Crossrail

[mjr]

To spend billions on a train that gets people from the Ally Pally to Wimbledon just seems very short sighted and unambitious.

Particularly when there are already at least three sets of rails already doing that: the disused King's Cross Tunnels, the new Thameslink 2000 tunnels and the North/West London Lines.

 

[StuAff]

[QUOTE 4197373, member: 259"]A direct rail connection between Crystal Palace and Kentish Town would have meant I could have had an extra couple of pints of terrible beer at the Town and Country Club without having to endure the bladder busting night bus [/QUOTE]
Ahem, think you mean the Forum (name changed in 1992!)

 

[Over The Hill]

I wouldn't have thought it's as high as 95% as I doubt I'm that much alone in trying to live one train ride away from work.

However you also need to factor in hubs so from the outskirts of Glasgow to Glasgow (1 train), Glasgow to London (2 trains), Underground to another London station (3 trains), train to Paris (4 trains), Metro (5 trains), train to destination (6). Now I don't feel it should be beyond the wit of man in 2016 to have one train do a lot of that and also allow people to board and leave the train en route. In fact iirc correctly one of the drivers for the Channel Tunnel was the Glasgow to Paris idea but it never materialised. To spend billions on a train that gets people from the Ally Pally to Wimbledon just seems very short sighted and unambitious.

From their website-

• Crossrail is Europe’s largest construction project – work started in May 2009 and there are currently over 10,000 people working across over 40 construction sites.

• Over 100 million working hours have been completed on the Crossrail project so far.

• Crossrail will transform rail transport in London and the south east, increasing central London rail capacity by 10%, supporting regeneration and cutting journey times across the city.

• The Crossrail route will run over 100km from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through new tunnels under central London to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.

• There will be 40 Crossrail stations including 10 new stations at Paddington, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Liverpool Street, Whitechapel, Canary Wharf, Custom House, Woolwich and Abbey Wood.

• Crossrail will bring an extra 1.5 million people to within 45 minutes of central London and will link London’s key employment, leisure and business districts – Heathrow, West End, the City, Docklands – enabling further economic development.

• The first Crossrail services through central London will start in late 2018 – an estimated 200 million annual passengers will use Crossrail.

• Construction of the new railway will support regeneration across the capital and add an estimated £42bn to the economy of the UK.

• The total funding envelope available to deliver Crossrail is £14.8bn.

I am really at a loss to see how the biggest construction project in Europe is unambitious.

You also seem to miss the general principle of public transport - it is no a door-to-door taxi but a set of common routes you share with others if there are enough to make it viable. You will get a Paris to Glasgow train if there are enough people in Paris who want to get to Glasgow to fill a train every hour. There clearly is not so they do not run this service. There are enough people who want to get from Paris to London to lay on this route with people then going on to hundreds of other destinations from London.

 

[midlife]

From their website-

• Crossrail is Europe’s largest construction project – work started in May 2009 and there are currently over 10,000 people working across over 40 construction sites.

• Over 100 million working hours have been completed on the Crossrail project so far.

• Crossrail will transform rail transport in London and the south east, increasing central London rail capacity by 10%, supporting regeneration and cutting journey times across the city.

• The Crossrail route will run over 100km from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through new tunnels under central London to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.

• There will be 40 Crossrail stations including 10 new stations at Paddington, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Liverpool Street, Whitechapel, Canary Wharf, Custom House, Woolwich and Abbey Wood.

• Crossrail will bring an extra 1.5 million people to within 45 minutes of central London and will link London’s key employment, leisure and business districts – Heathrow, West End, the City, Docklands – enabling further economic development.

• The first Crossrail services through central London will start in late 2018 – an estimated 200 million annual passengers will use Crossrail.

• Construction of the new railway will support regeneration across the capital and add an estimated £42bn to the economy of the UK.

• The total funding envelope available to deliver Crossrail is £14.8bn.

I am really at a loss to see how the biggest construction project in Europe is unambitious.

You also seem to miss the general principle of public transport - it is no a door-to-door taxi but a set of common routes you share with others if there are enough to make it viable. You will get a Paris to Glasgow train if there are enough people in Paris who want to get to Glasgow to fill a train every hour. There clearly is not so they do not run this service. There are enough people who want to get from Paris to London to lay on this route with people then going on to hundreds of other destinations from London.

About the same cost as the failed NHS electronic records system then

Crossrail II is projected at £30 Billion

Shaun

 

[martint235]

From their website-

• Crossrail is Europe’s largest construction project – work started in May 2009 and there are currently over 10,000 people working across over 40 construction sites.

• Over 100 million working hours have been completed on the Crossrail project so far.

• Crossrail will transform rail transport in London and the south east, increasing central London rail capacity by 10%, supporting regeneration and cutting journey times across the city.

• The Crossrail route will run over 100km from Reading and Heathrow in the west, through new tunnels under central London to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east.

• There will be 40 Crossrail stations including 10 new stations at Paddington, Bond Street, Tottenham Court Road, Farringdon, Liverpool Street, Whitechapel, Canary Wharf, Custom House, Woolwich and Abbey Wood.

• Crossrail will bring an extra 1.5 million people to within 45 minutes of central London and will link London’s key employment, leisure and business districts – Heathrow, West End, the City, Docklands – enabling further economic development.

• The first Crossrail services through central London will start in late 2018 – an estimated 200 million annual passengers will use Crossrail.

• Construction of the new railway will support regeneration across the capital and add an estimated £42bn to the economy of the UK.

• The total funding envelope available to deliver Crossrail is £14.8bn.

I am really at a loss to see how the biggest construction project in Europe is unambitious.

