. In 1979 the then Office of Scientific Services of London Underground recommended that serious consideration be given to moving the crossover identified as a chief cause of noise and vibration in Brandon Mews. In relation to this: - what consideration has been given to moving the crossover? - how often has the crossover(s) beneath Brandon Mews (western approach to Moorgate station) been used from 1.1.18 to 30.6.18 for scheduled train movements? - how often has the crossover(s) beneath Brandon Mews (western approach to Moorgate station) been used from 1.1.18 to 30.6.18 for any train movements?

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TfL Ref: 0649-1819

Thank you for your request received by Transport for London (TfL) on 11 June 2018 asking for information about the crossover beneath Brandon Mews in the Barbican.

Your request has been considered in accordance with the requirements of the Environmental Information Regulations and our information access policy. I can confirm that we hold the information you require.  You asked:

. In 1979 the then Office of Scientific Services of London Underground recommended that serious consideration be given to moving the crossover identified as a chief cause of noise and vibration in Brandon Mews. In relation to this:

- what consideration has been given to moving the crossover?

- how often has the crossover(s) beneath Brandon Mews (western approach to Moorgate station) been used from 1.1.18 to 30.6.18 for scheduled train movements?

- how often has the crossover(s) beneath Brandon Mews (western approach to Moorgate station) been used from 1.1.18 to 30.6.18 for any train movements?

The final track configuration for the Four Lines Modernisation Programme has been reviewed throughout the sub surface network. This review has concluded that these crossovers are required in their current location. The transfer paths for maintenance would need to be re-routed via the south side of the Circle and would take much longer, leading to a considerable uplift in terms of additional train operator time. The scheduled passenger movements assist the build-up and ramp down of service at weekends and early / late services or engineering hours would be have to be reduced without the facility at Moorgate. There are therefore no plans to move them as the operational flexibility that they offer is deemed to be required for the upgraded railway.

Trains using the crossovers at Moorgate do so to reverse, mostly from eastbound to westbound and each reversing train will use the crossovers twice.

There are six scheduled paths for trains to reverse at Moorgate on Mondays to Fridays, one on Saturdays and two on Sundays. The weekday paths are ‘transfer paths’ which allow S Stock trains to be moved between depots for maintenance and for this reason, not all are required every day. If each ran, there would have been 1560 weekday movements. Those on Saturdays and Sundays are passenger trains and if all have run, there would have been 152 movements of scheduled passenger trains in the six month period covered by your request.

Actual Data from trains reversing at Moorgate is patchy because the majority of the maintenance transfer paths described above do not show up in the data and for this reason it is the recorded total should be considered the minimum number of movements and it is possible that the ‘actual’ total is much higher. According to NETMIS, the system that records Trackernet data, there were 1274 (mostly passenger) reversing movements in the six months from 1 January 2018 to 30 June 2018. Most of these were not scheduled movements.

In addition to the normal eastbound to westbound reversal, it is possible to reverse from westbound to eastbound at Moorgate using these crossovers, however a standard query of NETMIS does not return records of these movements. These would only occur occasionally, either during disruption or planned engineering works. Also not recorded will be any use by engineering vehicles during works outside of normal traffic hours (that is at night). Some track replacement works took place on at least one weekend during this period and it is likely that the crossovers were used during this work.

If this is not the information you are looking for, or if you are unable to access it for any reason, please do not hesitate to contact me.

Please see the attached information sheet for details of your right to appeal as well as information on copyright and what to do if you would like to re-use any of the information we have disclosed.

Yours sincerely

Sara Thomas

FOI Case Management Team

General Counsel

Transport for London

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