A weekly round-up of London’s rail transport news…
Photos from the Post Office railway tunnels
London Underground
A decision on whether to allow flats to be built on Tube station car parks has been pushed back to the new year. Local Independent
From late next February, Piccadilly line trains won’t be stopping at South Kensington tube station while escalator replacement works are carried out. ianVisits
An 82-year old tube roundel still in its original design has been restored outside Uxbridge tube station. ianVisits
Elizabeth line / Crossrail
The beleaguered Crossrail project reportedly risks being “mothballed” if further financial support is not provided soon by the Government, transport bosses have said. ITV
Crossrail has confirmed that it’s on target to start trial running of trains through the tunnels as soon as possible next year following successful tests in the past few weeks. ianVisits
London businesses urged the Government to “stop playing games” as concerns mounted that Crossrail would have to be mothballed due to an unresolved financial crisis. Standard
Spending Review: London’s Crossrail 2 funding stopped BBC News
Mainline / Overground
Millions face Christmas rail chaos during ‘lockdown lifting’ Independent
The first of South Western Railway’s fleet of 90 Class 701 trains will not enter service in December as planned. Rail
Network Rail has taken advantage of the lack of passengers during the lockdown and are using the extra-time for improvement works across two of London’s busiest railway lines. RTM
HS2 has invited five firms to bid to design, deliver and maintain almost 300 low-energy lifts and escalators for the first phase’s four major new stations. Construction Enquirer
Eurostar has appealed to the UK government for urgent financial support, warning it is “fighting for survival” with just one train a day now running from London to Paris. The Guardian
Solar power will be used on a major railway line into London from early 2022, the company behind the project said Reuters
The Battle to Save the UK’s Ancient Woodland from a High Speed Train Vice
DLR
TfL has an order for a fleet of new DLR trains to replace over half of its older trains and expand the size of the fleet, and the first images of the new trains have been released. ianVisits
Miscellaneous
London Tube whiteboard messages ‘make people less alone’ BBC News
Manchester sanitiser firm supplying London Underground sees turnover grow 2,000% this year BusinessLive
And finally: William Muir and the World’s first Railway death FOBLC
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The image above is from Nov 2015: Photos from the Post Office railway tunnels
So… if Crossrail 2 has been mothballed, perhaps we could do the Lea Valley bit of it on the cheap?
If you could link up the Crossrail 1 section from Stratford to STAR (Stratford to Angel Road) you could achieve the capacity increases in the Lea Valley around Angel Road?
It’s can’t be that hard to link platforms 10 and 11 to the Crossrail tunnels, can it? Then just double the work done for the Lea Bridge to Meridian Water. That was done for £25 million.
Then if the money comes back the northern section of Crossrail 2 can just be the Seven Sisters to Southgate bit. Since the loss of the “Palace Gates” line Wood Green has a very poor public transit.
This weeks BBC World Service, People Fixing The World episode Riding the solar railway, is about solar powered trains, Riding Sunbeams solar farms, train in Byron Bay,Australia with rooftop pv panels and Indian Railways plans to install solar, there is also a 3 min vid on the website.https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p04d42vf
Perhaps now is the time to accept that Crossrail 2 has outlived its time and I given it is estimated to cost £30 billion due to the length of tunnels whether if you had £30 billion if it would be best way to spend that money or would several smaller schemes provide better VFM ?
It’s a pity that the Victoria Line which covers a similar route to Crossrail 2 wasn’t built to mainline size but given tunnelling techniques it might have not been possible at the time.
So first call on £30 billion would be a major upgrade to Victoria Line with all stations made accessible, fixed middle stairs replacement with escalators and major rebuilding of Finsbury Park , Highbury and Islington, Oxford Circus with Euston due at part of HS2 .
The section of Crossrail 2 to Meridian Water could be linked to the Overground at Stratford together with upgrades to route with removing level crossings where possible.
As for capacity at Euston for HS2 then extension of the DLR from Bank could provide better value and might even attract funding from Canary Wharf ?
While upgrades to SWR lines destined for Crossrail 2 together with extension of Elizabeth Line from Heathrow to SWR would be a start !
Crossrail should be a lesson for HS2. Of course, the money will be found but it’s way over budget and well past the projected opening date.
It’s can’t be that hard to link platforms 10 and 11 to the Crossrail tunnels, can it?
Well yes it is! Firstly there’s no capacity through Crossrail 1 for new routes and more importantly to get from the Crossrail tunnel portal to platforms 11 and 12 means crossing all the other lines at the west end of Stratford. You might be able to do it on a flyover but Im not sure there’s enough room for a ramp straight out of the tunnels or if you tunnelled it would have to be very deep to get below the International Station box. The disruption to existing serivces would be enormous and way beyond any benefits gained.