Orbirail
Encyclopedia : O : OR : ORB : Orbirail
Orbirail is a name for a suggested orbital railway route around London. It would involve connecting the extended East London Line, the North London Line, the West London Line, the South London Line and (possibly) the Gospel Oak to Barking Line to form a route that would orbit London in Zone 2, Zone 3 and (possibly) Zone 4. It is not to be confused with London's existing circular railway, the Circle Line, which is contained entirely within the central Zone 1.
Status
Orbirail has no official status as a planned project. However, Transport for London's plans for the new North London Railway (consisting of the North London Line, West London Line and Gospel Oak to Barking Line) and the extended East London Line (Phase 1) would allow for the route most of the way round London, with only the southern section remaining to be connected to allow a full orbital route. The proposed Phase 2 of the East London Line extension project would link the East London Line to the South London line and complete the loop.
Route
The most likely route (although not the only one possible) would run as follows, listed clockwise:
- Clapham Junction to Willesden Junction by the West London Line.
- Willesden Junction to Highbury & Islington by the North London Line.
- Highbury & Islington to Dalston Junction by the proposed East London Line Extension Phase 2.
- Dalston Junction to Whitechapel by the planned East London Line Extension Phase 1.
- Whitechapel to Surrey Quays by the East London Line.
- Surrey Quays to Clapham Junction by the proposed East London Line Extension Phase 2 (incorporating most of the South London Line).
Prospects
Orbirail's proponents believe that it would be a relatively low-cost project, involving only a small amount of new track, some improvement to existing lines and an increase in train frequency. In return, the route would allow many people to make journeys without passing through Zone 1, thus relieving congestion on central London's railways.
There are complications which could prevent these lines running as single fully orbital route. Orbital railways have an intrinsic timetabling robustness problem. The trains are constantly "in orbit" so there is little scope for "recovery time" if they are delayed. A single delay can have long lasting knock on effects and be much more disruptive than on a non-orbital railway. Recovery time can be created by timetabling for longer stops at some stations but this increases journey times and reduces train frequency. (For this reason, it is also planned to discontinue the orbital nature of the Circle Line and replace it with a spiral shaped route.) In this light, it is hard to see a larger and more complicated orbital railway being approved.
An alternative to a single fully orbital route would be two or more semi-orbital routes that join to entirely encircle London. TfL's current plans seem to point in this direction.
An additional problem is poor interchange with many of the radial routes. The proposed route offers no interchange with the Great Western Main Line, Chiltern Main Line, the East Coast Main Line, the Midland Main Line, the Great Eastern Main Line or the London, Tilbury and Southend Railway, Only local services on the West Coast Main Line stop at Willesden Junction. It has similarly poor interchange with many London Underground lines. Poor interchange options are a general problem with most of London's older railways, which were built by competing private companies in the 19th century before the need for a coherent and integrated transport network was understood.
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.