Camden Road station – what next?

Featured in the Future Transport London Newsletter July 2026

By Neil Roth

Future Transport London had been campaigning (notably in Camden New Journal) for years against the proposed ‘temporary’ Camden Highline walkway, the collapse of which was announced on 12^th May 2026. It was a campaign on which all members are agreed: that the two, currently disused North London Line (NLL) tracks between Camden Road station and York Way, should be returned to railway use instead.

What cost-effective design of all four tracks in the vicinity of Camden Road station would now facilitate the maximum capacity, flexibility and reliability of passenger and freight trains through what is currently a bottleneck at this key location on London’s rail network? 

The above proposed layout would bring the two disused platforms (3 and 4) at Camden Road back into use and repurpose three platforms, as follows:

Platform 1 would be for all westbound trains, passenger and freight, as now.

Platform 2 trains would no longer call here: the tracks would be for eastbound trains heading towards St Pancras International and/or HS1. Those trains may have to wait for the junction ahead or the single line beyond it to clear: this track enables them to wait without obstructing other NLL train movements. It is the rail version of a right-turn lane.

Platform 3 This platform would be for reversing a shuttle service to/from Stratford (of perhaps 6 trains per hour) serving development areas in Hackney (pending Crossrail 2) and to relieve peak overcorwding on this section of the NLL.

Platform 4 would be for trains operating eastbound along the NLL (apart from those reversing at Camden Road).

The proposed layout respects the current pairing of the four track section east of Camden Roard station: the centre pair of tracks is used by London Overground trains and the outer pair by freight trains. It avoids conflicting moves so far as

possible without costly grade separation.

West of Camden Road station, where the NLL crosses Kentish Town Road (and there never were four tracks) the NLL cannot be widened without compulsory purchase of private property. However, the derelict bridges, which carried the, now, disused pair of NLL tracks east of Camden Road station can all reasonably be repaired or replaced.

Camden Road, platforms 1 and 2

As well as the Stratford shuttle, easing the Camden Road bottleneck would facilitate more trains between the West Coast Main Line (WCML) and St Pancras International and/or HS1. For example, the extra capacity could be exploited by a Javelin-type service linking Outer Suburban WCML stations with St Pancras International, intermediate stations along HS1and other destinations in Kent.

To call mid-journey at St Pancras International would require rapid reversal of the Javelins,  to minimise through journey times and for platform occupancy reasons. This might require the procedure known as ‘stepping back’ where the train has a different driver on departure from arrival, saving the time it takes the driver to walk the length of the train. Freight trains can by-pass St Pancras International, without reversal, via an existing track. These matters are all subject to timetable and demand studies.

What might have been

Proposed 10 years ago, the Euston Express scheme (please see the article in Newsletter 55) would only have worked if the number of WCML Outer Suburban services terminating at Euston had been reduced by diverting some of them from Willesden Junction to the Elizabeth line. It would then have brought HS2 to the surface  east of Queen’s Park (on its way to Euston) from where there is an existing pair of tracks to/from Camden Road. https://www.railtechnologymagazine.com/Rail-News/euston-express-hs2-alternative-would-save-37bn-lords-told 

HS2 and HS1 could have been linked via Camden Road. This link would obviously be far cheaper and easier to achieve than the Euston Cross scheme (also described in the same Newsletter 55 article) which would have provided a much higher capacity HS2-HS1 link than would seem to be justified by demand. https://www.railtechnologymagazine.com/Rail-News/peers-to-meet-hs2-officials-to-discuss-alternative-euston-cross-plan 

Neil Roth