Image courtesy of Haydn Davies
The services, which run through Bethnal Green and Hackney, link
Enfield Town, Cheshunt and Chingford to Liverpool Street station. They
will appear on the Tube map as part of the Overground from next year.
The
latest extension will include stations for White Hart Lane, Stoke
Newington, Stamford Hill and London Fields, all of which will link to
Liverpool Street via Hackney Downs.
The takeover of the suburban
West Anglia main line is part of TfL’s wider adoption of National Rail
lines serving London, revealed in its latest business plan.
Mike
Stubbs, TfL’s Director of London Overground, said: “In July 2013 the
Secretary of State agreed to devolve some West Anglia main line services
to the Mayor and we are working with the Department for Transport and
Abellio Greater Anglia to deliver a full transfer in 2015.”
Demand
for London Overground services has grown by 160 per cent in the past
five years, and when the east London section opened in 2010 overall
demand quadrupled.
Ray King, 68, of the Cambridge Heath and London
Fields Rail Users Group, said: “We’ve been campaigning for better
transport networks for this area for over 13 years now and the service
previously has been minuscule.
“Hundreds of rail users in this
area say they need an improved service and the stations and trains are
shoddy and in disrepair.” When TfL acquires the West Anglia inner
suburban services it will replace the 30-year-old carriages with 30 new
four-car electric units, as well as procuring electric trains for the
Gospel Oak to Barking line of the Overground.
There are also plans to upgrade 23 Overground stations by 2016.
A
spokesman for Abellio Greater Anglia said: “We have delivered
performance improvements on the West Anglia inner network since taking
over the franchise in February 2012.”
