The New Cross/New Cross Gate Situation 

And our guest publication this week... is "Escargot News"... :o)

Seems a travesty to name it "Escargot" when it's actually where "Estraingot". ... I'll show myself out.

On the anagram map Telegraph Hill could be "Heal the ill grape"

Is there a good anagram of Telegraph Hill? I did find "“Her Gallipot Hell” , whatever a gallipot is.

Nonsense. As everyone knows Telegraph Hill is in San Francisco.

It’s not often that something involving trains and rescheduled works flawlessly, but if anyone can make it work, Jago can!

It really did

a wonderful prescience, I had to replay it to be sure - bravo

The trains from London Bridge to New Cross Gate are now only every 30 minutes even the rush hour (despite lobbying Southern not interested in restoring pre-covid levels). That means the average journey time is 27 minutes for 5 miles which is ridiculous. It's a choice however I have to make often having to travel to/from Chartered Accountants' Hall in Moorgate.

Excellent explanation of a very complicated railway system how about caterham and lbscr and ser

There’s also two Catfords and three West Hampsteads.

LOL LOL LOL Now you've given me something else to wonder about 😀@@rahimjoseph211

Thank you, Jago! I do genuinely love your videos.

2018, when the new Thameslink timetable was implemented. But apart from a brief period when we blissfully enjoyed a direct service to East Croydon and Gatwick Airport for a few years until 2018, they've been largely disused during the whole time I've lived in the area (since 1989). At least they never removed them like they did with the fast platforms at New Cross.

Had the line continued it = would cut the town in half and reconnect with the Hertford loop line at Gordon Hill station ~ 🤨 very awkward, unless the railway is buried into a tunnel from the station and resurfaces in the holtwhites hill cricket ground; and the blocks of flats I can see from the back of our house wouldn’t exist/the estate being cut in half with railway infrastructure

Well, we got a public transport focused Deputy PM in Tony Blair's government with John Prescott ... I had high hopes but they were shattered.

You say that as if they didn't completely gut Genotin Road and redevelop Church Street and London Road back in the '00s. Actually I think they're nearly done with the further expansion they started a few years ago. Plus the station has been there since the 1800s. They were already carving their way through North London to build it. But you're right. There could be a tunnel that extends the line further. I like that idea a lot! More trains in Enfield, please!

Yes: Catford and Catford Bridge for example. They are also very close to each other.

@@John2Ward Until the grouping London Victoria used to be two separate stations.

Perhaps Shepherd's Bush? Until fairly recently the name was on two stations which were actually a good walk apart.

Interesting question whether Overground trains could be extended through to Lewisham which is a more useful interchange, or even down one of the lines towards Dartford. The connectivity at both ends of the Dalston Junction - New Cross service is poor especially as not many main line trains stop at New Cross.

@@iankemp1131 Problem is that the section from New Cross to Lewisham is already full to capacity.

Sounds like a cool idea, though unlikely to happen: the space around Surrey Canal Road is largely occupied by industry and is gradually being redeveloped as dense 'mixed use'. There's actually space reserved for a station on Surrey Canal Road but only on the Overground branch to Clapham Junction. It's supposed to happen when the adjacent site around Millwall's New Den stadium gets redeveloped.

Also the Fantastic band Dire Straits began in Deptford where Mark Knopfler shared a flat with another band member, there is a Blue Plaque up, and Wrote a song " Telegraph Road " maybe after Telegraph Hill

It got to Greenwich pretty quickly though - a temporary station in 1838 and the present one in 1840. But thanks for the pub quiz answer, see if it ever comes in useful!

Ah - I thought that ramp was for the toffs to drive up in their coaches so they didn't have to climb the stairs.

Bit shallower than 90 deg I think! The ramp was restored a few years back and you can use it to access the up platform.

@@desdemoor at 90 degrees to the lines, ie “at a right angle” to the line, and NOT 90 degrees steep

Way back when, immediately after you left the main line station, on the right, there was an entirely separate station for what are now the Overground lines with an exit in what is now Goodwood Road.

Thanks for that, I will look it up, as I recently bought the London Railway atlas by Joe Brown of TFL.@@malcolmbacchus866

They used to. Southern had a semi-fast, calling at Norwood Junction after New Cross Gate and a stopping service to Croydon. The first went when the new Thameslink services opened, then the stopper went at time of Covid and never came back.

Indeed. I've lived in the area pretty much equidistant from New Cross and New Cross Gate for many years and though the Overground has been a major improvement, traditional National Rail services at both stations have notably declined, particularly at New Cross Gate. A few years back it had a Southern service with 8 tph in both directions, including a half-hourly fast train to Gatwick Airport and Horsham that ran non-stop to East Croydon. That went with the completion of the Thameslink project and the suburban trains were never fully restored after Covid, with the last direct East Croydon services withdrawn in 2022. It now only gets 2 tph each way between London Bridge and London Victoria via Crystal Palace and Clapham Junction, a quirky and occasionally useful little line that Jago should probably do a video about if he hasn't already, but not one large numbers of passengers want to use. Thameslink trains have always run through fast though there are platforms for them to stop. The Bakerloo Line extension plans include an interchange at NXG so if/when that ever happens, maybe they'll stop the Thameslink. New Cross still has a decent level of service to London Bridge on Southeastern, 6 tph, but they all continue to Cannon Street: the direct connection to Charing Cross was another Thameslink casualty. In the other direction they continue to various suburban southeast London destinations. Fast trains run through -- the platforms on the fast lines were removed many years ago -- and if you want to continue reach anywhere more far-flung in Kent or East Sussex it's almost always quicker to go to London Bridge and back out again.

