For a while now taking an Overground train from Liverpool Street has felt a bit like stepping into a time warp. The line has the unwanted distinction of carrying the oldest trains on the entire Overground network – commuters along the Lea Valley route have been trundling into the City in the same rattling carriages since 1982.
Change is coming
But change is coming to this long neglected stretch of London’s railway. Last week the first of a brand-new fleet of Overground trains rolled into view, bringing with it all the mod cons necessary to the modern traveller.
I’ve never been a fan of the Overground. Once you get used to trains coming every 90 seconds on the Victoria line, a 12-minute wait above ground at Highbury & Islington seems like an eternity.
Roomier carriages
But maybe the new and improved Overground has something to offer. According to Transport for London, the trains are roomier (10 per cent bigger than the old fleet, if size is your concern), and promise a smoother ride. Gone are the awkward seating arrangements, the windows dimmed by years of scrubbed-out graffiti, and that weird musty smell that seems to only exist on public transport and in your Grandma’s living room.
At first glance, they don’t seem all that different to the trains that have been running on the District line since 2013. But a closer look reveals a whole host of new features: air-con, free WiFi, USB charging points, and even a new seat cushion design. Carriages also feature boards with real-time network updates, though, confusingly, they appear to only give information for Underground lines.
This might all seem like good news, but there are definite drawbacks. Free WiFi and a fully charged phone may be attractive for some, but for others it’s one less excuse to avoid answering that urgent work email. The location of the charging points is another problem – rather than being next to seats, as on other trains, the sockets can be found in the walkway between the carriages, forcing anyone using them to stand facing the wall for the whole of the journey.
Accessibility still needs to improve
Accessibility also remains an issue, with the new trains too high to allow wheelchair users to board unassisted. Tomas Rey, a disability access campaigner and founder of Step Free London, says that, while the new trains are an improvement, they still lack basic accessibility. “10 years after the Equality Act, we have new non-level boarding trains being introduced while level boarding ones are parked one platform away*” he says. “TfL has not made any kind of aspiration to expand level boarding throughout its Overground network”.
Rey believes that, along with improving step-free access to stations, TfL should prioritise level boarding on its platforms. He says London lags well behind other UK cities: Liverpool’s Merseyrail plans to have level boarding trains operating across its network by the end of this year. Meanwhile, the new Overground trains “will hinder the introduction of level boarding for the 25-40 years that they will be in service”.
True to form, the arrival of the new Class 710 trains was delayed by over a year, launching first on the busy Gospel Oak to Barking line in May 2019. Only one of these trains is currently operating on the Lea Valley line, departing Liverpool Street on an hourly basis, but TfL has confirmed to the Post that a second is due to be brought into service later this month. A full overhaul is expected to be completed by the summer.
It is unclear whether TfL has any plans to improve the reliability of the network. But at least now when you get stuck between Hackney Downs and Clapton for 20 minutes after yet another signal failure, you’ll be in a nice shiny new train.
*The Stansted Express, which runs on the same line, offers level boarding, allowing wheelchair users to board trains unassisted.
What Do You Think of the Overground’s New Trains?
Patti (58) Artist “The old trains were too short, so having the bigger carriages could be fairly useful, but it’s a relatively short journey. The bigger problem is the service, it’s not frequent enough for the amount of people that use it now, and the engineering works every weekend make it worse”
Ben (46) Teacher “We go with classes on [the Overground] for trips. This is the first time we’ve been on the new ones. It’s so much better. It’s cleaner, smoother, there’s more room. If only they ran on time!”
Andre (9) Year 5 “I think these trains are amazing. They’re really comfy, and they said they’re more green as well. And it’s also got free WiFi!”
Noura (41) Stay at home mum “I think the practicality of it is better. When you think of how many people get on in the morning, it’ll be a lot easier with the pushchair.”
Glenn (72) Retired “I’m not a fan of the new seating arrangement, you can’t look out the window anymore. It’s a bit cleaner, but apart from that there’s not much difference.”
Asha (36) Social worker “I’d never seen these new trains before, it’s a lot cleaner and nicer to be on. The old trains were really loud so this is an improvement. I don’t really see the need for the wifi, it’s a short journey isn’t it – it’s only 25 minutes to Chingford – but I guess you might as well use it since it’s there.”
