible for W10 loading gauge goods trains to operate. Electrification was not included.^[7]

In 2010 eight new Class 172 Turbostar diesel trains replaced the Class 150 units, with two 23-metre coaches and the option to introduce a third coach.^[8][9] The service frequency was increased to four trains per hour in January 2011.^[10]

Given the completion of electrification in 2018, new electric Class 710 trains will run from November 2018.^[11]

Ticketing

Except at the interchange stations, staffed ticket offices were withdrawn by BR in the late 1980s. Under London Overground, self-service ticket machines were introduced in November 2007. Oyster / contactless card validators (for touching in and out) are at all stations. The ticket machines can be used to load credit onto Oyster cards. Passengers are required to buy tickets or touch in their Oyster/contactless cards, or else face a penalty fare.

Owing to the lack of ticket barriers and the difficulty of ticket verification when trains are crowded, the line has historically had a high level of fare avoidance. Under Silverlink most stations lacked any ticket purchasing facilities. In theory, passengers could purchase tickets from the conductors on the trains, but it was not always possible to do this. Following the introduction of the current ticketing arrangements, ticketless travel fell from an estimated peak of 40% under Silverlink, to 2% in March 2008.^[19]

Trains

Artist's impression of a London Overground-branded Class 172 unit

A diesel Class 150 at Gospel Oak

As of 2017, all trains are diesel powered as the line is not fully electrified, with only two short sections having overhead electrification, at South Tottenham, to provide a link from Seven Sisters to Stratford, and from the junction with the Great Eastern Main Line to Barking but excluding the bay platform which this service uses. These sections are used only by occasional electric trains on other routes or by goods trains.

London Overground operates eight Class 172/0 two-coach diesel multiple units (DMUs) exclusively on the line. Until 2010 the passenger train fleet consisted of six Class 150 diesel units with two coaches each.

Interchange

Sign advertising the interchange at Gospel Oak

The line has same-station interchange with the North London Line at Gospel Oak, the Victoria line at Blackhorse Road and the Hammersmith & City line, District line and c2c at Barking. There are out-of-station interchanges at:^[22]

• Harringay Green Lanes to Harringay on the Great Northern Route
• South Tottenham to Seven Sisters on the Seven Sisters Branch of the Lea Valley Lines and the London Underground Victoria line. (Signposting in the street does not indicate the pedestrian/cycle route between the two stations through Stonebridge Road).
• Walthamstow Queens Road to Walthamstow Central on the Chingford branch of the Lea Valley Lines and the London Underground Victoria line. A footpath between the two stations, considerably shortening the foot journey between them, opened on 11 August 2014.^[23] While the footpath was first proposed in 1996, works had been delayed due to protracted legal battles over planning permission.^[24]
• Wanstead Park to Forest Gate on the Great Eastern Main Line

There are official TfL out-of-station-interchanges,^[25] whereby the passenger can continue an unbroken journey between

• Upper Holloway and Archway on the Northern line; and
• Leytonstone High Road and Leytonstone on the Central line .

Two other interchanges are walkable:

• Harringay Green Lanes and Manor House on the Piccadilly line; and
• Crouch Hill and Finsbury Park on the Piccadilly line and Victoria line

Station facilities

Walthamstow Queens Road station entrance

Except at the interchange stations, station facilities are very basic. There are small shelters, information points with recorded service information, information screens and CCTV cameras. Typically there are one or two staff members on duty. Where there are no station buildings they operate out of container-sized portable offices.

Step free access

The line has some stations with step free access, allowing wheelchairs/pushchairs etc. easy access from street level to the platforms, at Gospel Oak, Upper Holloway, Harringay Green Lanes, South Tottenham, Walthamstow Queens Road and Barking.^[26]

As the trains do not align exactly with the platform height, wheelchair users will probably require assistance to board or leave them.

Map

Geographical layout of the Gospel Oak to Barking line

Vibrations

Residents in Walthamstow complained that vibrations from goods traffic on the line were causing damage to their houses.^[27]

Confirmed changes

Electrification

See also: Proposed railway electrification in Great Britain

The electrified stretch at South Tottenham

In 2008, electrification was ruled out on grounds of cost and difficulty of electrifying a line with so many viaducts and bridges,^[28] but the Network Route Utilisation Strategy published by Network Rail in October 2009 showed a benefit–cost ratio for the scheme of 2.4:1.^[29] In 2012, the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, indicated that funding was "a matter for the Department for Transport".^[29]

In 2011, Network Rail proposed electrification in Control Period 5 (CP5), but in July 2012 Justine Greening, the Secretary of State for Transport, stated that electrification was not included in the High Level Output Specification for CP5, and that any funds would need to be provided by TfL.^[30] In August, the Mayor wrote to the Secretary of State for Transport to seek a way forward, and "she committed her officials to support work with TfL, Network Rail, train operators and other industry parties to see if a viable way can be found to bridge the funding gap."^[31]

In November 2012, the magazine Modern Railways reported that the Department for Transport had ruled out the work on the basis of an estimated cost of £90 million, in contrast to an estimate of £40M by TfL.^[32]

It was announced in June 2013 that £115M of funding for electrification was being made available as part of upgrades to rail infrastructure included in the government's 2013 spending round.^[33] At the same time Transport for London announced that they had obtained a £90M commitment from the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Secretary of State for Transport.^[34]

In September 2015, Network Rail awarded the £56.9M contract to electrify the line to J. Murphy & Sons.^[35] There were part closures (at weekends and from South Tottenham to Barking) from June to late September 2016, followed by a full closure from October to February 2017. In February 2017, Network Rail announced that whilst the line would re-open as scheduled, they weren’t able to complete all the work planned due to "incorrect" designs and late delivery of materials.^[36] Further evening and weekend works until late June 2017 were already planned, followed by around four months of commissioning work before the electric wires could be turned on so that Class 710 trains could run.^[37] Although the line was completely electrified by mid-January 2018,^[38] delays have prevented the introduction of new electric trains to later in 2018.^[39][40]

The line has been electrified using the NR Series 2 OLE range.^[41]

Proposed changes