tubechallenge.com

**Advance warning- from June 2016**

The Gospel Oak- Barking (GOBLIN) Overground route will be closed continuously for eight months from June 2016 to allow upgrade works to take place to allow 4 coach electric traction to operate the line.

Several bridges will need to be altered to give clearance for overhead wires (the bridge over the A1 at Upper Holloway being one such identified).

The stock will be eight 4 car units from Bombardier (the same stock has also been ordered for West Anglia lines to Chingford/Enfield) but it is likely that these will not be in operation until late 2017.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/transpor ... 64041.html

An update- from Network Rail's booked possessions:

--Barking - South Tottenham closed June 2016 to 4 Feb 2017
--South Tottenham - Gospel Oak closed early Oct 2016 to 4 Feb 2017 so full line closure for 4 months.
--South Tottenham - Gospel Oak trains only run M-F from June 2016 to early Oct 2016 as entire line is shut every weekend.

Bus replacements will operate but journey times will be a lot longer than normal (been there, done it).

That could mess up the FNC for Tube Olympics! And with the Bakerloo Line platforms at Paddington being closed, snarling up the Bottle, TO could see some interesting routes this year!

It also means if I want to have a go on the FNC route I've been playing with recently, I need to do it before June....

Unfortunately my tendon now seems to have relapsed quite badly. Last weekend it was (almost) fit enough to to the Bottle, though it slowed me on the Paddington change and may have cost me a few minutes as a result. At that,I was hopeful of trying a longer challenge next month as a build-up to doing a FNC by May, but since last night it's been quite difficult to walk on at times.

Further details have now emerged:

The last day for through Barking- Gospel Oak trains will be Friday 3rd June 2016, trains will continue to run after that between South Tottenham and Gospel Oak on weekdays only until 23rd September 2016.

The whole line will be closed continuously between 23rd September and 7th February 2017, when the service resumes with the current diesel 172s. The full electric service will not commence until 2018.

Due to works to lower the track through Walthamstow QR, the footbridge link to Walthamstow Central will be unavailable throughout the closure.

Can anyone remind me what the train times used to be for Leytonstone High Street-WQR and vice versa? I'm assuming that they'll be the same when the line reopens in February until the electric trains start running. I'm having a play with a route but of course I can't look up times for that section now it's shut!

Many thanks

Richard

09/24/39/54 from Walthamstow Queen's Road

13/28/43/58 from Leytonstone High Road

Thanks GKR - I had one time written down for departures from LHR and thought it was 15 mins frequency, though I wasn't sure, and had no idea of times going the other way.

I misread LHR as London Heathrow Airport for a moment, and wondered what insane thing you were planning!! Just to inform you that parachutes count as private transport, but jumping without one is perfectly OK.

The Orange One wrote:I misread LHR as London Heathrow Airport for a moment, and wondered what insane thing you were planning!! Just to inform you that parachutes count as private transport, but jumping without one is perfectly OK.

Ha. This was amusing.

The Orange One wrote:I misread LHR as London Heathrow Airport for a moment, and wondered what insane thing you were planning!! Just to inform you that parachutes count as private transport, but jumping without one is perfectly OK.

Yes, I've managed to confuse myself on that score several times when reading my own notes back!

An update on this,

Having looked at the new Network Rail December 16 timetables, in the Table Notes it says the following:-

"Gospel Oak - Barking route modernisation works: Train services shown in this table are scheduled to recommence weekdays only from 13 February 2017 but will be subject to rail replacement bus services at weekends and some weekday evenings."

The timetable for the 13th Feb 2017 onwards is also now available for you to look at here. You need Timetable 62. It's easier to download all of them (that's the zip file) than trying to navigate through the individual timetables.

This is of course assuming they finish on time but I haven't heard anything to the contrary.

A quick look suggests it's the same timings as before, which is good - as I had a 15:54 theory route planned out just before it closed! Now I just need to be fit enough to do it.... (Though I still want to shave another 10 minutes off it somewhere of course....)

There has been an extra week added ontp the blockade, now scheduled to re-open second week of February 2017 with the class 172 diesels operating the service.

I am thinking this may come in handy for Comic Relief (24th March) Any further updates on the proposed re-opening?

The re-opening has been pushed back to "late February 2017" so over a month later than expected. Assuming the timetable doesn't slip further then it should be fine for 24th March