The Orange Roundel

Sunday 31st May 2015 sees a new kind of light for regular commuters who travel with Abellio Greater Anglia as Transport for London (TfL) has incorporated some of their lines into the Overground and TfL Rail network.

317 513, an Abellio Greater Anglia 4-car class 317 stands at
Romford platform 1 with a service to Upminster.

It can be agreed that on this blog, most of the staff do not like traveling with train operating company Abellio Greater Anglia, and the nation agrees with us - with only 3 in 5 of us being satisfied with our journeys. 

It can be added that the trains are often dirty, slow and late. A lot of the blog's trips with this company often had a hitch. Let's look at some of the problems we've encountered.

1) I was on a express train coming back from Romford into London last summer, the train must have come from Colchester or Southend Victoria. Good service on all lines, the status board says. I hop on a packed train and left Romford at normal speed, and eventually was quick paced and gliding through Chadwell Heath within 2 minutes. Sounds alright, even without a seat. But of course there's more to the story as it turns out. The minute we hit Goodmayes, the train started to slow down, and by the time the train hit Seven Kings, the train was cruising at 15 mph. Driver tells us there is a good service and we should hit Stratford (which was the next station after Romford) shortly. It took us about 5 minutes to reach Ilford where the train had grinded to a halt. The train starts moving at 15 mph again, which at this point two Shenfield Metros (the slow, stopping trains) had overtaken us. This section ended up taking another 15 minutes to reach Stratford (from Ilford), when timetabled for 4. 

317 660 was the train, and it's seen here at Chingford.

2) Later that day I took a Chingford Branch Line train from Walthamstow Central. I was hoping a De ja vu would not occur again with the 'express' train as it is so-called. Well, luckily it didn't, but this company seems to have their stupid tricks at it again. A 317/6 turned up (there's two train cattle truck models used on this, the class 315 and the class 317). My expectations had already been lowered enough, so I wasn't anticipating things to get worse. I embarked the 'train', which by the way had a horrible odour, and I'm not sure if there was a fire or something, because the remains of it was a flood of tissues and takeaway boxes on the floor. 

I tiptoed around this to find a seat, which for understandable reasons in the state the train was, there was a few seats free - only to find candy wrapping on it, bubble gum and ripped seat covers. I looked in the 'First Class' section to see if there were seats. Sure there were seats, except that the seat backs had fallen onto the floor where someone must've spilt tea or coffee. I walked back into the standard class and just stood there, hoping Chingford would come quickly. The 13 minutes of horror was probably the longest 13 minutes of my life, but next time I think I'll just get the 97 or 212 to Chingford instead. 

317 513 again. this time at Upminster.

3) I decided to do that random Upminster - Romford line that will form one of the many lines on the Overground network one weekend not too long ago. Surprisingly earlier that day I had a nice train ride with Abellio for once - there was no problem. But my winning streak couldn't have lasted for long, no. For starters when I found out my train on platform 1 at Romford was a class 317, I had no expectations at all. I decided to hang around on the platform for 10 minutes and then go inside when there was only about 2 minutes left until departure time. 

This train was better than the 317/6 I boarded on that Chingford trip, to say the least. However it had it's flaws, and the branch line itself had flaws too. The train stunk quite badly, and the windows in my carriage were jammed shut. After a quick fight trying to open the windows, I decided to sit down. This line cannot get crowded, probably because barely anyone knows about it. It's hidden all the way behind Romford station concourse itself. You have to go through some passage to find it, as if it was a scavenger hunt. The line itself only has 3 stations and runs once every 30 minutes with no late evening or Sunday service. All 3 stations are fairly close to each other, but like a TfL bus route it's given so much running time, as all journeys are timetabled for 9 minutes. Because of this, the train goes at crawling speed throughout the whole 9 minute duration that you are taken away from civilisation.  In a nutshell, it was a fairly boring line.

315 803 is seen at Seven Sisters working the 1052 Enfield Town
to London Liverpool Street London Overground service.

After that trip, 31st May rolled around quickly, and so I did the new London Overground lines in the first week of them being taken over. I didn't bother doing the Romford - Upminster line as I had done it 3 weeks back, and found it boring. However, I did do the Lea Valley Lines, which forms of the London Liverpool Street to Chingford and Enfield Town routes, and the Liverpool Street to Cheshunt via Seven Sisters and Edmonton Green route. 

Lewis and I did the lines on the same day without realising who was covering what - Lewis managed to catch the refurbished class 315 and 317 Overground trains.

315813 is seen at Wood Street (Upper Walthamstow) working
 the 20:40 Chingford to London Liverpool Street London
Overground service.

Wood Street Station, Walthamstow.

As expected, none of the stations had a drastic makeover or anything like that. Those plans will probably be set out later when the new trains come along or somewhere in the next century. Nothing has changed except the roundels at the station - of which many were not changed at all. Most of the stations have the same design, it's like walking through an olden version of the Jubilee Line extension (the section Westminster - Stratford) where nearly all stations look exactly the same. Although one thing has changed, and that's that someone actually patrols the rather quiet stations - very quiet if you visit near the end of the lines (except Enfield Town, that's popular and busy). The lifeless stations are then bought resurrected by a rustbucket of a train that comes screeching in through the platform. On the new lines, the trains do screech a lot - particularly on the Chingford Branch Line. If there's any sort of hope the people that live near the tracks have, it has to be that there is noise reduction during LO's time on these rails.

The future rolling stock on these lines have been set as the Class 345 Aventra series, it may be, which is the same fleet to be used on the Crossrail services. Like now, Overground and Crossrail will use separate trains and will not intermix the units.

Interior of an unrefurbished class 315.

I guess we could hope that the future for these lines looks a lot brighter (with a difference). Sir Peter Hendy stating that having only slapped on TfL roundels on the stations taken over already makes the station feel safer is either a placebo he thinks works on passengers or is just a plain lie because he couldn't state something else.

Let's hope for the best anyways. I heard that the future's bright....the future's orange!

Stay safe and keep on spotting!