East Brixton station (formerly Lougborough Park): abandoned station off Coldharbour Lane

[CH1]

Exactly. It would be tough to show that - if a new Brixton station were to be opened - it should be at Brixton East. In fact, Brixton (central) seems more logical. Much more.

I don't agree at all.

Lambeth thinking is currently over-grandiose to the point where the Hollamby 50 storey office blocks/skyscrapers people fought against in the 1970s will arrive by default (if not by popular acclaim).

Apparently the cost of a grand interchange between Overground/South East trains & the underground at Brixton station is estimated at £70 million.

The upper-level line is too curved to use for platforms by modern standards, so not only do you have the problem of providing platforms in the sky - you also have to re-route the line somehow. One possibility considered was to get rid of the Railway Hotel/Bradys building (or the upper storeys). Alternatively trying to move the line slightly north-wards - which would impinge on Marks & Spencers.

All this might happen by 2030 if you are lucky.

The alternative at at East Brixton would be pocket money by comarison.

I have a further objection which no-body yet seems to be considering.
The problem with Brixton's development right now is a drift towards wine bars & standardisation (and piss poor architecture).
What do you think will happen if there is a mega interchange which needs cross-subsidy from property development then? "Heathrow" come from the same liguistic root as "Effra". Indeed.

Finally it is regularly remarked here that the tube station is closed in the rush hour due to platform overcrowding.
And you want MORE overcrowding?

 

[leanderman]

I don't agree at all.

Lambeth thinking is currently over-grandiose to the point where the Hollamby 50 storey office blocks/skyscrapers people fought against in the 1970s will arrive by default (if not by popular acclaim).

Apparently the cost of a grand interchange between Overground/South East trains & the underground at Brixton station is estimated at £70 million.

The upper-level line is too curved to use for platforms by modern standards, so not only do you have the problem of providing platforms in the sky - you also have to re-route the line somehow. One possibility considered was to get rid of the Railway Hotel/Bradys building (or the upper storeys). Alternatively trying to move the line slightly north-wards - which would impinge on Marks & Spencers.

All this might happen by 2030 if you are lucky.

The alternative at at East Brixton would be pocket money by comarison.

I have a further objection which no-body yet seems to be considering.
The problem with Brixton's development right now is a drift towards wine bars & standardisation (and piss poor architecture).
What do you think will happen if there is a mega interchange which needs cross-subsidy from property development then? "Heathrow" come from the same liguistic root as "Effra". Indeed.

Finally it is regularly remarked here that the tube station is closed in the rush hour due to platform overcrowding.
And you want MORE overcrowding?

Might a train link actually reduce overcrowding on the Tube?

 

[CH1]

Might a train link actually reduce overcrowding on the Tube?

Not if it is coming from Peckham/Denmark Hill.
"Change at Brixton for Stockwell and Northern line, Vauxhall and all stations to Walthamstow" I can hear it now!

 

[leanderman]

Not if it is coming from Peckham/Denmark Hill.
"Change at Brixton for Stockwell and Northern line, Vauxhall and all stations to Walthamstow" I can hear it now!

Lambeth has commissioned a study into it all anyway.

 

[Crispy]

Not if it is coming from Peckham/Denmark Hill.
"Change at Brixton for Stockwell and Northern line, Vauxhall and all stations to Walthamstow" I can hear it now!

If you want the northern line from the Overground, change at Clapham North

 

[CH1]

The Lambeth Overground consultants report is out: http://lambeth.gov.uk/sites/default/files/ec-lambeth-overground-stations-study-report-2014.pdf

Many of the illustrations will be familiar from other documents such as the recent LJAG Loughborough Junction Masterplan and the Brixton Central consultations.

The conclusions are that access improvement works should be done at Wandsworth Road, Clapham High Street, Brixton SR and Loughborough Junction, all of which can be accomplished by 2019.

As for a new station to access the Overground in Brixton, this is pushed forward into the period post 2020 and all options are really ruled out.

Brixton too expensive and not certain to be physically feasible.

Loughborough Junction also too expensive and requiring lengthy route closure.

East Brixton - required lengthy line closure and dependent on progress of the Brixton Central development.

I would say the report is really a non-feasibility study.

 

[Crispy]

It looks like any new stations would require rebuilding of the entire viaduct in order to achieve a straighter track. For the Overground, this would mean demolishing everything between the lines and popes road. However, it could allow the creation of a station with platforms on all three lines, which would be amazing. Cost ~£100m

 

[editor]

Cracking pic here, just before closure



A woman waiting for a train at East Brixton railway station, London, UK, 16th December 1975. (Photo by Evening Standard/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)

 

[CH1]

lang rabbie raised an issue on Twitter

 

[lang rabbie]

lang rabbie raised an issue on Twitter

Not sure why embedded tweets aren't displaying. Here's a cut and paste:

"I had never realised East Brixton had a brief period as a terminus. Wonder if that explains the odd layout of some of the local viaducts? One for @urban75"

 

[CH1]

Not sure why embedded tweets aren't displaying. Here's a cut and paste:

"I had never realised East Brixton had a brief period as a terminus. Wonder if that explains the odd layout of some of the local viaducts? One for @urban75"
View attachment 304830

Ta. Can't remember where it was posted but didn't editor writing something about the peculiar truncated siding at East Brixton.
In fact this is on the Catford loop side isn't it? Therefore not on the erstwhile South London line side.

