Have Your Say

Please can you provide more detail on the protected alignment and box for the West London Line, and potential expansion at West Brompton?

The West London Line is an important strategic rail route, and it’s important to safeguard a 4-track alignment, e.g. for freight passing loops.  Can you point me to your plans for this?  And is there also provision for additional platforms at West Brompton.

Also, I assume Lillie Bridge deport will close?  And are there any plans to improve the alignments or junctions of the District Line?

I too am concerned by these matters.

The West London Line is a vitally important transport artery, and in order to preserve the future integrity of the new development, expansion for rail capacity needs to be taken into account even if only as a passive provision.

The regional services currently operated by Southern are incredibly popular, and will continue to be so. They currently operate as 4-car trains, and TfL and Network Rail propose extending these to 8-car trains. I would like to point out these services connect the West Coast Mainline to the Brighton Mainline, both of which have 12-car capability, and as such, passive provision to extend West Brompton’s platforms to 12-car length is essential.

Likewise, the West London Line is a crucial freight corridor, but mixing an intensive passenger service with freight just doesn’t work well as freight trains have very low acceleration, so require many paths when required to start and stop between local services. Being able to overtake local services at line speed using long loops is thus essential to maximise capacity, and as such reserving the alignment required for an additional pair of tracks through the site from the Seagrave Road, West Brompton Village & Lost River Park sections makes a great deal of sense. These additional lines were in place at the beginning of last century, and I feel should be rebuilt.

When (and not if) these additional lines are eventually required, it will be far more damaging to the area if the buildings along the boundary have to be demolished to accomplish this than if they are simply designed and built in a manner that doe not preclude the railway expanding at a later date.

Likewise, the Overground service is currently hampered by having to mix freight, regional and local services on the same lines, and providing passing loops from West Brompton up through Olympia would be highly beneficial.

Thank you for the posts Liam and Jamie.

These are very detailed and informed technical questions and we are liaising with TfL to ensure that we are able to get back to you with the appropriate detail to fully answer your queries.

Thanks again for your comments and questions about the West London Line and West Brompton station.

Transport for London has issued the following statement:
“The West London Line (WLL) and West Brompton station capacities and future resilience are being assessed under our role as statutory transport authority alongside issues such as Underground line and station capacity, walking and cycling facilities, highway capacities and access, and bus routing and service levels. Following the submission of the three planning applications, this assessment is ongoing and TfL will continue to work with the transport consultants appointed by CapCo, the relevant local authorities and Network Rail (NR).
TfL considers that the predicted growth in passenger volumes on the WLL over the foreseeable future (the next 20 years) can be met by a combination of train and platform lengthening to provide 8-car capability and additional services that can be accommodated within the existing track layout. This would also require associated station capacity enhancements.
Regarding freight, modelling indicates the WLL will continue to be able to provide up to 35 freight paths to and from the Channel Tunnel per day which allows for the predicted growth in Channel Tunnel freight over the next 20 years. The route will also continue to be able to accommodate the current number of freight paths to and from the Kent Thameside ports. The predicted growth from these ports is focused on the London area, so it will not necessarily need to use the WLL. NR is investing in enhancements to Chelsea Bridge to increase the speed of freight trains. It should also be noted that the WLL was subject to comprehensive resignalling in the 1990s to enable it to accommodate a mixture of stopping passenger services and freight trains.
Neither TfL nor NR believe that the provision of freight loops is an effective way to deliver freight services on the WLL. The use of such loops can have an adverse impact on the reliability of passengers services because of the time freight trains take to accelerate from stationary. Keeping freight trains moving over the length of the WLL is the preferred option as it reduces the risk of delay to passenger services.
These comments are consistent with the findings of the London and South East Route Utilisation Strategy, which sets out the rail industry’s view of the enhancements required to meet the predicted growth in passenger and freight demand up to 2031.
Regarding Lillie Bridge Depot, TfL needs to ensure that the London Underground servicing and maintenance that is undertaken at the facility currently can continue either on site or in another location should the full masterplan proposals progress in full. A number of options are currently being investigated, but no decision has been taken. The District line is being improved as part of the full Tube upgrade plan and includes signalling and track replacement. By 2018 there will be a 24 per cent increase in capacity across the line.”