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Commuters wait on crowded platforms |
Arriving soon... first of £250m trains
But passengers’ watchdog warns that freight traffic is cause of delays on ‘Cinderella’ line
THE first of a new £250million fleet of trains is being introduced on the overcrowded North London “Cinderella” overground line next week.
But rail campaigners argued this week that the new trains will initially make little difference to the “poor” standard of service.
The fleet of 44 trains is being gradually introduced over the next 18 months to two years.
Barking-Gospel Oak User Group secretary Richard Pout said the occasional new train would do nothing to end major delays to the service and to prevent people being squashed into carriages like sardines. He added: “One of the biggest problems is that freight trains are still using the passenger lines between Camden Road, Highbury and Islington and Barking, which means huge delays.
“Until they either get freight off the North London line or build a separate line for commercial trains little will change.”
He said that the new trains will have only three coaches. With fewer seats, more people will have to stand.
“The North London line works on a knife edge,” he said. “If everything is going right there is a reasonable service, but as soon as something goes wrong or there is freight then you are getting delays and dreadful overcrowding.”
The new air-conditioned trains, longer than those currently operating on the line, will have more space and allow passengers to walk through from one end to the other.
By 2011, the trains will double in frequency from the current four an hour at peak times to eight.
In March, the Tribune invited Transport for London (TfL) senior executive Julie Dixon to witness for herself the conditions experienced by long-suffering passengers at Highbury and Islington station during peak time.
This followed an article in which frustrated commuters on the Gospel Oak, Upper Holloway and Barking line threatened civil disobedience – including stopping trains leaving the platform – in protest at the acute overcrowding.
While admitting there were problems, Ms Dixon said TfL was introducing an expensive programme of improvements.
More than 68,000 journeys are made on the North London line each day but much of the system is antiquated following decades of underinvestment and neglect.
Many stations are described as dirty, dingy and are said to feel unsafe.
Ms Dixon said that the ultimate aim would be to modernise stations, and provide a service where passengers would, as on the Tube, simply turn up and go. |
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