London Olympics will enjoy modern railway

Fast, frequent trains will serve the extended East London Railway – providing a complete orbital suburban network around the city

One of London’s oldest suburban railways closed in December 2007 for major extension works to rejuvenate the line in time for the London Olympic Games and Para Olympic Games in 2012. The rebirth of the East London line is scheduled in two stages that will see fast, frequent trains transporting passengers between Highbury and Islington in the north and stations to West Croydon in the south. The line will be expanded from a small stub in London’s rail network to become a major arterial route called the East London Railway.

Construction work has started on the first
stage extension of the East London line

Passengers will enjoy services running as often as London Underground trains with air-conditioning and audio and visual announcements in Metro-style cars that will be hybrids with main line rolling stock. When the first phase of the extension project is completed, the number of passengers using the line is expected to rise to 35.4m per year, from 10.4m at its temporary closure. When the new line is wholly complete, passenger numbers are expected to rise to 50m per year.

An orbital network
On its temporary closure, the line ran north to south through the East End and Docklands. By June 2010, the line will run from Dalston Junction in the north to New Cross, Crystal Palace and West Croydon in the south. Less than a year later in February 2011, the owner, Transport for London (TfL), will have extended the line to Highbury and Islington. An extension of the line is also planned west from Surrey Quays to Clapham Junction.

Overall, the project will be delivered in two phases. Phase one will extend the existing line north to Dalston Junction and south to Crystal Palace and West Croydon. The later phase two will extend the line southwest through Peckham, Brixton and Clapham to Clapham Junction and also connect with North London Line stations at Cannonbury and Highbury & Islington. The purpose of these extensions is to create an orbital route, the wider London Overground orbital network for the city’s suburbs. This will mean that passengers will never have to travel through the congested centre. The East London Railway is also a major plank of TfL’s Olympic Transport Plan. An interchange with the underground Jubilee Line will be key to serving the Olympic Park during the games. The green light, given to the project by the government in 2004, was considered to be a boost for London’s successful bid in securing the games, as it demonstrated the city’s commitment to improved transport links like the railway. The Games bid chairman Sebastian Coe said at the time that the proposed extension would support London's plans to provide the quickest, safest, and most reliable Olympic transport system in Olympic Games history. By February 2011, 16 trains per hour will run in each direction through the centre section, with four trains per hour between Highbury and Islington and New Cross. The trains will serve a total of 30 stations. Before closure, the railway was a line of the London Underground, and was coloured orange on the London Underground’s organisational chart. From 2010, the line will be part of the London Overground, although the service will still be provided by TfL.

Steeped in history
The East London line has a chequered history. Until its closure, it was the only Underground line that was initially constructed as a railway. It first opened in 1869 as the East London Railway, and runs under the River Thames through the Thames Tunnel. The tunnel formed the oldest part of the Underground’s infrastructure during the line’s existence as part of the Tube network. No less than six different railway companies operated the line at its outset, but the line was taken into the Underground in 1933, and into public ownership in 1948. The six companies sought successfully to revive use of the Thames Tunnel, which was built for horse-drawn carriages by the celebrated Victorian engineers Marc and Isambard Kingdom Brunel between 1825 and 1843. Although the tunnel was a triumph of civil engineering, it was never commercially viable, and by the 1860s had fallen into disuse and disrepute. The East London Railway Company took over ownership of the Thames Tunnel on 25 September 1865, and from this hub, the network of the line was gradually extended through east and south London throughout the remainder of the late 19th Century and early 20th Century.

Much of the underground section of the line was constructed using cut-and-cover methods that were typical of the day for London’s sub-surface railways. The deepest point of the line is at Wapping station, which was built in the Thames Tunnel’s original entrance shaft descending 18.3m below the surface. Apart from the central section, however, the remainder of the line in outlying areas runs on the surface or in cuttings. The extension scheme does not envisage any further tunneling work as necessary; in parts it will renovate railway beds and arches for other railway or Tube lines that have fallen into disuse. Responsibility for the construction and operation of the East London Railway has been taken on by TfL, which was handed the line by the Strategic Rail Authority in 2004. When the extensions are completed, the line will be absorbed into TfL’s North London Railway concession. Under this arrangement, TfL has already tendered what are currently Silverlink Metro operations out to a private train operating company, in a similar but more tightly controlled manner to the national network. Responsibility for the maintenance and repair of the infrastructure will fall to Network Rail. As part of the extension and expansion of the line, new rolling stock will run from 2010. According to a contract signed in August 2006, Bombardier will provide 20 four-car units, an order which was expanded in July 2007 with a further three train-sets. A consortium grouping Balfour Beatty and Carillion was awarded a contract in October 2006 valued at USD 724.6m (RMB 5.1bn) to construct the northern and southern extensions between West Croydon, Crystal Palace and Dalston Junction.

Economic regeneration
The extension project is the first Underground scheme to be funded through a Private Finance Initiative, a public-private partnership. Work is expected to cost about USD 1.2bn (RMB 8.4bn) and the project is expected to attract about USD 20bn (RMB 140bn) in economic regeneration along the route of the revived railway. TfL will receive a USD 800m (RMB 5.6bn) low interest loan from the European Investment Bank because the work will benefit deprived areas of inner London.

The East London Railway will directly serve some of the least well off areas of London, including more than 75,000 people living in some of the capital’s most deprived wards. Improved transport links will open up a larger range of employment opportunities, while wider access to leisure opportunities will enhance the standard of living. The line will also open up links to a range of public services, including hospitals, higher education, primary and secondary schools, museums, theatres and cinemas, whilst at the same time promoting the use of public transport rather than private cars with their attendant pollution.