Maybe something might be revealed from an aerial view?

 

[editor]

Not entirely convinced they come from the station, but interesting nonetheless

Here for sale are a pair of old wooden RAILWAY STATION OFFICE CABINETS and cupboards found in a London railway arch at Brixton. They are presumed to be from the old East Brixton Railway Station which is no longer present. The cabinets need a bit of restorative work with the dragon's tooth shelf supports. It looks as though there was some kind of other structure that went between the two cupboads.

RAILWAY OFFICE CABINETS x 2 - from East Brixton Railway Station - to Restore | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for RAILWAY OFFICE CABINETS x 2 - from East Brixton Railway Station - to Restore at the best online prices at eBay! Free delivery for many products.

www.ebay.co.uk

 

[Brainaddict]

15 years later and I'm still annoyed by the absurdity of the Overground not stopping in Brixton, particularly when transport across South London is so poor in general. I suppose the pandemic undermining of tfl budgets doesn't make it any more likely now.

 

[ChrisSouth]

15 years later and I'm still annoyed by the absurdity of the Overground not stopping in Brixton, particularly when transport across South London is so poor in general. I suppose the pandemic undermining of tfl budgets doesn't make it any more likely now.

I get you.

I think that Lough Junct would have been even more perfect as you could link from the Ginger Line to Thameslink to Elizabeth Line.

 

[Brainaddict]

I get you.

I think that Lough Junct would have been even more perfect as you could link from the Ginger Line to Thameslink to Elizabeth Line.

Better than nothing but it's quite close to the Denmark Hill stop and still leaves a big gap before Clapham. A shame they couldn't place it edge of Brixton centre (like Valentia Place) without the need to build a big interchange.

 

[teuchter]

It's just not possible to make a stop on the overground at Loughborough Junction, without really major infrastructure works, compulsory purchase of land, and so on.

 

[Crispy]

And IIRC the curving, sloped shape of the tracks through Brixton means a new station there would be outside the regs unless they were straightened out, which would cost a fortune (as would any kind of scheme to swap the track pairs over so OG trains can call at the old platforms on the North side of the station.

EDIT: What would really help would be tunnels in South London for the express trains so that the existing network of viaducts could be tweaked into something resembling a metro. You could put platforms at LJ by removing a pair of tracks that way.

.... put the crayons down crispy, and step away from the railway map

 

[teuchter]

In the end, it's a kind of no-brainer: if there's going to be an overground station in the area, East Brixton is where it's going to be.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

It's just not possible to make a stop on the overground at Loughborough Junction, without really major infrastructure works, compulsory purchase of land, and so on.

i don't think there ever were platforms on the east-west line at loughborough junction, were there? just the two curves east and west to north?

(ETA - and of course the north-south line that still has platforms)

not of course that the historic existence of platforms make a station easy to open - like the ideas with some of the closed stations on the underground, any 'new' station built now would have to meet current legislation and standards in a way that a station that's been open since the year dot doesn't...

 

[teuchter]

i don't think there ever were platforms on the east-west line at loughborough junction, were there? just the two curves east and west to north?

That's right yes.

 

[CH1]

Better than nothing but it's quite close to the Denmark Hill stop and still leaves a big gap before Clapham. A shame they couldn't place it edge of Brixton centre (like Valentia Place) without the need to build a big interchange.

Yes - if Lambeth had had any imagination in their planning department they might have tried conditioning the planning application for the three Towerettes behind Mama Dough through to rhe erstwhile Gresham Spares/Brixton Cake Shop on Coldharbour Lane to produce new Overground platforms exactly where you are talking about.

Alas Lambeth's primary concern seems to be to maximise corporate profits whilst producing the sort of cognitive dissonance even David Lynch would be bored and repelled by. Behold Coal Lane:

 

[Crispy]

I've got some imagination in my planning department. Hire me now Lambeth.

1. Compulsary purchase the land behind Body Shop - Superdrug.
2. Build platforms from there to Ferndale (easily long enough for 100m OG trains)
3. OG station entrance on Turnstall Road opposite the Bowie mural
4. New escalators down to the far end of the Victoria line platforms
5. Open up Bernays Grove - Nursery Road as a pedestrian/cycle link (with long term plan to open up the unit next to McDonalds on Acre Lane to allow a complete cycle bypass of the town centre)
6. Pay for it all with over-site spec development

 

[teuchter]

What, though, is actually the argument for a direct interchange between overground and Victoria line, that would justify a more complicated construction than would be needed at East Brixton?

I can't think of a lot of journeys using that interchange that couldn't be made in some other way. From the overground route through south London, you can change at Denmark Hill to get into central london via Thameslink, or at Clapham to access the tube.

The main benefit of the overground, in the Brixton area, as I see it would be to enable those east-west journeys across south London that are so slow by other means. East Brixton is a walkable distance to central Brixton and it's actually more equally spaced between the existing overground stops at Denmark Hill & Clapham North than central Brixton is (especially if you take into account the night time barrier to walking formed by Ruskin Park).

The more useful interchange, I'd say, would be between Overground and Sutton loop Thameslink. A direct interchange is not possible but a station at East Brixton would at least make a walkable one.

Here's the public transport accessibility map - red is good, green/blue is bad. A station at East Brixton would be close to that quite big green area. In particular it could have an impact combined with some bus route tweaks. Same applies to arguments in favour of re-opening Camberwell station.