You also seem to miss the general principle of public transport - it is no a door-to-door taxi but a set of common routes you share with others if there are enough to make it viable. You will get a Paris to Glasgow train if there are enough people in Paris who want to get to Glasgow to fill a train every hour. There clearly is not so they do not run this service. There are enough people who want to get from Paris to London to lay on this route with people then going on to hundreds of other destinations from London.

I do understand it's not a taxi service. The unambitious side is not opening the connections either side. Maybe there aren't a lot of people who want to go at 10am (for example) between Glasgow and Paris but I bet there's enough people to fill a train of who want to go from Glasgow to London, Glasgow to Birmingham, Birmingham to Ashford, Birmingham to Paris, London to Paris etc. That's what is unambitious. It wouldn't have cost much more than the £14bn to link one end of the Crossrail line to the GWR and West Coast Main Line and the other end to the Channel Tunnel link.

 

[subaqua]

To be fair the Shenfield to Stratford service is a stopping one even on Crossrail, so will be slow , the fast bit is the underground bit . so with 2 changes Stratford and Paddington ( or reading if the services onward will stop there) I could go from Harwich to Penzance easily.

there isn't a need to duplicate lines .

 

[Over The Hill]

I do understand it's not a taxi service. The unambitious side is not opening the connections either side. Maybe there aren't a lot of people who want to go at 10am (for example) between Glasgow and Paris but I bet there's enough people to fill a train of who want to go from Glasgow to London, Glasgow to Birmingham, Birmingham to Ashford, Birmingham to Paris, London to Paris etc. That's what is unambitious. It wouldn't have cost much more than the £14bn to link one end of the Crossrail line to the GWR and West Coast Main Line and the other end to the Channel Tunnel link.

It is probably the same reason that all the other underground lines terminate fairly close to London and for example the Northern line terminates at High Barnet and does not keep on going up to Glasgow (even though it is just yards from the main BR line north) .
My guess is that the trains serving confined underground lines and stations are not quite the same as high-speed intercity trains. I am not sure that a little tube train rattling along at 60mph to Glasgow would be all that popular. My guess is that people would be happier to take ten minutes to change at Kings Cross to get on a train that will get there today rather than tomorrow.

 

[mjr]

My guess is that the trains serving confined underground lines and stations are not quite the same as high-speed intercity trains.

Except when the Eurostar and TGVs go through parts of London and Lille underground?

I am not sure that a little tube train rattling along at 60mph to Glasgow would be all that popular.

Is that a criticism of the "new" British Rail Class 230, maximum speed 60mph, coming to provincial rail networks near you soon?

View: https://vimeo.com/120479904

 

[martint235]

It is probably the same reason that all the other underground lines terminate fairly close to London and for example the Northern line terminates at High Barnet and does not keep on going up to Glasgow (even though it is just yards from the main BR line north) .
My guess is that the trains serving confined underground lines and stations are not quite the same as high-speed intercity trains. I am not sure that a little tube train rattling along at 60mph to Glasgow would be all that popular. My guess is that people would be happier to take ten minutes to change at Kings Cross to get on a train that will get there today rather than tomorrow.

As pointed out, you can run a high speed train underground. You can also have lines for stopper trains. The idea of a stopper train isn't new and in my example I wouldn't be expecting the Glasgow to Milan train to stop at Milton Keynes. I'm also not proposing doing away with Metro services but someone should be looking at these things holistically and joining simple stuff up.

 

[subaqua]

Except when the Eurostar and TGVs go through parts of London and Lille underground?


Is that a criticism of the "new" British Rail Class 230, maximum speed 60mph, coming to provincial rail networks near you soon?

View: https://vimeo.com/120479904

err which bit of Eurostar goes on London underground lines. its a dedicated line for the Eurostar and HS1 from St Pancras to Ashford. the HS lines from Ebbsfleet can share same Kent commuter lines and can be slow but generally timetable works well. hence me being able to get to Canterbury in 50 minutes from Stratford. St Pancras adds 7 minutes on to each journey.

it gets slow and clunky from Ebbsfleet to Maidstone as you use the existing infrastructure and thats why that takes 50 Mins but is shorter than to Canterbury

 

[mjr]

err which bit of Eurostar goes on London underground lines

None of it. It was an example of an underground line used by high-speed trains, not necessarily a London Underground one.

Anyway, which part of Crossrail 2 will be current LU lines? I thought this was discussing whether a new cross-London high-speed line would be better than Yet Another Metro line.

 

[martint235]

None of it. It was an example of an underground line used by high-speed trains, not necessarily a London Underground one.

Anyway, which part of Crossrail 2 will be current LU lines? I thought this was discussing whether a new cross-London high-speed line would be better than Yet Another Metro line.

I thought we were discussing whether it would have been better to build a new national/International High speed line that has a couple of stops underneath London?

 

[Over The Hill]

I thought we were discussing whether it would have been better to build a new national/International High speed line that has a couple of stops underneath London?

So really you just want HS2 instead of Crossrail and somehow want trains to run from every city of any size in the UK directly to all other cities in the UK and Europe.

 

[subaqua]

So really you just want HS2 instead of Crossrail and somehow want trains to run from every city of any size in the UK directly to all other cities in the UK and Europe.

Why not . Be better than spending billions on state pensions for old farts bleeding the system dry.

 

[mjr]

So really you just want HS2 instead of Crossrail and somehow want trains to run from every city of any size in the UK directly to all other cities in the UK and Europe.

Except that HS2 still isn't planned to connect to HS1 or anything beyond London - because a half mile tunnel under Camden is clearly far more controversial than 120 miles through green fields of the Midlands and Home Counties and no-one wants to go anywhere without stopping for a couple of interchanges in the centre of the universe that is London, do they? It's not like it's congested or anything...