A report from the Mayor of London’s office has outlined some aspirations for railway upgrades over the next couple of decades, including extending Crossrail and the Tram service.

The long suggested extension of Crossrail eastwards out towards Ebbsfleet is being supported by the Mayor’s office. An extension could support the 55,000 new homes and 50,000 new jobs planned along the route in Bexley and north Kent.

The project itself would need to be “government led”, implying no Mayoral funding for the extension.

One major proposal to get support is the West London Orbital railway, which could link Hounslow to North London by upgrading the freight-only Dudding Hill railway near Neasden.

Another plan that’s been in the system for years without being built is an extension of the tram network to Sutton.

In the longer term, a further extension beyond Sutton town centre to the planned London Cancer Hub at Belmont, which may accommodate up to 10,000 new jobs, will also be considered to support the full development of the site. Trams could also run direct from Sutton to Wimbledon, linking to Crossrail 2.

It’s noted that the funding has to be locally sourced though, again implying limited TfL funding for the extension.

One area that is being looked at as a possible way of funding a “major infrastructure project” is a Development Rights Auction Model (DRAM), where large plots of land around transport hubs are built up by TfL, and then sold off, with TfL taking a share of the profits.

This may be for Crossrail 2, as the property value uplift that came from Crossrail and the St Pancras improvements massively exceeded expectations.

One other possible addition is a new train station in Dagenham, on the C2C line halfway between Dagenham Dock and Rainham. This would be supported by an existing housing development planned at the nearby Beam Park.

Overall, the document is long on ambition, and lots of talk about how TfL will work with local partners to unlock opportunities, but no hard concrete plans were given additional funding at this stage.

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20 comments
  1. Adam says:

    The plans remind me of what Shakira said about her breasts – small and humble.

  2. R Dodd says:

    Nice idea but the rest of the country now needs rail and tram expansion London for far to long has had to much money spent on it to cost of the rest of UK there are more people pay tax’s etc out side London. They need to see these benefits as well. Let’s see 16 billion for West Midlands rail then for wales,northern England I can go on and on and that’s just one project!!!

    • Will Melbourne says:

      But London has the highest densities of taxpayers, meaning a project like this built in London will always serve more taxpayers than anywhere else in the country.

    • Duncan Martin says:

      If only so many of them weren’t engaged in facilitating tax avoidance, tax evasion and money laundering, thereby depriving all of us of the resources needed to deliver enhancements throughout the country.

    • Ian Visits says:

      As London taxpayers and developers are picking up the bill for these projects, they do not deprive other parts of the UK of funding for their own transport upgrades.

      Much better to ask why the regions aren’t willing/able to raise the funds locally, as London generally has to do.

    • Jimbo says:

      Ian – whilst I agree with your sentiment that the regions aren’t doing enough to fund their own projects, this document is rather lacking in details of how these enhancements will be funded. There are rather too many references to how the mayor and TfL will work with Network Rail/the boroughs/Central Government etc. which may be code for who the mayor expects to pay for the projects. I fear that Sadiq Khan is falling into the same trap the regions are in by expecting someone else to pay for it all.

    • Ben says:

      I can drive to north London with 20 minutes if allowed to park,but I have to take train all the way to central London and go all the way back up.nIt is crazy and useless. having a link from outside from home(live next door to the Cargo tracks)to Brent cross or hendon is Perfect and will ease up so much traffic on both North circular and the Jubilee line. Bring it on desperately need project.

  3. Taylor Smith says:

    It’s a RAILWAY station! Have you never completed school? Embarrassing

    • Andrew Gwilt says:

      @Taylor Smith. Who cares if people keep on saying train station than properly saying railway station. In the US they get mixed up with saying train station and railway station as some states have different accents and dialects. Different to how people speak in different accents & dialects no matter where you come from or which county you live in. Rather say “A station that trains do stop at and to serve passengers”.

    • Andrew Gwilt says:

      On Rail Magazine. They did a survey on how people say “Railway Station” or “Train Station” or either.

