Transport for London (TfL) says that it is bringing forward the launch of London Overground services on the extension to Barking Riverside, following good progress being made in the completion of the station commissioning and testing stages.
Extract from tube map (c) TfL
Construction work on the 4.5km extension from Barking station to the new riverside station had been due to open in December 2021 at a cost of £260 million. However, delays caused by unexpected engineering problems and pandemic mitigations works, mainly relating to securing rescheduled Network Rail possessions and coronavirus control measures pushed the expected opening date to autumn 2022 and the cost up to £327 million.
TfL now says that it’s bringing forward the opening date from this autumn to this summer — the exact date is not confirmed yet. At the moment, while works continue on completing the station, test trains are running along the line during the week.
(c) TfL
In addition to the 4.5km railway line, the extension also required the reconfiguration of Network Rail’s Ripple Lane goods yard to allow the extension to connect to the Tilbury Loop. It also required the construction of a viaduct over the Ripple Lane yard and the Tilbury Loop railway, with foundations squeezed in between the HS1 tunnels.
The 4.5km extension, which extends the Gospel Oak to Barking London Overground route to a new step-free station at the heart of Barking Riverside, will cut journey times from Barking to Barking Riverside, which currently takes around 25 minutes by bus. Operating four trains per hour, it will take seven minutes to travel from Barking Riverside to Barking with interchanges to both the District and Hammersmith & City lines into central London and c2c services.
When operational, London Overground services would no longer terminate at platform 1 at Barking station but would be diverted to run through platforms 7 and 8 which are currently used by c2c and freight services.
Opening the station will also trigger the construction of more housing around it. The planning permission for the Barking Riverside housing development limits it to 4,000 occupied homes until the railway opens, when the remaining 6,800 homes can be built and sold. The housing development is 49% owned by the GLA — with 51% owned by L&Q.
When it opens, a four-carriage London Overground service running at 15-minute intervals is planned from the Barking Riverside station, with provision for an additional station, provisionally known as Castle Green to be built later when another housing development for 11,000 homes opens to the north of Barking Riverside.
(c) TFL
It’ll be good when it’s finished though and long into the future, Be like every though unfortunately like it costs a lot of money at the beginning
That will, I assume, require a complete re-write of the “GOBLIN” timetable?
Not just because the distance covered is greater, but, unlike at present, where both ends are single-track bays, requiring very careful timings, but because the new E terminus has two platforms, allowing greater flexibility.
Incidentally, I recently found out the hard way, that although that route appears in TfL’s “Timetables” section, it is NOT on the National Rail downloadable TT. It should be “Table 3” – which does not exist, when you look! ( Oops )
I note that realtimetrains.co.uk isn’t showing any trains after the ones in the early hours of Sat 9/7/22. I wonder if this is a clue to the opening date?
TfL is showing planned closure on Su 10/7, mind you.
Is there any provision for an extension beyond Barking, across the river? I know I know funding means that this won’t happen for 100000000 years I know the story but when they do want to extend will it be possible without tearing down the station and starting again and/or realigning track etc?
Despite such inference, it’s not possible to do this unless a multi-purpose bridge is built across the Thames to Thamesmead. Aside from this, the DLR and the Jubilee Line from North Greenwich are more feasible at this point.
and what about the beam park station at Rainham which was promised to buyers of property who were fooled into buying before said the station was even built will this station ever get built
That has been reported on loads of times on this website in articles about Beam Park Station.
This is not an article about Beam Park Station, so it’s not mentioned here as it’s irrelevant to this article.
The Barking Riverside extension was very expensive because of the double track bridge at the junction with c2c Tilbury loop line. A simple junction into the up Tilbury line and a single overbridge for the down line would have been much cheaper
So why do you think they didn’t do that?
IIRC a cheaper option was ruled out as it would have precluded the possibility of a new ‘Castle Green’ station on Renwick Rd, which itself would trigger a housing development on industrial land and land freed up / ‘created’ by putting the A13 in tunnel in that area. The current Lodge Ave flyover (which would go) is an eyesore and well past its sell-by date.
Have you noticed how this map (https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/Rail%20and%20Tube%20QR%20Map%20May%202022.v2.pdf) is showing the extension wrongly? It looks like a separate line with a change at Barking. The Tube Map has it right.
Ironically the ‘limited service’ NR (c2c) route via Stratford is shown correctly and it uses the same tracks between BKG and Woodgrange Park junction. This could all be made neater, clearer and closer to reality
It shows the extension as being under construction, which is correct.