Passengers on booming North London Overground line ‘have to wait in rain’

Published: 20 August, 2010
by PETER GRUNER

PLATFORM shelter for passengers in bad weather is “woefully” inadequate on the much-improved North London Overground line, railway campaigners warned this week.

The Gospel Oak to Barking Users Group has congratulated Transport for London (TfL) on the introduction of a £260million fleet of air-conditioned trains last year on the former “Cinderella” line.

But it argues that there is still serious peak-time overcrowding at Highbury and Islington station and stops between Gospel Oak and Crouch Hill.

TfL now runs four trains an hour and that is expected to double by next year.

Richard Prout, chairman of the users’ group, said: “Our biggest gripe is the lack of new shelters at certain stations, including Upper Holloway, Crouch Hill and Barnsbury and Caledonian. They have the existing shelters put up about 12 years ago, but with the huge increases in passengers they are woefully small.

“For example, on a cold wet day you might get about 15 people huddling in a platform shelter. But that means another 15 or more have to stand in the rain. 

“Since all the improvements, you are now getting more than 30 to 40 people waiting for trains. At Upper Holloway at peak time recently I counted 60 people waiting for a train.”

But he praised the vigilance of staff in deterring vandals. 

“That is one of the benefits of having CCTV,” he said. “I’ve only been aware of one serious appearance of graffiti at Crouch Hill station and that was cleared within a week. Graffiti is a problem, however, on the line away from the stations. The rail operators have to deal with it the best they can.

“Anti-social behaviour at stations is also kept to a minimum because of the very fact that there are so many people around and the line is becoming so busy.”