      Should the correct term be ‘train station’ or ‘railway station’?

      Train station = 8.8%
      Railway station = 78.4%
      It doesn’t make a difference = 12.8%

      https://www.railmagazine.com/polls

    • Ian Visits says:

      Asking a load of “industry insiders” what term is preferred will never get an answer that the general public use though.

    • SteveP says:

      I recall a similar complaint to The Times regarding this issue, and – as is quite common, apparently – the “American usage (train) was actually “more English” than “railway”. The editor explained that in many cases, American English has held onto older English usage, while Brits of more recent vintage have been schooled that however they were being taught was “proper” and anything else was rubbish. An interesting xenophobic trait most usually associated with Americans 🙂

      Train – Origin – Middle English (as a noun in the sense ‘delay’): from Old French train (masculine), traine (feminine), from trahiner (verb), from Latin trahere ‘pull, draw’. Early noun senses were ‘trailing part of a robe’ and ‘retinue’; the latter gave rise to ‘line of travelling people or vehicles’, later ‘a connected series of things’. The early verb sense ‘cause a plant to grow in a desired shape’ was the basis of the sense ‘instruct’.

      Railway – Oxford gives no origin, as the term is obviously a compound of rail and road. Amusingly, the US still uses the term “railroad” while the UK has been taught “railway”. And – perhaps obviously – both are much newer usages than “train” (not many roads made of rails in the days of Middle English 1150-1470).

      As a non-British, non-American English speaker, I am often bemused by the (often incorrect) British defense of “proper language” – a trait many criticise in the French. This is especially so when the words in question are perfectly understandable to the reader/listener. I suspect it is related to the great class struggle, along with accents marking an individual as “not my tribe”. How very Somalian.

  4. Andrew Gwilt says:

    Crossrail 2 would be beneficial for Southwest London. Not just Wimbledon. But Richmond, Twickenham, Brentford, Hounslow, Epsom and also would connect with Thameslink, London Overground and London Underground services from key stations. Whilst London Overground could extend to East Croydon.

    • Andrew Gwilt says:

      As you were talking about the proposed housing estate called Beam Park or Beam Reach development in Dagenham, East London.

      If that does get approved by the Mayor of London and other local authorities. Then a brand new railway station will also be built as part of the Beam Park housing development.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beam_Park_railway_station

  5. Alex Denne says:

    The Sutton Tramlink extension is a nice idea but the £230m funding deficit which Merton and Sutton council are supposed to put towards it is improbable.

    The Mayor has said that these councils need to be more ambitious in their plans to raise funds if the project is to go ahead.

    Despite 81% of residents being in favour of the tramlink extension proposed, I fear contacting local MPs is the only route forwards:

    For those keen on doing so:

    Local MPs
    Siobhain McDonagh MP
    Constituency Mitcham and Morden

    Rt Hon Tom Brake MP
    Constituency Carshalton and Wallington

    Stephen Hammond MP
    Constituency Wimbledon

  6. PJS says:

    Did the document make any mention of the DLR extension to Thamesmead?

  7. Sonning Cutting says:

    You don’t go to a road station to catch a bus so why do you go to a railway station to catch a train. Let’s have some logical rational thinking please; or are you all Brexiteers?

  8. Gerard Burton says:

    Nice idea this tram extension in the Sutton area. The Peckham to Camden Tramline should be looked at this would take pressure off the Northern Line and clear up the air a bit in Camden and Westminster areas.
    They should also do a new tube line from Bexley to Dagenham to take some pressure off the Blackwell Tunnell.

  9. SteveP says:

    There is an urban myth that the reason Yonge Street in Toronto* has a kink (being otherwise quite straight) was that the road builders on one end used true north as a reference but those coming south used magnetic north 🙂

    The actual reason is more prosaic – a considerable length of the downtown section was already in place when the decision was made to connect it with existing settlements to the north, so the “kink” was a necessity for them to meet.

    *Another myth is that it is “the longest street in the world”

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yonge_Street

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