Monday’s Friday Reads – 23 January 2023

1. The Belgrade metro will not be built this time. The Chinese will not fund the remainder as they have pulled back on One Belt One Road funding focusing on those projects which will help Chinese goods get to the EU, ie infrastructure improvements from the Chinese owned port at Piraeus up to Hungary. Except for the commercially funded depot at Makiš which may be built, nothing else is likely to happen despite the Serbian Government talking hopefully about a third line.

2. The Camden “High Line” is on what was a 4-track railway, carrying a lot of freight.
   Now there is a 2-track bottleneck from the junction to the W of the station, for just under a kilometre.
   It should be returned to its proper usage – carrying railway freight traffic

3. I agree!Would like to see a four track railway the whole way from Dalston junction as. it was originally with Primrose Hill/Chalk Farm reinstated as an interchange station for Overground trains now terminating at Highbury and Islington extended on to the Wafford D.C. lines which would no longer terminate at Euston.

4. Reinstating the 4-track section through Camden Road wouldn’t actually be that much of a benefit to freight for 2 reasons.
   First, a bottleneck would still exist at Camden Road West Junction where the bridge over Kentish Town Road is only wide enough for 2 tracks. Not only would it would be disproportionally expensive to widen just this short stretch but it also wouldn’t remove the problem of crossing movements for trains coming off the Primrose Hill line. Grade separation would be very hard to achive in a confined/built-up area like Camden.
   Second, the current 4-track section is basically not much more than a pair of glorified passing loops as it only goes on for about 3 signal blocks. After Westbourne Road Junction it goes back down to 2 tracks all the way to the junctions in the Stratford area since the East London Line tracks are mostly isolated from those of the North London Line (there is a single point of connection at Westbourne Road). This itself is a much bigger bottleneck because of the length of track that has to be shared by passenger and freight trains and without doing anything about that there isn’t much point doing anything else.
   The only way it really makes sense to reinstate track at Camden Road is if there was going to be some improvement to the passenger services there e.g. adding a third platform for additional terminating trains to use, either from the Stratford or Primrose Hill directions.

5. X-Plaistow: “reinstate track at Camden Road” as in THE LONDON RAIL FREIGHT STRATEGY page 14?

   “The additional capacity provided would facilitate much greater flexibility in pathing options for trains on this busy central section of the NLL, opening up new options for future service provision and bolstering performance resilience. Reinstatement of a third platform would enable platform 2 to be used as a central turnback, with platform 3 becoming the eastbound line for through London Overground services and the majority of freight. Transport for London modelling suggests that the eastern end of the NLL, from Canonbury to Stratford, will see some of the strongest long term demand growth on the Overground network. A turnback platform will allow this to be addressed with peak capacity boosting Stratford – Camden Road services and there would also be the option to operate these through the off-peak, which could offer a means of providing additional passenger capacity where it is most needed. “

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