Chelney protected route

While I agree that London's Transport needs to be planned on a regional basis - going far beyond the GLA/Mayor's domain definition of London, what that area should be is unclear - my own view is that it should be basically the BR L&SE/Network South East area.

I agree Network South East is a good regional planning and indeed operating model (excluding the Exeter route which should be part of a long distance or cross country franchise). What is needed is a local politically accountable structure to match the operating structure to determine local priorities (investment,franchise management etc.) - a sort of London Assembly plus to match a TfL plus. Since that goes against the prevailing mood at the moment this could be sticking point. Local regional local political collaboration is not impossible. TfGM has not only AGMA members but also Cheshire East as an associate member - although quite what associate means is unclear. London and the South East would however be a significant step up in scale

I understood mwmbwls to say the tunnel would surface at Wimbledon, but new trackwork would run to Surbiton (there is room for at least a fifth track on that stretch) and services probably running beyond there to Hampton Court and/or over the "New" (Cobham) line, although the RUS suggests Kinsgton and Epsom, leaving the SWML fully utilised all the way to Surbiton (no trains branching off early)

I think one of the problems with Chelney / Crossrail 2 is that it's not clear whether it's a suburban metro line or for longer distance services.

As I pointed out earlier when discussed in Parliament the debate Crossrail 1 was constrained to the Maidenhead to Shenfield and Abbey Wood route despite fervent protests from Reading MP, Martin Salter and others. There was at that time a proposal by Michael Schabbas and Arup for a regional metro approach which was probably an over complex all things to all commuters proposal. However, following the announcement of the GWML electrification and the Reading rebuild together with the widespread criticism of terminating large numbers of Crossrail trains at Paddington resulted in a volte face. The need to create headroom to rebuild Euston for HS2 has prompted the link from Crossrail ! to the WCML to which TfL can hardly object since it diffuses the question of disrupting interchanges at Euston and gives them leverage to press for CR2.
The admixture of suburban and regional services operates very well and will soon do even better when the upgrades to Cross Rail Zero aka Thameslink are finally completed.
Future London only extensions will IMHO tend to be extensions of existing tube lines - such as the Northern Line to Battersea (and possibly beyond) and the Bakerloo to Lewisham and Hayes.
The removal of the flim flam about whether CR is metro or regional is welcome - fuzzing the project objectives and post authorisation project creep are major reasons that many other UK projects have over-run in time or cost. Cross Rails 0,1,2 and one fine day, 3 are both.

This just means that Tube needs much more investment - somehow in the glory days of yore it managed to both rebuild itself AND extend.

It seems to me to be a British trait, the short-sightedness of the building of the Chelney or whatever, and to continue to discuss tube-size lines. Anywhere else in Europe seems to build all new lines (except tram type metros) to full euro loading gauger to enable anything to run through there. Yes, I know it's more expensive, but cheaper in the long run when the exsiting trains are "too small".

Looking at the Brussels tram metro bits, their tunnels seem to be full size, and the lines served by trams appear to have platforms designed for some sort of heavy rail with longer platforms in the future. Maybe our designer friends at TfL should take a trip on e* and have a look.

I'm fairly sure Paris Metro's new (1998) line 14 is built to standard Paris Metro dimensions, and uses MP89 stock similar to that currently being cascaded from Line 1 to Line 4

"pneu" stock can only work lines equipped for them (1,4,6,11,14 I think) and "fer" stock can only work on lines not so fitted - at least in service. Also only line 14 and (soon) line 1 are equipped for automatic stock.

!!!!! What's the point of that? If its going via Euston, it might as well become an "express Victoria Line", and take the same route - meaning there would be no point to protecting the other route.

In fact, you could just widen the victoria line tunnels to mainline width, run new trains on them, and have express trains that don't stop outside mainline stations.

I like the cut of your jib Seriously though, glad that someone else sees this as being pointless as well as me.

Yeh it appears like one idea following on from another piecemeal, rather than many many ideas that can be planned with each other in mind and progressed piecemeal. RUS's seem to bend over backwards to be ever so careful in what they consider as options and are quite specialised and regionalised. otherwise we get as and when ideas cropping up.

How about a new London and metroplitan area committee which can give us a proposed strategy for the next half-century?



That's the point though. The Victoria line is at capacity and the new line is intended as a relief for it, so in a sense it is an express Victoria line. Technically the Victoria is already an express tube, though one that is descoped from it's original plan, but reboring the tunnels (ignoring the obvious disruption and closures) would not address enough of the overcrowding problems. You would also need to massively expand the stations to take the higher capacity (they were descoped later than the runnel size).

As for Euston, it is an important destination and will be more so in the future. There is no reason why it can't be compatible with a Crossrail-style project.



Actually it will do both as it is a big net increase in capacity on the SW and W Anglia routes it would take into the centre. It's not a big tube going in tunnel between Clapham Junction and Hackney Downs - it's an extra pair of tracks from further out in either case (i.e. in tunnel from Raynes Park and using some spare capacity on the 4-tracked Cambridge lines). It will relieve existing lines by taking trains off and attract new ridership, though this will likely mean relief somewhere else. It frees up capacity at termini (Victoria, Liverpool Street) which increases capacity on the lines into these stations, and it takes trains away from flat junctions.

What's more it gets people to central London directly and without crawling on approach to termini, a bonus in itself.



Well it's debatable whether or not CR2 wouldn't get a Picc station, but we don't know exactly what either option is going to be like. For example, Chelney may be bigger tunnels and more express suburban-like than any tube we've had before, Crossrail 2 might be more like a tube-equivalent of Thameslink or even Northern City than like Crossrail 1. There are many possibilities.

Crossrail 2 certainly offers options that Chelney can't. I would have thought that was fairly obvious (capacity, times etc).

I would add that if Crossrail 2 is redundant because the Victoria line can be rebored, then suely Chelney - being a smaller project - is even more redundant. You could just scrap both options I guess. That wouldn't address the issues of terminal capacity, existing VL overcrowding, capacity restrictions on SW and NE lines (West Anglia, Central etc), or lack of direct West End connection for some inner suburbs.

Wasn't the Victoria due to it's alignment also somewhat of a Piccadilly relief line?

Money that would have been spent on a new tube, is apparently going to the Borisbus and probably later on to the Boristrain (aka Evo)

He is somewhat responsible for it, and it seems that it will be a lot like the S stock. Replacements on the Picc & Bakerloo line? They already had an order for the Bakerloo, but cancelled it for their semi-articulated airconned tube train in which the heat needs to go SOMEWHERE... It will require a lot of expensive ventilation shafts, and a lot of power. And probably the platform screen doors, for total airconning.

Driverless trains? Please... What's next? Eliminating the DLR's PSA? (requiring half-height platform screen doors to prevent one-unders which no-one sees?)

Also, I just read that article and it was talking about overhead wiring - isn't that basically the original proposal for the Inner Circle electrification before Yerkes got in? And current flowing through the running rail - Errm.. I know it's 1998 but that would basically need the current not to leak into the tubes causing them to rust.