@@desdemoor @ianjemma Thank you both for your very helpful replies. So the obvious implication would be to restore the stops on the Thameslink service. It's ironic as it's a through service from Peterborough to Horsham with 23 intermediate stops and taking nearly 3 hours. But there might be a time constraint on the local London section.

A generic point is "inner London suburb hubs" (a few miles out of the termini) and their National Rail service. For example, Finsbury Park and Stratford are very effective with all outer-suburban trains stopping. Clapham Junction is excellent for the Southern but a bit patchy for SWR especially in peak hours. Lewisham is better than New Cross, and New Cross Gate has seriously declined as noted above. West Hampstead and Willesden are less useful than they might be due to loss of platforms on through lines. All these locations offer possibilities to get from longer-distance destinations to London suburbs without going into the termini. At one stage I was considering working at Brentford and it was remarkably difficult to get there from reasonably affordable areas in Hampshire.

@@iankemp1131 Not sure what the issue is, it might be station capacity too, they're afraid of increased footfall as even with the Overground improvements NXG still has relatively restricted circulating areas (though nowhere near as awful as Norwood Junction with its narrow subways and steep steps and no lifts, where you now need to change if heading for East Croydon and points south). It's not just the Horsham service, all Thameslink trains on the Brighton line pass through the fast platforms without stopping.

As Jago suggests in his video, the lines used to connect at New Cross, with SER trains via the East London Railway continuing to Lewisham and beyond, but the London Overground platform (D) is now a bay with a buffer stop and the 1970s station buildings blocking the way beyond (originally the buildings were on the bridge carrying New Cross Road over the railway). When the Overground was planned, they did consider reconnecting it and continuing to Lewisham, which is also a DLR station, but the idea was abandoned partly due to cost and partly I believe because of capacity issues and conflicting movements on the lines to/from London Bridge. There have been other proposals: the Jubilee Line, when it was still known as the Fleet Line, was originally planned to serve underground platforms at New Cross, before emerging alongside what were then the BR SR tracks into Lewisham. They even dug a test tunnel at New Cross which still exists though is sealed off -- I'm sure you'll find videos on RU-vid about it. There's also long been talk of an extended Bakerloo Line reaching New Cross before taking over the Hayes line currently operated by Southeastern. I believe the latest Bakerloo Line extenstion plans are to serve New Cross Gate instead and continue underground to terminate at Lewisham, with the Hayes line option still possible for the future.

From Eastbourne you couldn't easily* get to New Cross without going through New Cross Gate and doubling back at London Bridge, which would take much longer than walking between the two and cost more. So the ticket you were sold was the correct one. (*if you really insisted, you could have gone via Hastings and Orpington, but why would you do that?)

"Thespis" with lyrics by W S Gilbert is probably about as close as it gets, with a song beginning: "I once knew a chap who discharged a function On the North East South West Diddlesex Junction."

As do the Elizabeth Line platforms at the Underground core stations. Also Waterloo East. Aren’t the new Thameslink platforms at St. Pancras also lettered. Thinking of platforms 9 3/4 at King’s Cross, has there ever been a real platform anywhere that actually had a fractional number?

@@srfurley Yes Thameslink platforms at London St Pancras International are A (southbound) and B.

@@memofromessex You seem to be lacking power. I hope you're not ill.

I think (please correct me if I'm wrong) there was through-running for quite a while.

@@surreygoldprospector576 There was indeed, though much more of freight trains than passenger. Both the East London line and the Snow Hill tunnel (now Thameslink) were very useful for this in the 19th and early 20th century.

Current plans are for a stop at New Cross Gate, though New Cross was talked about in the past.

There is a 3 station section of line in parallel in West Yorkshire - both the Lancashire and Yorkshire and Great Northern served Cleckheaton, Liversedge and Heckmondwike. Neither line survived Beeching :(

The 'Old Cross' was the original Cross Inn at the road junction. When a second inn was added, it was called the New Cross Inn and ultimately the area was named after that.

Both are still there. New Cross House is more of a sit down pub while New Cross inn is a music venue

@@turnonmyaxel ah, it was the left side one as you head for Lewisham (? long long time) that was a lunchtime destination.

😊 I seem to recall the one on the left hand side - heading toward New Cross station - was an "Irish Pub" ('frequented' by my Mum & stepdad ...with me,as a youngster, either left outside in the car with a bottle of lemonade, an 'arrowroot' biscuit, & a packet of "Smith's salt 'n' shake crisps" & sometimes, a nice big pickled egg!! 😊 ...or upstairs in the Pub's non-drinking rooms!!) 😮😊🇮🇪🧡🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🖖

When I lived there one of these two were "Irish" pubs and you could buy the United Irishman there. I was born in 1939 (117 Pepys Rd). Moved north in the 60s. New Cross Gate station was still a terminus then.

I think Jago would applaud the weirdness of your comment.

@@Ed-kv2vb it appears you are correct...

​@@Ed-kv2vb😮 Hardly "weird" per se...?! It's the play on words of the Simon & Garfunkel song, 🇺🇸🎵"The Only Living Boy In New York" 🇺🇸🎵🤔🧡🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿😊🖖

​@@brigidsingleton1596 Carter USM

I think it's more that the New Cross service was already extant and provided some useful connections on to the South Eastern lines. So they wouldn't want to go through the rigmarole of trying to close it, especially with all the publicity (rightly) about what an upgrade the new Overground service was.

The new station was going to be on what is now the Sainsburys store, but the Bakerloo ain't going to be extended in my lifetime and I think it has been permanently shelved.

⁠True. 👍

While waiting for that to happen, you'll have time to go to Monaco-Monte Carlo and look at the underground main line station there.