please empty your brain below
Pity about the Overground train seating as apart from that they are nice trains.
Absolutely agree about the Overground hard seats. I sometimes travel all the way from Stratford to Richmond, the hard seats are diabolical.
What were the designers thinking of? I suppose they would say they are more durable and vandal proof. Pity my backside is not the same !!
It hadn't occurred to me that the Goblin was any use in the Tube Challenge - given its low frequency surely a high risk link in the chain, and as DG points out it's not well connected to any Tube line except the Victoria, and the District at Barking.
Those ramps are crazy - imagine carrying a heavy case along that route - are there really no steps as well? Again the fallacy that disabled = wheelchair raises its head. Many people walk slowly and with difficulty, and could manage a few steps better than a long ramp.
I suppose if you're in a real hurry, and agile enough, you can save several seconds by vaulting the railings from one ramp to the next
John: while the seats aren't the most comfortable, I still maintain that it's better to be on the train (but uncomfortable) than left behind on the platform, as was often the case in pre-Overground NLL days.
Point taken, but there's no point in providing disabled accessibility if it can't be used by the least mobile passenger; I'd like to see you argue that to a wheelchair user, where a single step could break independent travel. Many other groups also benefit from step-free access too, such as passengers with pushchairs and heavy suitcases. I assume you're talking about a briefcase rather than a wheely-case!
Many aspects of railway design attempt to satisfy the majority but not everyone: seats are designed to comfortably cater adults between the 5th and 95th percentile for instance. But accessibility is not one of them; the 0th percentile must absolutely be included when building something new.
(I nearly moved to a house on Edinburgh Road, so in an alternate universe, this would have cut a good few minutes off my trip to the tube.)
Indeed - but why can't there be steps as well as a ramp? Do we ban double decker buses because wheelchair users can't use the top deck?
The link is certainly used by many people in the Edinburgh Rd area to cut through to W Central. A potential headache if they ever decide to fit ticket barriers at the station...
There are steps for half the way down, just not quite enough space to fit in steps all the way down. The ramp is not particularly long (10m?) and certainly is not a bother given the 500m the link just shaved off the previous walk!
TfL have told us that the 4-car electric trains they are about to order for Barking - Gospel Oak and West Anglia Inners will have an internal layout based on S8 (Met Line) & Crossrail stock.
Huge Kudos to BGOLUG for their terrier like work on this.
Thanks for posting about this DG, now we're just waiting for the Hackney link (next year?) the Hall Farm Curve (goodness knows when) and the reopening of Lea Bridge station.
CF
(The ramps at Hackney Wick are a particular bugbear of mine, as the 276 bus seems to be timed to arrive about 1 minute before a westbound train, making for a mad dash up the lengthy ramp maze!)
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