First train runs on East London Railway

5 Oct. 2009: A Class 378 unit has run at slow speed along the East London Railway, which is to join the Transport for London Overground network next year. The train made its first test run today from the new depot at New Cross Gate to Dalston Junction station.

Bombardier-built unit 378.004 kept to just 10mph (16km/h), but Transport for London said further tests would now be arranged at increasing speeds in preparation for the opening of the route, which is expected by June next year.

East London Railway trains will continue south beyond New Cross Gate over Network Rail infrastructure to Crystal Palace and West Croydon. The management of local stations on this section was transferred to Transport for London with the start of the new Southern franchise on 20 September. ELR trains will also continue north from Dalston Junction over the North London Railway as far as Highbury & Islington when renewal of the western curve connecting the two routes is completed later in 2010 or 2011.

The first part of the former East London Line between New Cross and New Cross Gate as far as Whitechapel (and Shoreditch in peak hours) opened to trains in 1869 between Wapping and Shadwell, having been converted from a pedestrian tunnel under the Thames built by Marc Brunel. Trains were extended over the rest of the route seven years later, and for many years it was used by main line trains. The last of these ran in 1913, when the line became part of the Metropolitan Railway.

After the creation of London Transport in 1933 it was treated as an outpost of the Metropolitan Line, but around 1980 it was given the separate title of East London Line. It closed for modernisation in 2007.