A weekly round-up of London’s rail transport news…
Passengers evacuated from Heathrow Express train
London Underground
Finsbury Park Tube station goes step-free with two new lifts Mayor Watch
The tube station that no longer takes cash Diamond Geezer
TfL plans to shut the Bakerloo line over the May bank holiday have angered narrowboat afficionados. Ham & High
A teenage Iraqi asylum seeker who planted the Parsons Green Tube bomb has had a bid to challenge his conviction rejected. BBC News
Elizabeth line / Crossrail
Crossrail is burning through £30m a week, potentially pushing the new £17.6bn train line further over budget, according to a KPMG report Financial Times (£)
Crossrail only has 80% chance of hitting new budget, report says Building
Transport chiefs have revealed the crisis-hit Crossrail line has no chance of opening this year — and they have no idea when it will. Evening Standard
Mainline / Overground
Building work on a new station for Kidbrooke is now well underway with foundations in place Murky Depths
Rail passengers are facing travel chaos on a major rail route into one of London’s busiest stations after overhead electric wires were damaged. Evening Standard
Delays in delivering new trains to London Overground’s Gospel Oak to Barking line means that travellers will be offered a month’s free travel in compensation. IanVisits
Southeastern train passengers ‘passed out’ after heating turned up in cold snap Evening Standard
This Christmas, Battersea Pier junction became the latest focus of intense activity as it was renewed over an 11-day blockade. Rail Engineer
Heathrow Express has announced it has been named top of the passenger satisfaction tables Rail Advent
Miscellaneous
A man was left with life-changing injuries when he was kicked and stamped on by a gang at Oxford Circus Tube station. LBC
To mark the 150th anniversary of the opening of District line, steam trains will once more ply the route. IanVisits
Drawings from the National Rail archive: London Charing Cross
12 Great Bars In London’s Railway Arches Londonist
‘I was charged £700 extra using contactless on the tube’ – don’t be caught out Money Saving Expert
A Highgate man has just completed a charity run of more than 500km along every tube line in London Ham & High
And finally, Fire used to melt ice on Chicago train tracks BBC News
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Image above is from Sept 2014: Passengers evacuated from Heathrow Express train
I enjoyed the article about the Battersea works very much and it was excellently written.
These sort of works should be more in the media (maybe they were on London local news) and would have made a great television documentary. Sometimes I feel NR are a little lax in this field.
Ian do you know if any works were carried out on the platforms at Victoria – deep clean / complete outstanding maintenance etc as the shutdown would have been a good time to do that sort of thing.
Suppose my comment was being deleted. Because you don’t want any one causing more arguments. I understand that why my comment was being deleted for. Probably I do cause some problems.