cityrailconnections

  The DP World London Gateway port in Thurrock, Essex (This article was originally published in my school newsletter.) In recent weeks, the UK has seen the approval of three new COVID-19 vaccines; these being the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine, and the US based Moderna vaccine. There is no doubt that the approval of these vaccines for use in the general population is fantastic news. The approval represents the monumental cooperation of a global community of paramedics, scientists, researchers, volunteers, and medical administrators to create something that will ultimately be the key to unlocking the end of a global crisis. However, it is important to recognise that each step forward from this point will involve careful planning and preparation. Much like a cataclysmic international game of Total Wipeout, each new leap forward brings about its own challenges and new risks for failure. One of these metaphorical leaps involves the transport methods utilised f...

The Crossrail project has long hailed itself as a great leap forward for London's rail network - a national rail service running at high frequency, right through the heart of London to far doing destinations. Sounds great doesn't it? Well, let me introduce Thameslink, The Northern City Line and Widened Lines. Thameslink I'm sure you've heard of and is basically the "Crossrail 1" that no one talks about and has been for decades. The other two however might need a little more explaining... The Northern City Line This is probably my favourite railway in London - "the tube that's not a tube" as one might call it, it's easily the creepiest. It was once renowned for its almost complete Network SouthEast signage that once adorned the entire route and largely original Class 313 stock - a true step back into the past as one would use it. These days, much of the NSE era signage and tiling is gone, and the trains replaced with the new Class 717 -...

Intro For the railway enthusiast, London is one of the greatest cities in the world. Its network covers the city like a rash, made up of a diverse range of different types of railway. From light rail with the DLR to the world's most iconic metro network with London Underground, to the trams of Croydon and to the manic heavy rail hub that is Clapham Junction (200 trains per hour pass through it in the peak), it is a simply marvellous spectacle. London's railways have a fascinating history to tell too - they have been developed over the course of hundreds of years, with lines coming into and falling out of use, freight lines closing and passenger lines opening and operation changing ownership more times than almost anyone can care to remember. They illustrate the social and economic changes of London - one of the best is (if you hadn't read the title), The Eastern Counties and Thames Junction Railway . The Beginnings The line opened all the way back in 1846, betwe...

The tube map. If you're like me, you'll have a collection of a whole range of different tube maps stashed in a drawer somewhere. Maybe you'll have one stuck on your wall. If you're especially gawky you'll also have a 'London Rail and Tube Services' map sitting around somewhere and you'll start at it aimlessly for minutes of end, frustrating yourself with the inevitable fact that many stations are all in the wrong geographic locations, as the map is famously non-geographic, placing emphasis on connections rather than physical locations, a highly beneficial advantage, albeit a rather large pet peeve for map addicts such as myself. Today I'd like to focus on some of the early tube maps. The one shown above was created in 1926 and was designed to simplify previous maps used at the time. It was very popular and soon found it's way around much of London. The map had it's flaws, however, most notably the issue that even without geographical acc...

We are now approaching, Upminster, where this train terminates. Please change here for London Underground, and c2c services... Somewhere out in Zone 6 among vast green swathes lies London Overground's Romford to Upminster line. Often forgotten, perhaps as it's separated entirely from the rest of the orange network we love and know, the line consists of a single track and runs at a speed of around twenty miles per hour, completing its three mile, three station journey in around nine minutes. The train is timetabled to run twice an hour in each direction, with one service every thirty minutes. Now, as anyone that lives within London's empire will know, waiting thirty minutes for a train is not something anyone enjoys. Especially not for an Overground train. Service frequencies like this are the reason people drive instead of taking trains, or rely on buses instead. And yet, when the c2c train in from Chalkwell (where I go to school) pulls into Upminster at 16:20, st...

Welcome all! I decided to start this site to since I've a whole lotta time on my hands and there are a lot of things regarding railways and transit routes in and around London and Essex that I would like to document and talk about. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm very much a nerd for metro systems and city data. I will do everything I can to try and figure out why certain aspects of a rail system or road system or other transport route is laid out the way it is, how best this achieves its purpose and how well this weighs up against other metro systems and transport routes around the world. To an outsider this may all sound rather complex and, to put it bluntly, boring and monotonous. I'm going to try and make sure the topics I talk about are simplified to a comprehensive level but still allow there to be enough juice for other train nerds like myself to question the information I give and consider it without 'dumbing it down' too much. Just a lit...